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TWENTY-TWO
He set the receiver back down and did not take his
eyes from the spot that had moved outside the car. The
bulge in the ground, among the stones. An animal, he
said to himself. And his heart lugged under the excessive load, the shock of recognition. I know what it is, he
realized; I've never seen one before but I know it from
the old nature films they show on Government TV.
They're extinct! he said to himself; swiftly he dragged
out his much-creased Sidney's, turned the pages with
twitching fingers.
TOAD (Bufonidae), all varieties. E.
Extinct for years now. The critter most precious to
Wilbur Mercer, along with the donkey. But toads most
of all.
I need a box. He squirmed around, saw nothing in
the back seat of the hovercar; he leaped out, hurried to
the trunk compartment, unlocked and opened it. There
rested a cardboard container, inside it a spare fuel pump for his car. He dumped the fuel pump out, found
some furry hempish twine, and walked slowly toward
the toad. Not taking his eyes from it.
The toad, he saw, blended in totally with the texture
and shade of the ever-present dust. It had, perhaps,
evolved, meeting the new climate as it had met all
climates before. Had it not moved he would never have
spotted it; yet he had been sitting no more than two
yards from it. What happens when you find -- if you
find -- an animal believed extinct? he asked himself, trying to remember. It happened
so seldom. Something
about a star of honor from the U.N. and a stipend. A
reward running into millions of dollars. And of all possibilities -- to find the critter most sacred to Mercer.
Jesus, he thought; it can't be. Maybe it's due to brain
damage on my part: exposure to radioactivity. I'm a
special, he thought. Something has happened to me.
Like the chickenhead Isidore and his spider; what happened to him is happening to me. Did Mercer arrange
it? But I'm Mercer. I arranged it; I found the toad.
Found it because I see through Mercer's eyes.
He squatted on his haunches, close beside the toad.
It had shoved aside the grit to make a partial hole for
itself, displaced the dust with its rump. So that only
the top of its flat skull and its eyes projected above
ground. Meanwhile, its metabolism slowed almost to a
halt, it had drifted off into a trance. The eyes held no
spark, no awareness of him, and in horror he thought, it's dead, of thirst maybe. But it had moved.
Setting the cardboard box down, he carefully began
brushing the loose soil away from the toad. It did not
seem to object, but of course it was not aware of his
existence.
When he lifted the toad out he felt its peculiar coolness; in his hands its body seemed dry and wrinkled
--
almost flabby -- and as cold as if it had taken up residence in a grotto miles under the earth away from the
sun. Now the toad squirmed; with its weak hind feet it
tried to pry itself from his grip, wanting, instinctively,
to go flopping off. A big one, he thought; full-grown
and wise. Capable, in its own fashion, of surviving even that which
we're not really managing to survive. I wonder where it finds the water for its eggs.
So this is what Mercer sees, he thought as he
painstakingly tied the cardboard box shut -- tied it again
and again. Life which we can no longer distinguish; life
carefully buried up to its forehead in the carcass of a
dead world. In every cinder of the universe Mercer
probably perceives inconspicuous life. Now I know, he
thought. And once having seen through Mercer's eyes I
probably will never stop.
And no android, he thought, will cut the legs from
this. As they did from the chickenhead's spider.
He placed the carefully tied box on the car seat and
got in behind the wheel. It's like being a kid again, he
thought. Now all the weight had left him, the monumental and oppressive fatigue. Wait until Iran hears
about this; he snatched the vidphone receiver, started to dial. Then
paused. I'll keep it as a surprise, he concluded. It'll only take thirty or forty minutes to fly back
there.
Eagerly he switched the motor on, and, shortly, had
zipped up into the sky, in the direction of San Francisco, seven hundred miles to the south.
***
At the Penfield mood organ, Iran Deckard sat with
her right index finger touching the numbered dial. But
she did not dial; she felt too listless and ill to want
anything: a burden which closed off the future and any
possibilities which it might once have contained. If
Rick were here, she thought, he'd get me to dial 3 and
that way I'd find myself wanting to dial something important, ebullient joy or if not that then possibly an
888, the desire to watch TV no matter what's on it. I wonder what is on
it, she thought. And then she wondered again where Rick had gone. He may be coming
back and on the other hand he may not be, she said
to herself, and felt her bones within her shrink with
age.
A knock sounded at the apartment door.
Putting down the Penfield manual she jumped up,
thinking I don't need to dial, now; I already have it -- if
it is Rick. She ran to the door, opened the door wide.
"Hi," he said. There he stood, a cut on his cheek, his
clothes wrinkled and gray, even his hair saturated with
dust. His hands, his face -- dust clung to every part of him except his eyes. Round with awe his eyes shone,
like those of a little boy; he looks, she thought, as if he
has been playing and now it's time to give up and come
home. To rest and wash and tell about the miracles of
the day.
"It's nice to see you," she said.
"I have something." He held a cardboard box with
both hands; when he entered the apartment he did not
set it down. As if, she thought, it contained something
too fragile and too valuable to let go of; he wanted to
keep it perpetually in his hands.
She said, "I'll fix you a cup of coffee." At the stove
she pressed the coffee button and in a moment had put
the imposing mug by his place at the kitchen table. Still
holding the box he seated himself, and on his face the
round-eyed wonder remained. In all the years she had
known him she had not encountered this expression before. Something had happened since she had seen him
last; since, last night, he had gone off in his car. Now he
had come back and this box had arrived with him: he
held, in the box, everything that had happened to him.
"I'm going to sleep," he announced. "All day. I
phoned in and got Harry Bryant; he said take the day
off and rest. Which is exactly what I'm going to do."
Carefully he set the box down on the table and picked
up his coffee mug; dutifully, because she wanted him to,
he drank his coffee.
Seating herself across from him she said,
"What do
you have in the box, Rick?"
"A toad."
"Can I see it?" She watched as he untied the box and
removed the lid. "Oh," she said, seeing the toad; for
some reason it frightened her. "Will it bite?" she asked.
"Pick it up. It won't bite; toads don't have teeth."
Rick lifted the toad out and extended it toward her.
Stemming her aversion she accepted it. "I thought toads
were extinct," she said as she turned it over, Curious about its legs; they seemed almost useless. "Can toads
jump like frogs? I mean, will it jump out of my hands
suddenly?"
"The legs of toads are weak," Rick said. "That's the
main difference between a toad and a frog, that and
water. A frog remains near water but a toad can live in the desert. I
found this in the desert, up near the Oregon border. Where everything had died." He reached to
take it back from her. But she had discovered something; still holding it upside down she poked at its
abdomen and then, with her nail, located the tiny control panel. She flipped the panel open.
***
"Oh." His face fell by degrees. "Yeah. So I see;
you're right." Crestfallen, he gazed mutely at the false
animal; he took it back from her, fiddled with the legs
as if baffled -- he did not seem quite to understand. He
then carefully replaced it in its box. "I wonder how it
got out there in the desolate part of California like that.
Somebody must have put it there. No way to tell what
for."
"Maybe I shouldn't have told you -- about it being
eIectrical." She put her hand out, touched his arm; she
felt guilty, seeing the effect it had on him, the change.
"No," Rick said. "I'm glad to know. Or rather
--" He became silent. "I'd prefer to know."
"Do you want to use the mood organ? To
feel better?
You always have gotten a lot out of it, more than I ever
have."
"I'll be okay." He shook his head, as if trying to
clear it, still bewildered. "The spider Mercer gave the
chickenhead, Isidore; it probably was artificial, too. But
it doesn't matter. The electric things have their lives,
too. Paltry as those lives are."
Iran said, "You look as if you've walked a hundred
miles."
"It's been a long day ." He nodded.
"Go get into bed and sleep."
He stared at her, then, as if perplexed. "It is over,
isn't it?" Trustingly he seemed to be waiting for her to
tell him, as if she would know. As if hearing himself say
it meant nothing; he had a dubious attitude toward his
own words; they didn't become real, not until she
agreed.
"It's over," she said.
"God, what a marathon assignment," Rick said.
"Once I began on it there wasn't any way for me to
stop; it kept carrying me along, until finally I got to the
Batys, and then suddenly I didn't have anything to do.
And that --" He hesitated, evidently amazed at what he
had begun to say. "That part was worse," he said.
"After I finished. I couldn't stop because there would
be nothing left after I stopped. You were right this
morning when you said I'm nothing but a crude cop
with crude cop hands."
"I don't feel that anymore," she said. "I'm just
damn glad to have you come back home where you
ought to be." She kissed him and that seemed to please
him; his face lit up, almost as much as before -- before
she had shown him that the toad was electric.
"Do you think I did wrong?" he asked. "What I did
today?"
"No."
"Mercer said it was wrong but I should do it anyhow. Really weird. Sometimes it's better to do something wrong than right."
"It's the curse on us," Iran said. "That Mercer talks
about."
"The dust?" he asked.
"The killers that found Mercer in his sixteenth year,
when they told him he couldn't reverse time and bring
things back to life again. So now all he can do is move
along with life, going where it goes, to death. And the
killers throw the rocks; it's they who're doing it. Still
pursuing him. And all of us, actually. Did one of them
cut your cheek, where it's been bleeding?"
"Yes," he said wanly.
"Will you go to bed now? If I set the mood organ to
a 670 setting?"
"What does that bring about?" he asked.
"Long deserved peace," Iran said.
He got to his feet, stood painfully, his face drowsy
and confused, as if a legion of battles had ebbed and
advanced there, over many years. And then, by degrees,
he progressed along the route to the bedroom. "Okay,"
he said. "Long deserved peace." He stretched out on
the bed, dust sifting from his clothes and hair onto the
white sheets.
No need to turn on the mood organ, Iran realized as
she pressed the button which made the windows of the
bedroom opaque. The gray light of day disappeared.
On the bed Rick, after a moment, slept.
She stayed there for a time, keeping him in sight to
be sure he wouldn't wake up, wouldn't spring to a sitting position in fear as he sometimes did at night. And
then, presently, she returned to the kitchen, reseated
herself at the kitchen table.
Next to her the electric toad flopped and rustled in
its box; she wondered what it "ate," and what repairs
on it would run. Artificial flies, she decided.
Opening the phone book she looked in the
yellow
pages under animal accessories, electric; she dialed and
when the saleswoman answered, said, "I'd like to order
one pound of artificial flies that really fly around and
buzz, please."
"Is it for an electric turtle, ma'am?"
"A toad," she said.
"Then I suggest our mixed assortment of artificial
crawling and flying bugs of all types including --"
"The flies will do," Iran said. "Will you deliver? I
don't want to leave my apartment; my husband's asleep
and I want to be sure he's all right."
The clerk said, "For a toad I'd suggest
also a perpetually renewing puddle, unless it's a horned toad, in
which case there's a kit containing sand, multicolored
pebbles, and bits of organic debris. And if you're going to be putting
it through its feed cycle regularly I suggest
you let our service department make a periodic tongue
adjustment. In a toad that's vital."
"Fine," Iran said. "I want it to work perfectly. My
husband is devoted to it." She gave her address and
hung up.
And, feeling better, fixed herself at last a cup of
black, hot coffee.
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