Bug-Eyed Monsters

by Bill Pronzini

  One by one, she looked up the references indicated, then returned to the shelves for translations of such original papers as she could find.

  She spent more than two hours in the Academy. When she was finished, she knew this much—there was a Hawkinsite doctor named Harg Tholan, who was an expert on the Inhibition Death. He was connected with the Hawkinsite research organization with which the Institute had been in correspondence. Of course, the Harg Tholan she knew might simply be impersonating an actual doctor to make the role more realistic, but why should that be necessary?

  She took the paper out of her pocket and, where she had written “bonafide” with three question marks, she now wrote a YES in capitals. She went back to the Institute and at 4 P.M. was once again at her desk. She called the switchboard to say that she would not answer any phone calls and then she locked her door.

  Underneath the column headed “Harg Tholan” she now wrote two questions: “Why did Harg Tholan come to Earth alone?” She left considerable space. Then, “What is his interest in the Missing Persons Bureau?”

  Certainly, the Inhibition Death was all the Hawkinsite said it was. From her reading at the Academy, it was obvious that it occupied the major share of medical effort on Hawkin’s Planet. It was more feared there than cancer was on Earth. If they had thought the answer to it lay on Earth, the Hawkinsites would have sent a full-scale expedition. Was it distrust and suspicion on their part that made them send only one investigator?

  What was it Harg Tholan had said the night before? The incidence of the Death was highest upon his own world, which was closest to Earth, lowest upon the world farthest from Earth. Add to that the fact implied by the Hawkinsite, and verified by her own readings at the Academy, that the incidence had expanded enormously since interstellar contact had been made with Earth . . .

  Slowly and reluctantly she came to one conclusion. The inhabitants of Hawkin’s Planet might have decided that somehow Earth had discovered the cause of the Inhibition Death, and was deliberately fostering it among the alien peoples of the Galaxy, with the intention, perhaps, of becoming supreme among the stars.

  She rejected this conclusion with what was almost panic. It could not be; it was impossible. In the first place, Earth wouldn’t do such a horrible thing. Secondly, it couldn’t.

  As far as scientific advance was concerned, the beings of Hawkin’s Planet were certainly the equals of Earthmen. The Death had occurred there for thousands of years and their medical record was one of total failure. Surely, Earth, in its long-distance investigations into alien biochemistry, could not have succeeded so quickly. In fact, as far as she knew, there were no investigations to speak of into Hawkinsite pathology on the part of Earth biologists and physicians.

  Yet all the evidence indicated that Harg Tholan had come in suspicion and had been received in suspicion. Carefully, she wrote down under the question, “Why did Harg Tholan come to Earth alone?” the answer, “Hawkin’s Planet believes Earth is causing the Inhibition Death.”

  But, then, what was this business about the Bureau of Missing Persons? As a scientist, she was rigorous about the theories she developed. All the facts had to fit in, not merely some of them.

  Missing Persons Bureau! If it was a false trail, deliberately intended to deceive Drake, it had been done clumsily, since it came only after an hour of discussion of the Inhibition Death.

  Was it intended as an opportunity to study Drake? If so, why? Was this perhaps the major point? The Hawkinsite had investigated Drake before coming to them. Had he come because Drake was a policeman with entry to Bureaus of Missing Persons?

  But why? Why?

  She gave it up and turned to the column headed “Drake.”

  And there a question wrote itself, not in pen and ink upon the paper, but in the much more visible letters of thought on mind. Why did he marry me? thought Rose, and she covered her eyes with her hands so that the unfriendly light was excluded.

  They had met quite by accident somewhat more than a year before, when he had moved into the apartment house in which she then lived. Polite greetings had somehow become friendly conversation and this, in turn, had led to occasional dinners in a neighborhood restaurant. It had been very friendly and normal and an excitingly new experience, and she had fallen in love.

  When he asked her to marry him, she was pleased—and overwhelmed. At the time, she had many explanations for it. He appreciated her intelligence and friendliness. She was a nice girl. She would make a good wife, a splendid companion.

  She had tried all those explanations and had halfbelieved every one of them. But half-belief was not enough.

  It was not that she had any definite fault to find in Drake as a husband. He was always thoughtful, kind and a gentleman. Their married life was not one of passion, and yet it suited the paler emotional surges of the late thirties. She wasn’t nineteen. What did she expect?

  That was it; she wasn’t nineteen. She wasn’t beautiful, or charming, or glamorous. What did she expect? Could she have expected Drake—handsome and rugged, whose interest in intellectual pursuits was quite minor, who neither asked about her work in all the months of their marriage, nor offered to discuss his own with her? Why, then, did he marry her?

  But there was no answer to that question, and it had nothing to do with what Rose was trying to do now. It was extraneous, she told herself fiercely; it was a childish distraction from the task she had set herself. She w-as acting like a girl of nineteen, after all, with no chronological excuse for it.

  She found that the point of her pencil had somehow broken, and took a new one. In the column headed “Drake” she wrote, “Why is he suspicious of Harg Tholan?” and under it she put an arrow pointing to the other column.

  What she had already written there was sufficient explanation. If Earth were spreading the Inhibition Death, or if Earth knew it was suspected of such a deed, then, obviously, it would be preparing for eventual retaliation on the part of the aliens. In fact, the setting would actually be one of preliminary maneuvering for the first interstellar war of history. It was an adequate but horrible explanation.

  Now there was left the second question, the one she could not answer. She wrote it slowly, “Why Drake’s reaction to Tholan’s words, ‘You are a most charming hostess’?”

  She tried to bring back the exact setting. The Hawkinsite had said it innocuously, matter-of-factly, politely, and Drake had frozen at the sound of it. Over and over, she had listened to that particular passage in the recording. An Earthman might have said it in just such an inconsequential tone on leaving a routine cocktail party. The recording did not carry the sight of Drake’s face; she had only her memory for that. Drake’s eyes had become alive with fear and hate, and Drake was one who feared practically nothing. What was there to fear in the phrase, “You are a most charming hostess,” that could upset him so? Jealousy? Absurd. The feeling that Tholan had been sarcastic? Maybe, though unlikely. She was sure Tholan was sincere.

  She gave it up and put a large question mark under that second question. There were two of them now, one under “Harg Tholan” and one under “Drake.” Could there be a connection between Tholan’s interest in missing persons and Drake’s reaction to a polite party phrase? She could think of none.

  She put her head down upon her arms. It was getting dark in the office and she was very tired. For a while, she must have hovered in that queer land between waking and sleeping, when thoughts and phrases lose the control of the conscious and disport themselves erratically and surrealistically through one’s head. But, no matter where they danced and leaped, they always returned to that one phrase, “You are a most charming hostess.” Sometimes she heard it in Harg Tholan’s cultured, lifeless voice, and sometimes in Drake’s vibrant one. When Drake said it, it was full of love, full of a love she never heard from him. She liked to hear him say it.

  She startled herself to wakefulness. It was quite dark in the office now, and she put on the desk light. She blinked, then frowned a little. A
nother thought must have come to her in that fitful half-sleep. There had been another phrase which had upset Drake. What was it? Her forehead furrowed with mental effort. It had not been last evening. It was not anything in the recorded conversation, so it must have been before that. Nothing came and she grew restless.

  Looking at her watch, she gasped. It was almost eight. They would be at home waiting for her.

  But she did not want to go home. She did not want to face them. Slowly, she took up the paper upon which she had scrawled her thoughts of the afternoon, tore it into little pieces and let them flutter into the little atomic-flash ashtray upon her desk. They were gone in a little flare and nothing was left of them.

  If only nothing were left of the thoughts they represented as well.

  It was no use. She would have to go home.

  They were not there waiting for her, after all. She came upon them getting out of a gyrocab just as she emerged from the tubes on to street level. The gyrocabbie, wideeyed, gazed after his fares for a moment, then hovered upward and away. By unspoken mutual consent, the three waited until they had entered the apartment before speaking.

  Rose said disinterestedly, “I hope you have had a pleasant day, Dr. Tholan.”

  “Quite. And a fascinating and profitable one as well, I think.”

  “Have you had a chance to eat?” Though Rose had not herself eaten, she was anything but hungry.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  Drake interrupted, “We had lunch and supper sent up to us. Sandwiches.” He sounded tired.

  Rose said, “Hello, Drake.” It was the first time she had addressed him.

  Drake scarcely looked at her. “Hello.”

  The Hawkinsite said, “Your tomatoes are remarkable vegetables. We have nothing to compare with them in taste on our own planet. I believe I ate two dozen, as well as an entire bottle of tomato derivative.”

  “Ketchup,” explained Drake, briefly.

  Rose said, “And your visit at the Missing Persons Bureau, Dr. Tholan? You say you found it profitable?”

  “I should say so. Yes.”

  Rose kept her back to him. She plumped up sofa cushions as she said, “In what way?”

  “I find it most interesting that the large majority of missing persons are males. Wives frequently report missing husbands, while the reverse is practically never the case.” Rose said, “Oh, that’s not mysterious, Dr. Tholan. You simply don’t realize the economic setup we have on Earth. On this planet, you see, it is the male who is usually the member of the family that maintains it as an economic unit. He is the one whose labor is repaid in units of currency. The wife’s function is generally that of taking care of home and children.”

  “Surely this is not universal!”

  Drake put in, “More or less. If you are thinking of my wife, she is an example of the minority of women who are capable of making their own way in the world.”

  Rose looked at him swiftly. Was he being sarcastic?

  The Hawkinsite said, “Your implication, Mrs. Smollett, is that women, being economically dependent upon their male companions, find it less feasible to disappear?”

  “That’s a gentle way of putting it,” said Rose, “but that’s about it.”

  “And would you call the Missing Persons Bureau of New York a fair sampling of such cases in the planet at large?”

  “Why, I should think so.”

  The Hawkinsite said, abruptly, “And is there, then, an economic explanation for the fact that since interstellar travel has been developed, the percentage of young males among the missing is more pronounced than ever?”

  It was Drake who answered, with a verbal snap. “Good lord, that’s even less of a mystery than the other. Nowadays, the runaway has all space to disappear into. Anyone who wants to get away from trouble need only hop the nearest space freighter. They’re always looking for crewmen, no questions asked, and it would be almost impossible to locate the runaway after that, if he really wanted to stay out of circulation.”

  “And almost always young men in their first year of marriage.”

  Rose laughed suddenly. She said, “Why, that’s just the time a man’s troubles seem the greatest. If he survives the first year, there is usually no need to disappear at all.”

  Drake was obviously not amused. Rose thought again that he looked tired and unhappy. Why did he insist on bearing the load alone? And then she thought that perhaps he had to.

  The Hawkinsite said, suddenly, “Would it offend you if I disconnected for a period of time?”

  Rose said, “Not at all. I hope you haven’t had too exhausting a day. Since you come from a planet whose gravity is greater than that of Earth’s, I’m afraid we too easily presume that you would show greater endurance than we do.”

  “Oh, I’m not tired in a physical sense.” He looked for a moment at her legs and blinked very rapidly, indicating amusement. “You know, I keep expecting Earthmen to fall either forward or backward in view of their meager equipment of standing limbs. You must pardon me if my comment is overfamiliar, but your mention of the lesser gravity of Earth brought it to my mind. On my planet, two legs would simply not be enough. But this is all beside the point at the moment. It is just that I have been absorbing so many new and unusual concepts that I feel the desire for a little disconnection.”

  Rose shrugged inwardly. Well, that was as close as one race could get to another, anyway. As nearly as the expeditions to Hawkin’s Planet could make out, Hawkinsites had the faculty for disconnecting their conscious mind from all its bodily functions and allowing it to sink into an undisturbed meditative process for periods of time lasting up to terrestrial days. Hawkinsites found the process pleasant, even necessary sometimes, though no Earthman could truly say what function it served.

  Conversely, it had never been entirely possible for Earthmen to explain the concept of “sleep” to a Hawkinsite, or to any extraterrestrial. What an Earthman would call sleep or a dream, a Hawkinsite would view as an alarming sign of mental disintegration. Rose thought uneasily, Here is another way Earthmen are unique.

  The Hawkinsite was backing away, drooping so that his forelimbs swept the floor in polite farewell. Drake nodded curtly at him as he disappeared behind the bend in the corridor. They heard his door open, close, then silence.

  After minutes in which the silence was thick between them, Drake’s chair creaked as he shifted restlessly. With a mild horror, Rose noticed blood upon his lips. She thought to herself, He’s in some kind of trouble. I’ve got to talk to him. I can’t let it go on like this.

  She said, “Drake!”

  Drake seemed to look at her from a far, far distance. Slowly, his eyes focused closer at hand and he said, “What is it? Are you through for the day, too?”

  “No, I’m ready to begin. It’s the tomorrow you spoke of. Aren’t you going to speak to me?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Last night, you said you would speak to me tomorrow. I am ready now.”

  Drake frowned. His eyes withdrew beneath a lowered brow and Rose felt some of her resolution begin to leave her. He said, “I thought it was agreed that you would not question me about my business in this matter.”

  “I think it’s too late for that. I know too much about your business by now.”

  “What do you mean?” he shouted, jumping to his feet. Recollecting himself, he approached, laid his hands upon her shoulders and repeated in a lower voice, “What do you mean?”

  Rose kept her eyes upon her hands, which rested limply in her lap. She bore the painfully gripping fingers patiently, and said slowly, “Dr. Tholan thinks that Earth is spreading the Inhibition Death purposely. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  She waited. Slowly, the grip relaxed and he was standing there, hands at his side, face baffled and unhappy. He said, “Where did you get that notion?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  He said breathlessly, unnaturally, “I want to know exactly why you say that. Don’t play foolish games with
me, Rose. This is for keeps.”

  “If I tell you, will you answer one question?”

  “What question?”

  “Is Earth spreading the disease deliberately, Drake?” Drake flung his hands upward. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” He knelt before her. He took both her hands in his and she could feel their trembling. He was forcing his voice into soothing, loving syllables.

  He was saying, “Rose dear, look, you’ve got something red-hot by the tail and you think you can use it to tease me in a little husband-wife repartee. Now, I’m not asking much. Just tell me exactly what causes you to say what—what you have just said.” He was terribly earnest about it.

  “I was at the New York Academy of Medicine this afternoon. I did some reading there.”

  “But why? What made you do it?”

  “You seemed so interested in the Inhibition Death, for one thing. And Dr. Tholan made those statements about the incidence increasing since interstellar travel, and being the highest on the planet nearest Earth.” She paused.

  “And your reading?” he prompted. “What about your reading, Rose?”

  She said, “It backs him up. All I could do was to skim hastily into the direction of their research in recent decades. It seems obvious to me, though, that at least some of the Hawkinsites are considering the possibility the Inhibition Death originates on Earth.”

  “Do they say so outright?”

  “No. Or, if they have, I haven’t seen it.” She gazed at him in surprise. In a matter like this, certainly the government would have investigated Hawkinsite research on the matter. She said, gently, “Don’t you know about Hawkinsite research in the matter, Drake? The government—”

  “Never mind about that.” Drake had moved away from her and now he turned again. His eyes were bright. He said, as though making a wonderful discovery, “Why, you’re an expert in this!”