The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Strories (16 page)

“That’s enough,” Bonny Keller said. “Leave my child alone.” Her cheeks were red with anger.

“Lean down,” Edie said to Hoppy. “Toward me. And he’ll speak to you.” Her face, like her mother’s, was grim.

Hoppy leaned toward her, cocking his head on one side, mockingly.

A voice, speaking from inside him, as if it were part of the interior world, said, “How did you fix that record changer? How did you
really
do that?”

Hoppy screamed.

Everyone was staring at him, white-faced; they were on their feet, now, all of them rigid.

“I heard Jim Fergesson,” Hoppy said. “A man I worked for, once. A man who’s dead.”

The girl regarded him calmly. “Do you want to hear my brother say more? Say some more words to him, Bill; he wants you to say more.”

And, in Hoppy’s interior mind, the voice said, “It looked like you healed it. It looked like instead of replacing that broken spring—”

Hoppy wheeled his cart wildly, spun up the aisle to the far end of the room, wheeled again and sat panting, a long way from the Keller child; his heart pounded and he stared at her. She returned his stare silently.

“Did he scare you?” Now the child was openly smiling at him, but her smile was empty and cold. “He paid you back because you were picking on me. It made him angry. So he did that.”

Coming up beside Hoppy, George Keller said, “What happened, Hop?”

“Nothing,” he said shortly. “Maybe we better listen to the reading.” Sending out his manual extensor, he turned up the volume of the radio.

You can have what you want, you and your brother, he thought. Dangerfield’s reading or anything else.
How long have you been in there?
Only seven years? It seems more like forever. As if—you’ve always existed. It had been a terribly old, wizened, white thing that had spoken to him. Something hard and small, floating. Lips overgrown with downy hair that hung trailing, streamers of it, wispy and dry. I bet it was Fergesson, he said to himself; it felt like him. He’s in there, inside that child. I wonder. Can he get out?

Edie Keller said to her brother, “What did you do to scare him like you did? He really was scared.”

From within her the familiar voice said, “I was someone he used to know, a long time ago. Someone dead.”

Amused, she said, “Are you going to do any more to him?”

“If I don’t like him,” Bill said, “I may do more to him, a lot of different things, maybe.”

“How did you know about the dead person?”

“Oh,” Bill said, “because—you know why. Because I’m dead, too.” He chuckled, deep down inside her stomach; she felt him quiver.

“No you’re not,” she disagreed. “You’re as alive as I am, so don’t say that; it isn’t right.” It frightened her.

Bill said, “I was just pretending. I’m sorry. I wish I could have seen his face… how did it look?”

“Awful,” Edie said. “It turned all inward, like a frog’s.”

“I wish I could come out,” Bill said plaintively. “I wish I could be born like everybody else. Can’t I be born later on?”

“Doctor Stockstill says you couldn’t.”

“Maybe I could
make
Doctor Stockstill let me out. I can do that if I want.”

“No,” she said. “You’re lying; you can’t do anything but sleep and talk to the dead and maybe do imitations like you did. That isn’t much.”

There was no response from within.

“If you did anything bad,” she said, “I could swallow something that would kill you. So you better behave.”

She felt more and more afraid of him; she was talking to herself, trying to bolster her confidence. Maybe it would be a good thing if you did die, she thought. Only then I’d have to carry you around still, and it—wouldn’t be pleasant. I wouldn’t like that.

She shuddered.

“Don’t worry about me,” Bill said suddenly. “I know a lot of things; I can take care of myself. I’ll protect you, too. You better be glad about me because I can look at everyone who’s dead, like the man I imitated. There’re a whole lot of them, trillions and trillions of them and they’re all different. When I’m asleep I hear them muttering. They’re still around.”

“Around where?” she asked.

“Underneath us,” Bill said. “Down in the ground.”

“Brrr,” she said.

“It’s true. And we’re going to be there, too. And so is Mommy and Daddy and everyone else. You’ll see.”

“I don’t want to see,” she said. “Please don’t say any more. I want to listen to the reading.”

Andrew Gill glanced up from his task of rolling cigarettes to see Hoppy Harrington—whom he did not like—entering the factory with a man whom he did not know. At once Gill felt uneasy. He set down his tobacco paper and rose to his feet. Beside him at the long bench the other rollers, his employees, continued at their work.

He employed, in all, eight men, and this was in the tobacco division alone. The distillery, which produced brandy, employed another twelve. His was the largest commercial enterprise in West Marin and he sold his products all over Northern California; his cigarettes had even gotten back to the East Coast and were known there.

“Yes?” he said to Hoppy. He placed himself in front of the phoce’s cart, halting him.

Hoppy stammered. “This m-man came up from Oakland to see you, Mr. Gill. He’s an important businessman, he says. Isn’t that right?” The phoce turned to the man beside him. “Isn’t that what you told me, Stuart?”

Holding out his hand, the man said, “I represent the Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap Corporation of Berkeley, California. I’m here to acquaint you with an amazing proposition that could well mean tripling your profits within six months.” His eyes flashed.

Gill repressed the impulse to laugh aloud. “I see,” he said, nodding. “Very interesting, Mr.—” He glanced questioningly at the phoce.

“M-mr. Stuart McConchie,” the phoce stammered. “I knew him before the war; I haven’t seen him in all that time and now he’s migrated up here, the same as I did.”

“My employer, Mr. Hardy,” Stuart McConchie said, “has empowered me to describe to you in detail the design of a fully-automated cigarette-making machine. We at Hardy Homeostatic are well aware of the fact that your cigarettes are rolled entirely in the old-fashioned way. By hand.” He pointed toward the employees at the long bench. “Such a method is a century out of date, Mr. Gill. You’ve achieved superb quality in your special deluxe Gold Label cigarettes—”

“Which I intend to maintain,” Gill said quietly.

Stuart McConchie said, “Our automated electronic equipment will in no way sacrifice quality for quantity. In fact—”

“Wait,” Gill said. “I don’t want to discuss this now.” He glanced toward the phoce, who was parked close by, listening. The phoce flushed and at once spun his ‘mobile away.

“I’m going,” Hoppy said sullenly. “This doesn’t interest me anyhow; goodbye.” He wheeled through the open door, out onto the street. The two of them watched him until he disappeared.

“Our handy,” Gill said. “Fixes—heals, rather—everything that breaks. Hoppy Harrington, the human handless handy.”

Strolling a few steps away, surveying the factory and the men at their work, McConchie said, “Nice place you have here, Gill. I want to state right now how much I admire your product; it’s first in its field.”

I haven’t heard talk like that, Gill realized, in seven years. It was difficult to believe that it still existed in the world; so much had changed, and yet here, in this man McConchie, it remained intact. Gill felt a glow of pleasure. It reminded him of happier times, this salesman’s line of patter. He felt amiably inclined toward the man.

“Thank you,” he said, and he meant it. Perhaps the world, at last, was really beginning to regain some of its old forms, its civilities and customs and preoccupations, all that had gone into it to make it what it was.

“How about a cup of coffee?” Gill said. “I’ll take a break for ten minutes and you can tell me about this fully automated machine of yours.”

“Real coffee?” McConchie said, and the pleasant, optimistic mask slid for an instant from his face; he gaped at Gill with naked hunger.

“Sorry,” Gill said. “A substitute. But not bad; I think you’ll like it. Better than what’s sold in the city at those so-called ‘coffee’ stands.” He went to get the pot of water.

“Coming here,” McConchie said, “is a long-time dream fulfilled. It took me a week to make the trip and I’ve been mulling about it ever since I smoked my first special deluxe Gold Label. It’s—” He groped for the words to express his thought. “An island of civilization in these barbaric times.” He roamed about the factory, hands in his pockets. “Life seems more peaceful here. In the city if you leave your horse—well, a while ago I left my horse to go across the Bay and when I got back someone had eaten it, and it’s things like that that make you disgusted with the city and want to move on.”

“I know,” Gill said, nodding. “It’s brutal in the city because there’re still so many homeless and destitute people.”

“I really loved that horse,” Stuart McConchie said, looking sad.

“Well,” Gill said, “in the country you’re faced constantly with the death of animals. When the bombs fell, thousands of animals up here were horribly injured; sheep and cattle… but that can’t compare of course to the loss of human life down where you come from. You must have seen a good deal of human suffering since E-Day.”

McConchie nodded. “That and the sporting. The freaks both as regards animals and people. Like my old buddy Hoppy Harrington, but of course he’s from before; at Modern TV Sales & Service where we worked we used to say Hoppy was from that drug, that thalidomide.”

“What sort of vermin trap does your company make?” Gill asked.

“It’s not a passive type. Being homeostatic, that is, self-notifying, it follows for instance a rat or a cat or dog down into the network of burrows such as now underlie Berkeley and Oakland… it pursues one vermin after another, killing one and going on to the next—until it runs out of power or by chance a brilliant vermin manages to destroy it. There are a few such brilliant rats that know how to lame a Hardy Homeostatic Vermin Trap. But not many.”

“Impressive,” Gill murmured.

“Now, our proposed cigarette-rolling machine—”

“My friend,” Gill said, “I like you but—here’s the problem. I don’t have any money to buy your machine and I don’t have anything to trade you. And I don’t intend to let anyone enter my business as a partner. So what does that leave?” He smiled. “I must continue as I am.”

“Wait,” McConchie said instantly. “There has to be a solution. Maybe we could lease you a Hardy cigarette-rolling machine in exchange for x-number of cigarettes, your special deluxe Gold Label variety, of course, delivered each week for x-number of weeks.” His face glowed with animation. “The Hardy Company for instance could become sole licensed distributors of your cigarette; we could represent you everywhere, develop a systematic program of outlets up and down California. What do you say to that?”

“I must admit it does sound interesting. I admit that distribution has not been my cup of tea… I’ve thought on and off for several years about the need of getting an organization going, especially with my factory being located in a rural spot. I’ve even thought about moving back into the city, but the theft and vandalism is too great there. Anyhow I don’t
want
to move into the city; this is my home, here.”

He did not say anything about Bonny Keller. That was his actual reason for remaining in West Marin; his affair with her had ended years ago but he was more in love with her now than ever—he had watched her go from man to man, becoming dissatisfied with each of them, and Gill believed in his own heart that someday he would get her back. And Bonny was the mother of his daughter; he was well aware that Edie Keller was his child.

“Since you’re just up from the city,” he said aloud, “I will ask you this… is there any interesting national or international news, of late, that we might not have heard? We do get the satellite, but I’m frankly tired of disc jockey talk and music. And those endless readings.”

They both laughed. “I know what you mean,” McConchie said, sipping his coffee and nodding. “Well, I understand that an attempt is being made to produce an automobile again, somewhere around the ruins of Detroit. It’s mostly made of plywood but it does run on kerosene.”

“I don’t know where they’re going to get the kerosene,” Gill said. “Before they build a car they better get a few refineries operating again. And repair a few major roads.”

“Oh, something else. The Government plans to reopen Route Forty across the Rockies sometime this year. For the first time since the war.”

“That’s great news,” Gill said, pleased. “I didn’t know that.”

“And the telephone company—”

“Wait,” Gill said, rising. “How about a little brandy in your coffee? How long has it been since you’ve had a coffee royal?”

“Years,” Stuart McConchie said.

“This is Gill’s Five Star. My own. From the Sonoma Valley.” He poured from the squat bottle into McConchie’s cup.

“Here’s something else that might interest you.” McConchie reached into his coat pocket and brought out something flat and folded. He opened it, spread it out, and Gill saw an envelope.

Mail service. A letter from New York.

“That’s right,” McConchie said. “Delivered to my boss, Mr. Hardy. All the way from the East Coast; it only took four weeks. The Government in Cheyenne, the military people; they’re responsible. It’s done partly by blimp, partly by truck, partly by horse. The last stage is by foot.”

“Good Lord,” Gill said. And he poured some Gill’s Five Star into
his
coffee, too.

Bill Keller heard the small animal, the snail or slug near him, and at once he got into it. But he had been tricked; it was sightless. He was out but he could not see or hear this time, he could only move.