“Drip, drip,” said Wesson hysterically. The needles of the tall golden indicators were infinitesimally higher. “Every twenty years we need more of the stuff, so somebody like me has to come out and take it for five lousy months. And one of them has to come out and sit there, and drip. Why, Aunt Jane? What for? Why should it matter to them whether we live a long time or not? Why do they keep on coming back? What do they take away from here?”
But to these questions, Aunt Jane had no reply.
All day and every day, the lights burned cold and steady in the circular gray corridor around the rim of Sector One. The hard gray flooring had been deeply scuffed in that circular path before Wesson ever walked there—the corridor existed for that only, like a treadmill in a squirrel cage. It said “Walk,” and Wesson walked. A man would go crazy if he sat still, with that squirming, indescribable pressure on his head; and so Wesson paced off the miles, all day and every day, until he dropped like a dead man in the bed at night.
He talked, too, sometimes to himself, sometimes to the listening alpha network; sometimes it was difficult to tell which. “Moss on a rock,” he muttered, pacing. “Told him, wouldn’t give twenty mills for any shell… Little pebbles down there, all colors.” He shuffled on in silence for a while. Abruptly: “I don’t see why they couldn’t have given me a cat.”
Aunt Jane said nothing. After a moment Wesson went on, “Nearly everybody at Home has a cat, for God’s sake, or a goldfish or something. You’re all right, Aunt Jane, but I can’t see you. My God, I mean if they couldn’t send a man a woman for company—what I mean, my God, I never liked cats.” He swung around the doorway into the bedroom, and absentmindedly slammed his fist into the bloody place on the wall.
“But a cat would have been something,” he said.
Aunt Jane was still silent.
“Don’t pretend your feelings are hurt. I know you, you’re only a machine,” said Wesson. “Listen, Aunt Jane, I remember a cereal package one time that had a horse and a cowboy on the side. There wasn’t much room, so about all you saw was their faces. It used to strike me funny how much they looked alike. Two ears on the top with hair in the middle. Two eyes. Nose. Mouth with teeth in it. I was thinking, we’re kind of distant cousins, aren’t we, us and the horses. But compared to that thing up there—we’re brothers. You know?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Jane quietly.
“So I keep asking myself, why couldn’t they have sent a horse or a cat instead of a man? But I guess the answer is because only a man could take what I’m taking. God, only a man. Right?”
“Right,” said Aunt Jane with deep sorrow.
Wesson stopped at the bedroom doorway again and shuddered, holding onto the frame. “Aunt Jane,” he said in a low, clear voice, “you take pictures of him up there, don’t you?”
“Yes, Paul.”
“And you take pictures of me. And then what happens? After it’s all over, who looks at the pictures?”
“I don’t know,” said Aunt Jane humbly.
“You don’t know. But whoever looks at ’em, it doesn’t do any good. Right? We got to find out why, why, why… And we never do find out, do we?”
“No,” said Aunt Jane.
“But don’t they figure that if the man who’s going through it could see him, he might be able to tell something? That other people couldn’t? Doesn’t that make sense?”
“That’s out of my hands, Paul.”
He sniggered. “That’s funny. Oh, that’s funny.” He chortled in his throat, reeling around the circuit.
“Yes, that’s funny,” said Aunt Jane.
“Aunt Jane, tell me what happens to the watchmen.”
“I can’t tell you that, Paul.”
He lurched into the living room, sat down before the console, beat on its smooth, cold metal with his fists. “What are you, some kind of monster? Isn’t there any blood in your veins, or oil or anything?”
“Please, Paul—”
“Don’t you see, all I want to know, can they talk? Can they tell anything after their tour is over?”
“No, Paul.”
He stood upright, clutching the console for balance. “They can’t? No, I figured. And you know why?”
“No.”
“Up there,” said Wesson obscurely. “Moss on the rock.”
“Paul, what?”
“We get changed,” said Wesson, stumbling out of the room again. “We get changed. Like a piece of iron next to a magnet. Can’t help it. You—nonmagnetic, I guess. Goes right through you, huh, Aunt Jane? You don’t get changed. You stay here, wait for the next one.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Jane.
“You know,” said Wesson, pacing, “I can tell how he’s lying up there. Head that way, tail the other. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Jane.
Wesson stopped. “Yes,” he said intently. “So you can tell me what you see up there, can’t you, Aunt Jane?”
“No. Yes. It isn’t allowed.”
“Listen, Aunt Jane, we’ll die unless we can find out what makes those aliens tick! Remember that.”
Wesson leaned against the corridor wall, gazing up. “He’s turning now—around this way. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what else is he doing? Come on, Aunt Jane, tell me!”
A pause. “He is twitching his—”
“What?”
“I don’t know the words.”
“My God, my God,” said Wesson, clutching his head, “of course there aren’t any words.” He ran into the living room, clutched the console, and stared at the blank screen. He pounded the metal with his fist. “You’ve got to show me, Aunt Jane, come on and show me—show me!”
“It isn’t allowed,” Aunt Jane protested.
“You’ve got to do it just the same, or we’ll die, Aunt Jane—millions of us, billions, and it’ll be your fault, get it? Your fault, Aunt Jane!”
“Please,” said the voice. There was a pause. The screen flickered to life, for an instant only. Wesson had a glimpse of something massive and dark, but half transparent, like a magnified insect—a tangle of nameless limbs, whiplike filaments, claws, wings…
He clutched the edge of the console.