A Handful of Darkness (8 page)

Late
. He raced up the stairs of the Terran Development building and down the long corridor to his office.

At lunchtime he stopped in at the Research Labs. “Hey,” he called, as Jim Andrews brushed past, loaded down with reports and equipment. “Got a second?”

“What do you want, Henry?”

“I’d like to borrow something. A magnifying glass.” He considered. “Maybe a small photon-microscope would be better. One or two hundred power.”

“Kids stuff.” Jim found him a small microscope. “Slides?”

“Yeah, a couple of blank slides.”

He carried the microscope back to his office. He set it up on his desk, clearing away his papers. As a precaution he sent Miss Nelson, his secretary, out of the room and off to lunch. Then carefully, cautiously, he got the tiny wisp from his wallet and slipped it between two slides.

It was writing, all right. But nothing he could read. Utterly unfamiliar. Complex, interlaced little characters.

For a time he sat thinking. Then he dialled his inter-department vidphone. “Give me the Linguistics Department.”

After a moment Earl Peterson’s good-natured face appeared. “Hi, there, Ellis. What can I do for you?”

Ellis hesitated. He had to do this right. “Say, Earl, old man. Got a little favour to ask you.”

“Like what? Anything to oblige an old pal.”

“You, uh—you have that Machine down there, don’t you? That translating business you use for working over documents from non-Terran cultures?”

“Sure. So?”

“Think I could use it?” He talked fast. “It’s a screwy sort of a deal, Earl. I got this pal living on—uh—Centaurus VI, and he writes me in—uh—you know, the Centauran native semantic system, and I—”

“You want the Machine to translate a letter? Sure, I think we could manage it. This once, at least. Bring it down.”

He brought it down. He got Earl to show him how the intake feed worked, and as soon as Earl had turned his back he fed in the tiny square of material. The Linguistics Machine clicked and whirred. Ellis prayed silently that the paper wasn’t too small. Wouldn’t fall out between the relay-probes of the Machine.

But sure enough, after a couple of seconds, a tape unreeled from the output slot. The tape cut itself off and dropped into a basket. The Linguistics Machine turned promptly to other stuff, more vital material from TD’s various export branches.

With trembling fingers Ellis spread out the tape. The words danced before his eyes.

Questions. They were asking him questions. God, it was getting complicated. He read the questions intently, his lips moving. What was he getting himself into. They were expecting answers. He had taken their paper, gone off with it. Probably they would be waiting for him, on his way home.

He returned to his office and dialled his vidphone. “Give me outside,” he ordered.

The regular vid monitor appeared. “Yes, sir?”

“I want the Federal Library of Information,” Ellis said. “Cultural Research Division.”

“That night they were waiting, all right. But not the same ones. It was odd—each time a different group. Their clothing was slightly different, too. A new hue. And in the background the landscape had also altered slightly. The trees he had seen were gone. The hills were still there, but a different shade. A hazy grey-white. Snow?

He squatted down. He had worked it out with care. The answers from the Federal Library of Information had gone back to the Linguistics Machine for re-translation. The answers were now in the original tongue of the questions—but on a trifle larger piece of paper.

Ellis made like a marble game and flicked the wad of paper through the grey shimmer. It bowled over six or seven of the watching figures and rolled down the side of the hill on which they were standing. After a moment of terrified immobility the figures scampered frantically after it. They disappeared into the vague and invisible depths of their world and Ellis got stiffly to his feet again.

“Well,” he muttered to himself, “that’s that.”

But it wasn’t. The next morning there was a new group—and a new list of questions. The tiny figures pushed their microscopic square of paper through the thin spot in the wall of the tunnel and stood waiting and trembling as Ellis bent over and felt around for it.

He found it—finally. He put it in his wallet and continued on his way, stepping out at New York, frowning. This was getting serious. Was this going to be a full-time job?

But then he grinned. It was the damn oddest thing he had ever heard of. The little rascals were cute, in their own way. Tiny intent faces, screwed up with serious concern. And terror. They were scared of him, really scared. And why not? Compared to them he was a giant.

He conjectured about their world. What kind of a planet was theirs? Odd to be so small. But size was a relative matter. Small, though, compared to him. Small and reverent. He could read fear and a yearning, gnawing hope, as they pushed up their papers. They were depending on him. Praying he’d give them answers.

Ellis grinned. “Damn unusual job,” he said to himself.

“What’s this?” Peterson said, when he showed up in the Linguistics Lab at noontime.

“Well, you see, I got another letter from my friend on Centaurus VI.”

“Yeah?” A certain suspicion flickered across Peterson’s face. “You’re not ribbing me, are you, Henry? This Machine has a lot to do, you know. Stuff’s coming in all the time. We can’t afford to waste any time with—”

“This is really serious stuff, Earl.” Ellis patted his wallet. “Very important business. Not just gossip.”

“Okay. If you say so.” Peterson gave the nod to the team operating the Machine. “Let this guy use the Translator, Tommie.”

“Thanks,” Ellis murmured.

He went through the routine, getting a translation and then carrying the questions up to his vidphone and passing them over to the Library research staff. By nightfall the answers were back in the original tongue and with them carefully in his wallet, Ellis headed out of the Terran Development building and into his Jiffi-scuttler.

As usual, a new group was waiting.

“Here you are, boys,” Ellis boomed, flicking the wad through the thin place in the shimmer. The wad rolled down the microscopic countryside, bouncing from hill to hill, the little people tumbling jerkily after it in their funny stiff-legged fashion. Ellis watched them go, grinning with interest—and pride.

They really hurried; no doubt about that. He could make them out only vaguely, now. They had raced wildly off away from the shimmer. Only a small portion of their world was tangent to the Jiffi-scuttler, apparently. Only the one spot, where the shimmer was thin. He peered intently through.

They were getting the wad open, now. Three or four of them, unprying the paper and examining the answers.

Ellis swelled with pride as he continued along the tunnel and out into his own back yard. He couldn’t read their questions—and when translated, he couldn’t answer them. The Linguistics Department did the first part, the Library research staff the rest. Nevertheless, Ellis felt pride. A deep, glowing spot of warmth far down inside him. The expression on their faces. The look they gave him when they saw the answer-wad in his hand. When they realized he was going to answer their questions. And the way they scampered after it. It was sort of—satisfying. It made him feel damn good.

“Not bad,” he murmured, opening the back door and entering his house. “Not bad at all.”

“What’s not bad, dear?” Mary asked, looking quickly up from the table. She laid down her magazine and got to her feet. “Why, you look so
happy!
What is it?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all!” He kissed her warmly on the mouth. “You’re looking pretty good tonight yourself, kid.”

“Oh, Henry!” Much of Mary blushed prettily. “How sweet.”

He surveyed his wife in her two-piece wraparound of clear plastic with appreciation. “Nice looking fragments you have on.”

“Why Henry! What’s come over you? You seem so—so
spirited!
”

Ellis grinned. “Oh, I guess I enjoy my job. You know, there’s nothing like taking pride in your work. A job well done, as they say. Work you can be proud of.”

“I thought you always said you were nothing but a cog in a great impersonal machine. Just a sort of cypher.”

“Things are different,” Ellis said firmly. “I’m doing a—uh—a new project. A new assignment.”

“A new assignment?”

“Gathering information. A sort of—creative business. So to speak.”

By the end of the week he had turned over quite a body of information to them.

He began starting for work about nine-thirty. That gave him a whole thirty minutes to spend squatting down on his hands and knees, peering through the thin place in the shimmer. He got so he was pretty good at seeing them and what they were doing in their microscopic world.

Their civilization was somewhat primitive. No doubt of that. By Terran standards it was scarcely a civilization at all. As near as he could tell, they were virtually without scientific techniques; a kind of agrarian culture, rural communism, a monolithic tribal-based organization apparently without too many members.

At least, not at one time. That was the part he didn’t understand. Every time he came past there was a different group of them. No familiar faces. And their world changed, too. The trees, the crops, fauna. The weather, apparently.

Was their time rate different? They moved rapidly, jerkily. Like a vidtape speeded up. And their shrill voices. Maybe that was it. A totally different universe in which the whole time structure was radically different.

As to their attitude towards him, there was no mistaking it. After the first couple of times they began assembling offerings, unbelievably small bits of smoking food, prepared in ovens and on open brick hearths. If he got down with his nose against the grey shimmer he could get a faint whiff of the food. It smelled good. Strong and pungent. Highly spiced. Meat, probably.

On Friday he brought a magnifying glass along and watched them through it. It was meat, all right. They were bringing ant-sized animals to be killed and cooked, leading them up to the ovens. With the magnifying glass he could see more of their faces. They had strange faces. Strong and dark, with a peculiar firm look.

Of course, there was only one look
he
got from them. A combination of fear, reverence, and hope. The look made him feel good. It was a look for him, only. Between themselves they shouted and argued—and sometimes stabbed and fought each other furiously, rolling in their brown robes in a wild tangle. They were a passionate and strong species. He got so he admired them.

Which was good—because it made him feel better. To have the reverent awe of such a proud, sturdy race was really something. There was nothing craven about them.

About the fifth time he came there was a rather attractive structure built. Some kind of temple. A place of religious worship.

To him! They were developing a real religion about him. No doubt of it. He began going to work at nine o’clock, to give himself a full hour with them. They had, by the middle of the second week, a full-sized ritual evolved. Processions, lighted tapers, what seemed to be songs or chants. Priests in long robes. And the spiced offerings.

No idols, though. Apparently he was so big they couldn’t make out his appearance. He tried to imagine what it looked like to be on their side of the shimmer. An immense shape looming up above them, beyond a wall of grey haze. An indistinct being, something like themselves, yet not like them at all. A different kind of being, obviously. Larger—but different in other ways. And when he spoke—booming echoes up and down the Jiffi-scuttler. Which still sent them fleeing in panic.

An evolving religion. He was changing them. Through his actual presence and through his answers, the precise, correct responses he obtained from the Federal Library of Information and had the Linguistics Machine translate into their language. Of course, by
their
time-rate they had to wait generations for the answers. But they had become accustomed to it, by now. They waited. They expected. They passed up questions and after a couple centuries he passed down answers, answers which they no doubt put to good use.

“What in the world?” Mary demanded, as he got home from work an hour late one night. “Where have you been?”

“Working,” Ellis said carelessly, removing his hat and coat. He threw himself down on the couch. “I’m tired. Really tired.” He sighed with relief and motioned for the couch-arm to bring him a whisky sour.

Mary came over by the couch. “Henry, I’m a little worried.”

“Worried?”

“You shouldn’t work so hard. You ought to take it easy, more. How long since you’ve had a real vacation? A trip off Terra. Out of the System. You know, I’d just like to call that fellow Miller and ask him why it’s necessary a man your age put in so much—”

“A man my age!” Ellis bristled indignantly. “I’m not so old.”

“Of Course not.” Mary sat down beside him and put her arms around him affectionately. “But you shouldn’t have to do so much. You deserve a rest. Don’t you think?”

“This is different. You don’t understand. This isn’t the same old stuff. Reports and statistics and the damn filing. This is—”

“What is it?”

“This is
different
. I’m not a cog. This gives me something. I can’t explain it to you, I guess. But it’s something I have to do.”

“If you could tell me more about it—”

“I can’t tell you any more about it,” Ellis said. “But there’s nothing in the world like it. I’ve worked twenty-five years for Terran Development. Twenty-five years at the same reports, again and again. Twenty-five years—and I never felt this way.”

“Oh, yeah?” Miller roared. “Don’t give me that! Come clean, Ellis!”

Ellis opened and closed his mouth. “What are you talking about?” Horror rolled through him. “What’s happened?”

“Don’t try to give
me
the runaround.” On the vidscreen Miller’s face was purple. “Come into my office.”

The screen went dead.

Ellis sat stunned at his desk. Gradually, he collected himself and got Shakily to his feet. “Good Lord.” Weakly, he wiped cold sweat from his forehead. All at once. Everything in ruins. He was dazed with the shock.