The Werewolf Principle

18

The footsteps sounded near, slipping and sliding on the shards of stone that lay outside the cave mouth. A beam of light speared into the cave.

Thinker pulled himself tighter and denser and reduced his field. The field might betray him, he knew, but he could not reduce it much farther, even so, for it was a part of him and he could not exist without it. Especially not here, not at this moment, with the chill of the atmosphere sucking hungrily at his energy.

We must be ourselves, he thought. I, myself, and Quester quester's self and Changer changer's self. We cannot be more or less than we are and we cannot change except through the process of long, slow evolution, but in the millennia to come might it not be possible that the three would meld as one, that there would not be three separate minds, but one mind only? And that mind would have emotion, which I do not have, which I can recognize, but cannot understand, and the hard, cold, impersonal logic which is mine, but not my companions', and the keen sharp sensitivity which is Quester's, but is neither mine nor Changer's. Blind chance alone that put the three of us together, that put our minds inside a mass of matter which can be made a body — what were the odds that such a happening could have come about? Blind chance or destiny? What was destiny? Was there destiny? Could there be some great, overriding universal plan and was this happening which had put the three of them together one part of that plan, a necessary step before the plan could reach that remote conclusion towards which it always moved?

The human was crawling closer, the loose rock sliding underneath his feet, his hands clawing at the ground to hold himself against the downhill pull of gravity, the lighted flashlight in one fist bobbing and bouncing so that it threw an erratic arch of light.

He got one elbow over the lip of the cave and hoisted himself upward so that his head was level with the opening.

He gasped and yelled.

'Hey, Bob, this cave has a funny smell. There's been something in here. Just a while ago.

Thinker expanded his field, pushing it outwards violently. It hit the man like a plunging fist. It knocked his elbow loose from the lip of rock and hurled him outwards and away. He twisted and plunged downwards. He screamed once, a shriek of terror pushed out of his lungs. Then his body thumped and slid. Thinker could sense its sliding, taking with it rocks that bounced and clicked, trash wood that slithered and rattled. The slithering and the clicking stopped and from the slope below came the sound of splashing.

Thrashing bodies went plunging down the slope, lights bobbing back and forth, sweeping across brush and shiny tree trunks.

Voices cried out:

'Bob, something happened to Harry!

'Yeah, I heard him yell.

'He's down there in the creek. I heard him hit the water.

The plunging bodies kept on going past, going down the hill in braking rushes. Half a dozen lights bobbed madly at the bottom of the slope and several of the humans were wading in the stream. From farther off came other shouts.

Something stirred questioningly inside Thinker's mind.

— Yes, he asked, what is it?

— What do we do now? growled Quester. You heard what he yelled. They're all excited now, but one of them will remember. There'll be some of them coming up here. They may start shooting at us.

— I agree, said Changer. They'll investigate. The man who fell…

— Fell! said Thinker, witheringly. I pushed him.

— All right, then. The man you pushed tipped them off.

He smelled Quester, maybe.

— I don't stink, said Quester.

— That's ridiculous, said Thinker. I would suspect all three of us have distinctive body odours. Your body form was there long enough to contaminate the cave.

— It might have been your body odour, said Quester. Don't forget…

— Cut it out, said Changer, sharply. The question isn't which one of us he smelled. It is what do we do now. Thinker, can you change into something thin and flat, a shape that will give no profile, and creep out of here and up the hill?

— I doubt it. The planet's far too cold. I'm losing energy too fast. If I extended my body surface I'd lose it that much faster.

— That's a problem we have to face, said Quester. The problem of retaining sufficient energy. Changer will have to eat for us. He'll have to supply the energy, ingesting in his own body form the foods that are available. And staying in his body's form long enough for the food to be digested. There are few energy sources for Thinker and probably no food that I could eat and that my bodily apparatus would be able to handle. I would suspect…

— This all is true, said Changer. But let's consider it some other time. For the moment, let's go back to our present problem. Can you take over, Quester? They'd spot me. My body would show up white.

— Certainly I can, said Quester.

— Good. Crawl out of the cave and up the hill. Go easily, go quietly. But as swiftly as you can. We've got the searching party all together and if they don't hear you, it's unlikely we'll run into any of them.

— Over the hill, asked Quester, and then what?

— Up on one of the drives, said Changer, we should find a public telephone.