Second Variety and Other Stories (30 page)

"What was it?"

Mr Stebbins muttered to himself, frowning. "It's not possible. But your description --" He stared
off in the distance, his brow wrinkled. "They live underground," he said finally, "under the surface. They
emerge from the mountains. They live in the earth, in great tunnels and chambers they have hewn out for
themselves. They are not men. They look like men, but they are not. They live under the ground and dig
the metal from the earth. They dig and horde the metal. They seldom come up to the surface. They
cannot look at the sun."

"What are they called?" Julie asked.

"What are they called?" Julie asked.

"Goblins," Mr Stebbins stated. "What you saw was a goblin."

Julie nodded, gazing down wide-eyed at the ground, her arms clasped around her knees. "Yes,"
she said. "That sounds like what it was. It frightened me. I was so afraid. I turned and ran. It seemed so
horrible." She looked up at her brother, smiling a little. "But I'm better now..."

Ken rubbed his big dark hands together, nodding with relief. "Fine," he said. "Now we can get
back to work. There's a lot to do. A lot of things to get done."

The sound echoed hollowly through the big frame house. It vibrated among the dishes in the
kitchen, the gutters along the roof, thumping slowly and evenly like distant thunder. From time to time it
ceased, but then it began again, booming through the quiet night, a relentless sound, brutal in its regularity.
From the top floor of the big house.

In the bathroom the three children huddled around the chair, nervous and hushed, pushing against
each other with curiosity.

"You sure he can't see us?" Tommy rasped.

"How could he see us? Just don't make any noise." Dave Grant shifted on the chair, his face to
the wall. "Don't talk so loud." He went on looking, ignoring them both.

"Let me see," Joan whispered, nudging her brother with a sharp elbow. "Get out of the way."

"Shut up." Dave pushed her back. "I can see better now." He turned up the light.

"I want to see," Tommy said. He pushed Dave off the chair onto the bathroom floor. "Come on."

Dave withdrew sullenly. "It's our house."

Tommy stepped cautiously up onto the chair. He put his eye to the crack, his face against the
wall. For a time he saw nothing. The crack was narrow and the light on the other side was bad. Then,
gradually, he began to make out shapes, forms beyond the wall.

Edward Billings was sitting at an immense old-fashioned desk. He had stopped typing and was
resting his eyes. From his vest pocket he had taken a round pocket watch. Slowly, carefully, he wound
the great watch. Without his glasses his lean, withered face seemed naked and bleak, the features of
some elderly bird. Then he put his glasses on again and drew his chair closer to the desk.

He began to type, working with expert fingers the towering mass of metal and parts that reared
up before him. Again the ominous booming echoed through the house, resuming its insistent beat.

Mr Billings's room was dark and littered. Books and papers lay everywhere, in piles and stacks,
on the desk, on the table, in heaps on the floor. The walls were covered with charts, anatomy charts,
maps, astronomy charts, signs of the zodiac. By the windows rows of dust-covered chemical bottles and
packages lay stacked. A stuffed bird stood on the top of the bookcase, gray and drooping. On the desk
was a huge magnifying glass, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries, a postage stamp box, a bone letter opener.
Against the door a curling strip of flypaper moved with the air currents rising from the gas heater.

The remains of a magic lantern lay against one wall. A black satchel with clothes piled on it.
Shirts and socks and a long frock coat, faded and threadbare. Heaps of newspapers and magazines, tied
with brown cord. A great black umbrella against the table, a pool of sticky water around its metal point.
A glass frame of dried butterflies, pressed into yellowing cotton.

And at the desk the huge old man hunched over his ancient typewriter and heaps of notes and
papers.

"Gosh," Tommy said.

"Gosh," Tommy said.

The steady thumping of the great typewriter made the things in the bathroom rattle and shake, the
light fixture, the bottles and tubes in the medicine cabinet. Even the floor under the children's feet.

"He's some kind of Communist agent," Joan said. "He's drawing maps of the city so he can set
off bombs when Moscow gives the word."

The heck he is," Dave said angrily.

"Don't you see all the maps and pencils and papers? Why else would --"

"Be quiet," Dave snapped. "He will hear us. He is not a spy. He's too old to be a spy."

"What is he, then?"

"I don't know. But he isn't a spy. You're sure dumb. Anyhow, spies have beards."

"Maybe he's a criminal," Joan said.

"I talked to him once," Dave said. "He was coming downstairs. He spoke to me and gave me
some candy out of a bag."

"What kind of candy was it?"

"I don't know. Hard candy. It wasn't any good."

"What's he do?" Tommy asked, turning from the crack.

"Sits in his room all day. Typing."

"Doesn't he work?"

Dave sneered. "That's what he does. He writes on his report. He's an official with a company."

"What company?"

"I forget."

"Doesn't he ever go out?"

"He goes out on the roof."

"On the roof?"

"He has a porch he goes out on. We fixed it. It's part of the apartment. He's got a garden. He
comes downstairs and gets dirt from the back yard."

"Shhh!" Tommy warned. "He turned around."

Edward Billings had got to his feet. He was covering the typewriter with a black cloth, pushing it
back and gathering up the pencils and erasers. He opened the desk drawer and dropped the pencils into
it.

"He's through," Tommy said. "He's finished working."

The old man removed his glasses and put them away in a case. He dabbed at his forehead
wearily, loosening his collar and necktie. His neck was long and the cords stood out from yellow,
wrinkled skin. His adam's apple bobbed up and down as he sipped some water from a glass.

His eyes were blue and faded, almost without color. For a moment he gazed directly at Tommy,
his hawk-like face blank. Then abruptly he left the room, going through a door.

"He's going to bed," Tommy said.

Mr Billings returned, a towel over his arm. At the desk he stopped and laid the towel over the
back of the chair. He lifted the massive report book and carried it from the desk over to the bookcase,
holding it tightly with both hands. It was heavy. He laid it down and left the room again.

The report was very close. Tommy could make out the gold letters stamped into the cracked
leather binding. He gazed at the letters a long time -- until Joan finally pushed him away from the crack,
shoving him impatiently off the chair.

Tommy stepped down and moved away, awed and fascinated by what he had seen. The great
report book, the huge volume of material on which the old man worked, day after day. In the flickering
light from the lamp on the desk he had easily been able to make out the gold-stamped words on the
ragged leather binding.

PROJECT B: EARTH.

"Let's go," Dave said. "He'll come in here in a couple minutes. He might catch us watching."

"Let's go," Dave said. "He'll come in here in a couple minutes. He might catch us watching."

"So are you. So is Mom. So is everybody." He glanced at Tommy. "You afraid of him?"

Tommy shook his head. "I'd sure like to know what's in that book," he murmured. "I'd sure like
to know what that old man is doing."

The late afternoon sunlight shone down bright and cold. Edward Billings came slowly down the
back steps, an empty pail in one hand, rolled-up newspapers under his arm. He paused a moment,
shielding his eyes and gazing around him. Then he disappeared into the back yard, pushing through the
thick wet grass.

Tommy stepped out from behind the garage. He raced silently up the steps two at a time. He
entered the building, hurrying down the dark corridor.

A moment later he stood before the door of Edward Billings's apartment, his chest rising and
falling, listening intently.

There was no sound.

Tommy tried the knob. It turned easily. He pushed. The door swung open and a musty cloud of
warm air drifted past him out into the corridor.

He had little time. The old man would be coming back with his pail of dirt from the yard.

Tommy entered the room and crossed to the bookcase, his heart pounding excitedly. The huge
report book lay among heaps of notes and bundles of clippings. He pushed the papers away, sliding them
from the book. He opened it quickly, at random, the thick pages crackling and bending.

Denmark.

Figures and facts. Endless facts, pages and columns, row after row. The lines of type danced
before his eyes. He could make little out of them. He turned to another section.

New York.

Facts about New York. He struggled to understand the column heads. The number of people.
What they did. How they lived. What they earned. How they spent their time. Their beliefs. Politics.
Philosophy. Morals. Their age. Health. Intelligence. Graphs and statistics, averages and evaluations.

Evaluations. Appraisals. He shook his head and turned to another section.

California.

Population. Wealth. Activity of the state government. Ports and harbors. Facts, facts, facts -

Facts on everything. Everywhere. He thumbed through the report. On every part of the world.
Every city, every state, every country. Any and all possible information.

Tommy closed the report uneasily. He wandered restlessly around the room, examining the heaps
of notes and papers, the bundles of clippings and charts. The old man, typing day after day. Gathering
facts, facts about the whole world. The earth. A report on the earth, the earth and everything on it. All the
people. Everything they did and thought, their actions, deeds, achievements, beliefs, prejudices. A great
report of all the information in the whole world.

Tommy picked up the big magnifying glass from the desk. He examined the surface of the desk
with it, studying the wood. After a moment he put down the glass and picked up the bone letter knife. He
put down the letter knife and examined the broken magic lantern in the corner. The frame of dead
butterflies. The drooping stuffed bird. The bottles of chemicals.

He left the room, going out onto the roof porch. The late afternoon sunlight flickered fitfully; the
sun was going down. In the center of the porch was a wooden frame, dirt and grass heaped around it.
Along the rail were big earthen jars, sacks of fertilizer, damp packages of seeds. An over-turned spray
gun. A dirty trowel. Strips of carpet and a rickety chair. A sprinkling can.

Over the wood frame was a wire netting. Tommy bent down, peering through the netting. He
saw plants, small plants in rows. Some moss, growing on the ground. Tangled plants, tiny and very
intricate.

At one place some dried grass was heaped up in a pile. Like some sort of cocoon.

Bugs? Insects of some sort? Animals?

He took a straw and poked it through the netting at the dried grass. The grass stirred. Something
was in it. There were other cocoons, several of them, here and there among the plants.

He took a straw and poked it through the netting at the dried grass. The grass stirred. Something
was in it. There were other cocoons, several of them, here and there among the plants.

Tommy leaned closer, squinting excitedly through the netting, trying to see what they were.
Hairless. Some kind of hairless animals. But tiny, tiny as grasshoppers. Baby things? His pulse raced
wildly. Baby things or maybe -

A sound. He turned quickly, rigid.

Edward Billings stood at the door, gasping for breath. He set down the pail of dirt, sighing and
feeling for his handkerchief in the pocket of his dark blue coat. He mopped his forehead silently, gazing at
the boy standing by the frame.

"Who are you, young man?" Billings said, after a moment. "I don't remember seeing you before."

Tommy shook his head. "No."

"What are you doing here?"

"Nothing."

"Would you like to carry this pail out onto the porch for me? It's heavier than I realized."

Tommy stood for a moment. Then he came over and picked up the pail. He carried it out onto
the roof porch and put it down by the wood frame.

"Thank you," Billings said. "I appreciate that." His keen, faded-blue eyes flickered as he studied
the boy, his gaunt face shrewd, yet not unkind. "You look pretty strong to me. How old are you? About
eleven?"

Tommy nodded. He moved back toward the railing. Below, two or three stories down, was the
street. Mr Murphy was walking along, coming home from the office. Some kids were playing at the
corner. A young woman across the street was watering her lawn, a blue sweater around her slim
shoulders. He was fairly safe. If the old man tried to do anything -

"Why did you come here?" Billings asked.

Tommy said nothing. They stood looking at each other, the stooped old man, immense in his
dark old-fashioned suit, the young boy in a red sweater and jeans, a beanie cap on his head, tennis shoes
and freckles. Presently Tommy glanced toward the wood frame covered with netting, then up at Billings.

"That? You wanted to see that?"

"What's in there? What are they?"

"They?"

"The things. Bugs? I never saw anything like them. What are they?"