A Choice of Gods

34

She was sitting at the desk, with the books spread out, when he came into the room. For a moment, in the feeble candlelight, she could not be sure that it was he; then she saw it was. She came swiftly to her feet. "David!" she said.

He stood looking at her and she saw that he did not have the bow or the quiver of arrows. And something else as well—the necklace of bear claws no longer lay upon his chest. Silly, she thought, that she should notice things like that when all that really mattered was that he was back.

"The necklace," she said, feeling silly when she said it, not wanting to say it, but saying it just the same.

"I threw it away," he said.

"But, David…"

"I met the Walker. I did not need the bow. The arrow did not strike him; it only struck the ship."

She did not answer.

"You thought the Walker was only a shadow in my mind."

"Yes," she said. "A piece of folklore. An olden story…"

"Perhaps it was," he said. "I don't know. Perhaps a shadow of that great race of builders who once lived here. The people not like us. Not like you and I. The shadow that they cast upon the land, that even after they were gone still remained upon the land."

"A haunt," she said. "A ghost."

"But it is gone now," he said. "It no longer walks."

She stepped around the desk and he came quickly to meet her and had his arms about her and held her close against him. "It is so strange about the two of us," he said. "I can make things well, I can cure the sick. You can see everything there is and make me see it, too; everything there is comes clear inside your mind."

She did not answer. He was too close, too real; he was back again. There was no room for answer.

But, within her mind, she told Grandfather Oak: It is a new beginning…

"I'll be leaving soon," said John. "I won't remain away so long this time."

"I hate to see you go," said Jason. "Do come back as soon as you are able. We were boys together…"

"We had good times," said John.

"There is something very special," Jason said, "about two men being brothers."

"There is nothing to worry over now," said John. "The Earth is safe. We can continue as we have. The Indians and the robots can take any road they wish. The idea of the Principle may not be accepted in its entirety by the People. They'll think about it for a while, they'll mull it over, they'll talk it over. They'll figure, as Harrison said, it probably is no more than a fairy tale. They may make a try for Earth. I would think it's almost certain that they will. If they do, they'll get slapped down and then they will believe."

Jason nodded. "That is true. But there's the business of the Project,"

"What about the Project?"

"You mean you haven't thought of it?"

"You're talking riddles, Jason."

"No, I'm not," said Jason. "It's just that you haven't seen it. No one saw it. They figured all the Principle did was use the Project for an errand boy."

"Well, wasn't that what it was—now, wait a second, you can't be thinking…"

"But I am," said Jason. "Not an errand boy for the Principle, but a spokesman for the Principle. What have the two in common? We wondered whether the Project might just be listening, but now we know it wasn't that. They were talking back and forth. The Project told the Principle what was going on and the Principle told it what to do…"

"I think you may be right," said John, "but you must remember that we've met other intelligences and we've had slight success…"

"The thing you don't realize," said Jason, "is that the Principle is not another alien, not just another intelligence you run into out in space. It could have talked to us, I think, to any one of us, if it had wanted to."

John grunted. "That raises a question, Jason. Like speaks to like. Would you suppose the Principle could be—no, it can't be that. It must be something else. The Principle is no machine. I can swear to that. I lived on the edge of it for days."

"That's not the point," said Jason. "The Principle would have nothing to do with a mere machine. Could it be, I wonder, that the Project is no longer a machine? How far do you have to push a machine before it becomes something other than machine? How much does a machine need to evolve before it becomes something else—another form of life? Different than we are, it would have to be different than we are, but a life form just as surely…"

"You're letting your imagination run away with you," said John. "Even if you aren't, there's nothing we need fear. The robots are friends of ours. They have to be good friends—damn it, man, we made them."

"T don't think it's all imagination," Jason said. "I think there is some basis for it, some evidence of it. I find myself wondering if the Principle, whatever it may be, has found a closer identification with the Project than it has with the human race. And that's the kind of thing that sends a shiver up my spine."

"Even if it should be so," said John, "and I can't agree it is, it would make no difference to us. Except for you and Martha, we're out among the stars. In another few thousand years there'll be none of us who'll care particularly either about the Principle or Earth. We're free agents, going where we want to go, doing what we want to do. And this business of star-roving, I feel sure, is only a part of it, a beginning of it. In the centuries to come the race will develop other capabilities. I don't know what they'll be, but I know they will develop."

"I may be short-sighted," Jason admitted. "I live too close to Earth. I never gained the perspective the others of you have. By the time the situation with the Project has developed to the point where it has any impact, Martha and I will be long gone. But the Indians will stay here and what about the Indians? Of all of us, they may be the most important segment of the human race."

John chuckled. "The Indians will get along all right. They've developed the most solid basis of any of us. They've made a compact with the planet They've become a part of it."

"I hope," said Jason, "you are right."

They sat in silence, the fire flickering in the grate, the chimney making sighing noises. The wind plucked at the eaves and in the stillness of the night the old house moaned with its weight of years.

Finally John said, "There's one thing I want to know and I want the truth. What about your alien?"

"It left," said Jason. "It went home. It stayed longer than it planned because it had to tell someone, had to thank someone. David was the man to thank, for David was the one who did it, but David never heard a single word it said. So it came to me and told me."

"And you've told David? You passed along the thanks?"

Jason shook his head. "No, not yet. If ever. He's not ready for it. It might frighten him. He might run off again. I told two people, you and Hezekiah."

John frowned. "Was it smart to tell Hezekiah?"

"I debated it," said Jason, "then finally I did. It seemed—well, it seemed to be in his department. He's so weighed down with imaginary, self-accusatory worry, that I thought it might help him. Give him something solid to worry over for a change."

"This wasn't really what I meant," said John, "when I asked the question. What worries me is this matter of a soul. Do you honestly think it possible this strange character out of the West could have given the alien a soul?"

"That's what the alien said."

"Not the alien. You. What do you think?"

"I sometimes think," said Jason, "that the soul may be a state of mind."

Hezekiah tramped, troubled, up and down the garden of the monastery.

It was impossible, he told himself, that what Mr. Jason told him could be right. Mr. Jason must have misunderstood. He wished the alien still were here, so that he could talk with it, although Mr. Jason has said, even had it been here, he could not talk with it. There was no way for him to talk with it.

The night was silent and the stars far off. A winter wind came stealing up an autumn hill. Hezekiah shivered at the touch of it and was at once disgusted with himself and a little frightened. He should not shiver in the wind, he could not feel the wind. Could it be, he wondered, that he was turning human? Could he, in his humanness, really feel the wind? And he was even more frightened that he should think he might be human than he'd been frightened at shivering in the wind.

Pride, he thought—pride and vanity. Would he ever rid himself of his pride and vanity? And he might as well admit it—when would he be rid of doubt?

And now, as he asked himself that question, he could no longer hide from the thing he had been hiding from, the thought he had tried to keep himself from facing by thinking about the alien and its soul.

The Principle!

"No!" he shouted at himself, in sudden terror. "No, it can't be so4 There can be nothing to it. It is sacrilege to even think of it."

In that area, he fiercely reminded himself, he could not be shaken.

God must be, forever, a kindly old (human) gentleman with a long, white, flowing beard.

about the author

Clifford D. Simak was born and raised in southwestern Wisconsin, a land of wooded hills and deep ravines which he often uses as the background locale for his stories. Over the years he has written over 25 books, and he has some 200 short stories to his credit. In 1977, Simak was awarded the Nebula Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. A retired newspaperman, Simak and his wife Kay live in Minnesota. They have two children. His most recent novel, also published by Del Rey Books, is PROJECT POPE.