Granted, I could not see any way in which they could be hurt. The only one I was putting on the line, as far as I knew, was myself. But there are always understandings beyond understandings. Perhaps there was some vital bit of information I did not have.
On the other hand, perhaps that was not really what was bothering me. I looked a little deeper into myself and found the real fishhook in my conscience; the unanswered question of whether, even if I knew there was real danger to the others, I would let that be reason enough to stop me. Perhaps I would go ahead anyway, prepared to sacrifice them to my own desires, my own will.
This question was harder to put out of my mind than the time storm problem, but in the end, I managed. I lay, open-eyed and without moving, until the dawn whitened the shade drawn over the window on the side of the camper across from the bunk on which I lay with Marie.
I got up and dressed quietly. Marie slept on, but Wendy opened her eyes and looked at me.
“Go back to sleep,” I told her. She closed her eyes again without argument. (Probably only humoring me, I thought.)
Dressed, I glanced at Marie, half-tempted to wake her and say a few words to her. But there was no good reason for that, I realized, unless I only wanted to leave her with some enigmatic, but portentous, statement she could remember afterwards and worry over, wondering if she could have done something more for me in some way; and things might have been different. I was a little ashamed of myself and let myself out of the camper as softly as I could.
Outside, the morning air was dry and cold. I shivered, even under the leather jacket I was wearing, and fired up the coleman stove to make a pot of coffee. All the time I was making it, I could feel the Old Man’s presence in the back of my mind. He was connected to the console, which meant he was in connection with me. I could feel that he was awake now and suffering from the hangover I had anticipated. The discomfort was making him savage—I could tell that, too. But underneath the savagery he was beginning to wonder a little at what his mind could now sense of me, and through me, of tile larger universe.
I made my coffee, drank it, and drove one of the jeeps to the roundhouse. Inside, around where the Old Man had been, it was a mess. He had been sick—I should have thought of the possibility of that. In addition, he had urinated copiously.
I cleaned up, cautiously. Now that he was awake, I had enough respect for those ape-like arms of his not to let him get a grip on me. But he let me work on until I was right next to him, without making any move in my direction. He was still staring at me all the time, but now there was a speculative gleam in his brown eyes. He had now realized who it was his mind connected to. I could feel him in my head, exploring the connection and the situation. I had guessed right. Now, he was interested. But his mind was still alien to me, much more alien than Porniarsk’s.
I took a chance, disconnected him from the console, unhooked his chain from the stanchion, and led him outside, to ensure that any further eliminations he was moved to would take place somewhere else than in the roundhouse. I found a boulder too heavy for him to move and with a lower half that was narrower than the top, so that the loop of chain I looked around it could not be pulled off over the top. I rechained him to this. The boulder was on the far side of the roundhouse, so that he could neither see his village nor be seen from it, assuming that his fellows down there had distance vision good enough to pick him out. Then I left him with some bread, an opened can of corned beef and a refilled canteen of water, and went down to my own breakfast. He let me go without a sound, but his eyes followed me with their speculative look as long as I was in sight. All the way down the mountain, I could feel his mind trying to explore mine.
Once back at the camp, I got out the binoculars and looked over the village. Its inhabitants were out of their homes and about their daily activities. None of them seemed to be missing the Old Man or showing any curiosity about the lack of his presence. That much was all right, then. I went back, put the binoculars away and ate breakfast. All the others were up and also breakfasting; but there was a tension, a taut feeling in the very air of the camp.
I did not feel like talking to anyone; and the rest seemed to understand this. They left me alone while I was eating—all but Sunday, who clearly sensed that something unusual was up. He did not rub against me in his usual fashion, but prowled around and around me, his tail twitching as if his nerves were on fire. He made such an ominous demonstration that I was alarmed for Bill, when at last, he started to come toward me.
But Sunday drew back just enough to let him get close, although he circled the two of us, eyeing Bill steadily and making little occasional singing noises in his throat.
“I don’t want to bother you,” Bill said. His voice was hardly more than a murmur, too low for any of the others to overhear.
“It’s all right,” I said. “What is it?”
“I just wanted you to know,” he said, “you can count on me.”
“Well,” I said, “thanks.”
“No, I really mean count on me,” he insisted.
“I hear you,” I said. “Thanks. But all you’ll have to do today is sit at that console and let me use you.”
He looked back at me for a second in a way that was almost as keyed-up and strange as Sunday’s present behavior.
“Right,” he said and went off.
I had no time to puzzle over him. There was Sunday to get into the cab of the pickup and the doors safely closed on him; and the leopard was just not agreeable to going in this morning. In the end I had to haul him in as a dead weight, swearing at him, with one fist closed on the scruff of his neck and my other arm around his wedge-shaped cat chest below his forelegs. I didn’t dare have any of the others help me in the mood the leopard was in—even the girl. Though, in fact, she was busy at the moment, doing something in the motorhome with Marie—and she probably would not have come anyway if I’d called.
I finally got Sunday in and the door closed. Immediately he found himself trapped, he began to thrash around and call to me. I closed my ears to the sounds he was making and got my party into the jeeps and headed up the side of the peak. I was already at work with the back of my head, monitoring the present interplay of the forces in the storm, as far as I could pick them out. A real picture of the pattern out as far as the Moon’s orbit would have to wait until the others were all at their consoles and connected with me. I thought I was gaining some advantage from them already, which was a very good sign. Either I had been building psychic muscle since the last two consoles had been finished, or the Old Man was proving to be even more useful than I had hoped. Actually, in one way, he had already exceeded expectations; because I was still as strongly linked to him as I had been when he had been connected to the console and chained inside the roundhouse.
Wendy, who had been chattering away merry and bright in the back of the jeep I was driving, fell into dubious silence as we pulled up to the level spot where the roundhouse stood and she saw the Old Man staring at us. But he only gave her and the others a single surveying glance and then came back to concentrate on me as I got out of the jeep and came back toward him.