And yet, while no trace of historic basis can be found in any of the other tales, which are indisputably legendary, there is historic basis for this tale.
It is a matter of record that one of the closed worlds is closed because it is a world of ants. It is now an ant world – has been an ant world for uncounted generations.
There is no evidence that the ant world is the original world on which the Dogs arose, but neither is there evidence that it is not. The fact that research has not uncovered any world which can lay claim to being the original world would seem to indicate that the ant world might in fact be the world that was called the Earth.
If that is so, all hope of finding further evidence of the legend's origin may be gone forever, for only on the first world could there be artifacts which might prove beyond contention the origin of the legend. Only there could one hope to find the answer to the basic question of Man's existence or his non-existence. If the ant world is the Earth, then the closed city of Geneva and the house on Webster Hill are lost to us forever.
VIII. THE SIMPLE WAY
Archie, the little renegade raccoon, crouched on the hillside, trying to catch one of the tiny, scurrying things running in the grass. Rufus, Archie's robot, tried to talk to Archie, but the raccoon was too busy and he did not answer.
Homer did a thing no Dog had ever done before. He crossed the river and trotted into the wild robots camp and he was scared, for there was no telling what the wild robots might do to him when they turned around and saw him. But he was worried worse than he was scared, so he trotted on.
Deep in a secret nest, ants dreamed and planned for a world they could not understand. And pushed into that world, hoping for the best, aiming at a thing no Dog, or robot, or man could understand.
In Geneva, Jon Webster rounded out his ten-thousandth year of suspended animation and slept on, not stirring. In the Street outside, a wandering breeze rustled the leaves along the boulevard, but no one heard and no one saw.
Jenkins strode across the hill and did not look to either left or right, for there were things he did not wish to see. There was a tree that stood where another tree had stood in another world. There was the lay of ground that had been imprinted on his brain with a billion footsteps across ten thousand years.
And, if one listened closely, one might have heard laughter echoing down the ages... the sardonic laughter of a man named Joe.
Archie caught one of the scurrying things and held it clutched within his tight-shut paw. Carefully he lifted the paw and opened it and the thing was there, running madly, trying to escape.
"Archie," said Rufus, "you aren't listening to me."
The scurrying thing dived into Archie's fur, streaked swiftly up his forearm.
"Might have been a flea," said Archie. He sat up and scratched his belly.
"New kind of flea," he said. "Although I hope it wasn't. Just the ordinary kind are bad enough."
"You aren't listening," said Rufus.
"I'm busy," said Archie. "The grass is full of them things. Got to find out what they are."
"I'm leaving you, Archie."
"You're what!"
"Leaving you," said Rufus. "I'm going to the Building."
"You're crazy," fumed Archie. "You can't do a thing like that to me. You've been tetched ever since you fell into that ant hill...
"I've had the Call," said Rufus. "I just got to go."
"I've been good to you," the raccoon pleaded. "I've never overworked you. You've been like a pal of mine instead of like a robot. I've always treated you just like an animal."
Rufus shook his head stubbornly. "You can't make me stay," he said. "I couldn't stay, no matter what you did. I got the Call and I got to go."
"It isn't like I could get another robot," Archie argued. "They drew my number and I ran away. I'm a deserter and you know I am. You know I can't get another robot with the wardens watching for me."
Rufus just stood there.
"I need you," Archie told him. "You got to stay and help me rustle grub. I can't go near none of the feeding places or the wardens will nab me and drag me up to Webster Hill. You got to help me dig a den. Winter's coming on and I will need a den. It won't have heat or light, but I got to have one. And you've got to..."
Rufus had turned around and was walking down the hill, heading for the river trail. Down the river trail, travelling towards the dark smudge above the far horizon.
Archie sat hunched against the wind that ruffled through his fur, tucked his tail around his feet. The wind had a chill about it, a chill it had not held an hour or so before. And it was not the chill of weather, but the chill of other things.
His bright, beady eyes searched the hillside and there was no sign of Rufus.
No food, no den, no robot. Hunted by the wardens. Eaten up by fleas.
And the Building, a smudge against the farther hills across the river valley.
A hundred years ago, so the records said, the Building had been no bigger than the Webster House.
But it had grown since... a place that never was completed. First it had covered an acre. And then a square mile. Now finally a township. And still it grew, sprawling out and towering up.
A smudge above the hills and a cloudy terror for the little, superstitious forest folks who watched it. A word to frighten kit and whelp and cub into sudden quiet.
For there was evil there... the evil of the unknown, an evil sensed and attributed rather than seen or heard or smelled. A sensed evil, especially in the dark of night, when the lights were out and the wind keened in the den's mouth and the other animals were sleeping, while one lay awake and listened to the pulsing otherness that sang between the worlds.
Archie blinked in the autumn sunlight, scratched furtively at his side.
Maybe some-day, he told himself someone will find a way to handle fleas. Something to rub on one's fur so they will stay away. Or a way to reason with them, to reach them and talk things over with them. Maybe set up a reservation for them, a place where they could stay and be fed and not bother animals. Or something of the sort.
As it was, there wasn't much that could be done. You scratched yourself. You bad your robot pick them off, although the robot usually got more fur than fleas. You rolled in the sand or dust. You went for a swim and drowned some of them... well, you really didn't drown them; you just washed them off and if some of them drowned that was their own tough luck.
You had your robot pick them off... but now there was no robot.
No robot to pick off fleas.
No robot to help him hunt for food.
But, Archie remembered, there was a black haw tree down in the river bottom and last night's frost would have touched the fruit. He smacked his lips, thinking of the haws. And there was a cornfield just over the ridge. If one was fast enough and bided his time and was sneaky about it, it was no trouble at all to get an ear of corn. And if worse came to worse there always would be roots and wild acorns and that patch of wild grapes over on the sand bar.
Let Rufus go, said Archie, mumbling to himself. Let the Dogs keep their feeding stations. Let the wardens go on watching.
He would live his own life. He would eat fruit and grub for roots and raid the cornfields, even as his remote ancestors had eaten fruits and grubbed for roots and raided fields.