"Did you make them?" Tommy asked.
"I?" Billings removed his pipe. "No, not I."
"Where did you get them?"
"They were lent to me. A trial group. In fact,
the
trial group. They're new. Very new."
"You want – you want to sell one of them?"
Billings laughed. "No, I don't. Sorry. I have to keep them."
Tommy nodded, resuming his study. Through the glass he could see their heads clearly. They were not quite men. From the front of each forehead antennae sprouted, tiny wire-like projections ending in knobs. Like the vanes of insects he had seen. They were not men, but they were similar to men. Except for the antennae they seemed normal – the antennae and their extreme minuteness.
"Did they come from another planet?" Tommy asked. "From Mars? Venus?"
"No."
"Where, then?"
"That's a hard question to answer. The question has no meaning, not in connection with them."
"What's the report for?"
"The report?"
"In there. The big book with all the facts. The thing you're doing."
"I've been working on that a long time."
"How long?"
Billings smiled. "That can't be answered, either. It has no meaning. But a long time indeed. I'm getting near the end, though."
"What are you going to do with it? When it's finished."
"Turn it over to my superiors."
"Who are they?"
"You wouldn't know them."
"Where are they? Are they here in town?"
"Yes. And no. There's no way to answer that. Maybe someday you'll -"
"The report's about us," Tommy said.
Billings turned his head. His keen eyes bored into Tommy. "Oh?"
"It's about us. The report. The book."
"How do you know?"
"I looked at it. I saw the title on the back. It's about the earth, isn't it?"
Billings nodded. "Yes. It's about the earth."
"You're not from here, are you? You're from someplace else. Outside the system."
"How – how do you know that?"
Tommmy grinned with superior pride. "I can tell. I have ways."
"How much did you see in the report?"
"Not much. What's it for? Why are you making it? What are they going to do with it?"
Billings considered a long time before he answered. At last he spoke. "That," he said, 'depends on
those.
" He gestured toward the wood frame. "What they do with the report depends on how Project C works."
"Project C?"
"The third project. There've been only two others before. They wait a long time. Each project is planned carefully. New factors are considered at great length before any decision is reached."
"Two others?"
"Antennae for these. A complete new arrangement of the cognitive faculties. Almost no dependence on innate drives. Greater flexibility. Some decrease in over-all emotional index, but what they lose in libido energy they gain in rational control. I would expect more emphasis on individual experience, rather than dependence on traditional group learning. Less stereotyped thinking. More rapid advance in situation control."
Billings's words made little sense. Tommy was lost. "What were the others like?" he asked.
"The others? Project A was a long time ago. It's dim in my mind. Wings."
"Wings."
"They were winged, depending on mobility and possessing considerable individualistic characteristics. In the final analysis we allowed them too much self-dependence. Pride. They had concepts of pride and honor. They were fighters. Each against the others. Divided into atomized antagonistic factions and -"
"What were the rest like?"
Billings knocked his pipe against the railing. He continued, speaking more to himself than to the boy standing in front of him. "The winged type was our first attempt at high-level organisms. Project A. After it failed we went into conference. Project B was the result. We were certain of success. We eliminated many of the excessive individualistic characteristics and substituted a group orientation process. A herd method of learning and experiencing. We hoped general control over the project would be assured. Our work with the first project convinced us that greater supervision would be necessary if we were to be successful."
"What did the second kind look like?" Tommy asked, searching for a meaningful thread in Billings's dissertation.
"We removed the wings, as I said. The general physiognomy remained the same. Although control was maintained for a short time, this second type also fractured away from the pattern, splintering into self-determined groups beyond our supervision. There is no doubt that surviving members of the initial type A were instrumental in influencing them. We should have exterminated the initial type as soon -"
"Are there any left?"
"Of Project B? Of course." Billings was irritated. "You're Project B. That's why I'm down here. As soon as my report is complete the final disposition of your type can be effected. There is no doubt my recommendation will be identical with that regarding Project A. Since your Project has moved out of jurisdiction to such a degree that for all intents and purposes you are no longer functional -"
But Tommy wasn't listening. He was bent over the wood frame, peering down at the tiny figures within. Nine little people, men and women both. Nine – and no more in all the world.
Tommy began to tremble. Excitement rushed through him. A plan was dawning, bursting alive inside him. He held his face rigid, his body tense.
"I guess I'll be going." He moved from the porch, back into the room toward the hall door.
"Going?" Billings got to his feet. "But -"
"I have to go. It's getting late. I'll see you later." He opened the hall door. "Goodbye."
"Goodbye," Mr Billings said, surprised. "I hope I'll see you again, young man."
"You will," Tommy said.
He ran home as fast as he could. He raced up the porch steps and inside the house.
"Just in time for dinner," his mother said, from the kitchen.
Tommy halted on the stairs. "I have to go out again."
"No you don't! You're going to -"
"Just for awhile. I'll be right back." Tommy hurried up to his room and entered, glancing around.
The bright yellow room. Pennants on the walls. The big dresser and mirror, brush and comb, model airplanes, pictures of baseball players. The paper bag of bottle caps. The small radio with its cracked plastic cabinet. The wooden cigar boxes full of junk, odds and ends, things he had collected.
Tommy grabbed up one of the cigar boxes and dumped its contents out on the bed. He stuck the box under his jacket and headed out of the room.
"Where are you going?" his father demanded, lowering his evening newspaper and looking up.
"I'll be back."
"Your mother said it was time for dinner. Didn't you hear her?"
"I'll be back. This is important." Tommy pushed the front door open. Chill evening air blew in, cold and thin. "Honest. Real important."
"Ten minutes." Vince Jackson looked at his wristwatch. "No longer. Or you don't get any dinner."
"Ten minutes." Tommy slammed the door. He ran down the steps, out into the darkness.
A light showed, flickering under the bottom and through the keyhole of Mr Billings's room.
Tommy hesitated a moment. Then he raised his hand and knocked. For a time there was silence. Then a stirring sound. The sound of heavy footsteps.
The door opened. Mr Billings peered out into the hall.
"Hello," Tommy said.
"You're back!" Mr Billings opened the door wide and Tommy walked quickly into the room. "Did you forget something?"
"No."
Billings closed the door. "Sit down. Would you like anything? An apple? Some milk?"
"No." Tommy wandered nervously around the room, touching things here and there, books and papers and bundles of clippings.
Billings watched the boy a moment. Then he returned to his desk, seating himself with a sigh. "I think I'll continue with my report. I hope to finish very soon." He tapped a pile of notes beside him. "The last of them. Then I can leave here and present the report along with my recommendations."
Billings bent over his immense typewriter, tapping steadily away. The relentless rumble of the ancient machine vibrated through the room. Tommy turned and stepped out of the room, onto the porch.
In the cold evening air the porch was pitch black. He halted, adjusting to the darkness. After a time he made out the sacks of fertilizer, the rickety chair. And in the center, the wood frame with its wire netting over it, heaps of dirt and grass piled around.
Tommy glanced back into the room. Billings was bent over the typewriter, absorbed in his work. He had taken off his dark blue coat and hung it over the chair. He was working in his vest, his sleeves rolled up.
Tommy squatted beside the frame. He slid the cigar box from under his jacket and laid it down, lid open. He grasped the netting and pried it back, loose from the row of nails.
From the frame a few faint apprehensive squeaks sounded. Nervous scuttlings among the dried grass.
Tommy reached down, feeling among the grass and plants. His fingers closed over something, a small thing that squirmed in fright, twisting in wild terror. He dropped it into the cigar box and sought another.
In a moment he had them all. Nine of them, all nine in the wood cigar box.
He closed the lid and slipped it back under his jacket. Quickly he left the porch, returning to the room.
Billings glanced up vaguely from his work, pen in one hand, papers in the other. "Did you want to talk to me?" he murmured, pushing up his glasses.
Tommy shook his head. "I have to go."
"Already? But you just came!"
"I have to go." Tommy opened the door to the hall. "Goodnight."
Billings rubbed his forehead wearily, his face lined with fatigue. "All right, boy. Perhaps I'll see you again before I leave." He resumed his work, tapping slowly away at the great typewriter, bent with fatigue.
Tommy shut the door behind him. He ran down the stairs, outside on the porch. Against his chest the cigar box shook and moved. Nine. All nine of them. He had them all. Now they were his. They belonged to him – and there weren't any more of them, anywhere in the world. His plan had worked perfectly.
He hurried down the street toward his own house, as fast as he could run.
He found an old cage out in the garage he had once kept white rats in. He cleaned it and carried it upstairs to his room. He spread papers on the floor of the cage and fixed a water dish and some sand.
When the cage was ready he emptied the contents of the cigar box into it.
The nine tiny figures huddled together in the center of the cage, a little bundle of pink. Tommy shut the door of the cage and fastened it tightly. He carried the cage to the dresser and then drew a chair up by it so he could watch.
The nine little people began to move around hesitantly, exploring the cage. Tommy's heart beat with rapid excitement as he watched them.
He had got them away from Mr Billings. They were his, now. And Mr Billings didn't know where he lived or even his name.
They were talking to each other. Moving their antennae rapidly, the way he had seen ants do. One of the little people came over to the side of the cage. He stood gripping the wire, peering out into the room. He was joined by another, a female. They were naked. Except for the hair on their heads they were pink and smooth.
He wondered what they ate. From the big refrigerator in the kitchen he took some cheese and some hamburger, adding crumbled up bits of bread and lettuce leaves and a little plate of milk.
They liked the milk and bread. But they left the meat alone. The lettuce leaves they used to begin the making of little huts.
Tommy was fascinated. He watched them all the next morning before school, then again at lunch time, and all afternoon until dinner.
"What you got up there?" his Dad demanded, at dinner.
"Nothing."
"You haven't got a snake, have you?" his Mom asked apprehensively. "If you have another snake up there, young man -"
"No." Tommy shook his head, bolting down his meal. "It's not a snake."
He finished eating and ran upstairs.
The little creatures had finished fixing their huts out of the lettuce leaves. Some were inside. Others were wandering around the cage, exploring it.
Tommy seated himself before the dresser and watched. They were smart. A lot smarter than the white rats he had owned. And cleaner. They used the sand he had put there for them. They were smart – and quite tame.
After awhile Tommy closed the door of the room. Holding his breath he unfastened the cage, opening one side wide. He reached in his hand and caught one of the little men. He drew him out of the cage and then opened his hand carefully.
The little man clung to his palm, peering over the edge and up at him, antennae waving wildly.
"Don't be afraid," Tommy said.
The little man got cautiously to his feet. He walked across Tommy's palm, to his wrist. Slowly he climbed Tommy's arm, glancing over the side. He reached Tommy's shoulder and stopped, gazing up into his face.
"You're sure small," Tommy said. He got another one from the cage and put the two of them on the bed. They walked around the bed for a long time. More had come to the open side of the cage and were staring cautiously out onto the dresser. One found Tommy's comb. He inspected it, tugging at the teeth. A second joined him. The two tiny creatures tugged at the comb, but without success.
"What do you want?" Tommy asked. After a while they gave up. They found a nickel lying on the dresser. One of them managed to turn it up on end. He rolled it. The nickel gained speed, rushing toward the edge of the dresser. The tiny men ran after it in consternation. The nickel fell over the side.
"Be careful," Tommy warned. He didn't want anything to happen to them. He had too many plans. It would be easy to rig up things for them to do – like fleas he had seen at the circus. Little carts to pull. Swings, slides. Things they could operate. He could train them, and then charge admission.
Maybe he could take them on tour. Maybe he'd even get a write-up in the newspaper. His mind raced. All kinds of things. Endless possibilities. But he had to start out easy – and be careful.