Time is the Simplest Thing

THIRTY

He sat beneath a lone tree that stood on a lesser spur of one of the great bluffs and stared out across the river. A flock of mallards came winging down the valley, a black line against the sky above the eastern hills.

There had been a day, he thought, when this season of the year the sky had been blackened by the flights that came down from the north, scooting before the first boisterous outriders of the winter storms. But today there were few of them — shot out, starved out by the drying up of areas which had been their nesting places.

And once this very land had teemed with buffalo and there had been beaver for the taking in almost every stream. Now the buffalo were gone and almost all the beaver.

Man had wiped them out, all three of them, the wild fowl, the buffalo, the beaver. And many other things besides.

He sat there thinking of Man’s capacity for the wiping out of species — sometimes in hate or fear, at other times for the simple love of gain.

And this, he knew, was what was about to happen in large measure to the parries if Finn’s plan were carried out. Back there in Hamilton they would do their best, of course, but would it be enough? They had thirty-six hours in which to put together a vast network of warning. They could cut down the incidents, but could they call them off entirely? It seemed impossible.

Although, he told himself, he should be the last to worry, for they had thrown him out; they had run him off. His own people, in a town that felt like home, and they had run him off.

He leaned over and fastened the straps of the knapsack in which Jackson had packed the food. He lifted and set it and the canteen close beside him.

To the south he could see the distant chimney smoke of Hamilton and even in his half-anger at being thrown out, he seemed to feel again that strange sense of home which he had encountered as he walked its streets. Over the world there must be many such villages as that — ghettos of this latter-day, where paranormal people lived as quietly and as inconspicuously as was possible. They were the ones who huddled in the corners of the earth, waiting for the day, if it ever came, when their children or their children’s children might be free to walk abroad, equals of the people who still were only normal.

In those villages, he wondered, how much ability and genius might be lying barren, ability and genius that the world could use but would never know because of the intolerance and hate which was held against the very people who were least qualified as the targets of it.

And the pity of it was that such hate and such intolerance would never have been born, could never have existed, had it not been for men like Finn — the bigots and the egomaniacs; the harsh, stern Puritans; the little men who felt the need of power to lift them from their smallness.

There was little moderation in humanity, he thought. It either was for you or it was against you. There was little middle ground.

Take science, for example. Science had failed in the dream of space, and science was a bum. And yet, men of science still worked as they had always worked, for the benefit of all humanity. So long as Man might exist, there would be need of science. In Fishhook there were corps of scientists working on the discoveries and the problems that stemmed from the galaxy — and yet science, in the minds of the masses, was a has-been and a heel.

But it was time to go, he told himself. There was no use staying on. There was no use thinking. He must be moving on, for there was nothing else to do. He had sounded the warning and that was all the men of Hamilton had allowed.

He’d go up to Pierre and he’d ask for Harriet at the café with the elk horns nailed above the door. Perhaps he’d find some of Stone’s men and they might find a place for him.

He rose and slung the knapsack and canteen from one shoulder. He stepped out from the tree.

Behind him there was a sudden rustle and he swung around, short hairs rising on his neck.

The girl was settling to earth, feet just above the grass, graceful as a bird, beautiful as morning.

Blaine stood watching, caught up in her beauty, for this was the first time that he’d really seen her. Once before he’d seen her in the pale slash of light from the headlamps of the truck, and once again last night, but for no more than a minute, in a dimly lighted room.

Her feet touched ground and she came toward him.

“I just found out,” she said. “I think that it is shameful. After all, you came to help us. . . .”

“It’s O.K.,” Blaine told her. “I don’t deny it hurts, but I can see their reasoning.”

“They’ve worked so hard,” she said, “to keep us quiet, away from all attention. They have tried to make a decent life. They can’t take any chances.”

“I know,” said Blaine. “I’ve seen some who weren’t able to make a decent life.”

“Us young folks are a worry to them. We shouldn’t go out halloweening, but there’s nothing we can do. We have to stay at home so much. And we don’t do it often.”

“I’m glad you came out that night,” Blaine told her. “If I hadn’t known of you, Harriet and I would have been trapped with Stone dead upon the floor. . . .”

“We did what we could for Mr. Stone. We had to hurry and we couldn’t be too formal. But everyone turned out. He’s buried on the hill.”

“Your father told me,”

“We couldn’t put up a marker and we couldn’t make a mound. We cut the sod and put it back exactly as it was before. No one would ever know. But all of us have the place tattooed on our minds.”

“Stone and I were friends from long ago.”

“In Fishhook?”

Blaine nodded.

“Tell me about Fishhook, Mr. Blaine.”

“The name is Shep.”

“Shep, then. Tell me.”

“It is a big place and a tall place (the towers on the hill, the plazas and the walks, the trees and mighty buildings, the stores and shops and dives, the people . . . )

Shep, why don’t they let us come?

Let you come?

There were some of us who wrote them and they sent application blanks. Just application blanks, that’s all. But we filled them out and mailed them. And we never heard.

There are thousands who want to get into Fishhook.

Then why don’t they let us come? Why not take all of us? A Fishhook reservation. Where all the little frightened people can have some peace at last.

He didn’t answer. He closed his mind to her.

Shep! Shep, what’s wrong? Something that I said?

Listen, Anita. Fishhook doesn’t want you people. Fishhook isn’t what you think it is. It has changed. It’s become a corporation.

But, we have always . . .

I know. I KNOW. I KNOW. It has been the promised land. It has been the ultimate solution. The never-never land. But it’s not like that at all. It is a counting house. It figures loss and profit. Oh, sure, it will help the world; it will advance mankind. It’s theoretically, and even actually, the greatest thing that ever happened. But it has no kindness in it, no kinship with the other paranormals. If we want that promised land, we’ll have to work it out ourselves. We have to fight our own fight, like stopping Finn and his Project Halloween. . . .

That’s what I came to tell you, really. It isn’t working out.

The telephoning . . .

They let two calls get through. Detroit and Chicago. Then we tried New York and the operator couldn’t get New York. Can you imagine that — couldn’t get New York. We tried Denver and the line was out of order. So we got scared and quit. . . .

Quit! You can’t quit!

We’re using long tellies. We have a few of them. But it’s hard to reach their contacts. There is little use for distance telepathy and it’s not practiced much.

Blaine stood in a daze.

Couldn’t get New York! Line to Denver out of order!

It was impossible that Finn should have such complete control.

Not complete control, Anita told him. But people spotted in strategic situations. For example, he probably could sabotage the world’s entire communications network. And he has people all the time watching and monitoring settlements like ours. We don’t make one long-distance call a month. When three came through in fifteen minutes, Finn’s people knew there was something wrong, so they isolated us.

Blaine slid the knapsack and canteen off his shoulder, lowered them to the ground.

“I’m going back,” he said.

“It would do no good. You couldn’t do a thing we aren’t doing now.”

“Of course,” said Blaine. “You’re very probably right. There is one chance, however, if I can get to Pierre in time . . .”

“Pierre was where Stone lived?”

“Why, yes. You knew of Stone?”

“Heard of him. That was all. A sort of parry Robin Hood. He was working for us.”

“If I could contact his organization, and I think I can . . .”

“The woman lives there, too?”

“You mean Harriet. She’s the one who can put me in contact with Stone’s group. But she may not be there. I don’t know where she is.”

“If you could wait till night, a few of us could fly you up there. It’s too dangerous in the daytime. There are too many people, even in a place like this.”

“It can’t be more than thirty miles or so. I can walk it.”

“The river would be easier. Can you handle a canoe?”

“Many years ago. I think I still know how.”

“Safer, too,” Anita said. “There’s not much traffic on the river. My cousin has a canoe, just upriver from the town. I’ll show you where it is.”