Aliens for Neighbors Page 9

  Then, abruptly, the cube went dead. It lay within his hand, cooling, silent, just a thing that looked and felt like a cliptogether plastic block for children.

  From far off, he heard the roar of a car as it left the curb and sped off in the night. From someone's backyard, a cat meowed for attention. Nearby, a bird cheeped sleepily.

  Homer opened the glove compartment and tossed the cube in among the rags and scraper and the dog-eared road map and the other odds and ends.

  He felt the terror and the loathing and the wild agony begin to drain out of his bones and he sat quietly in the car, trying to readjust his mind to this new situation—that Steen must be an alien.

  He dipped his hand into his pocket and found the replica of the radiator ornament. And that was the key, he knew—not only the key to the many streets of homes, but the key to Steen and the alien world.

  They hadn't meant for him to keep the ornament, of course. If he had returned the way he'd entered the world of the Second Bank, the teller more than likely would have demanded that he give it back. But he'd returned another way, an unexpected way, and it still was in his pocket.

  And the radiator ornament, of course, was the reason that Steen had insisted that anyone who leased a house must also buy a car. For the ornament was a key that bridged one world and another. Although, thought Homer, it was rather drastic to insist that a man should buy a car simply so he'd have the correct radiator ornament.

  But that might be the way, he told himself, that an alien mind would work.

  He was calmer now. The fear still lingered, but pushed back, buried just a little.

  Exactly how is a man supposed to act, he asked himseff, when he learns there are aliens in the land? Run screeching through the streets, rouse all the citizens, alert the law, go baying on the trail? Or does he continue about his business?

  Might he not, he wondered, take advantage of his knowledge, turn it to his own benefit?

  He was the only human being on all of Earth who knew.

  Steen might not like it known that he was an alien. Perhaps it would be worth a lot to Steen not to have it known.

  Homer sat and thought about it. The more he thought, the more reasonable it seemed that Steen might be ready to lay plenty on the line to keep the fact a secret.

  Not that I don't have it coming to me, Homer told himself. Not that he hasn't caused me a heap of worry and trouble.

  He put his hand into his pocket. The miniature ornament was there. There was no need to wait. Now was as good as any time.

  He turned the ignition key and the motor came to life. He backed out of the driveway and took the road to Happy Acres.

  The development was dark and quiet. Even the usual advertising signs were turned off in the shop fronts.

  He parked in front of Steen's office and got out. Opening the trunk, he found the jack handle in the dark.

  He stood staring toward the gate. There was no sign of the gateman. But that was a chance he'd have to take. If the old fool tried to interfere, he could handle him.

  For a moment, in front of the door to Steen's office, he hesitated, trying to reassure himself. Certainly there would be another closet, some way to get to those other worlds, inside the office.

  He struck savagely at the glass in the door with the jack handle. The glass splintered and rained down, with crashing, tinkling sounds.

  Homer waited, tense, listening, watching. Nothing stirred. The old gateman, if he was around, apparently had not heard the crash.

  Carefully, Homer reached through the broken glass and manipulated the night lock. The door swung easily open. He walked inside and closed the door behind him.

  In the empty office, Homer paused until his eyes became accustomed to the deeper darkness. He moved forward, groping with his hands, and found the desk. He could make out the dim bulk of a filing case. There should be a door somewhere. Perhaps not a door into the street, but a door into a hideout—some room where Steen could disappear to eat and rest and sleep; some place that might have a touch of his alien home about it.

  Homer moved from the desk to the filing cabinet and felt along the wall. Almost immediately, he found a door. He took a firmer grip on the jack handle and twisted on the knob. He walked through the door and there was the room, lighted a garish green by a lantern suspended from the ceiling.

  There was sound and the sense of movement. Homer's hair stood straight on end and he felt his skin trying very hard to roll up his back. The hairy monster reached out a paw and grabbed him by the shoulder just as Homer swung around to dive back through the door.

  The monster's paw was heavy and very strong. It was hairy and it tickled. Homer opened his mouth to scream, but his tongue dried up and his throat closed and he couldn't make a sound. The jack handle slipped from his numb fingers and clattered to the floor.

  For a long moment, he stood there in the grip of the hairy monster and he supposed it had a face, but he could not see the face, for the hair grew all over it and drooped down where its face should be. The monster was a large one, with massive chest and shoulders that tapered down to a slim, athletic waist. Frightened as he was, Homer still could not keep from thinking that it looked a lot like an English sheepdog with a wrestler's body.

  And all the while, there was something rolling on the floor and moaning.

  Then the hairy monster said, in halting, stumbling syllables: "You Mister Jackson, you are not?" Homer made a croaking sound.

  "I apologize," the monster told him. "I very poor at your words. I work on your planet survey, but not so good with words." He motioned at the thing moaning and rolling on the floor. "That was good with words."

  The hairy hand dropped from Homer's shoulder. "That," it said, gesturing at the floor again, "your Mister Steen."

  "What is wrong with him?" Homer blurted out. "Is he sick or something?"

  "He die himself," the monster said.

  "You mean he's dying and you're just standing there…"

  "No, no. He—how do you word it right?—he unlive himself."

  "You mean he's killing himself? Committing suicide?"

  "Yes," the monster said. "He does it very well. Do you no agree?"

  "But you can't…"

  "He take great pride in it. He make spectacular. He jus starting now. He work up to grand finale. You must stay and watch. It be something to remember."

  "No, thank you," Homer said faintly.

  Homer turned to go, but the monster put out a hairy paw an, stopped him. "You must not be afraid of us. I stay half myself, allright? Could change entirely into human, but much trouble. Good enough this way?"

  "It's all tight," said Homer.

  "We owe you debt," the monster said. "This Mister Steen of yours got things all scrambled up."

  "I'll say he did," said Homer feelingly.

  "He just a stumblebum. Bungler. He likewise is a joker."

  "Joker?"

  "Clown? Wise guy? You know—he made the joke. Sometimes very sly joke, but stupid just the same." The monster leaned forward to peer into Homer's face. "Your planet, it has its jokers, too?"

  "Yes, indeed," Homer said. "There's one down the hall from me. His name is Gabby Wilson."

  "So you understand then. A joker not too bad if that is all he is. But take a joker who makes mistakes and that is most bad. You have name for it. Smart aleck?"

  "That's the name," said Homer.

  "We make projects for the planets, for very many planets. We try to make each project fit the planet. The kind that will help the planet, the kind it needs the most."

  "Like foreign aid," Homer supplied.

  "So this bungler," said the monster, his voice rising in forthright and honest wrath, "this smart aleck, this nincompoop, this Mister Steen of yours, what do you think he does? He came to Earth as project manager—and he brings wrong plan! He is like that other times, going off not cocked. But this, it is too much. Final straw."

  "You mean this Happy Acres business was never meant for Earth, but for s
ome other planet?"

  The monster draped his arm around Homer's shoulder in a gesture of understanding and affection. "That exactly what he do. No need of Happy Acres here. You still have room enough for all your people. No need to double up."

  "But, sir," said Homer earnestly, "it is a swell idea. It has possibilities."

  "Other things you need much worse, my friend. We have better plan for you."

  Homer couldn't decide whether he liked the way the monster talked about the better plan. "What other plan?" he asked.

  "That is topmost secret. To make project big success, it must be done so that the natives think they the ones who do it. And that", the monster said, gesturing toward the floor, "is where this silly obscenity failed in second place. He let you find out what was going on."

  "But there were all the other people, too," Homer protested. "All the people in the shops. The bank president and the gateman and…"

  "All of them is us," the monster explained. "Them the crew that came with Mister Steen."

  "But they were so human-looking! They looked exactly like us!"

  "They play it straight. This ape, he ham it up."

  "But they dressed like us and they wore shoes…"

  "The shoes was more joke," the monster said furiously. "Your Mister Steen, he know how to make himself a human like the rest of them. But he wear his shoes wrong to get you humans'—your humans'—there is a word for it."

  "Goat?"

  "That is it! He wear them wrong to get your humans' goat. And he make outrageous deal with you and he watch you worry and he rejoice greatly and think himself superior and smart because he that kind of clown. That, I tell you, is no way to treat anyone. That is no true-blue friendship. But your Mister Steen, he was plain jerk. Let us go and watch him suffer."

  "No," said Homer, horrified.

  "You no like this dying?"

  "It's inhuman."

  "Of course, inhuman. We not humans, us. It is a way we have, a social law. He make himself a fool. He make bonehead blunder. He must dead himself. He must do it good. Great honour, do it good. He bungle everything in life, he must not bungle dying. He forever heel if he do."

  Homer shivered, listening to the anguish of the alien on the floor, sick at stomach and giddy in the green flood of alien light.

  "Now it is to end," said the alien. "We wipe out project. It was nonsensical mistake. We will take it all away."

  "You can't mean that!" argued Homer. "We need it. We could make use of it. Just show us the principle."

  "No," the monster said.

  "But if you wipe out the project, there'll be all these people…"

  "Sorry."

  "They'll murder me! I was the one who leased the houses to them…"

  "Too bad," the monster said.

  "And all that money in the bank! A quarter of a million dollars, more than a quarter of a million dollars! It will be wiped out!"

  "You have human money in bank?"

  "I did. I suppose that's too bad, too."

  "We can pay you off. Mister Steen make a lot of money. He store it over there." He pointed to the far wall. "You see that pile of bags? You take all that you can carry."

  "Money?" Homer asked.

  "Good money."

  "All I can carry?" insisted Homer, nailing it down tight. "And you will let me leave?"

  "We do you wrong," the monster said. "This fix it just a little?"

  "I'll tell the world," said Homer, with enthusiasm.

  Steen was becoming noisier. He had changed into his alien form and now he rolled upon the floor, knotted up and writhing.

  Homer walked wide around him to get to the farther wall. He hefted down the bags and they were fairly heavy. He could take two at least, he figured. He hoisted two on his back, then piled on the third. He barely made it back across the room.

  The monster watched him with some admiration. "You like money, huh?"

  "You bet," Homer panted. "Everyone likes money." He set the bags down by the door.

  "You sure you not stay and watch? It get good directly. It be amusing, maybe even interesting."

  Homer held down a rising shudder. "No, thank you very much."

  The monster helped him get the bags on his shoulder. "I hold the door for you."

  "Thank you," said Homer. "Good day to you and thanks for everything."

  "Good-bye, my friend," the monster said. He held the door and Homer walked on through.

  He came back into the office he'd left an hour before, the glass in the door shattered and his car still parked outside.

  Homer hurried.

  In less than five minutes, he went roaring out the gate, with the bags of money locked inside the trunk.

  There was little time, he realized. What he did had to be done fast. For when the monster wiped out Happy Acres, there would be a battalion of families marooned there in the woods and they'd come boiling out with a single thought in mind—to get their hands on Homer Jackson.

  He tried to imagine what it might be like, and then tried to stop thinking what it might be like, but couldn't.

  There would be a lot of people there without any houses.

  They'd wake up in the wild, wet woods, with their furniture and belongings scattered all about them. And all those bright new cars would be in among the trees. And the people would be plenty sore.

  Not that he blamed them much.

  He was sore himself.

  That lousy Steen, he said. Like that contractor Gabby told about—the one who went out on a wrecking job and demolished the wrong house.

  The dashboard clock said slightly after midnight. Elaine would be home by now and they could start right out.

  Homer turned into the driveway and braked to a halt. There was a light in the kitchen window. He ran up the walk and burst into the house.

  "Oh, there you are," said Elaine. "I wondered where you were. What's wrong with you?"

  "We're getting out of here," Homer babbled.

  "Have you gone stark crazy? Getting out!"

  "Now for once," said Homer, "don't give me an argument. We're getting out of here. Tonight. I've got three sacks of money out there in the car…"

  "Money! How did you get three sacks…"

  "It's legal," Homer pleaded. "There's nothing wrong with it. I didn't rob a bank. There's no time to explain. Let us just get going."

  She got icy calm. "Where are we going, Homer?"

  "We can decide that later. Maybe Mexico."

  "You're ill," she scolded. "You've been working too hard lately. And worrying about that Happy Acres deal…"

  It was too much for Homer. He turned toward the door.

  "Homer! Where are you going, Homer?"

  "I'll show you the money," he gritted. "I'll show you I really have it."

  "Wait for me," she cried, but he didn't wait. She ran down the walk behind him.

  He opened the car trunk. "There it is. We'll carry it up to the house. You can take off your shoes and walk in it. Then maybe you'll believe me."

  "No, Homer, no!"

  "Here, help me with these sacks," he said.

  Inside the house, he opened the sacks. Neatly bundled she of bills spilled out on the floor.

  Elaine knelt and picked up a package. "Why, it's real!" she cried happily.

  "Of course it is," said Homer.

  "And, Homer, these are twenty-thousand-dollar bills!" She dropped the package that she held and picked up another and another and another. "And so are these!" she screamed. "There are millions and millions here!"

  Homer was pawing desperately through the heap of money. Sweat was running down his face.

  "Are they all twenty-thousand-dollar bills?" she asked hopefully.

  "Yes," said Homer in a beaten voice.

  "But what is wrong?"

  "That dirty, lowdown, bungling Steen," he said bitterly.

  "But what is wrong?" she cried again.

  "They aren't worth a dime," said Homer. "There are no such things as twenty-thousand-
dollar bills. The Treasury never issued any!"

  Idiot's Crusade

  For a long time I was the village idiot, but not any longer—although they call me "dummy" still and even worse than that.

  I'm a genius now, but I won't let them know.

  Not ever.

  If they found out, they'd be on their guard against me.

  No one has suspected me and no one will. My shuffle is the same and my gaze as vacant and my mumblings just as vague as they ever were. At times, it has been hard to remember to keep the shuffle and the gaze and mumblings as they were before, times when it was hard not to overdo them. But it's important not to arouse suspicion.

  It all started the morning I went fishing.

  I told Ma I was going fishing while we were eating breakfast and she didn't object. She knows I like fishing. When I fish, I don't get into trouble.

  "All right, Jim," she said. "Some fish will taste real good."

  "I know where to get them," I told her. "That hole in the creek just past Alf Adams' place."

  "Now don't you get into any fracas with Alf," Ma warned me. "Just because you don't like him…"

  "He was mean to me. He worked me harder than he should have. And he cheated me out of my pay. And he laughs at me."

  I shouldn't have said that, because it hurts Ma when I say someone laughs at me. "You mustn't pay attention to what people do," said Ma, speaking kind and gentle. "Remember what Preacher Martin said last Sunday. He said…"

  "I know what he said, but I still don't like being laughed at. People shouldn't laugh at me."

  "No," Ma agreed, looking sad. "They shouldn't."

  I went on eating my breakfast, thinking that Preacher Martin was a great one to be talking about humility and patience, knowing the kind of man he was and how he was carrying on with Jennie Smith, the organist. He was a great one to talk about anything at all.

  After breakfast, I went out to the woodshed to get my fishing tackle and Bounce came across the street to help me. After Ma, Bounce is the best friend I have. He can't talk to me, of course—not actually, that is—but neither does he laugh at me.

  I talked to him while I was digging worms and asked him if he wanted to go fishing with me. I could see he did, so I went across the street to tell Mrs. Lawson that Bounce was going along. He belonged to her, but he spent most of his time with me.