"Stability," said Cushing. "Enduring a condition that would drive a man insane. Perhaps a strange philosophy that discovers within themselves some factor that makes it unnecessary to have external contact. You made no effort to communicate, to reach out to them?"
"I could not have been so cruel," said Meg. "I wanted to; the urge was there. To let it know it was not alone, to give it some sort of comfort. And then I realized how cruel that would have been. To give it hope when there is no hope. To disturb it after it had spent no one knows how long in learning to accept the aloneness and the darkness."
"I think you were right," said Cushing. "We could do nothing for it."
"Twice, in a small span of time," said Meg, "I have touched two intelligences: the brain case and the living rock, the boulder that we found. I told you that my powers are puny and the touching of those two lives almost makes me wish I had no powers at all. It might be better not to know. The thing within the brain case fills me with sadness, and the rock, with fearfulness."
She shuddered. "That rock, laddie. It was old—so old, so hard, so cynical. Although cynical is not the word. Uncaring. Maybe that's the word. A thing filled with repulsive memories so old they are petrified. As if they came from someplace else. No memories such as could be produced upon the earth. From somewhere outside. From a place of everlasting night, where no sun bas ever shone and there is no such thing as gladness."
They came upon only one person in their travel—a filthy old man who lived in a cave he had dug out of a hillside facing the river, the cave shored up with timbers, to provide a noisome den in which he could sleep or take shelter from the weather. Two lackadaisical hounds barked at the intruders, with a singular lack of enthusiasm, until the old man shushed them. The dogs settled down beside him, resuming their sleep, their hides twitching to dislodge the flies that settled on them. The man grinned, showing rotted teeth.
"Worthless," he said, nodding at the hounds. "Most worthless dawgs I ever had. Once they were good cooners, but now they've taken to treeing demons. Never knew there were so many demons in these parts. Of course, it's the demons' fault; they pester them dawgs. But it makes a man mad to spend the night out chasing coon, then find a demon up the tree. ‘Tain't worth a man's time to kill one of them. There ain't nothing you can do with demons. They're so tough you can't cook them enough to get a tooth into them, and even if you could, the taste of them would turn your stomach over."
He continued, "You folks know, don't you, there's war parties on the prowl. Mostly they stay out on the prairie. No need of coming down here, because there's water to be found out there. Some big chief has got a burr underneath his tail and he's out to make some coup. Heading for the cities, more than likely. He's like to get his clock cleaned. Them city tribes are mean, I tell you. All sorts of dirty tricks. No thing like fighting fair. Any way to win. And I s'pose that's all right, although it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Them war parties have been going through right sprightly for the last week or so. Thinning out a little now. In another week or two, you'll see them trailing back, rubbing out their tracks with their dragging rumps.
He spat into the dust and said, "What's that you got there with you? I been studying it and it makes no sort of sense. It looks plumb like one of those robots some people talk about from a long time back. My grandma, I remember, she had stories about robots. Stories about a lot of things, clacking all the time, always telling stories. But you know, even when I was a tad, I knew that they were only stories. There never was a lot of them things that she talked about. There never was no robots. I asked her where she heard them stories and she said her grandma had told them to her and that her grandma probably had heard them from her grandma. It do beat hell how old folks keep them stories going. You'd think that in time they'd just die out. But not, I guess, when there are so many grandmas clacking all the time."
He continued, "Would you folks be of a mind to break bread with me? It's almost that time now and I'd be proud to have you. I have a sack of fish and a haunch of coon that still is pretty fresh
"No, thank you, sir," said Cushing. "We're in something of a hurry. We must be getting on."
Two days later, just before sunset, Cushing, traveling along the riverbank with Meg and Andy, glanced up at the bluff and saw Rollo tearing down it. He was coming fast, his metal body flashing in the light of the westering sun.
"There's something up," said Cushing. "There is some sort of trouble."
He looked around. In the last few days the river had narrowed and the bluffs on either side of it had grown less steep. A thin strip of trees still grew along the water's edge, but not the tall trees they had found farther down the stream. In the center of the river lay an island, a small one covered by a thick mat of willows.
"Meg," he said, "take Andy. Gross over to the island. Work as deep as you can into the willows and stay quiet. Keep Andy quiet. Don't let him make a sound. Get hold of his nostrils so he can't whicker."
"But, laddie boy—"
"Move, dammit. Don't stand there. Get over to that island. It's less than a hundred yards of water."
"But I can't swim," she wailed.
"It's shallow," he snapped. "You can walk it. It won't come up higher than your waist. Hang tight to Andy; if you get into trouble, he'll take you across.
"But—"
"Move!" he said, shoving at her.
Rollo was off the bluff, running like a whirlwind for the river. A flurry of dead leaves danced in his wake.
"A war party," he shouted. "Close behind me, coming fast."
"Did they see you?"
"I don't think so."
"Come on, then," said Cushing. "hang tight to my belt. There's mud on the bottom. Try to keep your feet."
Meg and Andy, he saw, had almost reached the island. He plunged into the water, felt the current take hold and tug at him.
"I'm hanging tight," said Rollo. "Even should I go down, I could crawl across the river, underwater. I would not drown. Breath I do not need."
Meg and Andy had reached the island and disappeared into the willows. Cushing, halfway across, glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of anyone atop the bluff. A few more minutes, he thought. That is all I need.
They reached the island and plunged up the shelving bank, crawled into the willows.
"Now stay quiet," said Cushing. "Crawl over to Meg. Help her keep Andy quiet. There will be horses. He may try to talk to them."
Turning back, Cushing crept to the riverbank, staying low. Shielded by small sprays of the leafy willows, he looked across the river. There was no sign of anyone. A black bear had come down to the stream, just above the point where they had crossed, and stood there with a silly look upon his face, dipping first one paw, then the other, into the water, shaking each paw daintily as he took it out. The bluff top was empty. A few crows beat up toward it from the thin strip of woods that ran along the river, cawing plaintively.
Perhaps Rollo had been wrong, he told himself—not wrong about seeing the war band, but in calculating where they might be heading. Perhaps they had veered off before they reached the bluff. But even so, even if Rollo's calculation had been wrong, with a war party in the vicinity, it had not been a bad idea to go to cover. They had been lucky to have the island near, he thought. Unlike the valley farther down the river, there was not much cover here. Later, farther up the valley, there would be even less. They were getting deep into the prairie country' and the valley would get even narrower and there'd be fewer trees. The time would come when they'd have to leave even the scanty cover that the valley offered and strike west across the plain.