City (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by Clifford D. Simak

  The mice still ran along their grassy burrows with happy mouse thoughts that were scarcely thoughts. An owl sat brooding in the tree and his thoughts were murder.

  So close, thought Jenkins. So close to the surface still, the old blood-hunger, the old bone-hate. But we’re giving them a better start than Man had – although probably it would have made no difference what kind of a start mankind might have had.

  And here it is again, the old blood-lust of Man, the craving to be different and to be stronger, to impose his will by things of his devising – things that make his arm stronger than any other arm or paw, to make his teeth sink deeper than any natural fang, to reach and hurt across distances that are beyond his own arm’s reach.

  I thought I could get help. That is why I came here. And there is no help.

  No help at all. For the Mutants were the only ones who might have helped and they have gone away.

  It’s up to you, Jenkins told himself, walking down the stairs. Mankind’s up to you. You’ve got to stop them, somehow. You’ve got to change them somehow. You can’t let them mess up the thing the Dogs are doing. You can’t let them turn the world again into a bow and arrow world.

  He walked through the leafy darkness of the hollow and knew the scent of mouldy leaves from the autumn’s harvest beneath the new green of growing things and that was something, he told himself, he’d never known before.

  His old body had no sense of smell.

  Smell and better vision and a sense of knowing, of knowing what a thing was thinking, to read the thoughts of raccoons, to guess the thoughts of mice, to know the murder in the brains of owls and weasels.

  And something more – a faint and wind-blown hatred, an alien scream of terror.

  It flicked across his brain and stopped him in his tracks, then sent him running, plunging up the hillside, not as a man might run in darkness, but as a robot runs, seeing in the dark and with the strength of metal that has no gasping lungs or panting breath.

  Hatred – and there could be one hatred only that could be like that.

  The sense grew deeper and sharper as he went up the path in leaping strides and his mind moaned with the fear that sat upon it – the fear of what he’d find.

  He plunged around a clump of bushes and skidded to a halt.

  The man was walking forward, with his hands clenched at his side and on the grass lay the broken bow. The wolf’s grey body lay half in the moonlight, half in shadow and backing away from it was a shadowy thing that was half-light, half-shadow, almost seen but never surely, like a phantom creature that moves within one’s dream.

  ‘Peter!’ cried Jenkins, but the words were soundless in his mouth.

  For he sensed the frenzy in the brain of the half-seen creature, a frenzy of cowering terror that cut through the hatred of the man who walked forward towards the drooling, spitting blob of shadow. Cowering terror and frantic necessity – a necessity of finding, of remembering.

  The man was almost on it, walking straight and upright – a man with puny body and ridiculous fists – and courage. Courage, thought Jenkins, courage to take on hell itself. Courage to go down into the pit and rip up the quaking flagstones and shout a lurid, obscene jest at the keeper of the damned.

  Then the creature had it – had the thing it had been groping for, knew the thing to do. Jenkins sensed the flood of relief, that flashed across its being, heard the thing, part word, part symbol, part thought, that it performed. Like a piece of mumbo-jumbo, like a spoken charm, like an incantation, but not entirely that. A mental exercise, a thought that took command of the body – that must be nearer to the truth.

  For it worked.

  The creature vanished. Vanished and was gone – gone out of the world.

  There was no sign of it, no single vibration of its being. As if it had never been.

  And the thing it had said, the thing that it had thought? It went like this. Like this—

  Jenkins jerked himself up short. It was printed on his brain and he knew it, knew the word and thought and the right inflection – but he must not use it, he must forget about it, he must keep it hidden.

  For it had worked on the cobbly. And it would work on him. He knew that it would work.

  The man had swung around and now he stood limp, hands dangling at his side, staring at Jenkins.

  His lips moved in the white blur of his face. ‘You . . . you—’

  ‘I am Jenkins,’ Jenkins told him. ‘This is my new body.’

  ‘There was something here,’ said Peter.

  ‘It was a cobbly,’ said Jenkins. ‘Joshua told me one had gotten through.’

  ‘It killed Lupus,’ said Peter.

  Jenkins nodded. ‘Yes, it killed Lupus. And it killed many others. It was the thing that has been killing.’

  ‘And I killed it,’ said Peter. ‘I killed it . . . or drove it away . . . or something.’

  ‘You frightened it away,’ said Jenkins. ‘You were stronger than it was. It was afraid of you. You frightened it back to the world it came from.’

  ‘I could have killed it,’ Peter boasted, ‘but the cord broke—’

  ‘Next time,’ said Jenkins quietly, ‘you must make stronger cords. I will show you how it’s done. And a steel tip for your arrow—’

  ‘For my what?’

  ‘For your arrow. The throwing stick is an arrow. The stick and cord you throw it with is called a bow. All together, it’s called a bow and arrow.’

  Peter’s shoulders sagged. ‘It was done before, then. I was not the first?’

  Jenkins shook his head. ‘No, you were not the first.’

  Jenkins walked across the grass and lay his hand upon Peter’s shoulder.

  ‘Come home with me, Peter.’

  Peter shook his head. ‘No. I’ll sit here with Lupus until the morning comes. And then I’ll call in his friends and we will bury him.’

  He lifted his head to look into Jenkins’ face. ‘Lupus was a friend of mine. A great friend, Jenkins.’

  ‘I know he must have been,’ said Jenkins. ‘But I’ll be seeing you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter. ‘I’m coming to the picnic. The Webster picnic. It’s in a week or so.’

  ‘So it is,’ said Jenkins, speaking very slowly, thinking as he spoke. ‘So it is. And I will see you then.’

  He turned around and walked slowly up the hill.

  Peter sat down beside the dead wolf, waiting for the dawn. Once or twice, he lifted his hand to brush at his cheeks.

  They sat in a semi-circle facing Jenkins and listened to him closely.

  ‘Now, you must pay attention,’ Jenkins said, ‘That is most important. You must pay attention and you must think real hard and you must hang very tightly to the things you have – to the lunch baskets and the bows and arrows and the other things.’

  One of the girls giggled. ‘Is this a new game, Jenkins?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenkins, ‘sort of. I guess that is what it is – a new game. And an exciting one. A most exciting one.’

  Someone said: ‘Jenkins always thinks up a new game for the Webster picnic.’

  ‘And now,’ said Jenkins, ‘you must pay attention. You must look at me and try to figure out the thing I’m thinking—’

  ‘It’s a guessing game,’ shrieked the giggling girl. ‘I love guessing games.’

  Jenkins made his mouth into a smile. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what it is – a guessing game. And now if you will pay attention and look at me—’

  ‘I want to try out these bows and arrows,’ said one of the men. ‘After this is over, we can try them out, can’t we, Jenkins?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenkins patiently, ‘after this is over you can try them out.’

  He closed his eyes and made his brain reach out for each of them, ticking them off individually, sensing the thrilled expectancy of the minds that yearned towards his, felt the little probing fingers of thought that were dabbing at his brain.

  ‘Harder,’ Jenkins thought.
‘Harder! Harder!’

  A quiver went across his mind and he brushed it away. Not hypnotism – nor yet telepathy, but the best that he could do. A drawing together, a huddling together of minds – and it was all a game.

  Slowly, carefully, he brought out the hidden symbol – the words, the thought and the inflection. Easily he slid them into his brain, one by one, like one would speak to a child, trying to teach it the exact tone, the way to hold its lips, the way to move its tongue.

  He let them lay there for a moment, felt the other minds touching them, felt the fingers dabbing at them. And then he thought them aloud – thought them as the cobbly had thought them.

  And nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. No click within his brain. No feeling of falling. No vertigo. No sensation at all.

  So he had failed. So it was over. So the game was done.

  He opened his eyes and the hillside was the same. The sun still shone and the sky was robin’s egg.

  He sat stiffly, silently and felt them looking at him.

  Everything was the same as it had been before.

  Except—

  There was a daisy where the clump of Oswego tea had bloomed redly before. There was a pasture rose beside him and there had been none when he had closed his eyes.

  ‘Is that all there’s to it?’ asked the giggly girl, plainly disappointed.

  ‘That is all,’ said Jenkins.

  ‘Now we can try out the bows and arrows?’ asked one of the youths.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenkins, ‘but be careful. Don’t point them at one another. They are dangerous. Peter will show you how.’

  ‘We’ll unpack the lunch,’ said one of the women. ‘Did you bring a basket, Jenkins?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenkins. ‘Esther has it. She held it when we played the game.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said the woman. ‘You surprise us every year with the things you bring.’

  And you’ll be surprised this year, Jenkins told himself. You’ll be surprised at packages of seeds, all very neatly labelled.

  For we’ll need seeds, he thought to himself. Seeds to plant new gardens and to start new fields – to raise food once again. And we’ll need bows and arrows to bring in some meat. And spears and hooks for fish.

  Now other little things that were different began to show themselves. The way a tree leaned at the edge of the meadow. And a new kink in the river far below.

  Jenkins sat quietly in the sun, listening to the shouts of the men and boys, trying out the bows and arrows, hearing the chatter of the women as they spread the cloth and unpacked the lunches.

  I’ll have to tell them soon, he told himself. I’ll have to warn them to go easy on the food – not to gobble it up all at one sitting. For we will need that food to tide us over the first day or two, until we can find roots to dig and fish to catch and fruit to pick.

  Yes, pretty soon I’ll have to call them in and break the news to them. Tell them they’re on their own. Tell them why. Tell them to go ahead and do anything they want to. For this is a brand-new world.

  Warn them about the cobblies.

  Although that’s the least important. Man has a way with him – a very vicious way. A way of dealing with anything that stands in his path.

  Jenkins sighed.

  Lord help the cobblies, he said.

  NOTES ON THE EIGHTH TALE

  There is some suspicion that the eighth and final tale may be a fraud, that it has no place in the ancient legend, that it is a more recent story made up by some storyteller hungering for public acclamation.

  Structurally, it is an acceptable story, but the phraseology of it does not measure up to the narrative skill that goes into the others. Another thing is that it is too patently a story. It is too clever in its assembly of material, works the several angles from the other tales too patly together.

  And yet, while no trace of historic basis can be found in any of the other tales, which are indisputably legendary, there is historic basis for this tale.

  It is a matter of record that one of the closed worlds is closed because it is a world of ants. It is now an ant world – has been an ant world for uncounted generations.

  There is no evidence that the ant world is the original world on which the Dogs arose, but neither is there evidence that it is not. The fact that research has not uncovered any world which can lay claim to being the original world would seem to indicate that the ant world might in fact be the world that was called the Earth.

  If that is so, all hope of finding further evidence of the legend’s origin may be gone forever, for only on the first world could there be artifacts which might prove beyond contention the origin of the legend. Only there could one hope to find the answer to the basic question of Man’s existence or his non-existence. If the ant world is the Earth, then the closed city of Geneva and the house on Webster Hill are lost to us forever.

  VIII

  The Simple Way

  Archie, the little renegade raccoon, crouched on the hillside, trying to catch one of the tiny, scurrying things running in the grass. Rufus, Archie’s robot, tried to talk to Archie, but the raccoon was too busy and he did not answer.

  Homer did a thing no Dog had ever done before. He crossed the river and trotted into the wild robots’ camp and he was scared, for there was no telling what the wild robots might do to him when they turned around and saw him. But he was worried worse than he was scared, so he trotted on.

  Deep in a secret nest, ants dreamed and planned for a world they could not understand. And pushed into that world, hoping for the best, aiming at a thing no Dog, or robot, or man could understand.

  In Geneva, Jon Webster rounded out his ten-thousandth year of suspended animation and slept on, not stirring. In the street outside, a wandering breeze rustled the leaves along the boulevard, but no one heard and no one saw.

  Jenkins strode across the hill and did not look to either left or right, for there were things he did not wish to see. There was a tree that stood where another tree had stood in another world. There was the lay of ground that had been imprinted on his brain with a billion footsteps across ten thousand years.

  And, if one listened closely, one might have heard laughter echoing down the ages . . . the sardonic laughter of a man named Joe.

  Archie caught one of the scurrying things and held it clutched within his tight-shut paw. Carefully he lifted the paw and opened it and the thing was there, running madly, trying to escape.

  ‘Archie,’ said Rufus, ‘you aren’t listening to me.’

  The scurrying thing dived into Archie’s fur, streaked swiftly up his forearm.

  ‘Might have been a flea,’ said Archie. He sat up and scratched his belly.

  ‘New kind of flea,’ he said. ‘Although I hope it wasn’t. Just the ordinary kind are bad enough.’

  ‘You aren’t listening,’ said Rufus.

  ‘I’m busy,’ said Archie. ‘The grass is full of them things. Got to find out what they are.’

  ‘I’m leaving you, Archie.’

  ‘You’re what!’

  ‘Leaving you,’ said Rufus. ‘I’m going to the Building.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ fumed Archie. ‘You can’t do a thing like that to me. You’ve been tetched ever since you fell into that ant hill . . .’

  ‘I’ve had the call,’ said Rufus. ‘I just got to go.’

  ‘I’ve been good to you,’ the raccoon pleaded. ‘I’ve never overworked you. You’ve been like a pal of mine instead of like a robot. I’ve always treated you just like an animal.’

  Rufus shook his head stubbornly. ‘You can’t make me stay,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stay, no matter what you did. I got the call and I got to go.’

  ‘It isn’t like I could get another robot,’ Archie argued. ‘They drew my number and I ran away. I’m a deserter and you know I am. You know I can’t get another robot with the wardens watching for me.’

  Rufus just stood there.

  ‘I need you,’ Archie told him. ‘You got to stay a
nd help me rustle grub. I can’t go near none of the feeding places or the wardens will nab me and drag me up to Webster Hill. You got to help me dig a den. Winter’s coming on and I will need a den. It won’t have heat or light, but I got to have one. And you’ve got to . . .’

  Rufus had turned around and was walking down the hill, heading for the river trail. Down the river trail . . . travelling towards the dark smudge above the far horizon.

  Archie sat hunched against the wind that ruffled through his fur, tucked his tail around his feet. The wind had a chill about it, a chill it had not held an hour or so before. And it was not the chill of weather, but the chill of other things.

  His bright, beady eyes searched the hillside and there was no sign of Rufus.

  No food, no den, no robot. Hunted by the wardens. Eaten up by fleas.

  And the Building, a smudge against the farther hills across the river valley.

  A hundred years ago, so the records said, the Building had been no bigger than the Webster House.

  But it had grown since . . . a place that never was completed. First it had covered an acre. And then a square mile. Now finally a township. And still it grew, sprawling out and towering up.

  A smudge above the hills and a cloudy terror for the little, superstitious forest folks who watched it. A word to frighten kit and whelp and cub into sudden quiet.

  For there was evil in it . . . the evil of the unknown, an evil sensed and attributed rather than seen or heard or smelled. A sensed evil, especially in the dark of night, when the lights were out and the wind keened in the den’s mouth and the other animals were sleeping, while one lay awake and listened to the pulsing otherness that sang between the worlds.

  Archie blinked in the autumn sunlight, scratched furtively at his side.

  Maybe some-day, he told himself, someone will find a way to handle fleas. Something to rub on one’s fur so they will stay away. Or a way to reason with them, to reach them and talk things over with them. Maybe set up a reservation for them, a place where they could stay and be fed and not bother animals. Or something of the sort.