Destiny Doll

  Christ, yes, I thought, a gentle sort of person. Lord save me from all these gentle, whining people.

  Sara said to me, "You buy any of this, captain?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Something happened to him. I don't know if this is it. He didn't walk away. He didn't make it under his own power."

  "Who is this friend of his?" asked Sara.

  "Not a who," I said. "A what."

  And, squatting there by the fire, I remembered the rush of beating wings I'd heard, flying through the upper darkness of this great abandoned building.

  "There is something here," said Tuck. "Certainly you must feel it."

  Faintly out of the darkness came a sound of ticking, a regular, orderly, rapid ticking that grew louder, seeming to draw closer. We faced around into the darkness from which the ticking came, Sara with the rifle at the ready, Tuck clutching the doll desperately against him, as if it might be some sort of fetish that would protect him from all harm.

  I saw the shape that went with the ticking before the others did.

  "Don't shoot!" I yelled. "It's Hoot."

  He came toward us, his many little feet twinkling in the firelight, ticking on the floor. He stopped when he saw all of us facing him, then came slowly in.

  "Informed I am," he said. "I knew him go and hurried back."

  "You what?" I yelled.

  "Your friend is go. He disappear from sense."

  "You mean you knew the instant he was gone? How could you?"

  "All of you," he said, "I carry in my mind. Even when I cannot see. And one is gone from out my mind and I think great tragedy, so I hurry back."

  "You say you heard him go," said Sara. "You mean just now?"

  "Just short ago," said Hoot.

  "Can you tell us where? Do you know what happened to him?"

  Hoot waved a tentacle wearily. "Cannot tell. Only know is gone. No use to seek for him."

  "You mean he isn't here. Not in this building?"

  "Not this edifice," said Hoot. "Not outside. Not on this planet, maybe. He is gone entire."

  Sara glanced at me. I shrugged.

  Tuck said, "Why is it so hard for you to believe a fact that you can't touch or see? Why must all mysteries have possible solutions? Why must you think only in their terms of physical laws? Is there no room outside your little minds for something more than that?"

  I should have clobbered him, I suppose, but right at that moment it didn't seem important to pay attention to a pipsqueak such as him.

  I said to Sara, "We can look. I don't think we'll find him, but we still could have a look."

  "I'd feel better if we did," she said. "It doesn't seem quite right not to even try."

  "You disbelieve this thing I tell you?" Hoot inquired. "I don't think we do," I said. "What you say most undoubtedly is true. But there is a certain loyalty in our race—it's a hard thing to explain. Even when we know there is no hope, we still go out to look. It's not logical, perhaps."

  "No logic," said Hoot, "assuredly and yet a ragged sense and admirable. I go and help you look."

  "There is no need to, Hoot."

  "You withhold me from sharing of your loyalty?"

  "Oh, all right, then. Come along."

  Sara said, "I'm going with you."

  "No, you're not," I said. "We need someone to watch the camp."

  "There is Tuck," she said.

  "You should know very well, Miss Foster," Tuck said, petulantly, "that he would not trust me to watch anything at all. Besides, it all is foolish. What this creature says is true. You won't find George, no matter where you look."

  EIGHT

  We had gone only a short distance into the interior of the building when Hoot said to me, "I came to carry news, but I did not divulge it, its import seeming trivial with the lamented absence of your companion. But perhaps you hear it now."

  "Go ahead," I said.

  "It concerns the seeds," said Hoot. "To this feeble intellect, great mystery is attached."

  "For the love of Christ," I said, "quit talking around in circles."

  "I improve upon mere talk," said Hoot. "I point it out to you. Please veer slightly with me."

  He started off at an angle and I veered slightly with him and we came to a heavy metal grating set into the floor. He pointed at it sternly with a tentacle. "Seeds down there," he said.

  "Well, what about it?"

  "Please observe," he said. "Illuminate the pit."

  I got down on my hands and knees and shone the flashlight down into the pit, bending down to see between the gratings until my face was pressed against the metal.

  The pit seemed huge. The beam of light did not reach the walls. Underneath the grating, seeds lay in a massive heap— many more of them, I was certain, than the ratlike creatures had carried in the day before.

  I looked for something that might explain the great importance Hoot attached to the pit, but I failed to find anything.

  I got up and flicked out the light. "I don't see anything too strange," I told him. "It's a cache of food. That is all it is. The rats carry the seeds and drop them through the grating.

  "Is no cache of food," Hoot contradicted me. "Is cache of permanent. I look. I stick my looker down into the space between the bars. I wiggle it around. I survey the well. I see that space is tight enclosed. Once seeds get in no way to get them out."

  "But it is dark down there."

  "Dark to you. Not dark to me. Can adjust the seeing. Can see to all sides of space. Can see through seeds to bottom. Can do more than simple eye. Can explore surface closely. No opening. No opening even closed. No way to get them out. Our little harvesters harvest seeds, but for something else."

  I had another look and there were tons of seeds down there.

  "Is not only storage place," Hoot grated at me. "There be several others."

  "What else?" I asked, irritated. "How many other things have you turned up?"

  "Is piles of worn-out commodities such as one from which you obtained the wood," he said. "Is marks upon the floor and walls where furnishings uprooted. Is place of reverence . . ."

  "You mean an altar?"

  "I know not of altar," he said. "Place of reverence. Smell of holy. And there be a door. It leads into the back."

  "Into the back of what?"

  "Into outdoors," he said.

  I yelled at him, "Why didn't you tell me this before?'

  "I tell you now," he said. "I hesitate before in respect of missing person."

  "Let's have a look at it."

  "But," said Hoot, "first we search more carefully for lost comrade. We comb, however hopelessly. ."

  "Hoot."

  "Yes, Mike."

  "You said he isn't here. You are sure he isn't here."

  "Sure, of course," he said. "Still we look for him."

  "No, we don't," I said, "Your word is good enough for me."

  He could see into a darkened bin and know that it was closed. He could do more than see. He didn't merely see; he knew. He carried each of us in his mind and one of us was gone. And that was good enough. When he said Smith wasn't here, I was more than willing to agree he wasn't.

  "I know not," said Hoot. "I would not have you . . ."

  "I do," I said. "Let us find that door."

  He turned about and went pattering off into the darkness and, adjusting the rifle on my shoulder, I followed close behind him. We were walking through an emptiness that boomed back at us at the slightest sound. I looked over my shoulder and saw the tiny gash of light that was the open door in front. It seemed to me that I caught a glimpse of someone moving at the edge of it, but could not be sure.

  We went on into emptiness and behind us the sliver of light grew smaller, while above us it seemed that I could feel the very presence of the looming space that went up to the roof. Finally Hoot stopped. I had not seen the wall, but it was there, just a few feet ahead of us. A thin crack of light appeared and grew wider. Hoot was pushing on the door, opening it. It was small. Less than
two feet wide and so low that I had to stoop to get through it.

  The red and yellow landscape stretched away before me. To either side the dark-red stone of the building made a fence. There were other trees, far off, but I could not see the tree that had been shooting at us. It was blocked off by the structure.

  "Can we get that door open again if we go out?" I asked.

  Still holding it open, Hoot sidled around and had a look at its outside panel. "Undoubted not," he said. "Constructed only to be opened from inside."

  I hunted for a small boulder, kicked it out of the ground and rolled it over to the door, wedging it tightly so the door would stay open.

  "Come along," I said. "We'll have a look. But be sure to stay behind me."

  I headed to my left, walking along the wall. I reached the corner of the building and peered out. The tree was there.

  It saw me or sensed me or somehow became aware of me the second I poked my head around the corner, and started shooting. Black dots detached themselves from it and came hurtling toward me, ballooning rapidly as they came.

  "Down!" I yelled to Hoot. "Get down!"

  I threw myself backwards and against the wall, huddled over the crouching Hoot, burying my face in my folded arms

  Out beyond me the seed pods thudded. Some of them apparently struck against the corner of the building. The seeds went whizzing, with dull whistling sounds. One struck me on the shoulder and another took me in the ribs and they did no damage but they stung like fury. Others slammed against the wall above us and went ricocheting off, howling as they spun.

  The first burst ended and I half stood up. Before I got straightened, the second burst came in and I threw myself on top of Hoot again. None of the seeds hit me solidly this time, but one grazed the back of my neck and it burned like fire.

  "Hoot," I yelled, "how far can you run?"

  "Scramble very rapidly," he said, "when materials at me are being hurled."

  "Then listen."

  "I hearken most attentively," said Hoot.

  "It's firing in bursts. When the next burst ends, when I yell, try to make it to the door. Keep close to the wall. Keep low. Are you headed in the right direction?"

  "In wrong direction," said Hoot. "I turn myself around."

  He twisted underneath me.

  Another salvo came in. Seeds peppered all around me. One nicked me in the leg.

  "Wait," I said to Hoot. "When you get in tell Miss Foster to get the packs on those hobbies and get them moving, We're getting out of here."

  Another burst of pods came storming in on us. The seeds rattled on the walls and skipped along the ground. One threw a spray of sand into my face, but this time none hit me.

  "Now!" I yelled. Bent low, I raced for the corner, the rifle in my hand, and intensity lever pushed to its final notch. A blizzard of seeds caught me. One banged me on the jaw, another caught me in the shin. I staggered and half went down, then caught myself and went plowing on. I wondered how Hoot was doing, but didn't have the time to look.

  Then I was at the corner of the building and there was the tree, perhaps three miles away—it was hard to judge the distance.

  I brought the rifle to my shoulder. What looked like black gnats were swarming from the tree, coming at me, but I took my time. I got my sight and then I pressed the trigger and twitched the rifle downward, sidewise in a slicing motion. The laser beam blinked for a moment, then was gone, and in that instant before the seeds struck, I threw myself flat upon the ground, trying to hold the rifle high so it didn't absorb the full impact of the fall.

  A million fists were hammering at my head and shoulders and I knew what had happened—some of the pods had struck the corner of the building and exploded, showering me with seeds.

  I struggled to my knees and looked toward the tree. It seemed to be reeling and, as I watched, began to topple. I wiped the dust out of my eyes and watched as it came farther and farther out of plumb. It fell slowly at first, reluctantly, as If it were fighting to stay erect. Then it picked up speed, coming down out of the sky, rushing toward the ground.

  I got to my feet and wiped the back of my neck, and the hand, when it came away, was bloody.

  The tree hit the ground and beneath me the earth bounced, as if it had been struck a mighty blow. Above the place where the tree had fallen a geyser of dust and other debris billowed up into the sky.

  I took a step to get turned around, headed back toward the door, and stumbled. My head ballooned and as it ballooned, was filled with fuzziness. I saw that Hoot stood to one side of the open door, but that the way through it was blocked by a perfect flood of the ratlike creatures. They were piling up over one another, as if a wide front of them, running hard, had converged upon the narrowness of the door and now were funneling through it like water through a high-pressure hose, driven on by the press of their frantic need to gather up the fallen seeds.

  I fell—no, I floated—down through an eternity of time and space. I knew that I was falling, but not only was I falling slowly, but as I fell the ground seemed to draw away from me, to surge downward, so that no matter how I fell it always was as far away, or farther, than it had been to start with. And finally there was no ground at all, for night had fallen as I fell, and now I was plunging down through an awful blackness that went on and on forever.

  After what seemed an endless time, the darkness went away and I opened my eyes, for it seemed that I had closed them as I fell into the darkness. I lay upon the ground and when I opened my eyes I found that I was looking up into a deep-blue sky in which the sun was rising.

  Hoot was standing to one side of me. The ratlike things were gone. The cloud of dust, slowly settling back to the ground, still stood above where the tree had fallen. To one side of me the red stone wall of the great building reared up into the sky. A heavy, brooding silence hung above the land.

  I rose to a sitting position and found that it took all the strength I had to lever up the top half of my body. The rifle lay to one side of me and I reached out and picked it up. It took no more than a single glance to see that it was broken. The shield of the tube was twisted out of shape and the tube itself had been knocked out of alignment. I dragged it to me and laid it across my lap. I don't know why I bothered; no man in his right mind would ever dare to fire that gun again and there was no way I could fix it.

  "Drink your fluids I have done," Hoot honked cheerfully, "and put them back again. I hope you have no anger at me."

  "Come again?" I croaked.

  "No need to come again," he hooted at me. "Done it is already."

  "What is done already?"

  "Your fluids I have drunk . . ."

  "Now wait just a goddamn minute," I said. "What is this fluid drinking?"

  "Filled you were with deadly substances," he said, "from being struck by seeds. Deadly to you, but deadly not at all to me."

  "So you drank my fluids?'

  "Is only thing to do," said Hoot. "Procedure is approved."

  "Lord love us," I said. "A walking, breathing dialysis contraption."

  "Your words I do not grab," he complained. "I empty you of fluids. I subtract the substances. I fill you up again. The biologic pump you have inside you scarcely missed a pump. But worry worry worry! I think I was too late. Apparently now I wasn't."

  I sat there for a long moment—for a long, long moment—and it was impossible. And yet I was alive, weak and drained of strength, but still alive. I thought back to how my head had ballooned and how I'd fallen slowly and there had been something very wrong with me, indeed. I had been hit by seeds before, but only glancing blows that had not broken skin. This time, however, there had been blood upon my hand when I wiped my neck.

  "Hoot," I said, "I guess I owe . . ."

  "No debt for you," he hooted happily. "I the one who pay the debt. My life you saved before. Now I pay you back. We all even now. I would not tell you only that I fear great sin I had committed, maybe. Perhaps against some belief you hold. Perhaps no wish to have body ta
mpered with. No need to tell you only for this reason. But you undismayed at what I do, so everything all right."

  I managed to get to my feet. The rifle fell from my lap and I kicked it to one side. The kick almost put me on my face again. I still was wobbly.

  Hoot watched me brightly with his eyed tentacles.

  "You carry me before," he said. "I cannot carry you. But if you lie down and fasten yourself securely to my body, I can drag you. Have much power in legs."

  I waved the suggestion off.

  "Get on with you," I said. "Lead the way. I'll make it."

  NINE

  Tuck tried to play the man. He and Sara got me hoisted up on Dobbin's back and then he insisted that Sara ride the second unladen hobby and that he lead the way on foot. So we went down the ramp and up the trail, with Tuck striding in the fore, still with the doll clutched against his chest, and with Hoot bringing up the rear.

  "I hope," Dobbin said to me, "you have failure to survive. I yet will dance upon your bones."

  "And the same to you," I said.

  It wasn't a very brilliant answer, but I wasn't at my best. I still was fairly shaky and it was about all that I could do to hang onto the saddle.

  The trail led up a short rise and when we reached the top of it, we could see the tree. It was several miles away and it was bigger, even at that distance, than I had imagined it would be. It had fallen squarely across the trail and the impact of its fall had shattered the trunk from its butt up almost half its length, as any hollow tree might shatter when it falls victim to the axe. Pouring out of the great rents in the wood were crawling, creeping things, gray and even from that distance, with a slimy look to them. There were great piles of them heaped along the fallen trunk and more were crawling out and others of them were crawling down the trail, humping in their haste. From them came a thin and reedy wailing that set my teeth on edge.

  Dobbin rocked nervously and whinnied with what might have been disgust or fright. "This you will regret," he shrilled at me. "No other things have ever dared to put hands upon a tree. Never in all time have the tenants of the tree been loosed upon the land."