They were all silent, for a moment.
Hardy said, “To face the brutal fact, we haven’t been able to pick him up at all the last day or so, except for a program of light opera that he has played over and over again automatically … so—“ He glanced around at the four of them “That’s why we were pinning so many hopes on this late transmission, tonight.”
To herself, Bonny thought, There’s so much business to conduct tomorrow, but he’s right; we must stay up for this. We must know what is going on in the satellite; it’s too important to us all. She felt sad. Walt Dangerfield, she thought, are you dying up there alone? Are you already dead and we don’t know yet?
Will the light opera music go on forever? she wondered. At least until the satellite at last falls back to the Earth or drifts off into space and finally is attracted by the sun?
“I’ll turn it on,” Hardy said, inspecting his watch. He crossed the room to the radio, turned it on carefully. “It takes it a long time to warm up,” he apologized. “I think there’s a weak tube; we asked the West Berkeley Handyman’s Association to inspect it but they’re so busy, they’re too tied up, they said. I’d look at it myself, but—“ He shrugged ruefully. “Last time I tried to fix it, I broke it worse.”
Stuart said, “You’re going to frighten Mr. Gill away.”
“No,” Gill said. “I understand. Radios are in the province of the handies. It’s the same up in West Marin.”
To Bonny, Mrs. Hardy said, “Stuart says you used to live here.”
“I worked at the radiation lab for a while,” Bonny said. “And then I worked out at Livermore, also for the University. Of course—“ She hesitated. “It’s so changed. I wouldn’t know Berkeley, now. As we came through I saw nothing I recognized except perhaps San Pablo Avenue itself. All the little shops—they look new.”
“They are,” Dean Hardy said. Now static issued from the radio and he bent attentively, his ear close to it. “Generally we pick up this late transmission at about 640 kc. Excuse me.” He turned his back to them, intent on the radio.
“Turn up the fat lamp,” Gill said, “so he can see better to tune it.”
Bonny did so, marveling that even here in the city they were still dependent on the primitive fat lamp; she had supposed that their electricity had long since been restored, at least on a partial basis. In some ‘ways, she realized, they were actually behind West Marin. And in Bolinas–.
“Ah,” Mr. Hardy said, breaking into her thoughts. “I think I’ve got him. And it’s not light opera.” His face glistened, beamed.
“Oh dear,” Ella Hardy said, “I pray to heaven he’s better.” She clasped her hands together with anxiety.
From the speaker a friendly, informal, familiar voice boomed out loudly, “Hi there, all you night people down below. Who do you suppose this is, saying hello, hello and hello.” Dangerfield laughed. “Yes, folks, I’m up and around, on my two feet once more. And just twirling all these little old knobs and controls like crazy … yes sir.” His voice was warm, and around Bonny the faces in the room relaxed, too, and smiled in company with the pleasure contained in the voice. The faces nodded, agreed.
“You hear him?” Ella Hardy said. “Why, he’s better. He is; you can tell. He’s not just saying it, you can tell the difference.”
“Hoode hoode hoo,” Dangerfield said. “Well, now, let us see; what news is there? You heard about that public enemy number one, that one-time physicist we all remember so well. Our good buddy Doctor Bluthgeld, or should I say Doctor Bloodmoney? Anyhow, I guess you all know by now that dear Doctor Bloodmoney is no longer with us. Yes, that’s right.”
“I heard a rumor about that,” Mr. Hardy said excitedly. “A peddler who hitched a balloon ride out of Marin County—“
“Shhh,” Ella Hardy said, listening.
“Yes indeed,” Dangerfield was saying. “A certain party up in Northern California took care of Doctor B. For good. And we owe a debt of sheer unadulterated gratitude to that certain little party because—well, just consider this, folks; that party’s a bit handicapped. And yet he was able to do what no one else could have done.” Now Dangerfield’s voice was hard, unbending; it was a new sound which they had not heard from him ever before. They glanced at one another uneasily. “I’m talking about Hoppy Harrington, my friends. You don’t know that name? You should, because without Hoppy not one of you would be alive.”
Hardy, rubbing his chin and frowning, shot a questioning look at Ella.
“This Hoppy Harrington,” Dangerfield continued, “mashed Doctor B. from a good four miles away, and it was easy. Very easy. You think it’s impossible for someone to reach out and touch a man four miles off? That’s miiiiighty long arms, isn’t it, folks? And mighty strong hands. Well, I’ll tell you something even more remarkable.” The voice became confidential; it dropped to an intimate near-whisper. “Hoppy has no arms and no hands at all.” And Dangerfield, then, was silent.
Bonny said quietly, “Andrew, it’s him, isn’t it?”
Twisting around in his chair to face her, Gill said, “Yes, dean. I think so.”
“Who?” Stuart McConchie said.
Now the voice from the radio resumed, more calmly this time, but also more bleakly. The voice had become chilly and stark. “There was an attempt made,” it stated, “to reward Mr. Harrington. It wasn’t much. A few cigarettes and some bad whiskey—if you can call that a ‘reward.’ And some empty phrases delivered by a cheap local politico. That was all—that was it for the man who saved us all. I guess they figured—“
Ella Hardy said, “That is not Dangerfield.”
To Gill and Bonny, Mr. Hardy said, “Who is it? Say.”
Bonny said, “It’s Hoppy.” Gill nodded.
“Is he up there?” Stuart said. “In the satellite?”
“I don’t know,” Bonny said. But what did it matter? “He’s got control of it; that’s what’s important.” And we thought by coming to Berkeley we would get away, she said to herself. That we would have left Hoppy. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “He’s been preparing a long time; everything else has been practice, for this.”
“But enough of that,” the voice from the radio declared, in a lighter tone, now. “You’ll hear more about the man who saved us all; I’ll keep you posted, from time to time … old Walt isn’t going to forget. Meanwhile, let’s have a little music. What about a little authentic five-string banjo music, friends? Genuine authentic U.S. American oldtime folk music … ‘Out on Penny’s Farm,’ played by Pete Seeger, the greatest of the folk music men.”
There was a pause, and then, from the speaker, came the sound of a full symphony orchestra.
Thoughtfully, Bonny said, “Hoppy doesn’t have it down quite right. There’re a few circuits left he hasn’t got control of.”
The symphony orchestra abruptly ceased. Silence obtained again, and then something spilled out at the incorrect speed; it squeaked frantically and was chopped off. In spite of herself, Bonny smiled. At last, belatedly, there came the sound of the five-string banjo.
Hard times in the country,
Out on Penny’s farm.
It was a folksy tenor voice twanging away, along with the banjo. The people in the room sat listening, obeying out of long habit; the music emanated from the radio and for seven years they had depended on this; they had learned this and it had become a part of their physical bodies, this response. And yet—Bonny felt the shame and despair around hen. No one in the room fully understood what had happened; she herself felt only a numbed confusion. They had Dangerfield back and yet they did not; they had the outer form, the appearance, but what was it really, in essence? It was some labored apparition, like a ghost; it was not alive, not viable. It went through the motions but it was empty and dead. It had a peculiar preserved quality, as if somehow the cold, the loneliness, had combined to form around the man in the satellite a new shell. A case which fitted over the living substance and snuffed it out.
The killing, the slow destruction of Dangerfield, Bonny thought, was deliberate, and it came—not from space, not from beyond—but from below, from the familiar landscape. Dangerfield had not died from the years of isolation; he had been stricken by careful instruments issuing up from the very world which he struggled to contact. If he could have cut himself off from us, she thought, he would be alive now. At the very moment he listened to us, received us, he was being killed—and did not guess.
He does not guess even now, she decided. It probably baffles him, if he is capable of perception at this point, capable of any form of awareness.