He lay near the doorway of the old rocket, staring out through the darkness that was still split by lightning. The rat scurried about behind him, but he let it go. Now that it was harmless and his stomach was filled, some of the old patterns began to stir in his mind. The rat was one he had known so long ago, its smell grown old, but still clearly identifiable.
He had tried twice to leave the ship and force his way back to where Doc was lying, but the lightning drove him back. Now he lifted his voice in a long, mournful bark. There was no answering call from Doc. He began working himself up for another try.
Lightning crashed down in the direction of the laboratory. The building itself stood out in the glare, with every wire of its outer covering glowing white hot. There was a roll of sharp thunder close by, and then another explosion that seemed to open the laboratory up in a blossom of flame through the abating rain.
King muttered unhappily, licking his lips uneasily, while his tail curved tighter against him. But now, while the flame still smoldered around the distant building and the lightning might come back, now was no time to risk it.
He turned around several times, scraping away the litter, buried his nose in the tuft of his tail, and tried to relax. He was almost asleep when he felt the rat creep up to him. It must have recognized his smell, too, since it settled down against him as it had done when they were both together in the laboratory with Doc. He snarled faintly, then let it alone, and went to sleep. Surprisingly, there were no dreams to. bother him.
The rat was goner in the morning when King awoke, and the sun was §hMng, though the quieter wind held a coldness that was too close to freezing to suit him. He hesitated, turning back toward the food stores. Then the sight of the rat, racing across the space near the tower, decided him. With an unhappy growl, he dropped from the hulk of the rocket and took out after it.
If the rat got there before he did, and Doc needed him…
In open running, the rat was no match for him. It drew aside, its high voice chattering, as he thundered up. He did not turn, but drove on, heading at a full run for the laboratory.
There was no laboratory! The steps were there, blackened and cracked. Some of the walls still stood. But the building he had known was gone. Beside it, the trunk of one of the big trees had been blasted apart, and now had its tattered remnants strewn over the dirt, mingling with the coals from the fire that had gutted the building. A few were still smoking, though the rain had put out the blaze before it had completely burned out by itself. The heavy, acrid scent of damp, burned wood loaded the air, concealing everything else from his scent.
He uttered a short, anguished yelp and went dashing through the doorway. The ashes were hot, and the stones left from the floor were hotter, but he could bear them. He hardly felt them as he swung toward what had once been the room where Doc lay.
The box from which the voice had come was gone, but the twisted wreck of the tape machine was there. And beside it, charred scraps showed what had once been a bed.
King cried out as his nose touched the heat, but he was pawing frantically, disregarding the pain. He could stand it—and he had to. He shoveled the refuse aside, digging for something that was his. And finally, under the charred raggedness, there were traces. There was even enough to know that it had once been Doc.
And Doc was still dead—as dead as the meat that once came from cans had been dead.
King whimpered over the remains, while the rat climbed onto a section of the wall and chattered uneasily. But the dog was already backing away. He stopped beyond the hot ruins of the building to lift his head. For a second, he held the pose while the rat watched him, before his head came down and he turned slowly away.
The food in the rocket lay to his right, and the old gate through which he had first come was on his left. He licked his lips as his eyes turned to the rocket, but his legs moved unwaveringly left. The steady walk turned into a trot, and his stride lengthened, carrying him back to the rooming-house section, and on into the former business section. There had been other fires, and one had spread across several blocks. He swung around it and back to the street he had first taken.
Ahead of him, the bridge came into view, and nearer was the bank of the river on this side.
King did not waver from his course. His legs paced out onto the rotten pavement that would carry him across the stream. He moved on, slowing as he had to walk the girders again. When he was past that section, and at the midpoint of the bridge, something seemed to turn him.
The town lay behind him from here, most of it visible at the crest of the bridge. The rain and the storm had made changes, but they were too small to notice. And the university lay at the edge of King’s vision, though some of the tower could be seen. He faced toward it, and then unerringly toward the place where the laboratory should have been.
Now his muzzle lifted into the air as he sank to his haunches. He seemed to brace himself, and his lungs expanded slowly. He could feel it, and the need of it. The instinct behind it was too old for remembrance, but the ritual came finally by itself, with no conscious control.
His mouth opened, and the dirge keened on the air, lifting and driving upward toward the empty sky above.
There was only, the single requiem. Then King swung back toward the distant shore, picking his way along the worn bridge.
He slipped down the crumbled bank to the thin edge of sand near the steam and turned southward, trotting on steadily with the cold wind at his back.
Somewhere, there would be a place to fish for his breakfast.
Little Jimmy
I’ve always thought that meeting a ghost would be a pretty comforting thing. By the time a man is past fifty and old enough to realize death, anything that will prove he doesn’t come to a final, meaningless end should be a help. Even being doomed to haunt some place hi solitude through all eternity doesn’t have the creeping horror of just not being!
Of course, religion offers hope to some—but most of us don’t have the faith of our forefathers. A ghost should be proof against the unimaginable finality of death.
That’s the way I used to feel. Now, I don’t know. If I could only explain little Jimmy…
We heard him, all right. At Mother’s death, the whole family heard him, right down to my sister Agnes, who’s the most complete atheist I know. Even her youngest daughter, downstairs at the time, came running up to see who the other child was. It wasn’t a case of collective hallucination, any more than it was something that can be -explained by any natural laws we know.
The doctor heard it, too, and from the way he looked, I suppose he’d heard little Jimmy more than once before. He won’t talk about it, though, and the others had never been around for a previous chance. I’m the only one who will admit to hearing little Jimmy more than that single time. I wish I didn’t have to admit it, even to myself.
We were a big family, though the tradition for such families was already dying at the turn of the century. Despite the four girls who died before they had a chance to live, Mother and Dad wanted lots of children. Six of us boys and three girls lived, and that justified it all to Mother. There would have been more, I guess, if Dad hadn’t been killed by an angry bull while I was away saving the world for Democracy. Mother could have had other husbands, maybe—the big Iowa farm with its huge old house would have guaranteed that—but she was dead set against it. And we older kids drifted into city jobs, helping the others through college until they had jobs of their own. Eventually, Mother was left alone in the old house, while the town outgrew itself until the farm was sold for lots around it.