All Flesh Is Grass Part 20

"I suppose so," Sherwood said. "We didn't go into it. He'll phone me from some place outside the barrier when he arrives."

"As a matter of fact," said Higgy, lowering his voice as if he were speaking confidentially, "if we can get out of this without being hurt, it'll be the best thing that ever happened to us. No other town in all of history has gotten the kind of publicity we're getting now. Why, for years there'll be tourists coming just to look at us, just to say they've been here."

"It seems to me," said Father Flanagan, "that if this should all be true, there are far greater things involved than whether or not our town can attract some tourists."

"Yes," said Silas Middleton. "It means we are facing an alien form of life. How we handle it may mean the difference between life and death. Not for us alone, I mean, the people in this village. But the life or death of the human race."

"Now, see here," piped Preston, "you can't mean that a bunch of flowers..."

"You d.a.m.n fool," said Sherwood, "it's not just a bunch of flowers."

Joe Evans said, "That's right. Not just a bunch of flowers. But an entirely different form of life. Not an animal life, but a plant life-a plant life that is intelligent."

"And a life," I said, "that has stored away the knowledge of G.o.d knows how many other races. They'll know things we've never even thought about."

"I don't see," said Higgy, doggedly, "what we've got to be afraid of. There never was a time that we couldn't beat a bunch of weeds. We can use sprays and..."

"If we want to kill them off," I said, "I don't think it's quite as easy as you try to make it. But putting that aside for the moment, do we want to kill them off?"

"You mean," yelled Higgy, "let them come in and take over?"

"Not take over. Come in and co-operate with us."

"But the barrier!" yelled Hiram. "Everyone forgets about the barrier!"

"No one has forgotten about it," said Nichols. "The barrier is no more than a part of the entire problem. Let's solve the problem and we can take care of the barrier as well."

"My G.o.d," groaned Preston, "you all are talking as if you believe every word of it."

"That isn't it," said Silas Middleton. "But we have to use what Brad has told us as a working hypothesis. I don't say that what he has told us is absolutely right. He may have misinterpreted, he may simply be mistaken in certain areas. But at the moment it's the only solid information we have to work with."

"I don't believe a word of it," said Hiram, flatly. "There's a dirty plot afoot and I..."

The telephone rang, its signal blasting through the room.

Sherwood answered it.

"It's for you," he told me. "It's Alf again."

I went across the room and took the receiver Sherwood held out to me.

"h.e.l.lo, A1f" I said.

"I thought," said Alf, "you were going to call me back. In an hour, you said."

"I got involved," I told him.

"They moved me out," he said. "They evacuated everybody. I'm in a motel just east of c.o.o.n Valley. I'm going to move over to Elmore-the motel here is pretty bad-but before I did, I wanted to get in touch with you."

"I'm glad you did," I said. "There are some things I want to ask you. About that project down in Greenbriar."

"Sure. What about the project?"

"What kind of problems did you have to solve?"

"Many different kinds."

"Any of them have to do with plants?"

"Plants?"

"You know. Flowers, weeds, vegetables."

"I see. Let me think. Yes, I guess there were a few."

"What kind?"

"Well, there was one: could a plant be intelligent?"

"And your conclusion?"

"Now, look here, Brad!"

"This is important, Alf."

"Oh, all right. The only conclusion I could reach was that it was impossible. A plant would have no motive. There's no reason a plant should be intelligent. Even if it could be, there'd be no advantage to it. It couldn't use intelligence or knowledge. It would have no way in which it could apply them. And its structure is wrong. It would have to develop certain senses it doesn't have, would have to increase its awareness of its world. It would have to develop a brain for data storage and a thinking mechanism. It was easy, Brad, once you thought about it. A plant wouldn't even try to be intelligent. It took me a while to get the reasons sorted out, but they made good solid sense."

"And that was all?"

"No, there was another one. How to develop a foolproof method of eradicating a noxious weed, bearing in mind that the weed has high adaptability and would be able to develop immunity to any sort of threat to its existence in a relatively short length of time."

"There isn't any possibility," I guessed.

"There is," said A1f "just a possibility. But not too good a one."

"And that?"

"Radiation. But you couldn't count on it as foolproof if the plant really had high adaptability."

"So there's no way to eradicate a thoroughly determined plant?"

"I'd say none at all-none in the power of man. What's this all about, Brad?"

"We may have a situation just like that," I said. Quickly I told him something of the Flowers.

He whistled. "You think you have this straight?"

"I can't be certain, Alf, I think so, but I can't be certain. That is, I know the Flowers are there, but..."

"There was another question. It ties right in with this. It wanted to know how you'd go about contacting and establis.h.i.+ng relations with an alien life. You think the project.. .?"

"No question," I said. "It was run by the same people who ran the telephones."

"We figured that before. When we talked after the barrier went up."

"Alf; what about that question? About contact with an alien?"

He laughed, a bit uneasily. "There are a million answers. The method would depend upon the kind of alien. And there'd always be some danger."

"That's all you can think of? All the questions, I mean?"

"I can't think of any more. Tell me more of what's happened there."

"I'd like to, but I can't. I have a group of people here. You're going to Elmore now?"

"Yeah. I'll call you when I get there. Will you be around?"

"I can't go anywhere," I said.

There had been no talk among the others while I'd been on the phone. They were, all listening. But as soon as I hung up, Higgy straightened up importantly.

"I figure," he said, "that maybe we should be getting ready to go out and meet the senator. I think most probably I should appoint a welcoming committee. The people in this room, of course, and maybe half a dozen others. Doc Fabian, and maybe..."

"Mayor," said Sherwood, interrupting him, "I think someone should point out that this is not a civic affair or a social visit. This is something somewhat more important and entirely unofficial. Brad is the one the senator must see. He is the only one who has pertinent information and..."

"But," Higgy protested, "all I was doing..."

"We know what you were doing," Sherwood told him.

"What I am pointing out is that if Brad wants a committee to go along with him, he is the one who should get it up."

"But my official duty," Higgy bleated.

"In a matter such as this," said Sherwood, flatly, "you have no official duty."

"Gerald," said the mayor, "I've tried to think the best of you. I've tried to tell myself..."

"Mayor," said Preston, grimly, "there's no use of p.u.s.s.y-footing. We might as well say it out. There's something going on, some sort of plot afoot. Brad is part of it and Stiffy's part of it and..."

"And," said Sherwood, "if you insist upon a plot, I'm part of it as well. I made the telephones."

Higgy gulped. "You did what?" he asked.

"I made the telephones. I manufactured them."

"So you knew all about it all along."

Sherwood shook his head. "I didn't know anything at all. I just made the phones."

Higgy sat back weakly. He clasped and unclasped his hands, staring down at them.

"I don't know," he said. "I just don't understand."

But I am sure he did. Now he understood, for the first time, that this was no mere unusual natural happening which would, in time, quietly pa.s.s away and leave Millville a tourist attraction that each year would bring the curious into town by the thousands. For the first time, I am sure, Mayor Higgy Morris realized that Millville and the entire world was facing a problem that it would take more than good luck and the Chamber of Commerce to resolve.

"There is one thing," I sad.

"What's that?" asked Higgy.

"I want my phone. The one that was in my office. The phone, you remember, that hasn't any dial."

The mayor looked at Hiram.

"No, I won't," said Hiram. "I won't give it back to him. He's done harm enough already."

"Hiram," said the mayor.

"Oh, all right," said Hiram. "I hope he chokes on it."

"It appears to me," said Father Flanagan, "that we are all acting quite unreasonably. I would suggest we might take this entire matter up and discuss it point by point, and in that way..."

A ticking interrupted him, a loud and ominous ticking that beat a measure, as of doom, through the entire house. And as I heard it, I knew that the ticking had been going on for quite some time, but very softly, and that I'd been hearing it and vaguely wondering what it was.

But now, from one tick to another, it had grown loud and hard, and even as we listened to it, half hypnotized by the terror of it, the tick became a hum and the hum a roar of power.

We all leaped to out feet, startled now, and I saw that the kitchen walls were flas.h.i.+ng, as if someone were turning on and off a light of intensive brilliance, a pulsing glow that filled the room with a flood of light, then shut off, then filled it once again.

"I knew it!" Hiram roared, charging for the kitchen. "I knew it when I saw it. I knew it was dangerous!"

I ran after him.

"Look out!" I yelled. "Keep away from it!"

It was the time contraption. It had floated off the table and was hovering in mid-air, with a pulse of tremendous power running through it in a regular beat, while from it came the roar of cascading energy. Below it, lying on the table, was my crumpled jacket.

I grabbed hold of Hiram's arm and tried to haul him back, but he jerked away and was hauling his pistol from its holster.

With a flash of light, the time contraption moved, rising swiftly toward the ceiling.

"No!" I cried, for I was afraid that if it ever hit the ceiling, the fragile lenses would be smashed.

Then it hit the ceiling and it did not break. Without slackening its pace, it bored straight through the ceiling. I stood gaping at the neat round hole it made.

I heard the stamp of feet behind me and the banging of a door and when I turned around the room was empty, except for Nancy standing by the fireplace.

"Come on," I yelled at her running for the door that led onto the porch.

The rest of them were grouped outside, between the porch and hedge, staring up into the sky, where a light winked off and on, going very rapidly.