Project Pope

Thirty-one

The Old Ones of the Woods talked among themselves, the comfortable, neighborly talk of little consequence — from all around the planet they talked to one another, filled with respect for one another, easy with their relationships.

— There was a time, said one of them who dwelled on a verdant plain that stretched for hundreds of miles on the other side of the mountain range that towered over Vatican, there was a time when I was much concerned with the metal race that settled on our surface. I feared they would expand, reaching for our soil and trees, for our mineral treasures, wasting our water and our land. I was even more concerned when we learned that the metal race was the creation of an organic folk who designed them as their servants. But after long years of keeping watch, there appears to be no danger.

— They are decent folk, said the Old One who lived in the hills above Decker's cabin, from which point he kept close watch on Vatican. They use our resources, but they use them wisely, taking only as they need, careful to preserve the fertility of the soil.

— In the beginning, said another who dwelled among the high peaks to the west of Vatican, I was disturbed by their extensive use of trees. In the beginning, and even now, they have the need of vast amounts of wood. But they harvest wisely, they are not wasteful and they never overcut. At times they plant young saplings to replace the trees they've taken.

— They are most satisfactory neighbors, said still another one who lived beside an ocean halfway around the planet. If we were fated to have neighbors, we have been lucky in them.

— Yet, said the one living on the plain, a short time ago it became necessary to kill.

— Not the metal ones, said the Old One who lived on Decker's hill, but members of that organic race we have spoken of. There are others of them here, there have been others here ever since the coming of the metal ones. But those who live with us permanently must be a special breed. They have no designs on our planet or ourselves. Rather, they are afraid of us, a situation we do not wish, but an attitude of which it would be difficult to disabuse them. The ones we killed included an outsider newly come to us and a different folk entirely. He had a weapon which he felt certain could put an end to us, although why he should have wanted to put an end to us, I do not understand.

— Obviously, said another one, we could not put up with that.

— No, we could not, said the Decker Old One, although there was much regret at doing what we had to do. Especially we regretted the killing of the others who accompanied the one who sought an end of us. They were not so depraved as he, but they did go along with hint.

— It was the only way we could have acted, said the Old One by the ocean. You pursued the proper course.

They ceased their talk for a moment, silent, but showing one another what they saw and sensed — the wide, flat prairie with its far horizons, grass blowing in long swaths before the wind, like waves upon a sea, the soft color here and there of prairie flowers, sisters to the grass; the wide sand beach that ran for miles along the foaming ocean, with birds that were something less and something more than birds running on the sands, not each one alone, but all of them together in formations that fell just short of a formal dance; the deep, hushed solemnity of a shadowed forest, the forest floor clean of undergrowth, the stark, dark trunks of trees forming, in whatever direction one might look, long blue-misty aisles that led into foreverness; a deep tree-and-brush-shrouded ravine, with great outthrusts of naked rock along both of the steep converging hillsides that formed the ravine, a place alive with tiny, skittering, friendly life that ran and squeaked among the outthrust rocks and the fallen rotting tree trunks, with the crystal singing of a hidden brook that dashed and foamed along the rocky bed where the hillsides came together.

— We have been lucky, said the one who crouched above the singing ravine. We have been able, with no great labor on our part, to preserve the planet as it was created. As wardens, we have done little more than watch over it, checking from time to time to see that all is well. There have been no invaders who held intent to misuse the planet or do it harm. Had we faced such a challenge there have been times when I've wondered how well we could have carried out our charge.

— We would have done well, I'm sure, said the One atop the mountain above Vatican. Instinctively, we would have known how to act.

— We did fail in one regard, said the Decker Old One. We let the Dusters get away.

— There was nothing we could have done about it, said the Old One on the plain. We could not have stopped their leaving. I am not sure it would have been right for us to do so. They were intelligent creatures and should have been accorded free will.

— Which we accorded them, said the One beside the ocean.

— But they originated here and developed here, said an Old One who lived in a distant desert. They were part of the planet and we allowed them to depart. Their leaving subtracted something from the planet. I have often wondered what function they might have carried out if they had stayed.

— Old Ones, said the One within the forest, this is footless speculation. They left long ago. Whether they would, in time, have exercised some influence on the planet, we cannot know. The planet may not have suffered from their leaving. Their influence, if there had been any, might have been adverse. I find myself wondering why this matter was brought into our conversation.

— Because one of them remains, said the Decker Old One. It lives with one of the organic beings that created the metal ones. When the others left, it remained behind. I have puzzled over why it should have remained behind. More than likely it was simply left here when the others went away. They may, as a matter of fact, have left it intentionally. You see, it is a runt…