And in all his life, he had never slammed a door.
XXXII
Sutton breasted the river, swimming with slow, sure strokes. The water was warm against his body and it talked to him with a deep, important voice and Sutton thought, It is trying to tell me something, as it has tried to tell the people something all down through the ages. A mighty tongue talking down the land, gossiping to itself when there is no one else to hear, but trying, always trying to tell its people the news it has to tell. Some of them, perhaps, have grasped a certain truth and a certain philosophy from the river, but none of them have ever reached the meaning of the river's language, for it is an unknown language.
Like the language, Sutton thought, I used to make my notes. For they had to be in a language which no one else could read, a language that had been forgotten in the galaxy aeons before any tongue now living lisped its baby talk. Either a language that had been forgotten or one that never could be known.
I do not know that language, Sutton told himself, the language of my notes. I do not know whence it came or when or how. I asked, but they would not tell me. Johnny tried to tell me once, but I could not grasp it, for it was a thing that the brain of Man could not accept.
I know its symbols and the things they stand for, but I do not know the sounds that make it. My tongue might not be able to form the sounds that make the spoken language. For all I know it might be the language that this river talks…or the language of some race that went to disaster and to dust a million years ago.
The black of night came down to nestle against the black of flowing river and the moon had not risen, would not rise for many hours to come. The starlight made little diamond points on the rippling waves of the pulsing river, and on the shore ahead the lights of homes made jagged patterns up and down the land.
Herkimer has the notes, Sutton told himself, and I hope he has sense enough to hide them. For I will need them later, but not now. I would like to see Herkimer, but I can't take the chance, for they'll be watching him. And there's no doubt they have a tracer on me, but if I move fast enough, I can keep out of their way.
His feet struck gravel bottom and he let himself down, waded up the shelving shore. The night wind struck him and he shivered, for the river had been warm from a day of sun and the wind had a touch of chill.
Herkimer, of course, would be one of those who had come back to see that he wrote the book as he would have written it if there had been no interference. Herkimer and Eva…and of the two, Sutton told himself, he could trust Herkimer the most. For an android would fight, would fight and die for the thing that the book would say. The android and the dog and horse and honeybee and ant. But the dog and horse and honeybee and ant would never know, for they could not read.
He found a grassy bank and sat down and took off his clothes to wring them dry, then put them on again. Then he struck out across the meadow toward the highway that arrowed up the valley.
No one would find the ship at the bottom of the river…not for a while, at least. And a few hours was all he needed. A few hours to ask a thing that he must know, a few hours to get back to the ship again.
But he couldn't waste any time. He had to get the information the quickest way he could. For if Adams had a tracer on him, and Adams would have a tracer on him, they would already know that he had returned to Earth.
Once again came the old nagging wonder about Adams. How had Adams known that he was coming back and why had he set a mousetrap for him when he did arrive? What information had he gotten that would make him give the order that Sutton must be shot on sight?
Someone had gotten to him…someone who had evidence to show him. For Adams would not go on anything less than evidence. And the only person who could have given him any information would have been someone from the future. One of those, perhaps, who contended that the book must not be written, that it must not exist, that the knowledge that it held be blotted out forever. And if the man who was to write should die, what could be more simple?
Except that the book had been written. That the book already did exist. That the knowledge apparently was spread across the galaxy.
That would be catastrophe…for if the book were not written, then it never had existed and the whole segment of the future that had been touched by the book in any wise would be blotted out along with the book that had not been.
And that could not be, Sutton told himself.
That meant that Asher Sutton could not, would not, be allowed to die before the book was written.
However it were written, the book must be written or the future was a lie.
Sutton shrugged. The tangled thread of logic was too much for him. There was no precept, no precedent upon which one might develop the pattern of cause and result.
Alternate futures? Maybe, but it didn't seem likely. Alternate futures were a fantasy that employed semantics twisting to prove a point, a clever use of words that covered up and masked the fallacies.
He crossed the road and took a foot path that led to a house standing on a knoll.
In the marsh down near the river, the frogs had struck up their piping and somewhere far away a wild duck called in the darkness. In the hills the whipporwills began the evening forum. The scent of new-cut grass lay heavy in the air and the smell of river night fog was crawling up the hills.
The path came out on a patio and Sutton moved across it.
A man's voice came to him.
"Good evening, sir," it said, and Sutton wheeled around.
He saw the man, then, for the first time. A man who sat in his chair and smoked his pipe beneath the evening stars.
"I hate to bother you," said Sutton, "but I wonder if I might use your visor."
"Certainly, Ash," said Adams. "Certainly. Anything you wish."
Sutton started and then felt himself freeze into a man of steel and ice.
Adams!
Of all the homes along the river, he would walk in on Adams!
Adams chuckled at him. "Destiny works against you, Ash."
Sutton moved forward, found a chair in the darkness and sat down.
"You have a pleasant place," he said.
"A very pleasant place," said Adams.
Adams tapped out his pipe and put it in his pocket.
"So you died again," he said.
"I was killed," said Sutton. "I got unkilled almost immediately."
"Some of my boys?" asked Adams. "They are hunting for you."
"A couple of strangers," said Sutton. "Some of Morgan's gang."
Adams shook his head. "I don't know the name," he said.
"He probably didn't tell his name," said Sutton. "He told you I was coming back."
"So that was it," said Adams. "The man out of the future. You have him worried, Ash."
"I need to make a visor call," said Sutton.
"You can use the visor," said Adams.
"And I need an hour."
Adams shook his head.
"I can't give you an hour."
"A half hour, then. I may have a chance to make it. A half hour after I finish my call."
"Nor a half hour, either."
"You never gamble, do you, Adams?"
"Never," said Adams.
"I do," said Sutton. He rose. "Where is that visor? I'm going to gamble on you."
"Sit down, Ash," said Adams, almost kindly. "Sit down and tell me something."
Stubbornly, Sutton remained standing.
"If you could give me your word," said Adams, "that this destiny business won't harm Man. If you could tell me it won't give aid and comfort to our enemies."
"Man hasn't any enemies," said Ash, "except the ones he's made."
"The galaxy is waiting for us to crack," said Adams. "Waiting to close in at the first faint sign of weakness."
"That's because we taught them it," said Sutton. "They watched us use their own weaknesses to push them off their feet."