Roberta Anderson–Tommyknockers relationship

Roberta “Bobbi” Anderson’s relationship with the Tommyknockers is a progressive loss of independence disguised as discovery: their influence powers her inventions, gives her a name for the beings connected to the buried spacecraft, and directs what she remembers, hides, and expects of James Eric Gardener. Her genuine love for Gard remains, but it now shares space with a colder self that treats him as a possible recruit to their team.

Contact and the Machinery of Influence

The bond first becomes visible in the practical changes around Bobbi. She tells Gard that Central Maine Power has been disconnected for four days, yet the house and the dig still have electricity. A device in the junction box behind the house, powered by what she estimates as twenty or thirty D-cell batteries, supplies it; she has bought every battery in stock at Cooder’s Market and gone to Augusta for more. Bobbi does not understand how these devices work. The distinction between the alien influence and her own knowledge is already blurred: she is building and using machinery whose operation she cannot explain, while speaking of the work with the pleasure of someone recalling a recent adventure.

The energy source is not confined to the house. Bobbi says that setting up the device that generates power there and at the dig was extraordinarily difficult. The account joins her increasingly elaborate construction work to the buried object’s reach: as more of the spacecraft is uncovered, its force spreads farther. Her inventions are therefore not simply independent projects. They are part of the expanding contact between the ship and the people and equipment around it, even as Bobbi presents them as things she has accomplished herself.

Naming the Tommyknockers

Bobbi’s mental connection appears in the unevenness of what she can perceive. She tells Gard that she receives only surface impressions from him, most of them broken and garbled; she cannot simply enter his thoughts to learn what has happened. When he asks who “they” are, however, the Tommyknockers nursery rhyme rises into her mind and runs itself off on the typewriter. The name reaches her through an involuntary mental and mechanical event, rather than through a clear explanation she has deliberately assembled.

She then tells Gard that the Tommyknockers came from space, a conclusion he may already have considered but has not been able to accept. The disclosure brings together the rhyme, the strange devices, and the buried spacecraft as parts of a single account. Yet Bobbi’s certainty about their origin does not mean that she is acting freely or fully understands them. She can identify the force and convey its broad implications while remaining unable to explain how its machinery works or to give a complete, orderly account of what has happened to her.

Memory, Concealment, and Allegiance

When Bobbi explains her recent memory to Gard, she claims that Peter died on June 28 and that this is the last day she remembers clearly and sequentially before Gard’s arrival. The narration reveals that this account is deliberately false. Her coherent memory actually ends on June 27, when she stands above the enormous object buried in the earth, grips the shovel, whispers “Everything’s fine,” and begins to dig. She cannot recount the intervening events in sequence, and she edits what she can tell Gard. In particular, she withholds what happened to Peter: she has been told not to tell him, and she has another reason of her own not to do so yet.

The Tommyknockers’ influence also reaches into her understanding of Gard. Bobbi has been told that he must be watched very closely, though not for long: soon, she believes, he will be “(part of us)” and on their team. She welcomes the prospect because she loves Gard. That affection is real, but it is folded into an expectation imposed by the beings who speak through her altered understanding. The bond thus joins intimacy to recruitment: she anticipates Gard’s incorporation into the group as both a Tommyknocker objective and something she personally wants.

The name itself reflects the partial character of Bobbi’s knowledge. When the thought of “they” arises, she decides that Tommyknockers is as good a name as any. The connection offers a label, an origin, and a framework for interpreting the spacecraft, but not a transparent account of the beings or their purposes. Bobbi’s certainty and uncertainty coexist: she knows whom she means and that they came from space, yet the name remains a provisional handle for a force she cannot fully describe.

The Divided Self and Gard’s Resistance

After Gard arrives, Bobbi’s responses to him divide. One part of her feels the warmth and genuine goodwill she has always felt for him, even in their worst times. Another part is no longer, strictly speaking, Bobbi Anderson: it stands apart, coldly assessing whether she wants Gard around at all. This division makes the relationship more than a simple contest between human affection and alien command. The same person who loves Gard watches him as a risk and considers his usefulness to the Tommyknockers.

Her difficulty reading Gard intensifies that suspicion. Bobbi wonders whether the steel plate in his skull could explain why his thoughts remain inaccessible, but the cold part of her cannot determine whether that is the reason. She understands the buried ship as broadcasting an immense, almost animate force through its metal surface. As she digs more of it free, the area reached by that broadcast widens. The energy has communicated itself to Gard, but Bobbi cannot tell what happened next: she suspects it was converted and then blown off in a tremendously powerful radio transmission. Even inside her altered perspective, the process is not fully legible.

Bobbi’s inability to read Gard matters because it leaves her dependent on direction from the very force whose influence has divided her. She knows that Gard will bear watching, but does not know what to do about him; the answer, she believes, will come from the Tommyknockers when the time is right. Her frustration at being unable to read him is therefore also a measure of her reduced autonomy. She can assess, conceal, and wait, but she expects the next instruction to come from elsewhere.

A Bond Without Full Understanding

The relationship is defined by a striking imbalance: the Tommyknockers shape Bobbi’s machines, memories, judgments, and expectations, while Bobbi remains unable to explain their mechanisms or consistently recover her own recent past. Her account to Gard is consequently both disclosure and concealment. She names the beings and tells him they came from space, but edits the history that led to that knowledge and hides the fate of Peter.

The spacecraft’s spreading broadcast gives the bond a physical reach, while the Tommyknockers’ commands and Bobbi’s divided awareness show its personal reach. The more of the ship she uncovers, the farther its energy extends; the more closely she considers Gard, the clearer it becomes that her feelings no longer belong to an undivided self. Her love for him survives, but it cannot by itself secure his safety or restore her independence: under the Tommyknockers’ influence, she can cherish him and still prepare to make him part of their team.