Special Deliverance

13

Five days were required to reach the city. The trip could have been made in two if they had not been forced to match their pace to Jurgens’s.

“I should have gone back to the inn,” the robot said. “I could have made it there alone. I could have stayed there and waited for you. That way I wouldn’t hold you up.”

“Then what would we have done,” said Lansing, “when the time came that we needed you and you weren’t with us?”

“That day may never come. You may never have any need of me.”

Lansing, cursing him roundly as a fool, kept the robot going.

As they progressed, the character of the country changed. The land still was rolling land, but it became more arid. The groves of trees were farther apart and smaller, both in extent and in the size of the trees, which began to tend to scrubbiness. The wind blew hot instead of cool. The little streams on which they depended for water were farther apart and smaller, often no more than trickles.

Each night the Sniffler prowled the campfire. On one occasion, the second night out, Lansing and Jurgens, armed with flashlights, went out into the darkness to seek some sign of it. There was nothing, not even tracks. The land about the fire was sandy and should have shown tracks, but there were none.

“It’s following us,” said Mary. “It travels along with us. Even when it isn’t sniffling, I know that it’s out there. It’s out there watching us.”

“It hasn’t threatened us,” said Lansing, trying to soothe her. “It means no harm. If it had meant any harm, it would have acted before now. It has had all sorts of chances.”

After the first couple of days, they often sat silent around the campfire, all talked out, no longer needing to talk to keep alive the close association the trip had formed among them.

At times, in those long silences, Lansing found himself thinking back to his former life and was surprised to discover that the college where he had taught seemed a distant place and the friends he had there were friends of long ago. It has been no more than a week, he reminded himself, forcing himself to remind himself, and already there was the feel of years between this place and the college town. Nostalgia swept over him and he felt the powerful urge to turn about and retrace his steps, to get up from the campfire and go back down the trail. Although, he knew, it would not be that simple. Even should he go back, he’d be going back no farther than the inn or, perhaps, the woodland glen in which he had first found himself. There was no trail back to the college, to Andy, to Alice, to the world that he had known. Between him and his former life lay an imponderable and he had no idea what it was.

He could not go back. He must go on, for only in that way could he possibly find the way back home. There was something here that he must find, and until he found it, there was no road back home. Even when he found it, if he ever did, there still was no guarantee there would be a way back home.

It might be a foolish thing to do, but he had no choice. He must keep on. He could not drop out, as the four card players at the inn had dropped out.

He tried to conjure up a logical mechanism by which he — he and the others — had been translated to this place. The whole thing smacked of magic yet it could not be magic. Whatever had been done must have utilized the application of certain physical laws. Magic itself, if it did exist, he argued with himself, must be no more than the application of physical laws as yet unknown back in the world he’d come from.

Andy, talking over their drinks at the Faculty Club, had talked of an end to knowledge, an end to physical law. But Andy had not known or even had a glimmer of understanding about the concepts that he had talked about; he was doing no more than flapping his mouth around to produce philosophical mutterings.

Could the answer be here, he wondered, in this world where he sat beside the campfire? Might that be what he was supposed to hunt for — and if it were, and if he found it, would he recognize it? Even should he find the end of knowing, would he know it?

Disgusted with himself, he tried to wipe his mind clean of his thoughts, but they refused to go away.

They found a camping place where the other three had stopped, the cold ashes of their fire, the wrapper from a box of crackers, scattered cheese rinds, emptied coffee grounds.

The weather stayed good. At times clouds rolled up from the western horizon, but they soon cleared away.

There was no rain. The rays stayed bright and warm.

On the third night out, Lansing woke suddenly from a sound sleep. He fought his way to a sitting position, pressing against a force that tried to hold him down.

In the flicker of the firelight, he saw Jurgens standing over him. The robot’s hand was gripping his shoulder and he was making shushing sounds.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s Miss Mary, sir. There is something wrong with her. Like a fit.”

Lansing turned his head to look. Mary sat upright in her sleeping bag. Her head was tilted back so that she looked toward the sky.

He struggled out of his bed, stumbled to his feet.

“I spoke to her,” said Jurgens, “and she didn’t hear me. I spoke several times, asking what’s the matter, what could I do for her.”

Lansing strode over to her. She seemed carved in stone — stiff and straight, held in an invisible vise.

He stooped over her, cupping her face in his hands, pressing gently.

“Mary,” he said. “Mary, what is wrong?”

She paid him no attention.

He slapped her with one hand, then slapped her with the other. The muscles of her face relaxed and shivered. She collapsed, reaching out for him — not for him, he knew, but for anyone.

He seized her and cradled her close against him. She was shaking uncontrollably and began to sob, soft, subdued sobbing.

“I’ll make a pot of tea,” said Jurgens, “and build up the fire. She needs warmth, inside and outside of her as well.”

“Where am I?” she whispered. “You’re here with us. You’re safe.” “Edward?”

“Yes, Edward. And Jurgens. He’s making you some tea.”

“I woke up and they were bending over me, looking down at me.”

“Quiet,” he said. “Be quiet. Rest. Relax. Take it easy. You can tell us later. Now everything’s all right.”

“Yes, all right,” she said.

For a time she said no more. Holding her, he felt a softening of the tension that had gripped her.

Finally she straightened up, pulling away from him. She sat upright and looked at him.

“That was frightening,” she said, speaking calmly. “I’ve never been so scared.”

“It’s all over now. What was it… a bad dream?”

“More than a dream. They were really there, hanging in the sky, bending from the sky. Let me get out of this bag and go over to the fire. You said Jurgens was making tea?”

“It’s brewed,” said Jurgens, “and poured for you. If I remember rightly, you use two spoons of sugar.”

“That is right,” she said. “Two spoons.”

“Would you wish a cup as well?” Jurgens asked Lansing.

“If you please,” said Lansing.

They sat together beside the fire with Jurgens crouched to one side. The wood Jurgens had piled on the fire was catching and the flames leaped high. They sipped their tea in silence.

Then she said, “I am not one of your flighty females. You know that.”

Lansing nodded. “Yes, indeed, I know. You can be as tough as nails.”

“I woke up,” she said. “A nice, easy waking up. Not jerked out of sleep. I was lying on my back so that when I woke, I was looking straight up at the sky.”

She had another sip of tea and waited, as if trying to steel herself to go on with what she had to say.

She set the cup on the ground and turned to face Lansing. “They were three,” she said, “the three of them — or I think there were three of them. There could have been four. Three faces. No other parts of their body.

Just faces. Big faces. Bigger than human faces, although I am sure they were human. They looked human. Three big faces in the sky, filling half the sky, looking down at me. And I thought how silly to think that I am seeing faces. I blinked my eyes, thinking it was my imagination and they would go away. But they didn’t go away. After I had blinked I could see them even better.”

“Easy,” said Lansing. “Take your time.”

“I am easy, dammit, and I am taking my time. You’re thinking hallucination, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” he said. “You saw them if you say you saw them. Hard as nails, remember?”

Jurgens hunched forward and refilled the cups.

“Thank you, Jurgens,” she said. “You make splendid tea.”

Then she said, “There was nothing wrong with the faces. Nothing outrageous. Quite ordinary, now that I think of it. One of them had a beard. He was the young one, the other two were old. Nothing wrong with them, I said — not to start with. Then it began to seep into me. They were looking intently at me. Interested. The way one of us would be interested if we came across an odious insect, an abominable creature of some sort, a new sort of life. As if I weren’t a creature; as if I were a thing. There was, to start, what I thought might be a look of compassion for me, then I saw it wasn’t — it was, rather, a mingled contempt and pity and it was the pity that hurt the most. I could almost read their thoughts. My God, they were thinking, will you look at that! And then — and then…”

Lansing said nothing; he sensed that it was the time to say nothing.

“And then they turned their heads away. They didn’t go away. They only turned their heads away, dismissing me. As if I were beneath their notice, beneath contempt, unworthy of their pity. As if I were nothing — and, by extension, the human race was nothing. Condemning all of us to nothingness, although condemn may be too strong a word. We were not even worth their condemnation. We were a lowly form of which they would think no further.”

Lansing let out his breath. “For the love of God,” he said, “no wonder…”

“That is right. No wonder. It hit me hard. Edward, maybe my reaction—”

“Let’s not talk about reactions. My reaction probably would have been as bad or worse.”

“What do you think they were? Not who, but what?”

“I wouldn’t know. Right now I wouldn’t even guess.”

“It was not my imagination.”

“You have no imagination,” he said. “You’re a hard-headed engineer. All nuts and bolts. A realist. Two and two are four, never three or five.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Later on,” he said, “we’ll spend hours wondering what they were, but not now. You’re still too close to it. Later on.”

“Another person,” she said, “might have told you they were gods. Sandra would have told you that. A primitive would tell you that. The Parson would denounce them as devils thirsting for his soul. I’ll tell you this much — they had the arrogance, the noncaring, the self-assurance of gods, but they weren’t gods.”

“Once we robots thought that humans were gods,” said Jurgens. “After all, perhaps in a sense they were. You can understand why we might have thought so, for they created us. But we got over it. After a time we saw they were no more than a different life form.”

“There is no need to comfort me,” said Mary. “I’ve told you I know they aren’t gods. I’m not sure there are any gods. I rather think there’re not.”

Lansing and Mary did not go back to their sleeping bags. Neither one of them would have slept and dawn was not far off. They sat beside the fire and talked, talking easily now. After a time Jurgens set about getting breakfast.

“Pancakes and ham,” he said. “How about that?” “That sounds fine to me,” said Lansing.

“We’ll have an early breakfast,” said the robot, “and get an early start. Today may be the day we’ll reach the city.”

They did not reach the city that day, but on the late afternoon of the next.

They sighted it when they reached the crest of a high hill up which the road angled in tortuous twists and turns.

Mary drew in her breath. “There it is,” she said, “but where are all the people?”

“Perhaps there aren’t any,” said Lansing. “It is a ruin, not a city.”

It was spread out on the plain that lay below the hill — a dun-colored plain and a dun-colored city. It covered a good part of the plain that lay between the hills. It lay lifeless and inert. Nothing stirred within it.

“I never in my life,” said Mary, “have seen so depressing a sight. And this was what the Brigadier was so anxious to reach. There would be people there, he said.”

“You could make a living betting against the Brigadier,” said Lansing.

“There is no sign of the others,” said Mary. “No sign of anyone. You’d think they would have been on the lookout for us, watching the trail behind them.”

“Maybe they are doing that. Maybe they’ll show up soon.”

“If they are still there.”

“I think they still are there,” said Lansing. “We’ll camp up here. We’ll keep the fire burning all night. They’ll see the fire.”

“You mean you aren’t going down right now?”

“Not right now. With night coming on, I’d feel safer up here than down there in the city.” “I’m thankful for that,” she said. “I could stand it in the daylight. But not now.”

“There was a stream back a mile or so,” said Jurgens. “I’ll get the water.”

“No,” said Lansing, “you stay here and get some wood together. As much wood as you can. I’ll get the water.”

“I am glad that we are here,” said Mary. “Much as I may fear that city down there, I’m glad we finally made it.”

“So am I,” said Lansing.

After eating they sat in a row atop the hill and watched the city. There was no movement in it. Not a single gleam of light. At any moment they expected to see one of the three who had preceded them come out of the city and wave a welcome to them, but this did not happen.

Finally, after night had closed in, Mary said, “We might as well turn in, get what sleep we can.”

“Both of you will sleep,” said Jurgens. “You’ve had hard days upon the trail.”

“I hope so,” Mary said.

Jurgens woke them at first light.

“The others are down there, waiting for us,” he said. “They must have seen our fire.”

Lansing crawled out of his bag. In the pale light of approaching dawn, he made out three figures standing just beyond the broken, tumbled city wall. One of them, the smaller one, he knew was Sandra, but the other two he could not make out. He raised both his arms and waved. All three of them waved back.