It knows, the creature said. It knows far more than I.
'But all of it,' insisted Daniels. 'Down to the last linkage, the final ingredient, the sequences of all the billions of — '
It knows, the creature said. The first requisite of all life is to understand itself.
'And it could — it would — be willing to give us that information, to supply us its genetic code?'
You are presumptuous, said the sparkling creature (although the word was harder than presumptuous). That is information no thing gives another. It is indecent and obscene (here again the words were not exactly indecent and obscene). It involves the giving of one's self into another's hands. It is an ultimate and purposeless surrender.
'Not surrender,' Daniels said. 'A way of escaping from its imprisonment. In time, in the hundred years of which I told you, the people of my race could take that genetic code and construct another creature exactly like the first. Duplicate it with exact preciseness.'
But it still would be in stone.
'Only one of it. The original one. That original could wait for the erosion of the rock. But the other one, its duplicate, could take up life again.'
And what, Daniels wondered, if the creature in the stone did not wish for rescue? What if it had deliberately placed itself beneath the stone? What if it simply sought protection and sanctuary? Perhaps, if it wished, the creature could get out of where it was as easily as this other one — or this other thing — had risen from the mound.
No, it cannot, said the creature squatting on the ledge. I was careless. I went to sleep while waiting and I slept too long.
And that would have been a long sleep, Daniels told himself. A sleep so long that dribbling soil had mounded over it, that fallen boulders, cracked off the cliff by frost, had been buried in the soil and that a clump of birch had sprouted and grown into trees thirty feet high. There was a difference here in time rate that he could not comprehend.
But some of the rest, he told himself, he had sensed — the devoted loyalty and the mindless patience of the creature that tracked another far among the stars. He knew he was right, for the mind of that other thing, that devoted star-dog perched upon the ledge, came into him and fastened on his mind and for a moment the two of them, the two minds, for all their differences, merged into a single mind in a gesture of fellowship and basic understanding, as if for the first time in what must have been millions of years this baying hound from outer space had found a creature that could understand its duty and its purpose.
'We could try to dig it out,' said Daniels. 'I had thought of that, of course, but I was afraid that it would be injured. And it would be hard to convince anyone — '
No, said the creature, digging would not do. There is much you do not understand. But this other proposal that you have, that has great merit. You say you do not have the knowledge of genetics to take this action now. Have you talked to others of your kind?
'I talked to one,' said Daniels, 'and he would not listen. He thought I was mad. But he was not, after all, the man I should have spoken to. In time I could talk with others but not right now. No matter how much I might want to — I can't. For they would laugh at me and I could not stand their laughter. But in a hundred years or somewhat less I could — '
But you will not exist a hundred years, said the faithful dog. You are a short-lived species. Which might explain your rapid rise. All life here is short-lived and that gives evolution a chance to build intelligence. When I first came here I found but mindless entities.
'You are right,' said Daniels. 'I can live no hundred years. Even from the very start, I could not live a hundred years, and better than half of my life is gone. Perhaps much more than half of it. For unless I can get out of this cave I will be dead in days.'
Reach out, said the sparkling one. Reach out and touch me, being.
Slowly Daniels reached out. His hand went through the sparkle and the shine and he had no sense of matter — it was as if he'd moved his hand through nothing but air.
You see, the creature said, I cannot help you. There is no way for our energies to interact. I am sorry, friend. (it was not friend, exactly, but it was good enough, and it might have been, Daniels thought, a great deal more than friend.)
'I am sorry, too,' said Daniels. 'I would like to live.'
Silence fell between them, the soft and brooding silence of a snow-laden afternoon with nothing but the trees and the rock and the hidden little life to share the silence with them.
It had been for nothing, then, Daniels told himself, this meeting with a creature from another world. Unless he could somehow get off this ledge there was nothing he could do. Although why he should so concern himself with the rescue of the creature in the stone he could not understand. Surely whether he himself lived or died should be of more importance to him than that his death would foreclose any chance of help to the buried alien.
'But it may not be for nothing,' he told the sparkling creature. 'Now that you know — '
My knowing, said the creature, will have no effect. There are others from the stars who would have the knowledge — but even if I could contact them they would pay no attention to me. My position is too lowly to converse with the greater ones. My only hope would be people of your kind and, if I'm not mistaken, only with yourself. For I catch the edge of thought that you are the only one who really understands. There is no other of your race who could even be aware of me.
Daniels nodded. It was entirely true. No other human existed whose brain had been jumbled so fortunately as to have acquired the abilities he held. He was the only hope for the creature in the stone and even such hope as he represented might be very slight, for before it could be made effective he must find someone who would listen and believe. And that belief must reach across the years to a time when genetic engineering was considerably advanced beyond its present state.
If you could manage to survive the present this, said the hound from outer space, I might bring to bear certain energies and techniques — sufficiently for the project to be carried through. But, as you must realize, I cannot supply the means to survive this crisis.
'Someone may come along,' said Daniels. 'They might hear me if I yelled every now and then.'
He began yelling every now and then and received no answer. His yells were muffled by the storm and it was unlikely, he knew, that there would be men abroad at a time like this. They'd be safe beside their fires.
The sparkling creature still perched upon the ledge when Daniels slumped back to rest. The other made an indefinite sort of shape that seemed much like a lopsided Christmas tree standing in the snow.
Daniels told himself not to go to sleep. He must close his eyes only for a moment, then snap them open — he must not let them stay shut for then sleep would come upon him. He should beat his arms across his chest for warmth — but his arms were heavy and did not want to work.
He felt himself sliding prone to the cave floor and fought to drive himself erect. But his will to fight was thin and the rock was comfortable. So comfortable, he thought, that he could afford a moment's rest before forcing himself erect. And the funny thing about it was that the cave floor had turned to mud and water and the sun was shining and he seemed warm again.