A Choice of Gods

28

The oak log finally burned through and broke into two pieces, collapsing, sending up a shower of sparks that funneled up the chimney. The wind growled in the flue and from far off came the whining of the eaves. They sat by the fire and waited, the three of them—Martha, John and Jason.

"It worries me," said Jason. "How did they come to know? How could they have learned there was anybody here? It must have been quite natural for them to have assumed the entire race was taken. By rights, they should have thought they were coming to a planet with no inhabitants. They would have known, at least assumed, that the robots had been left behind and that they would have guessed the robots would persist. They might logically have imagined they'd find a robot civilization, but they couldn't know…"

"Don't worry about it," said John. "We'll get the answer soon enough. The important thing is that you handled it just right. You left them guessing. They must be mighty puzzled people. Your reactions were not typical to the situation and you've got them worried. They don't know what to think. They're up there psyching you right now."

"No matter what," said Martha, "you shouldn't take on so. This is no life and death affair."

"To me it is," said Jason. "And it is to Red Cloud. We can't let them rain everything."

"Maybe they won't," said Martha.

"Another planet for them to take over," Jason said. "Do you think they'd miss a chance like that?"

"But a planet," suggested John, "with its resources stripped. They know the planet has been stripped; they stripped it."

"Minerals, of course," said Jason. "The minerals are gone and most of the fossil fuels. Although they probably could salvage a lot of the minerals from the ruins—it's not all gone back to rust. And the cities would be quarries for building stone. Since the Disappearance the forests have grown up again. The forests today can't be much inferior to what they were when the Europeans took over the continent. The same would be true of the rest of the world. Back to primordial woodlands. Billions of board feet of lumber. The land has renewed itself. It's fertile once again, as it was before man first scratched the earth to plant a crop. The sea is full of fish."

"We can bargain with them," Martha said. "We can talk with them."

"We have nothing to bargain with," said Jason, bitterly. "We can appeal to their better nature, but I have no hope in that."

• Footsteps came clumping down the hall, Jason leaped to his feet.

"It's only Hezekiah," Martha said. "Thatcher sent him word."

Hezekiah came into the room. "There was no one," he said, "to announce my coming. I hope I do no wrong."

"Of course you haven't," Martha said. "Thank you for coming. Won't you please sit down."

"I do not need to sit," said Hezekiah, primly. "Damn it, Hezekiah," Jason said, "stop practicing your humility on us. In this house you're like any of the rest of us."

"I thank you, Mr. Jason," Hezekiah said. He sat down on a sofa. "I must admit that I have become partial to this human thing of sitting. In my case there is no earthly reason for it, but I enjoy it, although I suspect my enjoyment of it is something of a sin. I am told you have received word from the coming People. Aside from my realization of the problem posed by their imminent arrival, I am considerably intrigued at the opportunity to get from them some account of the development of their belief in the matter of religion. It would be a comfort…"

"You will find no comfort," John told him. "You can hope for nothing from them. I saw no evidence of any religious belief while I was on their planet."

"No evidence at all, sir?"

"None at all," said John. "No churches, no places of worship, no inclination to worship. No ministers or preachers or priests. And don't act so startled. Certainly it would be possible for a society to exist, quite comfortably, without any kind of faith. In fact, even before the Disappearance, we almost did. And in case you are wondering, there is no evidence that the lack of faith had anything to do with the Disappearance."

"I don't care too much about what they believe or don't believe," said Jason. "Let's not get off the track. How could the People have known there was anybody here? John, you didn't, by any chance…"

"No," said John. "I am sure I didn't. I did my best not to give any inkling that I came from Earth. I'm almost positive I said nothing…"

"How, then? No other of our people have been there. If they had been, they would have told us. It wouldn't be something that anyone would ignore. All these years we have wondered what happened to the People. It is a question that never has been too far from our thoughts."

"Have you considered that the People may have heard it from some other intelligence? We've been at no pains, as we traveled in the galaxy, to hide where we are from or how we travel…"

"Then you think they could know, as well, about our star-traveling?"

"It is possible, " said John. "Remember, the People are star rovers, too. They have their ships. They may have visited many planets. I know they have made star trips. In the course of their traveling, they could have contacted some intelligences, probably among them some of the same we have contacted."

"Our contacts have not been too satisfactory."

"Nor, perhaps, have theirs. But if they developed any contact at all with the intelligences we have met, one of the first things they would learn would be that others like them had visited the planet and by an entirely different means than they used in getting there. These People are not stupid, Jason. They could put two and two together."

"But you heard none of this. Nothing to hint at it. All the time you spent on their planet, you heard nothing at all."

John shook his head. "Only that they finally had relocated Earth and some months since had sent out a survey ship to visit it. You must realize, however, that I was in no position to reach into their governmental or scientific circles. All I heard was what the common people knew or could read in their publications."

"You think if the government knew about it they might have kept their knowledge secret?"

"They could have. I don't know what the reason for secrecy could have been, but it's possible."

Soft feet came down the hall toward the room in which they sat.

"That's Red Cloud," said Jason. He rose and met his old friend as he came into the room.

"I'm sorry to rout you out, Horace," he said, "but they'll be here this morning."

"I would not," said Horace Red Cloud, "have missed this wake for all the world."

"Wake?"

"Certainly. The custom of old barbarians from across the sea. No Indian foolishness."

"You mean sitting with the dead."

"And this time," said Horace, "the dead are a planet and a people. My planet and my people."

"They may have changed," said Martha. "They've had thousands of years to acquire some different viewpoints, a new morality, to mature a little. It might be a different culture."

Red Cloud shook his head. "John, from what he told us, doesn't seem to think so. He spent some time with them and it's the same old culture, a little smarter, maybe, a little slicker in its operations. These kind never change. A machine does something to a man. It brutalizes him. It serves as a buffer between himself and his environment and he is the worst for it. It arouses an opportunistic instinct and makes possible a greed that makes a man inhuman."

"I'm frightened," Jason said, "if that's what you want to hear me say."

"I sent a canoe up the river," said Red Cloud, "to carry word to Stanley—I think that is his name. Although why we bother with him I do not understand."

"We're all in this together. He has a right to be here if he wants to come."

"Remember what that contraption said? We are a transient factor…"

"I suppose we are," said Jason. "The trilobites were a transient factor. So were the dinosaurs. I suppose the robots have the right to think—even good reason to believe—they'll outlive us all."

"If they do," said Red Cloud, "it will serve them right."