turned to Carl Meeker, who shrugged; the little man near the door wasn't even asked. 'All right, Miles,' Mannie said quietly. 'No reason we shouldn't.' He nodded at the little man by the door, who stood up and went outside to the building hallway. Mannie walked to the heavy wood door leading to my office, turned the key in the lock, then twisted and tugged at the door handle, testing it. He unlocked it again and held it open for Becky and me to walk through.
Slowly it began swinging shut behind us, and just before it closed, I caught a final glimpse of the little man coming back into the reception room from the building hallway, and his body was nearly hidden by the two enormous pods he was carrying in his arms. Then our door clicked shut, the key turned in the lock, and I heard the faint sound of something brushing against the other side of that door – and I knew that those two great pods were lying on the floor now, by that locked door; so very near to us, yet out of our reach.
Chapter eighteen
I took Becky's arm, holding her hand flat between mine, squeezing it tight between them, and she looked up at me, and managed to smile. I led her to the big leather chair in front of my desk and she sat down, and I sat on the arm, leaning close to her, my arm around her shoulders.
For a little time we were silent, and I sat remembering the night not long ago, yet very long ago – when Becky had come here to talk about Wilma, and I realized she was wearing the very same dress, silk, long-sleeved, and with a red and grey pattern. I remembered how glad I'd been to see her that night, realizing that even though we'd had only a few high-school dates, I'd never really forgotten her. And now I understood a lot of things I hadn't before. 'I love you, Becky' I said, and she looked up at me to smile, then leaned her head back against my arm.
'I love you, Miles.'
I heard a tiny sound from the locked door behind us, familiar, yet for an instant I couldn't recognize it; it was the snapping sound a dry, brittle leaf makes. Then I knew what it was, and glanced quickly at Becky, but if she'd heard it, too, she gave no sign.
'I wish we'd been married, Becky. I wish we were married now.'
She nodded. 'So do I. Miles, why didn't we?'
I didn't answer; the reasons were meaningless now.
She said, 'We should have, but you've been afraid, for yourself and for me. Mostly for me, I think.' She smiled at me tiredly. 'And it's true enough that I couldn't take another failure, I just couldn't. But you couldn't protect me against that either; and who else do you think I'd have found who could? Any two people who marry take a chance on failure; we were no different from anyone else. Except that we knew more; we already knew what failure was like, and maybe something of what causes it, and how to guard against it. We ought to have been married, Miles.'
After a moment I said, 'Maybe we still can.' Because she was right, of course; it was simple and obvious; I just hadn't let myself see it. Of course we could have failed; I could have wrecked her life; but that made me no different from any other man who might have done the same thing.
The faint snapping, crackling sound came again from the other side of the door behind us, and then I was on my feet, prowling the little office, hunting for something, anything, that could help us. More than anything I ever wanted before, I wanted another chance; now there
There was my instrument cabinet across the room: neatly folded white towels on which lay rows of stainless steel forceps, scalpels, hypodermic needles, scissors, disinfectants, antiseptics; and I didn't even bother opening the glass doors. There was the little refrigerator: serums, vaccines, antibiotics, and half a quart of stale ginger ale my nurse had left; and I quietly closed the door. There wasn't much else: the office scale, my examining-table, an enamelled white wall cabinet of bandages, adhesive tape, iodine, mercuro-chrome, merthiolate, tongue depressors; there was furniture, rugs, my desk, pictures and diplomas on the wall – there was nothing.
I turned to Becky, my mouth opening to say something, and my heart stopped, then began to pound, and I took two fast steps to her chair, grabbing her shoulders and shaking hard, and her eyes flew open.
'Oh, Miles! – I was asleep.' Her eyes opened wide in terror.
In the lower left-hand desk drawer, I found the Benzedrine tablets, went to the washroom for a glass of water, then gave Becky one tablet. I looked at the little bottle for a moment, then slipped it into my pocket without taking a tablet; I could hold out for a while yet, and it was best for us to take these alternately, the one keeping the other awake.
And now I sat at my desk, elbows on the glass top, clenched fists under my cheekbones, Becky watching my eyes to be sure I didn't sleep. If there was any way out of this, it was in my mind, not in my feet prowling the office.
Time passed, with an occasional brittle snap from the other side of the closed door before me, and we both heard, and neither of us would glance at that door. I made myself sit where I was, remembering everything I knew about the great pods.
After a time I looked up slowly; in the leather chair, across my desk, Becky sat silently and alertly watching me, her eyes bright now from the Benzedrine. Very quietly, both asking her advice and thinking out loud, I said, 'Suppose, just
'What are you thinking of, Miles?'
'I don't know. Nothing, probably. I was thinking of a way to maybe spoil their damn pods; though I'm not even sure we could. But they'd just get more. They'd take us somewhere else, and get more. We wouldn't have accomplished a thing.'
'We might gain a little time,' Becky said. 'Because I doubt if there are more pods at the moment. I think we saw all that were ready.' She nodded at the window, and the street below. 'I should think they'd have used all they had ready. Maybe the two out there' – she indicated the locked door – 'are the last two we saw left, in Joe Grimaldi's truck.'
'There are more growing; all we'd have gained is a little reprieve' – I was soundlessly, frustratedly hitting the knuckles of my fist into the palm of my other hand – 'and that's not enough, it's no good.' I was frowning hard, trying to think clearly. 'A little more time isn't what we want to end up with; if there's a way to make them take us out of here, down out of the building, that has to be our chance; there won't be any other.'
Becky said, 'Do you think you could… hit them, knock them out unexpectedly, leaving the building? Like you did Nick Griv – '
I was shaking my head. 'We've got to think real, Becky; this isn't a movie, and I'm not a movie hero. No, I couldn't possibly handle four men, or maybe even one. I very much doubt that I could handle Mannie, and Chet Meeker could break me in two. Maybe the professor, or the little fat man.' I smiled. Then I spoke seriously again. 'Hell, I don't even know we could make them take us out of here. Probably not.'
'How would we try, though?' She wouldn't give up.
I pointed to the reception-room door. 'Right now, if Budlong is right, the things out there are – preparing. Preparing, more or less blindly at first, to imitate, and duplicate whatever life-substance they encounter; cell and tissue, bone structure, and blood. And that means us – once we lie quietly asleep, our body processes slowed down and defenceless. But suppose… ' I looked at Becky, hesitating; if this weren't the answer, I didn't know what else could be. 'Suppose,' I said slowly, 'that we made those two pods out there expend themselves on something else. Suppose we provided a substitute: Fred and his girl friend.'
She frowned a little, not getting what I meant, and I reached out and opened the wall closet beside my desk. 'The skeletons,' I said, pointing at them, standing hollow-eyed and grinning in my closet. 'They
