The alien's mandibles worked furiously, and its amber eyes regarded me with unknowable intent. Through
Toby he said: "We cannot know what you are thinking by stepping into your mind.
Your fear is so intense it blocks out your thoughts. But we want to know what you perceive of your existence and of the universe. We want to understand what evolutionary level you represent. Therefore, we wish you. to put your thoughts into writing. We will read the writing through the eyes of your son and interpret your worthiness from the content thereof."
"My worthiness?" I said.
"You will write another book."
"About what?"
"You will write about us, about all that has happened here at Timberlake Farm during the last several days," Toby-alien said. "Then we will learn how you perceive us, and we will be able to put this affair in the proper perspective."
"No."
"No?"
"I won't write a book."
"You will write a book."
"You killed my wife."
"What does that matter?"
"Are you crazy?"
"We do not understand the concept of mental instability."
"Because you're all crazy and you have nothing sane to compare yourselves to," I said.
"You will write a book," Toby-alien said, and as he spoke he began to twitch. Spittle bubbled at the corners of his mouth.
"What are you doing to him?" I demanded.
"Nothing," the alien said through the boy. "But we find it difficult to use even a child. Such a strange species. He resists my thought control, and from time to time he throws fits much like those people you call epileptics."
"If I write the book, will you let Toby and me live? Will you go away from this world?"
"You will write a book."
"I need that promise."
"You will write a book."
As Toby began to twitch even more violently, I surrendered.
"Okay. I'll write the book. I'll put it all down in print. Just don't torture the boy."
"I am not torturing him. This spasm is simply an uncontrollable psychological reaction to my presence in his mind."
"You say you're using him as a tool for communication-but you're not speaking with his vocabulary."
"For the brief moments we were in your mind, your wife's mind, and the minds of the
Johnsons, we absorbed all of your language. The boy is not a dictionary, just a translator and loud speaker."
"You killed the Johnsons."
"That does not matter."
"For God's sake!"
"Death does not matter."
"It's all that matters."
"Curious."
"I'll write the book," I said, slumping back in the chair.
"In three earth days."
"I can do it," I said. "I won't worry about style or grammar or punctuation. I'll just get the raw emotion down, the emotion and the fact."
"You will write a book."
"My typewriter is an electric model," I said. And then I realized that the lights were on. Not the heat, of course, for they couldn't tolerate it. But that would be turned on after they left.
"We have repaired the generator. Now we will leave you to your work."
They took Toby with them when they left. I watched them until they disappeared into the woods. Would
I ever see him again?
On my way back to the den, I passed a photograph of
Connie. It was in a silver frame on top of the piano. She played the piano well;
I could almost hear her music. And the sight of her face was like a punch in the stomach. I doubled over and went to my knees and wept loudly.
Death is not mutable.
Death is not beatable.
Death is not cheatable.
Death is not a joke.
Death is real and final.
But the world is a madhouse.
Remember that. Don't take it seriously.
I don't know how long I remained on my knees, my head on the floor, weeping. A long time. Perhaps hours. When I finally got up, my chest ached and my throat was sore and my eyes burned.
But when I did get up I went into the den and rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter. I would write the book. Somehow, I would hold myself together long enough to write the book.
Connie was gone forever. But Toby was still alive. There was not much chance that they would let me have him or that they would let us live, but I had to hold onto even the frailest thread of hope. And so I kept telling myself: If you write the book, maybe you'll save yourself and Toby. And so I began to type.
26
It's finished.
In three days I have written one hundred and eighty manuscript pages, and I am burnt out. I slept only one night out of three and took perhaps four or five one-hour naps. I have gotten through this ordeal with the aid of a fifth of Wild Turkey bourbon, a box of No-Doz caffeine tablets, and several bennies (prescribed for me in the days when I suffered bouts of lethargy and depression, just after I got out of the sanitarium). Bourbon, caffeine, and speed: that is not a good combination, not good at all. I stagger when I walk, and I can't think clearly any more.
But it's finished.
I will get up from this desk in a few minutes and go into the living room and sit down to wait for them.
Somehow they will know that the book is written. What they expect to learn from it, I do not understand. It is obvious to me that our races are so terribly different-physiologically and psychologically- that no one book, no one man's explanations can ever bridge the gulf between us. They will study the text I have prepared, will be puzzled by it-and then, will they kill us?
It's finished.
Now let's finish the rest of it.
Come on, you bastards.
EPILOGUE
Some time during my lonely vigil I fell asleep on the couch. I didn't dream. But when I woke up, muttering to myself and wiping imaginary cobwebs from my face, there were two nightmares in the living room with me: two of the aliens stood before me with Toby between them.
The air was chilly. They had turned off the heating system long before they'd entered the house. I shivered uncontrollably.
I sat up and rubbed at my eyes and grimaced at the awful taste in my mouth. "It's finished," I told them.
As before they spoke to me through Toby. "We have read the manuscript."
"Already?"
"You have slept for more than twelve hours."
"Oh." I stood up, no longer intimidated by them. My face was within inches of one alien's clacking mandibles. "Have you learned anything from it?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"You would not understand."
"Try me."
"There are no concepts in your language-or mind."
"I see." But I didn't.
"Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson cannot be restored. That was a mistake of ours. But he did kill one of us first," Toby-alien said.
Having a bit of trouble adjusting to the sudden change of topics, I said, "Well What are you saying this for? Are you trying to absolve yourselves of guilt?"
"We do not comprehend the concept of guilt," Toby-alien said. "We merely wish, for whatever reasons, to set the record straight."
"Why are you on earth?"
"You could not understand."
"Why did you kill the horses-and strip them of flesh?"
"You have no concept of our motivations or purposes-and we barely understand the bizarre behavior you display."
I was getting nowhere fast, but the questions came compulsively. "Did you understand, at the start, that we were intelligent creatures?"
"We don't believe you are intelligent creatures," Toby-alien said as mandibles rattled noisily on both sides of him.
"What?"
"You do not conform in any way to our concept of intelligence. You are-barbaric, crude, disgusting. We believe that you are only extremely clever animals, able to feign activities and attitudes that would indicate the most basic periphereal intelligence."