The screeching stopped. The waterfall sound continued while the railroad car tilted, lifting the platform we were on high in the air. It poised there long enough for all sound to stop, and then fell back down with a crash that jarred my back teeth.
Then the screaming started. The passengers inside the car realized that something unusual had happened, and reacted in that calm, rational manner that separates Homo sapiens from the lesser creatures. They sat where they were and yelled for someone to come help them.
“What was all that?” Chester asked. “Was anyone hurt?”
“I think I’m all right, or I will be as soon as I catch my breath. A few bruises, that’s all,” Dorothy said.
“Urph,” I said helpfully. “We’ve blipped again.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” said Sylvia weakly. “No, I guess I’m not, I just feel as if I should be.”
“Later,” Chester said. “We haven’t got time now.”
“What more do you expect to happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should be here when those people come out of the train.”
“I don’t think they’ll bother us.”
Chester nodded. “So. Tell me, do you think they’ll help us?”
“A point,” I conceded. “Let’s split.”
“Did you notice,” Chester asked, “that the time has changed again? It’s just about dusk. The sun seems to have just set.”
I climbed over the rail and leaped heavily to the ground. “That,” I called up to him, “ain’t all. I know why we cracked up.”
“Why?” Dorothy asked, peering over the side.
“Because there isn’t any rail here. We’ve come to a time track in which they haven’t invented the train. Here, let me help you down.” I helped Dorothy and Sylvia over the edge of the car, and then Chester appeared, looking down.
“Step aside,” he said. “I’ll jump.”
“Careful you don’t break a leg.”
Without even bothering to give me a withering glance, he leaped lightly to the ground. “Perhaps they just didn’t build their railroads in the same places,” he offered. “It’s probably just as well. Instead of running out of track, we might have collided with an us-bound freight. Let’s make our way out of here while there’s still enough light to see where we’re going.”
We walked steadily away from the trackless train, where yells of authority were starting to replace cries of anguish. We were in a wide grass and bush area between two forests. Those who still maintain that the human animal is born without instincts could try to explain for me the reason why we headed, without discussion, for the nearer forest rather than trying either direction of the grassy lane we were in.
“Look,” Sylvia said, pointing into the gloom of the forest to our left. “Somebody waves.”
We changed our direction slightly and headed toward the waving hand. There, beneath the shelter of a great and ancient tree on the border between field and forest, sat five people in a close semicircle. A sixth, a teen-age girl in rags of Lincoln green, stood behind them waving to us with arms rigid like a boy scout trying for his merit badge in signals.
The seated five made an interesting display. In the center, cross-legged, sat a man of indeterminate age, thinning hair neatly combed straight back, drooping walrus moustache, wearing an air of elaborate concern for arcane ritual. He was dressed in a black jacket and vest of musty origin, dungaree pants, an off-white shirt with a square collar from which protruded a string bow tie, and no shoes.
On the far left, kneeling and bowed over, with his head touching the ground, a youth wearing red shorts and a poncho was trying to make music by blowing through a blade of grass. The girl next to him, dressed in a red velvet undershirt and not much past the age of budding, was beating time to the grass music, her palms paradiddling on her thigh.
On the far right, a short girl in a long, gold evening gown sat with her legs tucked under her. She had a round face, framed by long, carrot-red hair, and the practiced air of a pixie. At the moment, she was taking a deep drag from a long-stemmed pipe, her eyes crossed inward in concentration on the glowing bowl. Near right, a girl who couldn’t be more than eight years old dozed peacefully, her head resting securely in the pixie’s lap.
At our approach, the central figure looked up from a globe on the grass before him that he had been studying, and reflexively buttoned his jacket. “Greetings,” he said. “Are you from the miraculous trolley out yonder?”
“We, ah, were passengers on the train, yes.” Chester answered.
“Welcome passengers. Sit with us and partake of our pipeweed.”
“Pipeweed?” Chester sounded interested.
“Homegrown. The very best. Ceremonial.”
“Well,” Chester said, producing his brass pipe with the aplomb of a magician. “I believe I might, just might, be interested.”
The other members of the group were regarding us with all of the interest that might be given to a new butterfly, but the pipeweed man and the semaphore girl had found new friends. The girl came shyly around to the front of the group. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Marian-Made.”
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Michael the Theodore Bear. These are Chester, Sylvia and Dorothy. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maid Marian.”
The pipeweed man smiled widely, displaying gapped teeth. “I think I’d better do the introductions, for the sake of confusion.”
To prevent, I wondered, or induce.
“The gentleman to our far right, your left,” he said, indicating the grass-playing lad, who did not look up, “is Marian.” He handed a small leather pouch to Chester, who filled his pipe from its contents. “This young lady, the newest member of our group, is Marian-Made. She took the name after her first night here. We all take new names when we join the group.
“I,” he tapped himself on the tie, “am Tom. Tom Bombadil, at your service. The lady to my left, your right, is Goldberry.” She smiled and passed him the pipe, being careful not to disturb the sleeping child.
“Oh,” I said brightly. “Have you read Lord of the Rings?”
“I don’t read,” Bombadil said. “The Lady Goldberry reads. She picked our names when we started the group. Says they fit. Mine seemed to fit me without a strain, so I wear it” He took a deep pull from the pipe, seeming very pleased with himself.
“This,” Goldberry said, smiling down at the sleeping child, “is our daughter. We call her Nobody.”
An ego-building name if I’ve ever heard one.
Chester pulled his gas lighter out and applied fire to the proper end of his pipe in a foot-long burst of flame. He had his lighter adjusted to light cigarettes across the room. It was his favorite parlor trick. He nodded gravely twice and waved the pipe in my direction before sitting slowly down on the soft grass. His ears turned slowly red, and then the flush continued over his face.
I took the pipe and sniffed. Pipeweed had the aroma of the finest Moroccan Mauve. I inhaled. It was strong stuff.
Chester released his breath in a sudden cough. The redness diffused and disappeared from his face as quickly as it had come. “Pipeweed,” he mused “There’s a market for pipeweed. That is, if we ever again find a place where there’s a market.”
The girl who had been beating on her thigh stopped and turned slowly, to look at Chester. Her wide-open eyes, framed behind a pair of great, round-lensed, wire-framed glasses, stared unblinkingly. “There is a market,” she said hesitantly, as though she were groping not so much for words as for the very concept of language. “There is a large market. It is over that way.” She pointed. “In that direction. If you walk you will come to it. It is only a few hills away. A super-market is it.” She stopped pointing.
“That’s Owl,” Bombadil said. “She knows.”
“What?” Chester asked. “What does she know?”
“What she has learned.”
The girl had a curious tense look, as though she were mentally straining for somet
hing, but unable to reach it. Sylvia went over to her and sat down. “Hello,” she said, gently reaching out her hand. “Hello, Owl.”
Owl took the outstretched hand in both of hers and squeezed tightly. “It doesn’t sell pipeweed,” she said.
“What’s that?” Sylvia asked softly.
The girl turned her big eyes toward Sylvia. “The market,” she explained. “It doesn’t sell pipeweed. That’s why we have to grow our own. Besides, we haven’t any money anymore. Any of us. Any money. Any. Hello.”
“She’s our computer,” Bombadil explained, “She has all the information somewhere inside of her. Ask her something.”
“Like what?” Chester asked, intrigued.
“Anything, like. Just anything. You’ll see.”
Chester shrugged-his full-length, which involves arms, hands and fingers along with shoulders. “Right. Who was the third president of the United States?”
Owl continued staring at Sylvia.
“Owl!” Bombadil said, clapping his hands. “You see,” he asided to Chester, “she’s the computer, but you might consider me the programmer. I know how to get it out of her. It’s a knack. Owl, listen. Turn on. Presidents—got that? Presidents. American presidents. You know the American presidents?”
“Isn’t it funny,” Owl asked Sylvia, “that America has vice-presidents, but it doesn’t have any special presidents for anything else?”
“It’s like plotting a graph,” Bombadil told us. “That’s the first line; now for the intersection. Owl, number the presidents. One, two, three; like that. I want three.”
“One,” Owl said, with no change in her voice. “George Washington. Inaugurated 1789, he served eight years. He died on December 14, 1799. Two: John Adams. Served four years from 1797 and died on the fourth of July in 1826. Thomas Jefferson was three. From 1801, he served eight years. He died on the same day as John Adams. Funny, there was another president who died on the fourth of July: number five, James Monroe. He served eight years from 1817, and died July fourth, 1831. Two other presidents died the same day of the year: Millard Fillmore and William Howard Taft. That was March eighth. Both presidents who died in September were assassinated: James A. Garfield on the seventeenth, and William McKinley on the fourteenth. No American president has died during the month of May.”
“Enough!” Bombadil said sharply. “Sometimes,” he told Chester, “she gets sidetracked. But she knows it all; the trick is to get it out of her. I’m getting good at it. Try something else.”
“How did she get so smart?” Chester asked. The girl was still staring with her big eyes into Sylvia’s, paying no attention to the rest of us.
“When she was on hype she got onto a reading kick. Went through the town library in three days. Then she went through the Library of Congress microfilm file by telecall. It almost killed her till she came down. She couldn’t forget anything and had instant recall and access, what they call it. Now she’s down.”
“Hype?” I asked.
“Yah, yah. You know: superspeed. Betterphet. Hype. Don’t you know it? You guys aren’t rights men, are you? I never would have guessed.”
“No, we’re not whatever,” I assured him.
“That’s good. Not that it matters, I mean. If I had any stuff I’d lay it on you, but hell, not a pill under this tree. Just the natural grass. Ask her something.”
Chester turned to me. “You,” he said. “You’re the history freak; pick a date.”
It seemed to me that Bombadil was showing Owl off the way a pre-teen shows off a new toy, and I don’t think that anyone should own someone else’s mind. But I seldom have the courage of my convictions until they’re ready to bite. “Kings,” I said, “of England. Name them.”
Bombadil swiveled to face Owl and slapped his palms sharply together. “The English. Owl, do you hear? The English. Can you name their kings?”
“Kings?” Owl asked quietly, as though not quite sure what was wanted.
“The English kings,” Bombadil barked a short staccato bark. “Name them!”
“The English kings,” Owl said blankly. “The House of Cerdic. Ecgberth, from 802 to 837. Then the brothers, Athelbald, Althelberth, Athelred, and Alfred, known as the Cake, one after the other till 901. Then Edward the Elder till 925; Athelstan to 940; Edmund to 946; and Edred to 955. Then Edwig, son of Edmund and his wife Alfgifu, to 959 and his brother Edgar to 975. Edward the Martyr to 979; when his half-brother Ethelred the Unready took over to reign till 1016. Edmund Ironside from April 23 to November 30, 1016. Cnut, who married Emma of Normandy, widow of Ethelred the Unready, ruled from 1017 to 1035. Harold the Bastard from 1035 to 1040, and Harthacnut, his half-brother and not a bastard, to 1042. Then Edward the Confessor from 1042 to 1066.” She paused.
“Go on,” Bombadil urged.
“Those are the English kings.” Her voice was flat.
“It could be said,” I offered, “that the line of English kings stopped in 1066. As a matter of fact, it has been said.”
Tom Bombadil inspected me suspiciously. One who had opinions on the legitimacy of the Norman Conquest would, obviously, bear close watching. One who could count over five and who didn’t use it as a parlor trick would bear similar attention.
“Something else,” he insisted. “Ask her something else.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Let’s leave her alone,” Chester added.
“Just one more time. Come on. Ask her something else. She’s like a computer, all full of facts and stuff if you know how to get it out.”
“How does she feel about it?” I asked.
Bombadil stared at us. The question had no meaning for him.
Chester tried. “Does she want to answer all these questions?”
“Man, she wants to be stoned and I keep her stoned. That’s what she wants.”
“That’s all?”
“Man, what else is there?” He looked puzzled for a moment, then relaxed. “Go ahead, ask her something else—anything.”
“Owl,” Sylvia said clearly and tenderly, “tell me, who are you?”
“Huh?” Bombadil said.
Owl stared intently at Sylvia, and her eyes grew big behind her glasses. She started sobbing softly, as a small baby does when it thinks no one will answer if it cries out loud.
“I’m here, Owl,” Sylvia told her, holding firmly onto her hands.
“Say,” Bombadil said. “What are you people doing to her? She’s never cried before.”
“Would it have done any good before?” Chester asked.
“What good does crying do? I used to cry all the time, and it never got me nothing.”
“Excuse me,” Dorothy interrupted, “do any of you happen to know what that thing is? That thing up there.” She pointed to the sky above the meadow, and we all looked.
The flying saucer was back: blue and red lights, whistle, honk and all. The funny thing was that we didn’t hear the thing until after Dorothy pointed it out. It was something like turning around and discovering that a brass band playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” has snuck up behind you.
“I don’t know,” Goldberry said, smiling, “but it was here yesterday and it ate somebody.”
“Ate somebody?” Chester asked.
Bombadil nodded. “I saw it too. That’s the best way to describe it. There was a kid in the middle of the field doing his thing, which happened to be digging square holes in the ground and putting orange crates with circles cut out of the top over them to make individual latrines. He’d been doing it for a couple of days; got quite a row of them. Maybe twenty-five, thirty. Your choo-choo must have run right over them. Anyway, he was digging away at this latrine when all of a sudden that thing honked. I mean like, one second it wasn’t there and the next, there it was. Honking. He looked up, this kid I mean, and started running away from it. It buzzed straight to him, swooped down, and he wasn’t there anymore. Gulp. Then it flew away.”
“That’s cute,” I said. “Think it’s afte
r us?”
“No,” Chester said. “It’s after them.” He nodded. The people who had been in the train were all gathered in a group. I guess they were talking about what had happened and what to do next. The saucer was stalking them the way a boy stalks bullfrogs.
The people spread out before the honking saucer, running, panicked, in all directions like bullfrogs escaping from a pond. The saucer darted this way and that, unable to make a decision; then it swooped down once, twice, thrice, gulping up one or two people with each swoop and darted off into the distance. The whole operation couldn’t have taken more than ninety seconds.
“Like that,” Bombadil said. “Just like that.” The sound of screaming reached us from the nearest survivors, who were still running.
Chester stood up, dusted himself off, and put the toke pipe carefully back in his pocket. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “I really think we must be going now.”
“Now?” Dorothy repeated. “Shouldn’t we wait here to make sure that thing is gone?”
“Right now,” Chester said firmly.
“Where are you going?” Bombadil asked.
Chester considered. Then he pointed. “That way.”
“Okay,” Bombadil said with a large shrug. “Do your thing.”
“We have to go now,” Sylvia told Owl, who was silently watching her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“Yes. Yes. I shall. I will. You also, take care.” Owl smiled.
The four of us walked off into the gathering darkness in the direction Chester had pointed. In a short time we were surrounded by trees.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said, stumbling over a root.
“Have no fear,” Chester said. “Ouch!”
“It’s pitch black,” I said “Shouldn’t we at least wait until daylight?”
“Just a little further,” Chester said.
Dorothy called, “Where are you?” She sounded quite close, but I couldn’t see her.
“Over here,” I called.
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