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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31692-h.zip b/31692-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0b0763 --- /dev/null +++ b/31692-h.zip diff --git a/31692-h/31692-h.htm b/31692-h/31692-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..045c077 --- /dev/null +++ b/31692-h/31692-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2773 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Homo Inferior, by Mari Wolf. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Homo Inferior, by Mari Wolf + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Homo Inferior + +Author: Mari Wolf + +Illustrator: Rudolph Palais + +Release Date: March 18, 2010 [EBook #31692] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMO INFERIOR *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h1>HOMO INFERIOR</h1> + +<h2>By Mari Wolf</h2> + +<h3>Illustrated by Rudolph Palais</h3> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science +Fiction November 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>The world of the new race was peaceful, comfortable, +lovely—and completely static. Only Eric knew the haunting loneliness +that had carried the old race to the stars, and he couldn't communicate +it, even if he had dared to!</i></div> + +<p><i>The starship waited. Cylindrical walls enclosed it, and a transparent +plastic dome held it back from the sky and the stars. It waited, while +night changed to day and back again, while the seasons merged one into +another, and the years, and the centuries. It towered as gleaming and as +uncorroded as it had when it was first built, long ago, when men had +bustled about it and in it, their shouting and their laughter and the +sound of their tools ringing against the metallic plates.</i></p> + +<p><i>Now few men ever came to it. And those who did come merely looked with +quiet faces for a few minutes, and then went away again.</i></p> + +<p><i>The generations kaleidoscoped by. The Starship waited.</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Eric met the other children when he was four years old. They were out in +the country, and he'd slipped away from his parents and started wading +along the edge of a tiny stream, kicking at the water spiders.</p> + +<p>His feet were soaked, and his knees were streaked with mud where he'd +knelt down to play. His father wouldn't like it later, but right now it +didn't matter. It was fun to be off by himself, splashing along the +stream, feeling the sun hot on his back and the water icy against his +feet.</p> + +<p>A water spider scooted past him, heading for the tangled moss along the +bank. He bent down, scooped his hand through the water to catch it. For +a moment he had it, then it slipped over his fingers and darted away, +out of his reach.</p> + +<p>As he stood up, disappointed, he saw them: two boys and a girl, not much +older than he. They were standing at the edge of the trees, watching +him.</p> + +<p>He'd seen children before, but he'd never met any of them. His parents +kept him away from them—and from all strangers. He stood still, +watching them, waiting for them to say something. He felt excited and +uncomfortable at the same time.</p> + +<p>They didn't say anything. They just watched him, very intently.</p> + +<p>He felt even more uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>The bigger boy laughed. He pointed at Eric and laughed again and looked +over at his companions. They shook their heads.</p> + +<p>Eric waded up out of the water. He didn't know whether to go over to +them or run away, back to his mother. He didn't understand the way they +were looking at him.</p> + +<p>"Hello," he said.</p> + +<p>The big boy laughed again. "See?" he said, pointing at Eric. "He can't."</p> + +<p>"Can't what?" Eric said.</p> + +<p>The three looked at him, not saying anything. Then they all burst out +laughing. They pointed at him, jumped up and down and clapped their +hands together.</p> + +<p>"What's funny?" Eric said, backing away from them, wishing his mother +would come, and yet afraid to turn around and run.</p> + +<p>"You," the girl said. "You're funny. Funny, funny, funny! You're +stu-pid."</p> + +<p>The others took it up. "Stu-pid, stu-pid. You can't talk to us, you're +too stu-pid...."</p> + +<p>They skipped down the bank toward him, laughing and calling. They jumped +up and down and pointed at him, crowded closer and closer.</p> + +<p>"Silly, silly. Can't talk. Silly, silly. Can't talk...."</p> + +<p>Eric backed away from them. He tried to run, but he couldn't. His knees +shook too much. He could hardly move his legs at all. He began to cry.</p> + +<p>They crowded still closer around him. "Stu-pid." Their laughter was +terrible. He couldn't get away from them. He cried louder.</p> + +<p>"Eric!" His mother's voice. He twisted around, saw her coming, running +toward him along the bank.</p> + +<p>"Mama!" He could move again. He stumbled toward her.</p> + +<p>"He wants his mama," the big boy said. "Funny baby."</p> + +<p>His mother was looking past him, at the other children. They stopped +laughing abruptly. They looked back at her for a moment, scuffing their +feet in the dirt and not saying anything. Suddenly the big boy turned +and ran, up over the bank and out of sight. The other boy followed him.</p> + +<p>The girl started to run, and then she looked at Eric's mother again and +stopped. She looked back at Eric. "I'm sorry," she said sulkily, and +then she turned and fled after the others.</p> + +<p>Eric's mother picked him up. "It's all right," she said. "Mother's here. +It's all right."</p> + +<p>He clung to her, clutching her convulsively, his whole body shaking. +"Why, Mama? Why?"</p> + +<p>"You're all right, dear."</p> + +<p>She was warm and her arms were tight around him. He was home again, and +safe. He relaxed, slowly.</p> + +<p>"Don't leave me, Mama."</p> + +<p>"I won't, dear."</p> + +<p>She crooned to him, softly, and he relaxed still more. His head drooped +on her shoulder and after a while he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>But it wasn't the same as it had been. It wouldn't ever be quite the +same again. He knew he was different now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That night Eric lay asleep. He was curled on his side, one chubby hand +under his cheek, the other still holding his favorite animal, the wooly +lamb his mother had given him for his birthday. He stirred in his sleep, +threshing restlessly, and whimpered.</p> + +<p>His mother's face lifted mutely to her husband's.</p> + +<p>"Myron, the things those children said. It must have been terrible for +him. I'm glad at least that he couldn't perceive what they were +thinking."</p> + +<p>Myron sighed. He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her close +against him. "Don't torture yourself, Gwin. You can't make it easier for +him. There's no way."</p> + +<p>"But we'll have to tell him something."</p> + +<p>He stroked her hair. The four years of their shared sorrow lay heavily +between them as he looked down over her head at his son.</p> + +<p>"Poor devil. Let him keep his childhood while he can, Gwin. He'll know +he's all alone soon enough."</p> + +<p>She nodded, burying her face against his chest. "I know...."</p> + +<p>Eric whimpered again, and his hands clenched into fists and came up to +protect his face.</p> + +<p>Instinctively Gwin reached out to him, and then she drew back. She +couldn't reach his emotions. There was no perception. There was no way +she could enter his dreams and rearrange them and comfort him.</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," his father said again. "He's got his whole life to be +lonely in."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The summer passed, and another winter and another summer. Eric spent +more and more time by himself. He liked to sit on the glassed-in +sunporch, bouncing his ball up and down and talking to it, aloud, +pretending that it answered him back. He liked to lie on his stomach +close to the wall and look out at the garden with its riotous mass of +flowers and the insects that flew among them. Some flew quickly, their +wings moving so fast that they were just blurs. Others flew slowly, +swooping on outspread bright-colored wings from petal to petal. He liked +these slow-flying ones the best. He could wiggle his shoulder blades in +time with their wings and pretend that he was flying too.</p> + +<p>Sometimes other children came by on the outside of the wall. He could +look out at them without worrying, because they couldn't see him. The +wall wasn't transparent from the outside. He liked it when three or four +of them came by together, laughing and chasing each other through the +garden. Usually, though, they didn't stay long. After they had played a +few minutes his father or his mother went out and looked at them, and +then they went away.</p> + +<p>Eric was playing by himself when the old man came out to the sunporch +doorway and stood there, saying nothing, making no effort to interrupt +or to speak. He was so quiet that after a while Eric almost didn't mind +his being there.</p> + +<p>The old man turned back to Myron and Gwin.</p> + +<p>"Of course the boy can learn. He's not stupid."</p> + +<p>Eric bounced the ball, flung it against the transparent glass, caught +it, bounced it again.</p> + +<p>"But how, Walden?" Gwin shook her head. "You offer to teach him, but—"</p> + +<p>Walden smiled. "Remember <i>these</i>?"</p> + +<p><i>... Walden's study. The familiar curtains drawn aside, and the shelves +behind them. The rows of bright-backed, box-like objects, most of them +old and spotted, quite unhygienic ...</i></p> + +<p>Gwin shook her head at the perception, but Myron nodded.</p> + +<p>"Books. I didn't know there were any outside the museums."</p> + +<p>Walden smiled again. "Only mine. Books are fascinating things. All the +knowledge of a race, gathered together on a few shelves...."</p> + +<p>"Knowledge?" Myron shrugged. "Imagine storing knowledge in those—boxes. +What are they? What's in them? Just words...."</p> + +<p>The books faded as Walden sighed. "You'd be surprised what the old race +did, with just those—boxes."</p> + +<p>He looked across at Eric, who was now bouncing his ball and counting, +out loud, up to three, and then going back and starting again.</p> + +<p>"The boy can learn what's in those books. Just as if he'd gone to school +back in the old times."</p> + +<p>Myron and Gwin looked doubtfully at each other, and then over at the +corner where Eric played unheeding. Perhaps Walden could help. +Perhaps....</p> + +<p>"Eric," Gwin said aloud.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother?"</p> + +<p>"We've decided you're going to go to school, the way you want to. Mr. +Walden here is going to be your teacher. Isn't that nice?"</p> + +<p>Eric looked at her and then at the old man. Strangers didn't often come +out on the sunporch. Strangers usually left him alone.</p> + +<p>He bounced the ball again without answering.</p> + +<p>"Say something, Eric," his mother commanded.</p> + +<p>Eric looked back at Walden. "He can't teach me to be like other +children, can he?"</p> + +<p>"No," Walden said. "I can't."</p> + +<p>"Then I don't want to go to school." Eric threw the ball across the room +as hard as he could.</p> + +<p>"But there once were other people like <i>you</i>," Walden said. "Lots of +them. And you can learn about them, if you want to."</p> + +<p>"Other people like me? Where?"</p> + +<p>Myron and Gwin looked helplessly at each other and at the old man. Gwin +began to cry and Myron cursed softly, on the perception level so that +Eric wouldn't hear them.</p> + +<p>But Walden's face was gentle and understanding as he answered, so +understanding that Eric couldn't help wanting desperately to believe +him.</p> + +<p>"Everyone was like you once," Walden said. "A long time ago."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was a new life for Eric. Every day he would go over to Walden's and +the two of them would pull back the curtains in the study and Walden +would lift down some of the books. It was as if Walden was giving him +the past, all of it, as fast as he could grasp it.</p> + +<p>"I'm really like the old race, Walden?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Eric. You'll see just how much like them...."</p> + +<p>Identity. Here in the past, in the books he was learning to read, in the +pictures, the pages and pages of scenes and portraits. Strange scenes, +far removed from the gardens and the quiet houses and the wordless smile +of friend to friend.</p> + +<p>Great buildings and small. The Parthenon in the moonlight, not too many +pages beyond the cave, with its smoky fire and first crude wall +drawings. Cities bright with a million neon lights, and still later, +caves again—the underground stations of the Moon colonies. All unreal, +and yet—</p> + +<p>They were his people, these men in the pictures. Strange men, violent +men: the barbarian trampling his enemy to death beneath his horse's +hooves, the knight in armor marching to the Crusade, the spaceman. And +the quieter men: the farmer, the artisan, the poet—they too were his +people, and far easier to understand than the others.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p>The skill of reading mastered, and the long, sweeping vistas of the +past. Their histories. Their wars. "Why did they fight, Walden?" And +Walden's sigh. "I don't know, Eric, but they did."</p> + +<p>So much to learn. So much to understand. Their art and music and +literature and religion. Patterns of life that ebbed and flowed and +ebbed again, but never in quite the same way. "Why did they change so +much, Walden?" And the answer, "You probably know that better than I, +Eric...."</p> + +<p>Perhaps he did. For he went on to the books that Walden ignored. +Their mathematics, their science. The apple's fall, and the orbits +of planets. The sudden spiral of analysis, theory, technology. The +machines—steamships, airplanes, spaceships....</p> + +<p>And the searching loneliness that carried the old race from the caves of +Earth to the stars. The searching, common to the violent man and the +quiet man, to the doer and the dreaming poet.</p> + +<blockquote><p><i>Why do we hunger, who own the Moon and trample the shifting dust +of Mars?</i></p> + +<p><i>Why aren't we content with the worlds we've won? Why don't we +rest, with the system ours?</i></p> + +<p><i>We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want +the stars....</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>"Have you ever been to the stars, Walden?"</p> + +<p>Walden stared at him. Then he laughed. "Of course not, Eric. Nobody goes +there now. None of our race has ever gone. Why should we?"</p> + +<p>There was no explaining. Walden had never been lonely.</p> + +<p>And then one day, while he was reading some fiction from the middle +period of the race, Eric found the fantasy. Speculation about the +future, about their future.... About the new race!</p> + +<p>He read on, his heart pounding, until the same old pattern came clear. +They had foreseen conflict, struggle between old race and new, suspicion +and hatred and tragedy. The happy ending was superficial. Everyone was +motivated as they had been motivated.</p> + +<p>He shut the book and sat there, wanting to reach back across the years +to the old race writers who had been so right and yet so terribly, +blindly wrong. The writers who had seen in the new only a continuation +of the old, of themselves, of their own fears and their own hungers.</p> + +<p>"Why did they die, Walden?" He didn't expect an answer.</p> + +<p>"Why does any race die, Eric?"</p> + +<p>His own people, forever removed from him, linked to him only through the +books, the pictures, and his own backward-reaching emotions.</p> + +<p>"Walden, hasn't there <i>ever</i> been anyone else like me, since they died?"</p> + +<p>Silence. Then, slowly, Walden nodded.</p> + +<p>"I wondered how long it would be before you asked that. Yes, there have +been others. Sometimes three or four in a generation."</p> + +<p>"Then, perhaps...."</p> + +<p>"No," Walden said. "There aren't any others now. We'd know it if there +were." He turned away from Eric, to the plastic wall that looked out +across the garden and the children playing and the long, level, +flower-carpeted plain.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes, when there's more than one of them, they go out there away +from us, out to the hills where it's wild. But they're found, of course. +Found, and brought back." He sighed. "The last of them died when I was a +boy."</p> + +<p>Others like him. Within Walden's lifetime, others, cut off from their +own race, lonely and rootless in the midst of the new. Others like him, +but not now, in his lifetime. For him there were only the books.</p> + +<p>The old race was gone, gone with all its conflicts, all its violence, +its stupidity—and its flaming rockets in the void and its Parthenon in +the moonlight.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Eric came into the study and stopped. The room was filled with +strangers. There were half a dozen men besides Walden, most of them +fairly old, white-haired and studious looking. They all turned to look +at him, watched him gravely without speaking.</p> + +<p>"Well, there he is." Walden looked from face to face. "Are you still +worried? Do you still think that one small boy constitutes a threat to +the race? What about you, Abbot?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I still think he should have been institutionalized in +the beginning."</p> + +<p>"Why? So you could study the brain processes of the lower animals?" +Walden's thoughts were as sarcastic as he could send them.</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. But don't you see what you've done, by teaching him +to read? You've started him thinking of the old race. Don't deny it."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>The thin man, Drew, broke in angrily. "He's not full grown yet. Just +fourteen, isn't he? How can you be sure what he'll be like later? He'll +be a problem. They've always been problems."</p> + +<p>They were afraid. That was what was the matter with them. Walden sighed. +"Tell them what you've been studying, Eric," he said aloud.</p> + +<p>For a minute Eric was too tongue-tied to answer. He stood motionless, +waiting for them to laugh at him.</p> + +<p>"Go on. Tell them."</p> + +<p>"I've been reading about the old race," Eric said. "All about the stars. +About the people who went off in the starships and explored our whole +galaxy."</p> + +<p>"What's a galaxy?" the thin man said. Walden could perceive that he +really didn't know.</p> + +<p>Eric's fear lessened. These men weren't laughing at him. They weren't +being just polite, either. They were interested. He smiled at them, +shyly, and told them about the books and the wonderful, strange tales of +the past that the books told. The men listened, nodding from time to +time. But he knew that they didn't understand. The world of the books +was his alone....</p> + +<p>"Well?" Walden looked at the others. They looked back. Their emotions +were a welter of doubt, of indecision.</p> + +<p>"You've heard the boy," Walden said quietly, thrusting his own +uneasiness down, out of his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Yes." Abbot hesitated. "He seems bright enough—quite different from +what I'd expected. At least he's not like the ones who grew up wild in +the hills. This boy isn't a savage."</p> + +<p>Walden shrugged. "Maybe they weren't savages either," he suggested. +"After all, it's been fifty years since the last of them died. And a lot +of legends can spring up in fifty years."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we have been worrying unnecessarily." Abbot got up to go, but +his eyes still held Walden's. "But," he added, "it's up to you to watch +him. If he reverts, becomes dangerous in any way, he'll have to be +locked up. That's final."</p> + +<p>The others nodded.</p> + +<p>"I'll watch him," Walden told them. "Just stop worrying."</p> + +<p>He stood at the door and waited until they were out of sight. Then and +only then did he allow himself to sigh and taste the fear he'd kept +hidden. The old men, the men with authority, were the dangerous ones.</p> + +<p>Walden snorted. Even with perception, men could be fools.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The summer that Eric was sixteen Walden took him to the museum. The +aircar made the trip in just a few hours—but it was farther than Eric +had ever traveled in his life, and farther than most people ever +bothered traveling.</p> + +<p>The museum lay on an open plain where there weren't many houses. At +first glance it was far from impressive. Just a few big buildings, +housing the artifacts, and a few old ruins of ancient constructions, +leveled now and half buried in the sands.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing." Eric looked down at it, disappointed. "Nothing at all."</p> + +<p>"What did you expect?" Walden set the aircar down between the two +largest buildings. "You knew it wouldn't be like the pictures in the +books. You knew that none of the old race's cities are left."</p> + +<p>"I know," Eric said. "But I expected more than this."</p> + +<p>He got out of the car and followed Walden around to the door of the +first building. Another man, almost as old as Walden, came toward them +smiling. The two men shook hands and stood happily perceiving each +other.</p> + +<p>"This is Eric," Walden said aloud. "Eric, this is Prior, the caretaker +here. He was one of my schoolmates."</p> + +<p>"It's been years since we've perceived short range," Prior said. "Years. +But I suppose the boy wants to look around inside?"</p> + +<p>Eric nodded, although he didn't care too much. He was too disappointed +to care. There was nothing here that he hadn't seen a hundred times +before.</p> + +<p>They went inside, past some scale models of the old cities. The same +models, though a bit bigger, that Eric had seen in the three-dimensional +view-books. Then they went into another room, lined with thousands of +books, some very old, many the tiny microfilmed ones from the middle +periods of the old race.</p> + +<p>"How do you like it, Eric?" the caretaker said.</p> + +<p>"It's fine," he said flatly, not really meaning it. He was angry at +himself for feeling disappointment. Walden had told him what to expect. +And yet he'd kept thinking that he'd walk into one of the old cities and +be able to imagine that it was ten thousand years ago and others were +around him. Others like him....</p> + +<p>Ruins. Ruins covered by dirt, and no one of the present race would even +bother about uncovering them.</p> + +<p>Prior and Walden looked at each other and smiled. "Did you tell him?" +the caretaker telepathed.</p> + +<p>"No. I thought we'd surprise him. I knew all the rest would disappoint +him."</p> + +<p>"Eric," the caretaker said aloud. "Come this way. There's another room I +want to show you."</p> + +<p>He followed them downstairs, down a long winding ramp that spiraled +underground so far that he lost track of the distance they had +descended. He didn't much care anyway. Ahead of him, the other two were +communicating, leaving him alone.</p> + +<p>"Through here," Prior said, stepping off the ramp.</p> + +<p>They entered a room that was like the bottom of a well, with smooth +stone sides and far, far above them a glass roof, with clouds apparently +drifting across its surface. But it wasn't a well. It was a vault, +forever preserving the thing that had been the old race's masterpiece.</p> + +<p>It rested in the center of the room, its nose pointing up at the sky. It +was like the pictures, and unlike them. It was big, far bigger than Eric +had ever visualized it. It was tall and smooth and as new looking as if +its builders had just stepped outside for a minute and would be back in +another minute to blast off for the stars.</p> + +<p>"A starship," Walden said. "One of the last types."</p> + +<p>"There aren't many left," Prior said. "We're lucky to have this one in +our museum."</p> + +<p>Eric wasn't listening. He was looking at the ship. The old race's ship. +His ship.</p> + +<p>"The old race built strange things," Prior said. "This is one of +the strangest." He shook his head. "Imagine the time they put in on +it.... And for what?"</p> + +<p>Eric didn't try to answer him. He couldn't explain why the old ones had +built it. But he knew. He would have built it himself, if he'd lived +then. <i>We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want +the stars....</i></p> + +<p>His people. His ship. His dream.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The old caretaker showed him around the museum and then left him alone +to explore by himself. He had all the time he wanted.</p> + +<p>He studied. He worked hard all day long, scarcely ever leaving the +museum grounds. He studied the subjects that now were the most +fascinating to him of all the old race's knowledge—the subjects that +related to the starships. Astronomy, physics, navigation, and the +complex charts of distant stars, distant planets, worlds he'd never +heard of before. Worlds that to the new race were only pin-pricks of +light in the night sky.</p> + +<p>All day long he studied. But in the evening he would go down the winding +ramp to the ship. The well was lighted with a softer, more diffuse +illumination than that of the houses. In the soft glow the walls and the +glass-domed roof seemed to disappear and the ship looked free, pointing +up at the stars.</p> + +<p>He didn't try to tell the caretaker what he thought. He just went back +to his books and his studies. There was so much he had to learn. And now +there was a reason for his learning. Someday, when he was fully grown +and strong and had mastered all he needed from the books, he was going +to fly the ship. He was going to look for his people, the ones who had +left Earth before the new race came....</p> + +<p>He told no one. But Walden watched him, and sighed.</p> + +<p>"They'll never let you do it, Eric. It's a mad dream."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"The ship. You want to go to the stars, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Eric stared at him, more surprised than he'd been in years. He had said +nothing. There was no way for Walden to know. Unless he'd perceived +it—and Eric couldn't be perceived, any more than he could perceive +other people....</p> + +<p>Walden shook his head. "It wasn't telepathy that told me. It was your +eyes. The way you look at the ship. And besides, I've known you for +years now. And I've wondered how long it would be before you thought of +this answer."</p> + +<p>"Well, why not?" Eric looked across at the ship, and his throat caught, +choking him, the way it always did. "I'm lonely here. My people are +gone. Why shouldn't I go?"</p> + +<p>"You'd be lonelier inside that ship, by yourself, away from Earth, away +from everything, and with no assurance you'd ever find anyone at all, +old race or new or alien...."</p> + +<p>Eric didn't answer. He looked back at the ship, thinking of the books, +trying to think of it as a prison, a weightless prison carrying him +forever into the unknown, with no one to talk to, no one to see.</p> + +<p>Walden was right. He would be too much alone in the ship. He'd have to +postpone his dream.</p> + +<p>He'd wait until he was old, and take the ship and die in it....</p> + +<p>Eric smiled at the thought. He was seventeen, old enough to know that +his idea was adolescent and melodramatic. He knew, suddenly, that he'd +never fly the ship.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The years passed. Eric spent most of his time at the museum. He had his +own aircar now, and sometimes he flew it home and visited with his +parents. They liked to have him come. They liked it much better than +having to travel all the way to the museum to visit him.</p> + +<p>Yet, though he wasn't dependent on other people any more, and could fly +the aircar as he chose, he didn't do much exploring. He didn't have any +desire to meet strangers. And there were always the books.</p> + +<p>"You're sure you're all right?" his mother said. "You don't need +anything?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'm fine."</p> + +<p>He smiled, looking out through the sunporch wall into the garden. It +seemed years and years since he'd pressed his nose to the glass, +watching the butterflies. It had been a long time.</p> + +<p>"I've got to get going," he said. "I want to be back at the museum by +dark."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you're sure you won't stay...."</p> + +<p>They said goodbye and he went out and got into the aircar and started +back. He flew slowly, close to the ground, because he really had plenty +of time and he felt lazy. He skimmed along over a valley and heard +laughter and dipped lower. A group of children was playing. Young +ones—they even talked aloud sometimes as they played. Children.... +There were so many children, always in groups, laughing....</p> + +<p>He flew on, quickly, until he was in a part of the country where he +didn't see any houses. Just a stream and a grove of trees and bright +flowers. He dropped lower, stopped, got out and walked down to the +stream.</p> + +<p>It was by another stream that he'd met the children who had laughed at +him, years ago. He smiled, sadly.</p> + +<p>He felt alone, but in a different sense from his usual isolation. He +felt free, away from people, away even from the books and their unspoken +insistence that their writers were dead and almost forgotten. He stood +by the edge of the stream, watching water spiders scoot across the +rippled surface.</p> + +<p>This was the same. This stream had probably been here when the old race +was here, maybe even before the old race had even come into existence.</p> + +<p>Water spiders. Compared to man, their race was immortal....</p> + +<p>The sun was low when he turned away from the stream and walked back to +where he had parked the aircar. He scarcely looked about him as he +walked. He was sure he was alone, and he felt no caution, no need to +watch and listen.</p> + +<p>But as he turned toward the car he saw the people. Two. Young, about his +own age. A boy and a girl, smiling at each other, holding hands.</p> + +<p>They weren't a dozen feet in front of him. But they didn't notice him. +They were conscious of no one but each other. As Eric watched, standing +frozen, unwilling to draw attention to himself by even moving or backing +up, the two leaned closer together. Their arms went around each other, +tightly, and they kissed.</p> + +<p>They said nothing. They kissed, and then stood apart and went on looking +at each other. Even without being able to perceive, Eric could feel +their emotion.</p> + +<p>Then they turned, slowly, toward him. In a moment they would be aware of +him. He didn't want them to think he was spying on them, so he went +toward them, making no effort to be quiet, and as he moved they stepped +still farther apart and looked at him, startled.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other as he passed, even more startled, and the +girl's hand went up to her mouth in surprise.</p> + +<p>They know, Eric thought bitterly. They know I'm different.</p> + +<p>He didn't want to go back to the museum. He flew blindly, not looking +down at the neat domed houses and the gardens and the people, but ahead, +to the eastern sky and the upthrust scarp of the hills. The hills, where +people like him had fled, for a little while.</p> + +<p>The occasional aircars disappeared. The gardens dropped away, and the +ordered color, and there was grass and bare dirt and, ahead, the +scraggly trees and out-thrust rocks of the foothills. No people. Only +the birds circling, crying to each other, curious about the car. Only +the scurrying animals of the underbrush below.</p> + +<p>A little of the tension drained from him as he climbed. Perhaps in these +very hills men like him had walked, not many generations ago. Perhaps +they would walk there again, amid the disorder of tree and canyon and +tumbled rock. Amid the wildness, the beauty that was neither that of the +gardens nor that of the old race's cities, but older, more enduring than +either.</p> + +<p>Below him were other streams, but these were swift-flowing, violent, +sparkling like prismed sunlight as they cascaded over the rocks. Their +wildness called to him, soothed him as the starship soothed him, as the +gardens and the neat domed houses never could.</p> + +<p>He knew why his kind had fled to the hills, for whatever little time +they had. He knew too that he would come again.</p> + +<p>Searching. Looking for his own kind.</p> + +<p>That was what he was doing. That was what he had always intended to do, +ever since he had heard of the others like himself, the men who had come +here before him. He realized his motive suddenly, and realized too the +futility of it. But futile or not, he would come again.</p> + +<p>For he was of the old race. He shared their hungering.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Walden was reading in his study when the council members arrived. They +came without advance warning and filed in ceremoniously, responding +rather coolly to his greeting.</p> + +<p>"We're here about the boy," Abbot began abruptly. "He's at the museum +now, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>Walden nodded. "He's been spending most of his time there lately."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it's wise, letting him wander around alone?"</p> + +<p>Trouble. Always trouble. Just because there was one young boy, Eric, +asking only to be let alone. And the old council members wouldn't rest +until they had managed to find an excuse to put him in an institution +somewhere, where his actions could be watched, where there wouldn't be +any more uncertainty.</p> + +<p>"Eric's all right."</p> + +<p>"Is he? Prior tells me he leaves the museum every day. He doesn't come +here. He doesn't visit his family."</p> + +<p>The thin man, Drew, broke in. "He goes to the hills. Just like the +others did. Did you know that, Walden?"</p> + +<p>Walden's mouth tightened. It wouldn't do to let them read his hostility +to their prying. It would be even worse to let them know that they +worried him.</p> + +<p>"Besides," Drew added, "he's old enough to be thinking about women now. +There's always a chance he'll—"</p> + +<p>"Are you crazy?" Walden shouted the words aloud. "Eric's not an animal."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he?" Abbot answered quietly. "Weren't all the old race just +animals?"</p> + +<p>Walden turned away from them, closing his mind to their thoughts. He +mustn't show anger. If he did, they'd probably decide he was too +emotional, not to be trusted. They'd take Eric away, to some +institution. Cage him....</p> + +<p>"What do you want to do with the boy?" Walden forced his thoughts to +come quietly. "Do you want to put him in a zoo with the other animals?"</p> + +<p>The sarcasm hurt them. They wanted to be fair. Abbot especially prided +himself on his fairness.</p> + +<p>"Of course not."</p> + +<p>They hesitated. They weren't going to do anything. Not this time. They +stood around and made a little polite conversation, about other things, +and then Abbot turned toward the door.</p> + +<p>"We just wanted to be sure you knew what was going on." Abbot paused. +"You'll keep an eye on the boy, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I his keeper?" Walden asked softly.</p> + +<p>They didn't answer him. Their thoughts were confused and a bit irritated +as they went out to the aircar that had brought them. But he knew they'd +be back. And they would keep track of Eric. Prior, the caretaker, would +help them. Prior was old too, and worried....</p> + +<p>Walden walked back into his study, slowly. His legs were trembling. He +hadn't realized how upset he had been. He smiled at the intensity of his +emotions, realizing something he'd always kept hidden, even from +himself.</p> + +<p>He was as fond of Eric as if the boy had been his own son.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Eric pushed the books away, impatiently. He didn't feel like studying. +The equations were meaningless. He was tired of books, and history, and +all the facts about the old race.</p> + +<p>He wanted to be outdoors, exploring, walking along the hillsides, +looking for his own kind.</p> + +<p>But he had already explored the hills. He had flown for miles, and +walked for miles, and searched dozens of caves in dozens of gorges. He +had found no one. He was sure that if there had been anyone he would +have discovered some sign.</p> + +<p>He opened the book again, but he couldn't concentrate on it.</p> + +<p>Beyond those hills, across another valley, there were even higher +mountains. He had often looked across at them, wondering what they held. +They were probably as desolate as the ones he'd searched. Still, he +would rather be out in them, looking, than sitting here, fretting, +almost hating the old race because it had somehow bequeathed him a +heritage of loneliness.</p> + +<p>He got up abruptly and went outside to the aircar.</p> + +<p>It was a long way to the second range of mountains. He flew there +directly, skimming over the nearer hills, the ones he had spent weeks +exploring. He dropped low over the intervening valley, passing over the +houses and towns, looking down at the gardens. The new race filled all +the valleys.</p> + +<p>He came into the foothills and swung the car upward, climbing over the +steep mountainsides. Within a mile from the valley's edge he was in wild +country. He'd thought the other hills were wild, but here the terrain +was jagged and rock-strewn, with boulders flung about as if by some +giant hand. There were a hundred narrow canyons, opening into each +other, steep-sloped, overgrown with brambles and almost impenetrable, a +maze with the hills rising around them and cutting off all view of the +surrounding country.</p> + +<p>Eric dropped down into one of the larger canyons. Immediately he +realized how easy it would be to get lost in those hills. There were no +landmarks that were not like a hundred jutting others. Without the +aircar he would be lost in a few minutes. He wondered suddenly if +anyone, old race or new, had ever been here before him.</p> + +<p>He set the aircar down on the valley floor and got out and walked away +from it, upstream, following the little creek that tumbled past him over +the rocks. By the time he had gone a hundred paces the car was out of +sight.</p> + +<p>It was quiet. Far away birds called to each other, and insects buzzed +around him, but other than these sounds there was nothing but his own +footsteps and the creek rapids. He relaxed, walking more slowly, looking +about him idly, no longer searching for anything.</p> + +<p>He rounded another bend, climbed up over a rock that blocked his path +and dropped down on the other side of it. Then he froze, staring.</p> + +<p>Not ten feet ahead of him lay the ashes of a campfire, still smoldering, +still sending a thin wisp of smoke up into the air.</p> + +<p>He saw no one. Nothing moved. No tracks showed in the rocky ground. +Except for the fire, the gorge looked as uninhabited as any of the +others.</p> + +<p>Slowly Eric walked toward the campfire and knelt down and held his hand +over the embers. Heat rose about him. The fire hadn't been out for very +long.</p> + +<p>He turned quickly, glancing about him, but there was no sudden motion +anywhere, no indication that anyone was hiding nearby. Perhaps there was +nobody near. Perhaps whoever had built the fire had left it some time +before, and was miles away by now....</p> + +<p>He didn't think so. He had a feeling that eyes were watching him. It was +a strange feeling, almost as if he could perceive. Wishful thinking, he +told himself. Unreal, untrue....</p> + +<p>But <i>someone</i> had been here. Someone had built the fire. And it was +probably, almost certainly, someone without perception. Someone like +himself.</p> + +<p>His knees were shaking. His hands trembled, and sweat broke out on the +palms. Yet his thoughts seemed calm, icily calm. It was just a nervous +reaction, he knew that. A reaction to the sudden knowledge that people +<i>were</i> here, out in these hills where he had searched for them but +never, deep down, expected to find them. They were probably watching him +right now, hidden up among the trees somewhere, afraid to move because +then he would see them and start out to capture them.</p> + +<p>If there were people here, they must think that he was one of the normal +ones. That he could perceive. So they would keep quiet, because a person +with perception couldn't possibly perceive a person who lacked it. They +would remain motionless, hoping to stay hidden, waiting for him to leave +so that they could flee deeper into the hills.</p> + +<p>They couldn't know that he was one of them.</p> + +<p>He felt helpless, suddenly. So near, so near—and yet he couldn't reach +them. The people who lived here in the wild mountain gorges could elude +him forever.</p> + +<p>No motion. No sound. Only the embers, smoking....</p> + +<p>"Listen," he called aloud. "Can you hear me?"</p> + +<p>The canyon walls caught his voice, sent it echoing back, fainter and +fainter. "... can you hear me can you hear me can you...."</p> + +<p>No one answered.</p> + +<p>"I'm your friend," he called. "I can't perceive. I'm one of you."</p> + +<p>Over and over it echoed. "... one of you one of you one of you...."</p> + +<p>"Answer me. I've run away from them too. Answer me!"</p> + +<p>"Answer me answer me answer me...."</p> + +<p>The echoes died away and it was quiet, too quiet. No sound. Even if they +heard him, they wouldn't answer.</p> + +<p>He couldn't track them. If they had homes that were easy to find they +would have left them by now. He was helpless.</p> + +<p>The heat from the fire rose about him, and he tasted smoke and coughed. +Nothing moved. Finally he stood up, turned away from the fire and walked +on past it, up the stream.</p> + +<p>No one. No tracks. No sign. Only the feeling that other eyes watched him +as he walked along, other ears listened for the sound of his passing.</p> + +<p>He turned back, retraced his steps to the fire. The embers had +blackened. The wisp of smoke that curled upward was very thin now. +Otherwise everything was the same as it had been.</p> + +<p>He couldn't give up and fly back to the museum. If he did he might never +find them again. But even if he didn't, he might never find them.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" He screamed the word, so loudly that they could have heard it +miles away. "I'm one of you. I can't perceive. Believe me! You've got to +believe me!"</p> + +<p>"Believe me believe me believe me...."</p> + +<p>Nothing. The tension went out of him suddenly and he began to tremble +again, and his throat choked up, wanting to cry. He stumbled away from +the embers, back in the direction of the aircar.</p> + +<p>"Believe me...." This time the words were little more than a whisper, +and there was no echo.</p> + +<p>"I believe you," a voice said quietly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He swung about, trying to place it, and saw the woman. She stood at the +edge of the trees, above the campfire, half hidden in the undergrowth. +She looked down at him warily, a rock clenched in her hand. She wasn't +an attractive sight.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She looked old, with a leathery skin and gnarled arms and legs. Her +grey-white hair was matted, pulled back into a snarled bun behind her +head. She wore a shapeless dress of some roughwoven material that hung +limply from her shoulders, torn, dirty, ancient. He'd never seen an +animal as dirty as she.</p> + +<p>"So you can't perceive," the woman cackled. "I believe it, boy. You +don't have that look about you."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," Eric said softly. "I never knew until today that there +were any others."</p> + +<p>She laughed, a high-pitched laugh that broke off into a choking cough. +"There aren't many of us, boy. Not many. Me and Nell—but she's an old, +old woman. And Lisa, of course...."</p> + +<p>She cackled again, nodding. "I always told Lisa to wait," she said +firmly. "I told her that there'd be another young one along."</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" Eric said.</p> + +<p>"Me? Call me Mag. Come on, boy. Come on. What are you waiting for?"</p> + +<p>She turned and started off up the hill, walking so fast that she was +almost out of sight among the trees before Eric recovered enough to +follow her. He stumbled after her, clawing his way up the steep slope, +slipping and grabbing the branches with his hands and hauling himself up +the rocks.</p> + +<p>"You're a slow one." The old woman paused and waited for him to catch +up. "Where've you been all your life? You don't act like a mountain +boy."</p> + +<p>"I'm not," Eric said. "I'm from the valley...."</p> + +<p>He stopped talking. He realized, suddenly, the futility of trying to +explain his life to her. If she had ever known the towns, it would have +been years ago. She was too old, and tattered, and so dirty that her +smell wasn't even a good clean animal smell.</p> + +<p>"Hurry up, boy!"</p> + +<p>He felt unreal, as if this were a dream, as if he would awaken suddenly +and be back at the museum. He almost wished that he would. He couldn't +believe that he had found another like himself and was now following +her, scrambling up a mountain as if he were a goat.</p> + +<p>A goat. Smells. The dirty old woman in front of him. He wrinkled his +nose in disgust and then was furious with himself, with his reactions, +with the sudden knowledge that he had glamorized his kind and had hoped +to find them noble and brilliant.</p> + +<p>This tattered old woman with her cackling laugh and leathery, toothless +face and dirt encrusted clothing couldn't be like him. He couldn't +accept it....</p> + +<p>Mag led him up the slope and then over some heaped boulders, and +suddenly they were on level ground again. They had come out into a tiny +canyon, a blind pocket recessed into the mountain, almost completely +surrounded by walls that rose sharply upward. Back across the gorge, +huddled against the face of the mountain, was a tiny hut.</p> + +<p>It was primitive, like those in the prehistoric sections of the old +history books. It was made of branches lashed together, with sides that +leaned crookedly against each other and a matted roof that looked as if +it would slide off at any minute. It was like a twig house that a child +might make with sticks and grass.</p> + +<p>"Our home," Mag said. Her voice was proud.</p> + +<p>He didn't answer. He followed her across toward it, past the mounds of +refuse, the fruit rinds and bones and skins that were flung carelessly +beside the trail. He smelled the scent of decay and rottenness and +turned his head away, feeling sick.</p> + +<p>"Lisa! Lisa!" Mag shouted, the words echoing and re-echoing.</p> + +<p>A figure moved just inside the hut doorway. "She's not here," a voice +called. "She's out hunting."</p> + +<p>"Well, come on out, Nell, and see what I've found."</p> + +<p>The figure moved slowly out from the gloom of the hut, bending to get +through the low door, half straightening up outside, and Eric saw that +it was an old, old woman. She couldn't straighten very far. She was too +old, bent and twisted and brittle, feebler looking than anyone Eric had +ever seen before. She hobbled toward him slowly, teetering from side to +side as she walked, her hands held out in front of her, her eyes on the +ground.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Mag?" Her voice was as twisted as her body.</p> + +<p>"A boy. Valley boy. Just the age for our Lisa, too."</p> + +<p>Eric felt his face redden and he opened his mouth to protest, to say +something, anything, but Mag went right on talking, ignoring him.</p> + +<p>"The boy came in an aircar. I thought he was one of the normals—but +he's not. Hasn't their ways. Good looking boy, too."</p> + +<p>"Is he?" Nell had reached them. She stopped and looked up, right into +Eric's face, and for the first time he realized that she was blind. Her +eyes were milky white, without pupils, without irises. Against the brown +leather of her skin they looked moist and dead.</p> + +<p>"Speak, boy," she croaked. "Let me hear your voice."</p> + +<p>"Hello," Eric said, feeling utterly foolish and utterly confused. "I'm +Eric."</p> + +<p>"Eric...." Nell reached out, touched his arm with her hand, ran her +fingers up over his shoulders, over his chest.</p> + +<p>"It's been a long time since I've heard a man's voice," she said. "Not +since Mag here was a little girl."</p> + +<p>"Have you been—here—all that time?" Eric asked, looking around him at +the hut, and the meat hanging to dry, covered with flies, and the +leather water bags, and the mounds of refuse, the huge, heaped mounds +that he couldn't stop smelling.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Nell said. "I've been here longer than I want to remember, boy. +We came here from the other mountains when Mag was only a baby."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They walked toward the hut, and as they neared it he smelled a new +smell, that of stale smoke and stale sweat overlying the general odor of +decay.</p> + +<p>"Let's talk out here," he said, not wanting to go inside.</p> + +<p>They sat down on the hard earth and the two women turned their faces +toward him, Mag watching him intently, Nell listening, her head cocked +to one side like an old crippled bird's.</p> + +<p>"I always thought I was the only one like me," Eric said. "The people +don't know of any others. They don't know you exist. They wouldn't +believe it."</p> + +<p>"That's the way we want it," Mag said. "That's the only way it can be."</p> + +<p>Nell nodded. "I was a girl in the other hills," she said, nodding toward +the west, toward the museum. "There were several of us then. There had +been families of us in my father's time, and in his father's time, and +maybe before that even. But when I was a girl there was only my father +and my mother and another wife of my father's, and a lot of +children...."</p> + +<p>She paused, still looking toward the west, facing a horizon she could no +longer see. "The normal ones came. We'd hidden from them before. But +this time we had no chance to hide. I was hunting, with the boy who was +my father's nephew.</p> + +<p>"They surrounded the hut. They didn't make any sound. They don't have +to. I was in the forest when I heard my mother scream."</p> + +<p>"Did they kill her?" Eric cried out. "They wouldn't do that."</p> + +<p>"No, they didn't kill any of them. They dragged them off to the aircars, +all of them. My father, my mother and the other woman, the children. We +watched from the trees and saw them dragged off, tied with ropes, like +wild animals. The cars flew away. Our people never came back."</p> + +<p>She stopped, sunken in revery. Mag took up the story. Her voice was +matter-of-fact, completely casual about those long ago events.</p> + +<p>"A bear killed my father. That was after we came back here. Nell was +sick. I did the hunting. We almost starved, for a while, but there's +lots of game in the hills. It's a good life here. But I've been sorry +for Lisa. She's a woman now. She needs a man. I'm glad you came. I would +have hated to send her out looking for a normal one."</p> + +<p>"But—" Eric stopped, his head whirling. He didn't know what to say. +Anything at all would sound wrong, cruel.</p> + +<p>"It's dangerous," Mag went on, "taking up with the normals. They think +it's wrong. They think we're animals. One of us has to pick a man who's +stupid—a farmer, maybe—and even then it's like being a pet. A beast."</p> + +<p>It took a moment for Eric to realize what she was saying, and when he +did realize, the thought horrified him.</p> + +<p>"Lisa's father was stupid," Mag said. "He took me in when I came down +from the hills. He didn't send for the others. Not then. He kept me and +fed me and treated me kindly, and I thought I was safe. I thought our +kind and theirs could live together."</p> + +<p>She laughed. Deep, bitter lines creased her mouth. "A week later the +aircar came. They sneaked up to the garden where I was. He was with +them. He was leading them."</p> + +<p>She laughed again. "Their kindness means nothing. Their love means +nothing. To them, we're animals."</p> + +<p>The old woman, Nell, rocked back and forth, her face still in revery. +Flies crawled over her bare arms, unheeded.</p> + +<p>"I got away," Mag said. "I saw them coming. They can't run fast, and I +knew the hiding places. I never went back to the valleys. Nell would +have starved without me. And there was Lisa to care for, later...."</p> + +<p>The flies settled on Eric's hands and he brushed them away, shivering.</p> + +<p>Mag smiled. The bitterness left her face. "I'm glad I don't have to send +Lisa down to the valley."</p> + +<p>She got up before he could answer, before he could even think of +anything to say or do. Crossing over to the pole where the dried meat +hung, she pulled a piece of it loose and brought it back to where they +sat. Some she gave to the old woman and some she kept for herself and +the rest, most of it, she tossed to Eric.</p> + +<p>"You must be hungry, boy."</p> + +<p>It was filthy. Dirt clung to it—dust and pollen and grime—and the +flies had flown off in clouds when she lifted it down.</p> + +<p>The old woman raised her piece and put the edge of it in her mouth and +started to chew, slowly, eating her way up the strip. Mag tore hers with +her teeth, rending it and swallowing it quickly, watching Eric all the +time.</p> + +<p>"Eat."</p> + +<p>It was unreal. He couldn't be here. These women couldn't exist.</p> + +<p>He lifted the meat, feeling his stomach knot with disgust, wanting to +fling it from him and run, blindly, down the hill to the aircar. But he +didn't. He had searched too long to flee now. Shuddering, he closed his +mind to the flies and the smell and the filth and bit into the meat and +chewed it and swallowed it. And all the time, Mag watched him.</p> + +<p>The sun passed overhead and began to dip toward the west. The shadows, +which had shortened as they sat in front of the hut, lengthened again, +until they themselves were half in the shadow of the trees lining the +gorge. Still Lisa did not come. It was very quiet. The only sounds that +broke the silence were their own voices and the buzzing of the flies.</p> + +<p>They talked, but communication was difficult between them. Eric tried to +accept their ideas, their way of life, but he couldn't. The things they +said were strange to him. Their whole pattern of life was strange to +him. He could understand it at all only because he had studied the +primitive peoples of the old race. But he couldn't imagine himself as +one of them. He couldn't think of himself as having grown up among them, +in the hills, living only to hunt and gather berries and store food for +the wintertime. He couldn't think of himself hiding, creeping through +the gorges like a hunted animal, flattening himself in the underbrush +whenever an aircar passed by.</p> + +<p>He sat and listened to them talk, and his amazement grew. Their beliefs +were so different. He listened to their superstitious accounts of the +old race, and the way it had been "in the beginning."</p> + +<p>He listened to their legends of the old gods who flew through the air +and were a mighty people, but who were destroyed by a new race of +devils. He listened as they told him of their own ancestors, children of +the gods, who had fled to the hills to await the gods' return. They had +no conception at all of the thousands of years that had elapsed between +the old race's passing and their own forefathers' flight into the hills. +And when he tried to explain, they shook their heads and wouldn't +believe him.</p> + +<p>He didn't hear Lisa come. One minute the far end of the clearing was +empty and still and the next minute the girl was walking across it +toward them, a bow in one hand and a pair of rabbits dangling from the +other.</p> + +<p>She saw him and stopped, the rabbits dropping from her hand.</p> + +<p>"Here's your young man, Lisa," Mag said. "Valley boy. His name's Eric."</p> + +<p>He stared back at her, more in curiosity than in surprise. She wasn't +nearly as unattractive as he had thought she would be. She wouldn't be +bad looking at all, he thought, if she were clean. She was fairly tall +and lean, too skinny really, with thin muscular arms instead of the +softly rounded arms the valley girls had. She was too brown, but her +skin hadn't turned leathery yet, and there was still a little life in +the lank brown hair that fell matted about her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Lisa," he said.</p> + +<p>"Hello." Her eyes never left him. She stared at him, her lips trembling, +her whole body tensed. She looked as if she were going to turn and run +at any moment, as if only his quietness kept her from fleeing.</p> + +<p>With a sudden shock Eric realized that she too was afraid—afraid of +him. His own hesitation fell away and he smiled at her.</p> + +<p>Mag got up and went over to the girl and put her arm around Lisa's +shoulders. "Don't be afraid of him, child," Mag said. "He's a nice boy. +Not like one of <i>them</i>."</p> + +<p>Lisa trembled.</p> + +<p>Eric watched her, pitying her. She was as helpless as he before the calm +assumption of the older women. More helpless, because she had probably +never thought of defying them, of escaping the pattern of their lives.</p> + +<p>"Don't worry, Lisa," he said. "I won't hurt you."</p> + +<p>Slowly she walked toward him, poised, waiting for a hostile move. She +came within a few feet of him and then sank to her haunches, still +watching him, still poised.</p> + +<p>She was as savage as the others. A graceful, dirty savage.</p> + +<p>"You're really one of us?" she said. "You can't perceive?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I can't perceive."</p> + +<p>"He's not like them," Mag said flatly. "If you'd ever been among them, +you'd know their ways."</p> + +<p>"I've never seen a man before, up close," Lisa said.</p> + +<p>Her eyes pleaded with him, and suddenly he knew why he pitied her. It +was because she felt helpless before him, and begged him not to harm +her, and thought of him as something above her, more powerful than she, +and dangerous. He looked across at her and felt protective, and it was a +new feeling to him, absolutely new. Because always before, around the +normals, even around his own parents and Walden, he had been the +helpless one.</p> + +<p>He liked this new feeling, and wished it could last. But it couldn't. He +couldn't do as the old women expected him to, leave the valley and his +parents, leave the books and the museum and the ship, just to hide in +the hills like a beast with them.</p> + +<p>He had come to find his people, but these three were not they.</p> + +<p>"You two go on off and talk," Mag said. "We're old. We don't matter now. +You've got things to settle between you."</p> + +<p>She cackled again and got up and went into the hut and old Nell got up +also and followed her.</p> + +<p>The girl shivered. She drew back a little, away from him. Her eyes never +left his face.</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, Lisa," he said gently. "I won't hurt you. I won't even +touch you. But I would like to talk to you."</p> + +<p>"All right," she said.</p> + +<p>They got up and walked to the end of the gorge, the girl keeping always +a few feet from him. At the boulders she stopped and faced him, her back +against a rock, her thin body still trembling.</p> + +<p>"Lisa," he said. "I want to be your friend."</p> + +<p>Her eyes widened. "How can you?" she said. "Men are friends. Women are +friends. But you're a man and I'm a woman and it's different."</p> + +<p>He shook his head helplessly, trying to think of a way to explain things +to her. He couldn't say that he found her dirty and unattractive and +almost another species. He couldn't say that he'd searched the hills, +often thinking of the relationship between man and woman, but that she +wasn't the woman, that she never could be the woman for him. He couldn't +tell her that he pitied her in perhaps the same way that the normals +pitied him.</p> + +<p>Still, he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to be her friend. Because he +was sure now that he could search the mountains forever, and perhaps +find other people, even if those he found were like her, and Mag and +Nell.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Lisa," he said. "I can't live up here. I live in the valley. I +came in an aircar, and it's down in the canyon below here. I have to go +back—soon. Before it gets completely dark."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"If I don't the normals will come looking for me. They'll find the +aircar and then they'll find us. And you and your family will be taken +away. Don't you understand?"</p> + +<p>"You're going?" Lisa said.</p> + +<p>"In a little while. I must."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, strangely. She looked at his clothes, at his face, at +his body. Then she looked at her own hands and touched her own coarse +dress, and she nodded.</p> + +<p>"You won't come back," she said. "You don't like me. I'm not what you +were searching for."</p> + +<p>He couldn't answer. Her words hurt him. The very fact that she could +recognize their difference from each other hurt him. He pitied her still +more.</p> + +<p>"I'll come back," he said, "Of course I will. As often as I can. You're +the only other people I've ever known who didn't perceive."</p> + +<p>She looked up into his face again. Her eyes were very large. They were +the only beautiful thing about her.</p> + +<p>"Even if you do come back, you won't want me."</p> + +<p>There wasn't any answer at all.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was dusk when Eric got back to the museum. He landed the aircar and +climbed out and walked across to the building, still feeling unreal, +still not believing that the events of this day had actually happened.</p> + +<p>He nodded to Prior and the old caretaker nodded back and then stood +staring at him, troubled and curious. Eric didn't notice the other's +expression, nor the fact that Prior followed him to the top of the +spiral ramp and remained there for a while, watching.</p> + +<p>Eric stood at the bottom of the well where he had so often stood before, +staring across at the ship, then looking up, up, up its sleek length to +where its nose pointed yearningly toward the night sky. But tonight he +found no comfort in the sight, no sense of kinship with its builders. +Tonight the ship was a dead and empty thing.</p> + +<p>"<i>You won't want me—</i>" Her voice, her eyes, came between him and the +stars.</p> + +<p>He had thought of finding his people and sharing with them their common +heritage from the past, the knowledge of the old race and its thoughts +and its science and its philosophy. He had thought of sharing with them +the old desire for the stars, the old hunger, the old loneliness that +the new race could never understand. He had been wrong.</p> + +<p><i>His people....</i> He pushed the thought away.</p> + +<p>He looked up at the stars that were merely pin-pricks of light at the +top of the well and wondered if anyone, old race or new or something +different from either, lived among them now. And he felt small, and even +the ship was small, and his own problems and his own search were +unimportant. He sat down and leaned back against the smooth wall and +closed his eyes, blotting out the ship and the stars, and finally, even +Lisa's face before him.</p> + +<p>The old caretaker found him sleeping there, and sighed, and went away +again, still frowning. Eric slept on, unheeding. When he awoke it was +late morning and the stars were gone and clouds drifted across the mouth +of the well.</p> + +<p>There was no answer here. The starship would never fly.</p> + +<p>And Eric went back to the mountains.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was two weeks later that the councilmen stood facing Walden across +the great museum table. They had come together, Abbot and Drew and the +others, and they faced him together, frowning. Their thoughts were +hidden. Walden could catch only glimpses of what lay beneath their +worry.</p> + +<p>"Every day." Abbot's eyes were hard, unyielding. "Why, Walden? Why does +he go there every day?"</p> + +<p>"Does it matter?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. Perhaps not. We can't tell—yet."</p> + +<p>The ring of faces, of buried perceptions, of fear, anxiety, and a worry +that could no longer be shrugged off. And Eric away, as he was every day +now, somewhere in the distant hills.</p> + +<p>"The boy's all right." Walden checked his own rush of worry.</p> + +<p>"Is he?"</p> + +<p>The worry in the open now, the fear uncontained, and no more +vacillation. Their thoughts hidden from Walden, their plans hidden, and +nothing he could do, no way to warn Eric, yet.</p> + +<p>Abbot smiled, humorlessly. "The boy had better be all right...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Eric landed in the canyon and made sure that the aircar was hidden under +a ledge, with branches drawn about it so that no one could spot it from +above. Then he turned and started for the slope, and as he reached it +Lisa ran down to meet him.</p> + +<p>"You're late," she called.</p> + +<p>"Am I? Have you really been waiting for me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course." She came over to meet him, laughing, openly glad that he +had come.</p> + +<p>He smiled back at her and walked along beside her, having to take long +strides to match her skipping ones, and he too was glad that he'd come. +Lately he felt like this every day. It was a feeling he couldn't +analyze. Nothing had changed. The girl was still too thin and too brown +and too dirty, although now she had begun to wash her dress and her body +in the mountain stream and to comb the snarls from her hair. But it +didn't make her attractive to him. It only made her less unattractive.</p> + +<p>"Will you always have to go away every night?" she asked guilelessly.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>He looked down at her and smiled, wondering why he came. There was still +an air of unreality about the whole situation. He felt numb. He had felt +that way ever since the first day, and the feeling had grown, until now +he moved and spoke and smiled and ate and it was as if he were someone +else and the person he had been was gone completely. He liked coming +here. But there was no triumph in being with these people, no sense of +having found his own kind, no purpose, nothing but a vague contentment +and an unwillingness to search any farther.</p> + +<p>"You're very quiet," Lisa said.</p> + +<p>"I know. I was thinking."</p> + +<p>She reached out and touched his arm, her fingers strong and muscular. He +smiled at her but made no move toward her, and after a moment she sighed +and took her hand away.</p> + +<p>"Why are you so different, Eric?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps because I was raised by the others, the normal ones. Perhaps +just because I've read so many books about the old race...."</p> + +<p>They came up to the boulders that blocked the entrance of the little +gorge where the hut was. Lisa started toward them, then stopped +abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Let's go on up the hill. I want to talk to you, without them."</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>He followed her without speaking, concentrating all his effort on +scrambling over the rougher spots in the trail. She didn't say anything +more until they had come out on a high ledge that overlooked the whole +canyon and she had sat down and motioned for him to sit down too.</p> + +<p>"Whew," he panted. "You're a mountain goat, Lisa."</p> + +<p>She didn't smile. "I've liked your coming to see us," she said. "I like +to listen to you talk. I like the tales you tell of the old ones. But +Mag and Nell are upset."</p> + +<p>He knew what was coming. His eyes met hers, and then he looked away and +reddened and felt sorry for her and what he would have to tell her. This +was a subject they had managed to avoid ever since that first day, +although the older women brought it up whenever he saw them.</p> + +<p>"Mag says I must have a man," Lisa said. Her voice was tight. He +couldn't tell if she was crying because he couldn't bear to look at her. +He could only stare out over the canyon and listen and wait.</p> + +<p>"She says if it isn't you I'll have to find someone else, later on, but +she says it ought to be you. Because <i>they're</i> dangerous, and besides, +if it's you our children will be sure to be like us."</p> + +<p>"What?" He swung around, startled. "Do you mean that if one parent were +normal the child might be too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "It might. They say that's happened. Sometimes. No one +knows why we're born. No one knows why some are one way and some +another."</p> + +<p>"Lisa...." He stopped.</p> + +<p>"I know. You don't want me. I've known that all the time."</p> + +<p>"It isn't just that."</p> + +<p>He tried to find the words to express what he felt, but anything he +might say would be cold and cruel and not quite true. He felt the +contentment drain out of him, and he felt annoyed, because he didn't +want to have to think about her problem, or about anything.</p> + +<p>"Why do they want you to have a child?" he said roughly. "Why do they +want our kind to go on, living here like animals, or taken to the +valleys and separated from each other and put into institutions until we +die? Why don't they admit that we've lost, that the normals own the +Earth? Why don't they stop breeding and let us die?"</p> + +<p>"Your parents were normal, Eric. If all of us died, others would be +born, someday."</p> + +<p>He nodded and then he closed his eyes and fought against the despair +that rose suddenly within him and blotted out the last of the +contentment and the unreality. He fought against it and lost. And +suddenly Lisa was very real, more real even than the books had ever +been. And the dirty old women were suddenly people—individuals, not +savages. He tried to pity them, to retreat into his pity and his +loneliness, but he couldn't even do that.</p> + +<p>The people he had looked for were imaginary. He would never find them, +because Mag and Nell and Lisa were his people. They were like him, and +the only difference between him and them was one of luck. They were +dirty and ignorant. They had been born in the mountains and hunted like +beasts. He was more fortunate; he had been born in the valley.</p> + +<p>He was a snob. He had looked down on them, when all the time he was one +of them. If he had been born among them, he would have been as they +were. And, if Lisa had lived in another age, she too would have sought +the stars.</p> + +<p>Eric sat very still and fought until a little of the turmoil quieted +inside of him. Then he opened his eyes again and stared across the +canyon, at the rock slides and the trees growing out from the slopes at +twisting, precarious angles, and he saw everything in a new light. He +saw the old race as it had been far earlier than the age of +space-travel, and he knew that it had conquered many environments on +Earth before it had gained a chance to try for those of space. He felt +humble, suddenly, and proud at the same time.</p> + +<p>Lisa sat beside him, not speaking, drawing away from him and letting him +be by himself, as if she knew the conflicts within him and knew enough +not to interrupt. He was grateful both for her presence there beside +him and for her silence.</p> + +<p>Much later, when afternoon shadows had crept well out from the rocks, +she turned to him. "Will you take me to the valley someday, Eric?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe. But no one must know about you. You know what would happen if +any of them found out you even existed."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "We'd have to be careful, all right. But you could take +me for a ride in the aircar sometime and show me things."</p> + +<p>Before, he would have shrugged off her words and forgotten them. Now he +couldn't. Decision crystalized quickly in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Lisa," he said, getting to his feet and reaching down to help +her up also. "I'll take you to the valley right now."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him, unable to speak, her eyes shining, and then she +was running ahead of him, down the slope toward the aircar.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The car climbed swiftly away from the valley floor, up between the +canyon walls and above them, over the crest of the hills. He circled it +for a moment, banking it over on its side so that she could look down at +the gorge and the rocks and the cascading stream.</p> + +<p>"How do you like it, Lisa?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." She smiled, rather weakly, her body braced against the +seat. "It feels so strange."</p> + +<p>He smiled back and straightened the car, turning away from the mountains +until the great, gardened valley stretched out before them, all the way +to the foot of the western hills.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you the museum," he said. "I only wish I could take you +inside."</p> + +<p>She moved away from him, nearer to the window, and looked down at the +scattered houses that lay below them, at the people moving in the +gardens, at the children.</p> + +<p>"I never dreamed it was like this," she said. "I never could picture it +before."</p> + +<p>There was a longing in her face he'd never noticed before. He stared at +her, and she was different suddenly, and her thin muscular body was +different too.</p> + +<p>Pioneer—that was the word he wanted.</p> + +<p>The girls of the new race could never be pioneers.</p> + +<p>"Look, Eric. Over there. Aircars."</p> + +<p>The words broke in on his thoughts and he looked away from her, +following her gaze incuriously, not much interested. And then his +fingers stiffened on the controls and the peacefulness fell away from +him as if it had never been.</p> + +<p>"Lots of them," she said.</p> + +<p>Aircars. Eight or ten of them, more than he had ever seen at one time, +spread out in a line and flying eastward, straight toward him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They mustn't see Lisa. They mustn't get close enough to realize who he +was.</p> + +<p>He swung away from them, perpendicular to their course, angling so that +he would be out of perception range, and then he circled, close to the +ground, as they swept by, undeviating, purposeful, toward the mountains.</p> + +<p><i>Toward the mountains.</i></p> + +<p>Fear. Sudden, numbing fear and the realization of his own carelessness.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Eric?"</p> + +<p>He had swung about and now followed them, far behind them and off to one +side, much too far away for them to try to perceive him. Perhaps, he +thought, perhaps they don't know. But all the time he remembered his own +trips to the canyon, taken so openly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Eric, they're not—"</p> + +<p>He swung up over the last ridge and looked down, and her words choked +off in her throat. Below them lay the canyon, and in it, the long line +of aircars, landed now, cutting off the gorge, the light reflecting off +them, bronze in the sunset. And the tiny figures of men were even now +spreading out from the cars.</p> + +<p>"What'll we do, Eric?"</p> + +<p>Panic. In her voice and in her eyes and in her fingers that bit into his +arm, hurting him, steadying him against his own fear and the twisting +realization of his betraying lack of caution.</p> + +<p>"Run. What else can we do?"</p> + +<p>Down back over the ridge, out of sight of the aircars and into the +foothills, and all the while knowing that there was nowhere to run to +now.</p> + +<p>"No, Eric! We've got to go back. We've got to find Mag and Nell—" Her +voice rose in anguish, then broke, and she was crying.</p> + +<p>"We can't help them by going back," he said harshly. "Maybe they got +away. Maybe they didn't. But the others would catch us for sure if they +got near us."</p> + +<p>Run. It was all they could do, now. Run to other hills and leave the +aircar and hide, and live as Lisa had lived, as others of their kind had +lived.</p> + +<p>"We've got to think of ourselves, Lisa. It's all we can do, now."</p> + +<p>Down through the foothills, toward the open valley, and the future, the +long blind race to other mountains, and no choice left, no alternative, +and the books lost and the starship left behind, forever....</p> + +<p>Lisa cried, and her fingers bit into his arm. Ahead of him, too close to +flee or deceive, was another line of aircars, flying in from the valley, +their formation breaking as they veered toward him.</p> + +<p>"Land, Eric. Land and run!"</p> + +<p>"We can't, Lisa. There's not enough time."</p> + +<p>Everything was lost now—even the hills.</p> + +<p>Unless ... one chance. The only chance, and it was nearly hopeless.</p> + +<p>"Get in the back, Lisa," he said. "Climb over the seat and hide in that +storage compartment. And stay there."</p> + +<p>The two nearest cars had swung about now and paralleled his course, +flanking him, drifting in nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p>"Why?" Lisa clung to him. "What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"They don't know you're with me. They probably don't even know I went +back to the canyon. They think I'll land at the museum, not suspecting +anything's wrong. So I'll do just what they expect me to. Go back, and +pretend I don't know a thing."</p> + +<p>"You're mad."</p> + +<p>"It's our only chance, Lisa. If only they don't lock me up tonight...."</p> + +<p>She clung to him for still another minute and then she climbed over the +seat and he heard the luggage compartment panel slide open and, a moment +later, shut.</p> + +<p>The nearest aircar drifted still closer to him, escorting him west-ward, +toward the museum. Behind him, other cars closed in.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Walden and Prior were waiting for him at the entrance of the main +building, just as they had waited so often before. He greeted them +casually, trying to act exactly as he usually did, but their greetings +to him were far from casual. They stared at him oddly, Prior even +drawing back a little as he approached. Walden looked at him for a long +moment, very seriously, as if trying to tell him something, but what it +was Eric didn't know. Both men were worried, their anxiety showing in +their manner, and Eric wondered if he himself showed the fear that +gripped him.</p> + +<p>They must know what had happened. By now probably every normal person +within a hundred miles of the museum must know.</p> + +<p>At the entrance he glanced back idly and saw that one of the aircars +that had followed him had landed and that the others were angling off +again, leaving. It was too dark to see how many men got out of the car, +but Walden and Prior were facing in that direction, communicating, and +Eric knew that they knew. Everything.</p> + +<p>It was like a trap around him, with each of their minds a strand of the +net, and he was unable to see which strands were about to entangle him, +unable to see if there were any holes through which he might escape. All +he could do was pretend that he didn't even know the net existed, and +wait.</p> + +<p>Half a dozen men came up to Prior and Walden. One of them was Abbot. His +face was very stern, and when he glanced over at where Eric stood in the +building entrance his face grew even sterner.</p> + +<p>Eric watched them for a moment; then he went inside, the way he usually +did when there were lots of people around. He wished he knew what they +were saying. He wished he knew what was going to happen.</p> + +<p>He went on into the library and pulled out a book at random and sat down +and started turning the pages. He couldn't read. He kept waiting for +them to come in, for one of them to lay a hand on his shoulder and tell +him to come along, that they knew he had found other people like himself +and that he was a danger to their race and that they were going to lock +him up somewhere.</p> + +<p>What would happen to Lisa? They'd find her, of course. She could never +escape alone, on foot, to the hills.</p> + +<p>What had happened to Mag and Nell?</p> + +<p>No one came. He knew that their perceptions lay all around him, but he +could sense no emotions, no thoughts but his own.</p> + +<p>He sat and waited, his eyes focused on the book but not seeing it. It +seemed hours before anyone came. Then Prior and Abbot and Walden were in +the archway, looking across at him. Prior's face was still worried, +Abbot's stern, Walden's reassuring....</p> + +<p>Eric forced himself to smile at them and then turn another page and +pretend to go on reading. After a moment he heard their footsteps +retreating, and when he looked up again they were gone.</p> + +<p>He sat a while longer and then he got up and walked down the ramp and +stood for a few minutes looking at the ship, because that too would be +expected of him. He felt nothing. The ship was a world away now, mocking +him, for his future no longer lay in the past, with the old race, but +out in the hills. If he had a future at all....</p> + +<p>He went up the ramp again, toward his own room. No one else was in +sight. They had all gone to bed, perhaps. They wouldn't expect him to +try to run away now.</p> + +<p>He began to walk, as aimlessly as he could, in the direction of the +aircar. He saw no one. Perhaps it wasn't even guarded. He circled around +it, still seeing no one; then, feeling more secure suddenly, he went +directly toward it and reached up to open the panel and climb in.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Eric?"</p> + +<p>Walden's voice. Quiet as always. And it came from inside the car.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Eric stood frozen, looking up at the ship, trying to see Walden's face +and unable to find it in the darkness. He didn't answer—couldn't +answer. He listened, and heard nothing except Walden, there above him, +moving on the seat.</p> + +<p>Where was Lisa?</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd come back here," Walden said. He climbed down out of +the aircar and stood facing Eric, his body a dim shadow.</p> + +<p>"Why are you here?" Eric whispered.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see you. Without the others knowing it. I was sure you'd +come here tonight."</p> + +<p>Walden. Always Walden. First his teacher and then his friend, and now +the one man who stood between him and freedom. For a second Eric felt +his muscles tense and he stiffened, ready to leap upon the older man and +knock him down and take the ship and run. Then he relaxed. It was a +senseless impulse, primitive and useless.</p> + +<p>"The others don't know you have any idea what's happened, Eric. But I +could tell. It was written all over you."</p> + +<p>"What did they find, Walden?"</p> + +<p>The old man sighed, and when he spoke his voice was very tired. "They +found two women. They tried to capture them, but the women ran out on a +ledge. The older one slipped and fell and the other tried to catch her +and she fell too. They were dead when the men reached them."</p> + +<p>Eric listened, and slowly his tension relaxed, replaced by a dull ache +of mourning. But he knew that he was glad to hear that they were dead +and not captured, not dragged away from the hills to be bathed and well +fed and imprisoned forever under the eyes of the new race.</p> + +<p>"The old one was blind," Walden said. "It may have been her blindness +that caused her to fall."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't."</p> + +<p>"No, Eric, it probably wasn't."</p> + +<p>They were silent for a moment, and there was no sound at all except for +their own breathing. Eric wondered if Lisa still hid in the aircar, if +she was listening to them, afraid and hopeless and crying over the death +of her people.</p> + +<p>"Why did you come out here, Walden?"</p> + +<p>"To see you. I came today, when I realized how suspicious the council +had grown. I was going to warn you, to tell you to keep away from the +hills, that they wanted an excuse to lock you up. I was too late."</p> + +<p>"I was careless, Walden." He felt guilt twist inside of him.</p> + +<p>"No. You didn't know the danger. I should have warned you sooner. But I +never dreamed you would find anyone in the hills, Eric. I never dreamed +there were any more without perception, this generation."</p> + +<p>Eric moved nearer the car and leaned against it, the cold plastic next +to his body cooling him a little, steadying him against the feverish +trembling that shook his legs and sent sweat down over him and made him +too weak, suddenly, to want to struggle further.</p> + +<p>"Let me go, Walden. Let me take the car and go."</p> + +<p>Walden didn't move. He stood quietly, a tall thin shape in the darkness.</p> + +<p>"There are other people the searchers didn't find, aren't there? And +you're going to them."</p> + +<p>Eric didn't answer. He looked past Walden, at the car, wishing he could +somehow call to Lisa, wishing they could perceive so that he could +reassure her and promise her that somehow he'd still take her to +freedom. But it would be an empty promise....</p> + +<p>"I've warned you too late. You've found your people, but it won't do you +any good. They'll hunt you through the hills, and I won't be able to +help you any more."</p> + +<p>Eric looked back at him, hearing the sadness in his voice. It was real +sadness, real emotion. He thought of the years he had spent with Walden, +learning, absorbing the old race knowledge, and he remembered that all +through those years Walden had never once made him feel uncomfortable +because of the difference between them.</p> + +<p>He looked at the old man for a long time, wishing that it was day so he +could read the other's expression, wondering how he had managed to take +this man for granted for so long.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he whispered. "Why are you helping me? Why aren't you like the +others?"</p> + +<p>"I never had a son, Eric. Perhaps that's the reason."</p> + +<p>Eric thought of Myron and shook his head. "No, it isn't that. My father +doesn't feel the way you do. He can't forget that I'm not normal. With +him, I'm always aware of the difference."</p> + +<p>"And you're not with me?"</p> + +<p>"No," Eric said. "I'm not. Why?" And he wondered why he had never asked +that question before.</p> + +<p>"The final question," Walden said softly. "I wondered how long it would +be before you asked it. I wondered if you'd ever ask it.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you ever thought about why I never married, Eric? Haven't you +ever asked yourself why I alone learned to read, and collected books, +and studied the old race?"</p> + +<p>"No," Eric admitted. "I just accepted you."</p> + +<p>"Even though I can perceive and you can't." Walden paused and Eric +waited, not knowing what was coming and yet sure that nothing could +surprise him now.</p> + +<p>"My father was normal," Walden said slowly. "But I never saw him. My +mother was like you. So was my brother. We lived in the hills and I was +the only one who could perceive. I learned what it was to be different."</p> + +<p>Eric stared. He couldn't stop staring. And yet he should have realized, +long ago, that Walden was different too, in his own way.</p> + +<p>Walden smiled back, his face, shadowed in moonlight, as quiet and as +understanding as ever. For a moment neither spoke, and there was only +the faraway sound of crickets chirping and the rustling of the wind in +the gardens.</p> + +<p>And then, from within the aircar, there was a different rustling, that +of a person moving.</p> + +<p>"Lisa!"</p> + +<p>Eric pushed the compartment panel back. The soft light came on +automatically, framing her where she curled against the far wall.</p> + +<p>"You heard us?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. Tears had dried on her cheeks. Her eyes were huge in her +thin face.</p> + +<p>"We'd better go, Lisa."</p> + +<p>He reached in to help her out.</p> + +<p>They didn't see the aircar dropping in for a landing until it was almost +upon them, until its lights arced down over the museum walls.</p> + +<p>"Hide, Eric. In here—" Lisa pulled him forward.</p> + +<p>Behind them, Walden's voice, suddenly tired in the darkness. "It's too +late. They know I'm here. And they're wondering why."</p> + +<p>The three of them stood frozen, watching each other, while the dark +shape of the car settled to the ground some thirty yards away.</p> + +<p>"It's Abbot," Walden said. He paused, intent for a moment, and added, +"He doesn't know about you. Get out of sight somewhere, both of you, +away from here—"</p> + +<p>"Come on, Lisa—" Eric swung away from the car, toward the shelter of +the building and whatever hiding place there might be. "Hurry!"</p> + +<p>They ran, and the museum rose in front of them, and the door was open. +They were through it and into the dim corridor, and there was no one +around; Walden's figure was lost in the night outside. Beyond the +libraries the great ramp spiraled downward.</p> + +<p>"This way, Lisa!"</p> + +<p>They came out into the bottom of the well and there in front of them the +starship rested. Still reaching upward. Still waiting, as it had waited +for so many uncounted years.</p> + +<p>Their ship—if only it could be their ship....</p> + +<p>"Oh, Eric!"</p> + +<p>Side by side they stood staring at it, and Eric wished that they could +get into it and go, right now, while they were still free and there was +no one to stop them. But they couldn't. There was no food in the ship, +no plant tanks, none of the many provisions the books listed.</p> + +<p>Besides, if they took off now they would destroy the museum and all the +people in it, and probably kill themselves as well.</p> + +<p>"Eric! We know you're down there!" It wasn't Walden's voice.</p> + +<p>Lisa moved closer. Eric put his arm around her and held her while +footsteps hurried toward them down the ramp. The council. Abbot and Drew +and the others. Prior, shaking his head. Walden.</p> + +<p>"Let us go," Eric cried. "Why won't you let us go?"</p> + +<p>Walden turned to the others. His eyes pleaded with them. His lips moved +and his hands were expressive, gesturing. But the others stood without +moving, without expression.</p> + +<p>Then Abbot pushed Walden aside and started forward, his face hard and +determined and unchangeable.</p> + +<p>"You won't let us go," Eric said.</p> + +<p>"No. You're fools, both of you."</p> + +<p>There was one answer, only one answer, and with it, a hot violence in +his blood as the old race pattern came into focus, as the fear and the +futility fell away.</p> + +<p>It was only a few steps to the ship. Eric caught Lisa's arm and pulled +her after him and ran toward it, reaching up to the door. In one motion +he flung it open and lifted her through it, then he swung about to face +the others.</p> + +<p>"Let us go!" he shouted. "Promise to let us go, or we'll take off anyway +and if we die at least you'll die too!"</p> + +<p>Abbot stopped. He looked back at Walden, his face scornful. "You see?" +he said aloud. "They're mad. And you let this happen."</p> + +<p>He turned away, dismissing Walden, and came toward the ship. The others +followed him.</p> + +<p>Eric waited. He stood with his back to the door, waiting, as Abbot +strode toward him, ahead of the other councilmen, alone and unprotected.</p> + +<p>"You're the fool!" Eric said. He laughed as he leaped forward.</p> + +<p>Abbot's eyes went wide suddenly; he tried to dodge, gave a little grunt, +and went limp in Eric's grasp.</p> + +<p>Eric laughed again, swung Abbot into the ship and leaped in himself. The +old race and its violence had never been nearer.</p> + +<p>He slammed the door shut, bolted it, and turned back to where the +councilman was struggling to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Now will you let us go?" Eric said softly. "Or must we take off now, +with you—for the stars?"</p> + +<p>For a long moment Abbot looked at him, and then his lips trembled and +his whole body went slack in defeat.</p> + +<p>"The ship is yours," he whispered. "Just let me go."</p> + +<p>Outside the ship, Walden chuckled wryly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Vacuum Suit was strange against Eric's body, as strange as the +straps that bound him to the couch. He looked over at Lisa and she too +was unrecognizable, a great bloated slug tied down beside him. Only her +face, frightened behind the helmet, looked human.</p> + +<p>He reached for the controls, then paused, glancing down through the view +screens at the ground, at the people two hundred feet below, tiny ants +scurrying away from the ship, running to shelter but still looking up at +him. He couldn't see his parents or Walden.</p> + +<p>His fingers closed about the control lever but still he stared down. +Everything that had been familiar all his life stood out sharply now, +because he was leaving and it would never be there again for him. And he +had to remember what it was like....</p> + +<p>Then he looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless above him, and there +were no stars at all. But he knew that beyond the sky the stars were +shining.</p> + +<p>And perhaps, somewhere amid the stars, the old race waited.</p> + +<p>He turned to Lisa. "This may be goodbye, darling."</p> + +<p>"It may be. But it doesn't matter, really."</p> + +<p>They had each other. It was enough. Even though they could never be as +close to each other as the new race was close. They were separate, with +a gulf always between their inmost thoughts, but they could bridge that +gulf, sometimes.</p> + +<p>He turned back to the controls and his fingers tightened. The last line +of the poem shouted in his mind, and he laughed, for he knew finally +what the poet had meant, what the old race had lived for. <i>We have cast +off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want the stars....</i></p> + +<p>He pulled the lever back and the ship sprang free. A terrible weight +pressed against him, crushing him, stifling him. But still he laughed, +because he was one of the old race, and he was happy.</p> + +<p>And the meaning of his life lay in the search itself.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>They stood staring up at the ship until it was only a tiny speck in the +sky, and then they looked away from it, at each other. A wave of +perception swept among them, drawing them closer to each other in the +face of something they couldn't understand.</p> + +<p>"Why did they go?" Abbot asked, in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Why did any of the old race go?" Walden answered.</p> + +<p>The sunlight flashed off the ship, and then it was gone.</p> + +<p>"It's not surprising that the old race died," Abbot said. "They were +brilliant, in their way, and yet they did such strange things. Their +lives seemed so completely meaningless...."</p> + +<p>Walden didn't answer for a moment. His eyes searched the sky for a last +glimpse of the ship, but there was nothing at all. He sighed, and he +looked at Abbot, and then past him, at all the others.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he said, "how long it will be before some other race says +the same thing about us."</p> + +<p>No one answered. He turned and walked away from them, across the +trampled flowers, toward the museum and the great empty vault where the +starship had waited for so long.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Homo Inferior, by Mari Wolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMO INFERIOR *** + +***** This file should be named 31692-h.htm or 31692-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/6/9/31692/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Homo Inferior + +Author: Mari Wolf + +Illustrator: Rudolph Palais + +Release Date: March 18, 2010 [EBook #31692] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMO INFERIOR *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +HOMO INFERIOR + +By Mari Wolf + +Illustrated by Rudolph Palais + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science +Fiction November 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: _The world of the new race was peaceful, comfortable, +lovely--and completely static. Only Eric knew the haunting loneliness +that had carried the old race to the stars, and he couldn't communicate +it, even if he had dared to!_] + +_The starship waited. Cylindrical walls enclosed it, and a transparent +plastic dome held it back from the sky and the stars. It waited, while +night changed to day and back again, while the seasons merged one into +another, and the years, and the centuries. It towered as gleaming and as +uncorroded as it had when it was first built, long ago, when men had +bustled about it and in it, their shouting and their laughter and the +sound of their tools ringing against the metallic plates._ + +_Now few men ever came to it. And those who did come merely looked with +quiet faces for a few minutes, and then went away again._ + +_The generations kaleidoscoped by. The Starship waited._ + + * * * * * + +Eric met the other children when he was four years old. They were out in +the country, and he'd slipped away from his parents and started wading +along the edge of a tiny stream, kicking at the water spiders. + +His feet were soaked, and his knees were streaked with mud where he'd +knelt down to play. His father wouldn't like it later, but right now it +didn't matter. It was fun to be off by himself, splashing along the +stream, feeling the sun hot on his back and the water icy against his +feet. + +A water spider scooted past him, heading for the tangled moss along the +bank. He bent down, scooped his hand through the water to catch it. For +a moment he had it, then it slipped over his fingers and darted away, +out of his reach. + +As he stood up, disappointed, he saw them: two boys and a girl, not much +older than he. They were standing at the edge of the trees, watching +him. + +He'd seen children before, but he'd never met any of them. His parents +kept him away from them--and from all strangers. He stood still, +watching them, waiting for them to say something. He felt excited and +uncomfortable at the same time. + +They didn't say anything. They just watched him, very intently. + +He felt even more uncomfortable. + +The bigger boy laughed. He pointed at Eric and laughed again and looked +over at his companions. They shook their heads. + +Eric waded up out of the water. He didn't know whether to go over to +them or run away, back to his mother. He didn't understand the way they +were looking at him. + +"Hello," he said. + +The big boy laughed again. "See?" he said, pointing at Eric. "He can't." + +"Can't what?" Eric said. + +The three looked at him, not saying anything. Then they all burst out +laughing. They pointed at him, jumped up and down and clapped their +hands together. + +"What's funny?" Eric said, backing away from them, wishing his mother +would come, and yet afraid to turn around and run. + +"You," the girl said. "You're funny. Funny, funny, funny! You're +stu-pid." + +The others took it up. "Stu-pid, stu-pid. You can't talk to us, you're +too stu-pid...." + +They skipped down the bank toward him, laughing and calling. They jumped +up and down and pointed at him, crowded closer and closer. + +"Silly, silly. Can't talk. Silly, silly. Can't talk...." + +Eric backed away from them. He tried to run, but he couldn't. His knees +shook too much. He could hardly move his legs at all. He began to cry. + +They crowded still closer around him. "Stu-pid." Their laughter was +terrible. He couldn't get away from them. He cried louder. + +"Eric!" His mother's voice. He twisted around, saw her coming, running +toward him along the bank. + +"Mama!" He could move again. He stumbled toward her. + +"He wants his mama," the big boy said. "Funny baby." + +His mother was looking past him, at the other children. They stopped +laughing abruptly. They looked back at her for a moment, scuffing their +feet in the dirt and not saying anything. Suddenly the big boy turned +and ran, up over the bank and out of sight. The other boy followed him. + +The girl started to run, and then she looked at Eric's mother again and +stopped. She looked back at Eric. "I'm sorry," she said sulkily, and +then she turned and fled after the others. + +Eric's mother picked him up. "It's all right," she said. "Mother's here. +It's all right." + +He clung to her, clutching her convulsively, his whole body shaking. +"Why, Mama? Why?" + +"You're all right, dear." + +She was warm and her arms were tight around him. He was home again, and +safe. He relaxed, slowly. + +"Don't leave me, Mama." + +"I won't, dear." + +She crooned to him, softly, and he relaxed still more. His head drooped +on her shoulder and after a while he fell asleep. + +But it wasn't the same as it had been. It wouldn't ever be quite the +same again. He knew he was different now. + + * * * * * + +That night Eric lay asleep. He was curled on his side, one chubby hand +under his cheek, the other still holding his favorite animal, the wooly +lamb his mother had given him for his birthday. He stirred in his sleep, +threshing restlessly, and whimpered. + +His mother's face lifted mutely to her husband's. + +"Myron, the things those children said. It must have been terrible for +him. I'm glad at least that he couldn't perceive what they were +thinking." + +Myron sighed. He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her close +against him. "Don't torture yourself, Gwin. You can't make it easier for +him. There's no way." + +"But we'll have to tell him something." + +He stroked her hair. The four years of their shared sorrow lay heavily +between them as he looked down over her head at his son. + +"Poor devil. Let him keep his childhood while he can, Gwin. He'll know +he's all alone soon enough." + +She nodded, burying her face against his chest. "I know...." + +Eric whimpered again, and his hands clenched into fists and came up to +protect his face. + +Instinctively Gwin reached out to him, and then she drew back. She +couldn't reach his emotions. There was no perception. There was no way +she could enter his dreams and rearrange them and comfort him. + +"Poor devil," his father said again. "He's got his whole life to be +lonely in." + + * * * * * + +The summer passed, and another winter and another summer. Eric spent +more and more time by himself. He liked to sit on the glassed-in +sunporch, bouncing his ball up and down and talking to it, aloud, +pretending that it answered him back. He liked to lie on his stomach +close to the wall and look out at the garden with its riotous mass of +flowers and the insects that flew among them. Some flew quickly, their +wings moving so fast that they were just blurs. Others flew slowly, +swooping on outspread bright-colored wings from petal to petal. He liked +these slow-flying ones the best. He could wiggle his shoulder blades in +time with their wings and pretend that he was flying too. + +Sometimes other children came by on the outside of the wall. He could +look out at them without worrying, because they couldn't see him. The +wall wasn't transparent from the outside. He liked it when three or four +of them came by together, laughing and chasing each other through the +garden. Usually, though, they didn't stay long. After they had played a +few minutes his father or his mother went out and looked at them, and +then they went away. + +Eric was playing by himself when the old man came out to the sunporch +doorway and stood there, saying nothing, making no effort to interrupt +or to speak. He was so quiet that after a while Eric almost didn't mind +his being there. + +The old man turned back to Myron and Gwin. + +"Of course the boy can learn. He's not stupid." + +Eric bounced the ball, flung it against the transparent glass, caught +it, bounced it again. + +"But how, Walden?" Gwin shook her head. "You offer to teach him, but--" + +Walden smiled. "Remember _these_?" + +_... Walden's study. The familiar curtains drawn aside, and the shelves +behind them. The rows of bright-backed, box-like objects, most of them +old and spotted, quite unhygienic ..._ + +Gwin shook her head at the perception, but Myron nodded. + +"Books. I didn't know there were any outside the museums." + +Walden smiled again. "Only mine. Books are fascinating things. All the +knowledge of a race, gathered together on a few shelves...." + +"Knowledge?" Myron shrugged. "Imagine storing knowledge in those--boxes. +What are they? What's in them? Just words...." + +The books faded as Walden sighed. "You'd be surprised what the old race +did, with just those--boxes." + +He looked across at Eric, who was now bouncing his ball and counting, +out loud, up to three, and then going back and starting again. + +"The boy can learn what's in those books. Just as if he'd gone to school +back in the old times." + +Myron and Gwin looked doubtfully at each other, and then over at the +corner where Eric played unheeding. Perhaps Walden could help. +Perhaps.... + +"Eric," Gwin said aloud. + +"Yes, mother?" + +"We've decided you're going to go to school, the way you want to. Mr. +Walden here is going to be your teacher. Isn't that nice?" + +Eric looked at her and then at the old man. Strangers didn't often come +out on the sunporch. Strangers usually left him alone. + +He bounced the ball again without answering. + +"Say something, Eric," his mother commanded. + +Eric looked back at Walden. "He can't teach me to be like other +children, can he?" + +"No," Walden said. "I can't." + +"Then I don't want to go to school." Eric threw the ball across the room +as hard as he could. + +"But there once were other people like _you_," Walden said. "Lots of +them. And you can learn about them, if you want to." + +"Other people like me? Where?" + +Myron and Gwin looked helplessly at each other and at the old man. Gwin +began to cry and Myron cursed softly, on the perception level so that +Eric wouldn't hear them. + +But Walden's face was gentle and understanding as he answered, so +understanding that Eric couldn't help wanting desperately to believe +him. + +"Everyone was like you once," Walden said. "A long time ago." + + * * * * * + +It was a new life for Eric. Every day he would go over to Walden's and +the two of them would pull back the curtains in the study and Walden +would lift down some of the books. It was as if Walden was giving him +the past, all of it, as fast as he could grasp it. + +"I'm really like the old race, Walden?" + +"Yes, Eric. You'll see just how much like them...." + +Identity. Here in the past, in the books he was learning to read, in the +pictures, the pages and pages of scenes and portraits. Strange scenes, +far removed from the gardens and the quiet houses and the wordless smile +of friend to friend. + +Great buildings and small. The Parthenon in the moonlight, not too many +pages beyond the cave, with its smoky fire and first crude wall +drawings. Cities bright with a million neon lights, and still later, +caves again--the underground stations of the Moon colonies. All unreal, +and yet-- + +They were his people, these men in the pictures. Strange men, violent +men: the barbarian trampling his enemy to death beneath his horse's +hooves, the knight in armor marching to the Crusade, the spaceman. And +the quieter men: the farmer, the artisan, the poet--they too were his +people, and far easier to understand than the others. + +[Illustration] + +The skill of reading mastered, and the long, sweeping vistas of the +past. Their histories. Their wars. "Why did they fight, Walden?" And +Walden's sigh. "I don't know, Eric, but they did." + +So much to learn. So much to understand. Their art and music and +literature and religion. Patterns of life that ebbed and flowed and +ebbed again, but never in quite the same way. "Why did they change so +much, Walden?" And the answer, "You probably know that better than I, +Eric...." + +Perhaps he did. For he went on to the books that Walden ignored. +Their mathematics, their science. The apple's fall, and the orbits +of planets. The sudden spiral of analysis, theory, technology. The +machines--steamships, airplanes, spaceships.... + +And the searching loneliness that carried the old race from the caves of +Earth to the stars. The searching, common to the violent man and the +quiet man, to the doer and the dreaming poet. + + _Why do we hunger, who own the Moon and trample the shifting dust + of Mars?_ + + _Why aren't we content with the worlds we've won? Why don't we + rest, with the system ours?_ + + _We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want + the stars...._ + +"Have you ever been to the stars, Walden?" + +Walden stared at him. Then he laughed. "Of course not, Eric. Nobody goes +there now. None of our race has ever gone. Why should we?" + +There was no explaining. Walden had never been lonely. + +And then one day, while he was reading some fiction from the middle +period of the race, Eric found the fantasy. Speculation about the +future, about their future.... About the new race! + +He read on, his heart pounding, until the same old pattern came clear. +They had foreseen conflict, struggle between old race and new, suspicion +and hatred and tragedy. The happy ending was superficial. Everyone was +motivated as they had been motivated. + +He shut the book and sat there, wanting to reach back across the years +to the old race writers who had been so right and yet so terribly, +blindly wrong. The writers who had seen in the new only a continuation +of the old, of themselves, of their own fears and their own hungers. + +"Why did they die, Walden?" He didn't expect an answer. + +"Why does any race die, Eric?" + +His own people, forever removed from him, linked to him only through the +books, the pictures, and his own backward-reaching emotions. + +"Walden, hasn't there _ever_ been anyone else like me, since they died?" + +Silence. Then, slowly, Walden nodded. + +"I wondered how long it would be before you asked that. Yes, there have +been others. Sometimes three or four in a generation." + +"Then, perhaps...." + +"No," Walden said. "There aren't any others now. We'd know it if there +were." He turned away from Eric, to the plastic wall that looked out +across the garden and the children playing and the long, level, +flower-carpeted plain. + +"Sometimes, when there's more than one of them, they go out there away +from us, out to the hills where it's wild. But they're found, of course. +Found, and brought back." He sighed. "The last of them died when I was a +boy." + +Others like him. Within Walden's lifetime, others, cut off from their +own race, lonely and rootless in the midst of the new. Others like him, +but not now, in his lifetime. For him there were only the books. + +The old race was gone, gone with all its conflicts, all its violence, +its stupidity--and its flaming rockets in the void and its Parthenon in +the moonlight. + + * * * * * + +Eric came into the study and stopped. The room was filled with +strangers. There were half a dozen men besides Walden, most of them +fairly old, white-haired and studious looking. They all turned to look +at him, watched him gravely without speaking. + +"Well, there he is." Walden looked from face to face. "Are you still +worried? Do you still think that one small boy constitutes a threat to +the race? What about you, Abbot?" + +"I don't know. I still think he should have been institutionalized in +the beginning." + +"Why? So you could study the brain processes of the lower animals?" +Walden's thoughts were as sarcastic as he could send them. + +"No, of course not. But don't you see what you've done, by teaching him +to read? You've started him thinking of the old race. Don't deny it." + +"I don't." + +The thin man, Drew, broke in angrily. "He's not full grown yet. Just +fourteen, isn't he? How can you be sure what he'll be like later? He'll +be a problem. They've always been problems." + +They were afraid. That was what was the matter with them. Walden sighed. +"Tell them what you've been studying, Eric," he said aloud. + +For a minute Eric was too tongue-tied to answer. He stood motionless, +waiting for them to laugh at him. + +"Go on. Tell them." + +"I've been reading about the old race," Eric said. "All about the stars. +About the people who went off in the starships and explored our whole +galaxy." + +"What's a galaxy?" the thin man said. Walden could perceive that he +really didn't know. + +Eric's fear lessened. These men weren't laughing at him. They weren't +being just polite, either. They were interested. He smiled at them, +shyly, and told them about the books and the wonderful, strange tales of +the past that the books told. The men listened, nodding from time to +time. But he knew that they didn't understand. The world of the books +was his alone.... + +"Well?" Walden looked at the others. They looked back. Their emotions +were a welter of doubt, of indecision. + +"You've heard the boy," Walden said quietly, thrusting his own +uneasiness down, out of his thoughts. + +"Yes." Abbot hesitated. "He seems bright enough--quite different from +what I'd expected. At least he's not like the ones who grew up wild in +the hills. This boy isn't a savage." + +Walden shrugged. "Maybe they weren't savages either," he suggested. +"After all, it's been fifty years since the last of them died. And a lot +of legends can spring up in fifty years." + +"Perhaps we have been worrying unnecessarily." Abbot got up to go, but +his eyes still held Walden's. "But," he added, "it's up to you to watch +him. If he reverts, becomes dangerous in any way, he'll have to be +locked up. That's final." + +The others nodded. + +"I'll watch him," Walden told them. "Just stop worrying." + +He stood at the door and waited until they were out of sight. Then and +only then did he allow himself to sigh and taste the fear he'd kept +hidden. The old men, the men with authority, were the dangerous ones. + +Walden snorted. Even with perception, men could be fools. + + * * * * * + +The summer that Eric was sixteen Walden took him to the museum. The +aircar made the trip in just a few hours--but it was farther than Eric +had ever traveled in his life, and farther than most people ever +bothered traveling. + +The museum lay on an open plain where there weren't many houses. At +first glance it was far from impressive. Just a few big buildings, +housing the artifacts, and a few old ruins of ancient constructions, +leveled now and half buried in the sands. + +"It's nothing." Eric looked down at it, disappointed. "Nothing at all." + +"What did you expect?" Walden set the aircar down between the two +largest buildings. "You knew it wouldn't be like the pictures in the +books. You knew that none of the old race's cities are left." + +"I know," Eric said. "But I expected more than this." + +He got out of the car and followed Walden around to the door of the +first building. Another man, almost as old as Walden, came toward them +smiling. The two men shook hands and stood happily perceiving each +other. + +"This is Eric," Walden said aloud. "Eric, this is Prior, the caretaker +here. He was one of my schoolmates." + +"It's been years since we've perceived short range," Prior said. "Years. +But I suppose the boy wants to look around inside?" + +Eric nodded, although he didn't care too much. He was too disappointed +to care. There was nothing here that he hadn't seen a hundred times +before. + +They went inside, past some scale models of the old cities. The same +models, though a bit bigger, that Eric had seen in the three-dimensional +view-books. Then they went into another room, lined with thousands of +books, some very old, many the tiny microfilmed ones from the middle +periods of the old race. + +"How do you like it, Eric?" the caretaker said. + +"It's fine," he said flatly, not really meaning it. He was angry at +himself for feeling disappointment. Walden had told him what to expect. +And yet he'd kept thinking that he'd walk into one of the old cities and +be able to imagine that it was ten thousand years ago and others were +around him. Others like him.... + +Ruins. Ruins covered by dirt, and no one of the present race would even +bother about uncovering them. + +Prior and Walden looked at each other and smiled. "Did you tell him?" +the caretaker telepathed. + +"No. I thought we'd surprise him. I knew all the rest would disappoint +him." + +"Eric," the caretaker said aloud. "Come this way. There's another room I +want to show you." + +He followed them downstairs, down a long winding ramp that spiraled +underground so far that he lost track of the distance they had +descended. He didn't much care anyway. Ahead of him, the other two were +communicating, leaving him alone. + +"Through here," Prior said, stepping off the ramp. + +They entered a room that was like the bottom of a well, with smooth +stone sides and far, far above them a glass roof, with clouds apparently +drifting across its surface. But it wasn't a well. It was a vault, +forever preserving the thing that had been the old race's masterpiece. + +It rested in the center of the room, its nose pointing up at the sky. It +was like the pictures, and unlike them. It was big, far bigger than Eric +had ever visualized it. It was tall and smooth and as new looking as if +its builders had just stepped outside for a minute and would be back in +another minute to blast off for the stars. + +"A starship," Walden said. "One of the last types." + +"There aren't many left," Prior said. "We're lucky to have this one in +our museum." + +Eric wasn't listening. He was looking at the ship. The old race's ship. +His ship. + +"The old race built strange things," Prior said. "This is one of +the strangest." He shook his head. "Imagine the time they put in on +it.... And for what?" + +Eric didn't try to answer him. He couldn't explain why the old ones had +built it. But he knew. He would have built it himself, if he'd lived +then. _We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want +the stars...._ + +His people. His ship. His dream. + + * * * * * + +The old caretaker showed him around the museum and then left him alone +to explore by himself. He had all the time he wanted. + +He studied. He worked hard all day long, scarcely ever leaving the +museum grounds. He studied the subjects that now were the most +fascinating to him of all the old race's knowledge--the subjects that +related to the starships. Astronomy, physics, navigation, and the +complex charts of distant stars, distant planets, worlds he'd never +heard of before. Worlds that to the new race were only pin-pricks of +light in the night sky. + +All day long he studied. But in the evening he would go down the winding +ramp to the ship. The well was lighted with a softer, more diffuse +illumination than that of the houses. In the soft glow the walls and the +glass-domed roof seemed to disappear and the ship looked free, pointing +up at the stars. + +He didn't try to tell the caretaker what he thought. He just went back +to his books and his studies. There was so much he had to learn. And now +there was a reason for his learning. Someday, when he was fully grown +and strong and had mastered all he needed from the books, he was going +to fly the ship. He was going to look for his people, the ones who had +left Earth before the new race came.... + +He told no one. But Walden watched him, and sighed. + +"They'll never let you do it, Eric. It's a mad dream." + +"What are you talking about?" + +"The ship. You want to go to the stars, don't you?" + +Eric stared at him, more surprised than he'd been in years. He had said +nothing. There was no way for Walden to know. Unless he'd perceived +it--and Eric couldn't be perceived, any more than he could perceive +other people.... + +Walden shook his head. "It wasn't telepathy that told me. It was your +eyes. The way you look at the ship. And besides, I've known you for +years now. And I've wondered how long it would be before you thought of +this answer." + +"Well, why not?" Eric looked across at the ship, and his throat caught, +choking him, the way it always did. "I'm lonely here. My people are +gone. Why shouldn't I go?" + +"You'd be lonelier inside that ship, by yourself, away from Earth, away +from everything, and with no assurance you'd ever find anyone at all, +old race or new or alien...." + +Eric didn't answer. He looked back at the ship, thinking of the books, +trying to think of it as a prison, a weightless prison carrying him +forever into the unknown, with no one to talk to, no one to see. + +Walden was right. He would be too much alone in the ship. He'd have to +postpone his dream. + +He'd wait until he was old, and take the ship and die in it.... + +Eric smiled at the thought. He was seventeen, old enough to know that +his idea was adolescent and melodramatic. He knew, suddenly, that he'd +never fly the ship. + + * * * * * + +The years passed. Eric spent most of his time at the museum. He had his +own aircar now, and sometimes he flew it home and visited with his +parents. They liked to have him come. They liked it much better than +having to travel all the way to the museum to visit him. + +Yet, though he wasn't dependent on other people any more, and could fly +the aircar as he chose, he didn't do much exploring. He didn't have any +desire to meet strangers. And there were always the books. + +"You're sure you're all right?" his mother said. "You don't need +anything?" + +"No. I'm fine." + +He smiled, looking out through the sunporch wall into the garden. It +seemed years and years since he'd pressed his nose to the glass, +watching the butterflies. It had been a long time. + +"I've got to get going," he said. "I want to be back at the museum by +dark." + +"Well, if you're sure you won't stay...." + +They said goodbye and he went out and got into the aircar and started +back. He flew slowly, close to the ground, because he really had plenty +of time and he felt lazy. He skimmed along over a valley and heard +laughter and dipped lower. A group of children was playing. Young +ones--they even talked aloud sometimes as they played. Children.... +There were so many children, always in groups, laughing.... + +He flew on, quickly, until he was in a part of the country where he +didn't see any houses. Just a stream and a grove of trees and bright +flowers. He dropped lower, stopped, got out and walked down to the +stream. + +It was by another stream that he'd met the children who had laughed at +him, years ago. He smiled, sadly. + +He felt alone, but in a different sense from his usual isolation. He +felt free, away from people, away even from the books and their unspoken +insistence that their writers were dead and almost forgotten. He stood +by the edge of the stream, watching water spiders scoot across the +rippled surface. + +This was the same. This stream had probably been here when the old race +was here, maybe even before the old race had even come into existence. + +Water spiders. Compared to man, their race was immortal.... + +The sun was low when he turned away from the stream and walked back to +where he had parked the aircar. He scarcely looked about him as he +walked. He was sure he was alone, and he felt no caution, no need to +watch and listen. + +But as he turned toward the car he saw the people. Two. Young, about his +own age. A boy and a girl, smiling at each other, holding hands. + +They weren't a dozen feet in front of him. But they didn't notice him. +They were conscious of no one but each other. As Eric watched, standing +frozen, unwilling to draw attention to himself by even moving or backing +up, the two leaned closer together. Their arms went around each other, +tightly, and they kissed. + +They said nothing. They kissed, and then stood apart and went on looking +at each other. Even without being able to perceive, Eric could feel +their emotion. + +Then they turned, slowly, toward him. In a moment they would be aware of +him. He didn't want them to think he was spying on them, so he went +toward them, making no effort to be quiet, and as he moved they stepped +still farther apart and looked at him, startled. + +They looked at each other as he passed, even more startled, and the +girl's hand went up to her mouth in surprise. + +They know, Eric thought bitterly. They know I'm different. + +He didn't want to go back to the museum. He flew blindly, not looking +down at the neat domed houses and the gardens and the people, but ahead, +to the eastern sky and the upthrust scarp of the hills. The hills, where +people like him had fled, for a little while. + +The occasional aircars disappeared. The gardens dropped away, and the +ordered color, and there was grass and bare dirt and, ahead, the +scraggly trees and out-thrust rocks of the foothills. No people. Only +the birds circling, crying to each other, curious about the car. Only +the scurrying animals of the underbrush below. + +A little of the tension drained from him as he climbed. Perhaps in these +very hills men like him had walked, not many generations ago. Perhaps +they would walk there again, amid the disorder of tree and canyon and +tumbled rock. Amid the wildness, the beauty that was neither that of the +gardens nor that of the old race's cities, but older, more enduring than +either. + +Below him were other streams, but these were swift-flowing, violent, +sparkling like prismed sunlight as they cascaded over the rocks. Their +wildness called to him, soothed him as the starship soothed him, as the +gardens and the neat domed houses never could. + +He knew why his kind had fled to the hills, for whatever little time +they had. He knew too that he would come again. + +Searching. Looking for his own kind. + +That was what he was doing. That was what he had always intended to do, +ever since he had heard of the others like himself, the men who had come +here before him. He realized his motive suddenly, and realized too the +futility of it. But futile or not, he would come again. + +For he was of the old race. He shared their hungering. + + * * * * * + +Walden was reading in his study when the council members arrived. They +came without advance warning and filed in ceremoniously, responding +rather coolly to his greeting. + +"We're here about the boy," Abbot began abruptly. "He's at the museum +now, isn't he?" + +Walden nodded. "He's been spending most of his time there lately." + +"Do you think it's wise, letting him wander around alone?" + +Trouble. Always trouble. Just because there was one young boy, Eric, +asking only to be let alone. And the old council members wouldn't rest +until they had managed to find an excuse to put him in an institution +somewhere, where his actions could be watched, where there wouldn't be +any more uncertainty. + +"Eric's all right." + +"Is he? Prior tells me he leaves the museum every day. He doesn't come +here. He doesn't visit his family." + +The thin man, Drew, broke in. "He goes to the hills. Just like the +others did. Did you know that, Walden?" + +Walden's mouth tightened. It wouldn't do to let them read his hostility +to their prying. It would be even worse to let them know that they +worried him. + +"Besides," Drew added, "he's old enough to be thinking about women now. +There's always a chance he'll--" + +"Are you crazy?" Walden shouted the words aloud. "Eric's not an animal." + +"Isn't he?" Abbot answered quietly. "Weren't all the old race just +animals?" + +Walden turned away from them, closing his mind to their thoughts. He +mustn't show anger. If he did, they'd probably decide he was too +emotional, not to be trusted. They'd take Eric away, to some +institution. Cage him.... + +"What do you want to do with the boy?" Walden forced his thoughts to +come quietly. "Do you want to put him in a zoo with the other animals?" + +The sarcasm hurt them. They wanted to be fair. Abbot especially prided +himself on his fairness. + +"Of course not." + +They hesitated. They weren't going to do anything. Not this time. They +stood around and made a little polite conversation, about other things, +and then Abbot turned toward the door. + +"We just wanted to be sure you knew what was going on." Abbot paused. +"You'll keep an eye on the boy, won't you?" + +"Am I his keeper?" Walden asked softly. + +They didn't answer him. Their thoughts were confused and a bit irritated +as they went out to the aircar that had brought them. But he knew they'd +be back. And they would keep track of Eric. Prior, the caretaker, would +help them. Prior was old too, and worried.... + +Walden walked back into his study, slowly. His legs were trembling. He +hadn't realized how upset he had been. He smiled at the intensity of his +emotions, realizing something he'd always kept hidden, even from +himself. + +He was as fond of Eric as if the boy had been his own son. + + * * * * * + +Eric pushed the books away, impatiently. He didn't feel like studying. +The equations were meaningless. He was tired of books, and history, and +all the facts about the old race. + +He wanted to be outdoors, exploring, walking along the hillsides, +looking for his own kind. + +But he had already explored the hills. He had flown for miles, and +walked for miles, and searched dozens of caves in dozens of gorges. He +had found no one. He was sure that if there had been anyone he would +have discovered some sign. + +He opened the book again, but he couldn't concentrate on it. + +Beyond those hills, across another valley, there were even higher +mountains. He had often looked across at them, wondering what they held. +They were probably as desolate as the ones he'd searched. Still, he +would rather be out in them, looking, than sitting here, fretting, +almost hating the old race because it had somehow bequeathed him a +heritage of loneliness. + +He got up abruptly and went outside to the aircar. + +It was a long way to the second range of mountains. He flew there +directly, skimming over the nearer hills, the ones he had spent weeks +exploring. He dropped low over the intervening valley, passing over the +houses and towns, looking down at the gardens. The new race filled all +the valleys. + +He came into the foothills and swung the car upward, climbing over the +steep mountainsides. Within a mile from the valley's edge he was in wild +country. He'd thought the other hills were wild, but here the terrain +was jagged and rock-strewn, with boulders flung about as if by some +giant hand. There were a hundred narrow canyons, opening into each +other, steep-sloped, overgrown with brambles and almost impenetrable, a +maze with the hills rising around them and cutting off all view of the +surrounding country. + +Eric dropped down into one of the larger canyons. Immediately he +realized how easy it would be to get lost in those hills. There were no +landmarks that were not like a hundred jutting others. Without the +aircar he would be lost in a few minutes. He wondered suddenly if +anyone, old race or new, had ever been here before him. + +He set the aircar down on the valley floor and got out and walked away +from it, upstream, following the little creek that tumbled past him over +the rocks. By the time he had gone a hundred paces the car was out of +sight. + +It was quiet. Far away birds called to each other, and insects buzzed +around him, but other than these sounds there was nothing but his own +footsteps and the creek rapids. He relaxed, walking more slowly, looking +about him idly, no longer searching for anything. + +He rounded another bend, climbed up over a rock that blocked his path +and dropped down on the other side of it. Then he froze, staring. + +Not ten feet ahead of him lay the ashes of a campfire, still smoldering, +still sending a thin wisp of smoke up into the air. + +He saw no one. Nothing moved. No tracks showed in the rocky ground. +Except for the fire, the gorge looked as uninhabited as any of the +others. + +Slowly Eric walked toward the campfire and knelt down and held his hand +over the embers. Heat rose about him. The fire hadn't been out for very +long. + +He turned quickly, glancing about him, but there was no sudden motion +anywhere, no indication that anyone was hiding nearby. Perhaps there was +nobody near. Perhaps whoever had built the fire had left it some time +before, and was miles away by now.... + +He didn't think so. He had a feeling that eyes were watching him. It was +a strange feeling, almost as if he could perceive. Wishful thinking, he +told himself. Unreal, untrue.... + +But _someone_ had been here. Someone had built the fire. And it was +probably, almost certainly, someone without perception. Someone like +himself. + +His knees were shaking. His hands trembled, and sweat broke out on the +palms. Yet his thoughts seemed calm, icily calm. It was just a nervous +reaction, he knew that. A reaction to the sudden knowledge that people +_were_ here, out in these hills where he had searched for them but +never, deep down, expected to find them. They were probably watching him +right now, hidden up among the trees somewhere, afraid to move because +then he would see them and start out to capture them. + +If there were people here, they must think that he was one of the normal +ones. That he could perceive. So they would keep quiet, because a person +with perception couldn't possibly perceive a person who lacked it. They +would remain motionless, hoping to stay hidden, waiting for him to leave +so that they could flee deeper into the hills. + +They couldn't know that he was one of them. + +He felt helpless, suddenly. So near, so near--and yet he couldn't reach +them. The people who lived here in the wild mountain gorges could elude +him forever. + +No motion. No sound. Only the embers, smoking.... + +"Listen," he called aloud. "Can you hear me?" + +The canyon walls caught his voice, sent it echoing back, fainter and +fainter. "... can you hear me can you hear me can you...." + +No one answered. + +"I'm your friend," he called. "I can't perceive. I'm one of you." + +Over and over it echoed. "... one of you one of you one of you...." + +"Answer me. I've run away from them too. Answer me!" + +"Answer me answer me answer me...." + +The echoes died away and it was quiet, too quiet. No sound. Even if they +heard him, they wouldn't answer. + +He couldn't track them. If they had homes that were easy to find they +would have left them by now. He was helpless. + +The heat from the fire rose about him, and he tasted smoke and coughed. +Nothing moved. Finally he stood up, turned away from the fire and walked +on past it, up the stream. + +No one. No tracks. No sign. Only the feeling that other eyes watched him +as he walked along, other ears listened for the sound of his passing. + +He turned back, retraced his steps to the fire. The embers had +blackened. The wisp of smoke that curled upward was very thin now. +Otherwise everything was the same as it had been. + +He couldn't give up and fly back to the museum. If he did he might never +find them again. But even if he didn't, he might never find them. + +"Listen!" He screamed the word, so loudly that they could have heard it +miles away. "I'm one of you. I can't perceive. Believe me! You've got to +believe me!" + +"Believe me believe me believe me...." + +Nothing. The tension went out of him suddenly and he began to tremble +again, and his throat choked up, wanting to cry. He stumbled away from +the embers, back in the direction of the aircar. + +"Believe me...." This time the words were little more than a whisper, +and there was no echo. + +"I believe you," a voice said quietly. + + * * * * * + +He swung about, trying to place it, and saw the woman. She stood at the +edge of the trees, above the campfire, half hidden in the undergrowth. +She looked down at him warily, a rock clenched in her hand. She wasn't +an attractive sight. + +[Illustration] + +She looked old, with a leathery skin and gnarled arms and legs. Her +grey-white hair was matted, pulled back into a snarled bun behind her +head. She wore a shapeless dress of some roughwoven material that hung +limply from her shoulders, torn, dirty, ancient. He'd never seen an +animal as dirty as she. + +"So you can't perceive," the woman cackled. "I believe it, boy. You +don't have that look about you." + +"I didn't know," Eric said softly. "I never knew until today that there +were any others." + +She laughed, a high-pitched laugh that broke off into a choking cough. +"There aren't many of us, boy. Not many. Me and Nell--but she's an old, +old woman. And Lisa, of course...." + +She cackled again, nodding. "I always told Lisa to wait," she said +firmly. "I told her that there'd be another young one along." + +"Who are you?" Eric said. + +"Me? Call me Mag. Come on, boy. Come on. What are you waiting for?" + +She turned and started off up the hill, walking so fast that she was +almost out of sight among the trees before Eric recovered enough to +follow her. He stumbled after her, clawing his way up the steep slope, +slipping and grabbing the branches with his hands and hauling himself up +the rocks. + +"You're a slow one." The old woman paused and waited for him to catch +up. "Where've you been all your life? You don't act like a mountain +boy." + +"I'm not," Eric said. "I'm from the valley...." + +He stopped talking. He realized, suddenly, the futility of trying to +explain his life to her. If she had ever known the towns, it would have +been years ago. She was too old, and tattered, and so dirty that her +smell wasn't even a good clean animal smell. + +"Hurry up, boy!" + +He felt unreal, as if this were a dream, as if he would awaken suddenly +and be back at the museum. He almost wished that he would. He couldn't +believe that he had found another like himself and was now following +her, scrambling up a mountain as if he were a goat. + +A goat. Smells. The dirty old woman in front of him. He wrinkled his +nose in disgust and then was furious with himself, with his reactions, +with the sudden knowledge that he had glamorized his kind and had hoped +to find them noble and brilliant. + +This tattered old woman with her cackling laugh and leathery, toothless +face and dirt encrusted clothing couldn't be like him. He couldn't +accept it.... + +Mag led him up the slope and then over some heaped boulders, and +suddenly they were on level ground again. They had come out into a tiny +canyon, a blind pocket recessed into the mountain, almost completely +surrounded by walls that rose sharply upward. Back across the gorge, +huddled against the face of the mountain, was a tiny hut. + +It was primitive, like those in the prehistoric sections of the old +history books. It was made of branches lashed together, with sides that +leaned crookedly against each other and a matted roof that looked as if +it would slide off at any minute. It was like a twig house that a child +might make with sticks and grass. + +"Our home," Mag said. Her voice was proud. + +He didn't answer. He followed her across toward it, past the mounds of +refuse, the fruit rinds and bones and skins that were flung carelessly +beside the trail. He smelled the scent of decay and rottenness and +turned his head away, feeling sick. + +"Lisa! Lisa!" Mag shouted, the words echoing and re-echoing. + +A figure moved just inside the hut doorway. "She's not here," a voice +called. "She's out hunting." + +"Well, come on out, Nell, and see what I've found." + +The figure moved slowly out from the gloom of the hut, bending to get +through the low door, half straightening up outside, and Eric saw that +it was an old, old woman. She couldn't straighten very far. She was too +old, bent and twisted and brittle, feebler looking than anyone Eric had +ever seen before. She hobbled toward him slowly, teetering from side to +side as she walked, her hands held out in front of her, her eyes on the +ground. + +"What is it, Mag?" Her voice was as twisted as her body. + +"A boy. Valley boy. Just the age for our Lisa, too." + +Eric felt his face redden and he opened his mouth to protest, to say +something, anything, but Mag went right on talking, ignoring him. + +"The boy came in an aircar. I thought he was one of the normals--but +he's not. Hasn't their ways. Good looking boy, too." + +"Is he?" Nell had reached them. She stopped and looked up, right into +Eric's face, and for the first time he realized that she was blind. Her +eyes were milky white, without pupils, without irises. Against the brown +leather of her skin they looked moist and dead. + +"Speak, boy," she croaked. "Let me hear your voice." + +"Hello," Eric said, feeling utterly foolish and utterly confused. "I'm +Eric." + +"Eric...." Nell reached out, touched his arm with her hand, ran her +fingers up over his shoulders, over his chest. + +"It's been a long time since I've heard a man's voice," she said. "Not +since Mag here was a little girl." + +"Have you been--here--all that time?" Eric asked, looking around him at +the hut, and the meat hanging to dry, covered with flies, and the +leather water bags, and the mounds of refuse, the huge, heaped mounds +that he couldn't stop smelling. + +"Yes," Nell said. "I've been here longer than I want to remember, boy. +We came here from the other mountains when Mag was only a baby." + + * * * * * + +They walked toward the hut, and as they neared it he smelled a new +smell, that of stale smoke and stale sweat overlying the general odor of +decay. + +"Let's talk out here," he said, not wanting to go inside. + +They sat down on the hard earth and the two women turned their faces +toward him, Mag watching him intently, Nell listening, her head cocked +to one side like an old crippled bird's. + +"I always thought I was the only one like me," Eric said. "The people +don't know of any others. They don't know you exist. They wouldn't +believe it." + +"That's the way we want it," Mag said. "That's the only way it can be." + +Nell nodded. "I was a girl in the other hills," she said, nodding toward +the west, toward the museum. "There were several of us then. There had +been families of us in my father's time, and in his father's time, and +maybe before that even. But when I was a girl there was only my father +and my mother and another wife of my father's, and a lot of +children...." + +She paused, still looking toward the west, facing a horizon she could no +longer see. "The normal ones came. We'd hidden from them before. But +this time we had no chance to hide. I was hunting, with the boy who was +my father's nephew. + +"They surrounded the hut. They didn't make any sound. They don't have +to. I was in the forest when I heard my mother scream." + +"Did they kill her?" Eric cried out. "They wouldn't do that." + +"No, they didn't kill any of them. They dragged them off to the aircars, +all of them. My father, my mother and the other woman, the children. We +watched from the trees and saw them dragged off, tied with ropes, like +wild animals. The cars flew away. Our people never came back." + +She stopped, sunken in revery. Mag took up the story. Her voice was +matter-of-fact, completely casual about those long ago events. + +"A bear killed my father. That was after we came back here. Nell was +sick. I did the hunting. We almost starved, for a while, but there's +lots of game in the hills. It's a good life here. But I've been sorry +for Lisa. She's a woman now. She needs a man. I'm glad you came. I would +have hated to send her out looking for a normal one." + +"But--" Eric stopped, his head whirling. He didn't know what to say. +Anything at all would sound wrong, cruel. + +"It's dangerous," Mag went on, "taking up with the normals. They think +it's wrong. They think we're animals. One of us has to pick a man who's +stupid--a farmer, maybe--and even then it's like being a pet. A beast." + +It took a moment for Eric to realize what she was saying, and when he +did realize, the thought horrified him. + +"Lisa's father was stupid," Mag said. "He took me in when I came down +from the hills. He didn't send for the others. Not then. He kept me and +fed me and treated me kindly, and I thought I was safe. I thought our +kind and theirs could live together." + +She laughed. Deep, bitter lines creased her mouth. "A week later the +aircar came. They sneaked up to the garden where I was. He was with +them. He was leading them." + +She laughed again. "Their kindness means nothing. Their love means +nothing. To them, we're animals." + +The old woman, Nell, rocked back and forth, her face still in revery. +Flies crawled over her bare arms, unheeded. + +"I got away," Mag said. "I saw them coming. They can't run fast, and I +knew the hiding places. I never went back to the valleys. Nell would +have starved without me. And there was Lisa to care for, later...." + +The flies settled on Eric's hands and he brushed them away, shivering. + +Mag smiled. The bitterness left her face. "I'm glad I don't have to send +Lisa down to the valley." + +She got up before he could answer, before he could even think of +anything to say or do. Crossing over to the pole where the dried meat +hung, she pulled a piece of it loose and brought it back to where they +sat. Some she gave to the old woman and some she kept for herself and +the rest, most of it, she tossed to Eric. + +"You must be hungry, boy." + +It was filthy. Dirt clung to it--dust and pollen and grime--and the +flies had flown off in clouds when she lifted it down. + +The old woman raised her piece and put the edge of it in her mouth and +started to chew, slowly, eating her way up the strip. Mag tore hers with +her teeth, rending it and swallowing it quickly, watching Eric all the +time. + +"Eat." + +It was unreal. He couldn't be here. These women couldn't exist. + +He lifted the meat, feeling his stomach knot with disgust, wanting to +fling it from him and run, blindly, down the hill to the aircar. But he +didn't. He had searched too long to flee now. Shuddering, he closed his +mind to the flies and the smell and the filth and bit into the meat and +chewed it and swallowed it. And all the time, Mag watched him. + +The sun passed overhead and began to dip toward the west. The shadows, +which had shortened as they sat in front of the hut, lengthened again, +until they themselves were half in the shadow of the trees lining the +gorge. Still Lisa did not come. It was very quiet. The only sounds that +broke the silence were their own voices and the buzzing of the flies. + +They talked, but communication was difficult between them. Eric tried to +accept their ideas, their way of life, but he couldn't. The things they +said were strange to him. Their whole pattern of life was strange to +him. He could understand it at all only because he had studied the +primitive peoples of the old race. But he couldn't imagine himself as +one of them. He couldn't think of himself as having grown up among them, +in the hills, living only to hunt and gather berries and store food for +the wintertime. He couldn't think of himself hiding, creeping through +the gorges like a hunted animal, flattening himself in the underbrush +whenever an aircar passed by. + +He sat and listened to them talk, and his amazement grew. Their beliefs +were so different. He listened to their superstitious accounts of the +old race, and the way it had been "in the beginning." + +He listened to their legends of the old gods who flew through the air +and were a mighty people, but who were destroyed by a new race of +devils. He listened as they told him of their own ancestors, children of +the gods, who had fled to the hills to await the gods' return. They had +no conception at all of the thousands of years that had elapsed between +the old race's passing and their own forefathers' flight into the hills. +And when he tried to explain, they shook their heads and wouldn't +believe him. + +He didn't hear Lisa come. One minute the far end of the clearing was +empty and still and the next minute the girl was walking across it +toward them, a bow in one hand and a pair of rabbits dangling from the +other. + +She saw him and stopped, the rabbits dropping from her hand. + +"Here's your young man, Lisa," Mag said. "Valley boy. His name's Eric." + +He stared back at her, more in curiosity than in surprise. She wasn't +nearly as unattractive as he had thought she would be. She wouldn't be +bad looking at all, he thought, if she were clean. She was fairly tall +and lean, too skinny really, with thin muscular arms instead of the +softly rounded arms the valley girls had. She was too brown, but her +skin hadn't turned leathery yet, and there was still a little life in +the lank brown hair that fell matted about her shoulders. + +"Hello, Lisa," he said. + +"Hello." Her eyes never left him. She stared at him, her lips trembling, +her whole body tensed. She looked as if she were going to turn and run +at any moment, as if only his quietness kept her from fleeing. + +With a sudden shock Eric realized that she too was afraid--afraid of +him. His own hesitation fell away and he smiled at her. + +Mag got up and went over to the girl and put her arm around Lisa's +shoulders. "Don't be afraid of him, child," Mag said. "He's a nice boy. +Not like one of _them_." + +Lisa trembled. + +Eric watched her, pitying her. She was as helpless as he before the calm +assumption of the older women. More helpless, because she had probably +never thought of defying them, of escaping the pattern of their lives. + +"Don't worry, Lisa," he said. "I won't hurt you." + +Slowly she walked toward him, poised, waiting for a hostile move. She +came within a few feet of him and then sank to her haunches, still +watching him, still poised. + +She was as savage as the others. A graceful, dirty savage. + +"You're really one of us?" she said. "You can't perceive?" + +"No," he said. "I can't perceive." + +"He's not like them," Mag said flatly. "If you'd ever been among them, +you'd know their ways." + +"I've never seen a man before, up close," Lisa said. + +Her eyes pleaded with him, and suddenly he knew why he pitied her. It +was because she felt helpless before him, and begged him not to harm +her, and thought of him as something above her, more powerful than she, +and dangerous. He looked across at her and felt protective, and it was a +new feeling to him, absolutely new. Because always before, around the +normals, even around his own parents and Walden, he had been the +helpless one. + +He liked this new feeling, and wished it could last. But it couldn't. He +couldn't do as the old women expected him to, leave the valley and his +parents, leave the books and the museum and the ship, just to hide in +the hills like a beast with them. + +He had come to find his people, but these three were not they. + +"You two go on off and talk," Mag said. "We're old. We don't matter now. +You've got things to settle between you." + +She cackled again and got up and went into the hut and old Nell got up +also and followed her. + +The girl shivered. She drew back a little, away from him. Her eyes never +left his face. + +"Don't be afraid, Lisa," he said gently. "I won't hurt you. I won't even +touch you. But I would like to talk to you." + +"All right," she said. + +They got up and walked to the end of the gorge, the girl keeping always +a few feet from him. At the boulders she stopped and faced him, her back +against a rock, her thin body still trembling. + +"Lisa," he said. "I want to be your friend." + +Her eyes widened. "How can you?" she said. "Men are friends. Women are +friends. But you're a man and I'm a woman and it's different." + +He shook his head helplessly, trying to think of a way to explain things +to her. He couldn't say that he found her dirty and unattractive and +almost another species. He couldn't say that he'd searched the hills, +often thinking of the relationship between man and woman, but that she +wasn't the woman, that she never could be the woman for him. He couldn't +tell her that he pitied her in perhaps the same way that the normals +pitied him. + +Still, he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to be her friend. Because he +was sure now that he could search the mountains forever, and perhaps +find other people, even if those he found were like her, and Mag and +Nell. + +"Listen, Lisa," he said. "I can't live up here. I live in the valley. I +came in an aircar, and it's down in the canyon below here. I have to go +back--soon. Before it gets completely dark." + +"Why?" + +"If I don't the normals will come looking for me. They'll find the +aircar and then they'll find us. And you and your family will be taken +away. Don't you understand?" + +"You're going?" Lisa said. + +"In a little while. I must." + +She looked at him, strangely. She looked at his clothes, at his face, at +his body. Then she looked at her own hands and touched her own coarse +dress, and she nodded. + +"You won't come back," she said. "You don't like me. I'm not what you +were searching for." + +He couldn't answer. Her words hurt him. The very fact that she could +recognize their difference from each other hurt him. He pitied her still +more. + +"I'll come back," he said, "Of course I will. As often as I can. You're +the only other people I've ever known who didn't perceive." + +She looked up into his face again. Her eyes were very large. They were +the only beautiful thing about her. + +"Even if you do come back, you won't want me." + +There wasn't any answer at all. + + * * * * * + +It was dusk when Eric got back to the museum. He landed the aircar and +climbed out and walked across to the building, still feeling unreal, +still not believing that the events of this day had actually happened. + +He nodded to Prior and the old caretaker nodded back and then stood +staring at him, troubled and curious. Eric didn't notice the other's +expression, nor the fact that Prior followed him to the top of the +spiral ramp and remained there for a while, watching. + +Eric stood at the bottom of the well where he had so often stood before, +staring across at the ship, then looking up, up, up its sleek length to +where its nose pointed yearningly toward the night sky. But tonight he +found no comfort in the sight, no sense of kinship with its builders. +Tonight the ship was a dead and empty thing. + +"_You won't want me--_" Her voice, her eyes, came between him and the +stars. + +He had thought of finding his people and sharing with them their common +heritage from the past, the knowledge of the old race and its thoughts +and its science and its philosophy. He had thought of sharing with them +the old desire for the stars, the old hunger, the old loneliness that +the new race could never understand. He had been wrong. + +_His people...._ He pushed the thought away. + +He looked up at the stars that were merely pin-pricks of light at the +top of the well and wondered if anyone, old race or new or something +different from either, lived among them now. And he felt small, and even +the ship was small, and his own problems and his own search were +unimportant. He sat down and leaned back against the smooth wall and +closed his eyes, blotting out the ship and the stars, and finally, even +Lisa's face before him. + +The old caretaker found him sleeping there, and sighed, and went away +again, still frowning. Eric slept on, unheeding. When he awoke it was +late morning and the stars were gone and clouds drifted across the mouth +of the well. + +There was no answer here. The starship would never fly. + +And Eric went back to the mountains. + + * * * * * + +It was two weeks later that the councilmen stood facing Walden across +the great museum table. They had come together, Abbot and Drew and the +others, and they faced him together, frowning. Their thoughts were +hidden. Walden could catch only glimpses of what lay beneath their +worry. + +"Every day." Abbot's eyes were hard, unyielding. "Why, Walden? Why does +he go there every day?" + +"Does it matter?" + +"Perhaps. Perhaps not. We can't tell--yet." + +The ring of faces, of buried perceptions, of fear, anxiety, and a worry +that could no longer be shrugged off. And Eric away, as he was every day +now, somewhere in the distant hills. + +"The boy's all right." Walden checked his own rush of worry. + +"Is he?" + +The worry in the open now, the fear uncontained, and no more +vacillation. Their thoughts hidden from Walden, their plans hidden, and +nothing he could do, no way to warn Eric, yet. + +Abbot smiled, humorlessly. "The boy had better be all right...." + + * * * * * + +Eric landed in the canyon and made sure that the aircar was hidden under +a ledge, with branches drawn about it so that no one could spot it from +above. Then he turned and started for the slope, and as he reached it +Lisa ran down to meet him. + +"You're late," she called. + +"Am I? Have you really been waiting for me?" + +"Of course." She came over to meet him, laughing, openly glad that he +had come. + +He smiled back at her and walked along beside her, having to take long +strides to match her skipping ones, and he too was glad that he'd come. +Lately he felt like this every day. It was a feeling he couldn't +analyze. Nothing had changed. The girl was still too thin and too brown +and too dirty, although now she had begun to wash her dress and her body +in the mountain stream and to comb the snarls from her hair. But it +didn't make her attractive to him. It only made her less unattractive. + +"Will you always have to go away every night?" she asked guilelessly. + +"I suppose so." + +He looked down at her and smiled, wondering why he came. There was still +an air of unreality about the whole situation. He felt numb. He had felt +that way ever since the first day, and the feeling had grown, until now +he moved and spoke and smiled and ate and it was as if he were someone +else and the person he had been was gone completely. He liked coming +here. But there was no triumph in being with these people, no sense of +having found his own kind, no purpose, nothing but a vague contentment +and an unwillingness to search any farther. + +"You're very quiet," Lisa said. + +"I know. I was thinking." + +She reached out and touched his arm, her fingers strong and muscular. He +smiled at her but made no move toward her, and after a moment she sighed +and took her hand away. + +"Why are you so different, Eric?" + +"Perhaps because I was raised by the others, the normal ones. Perhaps +just because I've read so many books about the old race...." + +They came up to the boulders that blocked the entrance of the little +gorge where the hut was. Lisa started toward them, then stopped +abruptly. + +"Let's go on up the hill. I want to talk to you, without them." + +"All right." + +He followed her without speaking, concentrating all his effort on +scrambling over the rougher spots in the trail. She didn't say anything +more until they had come out on a high ledge that overlooked the whole +canyon and she had sat down and motioned for him to sit down too. + +"Whew," he panted. "You're a mountain goat, Lisa." + +She didn't smile. "I've liked your coming to see us," she said. "I like +to listen to you talk. I like the tales you tell of the old ones. But +Mag and Nell are upset." + +He knew what was coming. His eyes met hers, and then he looked away and +reddened and felt sorry for her and what he would have to tell her. This +was a subject they had managed to avoid ever since that first day, +although the older women brought it up whenever he saw them. + +"Mag says I must have a man," Lisa said. Her voice was tight. He +couldn't tell if she was crying because he couldn't bear to look at her. +He could only stare out over the canyon and listen and wait. + +"She says if it isn't you I'll have to find someone else, later on, but +she says it ought to be you. Because _they're_ dangerous, and besides, +if it's you our children will be sure to be like us." + +"What?" He swung around, startled. "Do you mean that if one parent were +normal the child might be too?" + +"Yes," she said. "It might. They say that's happened. Sometimes. No one +knows why we're born. No one knows why some are one way and some +another." + +"Lisa...." He stopped. + +"I know. You don't want me. I've known that all the time." + +"It isn't just that." + +He tried to find the words to express what he felt, but anything he +might say would be cold and cruel and not quite true. He felt the +contentment drain out of him, and he felt annoyed, because he didn't +want to have to think about her problem, or about anything. + +"Why do they want you to have a child?" he said roughly. "Why do they +want our kind to go on, living here like animals, or taken to the +valleys and separated from each other and put into institutions until we +die? Why don't they admit that we've lost, that the normals own the +Earth? Why don't they stop breeding and let us die?" + +"Your parents were normal, Eric. If all of us died, others would be +born, someday." + +He nodded and then he closed his eyes and fought against the despair +that rose suddenly within him and blotted out the last of the +contentment and the unreality. He fought against it and lost. And +suddenly Lisa was very real, more real even than the books had ever +been. And the dirty old women were suddenly people--individuals, not +savages. He tried to pity them, to retreat into his pity and his +loneliness, but he couldn't even do that. + +The people he had looked for were imaginary. He would never find them, +because Mag and Nell and Lisa were his people. They were like him, and +the only difference between him and them was one of luck. They were +dirty and ignorant. They had been born in the mountains and hunted like +beasts. He was more fortunate; he had been born in the valley. + +He was a snob. He had looked down on them, when all the time he was one +of them. If he had been born among them, he would have been as they +were. And, if Lisa had lived in another age, she too would have sought +the stars. + +Eric sat very still and fought until a little of the turmoil quieted +inside of him. Then he opened his eyes again and stared across the +canyon, at the rock slides and the trees growing out from the slopes at +twisting, precarious angles, and he saw everything in a new light. He +saw the old race as it had been far earlier than the age of +space-travel, and he knew that it had conquered many environments on +Earth before it had gained a chance to try for those of space. He felt +humble, suddenly, and proud at the same time. + +Lisa sat beside him, not speaking, drawing away from him and letting him +be by himself, as if she knew the conflicts within him and knew enough +not to interrupt. He was grateful both for her presence there beside +him and for her silence. + +Much later, when afternoon shadows had crept well out from the rocks, +she turned to him. "Will you take me to the valley someday, Eric?" + +"Maybe. But no one must know about you. You know what would happen if +any of them found out you even existed." + +"Yes," she said. "We'd have to be careful, all right. But you could take +me for a ride in the aircar sometime and show me things." + +Before, he would have shrugged off her words and forgotten them. Now he +couldn't. Decision crystalized quickly in his mind. + +"Come on, Lisa," he said, getting to his feet and reaching down to help +her up also. "I'll take you to the valley right now." + +She looked up at him, unable to speak, her eyes shining, and then she +was running ahead of him, down the slope toward the aircar. + + * * * * * + +The car climbed swiftly away from the valley floor, up between the +canyon walls and above them, over the crest of the hills. He circled it +for a moment, banking it over on its side so that she could look down at +the gorge and the rocks and the cascading stream. + +"How do you like it, Lisa?" + +"I don't know." She smiled, rather weakly, her body braced against the +seat. "It feels so strange." + +He smiled back and straightened the car, turning away from the mountains +until the great, gardened valley stretched out before them, all the way +to the foot of the western hills. + +"I'll show you the museum," he said. "I only wish I could take you +inside." + +She moved away from him, nearer to the window, and looked down at the +scattered houses that lay below them, at the people moving in the +gardens, at the children. + +"I never dreamed it was like this," she said. "I never could picture it +before." + +There was a longing in her face he'd never noticed before. He stared at +her, and she was different suddenly, and her thin muscular body was +different too. + +Pioneer--that was the word he wanted. + +The girls of the new race could never be pioneers. + +"Look, Eric. Over there. Aircars." + +The words broke in on his thoughts and he looked away from her, +following her gaze incuriously, not much interested. And then his +fingers stiffened on the controls and the peacefulness fell away from +him as if it had never been. + +"Lots of them," she said. + +Aircars. Eight or ten of them, more than he had ever seen at one time, +spread out in a line and flying eastward, straight toward him. + +[Illustration] + +They mustn't see Lisa. They mustn't get close enough to realize who he +was. + +He swung away from them, perpendicular to their course, angling so that +he would be out of perception range, and then he circled, close to the +ground, as they swept by, undeviating, purposeful, toward the mountains. + +_Toward the mountains._ + +Fear. Sudden, numbing fear and the realization of his own carelessness. + +"What's the matter, Eric?" + +He had swung about and now followed them, far behind them and off to one +side, much too far away for them to try to perceive him. Perhaps, he +thought, perhaps they don't know. But all the time he remembered his own +trips to the canyon, taken so openly. + +"Oh, Eric, they're not--" + +He swung up over the last ridge and looked down, and her words choked +off in her throat. Below them lay the canyon, and in it, the long line +of aircars, landed now, cutting off the gorge, the light reflecting off +them, bronze in the sunset. And the tiny figures of men were even now +spreading out from the cars. + +"What'll we do, Eric?" + +Panic. In her voice and in her eyes and in her fingers that bit into his +arm, hurting him, steadying him against his own fear and the twisting +realization of his betraying lack of caution. + +"Run. What else can we do?" + +Down back over the ridge, out of sight of the aircars and into the +foothills, and all the while knowing that there was nowhere to run to +now. + +"No, Eric! We've got to go back. We've got to find Mag and Nell--" Her +voice rose in anguish, then broke, and she was crying. + +"We can't help them by going back," he said harshly. "Maybe they got +away. Maybe they didn't. But the others would catch us for sure if they +got near us." + +Run. It was all they could do, now. Run to other hills and leave the +aircar and hide, and live as Lisa had lived, as others of their kind had +lived. + +"We've got to think of ourselves, Lisa. It's all we can do, now." + +Down through the foothills, toward the open valley, and the future, the +long blind race to other mountains, and no choice left, no alternative, +and the books lost and the starship left behind, forever.... + +Lisa cried, and her fingers bit into his arm. Ahead of him, too close to +flee or deceive, was another line of aircars, flying in from the valley, +their formation breaking as they veered toward him. + +"Land, Eric. Land and run!" + +"We can't, Lisa. There's not enough time." + +Everything was lost now--even the hills. + +Unless ... one chance. The only chance, and it was nearly hopeless. + +"Get in the back, Lisa," he said. "Climb over the seat and hide in that +storage compartment. And stay there." + +The two nearest cars had swung about now and paralleled his course, +flanking him, drifting in nearer and nearer. + +"Why?" Lisa clung to him. "What are you going to do?" + +"They don't know you're with me. They probably don't even know I went +back to the canyon. They think I'll land at the museum, not suspecting +anything's wrong. So I'll do just what they expect me to. Go back, and +pretend I don't know a thing." + +"You're mad." + +"It's our only chance, Lisa. If only they don't lock me up tonight...." + +She clung to him for still another minute and then she climbed over the +seat and he heard the luggage compartment panel slide open and, a moment +later, shut. + +The nearest aircar drifted still closer to him, escorting him west-ward, +toward the museum. Behind him, other cars closed in. + + * * * * * + +Walden and Prior were waiting for him at the entrance of the main +building, just as they had waited so often before. He greeted them +casually, trying to act exactly as he usually did, but their greetings +to him were far from casual. They stared at him oddly, Prior even +drawing back a little as he approached. Walden looked at him for a long +moment, very seriously, as if trying to tell him something, but what it +was Eric didn't know. Both men were worried, their anxiety showing in +their manner, and Eric wondered if he himself showed the fear that +gripped him. + +They must know what had happened. By now probably every normal person +within a hundred miles of the museum must know. + +At the entrance he glanced back idly and saw that one of the aircars +that had followed him had landed and that the others were angling off +again, leaving. It was too dark to see how many men got out of the car, +but Walden and Prior were facing in that direction, communicating, and +Eric knew that they knew. Everything. + +It was like a trap around him, with each of their minds a strand of the +net, and he was unable to see which strands were about to entangle him, +unable to see if there were any holes through which he might escape. All +he could do was pretend that he didn't even know the net existed, and +wait. + +Half a dozen men came up to Prior and Walden. One of them was Abbot. His +face was very stern, and when he glanced over at where Eric stood in the +building entrance his face grew even sterner. + +Eric watched them for a moment; then he went inside, the way he usually +did when there were lots of people around. He wished he knew what they +were saying. He wished he knew what was going to happen. + +He went on into the library and pulled out a book at random and sat down +and started turning the pages. He couldn't read. He kept waiting for +them to come in, for one of them to lay a hand on his shoulder and tell +him to come along, that they knew he had found other people like himself +and that he was a danger to their race and that they were going to lock +him up somewhere. + +What would happen to Lisa? They'd find her, of course. She could never +escape alone, on foot, to the hills. + +What had happened to Mag and Nell? + +No one came. He knew that their perceptions lay all around him, but he +could sense no emotions, no thoughts but his own. + +He sat and waited, his eyes focused on the book but not seeing it. It +seemed hours before anyone came. Then Prior and Abbot and Walden were in +the archway, looking across at him. Prior's face was still worried, +Abbot's stern, Walden's reassuring.... + +Eric forced himself to smile at them and then turn another page and +pretend to go on reading. After a moment he heard their footsteps +retreating, and when he looked up again they were gone. + +He sat a while longer and then he got up and walked down the ramp and +stood for a few minutes looking at the ship, because that too would be +expected of him. He felt nothing. The ship was a world away now, mocking +him, for his future no longer lay in the past, with the old race, but +out in the hills. If he had a future at all.... + +He went up the ramp again, toward his own room. No one else was in +sight. They had all gone to bed, perhaps. They wouldn't expect him to +try to run away now. + +He began to walk, as aimlessly as he could, in the direction of the +aircar. He saw no one. Perhaps it wasn't even guarded. He circled around +it, still seeing no one; then, feeling more secure suddenly, he went +directly toward it and reached up to open the panel and climb in. + +"Is that you, Eric?" + +Walden's voice. Quiet as always. And it came from inside the car. + + * * * * * + +Eric stood frozen, looking up at the ship, trying to see Walden's face +and unable to find it in the darkness. He didn't answer--couldn't +answer. He listened, and heard nothing except Walden, there above him, +moving on the seat. + +Where was Lisa? + +"I thought you'd come back here," Walden said. He climbed down out of +the aircar and stood facing Eric, his body a dim shadow. + +"Why are you here?" Eric whispered. + +"I wanted to see you. Without the others knowing it. I was sure you'd +come here tonight." + +Walden. Always Walden. First his teacher and then his friend, and now +the one man who stood between him and freedom. For a second Eric felt +his muscles tense and he stiffened, ready to leap upon the older man and +knock him down and take the ship and run. Then he relaxed. It was a +senseless impulse, primitive and useless. + +"The others don't know you have any idea what's happened, Eric. But I +could tell. It was written all over you." + +"What did they find, Walden?" + +The old man sighed, and when he spoke his voice was very tired. "They +found two women. They tried to capture them, but the women ran out on a +ledge. The older one slipped and fell and the other tried to catch her +and she fell too. They were dead when the men reached them." + +Eric listened, and slowly his tension relaxed, replaced by a dull ache +of mourning. But he knew that he was glad to hear that they were dead +and not captured, not dragged away from the hills to be bathed and well +fed and imprisoned forever under the eyes of the new race. + +"The old one was blind," Walden said. "It may have been her blindness +that caused her to fall." + +"It wasn't." + +"No, Eric, it probably wasn't." + +They were silent for a moment, and there was no sound at all except for +their own breathing. Eric wondered if Lisa still hid in the aircar, if +she was listening to them, afraid and hopeless and crying over the death +of her people. + +"Why did you come out here, Walden?" + +"To see you. I came today, when I realized how suspicious the council +had grown. I was going to warn you, to tell you to keep away from the +hills, that they wanted an excuse to lock you up. I was too late." + +"I was careless, Walden." He felt guilt twist inside of him. + +"No. You didn't know the danger. I should have warned you sooner. But I +never dreamed you would find anyone in the hills, Eric. I never dreamed +there were any more without perception, this generation." + +Eric moved nearer the car and leaned against it, the cold plastic next +to his body cooling him a little, steadying him against the feverish +trembling that shook his legs and sent sweat down over him and made him +too weak, suddenly, to want to struggle further. + +"Let me go, Walden. Let me take the car and go." + +Walden didn't move. He stood quietly, a tall thin shape in the darkness. + +"There are other people the searchers didn't find, aren't there? And +you're going to them." + +Eric didn't answer. He looked past Walden, at the car, wishing he could +somehow call to Lisa, wishing they could perceive so that he could +reassure her and promise her that somehow he'd still take her to +freedom. But it would be an empty promise.... + +"I've warned you too late. You've found your people, but it won't do you +any good. They'll hunt you through the hills, and I won't be able to +help you any more." + +Eric looked back at him, hearing the sadness in his voice. It was real +sadness, real emotion. He thought of the years he had spent with Walden, +learning, absorbing the old race knowledge, and he remembered that all +through those years Walden had never once made him feel uncomfortable +because of the difference between them. + +He looked at the old man for a long time, wishing that it was day so he +could read the other's expression, wondering how he had managed to take +this man for granted for so long. + +"Why?" he whispered. "Why are you helping me? Why aren't you like the +others?" + +"I never had a son, Eric. Perhaps that's the reason." + +Eric thought of Myron and shook his head. "No, it isn't that. My father +doesn't feel the way you do. He can't forget that I'm not normal. With +him, I'm always aware of the difference." + +"And you're not with me?" + +"No," Eric said. "I'm not. Why?" And he wondered why he had never asked +that question before. + +"The final question," Walden said softly. "I wondered how long it would +be before you asked it. I wondered if you'd ever ask it. + +"Haven't you ever thought about why I never married, Eric? Haven't you +ever asked yourself why I alone learned to read, and collected books, +and studied the old race?" + +"No," Eric admitted. "I just accepted you." + +"Even though I can perceive and you can't." Walden paused and Eric +waited, not knowing what was coming and yet sure that nothing could +surprise him now. + +"My father was normal," Walden said slowly. "But I never saw him. My +mother was like you. So was my brother. We lived in the hills and I was +the only one who could perceive. I learned what it was to be different." + +Eric stared. He couldn't stop staring. And yet he should have realized, +long ago, that Walden was different too, in his own way. + +Walden smiled back, his face, shadowed in moonlight, as quiet and as +understanding as ever. For a moment neither spoke, and there was only +the faraway sound of crickets chirping and the rustling of the wind in +the gardens. + +And then, from within the aircar, there was a different rustling, that +of a person moving. + +"Lisa!" + +Eric pushed the compartment panel back. The soft light came on +automatically, framing her where she curled against the far wall. + +"You heard us?" + +She nodded. Tears had dried on her cheeks. Her eyes were huge in her +thin face. + +"We'd better go, Lisa." + +He reached in to help her out. + +They didn't see the aircar dropping in for a landing until it was almost +upon them, until its lights arced down over the museum walls. + +"Hide, Eric. In here--" Lisa pulled him forward. + +Behind them, Walden's voice, suddenly tired in the darkness. "It's too +late. They know I'm here. And they're wondering why." + +The three of them stood frozen, watching each other, while the dark +shape of the car settled to the ground some thirty yards away. + +"It's Abbot," Walden said. He paused, intent for a moment, and added, +"He doesn't know about you. Get out of sight somewhere, both of you, +away from here--" + +"Come on, Lisa--" Eric swung away from the car, toward the shelter of +the building and whatever hiding place there might be. "Hurry!" + +They ran, and the museum rose in front of them, and the door was open. +They were through it and into the dim corridor, and there was no one +around; Walden's figure was lost in the night outside. Beyond the +libraries the great ramp spiraled downward. + +"This way, Lisa!" + +They came out into the bottom of the well and there in front of them the +starship rested. Still reaching upward. Still waiting, as it had waited +for so many uncounted years. + +Their ship--if only it could be their ship.... + +"Oh, Eric!" + +Side by side they stood staring at it, and Eric wished that they could +get into it and go, right now, while they were still free and there was +no one to stop them. But they couldn't. There was no food in the ship, +no plant tanks, none of the many provisions the books listed. + +Besides, if they took off now they would destroy the museum and all the +people in it, and probably kill themselves as well. + +"Eric! We know you're down there!" It wasn't Walden's voice. + +Lisa moved closer. Eric put his arm around her and held her while +footsteps hurried toward them down the ramp. The council. Abbot and Drew +and the others. Prior, shaking his head. Walden. + +"Let us go," Eric cried. "Why won't you let us go?" + +Walden turned to the others. His eyes pleaded with them. His lips moved +and his hands were expressive, gesturing. But the others stood without +moving, without expression. + +Then Abbot pushed Walden aside and started forward, his face hard and +determined and unchangeable. + +"You won't let us go," Eric said. + +"No. You're fools, both of you." + +There was one answer, only one answer, and with it, a hot violence in +his blood as the old race pattern came into focus, as the fear and the +futility fell away. + +It was only a few steps to the ship. Eric caught Lisa's arm and pulled +her after him and ran toward it, reaching up to the door. In one motion +he flung it open and lifted her through it, then he swung about to face +the others. + +"Let us go!" he shouted. "Promise to let us go, or we'll take off anyway +and if we die at least you'll die too!" + +Abbot stopped. He looked back at Walden, his face scornful. "You see?" +he said aloud. "They're mad. And you let this happen." + +He turned away, dismissing Walden, and came toward the ship. The others +followed him. + +Eric waited. He stood with his back to the door, waiting, as Abbot +strode toward him, ahead of the other councilmen, alone and unprotected. + +"You're the fool!" Eric said. He laughed as he leaped forward. + +Abbot's eyes went wide suddenly; he tried to dodge, gave a little grunt, +and went limp in Eric's grasp. + +Eric laughed again, swung Abbot into the ship and leaped in himself. The +old race and its violence had never been nearer. + +He slammed the door shut, bolted it, and turned back to where the +councilman was struggling to his feet. + +"Now will you let us go?" Eric said softly. "Or must we take off now, +with you--for the stars?" + +For a long moment Abbot looked at him, and then his lips trembled and +his whole body went slack in defeat. + +"The ship is yours," he whispered. "Just let me go." + +Outside the ship, Walden chuckled wryly. + + * * * * * + +The Vacuum Suit was strange against Eric's body, as strange as the +straps that bound him to the couch. He looked over at Lisa and she too +was unrecognizable, a great bloated slug tied down beside him. Only her +face, frightened behind the helmet, looked human. + +He reached for the controls, then paused, glancing down through the view +screens at the ground, at the people two hundred feet below, tiny ants +scurrying away from the ship, running to shelter but still looking up at +him. He couldn't see his parents or Walden. + +His fingers closed about the control lever but still he stared down. +Everything that had been familiar all his life stood out sharply now, +because he was leaving and it would never be there again for him. And he +had to remember what it was like.... + +Then he looked up. The sky was blue and cloudless above him, and there +were no stars at all. But he knew that beyond the sky the stars were +shining. + +And perhaps, somewhere amid the stars, the old race waited. + +He turned to Lisa. "This may be goodbye, darling." + +"It may be. But it doesn't matter, really." + +They had each other. It was enough. Even though they could never be as +close to each other as the new race was close. They were separate, with +a gulf always between their inmost thoughts, but they could bridge that +gulf, sometimes. + +He turned back to the controls and his fingers tightened. The last line +of the poem shouted in his mind, and he laughed, for he knew finally +what the poet had meant, what the old race had lived for. _We have cast +off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want the stars...._ + +He pulled the lever back and the ship sprang free. A terrible weight +pressed against him, crushing him, stifling him. But still he laughed, +because he was one of the old race, and he was happy. + +And the meaning of his life lay in the search itself. + + * * * * * + +They stood staring up at the ship until it was only a tiny speck in the +sky, and then they looked away from it, at each other. A wave of +perception swept among them, drawing them closer to each other in the +face of something they couldn't understand. + +"Why did they go?" Abbot asked, in his mind. + +"Why did any of the old race go?" Walden answered. + +The sunlight flashed off the ship, and then it was gone. + +"It's not surprising that the old race died," Abbot said. "They were +brilliant, in their way, and yet they did such strange things. Their +lives seemed so completely meaningless...." + +Walden didn't answer for a moment. His eyes searched the sky for a last +glimpse of the ship, but there was nothing at all. He sighed, and he +looked at Abbot, and then past him, at all the others. + +"I wonder," he said, "how long it will be before some other race says +the same thing about us." + +No one answered. He turned and walked away from them, across the +trampled flowers, toward the museum and the great empty vault where the +starship had waited for so long. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Homo Inferior, by Mari Wolf + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMO INFERIOR *** + +***** This file should be named 31692.txt or 31692.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/6/9/31692/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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