"Hopeless," Silver Cloud said. "Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. I don't understand you and you don't understand me. No question about that. She Who Knows and Goddess Woman think they understand you, but they don't, not really. They're both just hearing the things they want to think you're saying."
"I could sit down with him and try to teach him our language," She Who Knows offered. "Or maybe I could learn how to speak his."
"Keep away from him," Goddess Woman said. "He's unclean, and this is holy land."
"But if we were able to speak with-"
"It's no use," said Silver Cloud. "Even if those noises of his are a language, you'd never learn it. How could you? It's like sitting down with a bear and trying to learn bear-noises. Or to teach a bear to speak. It can't be done."
"Old men always say that things can't be done," She Who Knows retorted.
"Old? Old?" Silver Cloud cried.
But now the Other One was gesturing again with his spear, and making his sounds again. One last attempt, perhaps, to get his message across to Silver Cloud. It was as incomprehensible, though, as it had been before. Silver Cloud felt a great sadness coming over him, and not only because She Who Knows had called him old, or because there was fiery pain in his leg, or because the snowy time was coming and the People had not yet made provision for winter camp. No, it was because this strange stork-like man had come to him with what might have been a message of peace, but he could not understand it and could not make himself understood, and so the stalemate would continue. It was like a wall of stone between them, cutting off communication.
The Other One finished his speech and waited.
"I'm sorry," Silver Cloud said. "I just don't understand. The problem is that I don't speak your language. And I guess you don't speak mine."
"So you agree it's a language, then!" She Who Knows said in triumph.
"Yes," said Silver Cloud glumly. "For whatever good that does."
The parley was over. The Other One, looking irritated and morose, swung around and walked quickly away, back toward his own encampment. Silver Cloud watched, astonished by the loose-jointed free-wheeling stride of the man. It seemed a wonder that his arms and legs didn't fall off as he walked, so poorly strung together was he, so badly designed. Or that his head didn't roll right off his flimsy neck. Silver Cloud felt grateful for his own sturdy, compact body, weary and aching though it had become of late. It had served him well for a great many years. It was the work of the Goddess, that body. He pitied the Other Ones for their fragility and their ugliness.
As the envoy of the Other Ones passed the sentry zone again, Broken Mountain once more shook his spear at him and made a hissing sound of defiance. The Odjer One took no notice. Broken Mountain looked to Silver Cloud for instruction, but Silver Cloud shook his head and told him to hold his peace. The Other One disappeared into the distant encampment of his people.
So that was that. Nothing accomplished.
Silver Cloud felt racked by doubts. Whatever he did these days led only to muddle. The Goddess had gone unworshipped, a litde boy had vanished into thin air, the shrine they had come all this way to venerate was inaccessible to them, and the season was quickly turning against them; and now he had failed to achieve anything at all by way of parley. No doubt She Who Knows was right, as she usually was, much as he hated to admit that to himself: he was too old for the job. Time to step aside, to let the Killing Society do its work, and lie down in the sleep that never ends.
Blazing Eye would be chieftain in his place. Let Blazing Eye worry about what to do next.
But even as the thought crossed his mind, Silver Cloud was angered by it. Blazing Eye? A fool. He would do foolish things, as fools can be expected to do. It would be a sin to hand the tribe over to Blazing Eye.
Who, then? Broken Mountain? Tree Of Wolves? Young Antelope?
All fools. He couldn't give the tribe to any one of them. Maybe they would outgrow their foolishness someday; but he wasn't very confident of that.
Then who will be chieftain after me?
Let the Goddess decide, Silver Cloud told himself. After I'm gone. It'll be Her problem then, not mine.
He would not resign. He would wait for death to claim him. He knew that he was a fool, too-or else they would not be here in this useless deadlock now-but at least he was less foolish than the younger men, and he might just as well keep his chieftainship a little while longer.
"What are you going to do now, Silver Cloud?" She Who Knows asked.
"Nothing," he said. "What is there to do?" He went back to the camp and sat down by the fire. Some child came over to him-he couldn't remember her name-and he drew her close against his side, and they sat there staring at the leaping flames for a long while. The presence of the child lifted a little of the sadness that had come over him. From this little girl the People of tomorrow someday would come forth, long after he was gone. That was a comforting thought: that chieftains might die, that warriors died, that everyone died sooner or later, but the People would go on and on, into time immemorial, world without end. Yes. Yes. A good thing to bear in mind.
Shordy it began to snow, and the snow went on falling late into the night.
Chapter Nine. Becoming
THREE DAYS LATER Hoskins stopped by to see Miss Fellowes and said, "It's all been worked out. My wife has no further problem about letting Jerry come here to play with Timmie, and Ned Cassiday has drafted a liability agreement that he thinks will stand legal muster."
"Liability? Liability for what, Dr. Hoskins?"
"Why, any sort of injury that might be inflicted."
"By Timmie on Jerry, you mean."
"Yes," Hoskins said, in that sheepish voice of his once again.
Miss Fellowes instantly began to bristle. "Tell me: do you seriously think there's any chance of that happening? Does your wife?"
"If we were really worried about that, we wouldn't be volunteering Jerry to be Timmie's playmate. My wife had her doubts at first, as you know, but it didn't take long for Timmie to win her over. Still, there's always the chance, when you bring two small boys together who don't know each other, that one of them will take a swing at the other, Miss Fellowes. I surely don't have to remind you of that."
"Of course. But parents don't usually insist on liability agreements before they'll allow their child to play with other children."
Hoskins laughed. "You don't understand. It's the company that insists on the liability agreement, not us. Annette and I are the ones who are guaranteeing to the company that we won't take any legal action against Stasis Technologies, Ltd., in case something happens. -It's a waiver of liability, Miss Fellowes."
"Oh," she said, in a very small voice. -"I see. When will you be bringing Jerry here, then?"
"Tomorrow morning? How would that be?"
Miss Fellowes waited until breakfast time to tell him. She hadn't wanted to say anything the night before, thinking that the excitement of anticipation might unsettle Timmie's sleep, making him edgy and unpredictable when Jerry arrived.
"You'll be getting a friend today, Timmie."
"A friend?"
"Another little boy. To play with you."
"A little boy just like me?"
"Just like you, yes." In every way that really mattered, Miss Fellowes told herself fiercely. "His name is Jerry. He's Dr. Hoskins' son."
"Son?" He gave her a puzzled look.
"Dr. Hoskins is his father," she said, as though that would help.
"Father."
"Father-son." She held her hand high in the air, then lower down. "The father is the big man. The son is the little boy."
He still looked baffled. There were so many basic assumptions of life, so many things that everyone took for granted, that were alien to him. It was because he had spent all this time in the isolation of the Stasis bubble. But certainly he knew what parents were. Or had he forgotten even that? Not for the first time Miss Fellowes found herself detesting Gerald Hoskins and everyone else connected with Stasis Technologies, Ltd., for having ripped this little boy out of his own proper time and place. She could almost agree with the Bruce Mannheim crowd that a very sophisticated kind of child abuse had taken place here.
Rummaging in Timmie's pile of storybooks, Miss Fellowes found one of his favorites, a retelling of the story of William Tell. What meaning the story itself had for him was something she couldn't even begin to guess, but the book was boldly and vividly illustrated and he pored over it again and again, lightly rubbing his fingers over the bright pictures. She opened it now to the two-page spread showing William Tell shooting the apple off his son's head with a bolt from his crossbow, and indicated, first the archer in his medieval costume, then his son.