That psychoanalyst, he thought bitterly. Talking about breathing into a paper bag. It had been like a dream … the faint voice, so full of self-confidence. So utterly false in its premises.
Messages were arriving from all over the world as the satellite passed through its orbit again and again; his recording equipment caught them and retained them, but that was all. Dangerfield could no longer answer.
I guess I have to tell them, he said to himself. I guess the time—the time we’ve been expecting, all of us—has finally come at last.
On his hands and knees he crept until he reached the seat by the microphone, the seat in which for seven years he had broadcast to the world below. After he had sat there for a time resting he turned on one of the many tape recorders, picked up the mike, and began dictating a message which, when it had been completed, would play endlessly, replacing the concert music.
“My friends, this is Walt Dangerfield talking and wanting to thank you all for the times we have had together, speaking back and forth, us all keeping in touch. I’m afraid though that this complaint of mine makes it impossible for me to go on any longer. So with great regret I’ve got to sign off for the last time—“ He went on, painfully, picking his words with care, trying to make them, his audience below, as little unhappy as possible. But nevertheless he told them the truth; he told them that it was the end for him and that they would have to find some way to communicate without him, and then he rang off, shut down the microphone, and in a weary reflex, played the tape back.
The tape was blank. There was nothing on it, although he had talked for almost fifteen minutes.
Evidently the equipment had for some reason broken down, but he was too ill to care; he snapped the mike back on, set switches on the control panel, and this time prepared to deliver his message live to the area below. Those people there would just have to pass the word on to the others; there was no other way.
“My friends,” he began once more, “this is Walt Dangerfield. I have some bad news to give you but—“ And then he realized that he was talking into a dead mike. The loudspeaker above his head had gone silent; nothing was being transmitted. Otherwise he would have heard his own voice from the monitoring system.
As he sat there, trying to discover what was wrong, he noticed something else, something far stranger and more ominous.
Systems on all sides of him were in motion. Had been in motion for some time, by the looks of them. The highspeed recording and playback decks which he had never used—all at once the drums were spinning, for the first time in seven years. Even as he watched he saw relays click on and off; a drum halted, another one began to turn, this time at slow speed.
I don’t understand, he said to himself. What’s happening?
Evidently the systems were receiving at high speed, recording, and now one of them had started to play back, but what had set all this in motion? Not he. Dials showed him that the satellite’s transmitter was on the air, and even as he realized that, realized that messages which had been picked up and recorded were now being played over the air, he heard the speaker above his head return to life.
“Hoode hoode hoo,” a voice—his voice—chuckled. “This is your old pal, Walt Dangerfield, once more, and forgive that concert music. Won’t be any more of that.”
When did I say that? he asked himself as he sat dully listening. He felt shocked and puzzled. His voice sounded so vital, so full of good spirits; how could I sound like that now? he wondered. That’s the way I used to sound, years ago, when I had my health, and when she was still alive.
“Well,” his voice murmured on, “that bit of indisposition I’ve been suffering from … evidently mice got into the supply cupboards, and you’ll laugh to think of Walt Dangerfield fending off mice up here in the sky, but ‘tis true. Anyhow, part of my stores deteriorated and I didn’t happen to notice … but it sure played havoc with my insides. However—And he heard himself give his familiar chuckle. “I’m okay now. I know you’ll be glad to hear that, all you people down there who were so good as to transmit your get-well messages, and for that I give you thanks.”
Getting from from the seat before the microphone, Walt Dangerfield made his way unsteadily to his bunk; he lay down, closing his eyes, and then he thought once more of the pain in his chest and what it meant. Angina peetoris, he thought, is supposed to be more like a great fist pressing down; this is more a burning pain. If I could look at the medical data on the microfilm again … maybe there’s some fact I failed to read. For instance, this is directly under the breastbone, not off to the left side. Does that mean anything?
Or maybe there’s nothing wrong with me, he thought to himself as he struggled to get up once more. Maybe Stockstill, that psychiatrist who wanted me to breathe carbon dioxide, was right; maybe it’s just in my mind, from the years of isolation here.
But he did not think so. It felt far too real for that.
There was one other fact about his illness that bewildered him. For all his efforts, he could not make a thing out of that fact, and so he had not even bothered to mention it to the several doctors and hospitals below. Now it was too late, because now he was too sick to operate the controls of the transmitter.
The pain seemed always to get worse when his satellite was passing over Northern California.
In the middle of the night the din of Bill Keller’s agitated murmurings woke his sister up. “What is it? Edie said sleepily, trying to make out what he wanted to tell her. She sat up in her bed, now, rubbing her eyes as the murmurings rose to a crescendo.
“Hoppy Harrington!” he was saying, deep down inside her. “He’s taken over the satellite! Hoppy’s taken over Dangerfield’s satellite!” He chattered on and on excitedly, repeating it again and again.
“How do you know?”
“Because Mr. Bluthgeld says so; he’s down below now but he can still see what’s going on above. He can’t do anything and he’s mad. He still knows all about us. He hates Hoppy because Hoppy mashed him.”
“What about Dangerfield?” she asked. “Is he dead yet?”
“He’s not down below,” her brother said, after a long pause. “So I guess not.”
“Who should I tell?” Edie said. “About what Hoppy did?”
“Tell Mama,” her brother said urgently. “Go right in now.”
Climbing from the bed, Edie scampered to the door and up the hail to their parents’ bedroom; she flung the door open, calling, “Mama, I have to tell you something—“ And then her voice failed her, because her mother was not there. Only one sleeping figure lay in the bed, her father, alone. Her mother—she knew instantly and completely—had gone and she would not be coming back.
“Where is she?” Bill clamored from within her. “I know she’s not here; I can’t feel her.”
Slowly, Edie shut the door of the bedroom. What’ll I do? she asked herself. She walked aimlessly, shivering from the night cold. “Be quiet,” she said to Bill, and his murmurings sank down a little.
“You have to find her,” Bill was saying.
“I can’t,” she said. She knew it was hopeless. “Let me think what to do instead,” she said, going back into her bedroom for her robe and slippers.
To Ella Hardy, Bonny said, “You have a very nice home here. It’s strange to be back in Berkeley after so long, though.” She felt overwhelmingly tired. “I’m going to have to turn in,” she said. It was two in the morning. Glancing at Andrew Gill and Stuart she said, “We made awfully good time getting here, didn’t we? Even a year ago it would have taken another three days.”
“Yes,” Gill said, and yawned. He looked tired, too; he had done most of the driving because it was his horsecar they had taken.
Mr. Hardy said, “Along about this time, Mrs. Keller, we generally tune in a very late pass by the satellite.”
“Oh,” she said, not actually caring but knowing it was inevitable; they would have to listen at least for a few moments to be polite. “So you get two transmissions a day, down here.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hardy said, “and frankly we find it worth staying up for this late one, although in the last few weeks … ” She gestured. “I suppose you know as well as we do. Dangerfield is such a sick man.”