The bugs swooped up into the air again. There were no gaps in their ranks.
The dog lay twitching in the yard and blood ran in the grass.
I ducked back around the corner, sick. I doubled up, retching, trying hard to keep from throwing up.
I fought it off and my stomach quieted down. I peeked around the corner of the house.
All was peaceful once again. The dead dog lay sprawling in the yard. The bugs were busy with their stripping of the cars. No policemen were in sight. There was no one in sight at all. Even Belsen had disappeared somewhere.
It was different now, I told myself. The dog had made it different.
The bugs were no longer only a mystery; now they were a deadly danger. Each of them was a rifle bullet with intelligence.
I remembered something that Dobby had said just an hour or so ago. Evacuate the area, he had said, then drop an atom bomb.
And would it come to that? I wondered. Was that the measure of the danger?
No one, of course, was thinking that way yet, but in time they might. This was just the start of it. Today the city was alerted and the police were on the scene; tomorrow it might be the governor sending in some troops. And in time it would be the Federal Government. And after that, Dobby’s solution might be the only answer.
The bugs hadn’t spread too far as yet. But Belsen’s fear was valid; in time they would expand, pushing out their beachhead block by block as there were more and more of them. For Billy had been right when he had said they must multiply real fast.
I tried to imagine how the bugs could multiply, but I had no idea.
First of all, of course, the Government would probably try to make contact with them, would attempt to achieve some communication with them–not with the creatures themselves, perhaps, but rather with that mass mind which Dobby had figured them to have.
But was it possible to communicate with creatures such as these? On what intellectual level might one approach them? And what good could possibly come of such communication if it was established? Where was the basis for understanding between these creatures and the human race?
And I realized, even as I thought all this, that I was thinking with pure panic. To approach a problem such as the bugs presented, there was need of pure objectivity–there could be no question of either fear or anger. The time had come for Man to discard the pettiness of one-planet thinking.
It was no problem of mine, of course, but thinking of it, I saw a deadly danger–that the eventual authority, whoever that might be, might delay too long in its objectivity.
There had to be a way to stop the bugs; there must be some measure to control them. Before we tried to establish contact, there must be a way in which we could contain them.
And I thought of something–of Billy telling me that to hold them once you caught them you needed a plastic trap.
I wondered briefly how the kid had known that. Perhaps it had been no more than simple trial and error. After all, he and Tommy Henderson must have tried several different kinds of traps.
Plastic might be the answer to the problem I had posed. It could be the answer if we acted before they spread too far.
And why plastic? I wondered. What element within plastic would stop them cold and hold them once they were trapped within it? Some factor, perhaps, that we would learn only after long and careful study. But it was something that did not matter now; it was enough we knew that plastic did the trick.
I stood there for a time, turning the matter in my mind, wondering who to go to.
I could go to the police, of course, but I had a feeling I would get little hearing there. The same would be true of the officials of the city. For while it was possible the might listen, they’d have to talk it over, they’d have to call a conference, they’d feel compelled to consult some expert before they did anything about it. And the Government in Washington, at the moment, was unthinkable.
The trouble was that no one was scared enough as yet to act as quickly as they should. They’d have to be scared silly–and I had had a longer time to get scared silly than any of the rest.
Then I thought of another man who was as scared as I was.
Belsen.
Belsen was the man to help me. Belsen was scared stiff.
He was an engineer and possibly he could tell me if what I had been thinking was any good or not. He could sit down and figure how it might be done. He’d know where to get the plastic that we needed and the best type of it to use and more than likely he’d know how to go about arranging for its fabrication. And he might, a well, know someone it would do some good to talk to.
I went back to the corner of the house and had a look around.
There were a few policemen in sight, but not too many of them. They weren’t doing anything, just standing there and watching while the bugs kept on working at the cars. They had the bodies pretty well stripped down by now and were working on the engines. As I watched I saw one motor rise and sail toward the house. It was dripping oil, and chunks of caked grease and dust were falling off of it. I shivered at the thought of what a mess like that would do to Helen’s carpeting and the decorating.
There were a few knots of spectators here and there, but all of them were standing at quite a distance off.
It looked to me as if I’d have no trouble reaching Belsen’s house if I circled around the block, so I started out.
I wondered if Belsen would be at home and was afraid he might not be. Most of the houses in the neighborhood seemed to be deserted. But it was a chance, I knew, that I had to take. If he wasn’t at his house, I’d have to hunt him down.
I reached his place and went up the steps and rang the bell. There wasn’t any answer, so I walked straight in.
The house seemed to be deserted.
“Belsen,” I called.
He didn’t answer me and I called again.
Then I heard footsteps clattering up a stairs.
The basement door came open and Belsen stuck his head out.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “I’m glad you came. I will need some help. I sent the family off.”
“Belsen,” I said, “I know what we can do. We can get a monstrous sheet of plastic and drop it on the house. That way they can’t get out. Maybe we can get some helicopters, maybe four of them, one for each corner of the sheet…”
“Come downstairs,” said Belsen. “There’s work for both of us.”
I followed him downstairs into his workroom.
The place was orderly, as one might expect from a fuss-budget such as Belsen.
The music machines stood in straight and shining lines, the work bench was immaculate and the tools were al in place. The tape machine stood in one corner and it was all lit up like a Christmas tree.
A table stood in front of the tape machine, but it was far from tidy. It was strewn with books, some of then lying flat and open and others piled haphazardly. There were scribbled sheets of paper scattered everywhere and balled-up bunches of it lay about the floor.
“I cannot be mistaken,” Belsen told me, jittery as ever “I must be sure the first time. There’ll be no second chance. I had a devil of a time getting it all figured out but I think I have it now.”
“Look, Belsen,” I said, with some irritation, “I don’t know what harebrained scheme you may be working on, but whatever it may be, this deal of mine is immediate and important.”
“Later,” Belsen told me, almost hopping up and down in his anxiety. “Later you can tell me. I have a tape I have to finish. I have the mathematics all worked out…”
“But this is about the bugs!”
Belsen shouted at me: “And so is this, you fool! What else did you expect to find me working on? You know I can’t take a chance of their getting in here. I won’t let them take all this stuff I’ve built.”
“But, Belsen…”
“See that machine,” he said, pointing to one of the smaller ones. “That’s the one we’ll have to use. It is battery powered. See if you can get it moved over to the door.”