"All right," I said, "All right!"
That's the way kids are these days. You can't keep up with them. You think you have something all nailed down and neat and here they've beat you to it. It happens all the time.
I tell you, honestly, it does nothing for a man.
"I suppose," I said, "that while you were figuring all this out, you also got it doped how they might have got here."
"We can't be really sure," said Billy, "but we have a theory. That boulder out in back—we found a hole in it just the right size for these bugs. So we sort of thought they used that."
"You won't believe me, son," I told him, "but I was thinking the same thing. But the part that's got me stumped is what they used for power. What made the boulder move through space?"
"Well, gee, Dad, we don't know that. But there is something else. They could have used the boulder for their food all the time they traveled. There'd be just a few of them, most likely, and they'd get inside the boulder and there'd be all that food, maybe enough of it to last them years and years. So they'd eat the agate, hollowing out the boulder and making it lighter so it could travel faster—well, if not faster, at least a little easier. But they'd be very careful not to chew any holes in it until they'd landed and it was time to leave."
"But agate is just rock…"
"You weren't listening, Dad," said Billy, patiently. "I told you that agate was the only bait they'd go for."
"Randall," said Helen, coming down the driveway, "if you don't mind, I'd like to use the car to go over and see Amy. She wants me to tell her all about the bugs."
"Go ahead," I said. "Any way you look at it, my day is shot. I may as well stay home."
She went tripping back down the driveway and I said to Billy: "You just lay off everything until I get back."
"Where are you going, Dad?"
"Over to see Dobby."
I found Dobby roosting on a bench beneath an apple tree, his face all screwed up with worry. But it didn't stop him from talking.
"Randall," he said, beginning to talk as soon as I hove in sight, "this is a sad day for me. All my life I've been vastly proud of my professional exactitude in my chosen calling. But this day I violated, willingly and knowingly and in a fit of temper, every precept of experimental observation and laboratory technique."
"That's too bad," I said, wondering what he was talking about. Which was not unusual. One often had to wonder what he was getting at.
"It's those damn bugs of yours," Dobby accused me explosively.
"But you said you wanted some more bugs. Billy remembered that and he brought some over."
"And so I did. I wanted to carry forward my examination of them. I wanted to dissect one and see what made him go. Perhaps you recall my telling you about the hardness of the exoskeletons."
"Yes, of course I do."
"Randall," said Dobby sadly, "would you believe me if I told you that exoskeleton was so hard I could do nothing with it? I couldn't cut it and I couldn't peel it off. So you know what I did?"
"I have no idea," I declared, somewhat exasperated. I hoped that he'd soon get to the point, but there was no use in hurrying him. He always took his time.
"Well, I'll tell you, then," said Dobby, seething. "I took one of those little so-and-sos and I put him on an anvil. Then I picked up a hammer and I let him have it. And I tell you frankly that I am not proud of it. It constituted, in every respect, a most improper laboratory technique."
"I wouldn't let that worry me at all," I told him. "You'll simply have to put this down as an unusual circumstance. The important thing, it seems to me, is what you learned about the bug…"
And then I had a terrible thought. "Don't tell me the hammer failed!"
"Not at all," said Dobby with some satisfaction. "It did a job on him. He was smashed to smithereens."
I sat down on the bench beside him and settled down to wait. I knew that in due time he'd tell me.
"An amazing thing," said Dobby. "Yes, a most amazing thing. That bug was made of crystals—of something that looked like the finest quartz. There was no protoplasm in him. Or, at least," he qualified, judiciously, "none I could detect."
"But a crystal bug! That's impossible!"
"Impossible," said Dobby. "Yes, of course, by any earthly standard. It runs counter to everything we've ever known or thought. But the question rises: Can our earthly standards, even remotely, be universal?"
I sat there, without saying anything, but somehow I felt a great relief that someone else was thinking the same thing I had thought It went to prove, just slightly, that I wasn't crazy.
"Of course," said Dobby, "it had to happen sometime. Soon or late, it should be almost inevitable that some alien intelligence would finally seek us out. And knowing this, we speculated on monsters and monstrosities, but we fell short of the actual mark of horr—"
"There's no reason at the moment," I told him hastily, "that we should fear the bugs. They might in fact, become a useful ally. Even now they are cooperating. They seemed to strike up some sort of deal. We furnish them a place to live and they, in turn…"
"You're mistaken, Randall," Dobby warned me solemnly. "These things are alien beings. Don't imagine for a moment that they and the human race might have a common purpose or a single common concept. Their life process, whatever it may be, is entirely alien to us. So must be their viewpoints. A spider is blood-brother to you as compared with these."
"But we had ants and wasps and they cleaned out the ants and wasps."
"They may have cleaned out the ants and wasps, but it was no part, I am sure, of a cooperative effort. It was no attempt on their part to butter up the human in whose dwelling place they happened to take refuge, or set up their camp, or carve out their beachhead, however you may put it. I have grave doubts that they are aware of you at all except as some mysterious and rather shadowy monstrosity they can't bother with as yet. Sure they killed your insects, but in this they did no more than operate on a level common with their own existence. The insects might have been in their way or they may have recognized in them some potential threat or hindrance."
"But even so, we can use them," I told him impatiently, "to control our insect pests, or carriers of disease."
"Can we?" Dobby asked. "What makes you think we can? And it would not be insect pests alone, but rather all insects. Would you, then deprive our plant life of its pollination agents—to mention just one example of thousands?"
"You may be right," I said, "but you can't tell me that we must be afraid of bugs, of even crystal bugs. Even if they should turn out to be a menace, we could find a way in which to cope with them."
"I have been sitting here and thinking, trying to get it straight within my mind," said Dobby, "and one thing that has occurred to me is that here we may be dealing with a social concept we've never met with on this planet. I'm convinced that these aliens must necessarily operate on the hive-mind principle. We face not one of them alone nor the total number of them, but we face the sum total of them as a single unit, as a single mind and a single expression of purpose and performance."
"If you really think they're dangerous, what would you have us do?"
"I still have my anvil and my hammer."
"Cut out the kidding, Dobby."
"You are right," said Dobby. "This is no joking matter, nor is it one for an anvil and a hammer. My best suggestion is that the area be evacuated and an atom bomb be dropped."