“What do you feel for the humans who went the route the Infinites pointed out?”
Timothy hesitated for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Perhaps they had it coming to them. I would guess they asked for it. They turned their back on what the race had done.”
The voice said nothing. Timothy waited, then asked, “This is what you wanted to talk with me about? May I ask your interest?”
The voice said, “This is an inquiry into the purpose and the motive of the Infinites. We have questioned many others.”
“Other races that were victims of the Infinites?”
“Some of them were.”
“But are the Infinites still pursuing their missionary efforts?”
“Not for some time. We have segregated them on their planet. They are being held in quarantine while we proceed in this inquiry. You must recognize that while we here at the Center respect the free will of any people, we still must take some note of where a too-aggressive free will may lead.”
“The creatures that we termed killer monsters. What of them?”
“They were hired hands. Enforcers,” said the voice, “that the Infinites, in their arrogance, hired to carry out their wishes. The killers have not been segregated, but are being destroyed. Such an element cannot be tolerated. A few are still free, but we hunt them down. Your friend, Spike, destroyed one of the last of them.”
“I saw him do it,” Timothy said.
“It was the arrogance of the Infinites that brought our attention to them. There is, in this galaxy, no room for arrogance. Almost anything can be tolerated, but not arrogance.”
Again the silence.
“Is that all?” asked Timothy.
“For the moment,” said the room. “Later, we’ll talk further. You now are one of us. It is high time that we had a human here. Go back to your house and there you’ll find informational material that will tell you in some detail who we are and how we function. From time to time, we’ll call on you to consider certain matters with us.”
After a time Timothy rose from his chair and walked slowly to the door. Down on the street Hugo lounged against the car, waiting for him.
Timothy Evans, human, newest member of Galactic Center, walked down the steps to the waiting car.
11
Henry
The trail had been long and hard to puzzle out, but here was the end of it, and everyone was gone. On the rim of a cuplike valley, the traveler stood empty. Over the dished impression gouged into the earth hung a covering dome of sparkle. Henry knew instinctively that each of the sparkles in the dome was one incorporeal human.
The situation was puzzling. The ones he had been tracking had been here, rather recently, but they had left without a trace. As Enid had also left no trace.
The traveler was empty of the supplies that Horace had put in it. So, Henry told himself, their leaving had not been precipitant. The leaving had been planned; there had been time to collect their supplies and take them wherever they had gone.
The entire slope of the bowllike depression was strangely pitted, with a number of crude devices planted on the slope. A hurriedly constructed defense line, more than likely, but what had been here to defend against?
He found and identified the spoor of Emma, Horace and Timothy, and Spike’s scent as well. Also he found the abundant traces of many other beings. Humanlike footprints were pressed into the dust; examining them closely, he was convinced they were not human footprints.
Down on the floor of the bowl he came upon a rectangular impression where a building might have rested not too long before. Associated with it was a faint odor he had known long ago—the smell of Infinites.
The family was gone. Enid had disappeared, David was dead, and now the other three were missing. He was left alone in this far future place.
If only he could cut back along the time line to the moment when the three of them had first come upon this place—if he could do that, then it would be simple. But he knew it was impossible. Time could be traveled in quite freely but it could not be used in areas where interference with a sequence of events was possible. He could, in all reasonableness, recognize the need for such restriction; but when he sought to grasp the machinery of its operation, he could think of not a single principle that might apply. Was it possible, he asked himself, that the principles of the universe were, after all, based on simple ethics?
He floated, running all of it through his mind. He was without family or friends, engulfed in a world he did not know or like. He could go back to Hopkins Acre, but now it would be a lonely place, haunted by visions of the past, an acreage in which he would be lost. He could track down Corcoran, the single person who was left, but Corcoran was not family. He was no more than a stranger who had stumbled into Hopkins Acre.
He should be up there, he thought, with all those other glittering points of light; for better or for worse, he should be one of them. Long ago, through his obstinacy and pride, he had bungled that; he did not belong with them. Perhaps he was better off than they. He once had thought that and he might have been right.
Again he took up the chore of quartering in all directions, like a hunting dog, in the faint hope he might pick up the trail again. It was a hopeless task. The trail ended in the scooped-out valley.
12
Corcoran
Corcoran followed the path up from the meadow where the traveler had landed, coming to the crumbling wall that had once surrounded a long-forgotten city. He might be engaged in a wild goose chase, he warned himself. When he had stepped from the traveler, he’d stood and had a long look at the hilltop ruins, and there had been no tree. Yet he was sure now that he had not imagined it.
Probably he had to position himself correctly to see it. He had been able to see the traveler outside the wall of the Everest only when he looked for it at a certain angle. It might be the same way with the tree. He must stand in a certain place and look for it at a narrow angle before he could see it.
He shifted the shotgun from one hand to the other, resuming his climb. He reached the gate, half expecting to find the old man there, but he saw no one. Perhaps the old spaceman was off somewhere in the hills, talking to his trees and his rocks.
Corcoran picked his way through the rubble and came into the city, finding the path that he and David had followed. Still there was no tree.
He continued making his way through the tangled ruins, working up the slope.
On the hilltop, he glimpsed a wavering in the sky and when he took another step he saw the tree—that incredible, massive tree that soared high into the sky. When he took another step, the tree came clearer and he saw the staircase that wound its way around it.
Sobbing in his effort, he plunged up the hill toward it. Stay there, he pleaded with it, stay there, do not go away.
It stayed there, assuming more reality as he clambered up the hill to reach it. Finally he collapsed at the foot of it, gasping from the physical effort of running up the hill. He put out his hand and laid the palm against the bark, which was rough and solid, as real as any tree, no different from any other tree except for its height and girth.
The stairs, he saw, were constructed of solid metal and had, as well, an outside railing.
He rose from the ground and moved toward the stairs, then halted and sat down again. Not, he told himself, until I have my breath back, not until I’m ready. He laid the gun on the ground and slipped the rucksack off his shoulder. Opening it, he checked its contents—food, a canteen of water, a heavy jacket, a blanket for extra warmth, and a length of rope he could use to tie himself to the stairs if he should have to spend the night on them.
He repacked the sack and leaned back against the tree. Not until I’m ready, he insisted to himself. Down the slope lay the ruins and below them the valley where he and David had walked a path to reach a tiny town.
Fifteen minutes later he rose, slipped into the rucksack, picked up the gun, and started up the staircase. The climbing was not difficult. The tr
eads were at proper intervals, and the rail was stout and sturdy, helping him along and giving him a feeling of security.
He did not look down or back until he was forced to rest. Then he peered through the railing, and was surprised at the distance he had climbed. He had to crane his head out between the railing supports to see the ruins that lay at the base of the tree. From his height, they appeared to be no more than a huddle of gray stone. The broken wall that ran around them showed as a thin and jagged line. Beyond the ruins lay a green tangle of rugged hills and ridges with no break showing in them except the occasional glint of rivers that ran in valleys between the hills. Looking upward along the tree trunk, he could see no end to it. It speared upward until it disappeared in the blueness of the sky.
He climbed again. When he stopped the second time to rest, he found with some surprise that he could not make out the ruins that lay at the base of the tree. The rugged hills that stretched away in all directions no longer showed distinct lines of elevation. The bole of the tree had shrunken to some extent, although it was still of much greater girth than even the largest ordinary trees.
He must, he estimated, be at least three miles above the surface. That was impossible; no man could climb to such a height with only two stops for rest. And he had detected no drop in temperature or noticeable change in the density of the air. More than the size of the tree seemed to be beyond all rules he knew.
He had been debating whether to continue the climb, wondering what he was trying to prove and what he expected to find. But these mysterious effects surrounding the tree decided him. He must continue. Somewhere up there, he told himself, there must be an answer to the puzzle of the tree. He had come this far and he could not stop now. He would always wonder what he had missed by not going to the top.
The sun was only an hour above the horizon when he took up the climb again, and below him the land lay in darkness except for one high ridge. Some time later, he realized he had forgotten the gun he had rested butt down on one of the steps. But he did not need the gun and felt no need to return for it. He went on climbing, finding that the going was easier now, unhampered by its weight. As he climbed, the sun went down and dusk came on—not a blue dusk such as he was accustomed to, but a gray one. Soon, he knew, he would have to stop, tie himself securely to the stairs with the length of rope he’d brought, have something to eat, and try to sleep. He was fairly sure, however, that he would get but little sleep.
As he climbed, he was still trying to consider the puzzle of the tree, the stairs, and the mysterious forces that somehow seemed to prevent normal fatigue on his part and to hold the atmospheric pressure constant around him. Calm reason should tell him that there could be no such tree as this and no staircase that rose around it for miles into the air, circling around and around to nowhere.
But there was such a tree, though he seemed to be the only one who could see it, using the strange vision he had developed after the accident that should have killed him. David had seen no tree, and the old man, who seemed much concerned with trees, had not mentioned it. Surely if anyone else had seen it, the fact of its existence would be common knowledge, a wonder to be advertised worldwide and much talked about.
Thinking of all this, he lost some of his concentration and did not pay enough attention to his climbing. His toe caught the edge of a step, and he stumbled. Falling, he reached out a desperate hand to catch the rail …
Something seemed to stitch across his consciousness, like a flash of lightning striking. Everything went black. Then it was gone …
There was no rail. He scrabbled wildly to catch hold of the stairs so he would not go tumbling down. There wasn’t any stair; he lay upon a flatness.
Puzzled and frightened, he levered up the forepart of his body from the flatness. All he saw was the flatness and a grayness. The tree and its encircling stairs were nowhere to be seen.
He rose to his knees and looked around him and still all he saw was gray flatness—gray fog swirling over a gray, flat ground. Except there was no swirling; there seemed to be no fog. He could see where he was; there was nothing to stop his seeing, but there was nothing to be seen.
Carefully, he rose to his feet. In front of him, a short distance away, was what seemed to be a line running across the gray land. He walked toward it. When he reached it, he saw that it was a road that was only a slightly different shade of gray from the land on which it lay. It ran in either direction from where he stood and was arrow-straight. In the center of it were two parallel darker streaks that had the look of trolley tracks, something that he recalled from his earliest childhood. To confirm the nature of the tracks, a trolley of very primitive design came out of the distant grayness and bore down upon him. It carried on its top a striped awning and, despite its rickety appearance, it made no sound at all. As it approached him, he stepped out of its way and it went running past him; but after going only a short distance, it came to a sliding halt and then reversed itself. When it reached him, it stopped. Without even considering that he should do otherwise, he clambered aboard and took a seat.
There was no question that the trolley was taking him to an unknown destination, but it was better, he thought, to be proceeding toward an unknown place than to stay where there was nothing to be seen but an unending grayness. Even riding on the trolley, the grayness still persisted. There was nothing to be seen, but in a little while he saw, some distance off, a cubicle of some kind and people moving about. Tables and chairs stood in the space between the cubicle and the trolley track, although some of the tables and chairs were partially obscured by a filmy cloud that was spangled by many points of light.
The trolley moved at a stately and sedate pace down the rails and when it came closer he saw that two of the people had seen its approach and were staring at it. One of the people seemed familiar to him and a moment later, recognition of the man burst suddenly upon him. Not waiting for the trolley to come to a halt, Corcoran leaped out of it and went running down the road.
“Tom!” he shouted. “Thank God, man, it’s you. What are you doing here?”
He came up to Boone and grasped him by the shoulders. “I went hunting you,” he said. “Finally I had word about you and …”
“Simmer down,” said Boone. “Everything’s all right. You remember Enid, don’t you?”
Corcoran looked at the woman standing by Boone’s side. “Why, of course, I do.”
Enid held out her hand to him. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Corcoran. This is a far cry, isn’t it, from Hopkins Acre?”
“It surely is,” Corcoran agreed.
“And here is Wolf,” said Boone. “I guess you don’t know Wolf.”
Corcoran looked where Boone was pointing and saw the gray wolf grinning at him.
“Not Wolf, perhaps,” he said. “But I saw some of his kinsmen back in that place where you killed the monster.”
“I did not kill the monster,” Boone told him. “It was the bull that killed the monster; then I shot the bull.”
Corcoran shook his head. “It seems I don’t know what is going on.”
“Neither do we,” Enid told him. “We’re still trying to get it ciphered out.”
“Let’s sit down at this table here,” said Boone. “From all the banging and the clatter that is coming from the cube, it would seem that the robot who runs this wayside rest is busy with a meal.”
As the three headed for the table, Horseface came bumbling out of the fogginess of the galactic chart and made his way toward them.
“The chart,” he told Boone, “is making its way back into the chest with no help from me. Which is a thing of luck, for I am sure, had I essayed the chore, I would have bungled it. And who, may I inquire, is this personage who has joined our party?”
Boone said to Corcoran, “Meet our friend Horseface.”
Horseface rumbled at him, “I am pleased to meet you, sir.”
“My name is Jay Corcoran,” Corcoran told him. “I’m a longtime friend of Boone.”
“Well,” said Horseface, “we are all together and safely back at base. I don’t mind saying I am glad our force is augmented by this friend of Boone. And here is Wolf. And The Hat.”
The Hat was sitting at the table, erect in his chair, no longer slumped over. His hat was still pulled across his face, if he had a face.
Looking more closely at him, Boone observed that he was somewhat rumpled, apparently from Wolf’s play. Here and there, toothmarks showed.
The robot came up to the table with a tray balanced on its head. “I have naught to offer you,” he said, “but pig hocks and sauerkraut. I trust you can get along with that. For the carnivore, I have a plate of hocks without the kraut. I mistrust that he would relish the kraut.”
“He’ll eat anything that is of animal origin,” said Boone. “But I am sure you are correct about the kraut.”
Enid, sitting next to Boone, put her hand on his arm.
“Do you like kraut?” she asked.
“I like it well enough,” he answered. “I have learned to eat almost anything.”
“Horace was the one who really liked his hocks and kraut,” said Enid. “He always made a pig of himself when we had them. He got grease up to his elbows.”
Corcoran changed the subject. “Can anyone tell me where we are? What is this place?”
“The Hat said it’s the Highway of Eternity,” said Boone.
“He must have been kidding you.”
“I don’t think so. He seems to know. If he says it’s the Highway of Eternity, I’ll go along with him.”
“You stepped around one of your corners to get here?”
“That I did—when my subconscious worked up a dream to scare me enough. Wolf came along with me. And what about you? You didn’t step around a corner.”
“No. I climbed a tree—a big tree with a staircase winding around it. What happened then, I’m not quite sure.”