“Not on your life! It may be dangerous. Besides, this is the first time in a month Edna’s let me go out with you. She doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but she’s sure something is. I want to be home safe and sound by eleven. What were you saving about smarter animals, Fatty? On other planets?”

  “It can’t be dangerous,” he muttered, still keeping his eyes on Its track. “Only catches very small fish. But—Like I was saying, if there was something on Neptune, say which is more advanced than we are, why then it’d be smart enough to have space travel and they’ll be visiting us instead of of them. Look how we’ve explored that planet. We’ve gone down into the ground nine miles and more, across even sea and into every ocean, back and forth over every piece of land, and now up into the air. If there was another kind of intelligent life on this Earth, we’d know it by now. Stands to reason anybody else’d do the same. So, like Professor Fronac says, we must conclude—Am I wrong, or is that Man-Of-War coming at us now?”

  IT was. The green mass had turned in a great, rippling circle and was headed for our sloop, but fast.

  Fatty slammed the tiller hard to starboard And I leaped for the sails. They went slack.

  “What a time for the wind to drop!” he moaned. “There’s a pair of emergency oars in the—Too late, it’s abreast! You’ll find a hatchet in the cockpit. See if you can—”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t dangerous,” I puffed, as I scrambled hack with the hatchet.

  Fatty had dropped the tiller and picked up a marlin-spike. He stood up next to me and stared at the floating mound alongside. Both It and our boat seemed to be perfectly still. We could see water rushing past us. Far off, in Mike’s Casino, the band was playing “Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?

  I stopped being sad and got sentimental. That song always make me sentimental.

  “It isn’t dangerous,” Fatty admitted. “But I just remembered that the Portuguese Man-Of-War has batteries of stingers that it uses to catch fish. They can hurt a man sometimes, too. And in anything this big—Of course, we’re inside a boat and it can’t get at us.”

  “You hope. Something tells me that I won’t be home at eleven tonight. And if that’s just happened to be an air-filled bladder, what are those black things floating in it? Eyes?”

  “They sure look like eyes. Feel like eyes.” We watched the black dots flickering over the green surface and began to shuffle our feet. We felt as if a crowd of people were watching us undress in Courthouse Square. I know we both did, because we compared notes later. We had plenty of time—later.

  “Know what?” Fatty said. “I don’t think it’s a Portuguese Man-Of-War, after all. It’s too big and green, and I don’t remember seeing anything like those black dots inside the air bladder in any of those pictures I saw. And it doesn’t seem to have any filaments hanging from it. Besides, it moves too fast.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Fatty patted his stomach and looked at it. He opened his mouth.

  I forgot to ask him what he was going to say just then, and he never told me. He didn’t say it anyway. He just went “Beep?” and sat down hard. I also sat down hard, only I went more like “Foof?”

  The sloop had gone straight up in the air for about fifteen feet. As soon as I could, I jumped up and helped Fatty wheeze to a standing position.

  We both gulped. The gulps seemed to get stuck going down.

  Even though we were fifteen feet above the surface of the cove, the boat was still in the water. A little cup of water, that is, extending twenty feet out on both port and starboard and only about five feet on the bow and stern.

  Beyond the water, there was a kind of gray haze that was transparent enough for me to see the lights of Mike’s Casino where they were still playing “Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?” This gray haze went all the way around, covering the mast and the gaff tops.

  When we rushed over to the side and looked down, we saw it came around under the keel too. Solid stuff, that gray haze—it contained us, the boat and enough water to float it.

  Somebody had taken an awfully big bite out of Cassowary Cove, and we were included. We knew who that somebody was. We looked around for him.

  The big slob was busy outside the gray haze. First, he was under the keel, fastening a little box to the bottom of the haze. Then he squirmed around to the top, directly over the mast and stuck another doohickey up there. Those little black dots were still bubbling around inside his green body, but they didn’t make me feel queer any more.

  I HAD other things to feel queer about “Do you think we might try yelling at him?” Fatty asked in the kind of whisper he uses in church. “Whatever he is, he looks intelligent.”

  “What could you yell?”

  He scratched his head. “I dunno. How about, ‘Friend. Me friend. No hurt. Peace.’ Think he’d understand?”

  “He’d think you were an Indian in the movies, that’s what. Why should you think he understands English? Eel’s drop our weapons and raise both our hands. That gesture’s universal, I read.”

  We kept our hands over our heads until they got tired. The lump of green jelly had moved from the box he had fixed over the mast to a position in line with the slant of the gaff. He boiled around for a few seconds until a section of the gray haze began to sparkle with color; a lot of colors, shifting in and out of each other. Then, as soon as the patch was coruscating nicely, he dropped off the side and hit the water fifteen feet below.

  He hit the water without a splash.

  He zoomed along the surface, faster than I could breathe the initials J.R., for about half a mile, paused just outside the cove—and dropped out of sight. There wasn’t a ripple to show the path he’d been traveling, or where he’d sunk. All that was left was our floating gray bubble. With us, inside.

  “Hey!” Fatty began yammering. “You can’t do this to me! Come back and let us out, d’ye hear? Hey, you in that green jelly, come back here!”

  I got him quiet by pointing out that the animated shrimp cocktail was no longer with us. Also, there didn’t seem much cause for worry. If he’d wanted to do us any harm, he could pretty much have done it while he was dose up. considering the brand of parlor tricks he had already demonstrated. Let well enough alone, I argued; I was satisfied to be alive and unwell, while the bubble-blowing object did a Weismuller somewhere in the Atlantic.

  “But we can’t stay here all night,” Fatty complained. “Suppose someone from town could see us—why, with our reputation, they’d laugh us clear into the comic strips. Whyn’t you shinny up the mast and stick an arm into that stuff. Paul? Find out what it’s made of, maybe make a hole and wriggle through?”

  That sounded reasonable. We sure had to do something. He bent down and gave me a boost. I wrapped my legs around the mast, grabbed handfuls of sail and dragged myself to the top. The mast ended just under the box outside of the gray haze.

  “There’s a purring noise coming from the box,” I called down to Fatty, “Nothing inside it but silver wheels going round and round like the one in an electric meter. Only they’re not attached to anything. They’re floating at all kinds of angles to each other and spinning at different speeds.”

  1 heard Fatty curse uncertainly, and I punched up into the grayness. I hurt my fist. I pulled my arm hack, massaged it as my feet slipped and scrambled on the mast and sail, and stabbed up with a forefinger. I hurt my forefinger.

  “Gray stuff hard?” Fatty asked.

  Unprintably unprintable it was hard. I told him.

  “Come on down and get the hatchet. You might be able to chop a hole.”

  “I don’t think so. This fog is almost transparent and I don’t think it’s made of any material we know. Fact is, I don’t think it’s made of any material.”

  Above my head, the purring got a little louder There was a similar noise coming from the bottom of the bubble where the other box was located.

  I took a chance and. holding myself by one arm and one leg, I swung out and peered at the spot of shifting color near the box. It looked like the spectrum you see in an oil puddle—you know, colors changing their position while you look at them. I pushed up against the gray near the colored patch. It didn’t give either.

  THE nasty thing was that the feeling that it wasn’t like trying to push a hole through a sheet of steel; it was more as if I were trying to drive a nail into an argument. or break a sermon across my knee. Kind of a joke in a scary sort of way.

  “Hand up the hatchet.” I called. “I don’t see how it’ll do any good, but I’ll try it anyway.”

  Fatty lifted the hatchet high and stood up on his toes. I started to slide down the mast. The purring from the box became a whine.

  Just as my stretching fingers closed around the hatchet handle, the box on top and the box on the bottom of the boat began going clinkety-clangety-clung. It reached clung and I was no longer doing it to the mast. I was on top of Fatty and he was spread-eagled on the deck.

  I had a glimpse of the hatchet sailing over the side.

  “Wh-what f-for you wanted to d-do th-that.” Fatty gasped as I rolled off him and we both groaned upright. “C-couldn’t you tell me you w-wanted to get down fast? I’d have moved away, honest!”

  “Wasn’t my fault,” I said. “I was pushed.”

  Fatty wasn’t listening. He was staring at something else. And, when I noticed it, so was I.

  A lot of sea-water had splashed into the cockpit. Some of it had wet us.

  All of the water on deck rolled into a little lake abaft of the mast, the water on our bodies dripping down and joining it. Then, the entire puddle rolled to port and spilled off the deck. The boat was perfectly dry again. So were we.

  “This I’m beginning not to like,” Fatty commented hoarsely. I nodded my head, too. Under the circumstances I didn’t feel easy in my mind.

  Stepping very delicately, as if he were afraid he might fracture a commandment. Fatty moved over to the side and looked out. He shook his head and looked down.

  “Paul.” he said alter a while in a low voice. “Paul, would you come here? Something I—” he choked.

  I took a look. I gulped, one of those really long gulps that start down from your Adam’s apple and wind up squishing out between your toes.

  Below us. under the water and the gray haze, was a slew of darkness. Beyond that, at a respectable distance, I could see the Atlantic Ocean and the New England coast line with Cape Cod hooking out its small, bent finger. New England was moving away fast and became the eastern seaboard of the United States even as I watched.

  The moonlight gave it a sort of unhealthy dimness, just enough to make out details and recognize the North and South American continents when they grew out of the eastern seaboard. The western coast was a little dark and blurry, but it made me homesick for the days when Fatty and Edna and I sat next to a map looking just like that in school.

  Right then, I couldn’t think of anything more absolutely enjoyable than standing near Edna in the grocery while she nagged the ass off me.

  “That’s what happened.” Fatty was whimpering. “That’s why we fell and the water jumped into the boat. We just shot up in a straight line suddenly and we’re still traveling—us, the sloop, and enough water to float the whole business. Were inside a gray ball that isn’t made of anything and which we can’t break out of even if we still wanted to.”

  “Take it easy, Fatty, and we’ll be all right,” I told him with all the assurance of a bank robber trying to explain to the policeman who caught him that he was only trying to deposit his gun in the vault and the cashiers misunderstood him.

  WE SAT down heavily in the cockpit and Fatty automatically grabbed the tiller. He sighed and shook his head.

  “I feel just like a package being sent someplace.” He gestured up towards the spot of changing color. “And that’s the label. Please do not open until Christmas.”

  “What is it, do you think? An invasion from another planet?”

  “And we’re the first battle? Don’t be silly, Paul. Although it could be at that. We could be a sample being sent back to headquarters to give them an idea of how tough a nut Earth might be. The careless, offhand way that green whatnot acted is what gripes me! It was as if he was going after Mike’s Casino first and then decided to take us because we were closer, or because our disappearance would attract less notice than a night-club’s. But either way it didn’t matter much. He did it and went back home, or—”

  “I can still hear Mike’s Casino. At least I can hear the band playing ‘Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?’ ”

  Fatty slanted his big, loose face at the mast. “I hear it too. But it’s coming from that box with the wheels up there. This whole thing is so crazy. Paul, that I actually think that creature knew it was your favorite song and fixed the box to play it all the time. So you’d be more comfortable, kind of. Like the glow we have inside the bubble to provide us with light. He wants the package to arrive in good condition.”

  “A space-going juke-box,” I muttered.

  CHAPTER III

  On To Mars, Via Bubble

  THERE was a longish bit of silence after that. We sat and watched the stars go by. I tried to make out the Big Dipper but it must have been lost in the shuffle, or maybe its position was different up here. The moon was shrinking off to port, so I decided we weren’t going there. Not that it made much difference. But at least there was an Army base on the moon and I’ve seen enough western films to have great confidence in the United States Army—at least in the cavalry part. The sun wasn’t a pleasant sight from empty space.

  The funny thing is that neither of us were really frightened. It was partly the suddenness with which we’d been wrapped up and mailed, partly the care that was being taken of us. Inside the bubble there was a glow like broad daylight, strong enough to read by.

  Fatty sat and worried about the option on the Winthrop store he’d lose if he didn’t pick it up in time. I figured out explanations for Edna on why I didn’t make it home by eleven. The box on top and the box on bottom hummed and mumbled. The sloop maintained the position it had originally had in Cassowary Cove, perfectly steady in the water. Every once in a while, Fatty bit a fingernail and I tied a shoelace.

  No, we weren’t really frightened—there didn’t seem to be anything solid enough to get frightened about, sitting in a sailboat out there with trillions of tiny lights burning all around. But we sure would have giver our right arms clear up to our left bands for a sneak preview of the next act.

  “One consolation, if you can call it that,” Fatty said, “There’s some sort of barrier two or three million miles from the Earth and this contraption may not be able to get past it. The papers don’t say exactly what the space-ships hit out here, but I gathered it was something that stopped them cold, but didn’t smash them and allowed them to turn and come back. Something like—like—”

  “Like the stuff this gray bubble is made of,” I suggested. We stared at each other tor a few minutes, then Fatty found an unbitten nail on one of his fingers and took care of it, and I tied both my shoelaces.

  We got hungry. There was nothing in our pockets that could be eaten. That made us hungrier.

  Fatty lumbered over to the side and looked down into the water. “Just as I thought Hey, Paul, break out your fishing tackle There’s a mackerel swimming around under the boat. Must have been caught up with us.”

  “Fishing’ll take too long. Ill net it.” I undressed, grabbed my landing net. “There’s not much water and he won’t have maneuvering space. But what about a fire? If we try to cook it, won’t we use up the air?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. We’ve been in long enough for the air to foul if it wasn’t being changed. It’s as fresh as ever. Whatever that machinery is up there, it’s not only tooling us along at a smart clip and playing ’Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?’ for your special benefit, but it’s also pumping fresh air in and stale air out And if you ask me where it gets oxygen and nitrogen in empty space—”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured him.

  As soon as I spied the mackerel, a small one. less than a foot long, I stepped into the water and went for it with the net. I’m a pretty good under-water swimmer.

  Pretty good, but the mackerel was better More practise. I felt silly caroming off the keel and gray haze while the fish dodged all around me. After a while, he got positively insulting. He actually swam backwards. facing me, just out of reach of the net.

  I came to the surface, swallowed air, and climbed back aboard.

  “He’s too spry,” I began. “I’ll get my fishing gear and—”

  I stopped. I was back in the gulping groove again.

  FATTY was sitting in the cockpit, looking as if he had sat down suddenly. In front of him there was a flock of plates, six glasses and two snowy napkins on which rested assorted knives, forks and spoons.

  There were two glasses of water, two glasses of milk and two glasses of beer. The plates were filled with food: grapefruit, soup, beef steak. French fried potatoes, green peas, and—for dessert—ice cream. Enough for two. Our dream meal.

  “It came from the box above,” Fatty told me as I dressed with clumsy finger. “I heard a click and looked up. There was this stuff floating down in single file. They distributed themselves evenly as they hit the deck.”

  “At least they feed you well.”

  Fatty grimaced at me. “You know where else you get served a meal with everything your heart desires.”

  Well, we unwrapped the cutlery and ate. What else could we do? The food was delicious, perfectly cooked. The drinks and the ice cream were cold, the grapefruit was chilled. When we finished, there was another click. First, three cigars that I remembered smoking at Louisa Capek’s birthday party and liking more than any others I’d ever had. then, a plug of Fatty Myers’s favorite chaw appeared. When the matches breezed down, we had stopped shrugging our shoulders. Fatty talked to himself a little, though.