Then, said the creature grimly, leave us start to visit.
Certainly, said Blaine, moving somewhat closer.
Now, where shall I start? the creature asked. There are so many places and so many times and so many different creatures. It always is a problem. I suppose it comes because of a desire for neatness, an orderliness of mind. The thought persists to plague me that if I could put it all together I might arrive at something of significance. You would not mind, I presume, if I should tell you about those strange creatures that I ran into out at the edge of the galaxy.
Not at all, said Blaine.
They are rather extraordinary, said the Pinkness, in that they did not develop machines as your culture did, but became, in effect, machines themselves. . . .
Sitting there in the bright blue room, with the alien stars flaming overhead, with the faint, far-off sound of the raging desert wind a whisper in the room, the Pinkness talked — not only of the machine entities, but of many others. Of the insect tribes that piled up over endless centuries huge reserves of food for which they had no need, slaving on an endless treadmill of a blind economic mania. Of the race that made their art forms the basis of a weird religion. Of the listening posts manned by garrisons of a galactic empire that had long since been forgotten by all except the garrisons themselves. Of the fantastic and complicated sexual arrangements of yet another race of beings who, faced with the massive difficulties of procreation, thought of little else. Of planets that never had known life but rolled along their courses as gaunt and raw and naked as the day they had been formed. And of other planets that were a boiling brew pot of chemical reactions which stretched the mind to think on, let alone to understand, and of how these chemical reactions of themselves gave rise to an unstable, ephemeral sort of sentience that was life one moment and just failed of life another.
This — and yet a great deal more.
Blaine, listening, realized the true fantastic measure of this creature which he had stumbled on — an apparently deathless thing, which had no memory of its beginning, no concept of an end; a creature with a roving mind that had mentally explored, over billions of years, millions of stars and planets for millions of light years, in this present galaxy and in some of the neighbor ones; a mind that had assembled a gigantic grab box of assorted information, but information which it had made no effort to put to any use. That it, more than likely, had no idea of how to put to use, yet troubled by a vague idea that this store of knowledge should not be lying fallow.
The sort of creature that could sit in the sun for endless time and spin eccentric yarns of all that it had seen.
And for the human race, thought Blaine, here squatted an encyclopedia of galactic knowledge, here lounged an atlas that had mapped uncounted cubic light years. Here was the sort of creature that the tribe of Man could use. Here was a running off of mouth that would pay human dividends — dividends from an entity which seemed without emotion, other than a certain sense of friendliness — an entity that, perhaps, in years of armchair observation, had had all emotions, if any had existed, worn away until they were so much dust — who had not used any of the knowledge it had gained, but had not been the loser. For in all its observation, in its galactic window-peeping, it had gained a massive tolerance and an understanding, not of its own nature, not of human nature, but of every nature, an understanding of life itself, of sentience and intelligence. And a sympathy of all motives and all ethics, and of each ambition, no matter how distorted in the eyes of other life.
And all of this, as well, Blaine realized with a start, was likewise stored in the mind of one human being, of one Shepherd Blaine, if he could only separate it and classify and store it and then could dig it out and put it to proper use.
Listening, Blaine lost all sense of time, lost all knowing of what he was or where he was or why he might be there, listening as a boy might listen to some stupendous tale spun by an ancient mariner from far and unknown land.
The room became familiar and the Pinkness was a friend and the stars were no longer alien and the far-off howling of the desert wind was a cradle song that he had always known.
It was a long time before he realized he was listening only to the wind and that the stories of far away and long ago had ceased.
He stirred, almost sleepily, and the Pinkness said: That was a nice visit that we had. I think it was the best that I have ever had.
There is one thing, said Blaine. One question —
If it is the shield, the Pinkness said, you needn’t worry. I took it away. There is nothing to betray you.
It wasn’t that, said Blaine. It was time. I — that is, the two of us — have some control of time. Twice it saved my life. . . .
It is there, the Pinkness said. The understanding’s in your mind. You only have to find it.
But, time —
Time, the creature said, is the simplest thing there is. I’ll tell you . . .
SEVENTEEN
Blaine lay for a long time, soaking in the feel of body, for now he had a body. He could feel the pressure on it, he could sense the movement of the air as it touched the skin, knew the hot damp of perspiration prickle along his arms and face and chest.
He was no longer in the blue room, for there he had no body and there was no longer the far-off sound of the desert wind. There was, instead, a regular rasping sound that had a slobber in it. And there was a smell, an astringent smell, an aggressively antiseptic odor that filled not only the nostrils, but the entire body.
He let his eyelids come up slowly against possible surprise, set to snap them shut again if there should be a need. But there was only whiteness, plain and unrelieved. There was no more than the whiteness of a ceiling.
His head was on a pillow and there was a sheet beneath him and he was dressed in some sort of garment that had a scratchiness.
He moved his head and he saw the other bed and upon it lay a mummy.
Time, the creature on that other world had said, time is the simplest thing there is. And it had said that it would tell him, but it hadn’t told him, for he hadn’t stayed to hear.
It was like a dream, he thought — thinking back on it, it had the unreal, flat-planed quality of a dream, but it had not been any dream. He had been in the blue room once again and he’d talked with the creature that was its habitant. He had heard it spin its yarns and he still retained within his mind the details of those yarns. There was no fading of the detail as there would have been if it had been a dream.
The mummy lay upon the bed swathed in bandages. There were holes in the bandages for the nostrils and the mouth but no holes for the eyes. And as it breathed it slobbered.
The walls were of the same whiteness as the ceiling, and the floors were covered with ceramic tile and there was a sterility about the place that shrieked its identity.
He was in a hospital room with a slobbering mummy.
Fear moved in on him, a sudden wash of fear, but he lay there quietly while it washed over him. For even in the fear, he knew that he was safe. There was some reason he was safe. There was some reason if he could think of it.
Where had he been? he wondered; where had he been other than the blue room? His mind went tracking back and he remembered where he’d been — in the willow thicket in the gully beyond the edge of town.
There were footsteps in the hall outside, and a man with a white jacket came into the room.