Jack Finney - Invasion of The Body Snatchers

"All right" – I nodded. "No harm trying him, at least; I'll phone him." I lifted my cup to my mouth, and took a sip of coffee.

Jack watched, scowling, the impatience rising up in him till it burst out. "Now! Damn it, Miles, now! What are you waiting for!" Then he said, "I'm sorry, but… Miles, we've got to move !"

"Okay." I set my cup down on the stove, then walked to the living-room, Jack right behind me; then I picked up the phone and dialled Operator. "Operator," I said, when she answered, and now I spoke very slowly and carefully, "I want to phone Washington, D.C., person-to-person, Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Eichler. I don't know his number, but it's in the book." I turned to Jack. "There's an extension in my bedroom," I said. "Go listen in."

In the phone at my ear, I heard the little beep-beep sound, then my operator said to somebody, "MX to Washington, D.C." There was a pause, then another girl's voice spoke a series of numbers and code letters. For a time, then, I stood in the living-room listening to the tiny clicks in the phone at my ear, the faint hummings, electric silences, the occasional far-away voices of operators in distant cities, or the fragmentary, infinitely far-removed ghosts of other conversations. Then Information in Washington was asked for, and she found Colonel Eichler's phone number. Our local operator politely urged me to write it down for future reference, and I said I would. A moment later the ringing began in the little black disc at my ear.

The third ring was interrupted, and Ben's voice sounded, clear and tiny, in my ear. "Hello?"

"Ben?" I realized that I'd raised my voice, the way people do in long-distance phone calls. "This is Miles Bennell, in California."

"Hi, Miles!" The voice was suddenly pleased and cheerful. "How are you?"

"Fine, Ben, swell. Did I wake you up?"

"Why, hell, no, Miles; it's five-thirty a.m. here. Now, why would I be sleeping?"

I smiled a little. "Well, I'm sorry, Ben, but it's time you were up. We taxpayers aren't paying your fancy salary to have you lie around in bed all day. Listen, Ben" – I spoke seriously – "have you got some time? A good half-hour, maybe, to sit and listen to what I have to tell you? It's terribly important, Ben, and I want to explain it fully; I want to talk as though this were a local call. Can you give me some time, and listen carefully?"

"Sure; wait a second." There was a pause of several moments, then the clear, far-away voice said, "Just getting my cigarettes. Go ahead, Miles, I'm all set."

I said, "Ben, you know me; you know me very well. I'll start by telling you I'm not drunk, you know I'm not insane, and you know I don't play foolish practical jokes on my friends in the middle of the night, or any other time. I've got something to tell you that's very hard to believe, but it's true, and I want you to realize that, while you listen. Okay?"

"Yeah, Miles." The voice was sober, waiting.

"About a week ago," I began slowly, "on a Thursday… " and then talking quietly and leisurely, I tried to tell him the entire story, beginning with Becky's first visit to my office, and winding up some twenty minutes later with the events of tonight right up to the present moment.

It isn't easy explaining a long, complicated story over the telephone, though, not seeing the other man's face. And we had bad luck with the connection. At first I heard Ben, and he heard me, as clearly as though we were next door to each other. But when I began telling him what had been happening here, the connection faded, Ben had to keep asking me to repeat, and I almost had to shout to make him understand me. You can't talk well, you can't even think properly, when you have to repeat every other phrase, and I signalled the operator and asked for a better connection. After a little delay, the connection was cleared up, but I'd hardly resumed when a sort of buzzing sound started in the receiver in my ear, and then I had to try to talk over that. Twice the connection was broken off completely, the dial tone suddenly humming in my ear, and finally I was mad and shouting at the operator. It wasn't a satisfactory conversation at all, and when I'd finished, I wondered how it all must have sounded to Ben, the width of a continent away.

He answered when I'd finished. "I see," he said slowly, then paused for a moment or so, thinking. "Well, Miles," he said then, "what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know, Ben" – the connection was pretty good at the moment – "but you can see that something has to be done; you can see that. Ben, get the story moving. Right away. Move it on up, in Washington, till it reaches someone who can do something."

He laughed, a forced laugh from the stomach. "Miles, remember me? I'm a lieutenant-colonel in the Pentagon building; I salute the janitors. Why me, Miles? Don't you know anyone here who could really… "

" No , damn it! I'd be talking to them if I did! Ben, it has to be somebody who knows me, and knows I'm not crazy. And I don't know anyone else; it has to be you. Ben, you've got to – "

"All right, all right" – his voice was placating. "I'll do what I can, do all I can. If it's what you really want, I'll give this whole story to my colonel within an hour; I'll go see him and wake him up; he lives here in Georgetown. I'll tell him just what you've told me, as well as I've followed it. And I'll add my own report that I know you well, that you're a sane, sober, intelligent citizen, and that I am personally certain you're speaking the truth, or believe that you are. But that's all I can do, Miles, absolutely all, even if it means the end of the world before noon."

Ben paused for a moment, and I could hear the electrical silence of the wires between us. Then he added quietly, "And Miles, it won't do one bit of good. Because what do you expect him to do with that story? He's not imaginative, to put it mildly. And even if he were, the colonel's no man to stick his neck out; you know what I mean? He wants his star before he retires; maybe a couple of them. And he's very conscious, asleep or awake, of what goes into his service record. He's worked up a reputation ever since West Point for good, hard, practical common sense. Not brilliant, but sound, that's his speciality; you know the type." Ben sighed. "Miles, I can just see him going to his general with a story like this. He wouldn't trust me to fill his ink-well from then on!"

Now it was my turn to say, "I see."

"Miles, I'll do it! If you want me to. But even if the impossible happened, even if the colonel took this to the brigadier, who took it to the major-general, who carried it on up to three- or four-star level, what the hell are they going to do with this? By that time it'll be a weird fourth- or fifth-hand story started by some fool of a lieutenant-colonel they've never heard of or seen. And he got the story in a phone call from some crackpot friend, a civilian, out in California somewhere. Do you see? Can you actually imagine this reaching a level where something could be done; and then having it actually done? My God, you know the Army!"

My voice was tired and defeated as I said, "Yeah." I sighed, and said, "Yeah, I see, Ben. And you're right."

"I'll do it, and to hell with my service record – that's not important – if you can see even a chance that it'll help at all. Because I believe you. I don't say it's impossible that you're being hoaxed in some way for some weird reason, but at least something's happening out there that ought to be looked into. And if you think I should – "

"No." I said, and now my voice was firm and definite. "No, Ben, forget it. I'd have known better myself, if I'd thought about it; because you're completely right; it would be useless. There just isn't any point in wrecking your service record when it wouldn't do one bit of good."