“That he’s crazy?”

“Please, E.J. Tell me what it’s for. Will you do that? Maybe I can understand. You never told me. Wouldn’t it help? Can’t you even do that?”

“I can’t,” Elwood said.

“You can’t! Why not?”

“Because I don’t know,” Elwood said. “I don’t know what it’s for. Maybe it isn’t for anything.”

“But if it isn’t for anything why do you work on it?”

“I don’t know. I like to work on it. Maybe it’s like whittling.” He waved his hand impatiently. “I’ve always had a workshop of some kind. When I was a kid I used to build model airplanes. I have tools. I’ve always had tools.”

“But why do you come home in the middle of the day?”

“I get restless.”

“Why?”

“I—I hear people talking, and it makes me uneasy. I want to get away from them. There’s something about it all, about them. Their ways. Maybe I have claustrophobia.”

“Shall I call Doctor Evans and make an appointment?”

“No. No, I’m all right. Please, Liz, get out of the way so I can work. I want to finish.”

“And you don’t even know what it’s for.” She shook her head. “So all this time you’ve been working without knowing why. Like some animal that goes out at night and fights, like a cat on the back fence. You leave your work and us to—”

“Get out of the way.”

“Listen to me. You put down that hammer and come inside. You’re putting your suit on and going right back to the office. Do you hear? If you don’t I’m never going to let you inside the house again. You can break down the door if you want, with your hammer. But it’ll be locked for you from now on, if you don’t forget that boat and go back to work.”

There was silence.

“Get out of the way,” Elwood said. “I have to finish.”

Liz stared at him. “You’re going on?” The man pushed past her. “You’re going to go ahead? There’s something wrong with you. Something wrong with your mind. You’re—”

“Stop,” Elwood said, looking past her. Liz turned.

Toddy was standing silently in the driveway, his lunch pail under his arms. His small face was grave and solemn. He did not say anything to them.

“Tod!” Liz said. “Is it that late already?”

Toddy came across the grass to his father. “Hello, boy,” Elwood said. “How was school?”

“Fine.”

“I’m going in the house,” Liz said. “I meant it, E.J. Remember that I meant it.”

She went up the walk. The back door slammed behind her.

Elwood sighed. He sat down on the ladder leading up the side of the boat and put his hammer down. He lit a cigarette and smoked silently. Toddy waiting without speaking.

“Well, boy?” Elwood said at last. “What do you say?”

“What do you want done, Dad?”

“Done?” Elwood smiled. “Well, there’s not too much left. A few things here and there. We’ll be through, soon. You might look around for boards we didn’t nail down on the deck.” He rubbed his jaw. “Almost done. We’ve been working a long time. You could paint, if you want. I want to get the cabin painted. Red, I think. How would red be?”

“Green.”

“Green? All right. There’s some green porch paint in the garage. Do you want to start stirring it up?”

“Sure,” Toddy said. He headed towards the garage.

Elwood watched him go. “Toddy—”

The boy turned. “Yes?”

“Toddy, wait.” Elwood went slowly towards him. “I want to ask you something.”

“What is it, Dad?”

“You—you don’t mind helping me, do you? You don’t mind working on the boat?”

Toddy looked up gravely into his father’s face. He said nothing. For a long time the two of them gazed at each other.

“Okay!” Elwood said suddenly. “You run along and get the paint started.”

Bob came swinging along the driveway with two of the kids from the junior high school. “Hi, Dad,” Bob called, grinning. “Say, how’s it coming?”

“Fine,” Elwood said.

“Look,” Bob said to his pals, pointing to the boat. “You see that? You know what that is?”

“What is it?” one of them said.

Bob opened the kitchen door. “That’s an atomic powered sub.” He grinned, and the two boys grinned. “It’s full of Uranium 235. Dad’s going all the way to Russia with it. When he gets through, there won’t be a thing left of Moscow.”

The boys went inside, the door slamming behind them.

Elwood stood looking up at the boat. In the next yard Mrs. Hunt stopped for a moment with taking down her washing, looking at him and the big square hull rising above him.

“Is it really atomic powered, Mr. Elwood?” she said.

“No.”

“What makes it run, then? I don’t see any sails. What kind of motor is in it? Steam?”

Elwood bit his lip. Strangely, he had never thought of that part. There was no motor in it, no motor at all. There were no sails, no boiler. He had put no engine into it, no turbines, no fuel. Nothing. It was a wood hull, an immense box, and that was all. He had never thought of what would make it go, never in all the time he and Toddy had worked on it.

Suddenly a torrent of despair descended over him. There was no engine, nothing. It was not a boat, it was only a great mass of wood and tar and nails. It would never go, never never leave the yard. Liz was right: he was like some animal going out into the yard at night, to fight and kill in the darkness, to struggle dimly, without sight or understanding, equally blind, equally pathetic.

What had he built it for? He did not know. Where was it going? He did not know that either. What would make it run? How would he get it out of the yard? What was it all for, to build without understanding, darkly, like a creature in the night?

Toddy had worked alongside him, the whole time. Why had he worked? Did he know? Did the boy know what the boat was for, why they were building? Toddy had never asked because he trusted his father to know.

But he did not know. He, the father, he did not know either, and soon it would be done, finished, ready. And then what? Soon Toddy would lay down his paint brush, cover the last can of paint, put away the nails, the scraps of wood, hang the saw and hammer up in the garage again. And then he would ask, ask the question he had never asked before but which must come finally.

And he could not answer him.

Elwood stood, staring up at it, the great hulk they had built, struggling to understand. Why had he worked? What was it all for? When would he know? Would he ever know? For an endless time he stood there, staring up.

It was not until the first great black drops of rain began to splash about him that he understood.

Meddler

They entered the great chamber. At the far end, technicians hovered around an immense illuminated board, following a complex pattern of lights that shifted rapidly, flashing through seemingly endless combinations. At long tables machines whirred—computers, human-operated and robot. Wall-charts covered every inch of vertical space. Hasten gazed around him in amazement.

Wood laughed. “Come over here and I’ll really show you something. You recognize this, don’t you?” He pointed to a hulking machine surrounded by silent men and women in white lab robes.

“I recognize it,” Hasten said slowly. “It’s something like our own Dip, but perhaps twenty times larger. What do you haul up? And when do you haul?” He fingered the surface-plate of the Dip, then squatted down, peering into the maw. The maw was locked shut; the Dip was in operation. “You know, if we had any idea this existed, Histo-Research would have—”

“You know now.” Wood bent down beside him. “Listen. Hasten, you’re the first man from outside the Department ever to get into this room. You saw the guards. No one gets in here unauthorized; the guards have orders to kill anyone trying to enter illegally.”

“To hide this? A machine? You’d shoot to—”