"It was a little boresome, too. The same things to look at all the time. Nothing to talk with. I had this Shivering Snake that hung around for years. Never doing anything, of course, of no use whatever, but always skittering around and sneaking up on you and then sort of backing off, as if it were playing games with you, or whatnot. But when I got pinned underneath that tree, Old Shivering disappeared and I haven't seen it since. If it d stuck around, it would have been some sort of company, something at least to watch, and I could talk to it. It never answered back, of course, but I talked to it a lot. It was something one could talk to. But once I got pinned underneath that tree, it lit out, and I haven't seen it since.
"Would you mind telling me," said Cushing, "just what is a Shivering Snake?"
"I don't know," said Rollo. "It was the only one I ever saw. I never heard of anyone ever seeing one before. Never even heard any talk of one. It was really not much of anything at all. Just a shimmer. It didn't walk or run, just shivered in the air, sparkling all the time. In the sunlight you couldn't see it sparkle very well, but in the dark it was spectacular. Not any kind of shape. No shape at all, I guess, or anything at all. Just a blob of sparkling, dancing in the air.
"You have no idea what it was or where it came from? Or why it hung out with you?"
"At times I thought it was a friend of mine," said Rollo, "and I was glad of that, for I tell you, mister, as possibly the last robot, I'm not exactly up to my hips in friends. Most people, if they saw me, would think of me as no more than an opportunity to collect another brain case. You don't happen to have any designs on my brain case, do you?"
"None at all," said Cushing.
"That is good," said Rollo, "because if you had, I'd have to warn you that if forced to, I would kill you to protect myself. Robots, in case you didn't know, were inhibited against killing anything at all, against any kind of violence. It was implanted in us. That's why there aren't any robots left. They allowed themselves to be run down and killed without the lifting of a hand to protect themselves. Either that or they hid out and caught the rust. Even when they could get hold of some lubricant to keep away the rust, the supply didn't last forever, and when it was gone, they could get no more. So they rusted and that was the end of them, except for the brain case, which could not rust. And after many years, someone came along and found the brain case and collected it.
"Well, after my small supply of lubricant ran out, I took counsel with myself and I told myself this silliness of a robot being so disgustingly nonviolent might have been all right under the old order, but under this new order that had come along, it made no sense at all. I figured there was oil to be got from animal fat if I could only bring myself to kill. Faced with extinction, I decided I would break the inhibition and would kill for fat, and I worked it out that a bear was the thing to kill, for ordinarily, bear are loaded with fat. But it was no easy thing to do, I tell you. I rigged me up a spear and practiced with it until I knew how to handle it, then set out to kill a bear. As you might guess, I failed. I just couldn't do it. I'd get all set and then I'd go all soft inside. Maybe I never would have worked up my courage on my own. By this time I was considerably discouraged. There were a few rust spots beginning to show up and I knew that was the beginning of the end. I had about given up when one day, out somewhere in the mountains, a big grizzly caught sight of me. I don't know what was the matter with him. He was short-tempered and there must have been something that had happened to shorten up his temper. I ye often wondered what it was. Maybe he had a toothache, or a
thorn in his foot. I will never know. Maybe the sight of me reminded him of something that he didn't like. But anyhow, first thing that I know, here he is barreling down upon me, with his shoulders humping and his mouth wide open, roaring, and those big claws reaching out. I suppose that if I'd had the time, I would have turned and run. But I didn't have the time and I didn't have the space to run. But the way it was, when he was almost on top of me, the fright that I had felt suddenly turned to anger. Maybe desperation more than anger, really', and I thought, in that instant before he closed on me, you son of a hitch, maybe you can mangle and disable me, hut in doing it, I'm going to mangle and disable you. And I remember this distinctly, the one thing I do remember well out of all of it—just before he reached me, with this new anger in me, I brought up my spear and jumped at him even as he lunged at me. After this, there is not much that I do remember. It was all a haze and a blur. When my mind came clear again, I was standing on my feet, covered with blood, with a bloody knife in hand, and the hear stretched out on the ground, with my' spear buried in his throat.
"That did it. That snapped the inhibition. Killing once, I could kill again. I rendered the fat of this old grizzly and I found a sandy creek. For day's I camped beside the creek, using sand to scrape off the few rust spots that had developed on me and keeping myself well greased. Ever since I've kept well greased. I never run Out of grease. There are a lot of bear.
"But I have been running on so that I haven't asked you who you are. That is, if you want to tell me. A lot of people would just as soon not tell you who they are. But you come along and rescue me and I don't know who you are. I don't know who to thank
"I'm Tom Cushing. And there need not be any' thanks. Let's get out of here. I have a camp just a step away. Have you got all
your things?"
"Just the bag and spear. That was all I had. I had a knife and it's still in the sheath."
"Now that you are free," said Cushing. "what plans do you
have?"
"Why, no plans at all," said Rollo. "I never have a plan. I simply wander. I have wandered with no purpose for more years than I can count. At one time it troubled me—this lack of purpose. But it does no longer. Although I suppose that if I were offered a purpose, I would gratefully accept it. Does it happen, friend, that you may have a purpose you would share
with me? For I do owe you something."
"You owe me nothing," Cushing said, "hut I do have a
purpose. We can talk about it."
The Trees ringed the great butte, having watched through the night as they had watched through centuries, through cold and heat, wet and dry, noon and midnight, cloud and sun. Now the sun came up over the eastern horizon and as its warmth and light fell on them, they greeted it with all the holy ecstasy and thankfulness they had felt when it first had fallen on them, as new-planted saplings put out to serve the purpose they had served through the years, their sensitivity and emotion undimmed by time.
They took the warmth and light and sucked it in and used it. They knew the movement of the dawn breeze and rejoiced in it, fluttering their leaves in response to it. They adjusted themselves to take and use the heat, monitored the limited amount of water that their roots could reach, conserving it, taking up in their roots only what they needed, for this was dry land and water must be used most wisely. And they watched; they continued watching. They noted all that happened. They knew the fox that skulked back to its den with the coming of dawn; the owl that flew back home, half blinded by the morning light (it had stayed out too long) to the small grove of cottonwoods that lined the tiny stream where water flowed begrudgingly along a rocky course; the mice that, having escaped the fox and owl, ran squealing in their grassy burrows; the lumbering grizzly that humped across the desiccated plain, the great lord of the land that brooked no interference from anything alive, including those strange, two-legged, upright creatures the Trees glimpsed occasionally; the distant herd of wild cattle that grazed on scanty pasturage, ready to gallop in a calculated frenzy should the lumbering bear head in their direction; the great bird of prey that sailed high the air, viewing the vast territory that was its own, hungry now, but confident that before the day was out it would find the dead or dying that would give it meat.