The Visitors (v1.0)

17. LONE PINE

The visitor had gotten lumpy. It had bumps all over it, but it kept on chopping down the trees and masticating them, or at least ingesting them, and at regular intervals the rear section of it slid up, ejecting bales of cellulose and great gobbets of waste from the chewed-up trees.

"We don't know what is going on," one of the two troopers told Kathy. "Maybe some of the people from Washington do, although I'm inclined to doubt it. In any case, they're not talking, so we don't know if they do or not. The lumps on the visitor were there this morning when it got light enough to see. They must have started in the night and they've been growing ever since. They are a lot bigger than they were when I first saw them."

"Any reason why I can't get closer?" asked Kathy. "Some of the other newsmen are.

"Just watch yourself," said the trooper. "Don't get too close. We don't want people getting hurt.~~

"The visitor has made no move to harm anyone," she said. "We've been practically living with it ever since it landed and it doesn't even notice us."

"You can never tell," the trooper said. "If I were you, I wouldn't push my luck. It killed a man, remember?"

"But he shot at it."

"Even so, I don't trust it. Not entirely, that is. This ain't one of us."

Kathy and the troopers stood midway between the visitor and the river, now spanned by the temporary structure laid down by the army engineers. Behind them and in front of them the wide swath cut through the forest by the visitor was littered with white bales and clumps of tree debris. Both the bales and the debris were regularly spaced, laid out very neatly.

"The other troopers," said the trooper, "are holding the sightseers the other side of the river. We're only letting in the official people and the press. You people know you're here on your own responsibility. That's been explained to you."

"Yes, of course, it has."

"I don't see," said the trooper, "how all these sightseers got here. There seems to be a couple hundred of them. We have all the roads blocked. But they just seep through, sort of."

"They park their cars short of the road blocks," Kathy said, "and walk in through the woods. It would take a picket line to keep them out."

"I suppose so," said the trooper. "They can be a nuisance."

"Here come Frank Norton and Chet, my photographer," said Kathy. "As soon as they reach here, we'll be going in."

The trooper shrugged. "Take it easy, now," he said. "Something's about to happen and I don't like it. I can feel it in the air.

Kathy waited for Norton and Chet to come up and the three of them walked up the swath.

Kathy asked Chet, "Did Jerry get on the plane all right?" Chet nodded. "We just made it. Only minutes to spare. I gave him the film. He said he'd deliver it. Meant to ask you—how come he showed up here? I seem to remember he turned up missing and you were hunting him."

"His car broke down and he walked into Lone Pine, looking for a phone. We ran into one another. It was a surprise to the both of us. Neither of us knew the other one was here."

"Seems to be a nice guy."

"Yes, he is."

"Not very talkative, though. Didn't have much to say."

"He never does," said Kathy.

They walked up on a group of newsmen clustered to one side of the visitor.

"Did you talk to Johnny this morning?" Kathy asked. "Yeah, I did. Checking on the film. He said someone delivered it, in plenty of time for the first edition, to the photo lab."

"He didn't say anything about sending someone up to replace me?"

"Not a word. Did you expect he would?"

"Well, I don't know," said Kathy. "There are others he might think would do a better job. Jay, for instance. He only pointed the finger at me because there was almost no one else in the newsroom at the time."

"I don't think you need to worry any. Johnny is a fair man. As long as you do the job, he will leave you here."

"If he tried to send someone else," said Kathy, "I'd yell like hell. This is my story, Chet, and I mean to keep it that way."

"You'd fight for it?"

"You're damn right I would."

"Look," said Norton, "someone has painted a number on the visitor. See it. It reads 101. On the side, up near the front of it."

Kathy looked and saw the number, in green paint, the numerals a foot high or so.

"I wonder who did that," she said.

Chet snorted. "One of them jerks from Washington, most likely. One of them observers. Science types. They got to have everything numbered for the record."

"It seems a funny thing to do."

"We can't presume to judge how the observers go about their work," said Norton. "There probably is a valid reason for the number."

"I suppose so," said Kathy.

"You have any idea what those lumps may be?" asked Norton. Kathy shook her head. "I can't imagine. It's a shame. It was such a nice, neat thing before, so symmetrical, and now it's got all lumpy."

"You sound like you thought it was pretty."

"Maybe not pretty. But appropriate. The kind of thing you'd expect to come from space. Nice, neat, not spectacular."

"Good Lord," said Norton, "will you have a look at that!" One of the larger lumps that had grown on the visitor was beginning to burst open and from it was emerging a small replica of the visitor. The thing that was emerging from the lump was three or four feet long, but, except for its size and for the absence of bumps on it, it was an exact copy of the big black box. The lump lengthened and widened even as they watched and the thing that was emerging from it fought free and came tumbling to the ground. It landed and rolled and came upright. It was a shiny black, not the deep black of the visitor, but shiny as if it might be wet. For a moment it crouched on the ground, unstirring, then swiftly it wheeled about and set itself in motion, racing toward the back of the visitor, flowing smoothly and silently.

The group of people surged back to clear the way for it. A TV cameraman was shouting savagely, "Down in front. Down in front, goddammit. Get out from in front of the camera. Give me a chance, will you?"

Kathy, backing away with the others, was thinking furiously:

that settles it! it is biological. Not a machine, but a biological being. A live creature, for it is giving birth. It is having babies!

Another of the lumps was splitting open and another small replica of the visitor was fighting free of it. The visitor, itself, was paying no attention to what was taking place. It went on chomping trees.

The first baby to emerge whipped around the rear of the visitor, heading for one of the bales of cellulose. It reared up and attacked the bale, tearing it apart, gulping down the cellulose in much the same manner as its «mother» was gulping down the trees.

Chet was racing toward it, his camera lifted and ready. Sliding to a stop, he braced himself, plastered the camera to his face and began shooting pictures, sliding along after a few exposures to get shots from different angles. Other cameramen also were running frantically, joggling one another for position, forming a ragged circle around the little creature.

"I should have guessed," said a man standing beside Kathy. "When I saw those lumps I should have known. The thing is budding. And that answers the question all of us have been asking ourselves.

"That's right," said Kathy. "It's biological."

He looked at her, apparently for the first time. He raised a hand and touched it to his forehead in salute.

"Quinn," he said. "New York Times."

"Foster," said Kathy. "Minneapolis Tribune."

"You got here early then," he said. "From the first, I would suppose."

"Late on the day it landed."

"Do you realize," he asked, "that we may be covering the story of the century. If not of all time."

"I hadn't thought of it," said Kathy.

Then, ashamed, she said, "I am sorry, Mr. Quinn. I was being flippant. Yes, I had thought of it."

There were more of the babies now, running wildly to find the bales so that they might feed. The newsmen and photographers were scattering, no longer huddled in a group.

One of the babies had fallen and was not running. It lay jiggling and quivering, like an animal that had fallen and was struggling to get up. It lay close against the visitor, but the visitor was paying no attention to its plight.

It's fallen on its side, thought Kathy. The poor thing has fallen on its side and can't get to its feet. Although how she might know this, she did not know, for, truth to tell, there was no way one could know. No one could tell which part was top or bottom.

Quickly she stepped forward and, stooping, laid hold of it and tipped it. Swiftly, it flipped over and quickly scurried off, heading for the bales.

Straightening, Kathy reached up a hand and patted the barn-like side of the visitor.

"Mother," she said, softly to herself, not really speaking to the visitor, for how was the visitor to hear? "Mother, I helped your baby to its feet."

Underneath her hand, the hide of the visitor twitched and then folded over to grasp her hand, still against its side, folding over gently, covering her outspread hand, to hold it for a moment. Then the hide unfolded and became hard and smooth again.

Kathy stood stricken, shaken, not believing it had happened. It noticed me, she thought in a wild panic of churning emotion. It knew I was here. It knew what I had done. It tried to shake my hand. It was thanking me.