hopped to his feet. “Then by the same token you could indict all the doctors in the universe on the grounds that they make money when you’re sick, so they’re responsible for your being sick when you’re sick.”
Laughing, Mali tugged him back down into his seat. “Oh god,” she said, covering her mouth. “I don’t think anyone’s defended the spiddles in two hundred years. Now they have a—let’s see. A champagne.”
“Champion,” Joe growled, still feeling the heat of resentment. “It’s our lives,” he said to her, “that we’re talking about. This isn’t a political debate or a taxpayers’ meeting about the local transportation.”
An undercurrent of muttering moved about the room. The craftsmen and scientists were talking among themselves.
“I move,” Harper Baldwin brayed, “that we act collectively, that we form a permanent organization with officers who can deal as a deputation with Glimmung for the rights of us all. But before that, all of you friends and coworkers seated here today, or flying around the room here today, I suggest that we take an initial vote as to whether we want to work on the Undertaking at all. Maybe we don’t want to. Maybe we want to go home. Maybe we ought to go home. Let’s see how we feel collectively about it. Now, how many vote to go ahead and work—” He broke off. A vast rumblingshook the conference room; Harper Baldwin’s voice had become inaudible. Talk, for any of them, was now out of the question.
Glimmung had come.
It must be the true manifestation, Joe decided as he watched and listened. It was in all respects the real Glimmung, Glimmung as he actually was. And so—
Like the sound of ten thousand junked, rusty automobiles being stirred by one giant wooden spoon, Glimmung heaved himself up and onto the raised stage at the far end of the conference room. His body quivered and shuddered, and from deep inside him a moan became audible. The moan grew, rose, until it became a shriek. An animal, Joe thought. Caught, perhaps in a trap. One paw. And it’s trying to get loose but the trap is too complicated. And, at the same time, a great spewing forth of brackish sea water, trash fish, aquatic mammals, sea kelp—the room reeked with the roar and shock of the sea. And, in the center of all of it, the churning lump which was Glimmung.
“The hotel people aren’t going to like this,” Joe said half aloud. Good god—the huge mass of fluttering extremities, the whipping, writhing arms which flung themselves at every spot on the gigantic carcass … the whole thing heaved, and then, with a furious roar, it collapsed the floor beneath it; the mass disappeared from sight, leaving remnants of the sea all over the room. From the gaping chasm smokelike tendrils, probably steam, fizzled upward. But Glimmung was gone. As Mali had predicted, his weight had been too great. Glimmung was down in the basement of the hotel, ten floors below them.
Shaken, Harper Baldwin said into his microphone, “A-a-apparently we’ll have to go downstairs to talk to him.” Several life-forms hurried over to him; he listened, then straightened up and said, “I understand he’s in the cellar ratherthan on the next floor. He—” Baldwin gestured in agitation. “—evidently went the whole way down.”
“I knew it would happen,” Mali said. “If he tried to come here. Well, we’ll have to conduct our words with him in the cellar.” She and Joe both got to their feet; they joined the crowd of life-forms gathered at the elevators.
Joe said, “He should have come as an albatross.”
9
When they reached the basement, Glimmung boomed a hearty greeting at them. “You won’t need translating equipment,” he informed them. “I’ll speak to each of you telepathically in your own language.”
He filled almost all of the basement; they had to remain by the elevators. Now he had become more dense, more compact—but he still remained huge.
Joe took a large, deep, steadying
Laughing, Mali tugged him back down into his seat. “Oh god,” she said, covering her mouth. “I don’t think anyone’s defended the spiddles in two hundred years. Now they have a—let’s see. A champagne.”
“Champion,” Joe growled, still feeling the heat of resentment. “It’s our lives,” he said to her, “that we’re talking about. This isn’t a political debate or a taxpayers’ meeting about the local transportation.”
An undercurrent of muttering moved about the room. The craftsmen and scientists were talking among themselves.
“I move,” Harper Baldwin brayed, “that we act collectively, that we form a permanent organization with officers who can deal as a deputation with Glimmung for the rights of us all. But before that, all of you friends and coworkers seated here today, or flying around the room here today, I suggest that we take an initial vote as to whether we want to work on the Undertaking at all. Maybe we don’t want to. Maybe we want to go home. Maybe we ought to go home. Let’s see how we feel collectively about it. Now, how many vote to go ahead and work—” He broke off. A vast rumblingshook the conference room; Harper Baldwin’s voice had become inaudible. Talk, for any of them, was now out of the question.
Glimmung had come.
It must be the true manifestation, Joe decided as he watched and listened. It was in all respects the real Glimmung, Glimmung as he actually was. And so—
Like the sound of ten thousand junked, rusty automobiles being stirred by one giant wooden spoon, Glimmung heaved himself up and onto the raised stage at the far end of the conference room. His body quivered and shuddered, and from deep inside him a moan became audible. The moan grew, rose, until it became a shriek. An animal, Joe thought. Caught, perhaps in a trap. One paw. And it’s trying to get loose but the trap is too complicated. And, at the same time, a great spewing forth of brackish sea water, trash fish, aquatic mammals, sea kelp—the room reeked with the roar and shock of the sea. And, in the center of all of it, the churning lump which was Glimmung.
“The hotel people aren’t going to like this,” Joe said half aloud. Good god—the huge mass of fluttering extremities, the whipping, writhing arms which flung themselves at every spot on the gigantic carcass … the whole thing heaved, and then, with a furious roar, it collapsed the floor beneath it; the mass disappeared from sight, leaving remnants of the sea all over the room. From the gaping chasm smokelike tendrils, probably steam, fizzled upward. But Glimmung was gone. As Mali had predicted, his weight had been too great. Glimmung was down in the basement of the hotel, ten floors below them.
Shaken, Harper Baldwin said into his microphone, “A-a-apparently we’ll have to go downstairs to talk to him.” Several life-forms hurried over to him; he listened, then straightened up and said, “I understand he’s in the cellar ratherthan on the next floor. He—” Baldwin gestured in agitation. “—evidently went the whole way down.”
“I knew it would happen,” Mali said. “If he tried to come here. Well, we’ll have to conduct our words with him in the cellar.” She and Joe both got to their feet; they joined the crowd of life-forms gathered at the elevators.
Joe said, “He should have come as an albatross.”
9
When they reached the basement, Glimmung boomed a hearty greeting at them. “You won’t need translating equipment,” he informed them. “I’ll speak to each of you telepathically in your own language.”
He filled almost all of the basement; they had to remain by the elevators. Now he had become more dense, more compact—but he still remained huge.
Joe took a large, deep, steadying
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