The bird made a dreadful sound, of greed and the desire to rend.
“All of you,” Bill cried, fleeing through the dark, chill air. “You must write letters in protest!”
The glittering eyes of the bird followed behind him as he and it glided above the trees, in the dim moonlight.
The owl reached him. And crunched him in a single instant.
XVI
Once more he was within. He could no longer see or hear; it had been for a short time and now it was over.
The owl, hooting, flew on.
Bill Keller said to the owl, “Can you hear me?”
Maybe it could, maybe not; it was only an owl, it did not have any sense, as Edie had had. It was not the same. Can I live inside you? he asked it, hidden away in here where no one knows … you have your flights that you make, your passes. With him, in the owl, were the bodies of mice and a thing that stirred and scratched, big enough to keep on trying to live.
Lower, he told the owl. He saw, by means of the owl, the oaks; he saw clearly, as if everything were full of light. Millions of individual objects lay immobile and then he spied one that crept—it was alive and the owl turned that way. The creeping thing, suspecting nothing, hearing no sound, wandered on, out into the open.
An instant later it had been swallowed. The owl flew on.
Good, he thought. And, is there more? This goes on all night, again and again, and then there is bathing when it rains, and the long, deep sleeps. Are they the best part? They are.
He said, “Fergesson don’t allow his employees to drink; it’s against his religion, isn’t it?” And then he said “Hoppy, what’s the light from? Is it God? You know, like in the Bible. I mean, is it truer
The owl hooted.
“Hoppy,” he said, from within the owl, “you said last time it was all dark. Is that right? No light at all?”
A thousand dead things within him yammered for attention. He listened, repeated, picked among them.
“You dirty little freak,” he said. “Now listen. Stay down here; we’re below street-level. You moronic jackass, stay where you are, you are, you are. I’ll go upstairs and get those. People. Down here .you clear. Space. Space for them.”
Frightened, the owl flapped; it rose higher, trying to evade him. But he continued, sorting and picking and listening on.
“Stay down here,” he repeated. Again the lights of Hoppy’s house came into view; the owl had circled, returned to it, unable to get away. He made it stay where he wanted it. He brought it closer and closer in its passes to Hoppy. “You moronic jackass,” he said. “Stay where you are.”
The owl flew lower, hooting in its desire to leave. It was caught and it knew it. The owl hated him.
“The president must listen to our pleas,” he said, “before it is too late.”
With a furious effort the owl performed its regular technique; it coughed him up and he sank in the direction of the ground, trying to – catch the currents of air. He crashed among humus and plant-growth; he rolled, giving little squeaks until finally he came to rest in a hollow.
Released, the owl soared off and disappeared.
“Let man’s compassion be witness to this,” he said as he lay in the hollow; he spoke in the minister’s voice from long ago. “it is ourselves who have done this; we see here the results of mankind’s own folly.”
Lacking the owl eyes he saw only vaguely; the illumination seemed to be gone and all that remained were several nearby shapes. They were trees.
He saw, too, the form of Hoppy’s house outlined against the dim night sky. It was not far off.
“Let me in,” Bill said, moving his mouth. He rolled about in the hollow; he thrashed until the leaves stirred. “I want to come in.”
An animal, hearing him, moved further off, warily.
“In, in, in,” Bill said. “I can’t stay out here long; I’ll die. Edie, where are you?” He did not feel her nearby; he felt only the presence of the phocomelus within the house.
As best he could, he rolled that way.
Early in the morning, Doctor Stockstill arrived at Hoppy Harrington’s tar-paper house to make his fourth attempt at treating Walt Dangerfield. The transmitter, he noticed, was on, and so were lights here and there; puzzled, he knocked on the door.
The door opened and there sat Hoppy Harrington in the center of his ‘mobile. Hoppy regarded him in an odd, cautious, defensive fashion.
“I want to make another try,” Stockstill said, knowing how useless it was but wanting to go ahead anyhow. “Is it okay?”
“Yes sir,” Hoppy said. “It’s okay.”
“Is Dangerfield still alive?”
“Yes sir. I’d know if he was dead.” Hoppy wheeled aside to admit him. “He must still be up there.”
“What’s happened?” Stockstill said. “Have you been up all night?”
“Yes,” Hoppy said. “Learning to work things.” He wheeled the ‘mobile about, frowning. “It’s hard,” he said, apparently preoccupied.
“I think that idea of carbon dioxide therapy was a mistake, now that I look back on it,” Stockstill said as he seated himself at the microphone. “This time I’m going to try some free association with him, if I can get him to.”
The phocomelus continued to wheel about; now the ‘mobile bumped into the end of a table. “I hit that by mistake,” Hoppy said. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to.”
Stockstill said, “You seem different.”
“I’m the same; I’m Bill Keller,” the phocomelus said. “Not Hoppy Harrington.” With his right manual extensor he pointed. “There’s Hoppy. That’s him, from now on.”
In the corner lay a shriveled dough-like object several inches long; its mouth gaped in congealed emptiness. It had a human-like quality to it, and Stockstill went over to pick it up.
“That was me,” the phocomelus said. “But I got close enough last night to switch. He fought a lot, but he was afraid, so I won. I kept doing one imitation after another. The minister one got him.”
Stockstill, holding the wizened little homunculus, said nothing.
“Do you know how to work the transmitter?” the phocomelus asked, presently. “Because I don’t. I tried, but I can’t. I got the lights to work; they turn on and off. I practiced that all night.” To demonstrate, he rolled his ‘mobile to the wall, where with his manual extensor he snapped the light switch up and down.
After a time Stockstill said, looking down at the dead, tiny form he held in his hand, “I knew it wouldn’t survive.
“It did for a while,” the phocomelus said. “For around an hour; that’s pretty good, isn’t it? Part of that time it was in an owl; I don’t know if that counts.”
“I—better get to work trying to contact Dangerfield,” Stockstill said finally. “He may die any time.”
“Yes,” the phocomelus said, nodding. “Want me to take that?” He held out an extensor and Stockstill handed him the homunculus. “That owl ate me,” the phoce said. “I didn’t like that, but it sure had good eyes; I liked that part, using its eyes.”
“Yes,” Stockstill said reflexively. “Owls have tremendously good eyesight; that must have been quite an experience.” This, that he had held in his hand—it did not seem at all possible to him. And yet, it was not so strange; the phoce had moved Bill only a matter of a few inches—that had been enough. And what was that in comparison to what he had done to Doctor Bluthgeld? Evidently after that the phoce had lost track because Bill, free from his sister’s body, had mingled with first one substance and then another. And at last he had found the phoce and mingled with him, too; had, at the end, supplanted him in his own body.
It had been an unbalanced trade. Hoppy Harrington had gotten the losing end of it, by far; the body which he had received in exchange for his own had lasted only a few minutes, at the most.
“Did you know,” Bill Keller said, speaking haltingly as if it was still difficult for him to control the phocomelus’ body, “that Hoppy got up in the satellite for a while? Everybody was excited about that; they woke me up in the night to tell me and I woke Edie. That’s how I got here,” he added, with a strained, earnest expression on his face.
“And what are you going to do now?” Stockstill asked.
The phoce said, “I have to get used to this body; it’s heavy. I feel gravity … I’m used to just floating about. You know what? I think these extensors are swell. I can do a lot with them already.” The extensors whipped about, touched a picture on the wall, flicked in the direction of the transmitter. “I have to go find Edie,” the phoce said. “I want to tell her I’m okay; I bet she probably thinks I died.”