'I'll start over, said the Diner.
The arm reached out and snatched up a spatula, scraped the burned cakes off the griddle, flipped them into a garbage can underneath the burner.
Blake looked over the counter and saw that the space behind it was littered with broken crockery.
'Yeah, look at it! the Diner screeched. 'There ought to be a law. I'll notify the boss and he'll slap a claim against that outfit and he'll see they pay — he always has so far. You guys might want to file claims as well. Allege mental agony or something. I got claim forms if you want to do it.
Blake shook his head. 'What about motorists. What if you met that thing on the road?"
'You saw those bunkers along the road, ten feet high or so, with exit lanes leading up to them?
'Yes, I did, said Blake.
'The cruiser has to sound its horn as soon as it leaves water and starts travelling on land. It has to keep on sounding it all the time it's travelling. You hear that siren and you head for the nearest bunker and you duck behind it.
The spigot travelled deliberately along its track, pouring out the batter.
'How come, mister, asked the Diner, 'you didn't know about the cruisers and the bunkers? You come from the backwoods, maybe?
'It's none of your business, said the Brownie, speaking for Blake. 'Just get on with our breakfast.
23
'I'll walk you a piece down the road, said the Brownie when they left the diner.
The morning sun was topping the horizon behind them and their elongated shadows bobbed along the road in front of them. The paving, Blake noted, was broken and eroded.
'They don't keep up the roads, he said, 'the way I remember them.
'No need to, said the Brownie. 'No wheels. No need of a smooth surface since there isn't any contact. The cars all ride on cushions of air. They only need roads as designation strips and to keep the traffic out of people's hair. Now, when they lay out a new road, they just set out a double row of stakes, to show the drivers the location of the highway.
They jogged along, not hurrying. A flock of blackbirds rose in a blue of flashing wings out of a marshy swale off to the left.
'Flocking up, the Brownie said. 'They'll be leaving soon. Cheeky things, the blackbirds. Not like larks or robins.
'You know about these wild things?
'We live with them, the Brownie said. 'We get to understand them. Some we get so we can almost talk with them. Not birds, though. Birds and fish are stupid. But raccoons and foxes, musk rats and mink — they are all real people.
'You live out in the woods, I understand.
'In the woods and fields. We conform to ecology. We take things as we find them. We adapt to circumstances. We are blood brothers to all life. No quarrel with anyone.
Blake tried to remember what Daniels had told him. A strange sort of little people who had taken a liking to the Earth, not because of the dominant life form that inhabited it, but because of the planet itself. Perhaps, Blake thought, because they found in the non-dominant residents, in the few remaining wild denizens of the woods and fields, the sort of simple associations that they liked. Insisting on living their own way of life to go their independent way, and yet beggars and moochers, attaching themselves in a slipshod alliance with anyone who would provide whatever simple needs they had.
'I met another of your people a few days ago, said Blake. 'You'll pardon me, but I can't be sure. Could you…
'Oh no, the Brownie said. 'That was another one of us. He was the one who spotted you.
'Spotted me?
'Oh yes, indeed. As one who would bear watching. He said that there was more than one of you and that you were in trouble. He sent out word we should, any one of us who could, keep an eye on you.
'Apparently you've been doing a good job of it. It didn't take you long to pick me up.
'When we set out to accomplish something, the Brownie said, with pride, 'we can be most efficient.
'And I? Where do I fit in?
'I am not sure exactly, said the Brownie. 'We are to keep an eye on you. You only need to know we're watching. You can count on us.
'I thank you, Blake told him. 'I thank you very much. And that was all he needed, he told himself — to have these crazy little creatures keeping tabs on him.
They walked along in silence for a time and then Blake asked: 'He told you, this one that I met, to keep an eye on me…
'Not just me alone…
'I know that, said Blake. 'He told all of you. Would you mind explaining how he told the rest of you? Or maybe it's a stupid question. There are mail and telephones.
The Brownie made a clucking sound of immense disgust. 'We wouldn't be caught dead, he said, 'using such contrivances. It would be against our principles and there really is no need to use them. We just pass the word along.
'You mean you are telepathic.
'Well, to tell you the honest truth, I don't know if we are or not. We can't transmit words, if that is what you mean. But we have a oneness. It gets a bit hard to explain.
'I would imagine so, said Blake. 'A sort of tribal psychic grapevine.
'You don't make any sense to me, the Brownie said, 'but if you want to think of it that way, I guess it does no harm.
'I suppose, said Blake, 'there are a lot of people that you keep an eye on.
It would be just like them, he told himself, a bunch of little busybodies very much concerned with other people's lives.
'There are no others, said the Brownie. 'Not at the moment, anyhow. He told us there were more than one of you and…
'What has that got to do with it?
'Why, bless you, said the Brownie, 'that's the whole of it. How often does one find a creature there is more than one of? Would you mind telling me, I wonder, just how many…
'There are three of me, said Blake.
The Brownie jigged in triumph. 'I knew there were! he crowed. 'I made a bet with myself that there were three of you. One of you is warm and shaggy, but with a terrible temper. Can you tell me this is so?
'Yes, said Blake, 'I would suppose it is.
'But the other one of you, the Brownie said, 'baffles me entirely.
'Welcome to the club, said Blake. 'He baffles me as well.
24
When he topped the long, steep hill, Blake saw it in the valley, where the land dipped down and ran level for a mile or so, then climbed another hill. It rested on the level of the valley floor and it seemed to fill half the level space — a great, black bulging structure that looked amazingly like a monstrous bug, humped in its middle and blunted at both ends.
Blake stopped at the sight of it. He had never seen a cruiser, but there could be no doubt that the thing squatting at the bottom of the hill was the cruiser which had shaken up the Diner.
Cars went whipping past Blake, the gush of wind from their humming jets beating at him.
The Brownie had left him an hour before and since that time he had trudged along, looking for some place where he might hide away and sleep. But stretching on either side of the road was nothing but fields, stripped by the harvest, now lying in their autumn garb of brown and gold. No habitations were located near the road, all of them sitting back from it half a mile or so. Blake wondered if the use of this highway by the cruisers and probably other large conveyances as well might have dictated the position of the homesteads, or if there were some other reason for their off-the-road location.
Far off to the south-west loomed a small group of shimmering towers — perhaps a complex of high-rise apartments, still within easy distance of Washington, but giving their occupants the advantages of a rural life.
Blake, staying well out on the shoulder of the road, went down the hill and finally reached the cruiser. It had pulled off to one side of the highway and had settled down, roosting on stubby, peg-like legs that held it six feet or so above the ground. Close up, it was even larger than it had appeared at a distance, rearing twenty feet or more above Blake's head.