Chapter 2
“Mr. Doyle?” inquired Dr. Freleng, holding a thesis paper in the air with disgusted thumb and forefinger. The teacher’s grey moustache lifted on one side as his lip curled. “This is Sociology 430. Don’t you think this paper should better have been submitted to your Fiction Writing teacher instead?”
“Well, I’m not taking that course this semester,” stammered Keith Doyle, scrambling to sit upright from his comfortable slouch behind the large frame of Mary Lou Carson. He met the teacher’s eye and drooped back again. His narrow face turned red, only a few shades darker than his hair. “Um, no, sir. What’s the matter with it, sir?”
“Or perhaps this is Introduction to Mythology? What is the matter? ‘A Study of Human/Alien Interaction’? This paper was supposed to be on a documented facet of human behavior. Would you mind telling me when we made contact with extraterrestrials? I’m sure the government would be more than interested to know.” Dr. Freleng opened his fingers and let the paper fall to Keith’s desk, covering up the Field Guide to the Little People, which luckily the professor hadn’t noticed. The other students snickered. Freleng dusted his fingertips together and eyed Keith with an air of doubt.
“It’s a study based on theories I formed, speculations on the probable behavior of mankind when faced with alien cultures more technologically advanced than ourselves,” Keith explained with patient resignation. “Older extraterrestrial cultures. I based it on my research into recent western contacts with older civilizations, such as the Chinese.”
“Of which you seem most disparaging,” Freleng said, gesturing at the paper on which a circled red F adorned the title page. Keith stuck out his chin determinedly.
“I think nonwestern cultures suffer from the overeager come-on that they get from Western anthropologists. Think of the business of the desert tribe religion which believed in planets it couldn’t see, just because those researchers asked ’em leading questions. Look,” Keith said earnestly, “when zoologists are observing rare animals, they’re so careful not to interfere with their natural behavior. It’s almost like people don’t get the same privilege. It’s as if, well, because they’re different they’re told they have to change to conform.”
Freleng turned away from Keith’s indignant stare, fluttering a dismissive hand at him. “Preservationist poppycock. Field anthropologists act with more responsibility than that toward their subjects.”
“Yeah, sometimes, but what about Peace Corps volunteers? Missionaries? We make change look too attractive, too imperative, playing down the importance of their own diverse cultural facets,” Keith went on, his voice loud with conviction, quoting phrases from the Sociology textbook, which Freleng ignored. It was one of the professor’s own favorite tricks, and he hated to have students use it back to him. “They’ve done without Coca Cola for centuries. They don’t need it now either, but we dictate to them, the times when we don’t collapse at their feet and shout “teach me,” instead. We impose our impressions of how they should be on them. Our opinion molds them.”
“Yeah,” added a girl with brown-black hair, seated two rows ahead to Keith’s left. She had clear, pale skin with just a dusting of dark freckles across her nose and cheekbones, and Keith had been watching her avidly all semester. “Like little—I mean, short people. Tall ones tend to treat them just like children. They react to an unspoken assumption that if someone is smaller than you are, he must be younger, and not as mature. Or if they’re obviously older, they must be senile, or something less than mentally competent.”
Keith was amazed. Usually the majority of his fellow students sided with the teacher on how they felt about his peculiar essay topics. As a rule, they all thought he was crazy. He felt much encouraged by Marcy Collier’s unsolicited support. Not only was she beautiful, but she was a fellow philosopher.
“Yes, Miss Collier, I have your paper here,” Freleng turned on her. “You expressed your opinions on paper with somewhat more coherence than Mr. Doyle, though you failed to identify most of your research sources. I require clearer footnoting than that, as you are aware. It is worth fifteen percent of your grade on any paper.” Her paper fluttered down, marked with a circled C.
“Um,” Marcy Collier echoed Keith’s discomfort of a few minutes past. The teacher’s cold gaze made her writhe. Her eyes dropped, and she addressed her reply to her desk. “They were field study subjects. They asked me not to identify them by name.”
“I see. In those cases, it is traditional to supply a pseudonym with the actual age, sex, profession and social condition, so that we can judge as much by the subject as by their statements. However interesting such statements may be, they offer only half of the data we use in our studies. Your essays each constitute ten percent of your grade for this course. The final exam carries more weight, thirty percent, but displayed application of skills learned in class is twenty percent of your grade. Please bear that in mind.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that next time, sir.” Red-cheeked, Marcy shoved the paper into her book bag. Keith glimpsed lots of red ink through the back of the last page before it vanished. Old Freleng had taken her bibliography to pieces. Hah. His own paper probably looked like a Rorschach test. He felt sorry for her. He felt sorry for himself He slumped back into obscurity behind Mary Lou. Her paper had an A on it, as usual.
O O O
At last, the bell rang. “That one was really dumb, Doyle,” Burke Slater jabbed Keith with an elbow as he jostled past the others out of the classroom. “Real comic relief.”
“I think you’re wonderful to stick up for the primitive tribes,” offered Abby Holt, a brown-haired girl in blue jeans who tended toward mystical topics herself.
Keith smiled and pushed past them into the hallway, running after Marcy as she maneuvered through the crowded corridor of Burke Hall. “Hey, wait! Marcy?”
“I’ve got a class in McInroe next period,” she said curtly, her eyes narrowed at him. Keith thought she cleared tears out of her throat. She wasn’t the type who usually got C’s, he decided, and she was taking it hard. He pulled his own crumpled essay out of his nylon backpack.
“I got an F,” he said, smiling at her winningly. “Wanna trade?”
She looked at his paper, and then met his eyes. The sullen mask broke. “Oh, God, what am I going to tell my parents?” Marcy wailed, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I’ve never gotten a C in my life. Dr. Freleng is a fiend. It’s too late for me to drop the course now. I’ve had all A’s all my life. My parents expect it. They just won’t understand. I’m failing.”
“I wouldn’t call a C failure,” Keith said, jumping forward to open the door for her and following her out into the brisk October air. Leaves swirled away from their feet as they dashed across the narrow streets toward McInroe Hall. “I’m a B man myself. I do get A’s but I don’t expect ’em. If you’re not in the front line you don’t get shot at as often.”
“Get what?” Marcy shouted, avoiding an ancient Volvo which screeched backward into a suddenly available parking space on the curb.
“Shot at!” Keith yelled. “Teachers love to pick on A-seekers. Besides, we’re Freleng’s favorite victims because we’re not seniors or grad students. We’re making it look like it’s too easy to take his class. He considers it a put down. I can’t blame him.”
“I wish I’d never taken it,” Marcy said miserably.
“It isn’t a total loss,” Keith soothed her. “It’s your only C, remember? Would you like to join forces against the evils of Sociology? We can study together. Misery loves company, you know.” He fished around in his pocket for a folded wad of tissues and wrapped her fingers around it.
“Well, I’m in a study group already.…” Marcy dabbed at her eyes, but her voice had steadied again.
“Oh, come on. I know about Honors study groups. They sit around and compare Daddy’s tax returns or talk about interesting atoms they have met.”
“It’s isn’t an Honors group. This is a different kind. Hey,” she said, changing the subject, “how’d you know I’m an Honor student?”
“It’s written all over you. Places you can’t see.” Keith waggled his eyebrows wickedly. “Besides, I’ve been watching you. Haven’t you noticed?”
Marcy shook her head. “I’d rather study alone. I get more done that way.”
“Well, just Soc. then.” Stairs, and then another door, opening into another echoing tiled hall full of hurrying figures. “Say, can I read your essay?” Keith asked suddenly. “It sounded really interesting to me. You can read mine, but I guess you’d probably think it was fiction, too,” he finished, suddenly sounding disgusted. “Nobody respects a scientist anymore.”
“Sure you can,” said Marcy, thrusting the paper into his hand. “Now I’m going to be late. Thanks for the Kleenex. See you.”
“See you.” Keith watched her dash away.
O O O
Level Fourteen of the Gillington Library stacks was quiet in the afternoon. Unlike the system most buildings used, the library stacks were numbered top to bottom, so the uppermost of the eight half-high floors above ground was Level One, and the lowest, in the third sub-sub basement was Fourteen. The library itself was numbered normally, its four full height floors numbered from the bottom to the top. It confused a lot of freshmen the first week of classes, but since there were separate elevators for the two sections, students got used to the concept in a hurry. They put it down to typical Administration baloney. One more thing to be ignored.
This level was devoted mainly to historical archives, a comprehensive collection of Americana of which the University was appropriately proud. Rare books were stored down here until they were called for in the usual way by users of the reading room upstairs. On occasion, masters’ degree candidates could get a special pass to peruse the shelves themselves, but they were rarely here during the afternoon. The archive librarian took advantage of the silence and pushed the book-cart through the rows of tiered shelves, listening to the sounds of the building as it settled, replacing returned books. She was a thin, pinched-faced woman who looked right with her salt-and-pepper hair tied into a tight bun. Fallen books she straightened up in their slots with a scolding expression as if they should have known better than to tip over.
With her narrow hands, she deftly sorted through a sheaf of old newspaper folios. The yellow-brown pages in their transparent folders were crisp and fragile. As she stacked them gently into a library box, she heard footsteps coming swiftly toward her, and turned away from her task to see who was running. Probably students who had forced the stairwell lock with a plastic I.D. card. “This level is restricted,” she said sternly. “No one is to be here without authorization. Did you hear me?”
No reply. She heard high-pitched giggles coming from that direction, shut the storage box with a snap, and started off to dispense some discipline.
Suddenly, the librarian heard the same giggle from behind her. She spun and ran back that way, her shoes flapping on the floor. No one was visible at that end of the aisle. She stopped. Again she heard running footsteps, the soles of the shoes grating with a sandpapery hiss on the concrete floor.
“Stop that!” she cried. “This is a library, not a racetrack. Who are you? Show yourself. Leave this building at once.” Her voice rang in the hanging metal beams. “I will call Security if you do not leave NOW!”
The giggles erupted echoingly into the silence. She ran toward the dancing sound, but it dissolved into silence before she found the source. “Hello?” she called softly.
“Helloooo,” came a whisper from behind her. She jumped and let out a small scream of frustration. The falsetto laughter bubbled up again as the footsteps ran away. This was not the first time she thought she had heard students chasing themselves around in the dark. Thought it was funny to flaunt their disobedience and startle her. They wanted to use her level in place of the back seats of their decrepit cars. “Horrible brats.” In all her years, she’d never been able to catch the miscreants, or even see who was making the noise. Gremlins, that’s what it was. Old places were said to have their own resident spirits. The echoes in here were positively uncanny. It might have been her own voice distorting into that insane laughter, but she wasn’t sure. They needed better lighting in this library. That was certain.
Looking this way and that, the librarian walked back to her cart to resume her task. The cart refused to roll forward. She kicked at the brake on the left front wheel, but to her surprise, it was off. She leaned all her weight against it. The cart would not move.
She pulled on it from the front. It wouldn’t come forward an inch. Neither would it move to either side. It was as if the cart was cemented to the floor. She stacked all of the books from it on the floor and tried to shake it loose. Nothing. The librarian was ready to sob with frustration. There was nothing physically wrong with the cart, no reason why it should not roll normally, but it was firmly rooted where it stood. She stacked the books back onto it, somewhat less neatly than before. Her hands were shaking.
Dealing the cart a final disgusted shove, she headed for the elevator to get the janitor. He would have to oil those wheels before she could continue. When she had turned around the head of the row, there was a loud creak and rumble. The woman scrambled back to see the cart rolling away by itself. For a moment, she thought about running after it, but a blast of mocking laughter sent her scurrying into the elevator instead, fleeing for the safety of the faculty lounge. Years ago the dark and dusty cubicle had been designated a Civil Defense fallout shelter, and that gave her twitching nerves a sense of security. No one would question her spending a few hours lying down on the couch. The old library was widely believed to be haunted. She would feel safer if she could finish up later, preferably with another librarian for company.
But when she did come back, the books would be on their shelves and the cart empty, and she knew it. It had all happened before.
O O O
“Well?” asked Pat Morgan, glancing unsympathetically at his roommate as Keith staggered across their dorm room and dropped with a melodramatic thud face first onto his bed. Pat went on watering houseplants. “So, tell Uncle Pat. What’d you get on the Sociology essay?”
“F,” groaned the voice, muffled in a pile of laundry. “F for Freleng. He hates me.”
“Fair enough. You hate him.”
“How can a sociologist be so closed-minded?”
“Those who can’t, teach.” Pat was an English major, and loved one-line cappers. He was tall and hollow-chested, and had a tendency to stoop over, so he seemed to be perpetually out of breath. His long, lank black hair made him look like a repertory company Richard III out of makeup.
“And what about those who can’t teach?” Keith said, shaking the twisted sheaf of paper at him. Keith’s looks tended to make people think he was jolly or bad-tempered, depending on one’s predispositions about red hair. He was short, straight-backed, and thin. His eyes were hazel, and changed color with his mood. Right now, they were blue. He buried his head in the laundry again.
“Oh, hell, maybe you can fix it up and ask him to re-grade it. Say you didn’t understand the assignment. It’s only the first paper. Here, give me that.” Pat dropped the plant mister in the sink and snatched the essay out of Keith’s hands. “That stuff’s clean, by the way.” He tilted his head toward the pile of clothes in which Keith was lying. “Your turn to fold. No creases this time or you’ll eat ’em.”
Keith rolled onto his back, broadcasting socks across the floor. “I can’t tell him I didn’t understand it. I made a big deal about its social importance right in the middle of class.”
“You’ve got a death wish,” Pat said without looking up. He detoured around their shared wooden coffee table and sat down at his desk. Unlike Keith’s, which had fantastic towers of books and papers teetering around a central cleared workspace, Pat’s was a uniform level of possessions about ten inches high on which the current books and assignments lay. “You know I read this once before. I still think there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s an interesting theoretical examination without any actual field study. He’s probably insulted because you told him through this paper that you consider all the other sociological studies, like inner city and Appalachia, boring and not worth considering.”
“Well, they are boring. Every other social scientist has studied them to death. I can’t find anything new to say about one. Even the minor stuff I’d explore has been overdone by everybody else.”
Pat considered for a moment. “True. But I think he gave you an F because you piss him off. Why don’t you turn this one in to Mythology, the way he suggested?”
“Because Mrs. Beattie has heard it all before, too. Wait until he reads my next one, on leprechauns. I told you about Marcy, the girl in my class?”
“Oh, yeah? She noticed you yet?”
“No. Ah, unrequited love. But she’s very shy. That’s one of the things I love her for. She doesn’t throw herself at me.”
Pat blew a raspberry at him. Keith shrugged it off.
“Anyway, I think she’s got a boyfriend somewhere, one of those guys who’s ‘above reproach,’ and all that garbage. The way she’s been acting, I think she’s afraid of him. What she really needs is someone charming and harmless, like me. I’ve got her paper here, from the same assignment. I want her research materials. I think I can use ’em.”
“Harmless. Oh, God,” Pat groaned, shaking his head. “And the good Lord forgive you the lie.”
“Never mind that. I’ve got this terrific theory about why the little people only appear to drunks and other unreliables,” Keith began, spinning a towel in the air and catching it so it folded in half neatly over his extended forefingers.
“That’s because you are one, jerk face.” Carl Mueller came in the door, warding off flying laundry with one hand. He wore his thick light brown hair in a modified crew-cut which, with his typical sour expression and healthy muscular build, made him look like an angry Marine.
“A leprechaun?” asked Pat.
“Sure,” added Keith. “Viewed only by drunks and other unreliables. That’s why you can see me, Carlitos.” He whirled a towel like a bullfighter’s cape. Carl and Keith had a Spanish class together, which he hated and Keith loved. Anything that Keith loved, Carl hated.
“Don’t call me that, asshole,” Carl said, staring belligerently at Keith.
“I never call you that asshole. Donde esta la pluma de me tia? How’s things in Track?” Keith innocently changed the subject, gauging that the last ounce of tolerance left in Carl had just evaporated. “Want a beer?”
Carl grunted. “Okay. But cut the Carlitos shit. I’m dropping the class anyway.”
“Too late,” observed Pat, who always knew the course schedules. “Last day without penalty was Thursday.”
Keith opened the little refrigerator under his desk and pawed through it, emerging with three beers and a box of vanilla wafer cookies. “Here, peace offering. See you later,” he told Pat.
Keith took his snack, Marcy’s essay, and the Field Guide out into the hallway. He hated to concede the territory to Carl; it was his room, after all, but there was no point in starting another argument. There were just some people that were automatically and irrevocably rubbed the wrong way, and Carl was one of the ones he’d so rubbed.
It was all a matter of attitude, Keith had decided a long time ago. Carl was too serious about life. He wanted so badly to do something important that it affected everything he did. He needed a cause. The guy was born to be a Senator or Albert Schweitzer. Keith felt sorry for him. Of course, that didn’t help him where Carl was concerned, who still reacted to Keith as if he was a flea: hyperactive, bothersome, and just out of reach.
Keith shrugged and opened Marcy’s paper.
O O O
In the library, Marcy waited between the tall rows of bookshelves until no one was in sight. It was late afternoon, so there were few people around, but she could never be sure she was unobserved. With infinite care, she eased open the door that led to the fire stairs. It creaked loudly. She winced, but the sound drew no one’s attention. The building was old, and everyone was used to its assorted settling noises.
She descended flight after flight in the darkness, her whispering footsteps confident, intimately familiar with her surroundings. At the bottom of the last concrete step, she halted and drew the smooth steel door open just wide enough to permit her passage. It slid shut behind her, and Marcy felt rather than heard the boom as it closed.
Two more flights of steps and another door, and she passed inside, crossed the floor, with hulking shadows of more shelves darker than the darkness. From her pocket she took a key which gleamed a brilliant green. With the aid of its light, Marcy found her way to the hidden keyhole, inserted the key, turned it, and pushed the door open.
Light flooded out upon her, throwing a long shadow back between the bookcases. She threw up a hand against the glare until her eyes adjusted, and spoke apologetically to the circle of Little Folk and the tall human students seated at desks in the low-ceilinged room. They regarded her expectantly.
“Vell?” asked the Master, laying his pointer down on the easel.
“We got a C,” Marcy said.
O O O
“If you examine your stated principles as an objective observer,” the Master stated, reviewing Marcy’s essay, “you will see that you are relying upon your reader to furnish his own mental pictures of your subjects. In order for your reader to come to agree with your premises, you must provide accurate images from which he can draw his conclusions, which if you have been skillful, will agree with yours.”
“I didn’t want to say too much,” Marcy said in a low voice, feeling ashamed. “I couldn’t draw accurate pictures.” She stared at her desktop. “I probably shouldn’t have attempted the subject. But I did want to try.”
Her fellow college students present exchanged sympathetic glances. The Little People favored her with friendly gazes, but said nothing as usual.
“Mees Collier, there vas nothing wrong with your attempt of the subject,” the Master said gently, setting the paper on her desk and looking up at her. “Nor with your conclusions. It is merely that your audience vas not prepared for it.”
***