addition to the bitter taste, it had a distinctly different but equally
unpleasant smell, like some milk with a whiff of sulfur.
Turning around, surveying the terrain, he realized that he was standing
in a shallow bowl in the land, about four feet deep at its lowest point,
and about a hundred feet in diameter. The sloped walls were marked by
evenly spaced holes, a double layer of them, and more of the
biologically engineered insects were squirming into some of those bores,
out of others, no doubt seeking-and returning with-diamonds.
Because it was only four feet deep, he could see above the rim of the
bowl. Across the huge, barren, and slightly sloped plain in which this
depression was set, he saw what appeared to be scores of similar
features, like age-smoothed meteor craters, though they were so evenly
spaced that they had to be unnatural. He was in the middle of a giant
mining operation.
Kicking at an insect that had crept too close to him, Bobby turned to
look at the last quarter of his surroundings. Frank was there, at the
far side of the crater, on his hands and knees. Bobby was relieved by
the sight of him, but he was definitely not relieved by what he saw in
the sky beyond Frank.
The moon was visible in broad daylight, but it was not like the gossamer
ghost moon that sometimes could be seen in a clear sky. It was a
mottled gray-yellow sphere six times normal size, looming ominously over
the land, as if about to collide with the larger world around which it
should have been revolving at a respectable distance.
But that was not the worst. A huge and strangely shaped aircraft hung
silently at perhaps an altitude of four or five hundred feet, so alien
in every aspect that it brought home to Bobby the understanding that had
thus far eluded him. He was not on his own world any longer.
“Julie,” he said, because suddenly he realized how terribly far from her
he had traveled.
At the far side of the crater, as he was getting to his feet, Frank
Pollard vanished.
AS DAY dimmed and darkness came, Thomas stood at the window or sat in
his chair or stretched out on his bed sometimes reaching toward the Bad
Thing to be sure it was coming closer. Bobby was worried when he
visited, so was Thomas worried too. A lump of fear kept rising in his
throat, but he kept swallowing it because he had to be brave and protect
Julie.
He didn’t get as close to the Bad Thing as last night. N close enough
to let it grab him with its mind. Not close enough to let it follow him
when he quick-like reeled his own mind string back to The Home. But
close. A lot closer than Thomas liked.
Every time he pushed at the Bad Thing to make sure it was still there,
up north someplace, where it belonged, he knew the Bad Thing felt him
snooping. That spooked Thomas. The Bad Thing knew he was snooping
around, but didn’t do anything and sometimes Thomas felt maybe the Bad
Thing was waiting like a toad.
Once, in the garden behind The Home, Thomas watched a toad sit real
still for a long time, while a bright yellow butterfly fluttered pretty
and quick, bounced from leaf to leaf, flower to flower back and forth,
round and round, close to the toad, then so close, then closer than
ever, then way out of reach, then closer again, like it was teasing the
toad, but the toad didn’t move, not an inch, like maybe it was a fake
toad or just a stone that looked like a toad. So the butterfly felt
safe, or maybe just liked the game too much, and it came even closer.
When The toad’s tongue shot out like one of those roll-up tootes they’d
let the dumb people have one New Year’s Eve, and caught the butterfly,
and the green toad ate the yellow butterfly, every bit, and that was the
end of the game.
If the Bad Thing was playing a toad, Thomas was going to be real careful