She began mechanically putting her work away.
"You're shocked?"
"Yes. And relieved, too, a little. And, at the same time, still a bit
frightened."
"It's probably for the best."
"Yes. It's sad, though. Have you told this to anyone else?"
"No. After all, it's still only a theory. I've got to find some kind of
proof. Except that I don't know how."
"You've convinced me." She stood in the doorway, then turned to him and
he could see that she was crying. She dashed the tears from her eyes. "I
suppose we have to go on doing the same things. We have to have dinner
tonight. I must shop...."
He took her in his arms. "It'll be all right," he said.
"I feel so helpless! What are you going to _do_?"
"Right now," he said, "I think I'll go fishing."
Ann began to laugh, a little hysterically. "You _are_ relaxed about it,"
she said.
"Might as well relax and give it more thought."
Ann kissed him and went into the kitchen. She was gone when he came out
with his rod and creel. Going down the walk under the trees, he was
aware again of what a fine autumn afternoon it was. He began to whistle
as he went down the hill toward the stream.
He didn't catch anything, of course. He had fished the pool at least a
hundred times without luck, but that did not matter. He knew there was a
fighting old bass in its depths and, probably, he would have been sorry
to catch him. Now, his line gently agitated the dark water as he sat
under a big tree on the stream bank and smoked. Idly he opened the copy
of Yeats' poems and began reading: _Turning and turning in the widening
gyre...._
In mounting excitement, he read the coldly beautiful, the terrible and
revelatory poem through to the end. _And what rough beast, its hour come
round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?_
Ward became aware that his pipe was out. He put it away, feeling the
goose pimples, generated by the poem, leave his flesh. Then he shook
himself and sighed. We're lucky, he thought, it might have been the way
the old boy predicted it in the poem. It might have been terrible.
He sighed again, watching his line in the dark water, and thought of
Bobby. You could hardly call Bobby a rough beast. The line flickered in
the water and then was still. He would have a lot of time for this kind
of life, he thought, if his theory were correct. He watched a flight of
leaves dapple the pool with the insignia of autumn. He was not sure he
wanted to spend a lifetime fishing.
Suddenly the pool exploded into motion, the water frothed and flashed
white and the line in his hand sang like a piano wire. Automatically, he
jerked his line and began to reel in, at the same time his mind was
telling him no line of its weight could long hold what he had hooked. As
suddenly as the action had begun, it was ended and he was pulling
something heavy against the stream bank. He gaped at it, his eyes
popping. Then he heard the rustle of leaves and the snap of a stick
behind him.
"Catch somep'n, teach'?" a voice asked.
"Yes, I caught something." He got his tobacco pouch from his pocket and
filled his pipe, trying to keep his hands from trembling.
"Gee, he's a _big_ one, teach'," the voice said.
Ward stood up. The boy, Jacky Hodge, leaning over the bank looking down
at the fish. Behind him, Ward saw Bobby, Alec Cress, Danny and several
others. _Now which of you is laughing?_ he wondered. But there was no
way to tell. Jacky, a boy of twelve or thirteen, had his usual look of
stupid good nature. Bobby, under the flambeau of red hair, dreamed at
the fish. The others wore the open poker faces of children.
"That's a _funny_ fish," one of them said and then they were all
laughing as they raced away.
With some difficulty, Ward got the fish out of the water and began to
drag it up the hill toward his house.
"Outspace fish," Ward said as he dumped the thing on the work table
where Ann had deposited the bag of groceries.
"Where did you get _that_?"
"I just caught it. Down in the stream."
"_That?_ In our stream?"
"Yeah."
He looked at it. The fish resembled a small marlin in shape, but it
looked as if its sides had been painted by an abstract artist.
"They planted it on my hook," he told her. "Teleported it from somewhere
and planted it on me. Like the tigers."
"Who?"
"I don't know--one of the kids. There were a bunch of them down by the
river."
"Is it the proof you wanted?"
"Almost. I'd like to make them--whoever they are--admit it, though. But
you can't pry anything out of them. They stick together like--like kids,
I guess. Tell me, why is it that the smart ones don't discriminate?
They'd as soon play with morons like Hodge or Cress as with the brainy
ones."
"Democratic, I guess," Ann said. She looked at the fish without
enthusiasm and turned it over on its other side. "Weren't you the same
way, when you were a boy?"
"Guess so. Leader of my group was almost an idiot. Head of the 3Rs now."
He started to put his fishing tackle away. "Got to get ready for Star
Watch," he said. "I'm on the early trick tonight." He halted in the
kitchen doorway, still holding the rod and creel. He looked back at the
fish. "That kind of thing is likely to take all the fun out of fishing,"
he told her.
* * * * *
Usually, he found Star Watch a bore. There were often Saucer sightings,
it was true. He had had many himself, some of them very close in, but
all that had become routine. At first, the government had tried shooting
them down, but the attempts had ended in total failure and the Saucers
still came, aloof and unreasonable, as if they did not even know that
they were being shot at. Later, communication had been tried--but with
no better results.
Now, when the Saucers were sighted, the Watcher phoned in a report, some
bored plotter in Saucer Control took bearings and speed, or replied that
they had the thing on radar. The next day, the score of sightings would
be Spellcast--it was less exciting than watching for grunnion.
Tonight, however, Ward was excited. As he left his house, he set out at
a fast pace for the school. He found Bobby in front of the boys'
dormitory.
"What is it, John?" the boy called as he trotted over to the teacher.
"How'd you like to come on Star Watch with me?"
"All right." They went down the street together.
"I want to try something," Ward told the boy. "I think I know how we can
get in touch with the Saucer people."
"But they _have_ tried."
"Yes, I know--with radio and blinker lights and all that. But maybe
that's the wrong way. Bobby, you're a telepath, aren't you?"
"I'm not very good at it and anyway I don't think it'll work."
"Why not?"
"I tried once, but I couldn't seem to get anywhere. They seemed--I
dunno--funny."
"In what way?" Ward asked the boy.
"Just sort of funny."
"Well, if we're lucky, maybe we can try again tonight."
"Yeah," Bobby said, "it's probably a good night for it. Full moon. Why
do you suppose they seem to like the full moon, John?"
"I wish I knew."
It didn't look as if they were going to have any luck. They had waited
for two hours and Bobby was asleep on a bench in the small "duck blind"
the Watchers used. Then John heard it.
It was a high shimmer of sound and it gave him gooseflesh, as it always
did. He couldn't see anything yet. Then it appeared to the north, very
low, like a coagulation of the moonlight itself, and he shook the boy.
Bobby was awake immediately and, together, they watched its approach. It
was moving slowly, turned on an edge. It looked like a knife of light.
Then it rolled over, or shifted its form, and the familiar shape
appeared. The humming stopped and the Saucer floated in the moonlight
like a giant metallic lily-pad, perhaps a half mile away.
"Try now, Bobby," he said, attempting to keep calm.
The boy stood in the moonlight in front of the blind, very still, as if
collecting the silence out of the night. Once he shook his head as
though to clear it and started to say something. Then, for a long
minute, he held his face toward the moon as if he were listening.
Suddenly, he giggled.
"What is it?" Ward snapped, unable to repress his impatience.
"I'm not sure. I thought it seemed something like a joke."
"Try to ask where they're from."
A moment later, the boy shook his head. "I guess I can't get anything,"
he said. "All I seem to get is that they're saying, '_We're here_.' As
if they didn't understand me."
"All right. Try to get _anything_."
A moment later, the ship turned on edge, or shifted its shape, and slid
back into the sky. Ward picked up the phone and called Saucer Control.
"Got it," the bored voice said.
He put down the phone and sat in silence, feeling sick with frustration.
"Might as well knock off, Bobby," he said gently to the boy. "I guess
that's all for the night. You run along and hit the sack."
The boy started to leave and then turned back. "I'm sorry, John," he
said. "I guess I'm not very good at it. There's one thing though...." He
hesitated.
"Yes?"
"I don't think they know any poetry. In fact, I'm pretty sure of that."
"All right," Ward said, laughing. "I guess that's the most important
thing in _your_ life right now. Run along, Bobby."
* * * * *
An hour later, his watch ended and he started for home, still feeling
depressed at having failed. He was passing the dormitory when he saw it.
It hung in the air, almost overhead. The color of the moonlight itself,
it was hard to spot. But it was not the Saucer that held him rigid with
attention.
Over the roof of the dormitory, small and growing smaller as it went
straight toward the Saucer, he saw a figure, then another and then a
third. While he watched, there was a jet of blue light from the object
in the sky--the opening of an airlock, he thought--and the figures
disappeared, one by one, into the interior of the ship. Ward began to
run.
It was strictly forbidden for a teacher to enter the dormitory--that
part of the boys' world was completely their own. But he ignored that
ruling now as he raced up the stairs. All he could think of was that
this was the chance to identify the invaders. The boys who had levitated
themselves up to the Saucer would be missing.
He was still exultantly certain of this as he jerked open the doors of
the first three rooms. Each one was empty. And the fourth and fifth, as
well. Frantically, he pulled open door after door, going through the
motions, although his mind told him that it was useless, that all of the
boys, with a Saucer so close, would be out looking at it.
Wait until they returned? He couldn't remain in the dormitory and, even
if he did, when they all came back, how could he find out which boys had
gone up to the ship? They wouldn't be likely to tell, nor would the
others, even if they knew. Aimlessly, he went on opening doors, flashing
his Watcher's light.
Perhaps there would be a clue in one of the rooms. Excited again, he
rapidly checked them, rummaging in closets, picking up their sports
things and their toys. Nothing there. Until he found the book.
It was an odd-looking book, in a language he couldn't read. He looked at
it doubtfully. Was the script simply Cyrillic? Or Hebrew? He stuffed it
into his pocket and glanced around at the walls of the room. Pictures of
athletes, mostly, and a couple of pin-ups. In a drawer, under some
clothing, a French post card. He examined some of the objects on the
dresser.
Then he was looking stupidly at his hand. He was holding a piece of
string with a ring attached to it. And, just as certainly, there was
something attached to the other end. Or it had been. But there was
nothing he could see now. He pulled on the string and it tightened. Yes,
there was a drag on the other end, _but there was nothing he could see
... or feel_.
He tried to reconstruct his actions. He had been pawing among the
things. He had taken hold of the string and had pulled something
attached to the end of it off the table. The thing had fallen and
disappeared--but _where_? It was _still_ tied to the string, but where
was it?
Another dimension, he thought, feeling the hair stand up on his neck,
the sudden riot of his blood as he knew he had found the evidence he
wanted.
He snapped off the light and groped his way rapidly down the stairs.
Once on the street, he began to run. It did not occur to him to feel
ridiculous at dragging along behind him, on the end of a string, some
object which he could not see.
* * * * *
"Okay," Ann said. "But what _is_ it?" She sat on the divan looking at
the book.
"I don't know, but I think it's alien."
"_I_ think it's a comic book. In some foreign language--or maybe in
classical Greek for all we know." She pointed to an illustration. "Isn't
this like the fish you caught? Of course it is. And look at the
fisherman--his clothes are funny looking, but I'll bet he's telling
about the one that got away."
"Damn it, don't joke! What about _this_?" He waved the string.
"Well, what about it?"
"It's extra-dimensional. It's...." He jerked the string with nervous
repetition and, suddenly, something was in his hand. Surprised, he
dropped it. It disappeared and he felt the tug on the end of the string.
"There _is_ something!" He began jerking the string and it was there
again. This time he held it, looking at it with awe.
It was neither very big nor very heavy. It was probably made out of some
kind of glass or plastic. The color was dazzling, but that was not what
made him turn his head away--it was the shape of the thing. Something
was wrong with its surfaces. Plane melted into plane, the surface curved
and rejoined itself. He felt dizzy.
"What is it, John?"
"Something--something like a Klein Bottle--or a tesseract--or maybe both
of them together." He looked at it for a moment and then turned away
again. It was impossible to look at it very long. "It's something built
to cut through our three-dimensional space," he said. He dropped it,
then tugged. The thing dropped out of sight and reappeared again,
rolling up the string toward his hand.
That was when he lost control. He lay down on the floor and howled in a
seizure of laughter that was like crying.
"_John!_" Ann said primly. "John Ward, you _stop_!" She went out of the
room and returned with a glass half full of whisky.
Ward got up from the floor and weakly slouched in a chair. He took a
long drink from the glass, lit his pipe with great deliberation, and
spoke very softly. "Well," he said, "I think we've got the answer."
"Have we?"
"Sure. It was there all the time and I couldn't see it. I always thought
it was strange we couldn't get in touch with the Outspacers. I had Bobby
try tonight--_he_ couldn't do anything either. I thought maybe he wasn't
trying--or that he was one of them and didn't want to let me in on it.
He said they sounded--funny. By that, he meant strange or alien, I
thought."
"Well, I'm sure they must be," Ann said, relaxed now that John's
outburst was over.
"Yes. But that's _not_ what he meant--he's just a normal human genius.
He _meant_ funny." He lifted his hand. "Know what this is?" He held up
the strange object on the string. "It's a _yo-yo_. An _extra-dimensional
yo-yo_. And you were right--that thing _is_ a comic book. Look," he
said. He held the odd object toward her. "See this? J.H.--Jacky Hodge,
one of the stupidest ones. It's _his_ yo-yo. But I was right about one
thing. We _are_ being invaded. It's probably been going on for
centuries. Invaded by _morons_, morons with interstellar drives,
super-science--super-_yo-yos_! Morons from the stars!"
He began to laugh again. Ann went out to the kitchen for another glass.
Then, after a while, she went back for the bottle.