Snail on the Slope

Chapter Eight

They were lying in bushes at the very edge of the trees and gazing at the crest of the hill through the foliage. The hill was steep and bare, and its crest was capped by a cloud of lilac mist. Above the hill was the open sky; a gusty wind was bringing drizzle. The lilac mist was motionless as if there were no wind. It was rather cool, even fresh; they were soaked, and had gooseflesh from the cold, their teeth chattered but they couldn't go away; twenty paces from them, upright as statues, stood three deadlings, their wide black mouths open, also looking at the crest of the hill with empty eyes. These deadlings had arrived five minutes before. Nava had sensed them and was set to flee, but Kandid had clamped his palm across her mouth and forced her down into the grass. Now she had calmed down a little; though she still shuddered heavily, it was due to the cold rather than fear. She was now watching the hill, not the deadlings.

On and around the hill something strange was happening, some kind of grandiose ebbing and flowing. Out of the forest, with a dense, deep droning, suddenly erupted enormous swarms of flies, which headed into the lilac fog on the hill and were hidden from view. The slopes were alive with columns of ants and spiders, hundreds of slug-amoebas were pouring out of the bushes, huge swarms of bees and wasps, clouds of multi-colored beetles flew over, under the rain. It sounded like a typhoon. This wave reached the heights and was sucked in, disappeared, and there came a sudden silence. The hill was dead once more and bare; some time passed and the noise and roar rose again and it all erupted again from the mist and headed for the forest. Only the slugs remained on the hilltop. In their place came spilling down the slopes the most incredible animals - hairies came rolling, clumsy arm-chewers came lurching down on frail legs, and there were plenty of others unknown as yet, speckled, multi-eyed, naked, shining half-beast, half-insects. Then the silence again, then the process started up once more, and again, and again, in a frightening, urgent rhythm, an inexorable energy. It seemed as though this rhythm and this energy had always been and would always be... Once a young hippocete emerged from the mist with a frightful roar, deadlings came running out from time to time and at once rushed into the forest, leaving white trails of cooling steam in their wake. And the motionless lilac cloud kept swallowing and spitting out, swallowing and spitting out, tireless and regular as a machine.

Hopalong used to say that the City stood on a hill, that thing is the City, perhaps, that's what they call the City. Yes, probably that's the City. But what's the meaning of it? Why is it like this? And the strange activity... I expected something like this... Rubbish, I never expected anything like it. I thought only about the masters, and where are the masters here? Kandid looked at the deadlings. These were standing in their former postures, their mouths open as before. Perhaps I'm wrong, thought Kandid. Perhaps they are the masters. Probably I'm mistaken all the time. I've completely forgotten how to think here. If ideas come to me, I can't fit them together. Not a single slug has come out of the fog yet. Question: why hasn't a single slug come out of the fog yet? ... No, that's not it. Get it straight. I am searching for the source of intelligent activity... Not true, again not true. I'm not interested in intelligent activity at all. I'm simply looking for someone to help me get home. Help me to get through six hundred miles of forest. Tell me which direction to go at least... The deadlings must have masters, I'm looking for these masters, I'm looking for the source of intelligent activity. He was quite pleased with himself; it was quite coherent. Let's start from the beginning, we'll think it all through - calmly and slowly. No need to hurry, now's just the time to think everything through slowly and calmly. Start from the very beginning. The deadlings must have masters - because deadlings aren't people - because they aren't animals. Therefore they are manufactured. If they aren't people... But why aren't they people? He rubbed his forehead. I've already worked that out. Long ago, in the village, I worked it out twice even, because the first time I forgot the answer, and now I've forgotten the proofs...

He shook his head as hard as he could and Nava quietly whispered at him. He was quiet and for a while lay with his face pressed into the wet grass.

Why they aren't animals - I worked that out before sometime... High temperature... No, no rubbish... Suddenly, he realized with horror that he'd forgotten what deadlings looked like. He remembered only their red-hot bodies and a sharp pain in his palms. He turned his head to look at them. Yes, I ought not to think. Thinking's out for me, right now, when I have to think more intensively than ever before.

Time to eat; you've told me that before, Nava; we set off the day after tomorrow - that's my limit. But I did go! And I'm here. Now I'm going into the City. Whatever it is - it's the City. My brain's overgrown with forest. I understand nothing... I've remembered. I was going to the City, to find an explanation for everything; about the Accession, the deadlings, the Great Harrowing, the lake of drowned bodies ... all a deception it seems, everybody's lied their heads off nobody can be trusted... I hoped they would explain how I could get back to my own people, the old man used to keep on saying: the City knows everything - it couldn't possibly not know about our biostation, about the Directorate. Even Hopalong nattered on about Devil's Rocks and flying trees... But surely a lilac cloud couldn't explain anything? It would be terrible if the master turned out to be a lilac cloud. And why "would be"? It's terrible now! It's in front of your nose, Dummy: the lilac fog is the master, here, surely you remember? Yes, and it's no fog either... So that's the way it is, why people are driven away like beasts into dense forest, into swamps, drowned in lakes: they were too weak, they didn't understand and even when they understood they couldn't do anything to interfere with the process... When I hadn't been driven out, when I was still living at home, somebody proved very convincingly that contact between human-oid and non-humanoid intelligence was impossible. Yes, it is impossible. Of course it's impossible. And now nobody can tell me how to get home.

I can have no contact with people, and I can prove that. I can still get a sight of Devil's Rocks, so they say, you can see them sometimes if you climb the right tree in the right season, but you've got to find the right tree first, an ordinary human tree. That doesn't jump and doesn't throw you off, and doesn't try and spike your eyes. Anyway, there's no tree I can see the biostation from... Biostation? Bi-o-sta-tion. I've forgotten what a biostation is.

The forest began to hum and buzz, crackle and snort, once again myriads of flies and ants whirled toward the lilac dome. One swarm passed above their heads and the bushes were deluged with the weak and the dying, the still and the barely twitching, those crushed in the press of the swarm. Kandid sensed an unpleasant burning sensation in his arm and glanced down. Slender threads of mushroom spawn were creeping over the elbow he had propped upon the porous earth. Kandid indifferently brushed them off with his palm. Devil's Rocks was a mirage, thought he, none of that exists. If they told you stories about Devil's Rocks, then it was all lies, none, none of that existed, and now I don't know why I ever came here...

Away to one side came a familiar terrifying snort. Kandid turned his head. At once a mother hippocete looked stupidly out from behind the seven trees on the hill. One of the deadlings suddenly sprang to life, got in gear, and made a few steps toward the hippocete. Once more came the appalling snort, the trees crackled, and the hippocete made off. Even hippocetes are afraid of the deadlings, thought Kandid. Who isn't? Where can you find someone who isn't? ... Flies roaring. Stupid, absurd. Flies - roaring. Wasps roaring...

"Mam!" whispered Nava suddenly. "It's mam coming..."

She was on all fours and gazing over his shoulder. Her face expressed huge astonishment and disbelief. And Kandid saw that three women had emerged from the forest, and, without noticing the deadlings, were heading for the foot of the hill.

"Mam!" shrieked Nava in a voice not her own, leapt over Kandid, and raced to intercept them. At that Kandid also jumped up; it seemed to him that the deadlings were right next to him and he could feel the heat of their bodies.

Three, he thought. Three... One would have been more than enough. He looked at the deadlings. This is the end for me, he thought. Stupid. Why did these old birds have to come barging in here? I hate women, always something going wrong because of them.

The deadlings closed their mouths, their heads slowly swiveling after the sprinting Nava. Then they strode off in unison and Kandid compelled himself to leap up from the bushes and face them.

"Back!" he yelled to the women without looking. "Get out of it! Deadlings!"

The deadlings were enormous, broad-shouldered, in mint condition, not a single scratch or rough edge. Their incredibly long arms reached down to the grass. Without taking his eyes from them, Kandid halted in their path. The deadlings were gazing over the top of his head and moved unhurriedly toward him; he faltered, gave ground, putting off the inevitable beginning and the inevitable end, contending with a nervous desire to bs sick and trying to bring himself to make a stand. Behind his back, Nava was shouting: "Mam! It's me. Mam, main!" Stupid women, why don't they run? Too scared to run? Stop, he said to himself, stop, blast you! How long can you walk backward? He was unable to stop. Nava's there, he thought. And those three idiots... Fat, dreamy, indifferent idiots... And Nava... What are they to me anyway, he thought. Hopalong would have made off long ago on his one leg. Buster quicker than that... But I've got to stay. Not fair. But I must stay! Well, stop then! ... He was unable to stop, and despised himself for it, and applauded himself for it, and hated himself for it, and kept on going backward.

The deadlings stopped. Straight away, as if at an order. The one in the lead froze with one leg in the air, then slowly, as if undecided, lowered it to the grass. Their mouths dropped slackly open and their heads swiveled toward the hilltop.

Kandid, still retreating, glanced around. Nava, legs kicking, was hanging around the neck of one of the women, who, it seemed, was smiling and clapping her lightly on the back. The other two women were standing calmly by watching them. Not watching the dead-lings, not the hill. Not even Kandid, a strange hairy man, perhaps a robber. The deadlings, for their part, were standing stock-still, like some primitive graven image of old, as if their legs grew straight into the earth, as if in all the forest there were no woman left to seize and carry off somewhere, in obedience to orders; from beneath their feet, like the smoke of a sacrificial fire, rose pillars of steam.

Kandid now swung around and walked toward the women. Not walked, but rather trailed, totally uncertain, not believing eyes, ears, or brain anymore. His skull was a seething mass of pain, and his whole body ached from the tension of his brush with death.

"Run," he said again from a distance. "Run before it's too late, why're you standing there?" He already knew he was talking nonsense, but it was the inertia of obligation, and he continued his mechanical mumbling: "Deadlings here, run, I'll delay them..."

They paid him no attention. It wasn't that they didn't hear or see him - the young woman, a girl really, perhaps a couple of years older than Nava, still slim-legged, examined him and smiled in very friendly fashion - but he meant nothing to them, no more than if he were a big stray hound, the sort that dash aimlessly about in all directions and are willing to stand about for hours near people, waiting for reasons known only to themselves.

"Why aren't you running?" asked Kandid quietly. He expected no answer and received none.

"My, my, my," the pregnant woman was saying, laughing and shaking her head. "And who would have thought it? Would you?" she inquired of the girl. "I certainly wouldn't. My dear," said she addressing Nava's mother, "what was it like? Did he puff and pant? Or did he just twitch about and break into a sweat?"

"It wasn't like that," said the girl, "he was beautiful, wasn't he? He was fresh like the dawn, and fragrant..."

"As a lily," chimed in the pregnant woman, "you were dizzy from his smell, you got all tingly from his paws... Did you have time to squeal?"

The girl burst out laughing. Nava's mother smiled reluctantly. They were all thick-set, healthy, surprisingly cleanly, as if thoroughly washed, which indeed they were - their short hair was wet and their yellowish sacklike garments clung to their damp bodies. Nava's mother was the tallest of them and apparently the eldest. Nava was hugging her around the waist, her face buried in her bosom.

"How should you know," said Nava's mother with feigned indifference. "What can you know about it? You've a lot to learn..."

"All right," said the pregnant woman at once. "How can we know? That's why we're asking you... Tell us, please, what was the root of love like?"

"Was it bitter?" said the girl, and shook with laughter again.

"There, there, the fruit's pretty sweet if grubby..." "Never mind, we'll wash it clean," said Nava's mother. "You don't know if Spider Pond's been cleaned out yet, do you? Or do we have to take her into the valley?"

"The root was bitter," said the pregnant woman to the girl. "She doesn't like recalling it. Strange isn't it, and they say it's unforgettable! Listen dear, you do dream about him, don't you?"

"Not very funny," said Nava's mother. "And sick..."

"We're not trying to be funny, are we?" The pregnant woman was amazed. "We're just interested."

"You tell a story so well," said the girl with a flashing smile. "Tell us more..."

Kandid was all ears, attempting to discover some hidden meaning in this conversation, but could understand nothing. He could only perceive that the two of them were making fun of Nava's mother, that Nava's mother was offended and was trying to hide this or turn the conversation in another direction, and was failing to do so. Nava, meanwhile, had raised her head and was gazing from one to another of the speakers.

"You'd think you'd been born in the lake yourself," said Nava's mother to the pregnant woman, now displaying open irritation.

"Oh, no," said she, "but I never managed to pick up such a broad education, and my daughter," she slapped her belly, "will be born in the lake. That makes all the difference."

"Why don't you leave mam alone, fat old woman?" said Nava suddenly. "Take a look at yourself, what you look like, then start upsetting people! Or I'll tell my husband, and he'll warm your fat backside with a stick, teach you to bother her."

The women, all three, roared with laughter. "Dummy!" Nava started yelling. "What're they laughing at me for?"

Still laughing, the women looked at Kandid. Nava's mother, with surprise, the pregnant woman indifferently, the girl more enigmatically, but with apparent interest.

"What's this Dummy, then?" asked Nava's mother. "It's my husband," said Nava. "See how nice he is. He saved me from the robbers..."

"What d'you mean, husband?" the pregnant woman brought out in a unfriendly tone. "Don't make things up, little girl."

"Same to you," Nava said at once. "What're you butting in for? What's it to you? Is he your husband then? If you want to know, I'm not talking to you anyway. I'm talking to mam. And you butt in, like the old man, unasked and without a by your leave..."

"Are you really her husband then?" asked the pregnant woman of Kandid.

Nava became silent. Her mother embraced her and pressed her to herself. She looked at Kandid with loathing and horror.

Only the girl was still smiling, and her smile was so pleasant and tender that Kandid addressed himself to her.

"No, no, of course not," he said. "She's no wife of mine. She's, my daughter..." He wanted to say that Nava had niursed him, that he loved her very much and he was very pleased that everything had turned out so well, though he didn't understand a thing.

But the girl suddenly dissolved in laughter, her arms waving. "I knew it," she groaned. "It's not her husband ... it's hers!" she pointed at Nava's mother. "It's ... her ... husband! Oh dear, oh dear!"

The face of the pregnant woman expressed cheerful bewilderment and she began to examine Kandid from top to toe with exaggerated minuteness.

"My, my, my ..." she began in her former tone, but Nava's mother said irritably, "Stop it now! That's enough of it! Go away from here," she said to Kandid. "Go on, go on, what're you waiting for? Go on into the forest! ..."

"Who would have thought that the root of love could be so bitter ... so filthy ... so hairy... " She intercepted Nava's mother's furious glance and gestured to her. "All right, all right," said she, "don't get angry, my dear. A joke's a joke. We're just very pleased you've found your daughter. It's an incredible piece of luck..."

"Are we going to do any work or not?" said Nava's mother. "Or are we going to stand here gossiping?"

"I'm going, don't get angry," said the girl. "The output's just starting anyway."

She nodded, and once more smiled at Kandid, and ran lightly up the slope. Kandid watched her running - controlled, professional, not womanly. She ran up to the summit and, without pausing, dived into the lilac mist.

"Spider Pond hasn't been cleaned out yet," said the pregnant woman anxiously, "we've always got these muddles with the constructors... What are we going to do?"

"It's okay," said Nava's mother, "we'll go along to the valley."

"I understand, but it's extremely stupid all the same - take all that trouble, carry a nearly adult person all the way to the valley, when we have our own pond."

She gave a vigorous shrug and suddenly pulled a face.

"You ought to sit down," said Nava's mother; she looked about her, stretched out her arm in the direction of the deadlings and snapped her fingers.

One of the deadlings at once left his place and ran up, slipping on the grass in its haste; it fell to its knees and all of a sudden flowed somehow, fashioned itself into a curve, and flattened itself out.

Kandid blinked: the deadling had ceased to exist, what did exist was an apparently comfortable and convenient armchair. The pregnant woman, with a groan of relief, sank into her soft seat and reclined her head against its soft back.

"Soon, now," she purred, extending her legs plea-surably, "make it soon..."

Nava's mother squatted in front of her daughter and began to look her in the eyes.

"She's grown," said she. "Run wild. Glad?"

"Well of course I am," said Nava, uncertainly. "You're my mam, after all. I dreamed about you every night... And this is Dummy, mam..." And Nava started talking.

Kandid stared about him, clenching his jaws, all this wasn't delirium, as he had at first hoped. It was something everyday, very natural, just unfamiliar to him, but there was plenty unfamiliar in the forest. He had to get used to this, as he had got used to the noise in his head, and edible earth and deadlings and all the rest of it. The masters, he thought, these are the masters. They're not afraid of anything. They control deadlings. Therefore, they're the masters. Therefore, it's they who send deadlings after women. Therefore, it's they... He looked at the damp hair of the women. Therefore... And Nava's mother, who was abducted by deadlings...

"Where do you bathe?" he asked. "Why? Who are you? What do you want?"

"What?" asked the pregnant woman. "Listen, my dear, he's asking something."

Her mother spoke to Nava: "Wait a moment, I can't hear anything because of you... What do you say?" she asked the pregnant woman.

"This little lamb," said she. "There's something he requires."

Nava's mother looked at Kandid. "What can he want?" she asked. "Wants to eat, I expect. They're always hungry and they eat an awful lot, it's quite baffling why they want so much food, they don't do anything after all..."

"Little lamb," said the pregnant woman. "Poor little lamb wants grass. Be-e-e! Do you know," she said, turning to Nava's mother, "it's a man from White Rocks. They're turning up a lot more often. How do they get down there?"

"It's harder to understand how they get up there. I've seen how they come down. They fall. Some get killed, some stay alive..."

"Mam," said Nava, "why are you looking at him like that? It's Dummy! Say something nice to him or he'll get annoyed. Strange that he isn't annoyed already, in his place I'd have got annoyed long ago..."

The hill once again began to roar, black clouds of insects covered the sky. Kandid could hear nothing, all he could see was Nava's mother's lips moving; she appeared to be impressing something on Nava. The lips of the pregnant woman, who was addressing him, were also moving and her facial expression indicated that she was in fact talking to him as if to a domestic goat, strayed into the garden. Then the roaring ceased.

"...only a mite grubby," the pregnant woman was saying. "Aren't you sorry, now?" She turned from him and began to watch the hill.

Deadlings were creeping out of the lilac cloud on hands and knees. Their movements were uncertain and clumsy, and they kept falling forward, head-first into the ground. The girl was walking among them; she bent down, touching and nudging them till, one after another, they hoisted themselves to their feet, straightened up and, after initial stumbles, strode on more and more confidently and set off into the forest. The masters, Kandid assured himself. The masters. I don't believe it. And what to do? He looked at Nava. Nava was asleep. Her mother was sitting on the grass, and she herself was curled up in a ball next to her and slept, holding her hand.

"They're all weak, somehow," said the pregnant woman. "Time to clean it all out again. Look at them stumbling about... the Accession will never get finished with workers like that."

Nava's mother made some reply, and they commenced a conversation which Kandid couldn't make head or tail of. He could make out only isolated words, like Ears did when the fit was on him. He consequently just stood and watched the girl coming down the hill, dragging a clumsy armchewer by the paw. Why am I standing here, he thought, there was something I needed from them, they being the masters... He couldn't remember. "I'm just standing, that's all," he said aloud bitterly. "They've stopped chasing me away so I'm just standing. Like a deadling."

The pregnant woman glanced fleetingly at him and turned away.

The girl came up and said something, indicating the armchewer; both women began examining the monster intently, the pregnant one had even risen from her chair. The huge armchewer, the terror of the village children, squeaked plaintively, and made feeble efforts to break loose, helplessly opening and closing its fearful horned jaws. Nava's mother took hold of its lower jaw and with a powerful, assured movement, detached it. The armchewer gave a sob and froze into stillness, closing its eyes with an oily film. The pregnant woman was speaking: "... obviously, insufficient ... remember my girl, ... weak jaws, eyes not fully open ... surely won't stand the pace, therefore useless, perhaps even harmful, like every mistake ... it'll have to be cleaned up, moved elsewhere, and clean everything up here..."

"The hill, ... dry and dusty..." the girl was saying, "... the forest has slowed right down ... that I don't know yet ... but you said something totally different..."

"... you try it yourself," Nava's mother was saying, "you'll see, go on, try!"

The girl dragged the armchewer off to one side, took a pace backward and began looking at it. It was as if she were taking aim. Her face became grave, tense even. The armchewer tottered on its awkward feet, despondently working its remaining jaw; it whined feebly. "You see," said the pregnant woman. The girl went right up to the armchewer and squatted lightly before it, resting her hands on her knees. The armchewer fell convulsively, paws outspread, as if a heavy weight had dropped on it. The woman laughed.

Nava's mother said: "Stop it now, why don't you believe us?"

The girl made no reply. She was standing over the armchewer, and watching as it slowly and carefully tucked in its paws and attempted to rise. Her features sharpened. She snatched the armchewer upright, set it on its feet, and made a movement as if to embrace it.

A stream of lilac mist flowed between her palms and through the armchewer's body. The armchewer began to squeal, writhing and arcing its body and thrashing its paws. It tried to escape, wriggle away to safety; it tossed about, while the girl followed behind it, looming above it. It fell with its paws unnaturally entwined, and began curling up into a knot. The women were silent. The armchewer was transformed into a multi-colored ball, oozing slime. The girl then walked away and said, glancing aside, "Rubbish, really..."

"Still have to be cleaned up, cleaned up," said the pregnant woman rising. "Get on with it, no sense in delaying matters. Is everything clear?" The girl nodded. "We'll go then and you make a start." The girl turned and went up the hill toward the lilac cloud. She paused by the multi-colored ball, seized a feebly twitching paw and proceeded on her way, trailing the ball behind her.

"Splendid Maiden," said the pregnant woman. "Excellent."

"She'll be a controller one day," said Nava's mother, also getting up. "She's got a bit of character to her. Well then, we must be going..."

Kandid barely heard them. He still couldn't take his eyes from the dark puddle, on the spot where the armchewer had been screwed up. She hadn't even touched it, not laid a finger on it, she'd just stood over it and done what she wished ... such a sweet girl ... so gentle and loving... Not even laid a finger on it ... had he to get used to that as well? Yes, he thought. Has to be done. He began to watch as Nava's mother and the pregnant woman carefully set Nava on her feet, before taking her hand and leading her into the forest, down toward the lake. This without noticing him, this without a word to him. He took another look at the puddle. He felt himself to be small, pitiable, helpless, nevertheless he nerved himself and began the descent after them; he caught up with them and, sweating with terror, followed two steps behind. Something hot approached his back. He glanced back and leaped to one side. At his heels strode a gigantic deadling - heavy, hot, silent, dumb. Well, now, well, thought Kandid, it's only a robot, a servant. I really am doing well, he thought suddenly, I thought that out myself, didn't I? I've forgotten how I got there, but that's not important, what is important is that I understood, I grasped it. I weighed it all up and grasped it - on my own... I've a brain, got it? he said to himself, gazing at the women's backs. You're not so special... I'm not completely incapable.

The women were talking of somebody who hadn't minded their own business and had made themselves a laughing-stock. They were amused at something, they laughed. They were walking through the forest and laughing. As if going down a village street for a gossip. And all around was the forest; they were not walking on a path even, but on light-colored dense grass, which always concealed tiny flowers that hurled spores to penetrate the skin and germinate in the body. And they were giggling and chattering and scandal-mongering, while Nava walked between them and slept, but they did it so that she walked fairly steadily and stumbled hardly at all... The pregnant woman shot a glance back at Kandid and said absently, "You still here? Go into the forest, go on... Why are you following us?"

Yes, thought Kandid, why? What business have I with them? But there is some business, something I have to find out... No, that's not it... Nava! he suddenly recalled. He realized that he had lost Nava. Nothing to be done about that. Nava was going away with her mother, all as it should be, she was going to the masters. And me? I'm staying. Still, why am I following them? Seeing Nava off? She's asleep anyway, they put her to sleep. A pang shot through him. Goodbye Nava, he thought.

They came to where the paths forked, the women turned off to the left, toward the lake. The lake of drowned women. They were drowned women all right... Again lies from everybody, everybody mixed up... They passed the place where Kandid had waited for Nava and eaten earth. That was long, long ago, thought Kandid, almost as long ago as the biostation... Biostation... He could scarcely plod along; had it not been for the deadling walking at his heels, he would probably have fallen behind by now. Then the women halted and looked at him. All around were Reed-beds, the ground underfoot was warm and squelchy. Nava was standing with eyes closed, imperceptibly swaying, while the women regarded him thoughtfully. Then he remembered.

"How do I get to the biostation?" he asked. Their faces expressed astonishment, and he realized that he had spoken in his native language. He was himself astonished: he couldn't now remember when he had last spoken that tongue. "How do I get to White Rocks?" he asked.

The pregnant woman said, grinning:

"So that's what our little lamb wants..." She wasn't talking to him, but to Nava's mother. "It's amusing how little they understand. Not one of them realizes. Imagine them wandering to White Rocks and suddenly finding themselves in the battle zone!"

"They rot alive there," said Nava's mother pensively, "they go about and rot as they walk and don't even notice that they're not going anywhere, just marking time... Well anyway, let him go, it can only help the Harrowing. If he rots, that's useful. Dissolves - useful again... But perhaps he's protected? Are you protected?" she asked Kandid.

"I don't understand," said Kandid, cheerlessly. "My dear, what are you asking him? How could he be protected?"

"In this world all things are possible," said Nava's mother. "I've heard of such things."

"Just talk," said the pregnant woman. She inspected Kandid carefully once more. "Now, you know," said she, "he could indeed be more use here. Remember what the Teachers were saying yesterday?"

"Ah, yes," said Nava's mother. "Indeed yes ... let him... Let him stay."

"Yes, yes, stay," said Nava suddenly. She was no longer asleep and also felt something untoward was taking place. "You stay, Dummy, don't you go anywhere, why should you go anywhere? You wanted to go to the City, didn't you, and this lake is the City, isn't it, mam? ... Or are you offended at mam? Don't be hurt, she's really kind, only she's in a bad temper today. I don't know why... Likely because of the heat..."

Her mother caught her by the hand. Kandid saw that a familiar little lilac cloud had condensed over the mother's head. Her eyes glazed for a second and closed. Then she said, "Let's go, Nava, they're waiting for us now."

"What about Dummy?"

"He'll stay here... There's nothing for him to do in the City."

"But I want him to be with me! Why can't you understand, mam, he's my husband, they gave him to me for a husband, and he's been my husband for ever so long..."

Both women grimaced.

"Let's go, let's go," said Nava's mother. "You don't understand things yet... Nobody needs him, he's superfluous, they all are, they're a - mistake... Come on now! Well, all right you can come to him afterward ... if you want to then."

Nava was putting up a struggle, doubtless feeling what Kandid was feeling - that they were parting forever. Her mother was dragging her by the arm into the reeds, while she kept looking back and shouting:

"Don't you go away, Dummy! I'll be back soon, don't you think of going away without me, that wouldn't be right, that would be dishonest! All right, you're not my husband, they seem not to like that, I don't know why, but I'm your wife all the same, I nursed you, so now you wait for me! Do you hear? Wait! ..."

He followed her with his eyes, waving his hand feebly, nodding agreement, and trying hard to smile. Good-bye, Nava, he thought. Good-bye. They were hidden from view behind the Reed-beds, but Nava's voice could still be heard, then she went quiet, the sound of a splash came back, and all was silent. He swallowed the lump in his throat and asked the pregnant woman:

"What will you do with her?"

She was still examining him closely.

"What will we do with her?" said she thoughtfully. "That isn't your worry, lambkin, what we'll do with her. At all events, she won't need a husband anymore. Or a father... But what are we going to do with you? You're from White Rocks, after all, you can't just be let go..."

"What do you want of me?"

"What do we want ... at all events, husbands we don't need." She intercepted Kandid's look and laughed scornfully. "Not needed, don't worry, not needed. Try for once in your life not to be a sheep. Try to imagine a world without sheep..." She was speaking without thinking, or rather, thinking of something else. "What else are you good for? ... Tell me lambkin, what can you do?"

There was something behind all her words, and her tone, behind the casual indifferent authority, something important, something unpleasant and frightening, but it was hard to pin down and Kandid, for some reason, kept remembering the square black doors and Karl with the two women - just the same, indifferent and imperious.

"Are you listening to me?" asked the pregnant woman. "What can you do?"

"I can't do anything," Kandid said limply.

"Perhaps you know how to control?"

"I did once," said Kandid. Go to hell, he thought, why don't you leave me alone? I ask you how to get to White Rocks, and you start bothering me... He realized suddenly that he was afraid of her, otherwise he'd have gone long ago. She was the master here, and he was a pitiful, dirty, stupid lambkin.

"Did once," she repeated. "Tell that tree to lie down!"

Kandid looked at the tree. It was a big solid tree with a luxuriant topgrowth and shaggy trunk. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well," said she. "Kill that tree, then... Not that either? Can you make the living die at all?" "Kill, you mean."

"Not necessarily kill. An armchewer can do that. Make the living die. Compel something living to become dead. Can you?"

"I don't understand," said Kandid. "Don't understand... What on earth do you get up to on your White Rocks if you can't even understand that? You can't make dead things live either?" "No."

"What can you do then? What did you do on White Rocks before you fell down? Just guzzled and denied women?"

"I studied the forest." She regarded him severely.

"Don't dare lie to me. One man can't study the forest, it's like studying the sun. If you won't speak the truth, just say so."

"I really did study the forest," Kandid said. "I studied..." he faltered. "I studied the smallest creatures in the forest. The ones you can't see with your eyes."

"Lying again," said the woman tolerantly. "You can't study what the eye can't see."

"It's possible," said Kandid. "Only you have to have..." he faltered again. Microscope ... lenses ... instruments... That wouldn't get across. Untranslatable. "If you take a drop of water," he said, "if you have the necessary things, you can see thousands upon thousands of tiny animals..."

"You don't need any 'things' for that," the woman said. "I can see you've got corrupted by your dead things on your White Rocks. You're degenerating. I noticed long ago the way you've lost the capacity to see what anybody can see in the forest, even a filthy man... Wait a minute, were you talking about small creatures or the smallest ones? Perhaps you're referring to the constructors?"

"Perhaps," said Kandid. "I don't understand you. I'm speaking of the small creatures that make people ill, but which can cure as well, they help in food production, there's very many of them and they're everywhere... I tried to find out their constituents here in your forest, what sorts there were and what their function was..."

"They're different on White Rocks, of course," she said with sarcasm. "All right, anyway, I've got what your work was. You have no power over the constructors, of course. The veriest village idiot can do more than you... What can I do with you? You came here unasked, after...

"I'm going," Kandid said wearily. "I'm going. Good-bye."

"No wait... Stop, I said!" she cried and Kandid felt the burning hot pincers gripping his elbows from behind. He struggled, but it was pointless. The woman was meditating aloud:

"He did come of his own free will. There have been such cases. If we let him go, he'll go off to his village and be completely useless... There's no point in rounding them up. But if they come voluntarily... Know what I'll do?" she said. "I'll hand you over to the Teachers for night work. After all, there have been successful cases... Off to the Teachers, then, off to the Teachers!" She waved her hand and unhurriedly waddled off into the Reed-beds.

Kandid then felt himself being turned about onto the path. His elbows had gone numb, it seemed to him that they were charred through. He strove to break free and the vice gripped tighter. He hadn't grasped what was to become of him and where he was to be taken, who the Teachers were and what this night work was, but he recalled the most terrible things he had seen: Karl's specter in the midst of the weeping crowd and the armchewer screwing up into a multi-colored knot. He continued to kick the deadling, striking backward in blind desperation, knowing this could never work twice. His foot sank into soft heat, the deadling snorted, and relaxed its grip. Kandid fell flat in the grass, leapt up, turned and cried out - the deadling was advancing on him once more, opening its incredibly long arms. There was nothing to hand, no grass-killer, no ferment, no stick or stone. The squelchy warm earth was giving beneath his feet. Then he remembered and thrust his hand in his blouse; when the deadling loomed above, he struck it with the scalpel somewhere between the eyes, then leaned his whole weight forward, drawing the blade downward to the ground and fell once again.

He lay, cheek pressed to the grass, and gazed at the deadling, as it stood, swaying, its orange carcass slowly swinging open like a suitcase; it stumbled and collapsed flat on its back, flooding the surrounding earth with a thick white fluid, gave a few twitches and lay still. Kandid then got up and wandered off. Along the path. As far as possible from here. He vaguely recalled that he had wanted to wait for somebody, wanted to find something out, there was something he was intending to do. Now all that was unimportant. What was important was to get as far away as possible, though he realized that he would never get away. He wouldn't, and neither would many, many, many another.