The rollas had been duped — completely, absolutely fooled — and yet they were no fools. They had learned the language, not the spoken language only, but both the spoken and the written, and that spelled sharp intelligence. Perhaps more intelligence than was first apparent, for they did not make use of sound in their normal talk among themselves. But they had adapted readily, it seemed, to sound communication.
The sun long since had disappeared behind the nettles and now was just above the tree line of the bluffs. Dusk would be coming soon and then, Doyle told himself, he could get busy.
He debated once again which course he should take. By now the rollas might have told Metcalfe he was at the fence and Metcalfe might be waiting for him, although Metcalfe, if he knew, more than likely would not just wait, but would be coming out to get him. And as for the raid upon the orchard — he'd had trouble enough with just one rolla when he tried to rob a tree. He didn't like to think what five might do to him.
Behind him the nettles began to rustle and he leaped to his feet. Maybe, he thought wildly, they were opening up the path again. Maybe the path was opened automatically, at regularly scheduled hours. Maybe the nettles were like four o'clocks or morning glories — maybe they were engineered by the ralias to open and to close the path so many times a day.
And what he imagined was the truth in part. A path, he saw, was opening. And waddling down the path was another rolla. The path opened in front of him and then closed as he passed.
The rolla came out into the trampled area and stood facing Doyle.
GOOD EVENING, HEEL, he said.
It couldn't be the rolla locked in the trunk of the car down on the river road. It must, Doyle told himself, be one of the two that had walked out on the money project.
YOU SICK? the rolla asked.
'I itch just something awful and my tooth is aching and every time I sneeze the top of my head comes off.'
COULD FIX
'Sure, you could grow a drug-store tree, sprouting lina-ments and salves and pills and all the other junk.'
SIMPLE, spelled the rolla.
'Well, now,' said Doyle and then tried to say no more. For suddenly it struck him that it would be as the rolla said — very, very simple.
Most medicines came from plants and there wasn't anyone or anything that could engineer a plant the way the rollas could.
'You're on the level there,' said Doyle enthusiastically. 'You would be able to cure a lot of things. You might find a cure for cancer and you might develop something that would hold off heart disease. And there's the common cold…'
SORRY, PAL, BUT WE ARE OFF OF YOU. YOU MADE SAPS OF US.
Then you are one of them that ran away,' said Doyle in some excitement. 'You saw through Metcalfe's game…'
But the rolla was paying no attention to anything he said. It had drawn itself a little straighter and a little taller and it had formed its lips into a circle as if it might be getting ready to let out a bay and the sides of its throat were quivering as if it might be singing, but there was no sound.
No sound, but a rasping shrillness that skidded on one's nerves, a something in the air that set one's teeth on edge.
It was an eerie thing, that sense of singing terror in the silence of the dusk, with the west wind blowing quietly along the tops of the darkening trees, with the silky rustle of the nettles and somewhere in the distance the squeaking of a chipmunk homeward bound on the last trip of the day.
Out beyond the fence came the thumping of awkward running feet and in the thickening dusk Doyle saw the five rollas from the orchard plunging down the slope.
There was something going on. Doyle was sure of that. He sensed the importance of the moment and the excitement that was in it, but there was no inkling of what it all might mean.
The rolla by his side had sent out some sort of rallying call, pitched too high for the human ear to catch, and now the orchard rollas were tumbling down the slope in answer to that call.
The five rollas reached the fence and lined up in their customary row and their blackboard chests were alive with glowing characters — the strange, flickering, nonsensical characters of their native language. And the chest of the one who stood outside the fence with Doyle also flamed with the fleeting symbols, changing and shifting so swiftly that they seemed to be alive.
It was an argument, Doyle thought. The five inside the fence were arguing heatedly with the one who stood outside and there seemed an urgency in the argument that could not be denied.
He stood there, on the edge of embarrassment, an innocent bystander pocketed in a family squabble he could not understand.
The rollas were gesturing wildly now and the characters upon their chests glowed more brightly than ever as darkness deepened on the land.
A squalling night bird flew overhead and Doyle tilted up his head to watch it and as he did he saw the moving figures of running men outlined against the lighter sky on the north ridge of the orchard.
'Watch out!' he shouted and wondered even as he shouted why he should have shouted.
At the shout the five rollas whirled back to face the fence.
One set of symbols appeared upon each chest, as if suddenly they might have reached agreement, as if the argument might finally be resolved.
There was a creaking sound and Doyle looked up quickly.
Against the sky he could see the old oak tree was tipping, slanting slowly toward the fence, as if a giant hand had reached out and given it a push.
He watched for a puzzled second and the tilt continued and the speed of the fall picked up and he knew that the tree was crashing down upon the fence and the time had come to get out of there.
He stepped back a pace to turn around and flee and when he put his foot down there was no solid ground beneath it. He fought briefly to keep from falling, but he didn't have a chance. He fell and thumped into a crowded cavity and above him he heard the roaring rush of the falling tree and then the jarring thud as it hit the ground and the long, high whine of wires stretched so tight they pinged and popped.
Doyle lay quietly, afraid to move.
He was in a ditch of some sort. It was not very deep, not more than three feet at the most, but he was cramped at an awkward angle and there was an uncomfortable stone or root in the middle of his back.
Above him was a tracery of limbs and twigs, where the top of the oak had crashed across the ditch. And running through the fallen branches was a rolla, moving much more swiftly than one would have thought was possible.
From up the slope beyond the smashed-down fence came the bellowing of men and the sound of running feet.
Doyle huddled in his ditch glad of the darkness and of the shelter of the fallen tree.
The stone or root was still in his back and he wriggled to get off it. He slid off to one side and put out a hand to catch his balance and his hand came in contact with a mound of stuff that felt like sand.
And froze there. For just beyond the ditch, standing among the branches and the nettles, was a pair of legs and the loom of a body extending up into the darkness.
'They went down that way,' said a voice. 'Down into the woods. It will be hard to find them.'
Metcalfe's voice answered: 'We have to find them, Bill. We can't let them get away.'
There was a pause, then Bill said: T wonder what got into them. They seemed happy up till now.'