Invasion of The Body Snatchers

Chapter sixteen

We often say, "I wasn't surprised," or "I knew it would happen" – meaning that in the moment of an event's occurrence, although we'd previously given it no conscious thought, we have a feeling of inevitableness, as though we'd known for a long time that precisely this was going to happen. In the minutes we'd been sitting there by the window, all I could think of to do was wait until dark, and then try to work our way through the hills, and out of town; it was useless to try in daylight, with every hand and eye against us. I explained this to Becky, in as hopeful terms as I could, trying to look as though I believed we could succeed; and there were moments when I did feel hopeful.

And yet when I heard the slight grate of a key sliding into the lock of my reception-room door, I had the feeling I've tried to describe. I wasn't surprised; it seemed to me, then, that I'd known all along what would happen, and I even had time to realize that whoever it was had simply gotten the building's master-key from the janitor.

But when the door opened, and I saw the first of the four people who walked into the room, I scrambled to my feet, my heart suddenly elated and pounding. Grinning with wild new hope and excitement, my hand moving out to shake his, I stepped quickly forward, and my voice came out in a harsh, loud whisper. "Mannie!" I said, in a kind of fierce exultation, and I grabbed his hand and shook it.

He responded, though with less vigour than I expected, his hand almost limp in mine, as though accepting but not fully returning my greeting. Then, staring at his face, I knew. It's hard to say how I knew – possibly the eyes lacked a little lustre; maybe the muscles of the face had lost just a hint of their usual tension and alertness; and maybe not – but I knew.

Mannie, seeing in my face what was going on in my mind, nodded his head slowly and, as though I'd spoken aloud, said, "Yeah, Miles. And for a long time. Just before the night you phoned me."

I turned to see who else had come into the room, glancing at each face, then I walked back to put my arm around Becky's shoulder, and face them.

One of the men – they stood there by the door – was small, stout, and bald; I'd never seen him before. Another was Carl Meeker, an accountant in town, a big, black-haired, pleasant-faced man in his middle thirties. The fourth was Budlong, who smiled at us now, as friendly and nice as he'd been before.

We stood by the windows, Becky and I, and Mannie motioned at the davenport and said, "Sit down," his voice gentle. We shook our heads, and he repeated it. "Sit down," he urged. "Please, Becky; you're tired, worn out. Go ahead; sit down." But Becky pressed herself closer to me, and I tightened my arm around her shoulders and shook my head again.

"All right." Mannie pushed the sheets on the davenport aside and sat down. Carl Meeker walked in and sat beside him, Budlong took a chair across the room from them, and the little man I didn't know sat nearer the outer door.

"I wish you'd relax, and take it easy," Mannie said, brows lifting, smiling at us in frank concern for our comfort. "We're not going to hurt you, and once you understand what we… have to do" – he shrugged – "I think maybe you'll accept it, and wonder what all the fuss was about." He sat looking at us, then when we didn't reply or move, he sat back on the davenport. "Well, first of all, it doesn't hurt; you'll feel nothing. Becky, I promise you that." He sat nibbling at his lip for a moment, getting what he had to say in order, then he looked up at us again. "And when you wake up, you'll feel just exactly the same. You'll be the same, in every thought, memory, habit, and mannerism, right down to the last little atom of your bodies. There's no difference. None. You are just the same." He said it forcefully, convincingly, but for the least fraction of an instant, a hint of disbelief in his own words flickered in his eyes.

"Why bother, then?" I said casually. I had no hope in argument, but I had to say something, it seemed to me. "Just let us alone, then. We'll leave town, and we won't come back."

"Well – " Mannie started to answer, then stopped, and looked at Budlong across the room. "Maybe you ought to explain that, Bud."

"All right." Looking pleased, Budlong settled back in his chair, the professor anticipating the joy of teaching, just as he'd done all his life, undoubtedly. And I found myself wondering if Mannie wasn't right, that actually there was no change, and you were still just the way you always had been.

"You saw what you saw, and you know what you know," Budlong began. "You've seen the… pods, for lack of another name; seen them change and prepare themselves; twice you've seen the process almost completed. But why force you through the process, when there is, as we say, no final difference at all?" Again, as they had in his home, the finger tips of each hand found those of the other, an academic, professorial gesture, and he smiled at us, a youthful, pleasant-faced man. "It's a good question, but there is an answer, and a simple one. As you surmised, the pods are, in a sense, seed pods, though not in the sense that we know seeds. But in any case, they are living matter, capable, just as are seeds, of enormous and complex growth and development. And they did drift through space, the original ones, anyway, over enormous distances, and through millenniums of time, just as I told you. Though of course" – he smiled in polite apology – "I tried to phrase it in a way to cast doubt over the notion. They live, however; they arrived on this planet by pure chance, but having arrived, they have a function to perform, as natural to them as yours are to you. And that's why you must go through the change; the pods must fulfil their function, their reason for being."

"And what's their function?" I said sarcastically.

Budlong shrugged. "The function of all life, everywhere – to survive." For a moment he stared at me. "Life exists throughout the universe, Doctor Bennell; most scientists know that, and willingly admit it; it has to be true, though we've never before encountered it. But it's there, infinite distances away, in every conceivable and inconceivable form, since it exists under enormously varied conditions. Consider, Doctor, that there are planets and life incalculably older than ours; what happens when an ancient planet finally dies? The life form on it must reckon with and prepare for that fact – to survive."

Budlong sat forward in his chair, staring at me, fascinated by what he was saying. "A planet dies," he repeated, "slowly and over immeasurable ages. The life form on it – slowly and over immeasurable ages – must prepare. Prepare for what? For leaving the planet. To arrive where? And when? There is no answer, but one; which they achieved. It is universal adaptability to any and all other life forms, under any and all other conditions they might possibly encounter."

Budlong grinned at us happily, and sat back in his chair; he was having a fine time. Outside on the street, a car honked, and a child began to wail. "So in a sense, of course, the pods are a parasite on whatever life they encounter," Budlong went on. "But they are the perfect parasite, capable of far more than clinging to the host. They are completely evolved life; they have the ability to reform and reconstitute themselves into perfect duplication, cell for living cell, of any life form they may encounter in whatever conditions that life has suited itself for."

My face must have shown what I was thinking, because Budlong grinned, and held up a hand. "I know; it sounds like gibbering – insane raving. That's only natural. Because we're trapped by our own conceptions, Doctor, our necessarily limited notions of what life can be. Actually, we can't really conceive of anything very much different from ourselves, and whatever other life exists on this one little planet. Prove it yourself; what do imaginary men from Mars, in our comic strips and fiction, resemble? Think about it. They resemble grotesque versions of ourselves – we can't imagine anything different! Oh, they may have six legs, three arms, and antennae sprouting from their heads" – he smiled – "like insects we're familiar with. But they are nothing fundamentally different from what we know."

He held up a finger, as though reproving an unprepared pupil. "But to accept our own limitations, and really believe that evolution through the universe must, for some reason, follow paths similar to our own, in any least way, is" – he shrugged, and smiled – "rather insular. In fact, downright provincial. Life takes whatever form it must: a monster forty feet high, with an immense neck, and weighing tons – call it a dinosaur. When conditions change, and the dinosaur is no longer possible, it is gone. But life isn't; it's still there, in a new form. Any form necessary." His face was solemn. "The truth is what I say. It did happen. The pods arrived, drifting onto our planet as they have onto others, and they performed, and are now performing, their simple and natural function – which is to survive on this planet. And they do so by exercising their evolved ability to adapt and take over and duplicate, cell for cell, the life this planet is suited for."

I didn't know what good time would do us. But I was willing – anxious – to talk just as long as he wanted; the will to survive, I supposed, and smiled. "Jargon," I said tauntingly. "Cheap theory. Because how; how could they do it? And in any case, how do you know? What do you know about other planets, and life forms?" I said it jeeringly, nastily, and with a bite in my voice, and I felt Becky's shoulders tremble momentarily, under my arm.

He didn't get mad. "We know," he said simply. "There is" – he shrugged – "not memory; you can't call it that; can't call it anything you could even recognize. But there is knowledge in this life form, of course, and – it stays. I am still what I was, in every respect, right down to a scar on my foot I got as a child; I am still Bernard Budlong. But the other knowledge is there, too, now. It stays, and I know. We all do."

For a moment he sat staring at nothing, then he looked up at us again. "As to how does it happen, how do they do what they do?" He grinned at me. "Come now, Doctor Bennell; think how little we actually know on this raw, new little planet. We're just out of the trees; still savages! Only two hundred years ago, you doctors didn't even know blood circulated. You thought it was a motionless fluid filling the body like water in a sack. And in my own lifetime, the existence of brain waves wasn't even suspected. Think of it, Doctor! Brain waves, actual electrical emanations from the brain, in specific identifiable patterns, penetrating the skull to the outside, to be picked up, amplified, and charted. You can sit and watch them on a screen. Are you an epileptic, actual or even potential? The pattern of your own individual brain waves will instantly answer that question, as you very well know; you're a doctor. And brain waves have always existed; they weren't invented, only discovered. People have always had them, just as they've always had fingerprints; Abraham Lincoln, Pontius Pilate, and Cro-Magnon man. We just didn't know it, that's all."

He sighed, and said, "And there is a great deal more we don't know or even begin to suspect. Not only your brain, but your entire body, every cell of it emanates waves as individual as fingerprints. Do you believe that, Doctor?" He smiled. "Well, do you believe that utterly invisible, undetectable waves can emanate from a room, move silently through space, be picked up, and then reproduce precisely every word, sound, and tone to be heard in that original room? The sound of a whispered voice, the note of a piano, the plucked string of a guitar? Your grandfather would never have believed such an impossibility, but you do – you believe in radio. You even believe in television."

He nodded. "Yes, Doctor Bennell, your body contains a pattern, all living matter does – it is the very foundation of cellular life. Because it is composed of the tiny electrical force-lines that hold together the very atoms that constitute your being. And therefore it is a pattern – infinitely more perfect and detailed than any blueprint could be – of the precise atomic constitution of your body at exactly that moment, altering with every breath you take, and with every second of time in which your body infinitesimally changes. And it is during sleep, incidentally, when that change occurs least; and during sleep when the pattern can be taken from you, absorbed like static electricity, from one body to another."

Again he nodded. "So it can happen, Doctor Bennell, and rather easily; the intricate pattern of electrical forcelines that knit together every atom of your body to form and constitute every last cell of it – can be slowly transferred. And then, since every kind of atom in the universe is identical – the building blocks of the universe – you are precisely duplicated, atom for atom, molecule for molecule, cell for cell, down to the tiniest scar or hair on your wrist. And what happens to the original? The atoms that formerly composed you are – static now, nothing, a pile of grey fluff. It can happen, does happen, and you know that it has happened; and yet you will not accept it." He watched me for a moment, then smiled. "Though perhaps I'm wrong about that; I think maybe you have accepted it."

For a time, then, the room was silent, the four figures in my waiting-room quietly watching Becky and me. He was right; I believed him. I knew it was true, possible or impossible, and the helplessness and frustration were rising up in me. I could feel it in my finger tips, an actual physical sensation, a compelling urgency to do something, and I sat there, my fists clenching and unclenching. Suddenly, impulsively, for no other reason than to move, to act, to do something, I reached behind me, grabbed the cord of the Venetian blind, and yanked. The blinds shot up, the slats rattling like machine-gun fire, daylight slanting into the room, and I turned to look down at the wandering shoppers, the stores, the cars, the parking meters, the so ordinary scene below.

The four figures in my office didn't move, just sat watching me; and now my eyes were darting around the room, frantically searching for something I could do.

Mannie realized what was going on in my mind before I did. "You could grab something and heave it through the window, Miles. And it would attract attention; people would look up and see the smashed window. You could stand there, then, and shout at them, Miles. But no one would come up." My eyes swung to the phone, and Mannie said, "Grab it; we won't stop you. And you'll reach the operator. But she won't put a call through."

Becky's head swung toward me, and she buried her face on my chest, her hands clutching my lapels; and, my arms around her, I felt her shoulders heave in a dry and soundless sobbing.

"Then what are you waiting for!" There was an actual red mist swarming before my eyes. "What are you doing, torturing us?"

Mannie grimaced, his face apparently pained, and he was shaking his head. "No, Miles! No, we're not. We haven't the least desire to hurt or torture you in any way. You're friends of mine! Or were." He shook his head, hands outspread helplessly. "Don't you see? There's nothing we can do, Miles, but wait; and try to explain, make you understand and accept this, try to make this as easy on you as we can. Miles," he said simply, "we have to wait till you're asleep, that's all. And there's no way you can make a man sleep."

Mannie looked at me for a moment, then added gently, "But there's no way you can keep from sleeping, either. You can fight it off for a time, but finally… you'll have to sleep."

The little man near the door – I'd forgotten he existed – sighed, and said, "Lock them in a cell at the jail; they'll sleep eventually. Why all the argument?"

Mannie looked at him coldly. "Because these people are friends of mine. Go on home, if you want to; three of us are enough."

The little man just sighed – no one ever got mad, I noticed – and continued to sit where he was.

Mannie got up suddenly, walked toward us, and stood looking down at me, his face pained and regretful. "Miles, face it! You're caught; there's nothing you can do. Face it, and accept it; do you like seeing Becky this way? I don't!" We stared at each other for several ticks of a clock, and somehow I didn't believe in his anger at all. Gently, persuasively, Mannie said, "Talk to her, Miles. Make her see the truth. No fooling, you won't mind, I tell you. You'll feel nothing at all. Sleep, and you'll wake up feeling exactly the same as you do now, only rested. You'll be the same. What the hell are you fighting?" After a moment he turned, and walked back to the davenport.