"... Correct," he said, looking past them at the sky. "Mad and correct. I don't know. Yes I do. He was thin ... Thin and dirty and covered with sores. I was at the supply depot when he came around. Never saw him before ... No. Hair like a dirty halo. There's your stranger for you. Came walking, someone said. Dunno from where ... Give me another drink, will you? --Thanks. --I don't know... Where he was going ... ? He didn't say. He talked. He did that. I don't remember what he said--exactly. But it was strange ... There's your stranger for you. Never said his name. Didn't seem to need one. Got up on a packing case and started talking. Funny ... Nobody tried to stop him, tell him to go away ... He-- Don't remember what he said. Mad and correct ... But we listened. Not that much happens around here--and he was different. Preaching, sort of--but not quite. Cursing, maybe. I don't know... Anyway-- Wait... More water? --Thanks. --Funny, funny... Mad talker. Death and life ... That's right! Right! Right ... How everything is going to die. Couldn't stop listening. Don't know why. We knew he was mad. Everybody said so--when we talked about him--after he left. Nobody said a word while he was preaching, though. It was like-- He made it sound right while he was saying it. And he was--right. Look at me! He was. Wasn't he? Mad and correct ... --No. I didn't see which direction he headed afterward. --You want to hear him, though? Sam-- who runs the place--recorded part of what he said. Played it back later. Different with him not being there, saying it. We laughed a lot when we listened, then. Just mad, that's all. You can ask Sam, if he hasn't erased it. You can hear him for yourself ... That was when I started feeling shaky-- God! He was right! He was, I think ... Seems that way-- anyhow ..."
They reported this back to their section leader, and after the pickup they continued on, slowly, combing the countryside, halting to assist and record, to provide for the dead, the dying, the survivors, maintaining radio contact with the other groups, passing through open country, searching dwellings, climbing hills, the searchers.
From the far corners of the sky, the clouds began to advance, and they cursed the threat of the storm which would foul both their boots and the body-heat detection equipment. One, who knew his history, even cursed Francis Sandow, who had designed and built the world.
Clouds, unrolling like carpets, spreading, trailing wisps and rag-ends, rushed toward a point near midheaven, dampening the dayblue sky to a pearl-gray from which the translucence slowly ebbed, as additional layers were heaped above, banking, mounting higher, pressing lower, darkening, dimming, hazing the outlines of trees and rocky heights, transforming the lower figures of men and animals into shifting things a quarter of shadow and going for half, while the rains were yet withheld, the mists rolled and rose, dew came afresh to the grasses, windows were filmed and beaded, moisture collected, ran upon, dripped from leaves, sounds came distorted, as though the entire world had been bedded in cotton, birds flew near to the ground in their courses toward the hills, the winds died down and ceased, small animals paused, raised their muzzles, turned them slowly, shook themselves, cocked their heads, then moved as if seeking some hidden Ark, beyond the foothills, in the mist, above the places the searchers combed, and the thunder held its breath, the lightning stayed its stroke, the rain remained unshed, the temperature slipped downward, cloud fell upon cloud and, stopper drawn from the spectrum, the colors drained out of the world, leaving behind a newsreel frame or the impression of a cave, shadows sliding on its farther walls, changing, irregular, wet.
Dr. Pels listened again to the rasping, recorded voice, hooking his thumbs beneath his jaw, bracing his knuckles against his cheeks:
"I-- Did someone say he has a right to live? I-- There is no cosmic guarantee for this. Far from it! The only promise the universe makes and keeps is death ... I-- Who says that life must triumph? All evidence indicates the contrary! Everything that has risen from the primal slime has been beset and ultimately destroyed! Every link in the great chain of being attracts the nemesis which breaks it! Life feeds upon itself, is crushed by the inanimate! Why? Why not? I--
"... You are to blame. For existing. Look within yourselves and you will see the truth ... Regard the rocks of the desert! They breed not, nor do they harbor thoughts, desires. No living thing can compare to the crystal in its still perfection. I--
"... Talk not to me of the sacredness of life, nor its adaptability. For every adaptation there is a new, dark answer, and the echo shatters the utterer. Only the stillness is sacred. The absence of hearing evokes the mystic sound. I--
"... The gods erred in dumping their wastes. But you are to blame. For existing. This corner of the universe is polluted! From the stuff of divine garbage the disease of life was bred ... There is your sacredness! Quarantined between darkness and darkness, allowed to run its course. And everything that lives is disease to something other! We feed upon ourselves, are gone! Soon now, soon ... I--
"I-- Brothers! Envy the stone! It suffers not! Rejoice in untainted water and air and rock! Envy the crystal. Soon we shall be like them, perfect, still .
"Do not ask forgiveness, but slowness in the disposition that is to come--that you may savor the return to delicious peace! I-- I-- I--
"Pray, weep, burn ... That is all. I-- Go ... Go!"
Then he set it to replay and resumed his attitude. It was a troublesome emotion that he felt, not unlike the effects of Wagner, whom he kept to a minimum. But one more time ...
"How does this help us ... ?" he began, and then he smiled.
It did not really help. But it made him feel better.
A moment's respite, then.
Heidel von Hymack moved along the trail that wound its way up and over the shoulder of a rocky prominence. Pausing near its highest point, he looked back and down, across the fog-shrouded distance he had come. He blinked his eyes and rubbed his beard. His vague feelings of uneasiness had intensified. Something was wrong. He leaned back against the glass-slick rock and rested his hands on his staff. Yes, it was difficult to identify, but something had been altered in the world about him. It was more than a pre-storm tension. It was almost as if he were being sought, by someone he was not yet ready to meet.
Is she trying to tell me something? he wondered. Maybe I should hole up and find out. But that would take time, and I feel this need to keep moving. Ought to get out of here before the storm hits. Why do I keep looking back? I--
He ran his fingers through his hair and raked his teeth across his lower lip. A bit of sunlight leaked through a rift in the clouds and caused the mist about him to sparkle with momentary, dancing prisms. Eyes darting, forehead furrowed, he watched them for perhaps ten seconds, then turned away.
"Damn you!" he said. "Whoever you are ..."
He banged his staff against a rock, crossed over the ridge, sought a downward track.
He sat upon a stone and hunted. After a time, he rose and moved on, tramping among the hills and over the trackless, rock-strewn plains, there in the region of mists. As he walked, birds dipped and darted about him, appearing out of and vanishing back into the shifting curtain of fog.
Hunting, he climbed partway up the face of a steep stone hill, seated himself on a narrow ledge, withdrew a cigar, bit off its end, lit it. As he stared across the plain, a wind washed over it, and for a while it lay bare and bleak beneath his gaze. A spined lizard whose skin reproduced the shifting color display of a soap bubble's surface descended from a rock and came to share the ledge with him, fork-tongue darting heartred, yellow eyes fixed unblinking upon his face. It brushed against his hand and he stroked it.