What Rough Beast? Part 4

A moment later, the ship turned on edge, or shifted its shape, and slid back into the sky. Ward picked up the phone and called Saucer Control.

"Got it," the bored voice said.

He put down the phone and sat in silence, feeling sick with frustration.

"Might as well knock off, Bobby," he said gently to the boy. "I guess that's all for the night. You run along and hit the sack."

The boy started to leave and then turned back. "I'm sorry, John," he said. "I guess I'm not very good at it. There's one thing though...." He hesitated.

"Yes?"

"I don't think they know any poetry. In fact, I'm pretty sure of that."

"All right," Ward said, laughing. "I guess that's the most important thing in _your_ life right now. Run along, Bobby."

An hour later, his watch ended and he started for home, still feeling depressed at having failed. He was pa.s.sing the dormitory when he saw it.

It hung in the air, almost overhead. The color of the moonlight itself, it was hard to spot. But it was not the Saucer that held him rigid with attention.

Over the roof of the dormitory, small and growing smaller as it went straight toward the Saucer, he saw a figure, then another and then a third. While he watched, there was a jet of blue light from the object in the sky--the opening of an airlock, he thought--and the figures disappeared, one by one, into the interior of the ship. Ward began to run.

It was strictly forbidden for a teacher to enter the dormitory--that part of the boys' world was completely their own. But he ignored that ruling now as he raced up the stairs. All he could think of was that this was the chance to identify the invaders. The boys who had levitated themselves up to the Saucer would be missing.

He was still exultantly certain of this as he jerked open the doors of the first three rooms. Each one was empty. And the fourth and fifth, as well. Frantically, he pulled open door after door, going through the motions, although his mind told him that it was useless, that all of the boys, with a Saucer so close, would be out looking at it.

Wait until they returned? He couldn't remain in the dormitory and, even if he did, when they all came back, how could he find out which boys had gone up to the ship? They wouldn't be likely to tell, nor would the others, even if they knew. Aimlessly, he went on opening doors, flashing his Watcher's light.

Perhaps there would be a clue in one of the rooms. Excited again, he rapidly checked them, rummaging in closets, picking up their sports things and their toys. Nothing there. Until he found the book.

It was an odd-looking book, in a language he couldn't read. He looked at it doubtfully. Was the script simply Cyrillic? Or Hebrew? He stuffed it into his pocket and glanced around at the walls of the room. Pictures of athletes, mostly, and a couple of pin-ups. In a drawer, under some clothing, a French post card. He examined some of the objects on the dresser.

Then he was looking stupidly at his hand. He was holding a piece of string with a ring attached to it. And, just as certainly, there was something attached to the other end. Or it had been. But there was nothing he could see now. He pulled on the string and it tightened. Yes, there was a drag on the other end, _but there was nothing he could see ... or feel_.

He tried to reconstruct his actions. He had been pawing among the things. He had taken hold of the string and had pulled something attached to the end of it off the table. The thing had fallen and disappeared--but _where_? It was _still_ tied to the string, but where was it?

Another dimension, he thought, feeling the hair stand up on his neck, the sudden riot of his blood as he knew he had found the evidence he wanted.

He snapped off the light and groped his way rapidly down the stairs.

Once on the street, he began to run. It did not occur to him to feel ridiculous at dragging along behind him, on the end of a string, some object which he could not see.

"Okay," Ann said. "But what _is_ it?" She sat on the divan looking at the book.

"I don't know, but I think it's alien."

"_I_ think it's a comic book. In some foreign language--or maybe in cla.s.sical Greek for all we know." She pointed to an ill.u.s.tration. "Isn't this like the fish you caught? Of course it is. And look at the fisherman--his clothes are funny looking, but I'll bet he's telling about the one that got away."

"d.a.m.n it, don't joke! What about _this_?" He waved the string.

"Well, what about it?"

"It's extra-dimensional. It's...." He jerked the string with nervous repet.i.tion and, suddenly, something was in his hand. Surprised, he dropped it. It disappeared and he felt the tug on the end of the string.

"There _is_ something!" He began jerking the string and it was there again. This time he held it, looking at it with awe.

It was neither very big nor very heavy. It was probably made out of some kind of gla.s.s or plastic. The color was dazzling, but that was not what made him turn his head away--it was the shape of the thing. Something was wrong with its surfaces. Plane melted into plane, the surface curved and rejoined itself. He felt dizzy.

"What is it, John?"

"Something--something like a Klein Bottle--or a tesseract--or maybe both of them together." He looked at it for a moment and then turned away again. It was impossible to look at it very long. "It's something built to cut through our three-dimensional s.p.a.ce," he said. He dropped it, then tugged. The thing dropped out of sight and reappeared again, rolling up the string toward his hand.

That was when he lost control. He lay down on the floor and howled in a seizure of laughter that was like crying.

"_John!_" Ann said primly. "John Ward, you _stop_!" She went out of the room and returned with a gla.s.s half full of whisky.

Ward got up from the floor and weakly slouched in a chair. He took a long drink from the gla.s.s, lit his pipe with great deliberation, and spoke very softly. "Well," he said, "I think we've got the answer."

"Have we?"

"Sure. It was there all the time and I couldn't see it. I always thought it was strange we couldn't get in touch with the Outs.p.a.cers. I had Bobby try tonight--_he_ couldn't do anything either. I thought maybe he wasn't trying--or that he was one of them and didn't want to let me in on it.

He said they sounded--funny. By that, he meant strange or alien, I thought."

"Well, I'm sure they must be," Ann said, relaxed now that John's outburst was over.

"Yes. But that's _not_ what he meant--he's just a normal human genius.

He _meant_ funny." He lifted his hand. "Know what this is?" He held up the strange object on the string. "It's a _yo-yo_. An _extra-dimensional yo-yo_. And you were right--that thing _is_ a comic book. Look," he said. He held the odd object toward her. "See this? J.H.--Jacky Hodge, one of the stupidest ones. It's _his_ yo-yo. But I was right about one thing. We _are_ being invaded. It's probably been going on for centuries. Invaded by _morons_, morons with interstellar drives, super-science--super-_yo-yos_! Morons from the stars!"

He began to laugh again. Ann went out to the kitchen for another gla.s.s.

Then, after a while, she went back for the bottle.