“—raising mushrooms?” said Fortnum, at last. “No. Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong.”
And slowly he put down the phone.
The curtains blew like veils of moonlight. The clock ticked. The after-midnight world flowed into and filled the bedr
oom. He heard Mrs. Goodbody’s clear voice on this morning’s air, a million years gone now. He heard Roger putting a cloud over the sun at noon. He heard the police cursing him by phone from downstate. Then Roger’s voice again, with the locomotive thunder hurrying him away and away, fading. And finally, Mrs. Goodbody’s voice behind the hedge:
“Lord, it grows fast!”
“What does?”
“Marasmius oreades!”
He snapped his eyes open. He sat up.
Downstairs, a moment later, he flicked through the unabridged dictionary.
His forefinger underlined the words:
“Marasmius oreades: a mushroom commonly found on lawns in summer and early autumn.”
He let the book fall shut.
Outside, in the deep summer night, he lit a cigarette and smoked quietly.
A meteor fell across space, burning itself out quickly. The trees rustled softly.
The front door tapped shut.
Cynthia moved toward him in her robe.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Too warm, I guess.”
“It’s not warm.”
“No,” he said, feeling his arms. “In fact, it’s cold.” He sucked on the cigarette twice, then, not looking at her, said, “Cynthia … What if … ?” He snorted and had to stop. “Well, what if Roger was right this morning? Mrs. Goodbody, what if she’s right, too? Something terrible is happening. Like—well—” he nodded at the sky and the million stars—“Earth being invaded by things from other worlds, maybe.”
“Hugh!”
“No, let me run wild.”
“It’s quite obvious we’re not being invaded or we’d notice.”
“Let’s say we’ve only half-noticed, become uneasy about something. What? How could we be invaded? By what means would creatures invade?”
Cynthia looked at the sky and was about to try something when he interrupted.
“No, not meteors or flying saucers. Not things we can see. What about bacteria? That comes from outer space, too, doesn’t it?”
“I read once, yes—”
“Spores, seeds, pollens, viruses probably bombard our atmosphere by the billions every second and have done so for millions of years. Right now we’re sitting out under an invisible rain. It falls all over the country, the cities, the towns, and right now … our lawn.”
“Our lawn?”
“And Mrs. Goodbody’s. But people like her are always pulling weeds, spraying poison, kicking toadstools off their grass. It would be hard for any strange life form to survive in cities. Weather’s a problem, too. Best climate might be South: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana. Back in the damp bayous, they could grow to a fine size.”