Second Variety and Other Stories (22 page)

"See you," Ralf said. He hopped on his bike, riding off. Mike and Jimmy walked back toward
town together. At Cedar Street they separated.

"If you see a buggie give me a call," Mike said.

"Sure thing." Jimmy walked on up Cedar Street, his hands in his pockets. The sun had set. The
evening air was chill. Darkness was descending.

He walked slowly, his eyes on the ground. The streetlights came on. A few cars moved along the
street. Behind curtained windows he saw bright flashes of yellow, warm kitchens and livingrooms. A
television set brayed out, rumbling into the gloom. He passed along the brick wall of the Pomeroy Estate.
The wall turned into an iron fence. Above the fence great silent evergreens rose dark and unmoving in the
evening twilight.

For a moment Jimmy stopped, kneeling down to tie his shoe. A cold wind blew around him,
making the evergreens sway slightly. Far off a train sounded, a dismal wail echoing through the gloom. He
thought about dinner, Dad with his shoes off, reading the newspapers. His mother in the kitchen -- the

TV set murmuring to itself in the corner -- the warm, bright living-room.

TV set murmuring to itself in the corner -- the warm, bright living-room.

A buggie. Waiting and watching, crouched silently up in the tree.

It was old. He knew that at once. There was a dryness about it, an odor of age and dust. An
ancient gray shape, silent and unmoving, wrapped around the trunk and branches of the evergreen. A
mass of cobwebs, dusty strands and webs of gray wrapped and trailing across the tree. A nebulous
wispy presence that made the hackles of his neck rise.

The shape began to move but so slowly he might not have noticed. It was sliding around the
trunk, feeling its way carefully, a little at a time. As if it were sightless. Feeling its way inch by inch, an
unseeing gray ball of cobwebs and dust.

Jimmy moved back from the fence. It was completely dark. The sky was black above him. A
few stars glittered distantly, bits of remote fire. Far down the street a bus rumbled, turning a corner.

A buggie -- clinging to the tree above him. Jimmy struggled, pulling himself away. His heart was
thumping painfully, choking him. He could hardly breathe. His vision blurred, fading and receding. The
buggie was only a little way from him, only a few yards above his head.

Help -- he had to get help. Men with poles to push the buggie down -- people -- right away. He
closed his eyes and pushed away from the fence. He seemed to be in a vast tide, a rushing ocean
dragging at him, surging over his body, holding him where he was. He could not break away. He was
caught. He strained, pushing against it. One step... another step... a third -

And then he heard it.

Or rather felt it. There was no sound. It was like drumming, a kind of murmuring like the sea,
inside his head. The drumming lapped against his mind, beating gently around him. He halted. The
murmuring was soft, rhythmic. But insistent -- urgent. It began to separate, gaining form -- form and
substance. It flowed, breaking up into distinct sensations, images, scenes.

Scenes -- of another world, its world. The buggie was talking to him, telling him about its world,
spinning out scene after scene with anxious haste.

"Get away," Jimmy muttered thickly.

But the scenes still came, urgently, insistently, lapping at his mind.

Plains -- a vast desert without limit or end. Dark red, cracked and scored with ravines. A far line
of blunted hills, dust-covered, corroded. A great basin off to the right, an endless empty piepan with
white-crusted salt riming it, a bitter ash where water had once lapped.

"Get away!" Jimmy muttered again, moving a step back.

The scenes grew. Dead sky, particles of sand, whipped along, carried endlessly. Sheets of sand,
vast billowing clouds of sand and dust, blowing endlessly across the cracked surface of the planet. A few
scrawny plants growing by rocks. In the shadows of the mountains great spiders with old webs,
dust-covered, spun centuries ago. Dead spiders, lodged in cracks.

A scene expanded. Some sort of artificial pipe, jutting up from the red-baked ground. A vent -underground
quarters. The view changed. He was seeing below, down into the core of the planet -- layer
after layer of crumpled rock. A withered wrinkled planet without fire or life or moisture of any kind. Its
skin cracking, its pulp drying out and blowing up in clouds of dust. Far down in the core a tank of some
sort -- a chamber sunk in the heart of the planet.

He was inside the tank. Buggies were everywhere, sliding and moving around. Machines,
construction of different kinds, buildings, plants in rows, generators, homes, rooms of complex
equipment.

Sections of the tank were closed off -- bolted shut. Rusty, metal doors -- machinery sinking into
decay -- valves closed, pipes rusting away -- dials cracked and broken. Lines clogged -- teeth missing
from gears -- more and more sections closed. Fewer buggies -- fewer and fewer...

The scene changed. Earth, seen from a long way off -- a distant green sphere, turning slowly,
cloud-covered. Broad oceans, blue water miles deep -- moist atmosphere. The buggies drifting through
empty reaches of space, drifting slowly toward Earth, year after year. Drifting endlessly in the dark
wastes with agonizing slowness.

wastes with agonizing slowness.

On the surface of the water flat spheres drifted, huge metal discs. Floating units, artificially built,
several hundred feet around. Buggies rested silently on the discs, absorbing water and minerals from the
ocean under them.

The buggie was trying to tell him something, something about itself. Discs on the water -- the
buggies wanted to use the water, to live on the water, on the surface of the ocean. Big surface discs,
covered with buggies -- it wanted him to know that, to see the discs, the water discs.

The buggies would live on the water, not on the land. Only the water -- they wanted his
permission. They wanted to use the water. That was what it was trying to tell him -- that they wanted to
use the surface of the water between the continents. Now the buggie was asking, imploring. It wanted to
know. It wanted him to say, to answer, to give his permission. It was waiting to hear, waiting and hoping
-- imploring...

The scenes faded, winking out of his mind. Jimmy stumbled back, falling against the curb. He
leaped up again, wiping damp grass from his hands. He was standing in the gutter. He could still see the
buggie resting among the branches of the evergreen. It was almost invisible. He could scarcely make it
out.

The drumming had receded, left his mind. The buggie had withdrawn.

Jimmy turned and fled. He ran across the street and down the other side, sobbing for breath. He
came to a corner and turned up Douglas Street. At the bus-stop stood a heavy-set man with a
lunchbucket under his arm.

Jimmy ran up to the man. "A buggie. In the tree." He gasped for breath. "In the big tree."

The man grunted. "Run along, kid."

"A buggie!" Jimmy's voice rose in panic, shrill and insistent. "A buggie up in the tree!"

Two men loomed up out of the darkness. "What? A buggie?"

"Where?"

More people appeared. "Where is it?"

Jimmy pointed, gesturing. "Pomeroy Estate. The tree. By the fence." He waved, gasping.

A cop appeared. "What's going on?"

"The kid's found a buggie. Somebody get a pole."

"Show me where it is," the cop said, grabbing hold of Jimmy's arm. "Come on."

Jimmy led them back down the street, to the brick wall. He hung back, away from the fence. "Up
there."

"Which tree?"

"That one -- I think."

A flashlight flicked on, picking its way among the evergreens. In the Pomeroy house lights came
on. The front door opened.

"What's going on there?" Mr Pomeroy's voice echoed angrily.

"Got a buggie. Keep back."

Mr Pomeroy's door slammed quickly shut.

"There it is!" Jimmy pointed up. "That tree." His heart almost stopped beating. "There. Up
there!"

"Where?"

"I see it." The cop moved back, his pistol out.

"You can't shoot it. Bullets go right through."

"Somebody get a pole."

"Too high for a pole."

"Get a torch."

"Somebody bring a torch!"

Two men ran off. Cars were stopping. A police car slid to a halt, its siren whirring into silence.
Doors opened, men came running over. A searchlight flashed on, dazzling them. It found the buggie and
locked into place.

Two men ran off. Cars were stopping. A police car slid to a halt, its siren whirring into silence.
Doors opened, men came running over. A searchlight flashed on, dazzling them. It found the buggie and
locked into place.

"A torch, damn it! Get a torch here!"

A man came with a blazing board ripped from a fence. They poured gasoline over newspapers
heaped in a ring around the base of the tree. The bottom branches began to burn, feebly at first, then
more brightly.

"Get more gas!"

A man in a white uniform came lugging a tank of gasoline. He threw the tankful of gas onto the
tree. Flames blazed up, rising rapidly. The branches charred and crackled, burning furiously.

Far above them the buggie began to stir. It climbed uncertainly to a higher branch, pulling itself
up. The flames licked closer. The buggie increased its pace. It undulated, dragging itself onto the next
branch above. Higher and higher it climbed.

"Look at it go."

"It won't get away. It's almost at the top."

More gasoline was brought. The flames leaped higher. A crowd had collected around the fence.
The police kept them back.

"There it goes." The light moved to keep the buggie visible.

"It's at the top."

The buggie had reached the top of the tree. It rested, holding onto the branch, swaying back and
forth. Flames leaped from branch to branch, closer and closer to it. The buggie felt hesitantly around,
blindly, seeking support. It reached, feeling with its wisps. A spurt of fire touched it.

The buggie crackled, smoke rising from it.

"It's burning!" An excited murmur swept through the crowd. "It's finished."

The buggie was on fire. It moved clumsily, trying to get away. Suddenly it dropped, falling to the
branch below. For a second it hung on the branch, crackling and smoking. Then the branch gave way
with a rending crackle.

The buggie fell to the ground, among the newspapers and gasoline.

The crowd roared. They seethed toward the tree, flowing and milling forward.

"Step on it!"

"Get it!"

"Step on the damn thing!"

Boots stamped again and again, feet rising and falling, grinding the buggie into the ground. A man
fell, pulling himself away, his glasses hanging from one ear. Knots of struggling people fought with each
other, pressing inward, trying to reach the tree. A flaming branch fell. Some of the crowd retreated.

"I got it!"

"Get back!"

More branches fell, crashing down. The crowd broke up, streaming back, laughing and pushing.

Jimmy felt the cop's hand on his arm, big fingers digging in. "That's the end, boy. It's all over."

"They get it?"

"They sure did. What's your name?"

"My name?" Jimmy started to tell the cop his name but just then some scuffling broke out
between two men and the cop hurried over.

Jimmy stood for a moment, watching. The night was cold. A frigid wind blew around him, chilling
him through his clothing. He thought suddenly of dinner and his father stretched out on the couch, reading
the newspaper. His mother in the kitchen fixing dinner. The warmth, the friendly yellow homey warmth.

He turned and made his way through the people to the edge of the street. Behind him the charred
stalk of the tree rose black and smoking into the night. A few glowing remains were being stamped out
around its base. The buggie was gone, it was over, there was nothing more to see. Jimmy hurried home
as if the buggie were chasing him.

around its base. The buggie was gone, it was over, there was nothing more to see. Jimmy hurried home
as if the buggie were chasing him.

"Your kid really did that?" Bob Walters said, across from him, with open curiosity.

"You sure you're not stringing us along?" Frank Hendricks said, lowering his newspaper for a
moment.

"It's the truth. The one they got over at the Pomeroy Estate -- I'm talking about that one. It was a
real son-of-a-gun."

"That's right," Jack Green admitted. "The paper says some kid spotted it first and brought the
police."

"That was my kid," Ted said, his chest swelling. "What do you guys think about that?"

"Was he scared?" Bob Walters wanted to know.

"Hell no!" Ted Barnes replied strongly.

"I'll bet he was." Frank Hendricks was from Missouri.

"He sure wasn't. He got the cops and brought them to the place -- last night. We were sitting
around the dinner table, wondering where the hell he was. I was getting a little worried." Ted Barnes was
still the proud parent.

Jack Green got to his feet, looking at his watch. "Time to get back to the office."

Frank and Bob got up also. "See you later, Ted."

Green thumped Ted on the back. "Some kid you got, Barnes -- chip off the old block."

Ted grinned. "He wasn't a bit afraid." He watched them go out of the cafeteria onto the busy
noonday street. After a moment he gulped down the rest of his coffee and wiped his chin, standing slowly
up. "Not a damn bit afraid -- not one damn bit."

He paid for his lunch and pushed his way outside onto the street, his chest still swelled up. He
grinned at people passing by as he walked back to the office, all aglow with reflected glory.