The Creator and Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  In the minds of the four who looked, however, there was no shred of question that here before them lay the place that had been sought, in a more or less haphazard fashion, for a hundred thousand years. It was a place. One hesitated to call it a city, although it probably was a city. It was a place of living and of learning and of working and it had many buildings, but the buildings had been made a part of the landscape and did not outrage the eye with their grossness or their disregard for the land they stood upon. There was greatness about the place-not the greatness of gigantic stones heaped on one another, nor the greatness of a bold and overwhelming architecture, nor even the greatness of indestructibility. For there was no massiveness of structure and the architecture seemed quite ordinary, and some of the buildings had fallen into disrepair and others were weathered into a mellowness that blended with the trees and grass of the hills on which they stood.

  Still, there was a greatness in them, the greatness of humility and purpose and the greatness, too, of well-ordered life. Looking at them, one knew that he had been wrong in thinking this a city-that this was no city, but an extensive village, with all the connotations that were in the word.

  But most of all there was humanness, the subtle touch that marked the buildings as those that had been planned by human minds and raised by human hands. You could not put your finger upon any single thing and say, this thing is human, for any one thing you put your finger on might have been built or achieved by another race. But when all those single things were rolled into the whole concept there could be no doubt that it was a human village.

  Sentient beings had hunted for this place, had sought the clue that might lead them to the vanished segment of the race, and when they failed, some of.them had doubted there had been such a place, with the records that told of it often in dispute. There were those, too, who had said that it mattered little whether you found the missing fragment or not, since little that was of any value would come from a race so insignificant as the human race. What were the humans? they would ask you and would answer before you had a chance to speak. Gadgeteers, they said, gadgeteers who were singularly unstable. Great on gadgets, they would say, but with very little real intelligence. It was, they would point out, only by the slightest margin of intelligence that they were ever accepted into the galactic brotherhood. And, these detractors would remind you, they had not improved much since. Still marvelous gadgeteers, of course, but strictly third-rate citizens who now quite rightly had been relegated to the backwash of the empire.

  The place had been sought, and there had been many failures. It had been sought, but not consistently, for there were matters of much greater import than finding it. It was simply an amusing piece of galactic history, or myth, if you would rather. As a project, its discovery had never rated very high.

  But here it was, spread out below the high ridge on which the ship had landed, and if any of them wondered why it had not been found before, there was a simple answer-there were just too many stars; you could not search them all.

  "This is it," said the Dog, speaking in his mind, and he looked slantwise at the Human, wondering what the Human might be thinking, for, of all of them, the finding of this place must mean the most to him.

  "I am glad we found it," said the Dog, speaking directly to the Human, and the Human caught the nuances of the thought, the closeness of the Dog and his great compassion and his brotherhood.

  "Now we shall know," the Spider said, and each of them knew, without actually saying so, that now they'd know if these humans were any different from the other humans, or if they were just the same old humdrum race.

  "They were mutants," said the Globe, "or they were supposed to be."

  The Human stood there, saying nothing, just looking at the place. "If we'd tried to find it," said the Dog, "we never would have done it."

  "We can't spend much time," the Spider told them. "Just a quick survey, then there's this other business."

  "The point is," said the Globe, "we know now that it exists and where it is. They will send experts out to investigate."

  "We stumbled on it," said the Human, half in wonderment. "We just stumbled on it."

  The Spider made a thought that sounded like a chuckle and the Human said no more.

  "It's deserted," said the Globe. "They have run away again."

  "They may be decadent," said the Spider. "We may find what's left of them huddled in some corner, wondering what it's all about, loaded down with legends and with crazy superstitions."

  "I don't think so," said the Dog.

  "We can't spend much time," the Spider said again.

  "We should spend no time at all," the Globe told them. "We were not sent out to find this place. We have no business letting it delay us."

  "Since we've found it," said the Dog, "it would be a shame to go away and leave it, just like that."

  "Then let's get at it," said the Spider. "Let's break out the robots and the ground car."

  "If you don't mind," the Human said, "I think that I will walk. The rest of you go ahead. I'll just walk down and take a look around." "I'll go with you," said the Dog.

  "I thank you," said the Human, "but there really is no need." So they let him go alone.

  The three of them stayed on the ridge top and watched him walk down the hill toward the silent buildings.

  Then they went to activate the robots.

  The sun was setting when they returned, and the Human was waiting for them, squatting on the ridge, staring at the village.

  He did not ask them what they had found. It was almost as if he knew, although he could not have found the answer by himself, just walking around.

  They told him.

  The Dog was kind about it. "It's strange," he said. "There is no evidence of any great development. No hint of anything unusual. In fact, you might guess that they had retrogressed. There are no great engines, no hint of any mechanical ability."

  "There are gadgets," said the Human. "Gadgets of comfort and convenience. That is all I saw."

  "That is all there is," the Spider said.

  "There are no humans," said the Globe. "No life of any kind. No intelligence."

  "The experts," said the Dog, "may find something when they come."

  "I doubt it," said the Spider.

  The Human turned his head away from the village and looked at his three companions. The Dog was sorry, of course, that they had found so little, sorry that the little they had found had been so negative. The Dog was sorry because he still held within himself some measure of racial memory and of loyalty. The old associations with the human race had been wiped away millennia ago, but the heritage still held, the old heritage of sympathy with and for the being that had walked with his ancestors so understandingly.

  The Spider was almost pleased about it, pleased that he had found no evidence of greatness, that this last vestige of vanity that might be held by humans now would be dashed forever and the race must now slink back into its corner and stay there, watching with furtive eyes the greatness of the Spiders and the other races.

  The Globe didn't care. As he floated there, at head level with the Spider and the Dog, it meant little to him whether humans might be proud or humble. Nothing mattered to the Globe except that certain plans went forward, that certains goals were reached, that progress could be measured. Already the Globe had written off this village, already he had erased the story of the mutant humans as a factor that might affect progress, one way or another.

  "I think," the Human said, "that I will stay out here for a while. That is, if you don't mind."

  "We don't mind," the Globe told him.

  "It will be getting dark," the Spider said.

  "There'll be stars," the Human said. "There may even be a moon. Did you notice if there was a moon?"

  "No," the Spider said.

  "We'll be leaving soon," the Dog said to the Human. "I will come out and tell you when we have to leave."

  There were stars, of course. They came out when
the last flush of the sun still flamed along the west. First there were but a few of the brighter ones and then there were more, and finally the entire heaven was a network of unfamiliar stars. But there was no moon. Or, if there was one, it did not show itself.

  Chill crept across the ridge and the Human found some sticks of wood lying about, dead branches and shriveled bushes and other wood that looked as if it might at one time have been milled and worked, and built himself a fire. It was a small fire but it flamed brightly in the darkness, and he huddled close against it, more for its companionship than for any heat it gave.

  He sat beside it and looked down upon the village and told himself there was something wrong. The greatness of the human race, he told himself, could not have gone so utterly to seed. He was lonely, lonely with a throat-aching loneliness that was more than the loneliness of an alien planet and a chilly ridge and unfamiliar stars. He was lonely for the hope that once had glowed so brightly, for the promise that had gone like dust into nothingness before a morning wind, for a race that huddled in its gadgetry in the backwash of the empire.

  Not an empire of humanity, but an empire of Globes and Spiders, of Dogs and other things for which there was scarcely a description.

  There was more to the human race than gadgetry. There was destiny somewhere and the gadgetry was simply the means to bridge the time until that destiny should become apparent. In a fight for survival, he told himself, gadgetry might be the expedient, but it could not be the answer; it could not be the sum total, the final jotting down of any group of beings.

  The Dog came and stood beside him without saying anything. He simply stood there and looked down with the Human at the quiet village that had been quiet so long, and the firelight flamed along his coat, and he was a thing of beauty with a certain inherent wildness still existing in him.

  Finally the Dog broke the silence that hung above the world and seemed a part of it.

  "The fire is nice," he said. "I seldom have a fire."

  "The fire was first," the Human said. "The first step up. Fire is a symbol to me."

  "I have symbols, too," the Dog said, gravely. "Even the Spider has some symbols. But the Globe has none."

  "I feel sorry for the Globe," the Human said.

  "Don't let your pity wear you down," the Dog told him. "The Globe feels sorry for you. He is sorry for all of us, for everything that is not a Globe."

  "Once my people were sorry like that, too," the Human said. "But not any more."

  "It's time to go," the Dog said. "I know you would like to stay, but…"

  "I am staying," said the Human.

  "You can't stay," the Dog told him.

  "I am staying," the Human said. "I am just a Human and you can get along without me."

  "I thought you would be staying," said the Dog. "Do you want me to go back and get your stuff?"

  "If you would be so kind," the Human said. "I'd not like to go myself."

  "The Globe will be angry," said the Dog.

  "I know it."

  "You will be demoted," said the Dog. "It will be a long time before you're allowed to go on a first class run again."

  "I know all that."

  "The Spider will say that all humans are crazy. He will say it in a very nasty way."

  "I don't care," the Human said. "Somehow, I don't care."

  "All right, then," said the Dog. "I will go and get your stuff. There are some books and your clothes and that little trunk of yours." "And food," the Human said.

  "Yes," declared the Dog. "I would not have forgotten food."

  After the ship was gone the Human picked up the bundles the Dog had brought, and, in addition to all the Human's food, the Human saw that the Dog had left him some of his own as well.

  II

  The people of the village had lived a simple and a comfortable life. Much of the comfort paraphernalia had broken down and all of it had long since ceased to operate, but it was not hard for one to figure out what each of the gadgets did or once had been designed to do.

  They had had a love of beauty, for there still were ruins of their gardens left, and here and there one found a flower or a flowering shrub that once had been tended carefully for its color and its grace; but these things had been long forgotten and had lost the grandeur of their purpose, so that the beauty they now held was bitter-sweet and faded.

  The people had been literate, for there were rows of books upon the shelves. The books went to dust when they were touched, and one could do no more than wonder at the magic words they held.

  There were buildings which at one time might have been theaters and there were great forums where the populace might have gathered to hear the wisdom or the argument that was the topic of the day.

  And even yet one could sense the peace and leisure, the order and the happiness that the place had once held.

  There was no greatness. There were no mighty engines, nor the shops to make them. There were no launching platforms and no other hint that the dwellers in the village had ever dreamed of going to the stars, although they must have known about the stars since their ancestors had come from space. There were no defenses, and there were no great roads leading from the village into the outer planet.

  One felt peace when he walked along the street, but it was a haunted peace, a peace that balanced on a knife's edge, and while one wished with all his heart that he could give way to it and live with it, one was afraid to do so for fear of what might happen.

  The Human slept in the homes, clearing away the dust and the fallen debris, building tiny fires to keep him company. He sat outside, on the broken flagstones or the shattered bench, before he went to sleep, and stared up at the stars and thought how once those stars had made familiar patterns for a happy people. He wandered in the winding paths that were narrower now than they once had been and hunted for a clue, although he did not hunt too strenuously, for there was something here that said you should not hurry and you should not fret, for there was no purpose in it.

  Here once had lain the hope of the human race, a mutant branch of that race that had been greater than the basic race. Here had been the hope of greatness and there was no greatness. Here were peace and comfort and intelligence and leisure, but nothing else that made itself apparent to the eye.

  Although there must be something else, some lesson, some message, some purpose. The Human told himself again and again that this could not be a dead end, that it was more than some blind alley.

  On the fifth day, in the center of the village, he found the building that was a little more ornate and somewhat more solidly built, although all the rest were solid enough for all conscience' sake. There were no windows and the single door was locked, and he knew at last that he had found the clue he had been hunting for.

  He worked for three days to break into the building but there was no way that he could. On the fourth day he gave up and walked away, out of the village and across the hilts, looking for some thought or some idea that might gain him entry to the building. He walked across the hills as one will pace his study when he is at a loss for words, or take a turn in the garden to clear his head for thinking.

  And that is how he found the people.

  First of all, he saw the smoke coming from one of the hollows that branched down toward the valley where a river ran, a streak of gleaming silver against the green of pasture grass.

  He walked cautiously, so that he would not be surprised, but, strangely, without the slightest fear, for there was something in this planet, something in the arching sky and the song of bird and the way the wind blew out of the west that told a man he had not a thing to fear.

  Then he saw the house beneath the mighty trees. He saw the orchard and the trees bending with their fruit and heard the thoughts of people talking back and forth.

  He walked down the hill toward the house, not hurrying, for suddenly it had come upon him that there was no need to hurry. And, just as suddenly, it seemed that he was coming home, although that was the strange
st thing of all, for he had never known a home that resembled this.

  They saw him coming when he strode down across the orchard, but they did not rise and come to meet him. They sat where they were and waited, as if he were already a friend of theirs and his coming were expected.

  There was an old lady with snow-white hair and a prim, neat dress, its collar coming up high at her throat to hide the ravages of age upon the human body. But her face was beautiful, the restful beauty of the very old, who sit and rock and know their day is done and that their life is full and that it has been good.

  There was a man of middle age or more, who sat beside the woman. The sun had burned his face and neck until they were almost black, and his hands were calloused and pock-marked with old scars and half crippled with heavy work. But upon his face, too, was a calmness which was an incomplete reflection of the face beside him, incomplete because it was not so deep and settled, because it could not as yet know the full comfort of old age.

  The third one was a young woman and the Human saw the calmness in her, too. She looked back at him out of cool gray eyes and he saw that her face was curved and soft and that she was much younger than he had first thought.

  He stopped at the gate and the man rose and came to where he waited.

  "You're welcome, stranger," said the man. "We heard you coming since you stepped into the orchard."