“I’m a painter,” Tibor said simply.
“Then you’re valuable,” the lizard said. “Listen, inc. Did you know that someone’s following you?”
“What?” Tibor said, instantly tense and alert. “Who?” he demanded.
“Another actual human,” the lizard said. “But on a machine with two big wheels, propelled by a chain-linked gear system, pedally operated. A bykel, I think it’s called.”
“Bicycle,” Tibor said.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Can you hide me?” Tibor asked, and then thought, They’re making it up; they just want to get me into their settlement where they can absorb some of my luck.
“Sure we can hide you,” all three lizards said simultaneously.
“On the other hand,” Tibor said, “a human would not kill another human.” But he knew it was untrue; plenty of humans killed and injured other humans; after all, the giant Smash had been brought on by humans.
The three lizards huddled, conferring. Then, abruptly, they stood up, turned to face Tibor. “Do you have any metal money?” Jackson asked, in a kind of deliberately careless, offhand way.
“None,” Tibor said cautiously. This also was untrue; he had an alloy fifty-cent piece in a secret crevasse of his car.
“I ask that,” Jackson said, “because we have a dog we would be willing to sell you.”
“A what?” Tibor said.
“Dog.” Potter and Jackson trooped off, disappearing into the darkness; evidently their vision was enormously improved over human standards.
“Have you never seen a dog?” the remaining lizard asked.
“Yes, but it was a long time ago,” Tibor answered, lying again.
The lizard said, “A dog, your dog, would drive off the other human—that is, if you gave him the proper command. They have to be trained, of course; they’re lower on the evolutionary scale as compared to humans and we alike. They’re not like those double-domed dogs people bred before the Smash.”
Tibor said, “Would a dog be able to find the man I am looking for?”
“What man?”
Tibor showed it the blotched photograph of Carleton Lufteufel.
“You want him?” the lizard said, studying the face. “Is he a neat guy?”
“I can’t say,” Tibor said obliquely.
The lizard handed him back the photograph. “Is there a reward?”
Tibor pondered. “A fifty-cent piece,” he said.
“Really?” The lizard fluffed up his scales excitedly. “Payable dead or alive?”
“He can’t die,” Tibor said.
“Everyone dies.”
“He will not die.”
“Is he—supernatural?”
“Yes.” Tibor nodded.
“I have never seen a supernatural,” the lizard declared; he shook his head firmly. “Not in my entire life.”
“You have a religion, do you?”
“Yes. We worship the dawn.”
“Quaint,” Tibor said.
“When the sun comes,” the lizard said, “evil vanishes from the world. Do you believe there’s life on the sun?”
“It’s too hot,” Tibor said.
“But they could be made out of diamonds.”
Tibor said, “Nothing can live on the sun.”
“How fast does the sun move?”
“About a million miles per hour.”
“It’s bigger than it looks, isn’t it?” The lizard peered at him.
“Much bigger. Almost a billion miles in circumference.”
“Have you been there?” the lizard asked.
“I said,” Tibor said, “no life can exist on the sun. Anyhow, the surface is melted; there wouldn’t be any place to stand.” Who is it following me? he wondered. “A highwayman?” he asked aloud. “The human lurking me—what’s he look like?”
“Young,” the lizard said.
“Pete Sands,” Tibor said flatly.
The two other lizards emerged from the darkness; Potter held a great gray animal who whined passionately when it saw Tibor—a whine of love. Tibor studied it; the dog studied him in return.
“Toby likes you,” Jackson said.
“I would like a dog very much,” Tibor said yearningly. It would be his friend, the way Tom Swift And His Electric Magic Carpet was to Pete. A deep and strange feeling welled up in him, a hope. “Wow,” he said. He sent his front extensors out to grapple gently at the quivering brown mop of fur, the glorious tail wagger. “But are you willing to part with such a fine—”
Jackson said brusquely, “Humans must be protected. It is the law. We knew this from the moment of our births.”
“So they can repopulate back,” Potter said. “With their intact genes.”
“What’s a gene?” Tibor asked.
Potter gestured. “You know. An ingredient in masculine sperm.”
“What’s sperm?” Tibor asked.
They all laughed, but, shyly, did not answer.
“What does this dog eat?” Tibor asked, then.
“Anything,” Jackson said. “He can forage. He is reliant.”
“How long will he live?”
“Oh, probably two to three hundred years.”
Tibor said, “Then he will outlive me.” For some reason this depressed him; all at once he felt weak and cold. I shouldn’t feel this way, he reasoned with himself. Already brought down by thoughts of separation. After all, I’m a human being. At least these lizards think I am; I’m good enough for them. I should feel strength and pride, he thought, and not envision ahead already that terrible end of friendships, for us all.
Suddenly the three lizards whipped about, peering into the darkness, their bodies straining against or toward something invisible.
“What is it?” Tibor said; again he clutched at the pistol concealed on his person.
“Bugs,” Potter said laconically.
“The dumb bastards.” Jackson said.
Bugs, Tibor thought. How horrible. He had heard of them many times, them and their multifaceted eyes, their gleaming shells—a weird conglomeration of unhuman parts. And to think that they bred their way out of mammals, he thought, and in such a few short years. Speeded up frantically by the radiation. We’re related to them and they stink. They offend the world. And surely they offend God.
“What are you doing there?” a metallic voice buzzed. Tibor saw them moving, upright; they lurched toward the light. “Lizzys,” the bug said scathingly. “And—Frebis forbid!—an inc.”
Five bugs stood by the light now, warming their—Christ, Tibor thought. Warming their brittle bodies; if a bug was hit directly in the breadbasket, it broke in half. So much for bugs: they depended mainly on their facile tongues to get them what they wanted. Bugs talked their way out of a good deal of trouble; they were the lie-spinners of Earth.
These were unarmed. As near as he could make out. And, standing by his cart, the three lizards relaxed; their fear had departed.
“Hey, bug,” Jackson said, nodding toward one of the chitinshelled creatures. “How come you have lungs? Where’d you get them? Vermin shouldn’t have lungs. It’s against nature.”
Potter said, “We ought to cook us up a little bug soup.”
Incredulous, Tibor said, “You mean you eat them?”
“Right,” the third lizard said, his arms folded, leaning against Tibor’s cart. “When times are tough … they taste awful.”
“You rotting obnoxious freak,” one bug said. They did not seem frightened; they made no move in the direction of escape.
“Does your tail come off?” another bug said to the three lizards.
“What tail?” another bug said. “That’s its pecker hanging down behind it. Lizards’ peckers stick out behind, not in front.”
The bugs laughed coarsely.
“I saw this lizard once,” a bug declared, “who had an erection—and he got scared off, I guess her husband came back, and he tried to run, and all the husband had to do was tromp down with his foot
on that great hard pecker sticking out behind.” All the bugs laughed; they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
“What happened after he tromped down on it?” a bug asked. “Did it come off then?”
“It came off,” the other bug continued, “and it lay there twitching and flopping in the dirt until sundown.”
Potter said, “Let’s take these insects down a peg or two. Listen to them—they’re uppity.” He glanced around him, apparently seeking something to use as a weapon. He took his time and the bugs did not move; they seemed relaxed and confident.
And now Tibor saw why. The bugs had not ventured out alone. A score of runners had accompanied them.
NINE
This was not his first encounter with runners. Back in Charlottesville, runners came and went unmolested. Wherever runners could be found, a kind of peace prevailed, an idiomatic tranquility, engendered by the benign habits of the runners themselves.
The good-natured little faces peered up at Tibor. The creatures were not over four feet high. Fat and round, covered with thick pelts … beady eyes, quivering noses—and great kangaroo legs.
Amazing, these swift evolutionary entelechies, cast forth from what were essentially poisons. So many and so fast; so many immediate kinds. Nature, striving to overcome the filth of the war: the toxins.
“Clearness be with you,” the runners said, virtually in unison. Their whiskers twitched. “How come you don’t have any arms or legs? You’re very strange as a lifeform.”
“The war,” Tibor said vaguely, resenting the pushiness of the runners.
“Did you know your cart is malfunctioning?” the runners asked.
“No,” he said, taken by surprise. “Doesn’t it run? It got me this far; I mean—” Panic flew up inside him.
“There is an autofac near here that still works a little,” the largest of the runners said. “It can’t do very much—not like it could in olden times. But it could probably replace the wheel bearings in your cart that are running dry. And the cost is not all that great.”
“Oh yes,” Tibor said. “The wheel bearings. They probably are running dry.” He lifted one wheel off the ground and spun it noisily. “You’re right,” he admitted. “Where’s the autofac?”
“A few miles north of here,” the smallest of the runners said. “Follow me.” The other runners scampered into a group that eased itself off. “Or rather,” the runner amended, “follow us. Hey, are you guys coming along, too?”
“Sure,” the body of runners said, whiskers twitching. They obviously did not want to miss out on any of the action.
To Potter and Jackson, Tibor said, “Can I trust them?” He held in his mind, at this moment, a nebulous fear: Suppose the runners led him off to some desolate region, then killed him and stole his cart? It seemed a distinct possibility, the times being what they were.
Potter said, “You can trust them. They’re harmless. Which is more than you can say for these damn bugs.” He kicked at a cluster of bugs; they scuttled away, avoiding his scaly foot.
“An autofac, an autofac,” the runners chanted happily as they raced off. Tibor cautiously followed. “We’re going to the autofac and get the limbless man a cheap repair. It’s guaranteed for a thousand years or a million miles; whichever comes first.” Giggling to themselves, the runners disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, beckoning Tibor genially on.
“Catch you coming back,” Jackson yelled after Tibor. “Make sure you get a written guarantee, just to be safe.”
“You mean,” Tibor said, “that I can expect tarrididdle from an autofac?” It must be a Russian one, he thought. The Russian autofacs were Byzantine in their convolutions of intellect. They seemed for the most part to be excellently built, however. If this one still functioned at all, it could undoubtedly repair his dryrunning wheel bearings.
He wondered how much it would charge.
They reached the autofac at dawn. Brilliantly colored clouds, like the fingerpaintings of a baby, stretched across the sky. Birds or quasi-birds chirped in the weedy bushes growing on all sides of the runners’ firepath.
“It’s around here somewhere,” Earl, the leader of the runners, said as he halted; his name, stitched in red thread on the bosom of his worksuit, declared itself to Tibor. “Wait; let me think.” He pondered at length.
“How about a bite to eat?” a runner asked Earl.
“We can get something from the autofac,” Earl said, nodding his shaggy head wisely. “Come on, inc.” He jerked an abrupt arm motion at Tibor. During the night, the click-clacking of the dry wheel bearings had become hideously loud; the assembly would not function much longer. “We make a right turn here,” Earl said, advancing toward a yarrow thicket, “then a sharp left.” Only his tail could be seen as he struggled into the stiff brush of the thicket “Here’s the entrance!” he called presently, and waved Tibor to follow him.
“Will it cost very much?” Tibor said apprehensively.
“Won’t cost,” Earl said, thrashing about in the shrubbery a short distance ahead of Tibor. “Nobody comes this way anymore; it’s perishing. It’ll be glad to see us. These things, they have emotions, too. Of sorts.”
An opening appeared ahead of Tibor as he floundered about in his unwieldy cart. A weedless place, as free of grass as if it had been shaved. In the center of the open place he could make out a flat, large disc, evidently metal; clamped shut, it greeted him soundlessly, confronting him with its meaningful presence. Yes, he thought, it’s a Russian autofac that landed here in seed form from an orbiting satellite. Probably in the last days of the war, during which the enemy tried everything.
“Hi,” he said to the autofac.
A shiver passed through the runners. “Don’t talk to it like that,” Earl said, nervously. “Have more respect; this thing can kill us all.”
“Greetings,” Tibor said.
“If you’re pompous or boorish,” Earl said quietly, “it’ll kill us.” His tone was patient. As if, Tibor thought, he’s addressing a child. And perhaps that is what I am, vis-à-vis this construct: a baby who knows no better. This thing, after all, is no natural mutant. It was made.
“My friend,” Tibor said to the autofac. “Can you help me?”
Earl groaned.
“You call it, then,” Tibor said to him, feeling irritated. How many verbal rituals had to surround the summoning of the intelligence of this wartime human construct? Evidently a very large number. “Look,” he said to Earl, and also to the autofac, “I need its help but I’m not going to fall in a groveling heap and pray it to install new wheel bearings in my cart. It’s not worth it.” The hell with it, he thought. These are the entities which brought our race down; these did us in.
“Mighty autofac,” Earl said sonorously. “We pray for your good assistance. This wretched armless/legless man cannot complete his journey without your beneficent assistance. Could you take a moment to examine his vehicle? The right front wheel bearings have failed him in his hour of need.” He paused, listening intently, his doglike head cocked.
“Here it comes,” the smallest of the runners said in a rapt, appreciative tone of voice; he seemed awed.
The lid of the autofac slid back. A lift from beneath the entrance thrust up a tall metal stalk, on the end of which a bullhorn could be seen. The bullhorn swiveled, then lined itself up so that it directly faced Tibor.
“You are pregnant, are you?” the bullhorn brayed. “I can supply you with ancient cures: arsenic, iron rust, water in which the dead have been immersed, mule’s kidneys, the froth from the mouth of a camel—which do you prefer?”
“No,” Earl said. “He’s not pregnant. He has a wheel bearing that’s running dry. Try to pay attention, sir.”
“I’ll not be talked to like that,” the autofac said. A second rod jutted up, now. It appeared to have a gas nozzle mounted at ground level. “You must die,” the autofac said, and emitted several meager puffs of gray smoke. The runners retreated. “I require great amounts of freczibble …??
? The dour sounds emitted by the autofac faded into an indistinct mass of noise; something in the speech circuit had failed to function. The two vertical rods whipped back and forth in agitation, emitted a little more gas, harmlessly, then became inert. A curl of black smoke ascended from the entranceway of the autofac, then a whine. Of gear teeth, Tibor decided.
To Earl, Tibor said, “Why is it so hostile?”
Immediately coarse clouds of black issued forth from the underground reality which was the autofac. “I’m not hostile!” the bullhorn honked with wrath. “You goddamn lying son of a bitch.” A hiss, like steam released in an emergency overload, and then a huge crashing roar, as if a ton of garbage-can lids had been upset by raccoons. Then—silence.
“I think you killed it,” the smallest of the runners said to Earl.
“Christ,” Earl said, with disgust. “Well, it probably couldn’t have helped you anyhow.” His voice quavered, then. “It would appear that I have screwed everything up. I wonder what we do now.”
Tibor said, “I’ll continue on my way.” He flicked the cow with a manual extensor; the cow mooed, grunted, and slowly resumed its march, back in the direction from which they had come.
“Wait,” Earl said, raising a furred hand. “Let’s try once more.” He searched in his tunic, and brought forth a notepad and a ballpoint pen of prewar vintage. “We’ll submit our request in writing, like they used to do. We’ll just drop it down into the hole. And if that don’t work, we’ll give up.” He painfully, slowly scribbled on the notepad, then tore the top page off, and walked slowly toward the inert entrance to the subsurface autofac.
“Once warned twice burned,” the smallest of the runners piped.
“Forget it,” Tibor said to the runners; again he nudged the cow electronically, and he and she moved off, groaningly, the dry wheel bearings of his cart clacking noisily.
“The trouble may have existed in the bullhorn,” Earl said, still trying to knit the situation together. “If we bypass that—”