Highway of Eternity

by Clifford D. Simak

  Emma sat down on the stone floor. “This is good,” she said. “We’re away from the sun until it sets late in the day. And we won’t have to measure out the water. Maybe I can even have a bath.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Horace said in a grudging tone. “It is better than the open plain.”

  The next day an exploring robot found the junkyard. It lay against the base of the cliff that hemmed in the canyon. It was broad of base and extended halfway up the cliff. He ran back to the party, shouting the news. Everyone hurried to explore the discovery.

  Most of the junk was metal. Originally, undoubtedly, there had been a lot of other trash, but over the ages since it had been dumped, the less durable items had wasted away and disappeared. Only the metal, some strangely shaped stones, and a few large pieces of wood remained. The strange thing about it was that most of the metal had not deteriorated. It remained bright and shiny; there was no sign of rust.

  “An alloy,” said Conrad, “that was unknown on Earth. Most of it, all of it, perhaps, as good as the day that it was junked.”

  The metal came in all shapes and sizes—simple pieces of scrap, isolated machined parts, broken instruments and tools, metal formed into convoluted shapes, and massive blocks of metal. Some of it was recognizable in a general sort of way; most of it made no sense at all. The robots spread the more easily accessible parts on the ground and wandered about through the outspread display, vastly puzzled as to what they were seeing.

  “An alien technology,” said Conrad. “It might take us forever to figure out what some of this could be.”

  It was apparent that the junk must have been thrown from the bench above the canyon, possibly by the inhabitants of the forsaken town that now lay in crumbling ruins.

  “It seems to be a lot of stuff to be discarded by so small a town,” said Horace.

  “It may have been a public dump serving a large area,” said Timothy. “At one time all that plain we crossed might have had many other towns. Perhaps it was an agricultural area and well populated. Then the rains failed and the economic base was gone …”

  “We can use the metal,” Conrad told him. “We can make machines we need.”

  “You mean we’ll huddle here while you concoct machines. What kind of machines?”

  “Tools, for one thing.”

  “You have tools. You have spades and shovels, axes and saws, crowbars and posthole diggers …”

  “Weapons,” Conrad said. “Better weapons than we have. Better bows. Arrows that fly true. This metal is strong but flexible. Maybe crossbows. Spears and lances. Catapults.”

  “A hobby!” Horace growled. “You have found a hobby trove and …”

  “Likewise,” said Conrad, continuing, “we could contrive a wagon to transport water for you, and what food we can gather. We have robots who can haul the coach and wagons. We might, as well, be able to contrive an engine run by steam …”

  “You’re out of your skull!” Horace shouted.

  “We’ll think on it,” Conrad told him. “We’ll put our brains to work …”

  In the following days they put their brains to work. They squatted in huddles. They drew designs in the sand. They mined coal from a site a mile or so away, set up a forge, and got to work. Horace fumed and fretted. Emma, remembering the days spent crossing the plateau, was satisfied to stay where there was water and protection from the sun. Timothy went exploring.

  He climbed the trail and spent long hours snooping through the ruins of the town. Pawing through the sand and dust, he came up with occasional artifacts: primitive weapons; rods up to three feet long, made of metal that was flecked with rust; and strangely shaped ceramics that might have been idols. He crouched and looked at what he’d found and the artifacts added up to nothing. Still, the ruins had an abnormal fascination for him, and he went back again and yet again.

  Here, God only knew how many centuries ago, had lived an intelligence that had developed a social and an economic sense. What kind of intelligence, the ruins gave no clue. The doors giving access to the buildings were circular and so small that it was a chore for him to wriggle through them. The rooms were so low that he had to go on hands and knees to explore them. There were no stairs to the upper storeys, but metal poles too slippery for him to climb.

  Finally he climbed the massive, chopped-off butte. Its slopes were littered with precariously perched boulders waiting for no more than the slightest push to send them hurtling down. In between the boulders was treacherous, shifting scree that he had to scrabble over, being careful of the boulders.

  It made sense, he told himself, that the people of the town might have maintained a watch post on top to spy out the approach of strangers, or to watch for game herds, or perhaps for other purposes that he could not bring to mind. But when he reached the top, he found no watch post. The top was a flat plane of stone, sand, and clay. No plants grew in the sand or clay, no lichens on the rock. The wind keened over it, and it was as desolate a piece of real estate as he had ever seen.

  Below him the country spread out in a wonderful array—the brown and yellow of the flat plain over which he had traveled in the robot march, with other buttes, darker in appearance than the plain, dotted here and there. To the west was the gash of the rose-red canyon, and beyond the gash, far off, the blue loom of jagged mountains.

  He walked to the edge of the western extension of the butte’s top and looked down into the canyon, thinking he might see some sign of the activity of the robot legion; but he could glimpse no sign of activity. The blueness of the river writhed through the canyon floor, bordered on each bank by a strip of green. Beyond the river, the redness of the canyon wall tipped upward toward the yellow flatness of the continuing plateau.

  And now he’d have to climb down off this butte—and must proceed most carefully, for the descent could be more dangerous than the climb.

  He heard the click of a stone behind him and spun around. His heart tried to leap into his throat, choking him. Charging toward him was a killer monster, and behind the monster was Spike, rolling swiftly in an erratic pattern.

  Timothy leaped quickly to one side to get out of the way of the oncoming monster. The monster, apparently seeing for the first time the yawning gulf before him, dodged as well, bearing down upon the human. Quickly Spike moved to head it off and the monster turned again in the opposite direction. Timothy stubbed his toe and fell upon his side. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the monster, fighting desperately to stop its headlong progress, go over the edge of the chopped-off butte. For a moment it seemed to hover in mid-air, then plunged out of sight.

  Scrabbling erect, Timothy rushed to the lip of the precipice in time to see the monster strike a clump of boulders that clung to the face of the butte. It struck and bounced, dangling momentarily in the air, and began to come apart. Shattered fragments exploded in all directions and began raining across the face of the slope. The scattered segments went tumbling down the incline above the canyon floor, with the various parts battered into even smaller pieces.

  Timothy turned to look for Spike, who was just a few feet away, dancing a jig of final victory, spinning and revolving, leaping high into the air, and skittering along the ground.

  “You and your goddamned games!” yelled Timothy, although he knew, even as he spoke, that if it had ever been a game, it had been a deadly one.

  “So you finally ran him down,” said Timothy. “You never stopped the chase. You tried, that first day, to run him up the hill to us, knowing Horace would use a rifle on him; and when that failed, you kept on running him.”

  Spike had ceased his jigging and was standing now, rocking slowly back and forth.

  “Spike,” said Timothy, “we underestimated you. All these years, we took you only for a clown. Come on. We’ll go down and join the others. They will be glad to see you.”

  But when he moved, Spike rolled to intercept him. He moved again, and Spike headed him off.

  “Goddamn it, Spike,” he shouted.
“Now you’re herding me. I will not stand for it.”

  He heard a faint humming and turned around to find what it might be. A shining aircraft was skimming toward them, like the one that had buzzed them their first day on the planet. It lowered gently to the ground and rested there. The top of it slowly levered up. In the forward section sat a monstrosity. A proportionately small head sprouted out of broad shoulders. What started out as an upturned nose split into twisted twin antennae. The skull swept back to a point that was tufted by angry red feathers, resembling misplaced wattles. A single compound eye protruded between the nose and the spearlike termination of the skull. The head turned toward Timothy and a chittering came out of it.

  He took a careful, tentative step toward the flier and its monstrosity of a pilot. Curiosity consumed him. Here was intelligence again, but of a higher order, more than likely, than that represented by the ruined town. Spike moved around him to one side, then quickly reversed his course and spun to the other side.

  “You can quit driving me,” said Timothy. Spike did not quit; he kept up his double spinning. Timothy took another forward step and yet another. He was not being driven, he told himself; he was moving on his own. He wanted a close look at the alien craft. Spike kept pressing him forward.

  “Oh, all right,” said Timothy. He walked up to the rear part of the flier and laid his hands upon it. The metal was warm and smooth. He rubbed his hands along it. Inside was what appeared to be a passenger compartment. There were no seats, but the floor and sides were padded, and along the inside of the compartment ran a set of rails that might be hand holds for passengers.

  But this was far enough; he was not about to get into this contraption. He turned about to face the spinning Spike and as he did, Spike rushed swiftly at him. The backs of his knees struck the edge of the flier and he went over backward, tumbling into the passenger compartment. Like a flash, Spike leaped in, the compartment cover came down with a bang, and the flier was taking off.

  Suckered, Timothy told himself. Abducted by Spike and the hideous pilot and headed for a place not of his own choosing. He felt a little fear, but not much. What he felt was outrage.

  He scrambled to his knees and, holding the rail, looked out through the canopy. Below him was the receding eastern rim of the canyon wall, the rose-red rock shining in the sun.

  The family had been scattered and now it was further scattered. He wondered vaguely whether it would ever come back together. The chances were, he told himself, that it would not. They were being moved about like pieces on a game board. Someone or something was using them as pawns.

  He recalled Hopkins Acre and how he had loved the place—the ancient baronial home, his study with the walls of books and the desk overflowing with his work, the broad sweeping lawn, the groves of trees, and the brook. It had been a good life, and there he had done his work; but thinking back on it, he wondered what his work had amounted to. At the time it had seemed important, but had it really been? Added all together, what had it amounted to?

  The canyon had disappeared well beyond the eastern horizon and now they were flying at a low altitude over the endless desert of the high plateau. As Timothy watched, however, some of the dry brownness went away, and again he saw the billowing yellow of the prairie grass, interspersed at intervals by streams and groves of trees. The aridity of the desert land was being left behind.

  Ahead the mountains loomed, much higher than they had seemed before, peaks stabbing at the sky, bare rock faces staring out across the land. For a moment it appeared the flier would crash straight into the mountain wall, then there was space ahead, with looming walls of rock to either side hemming them in. For breathless moments the flier hung between the walls of rock; suddenly there was openness ahead and the machine nosed down over a wide green valley that lay in the bosom of the mountains. For a short distance, a high ridge ran along the valley floor, and halfway up its slope was a wall of soft and pearly white that humped continuously along the ridge. On top of the ridge was a cluster of white buildings rising many storeys high, and among the trees all around the clumped skyline were what he took to be residences. Some of them seemed to be low-slung barracks, others were compounds enclosing huts, still others looked no better than slums, and there were some that he could not figure out.

  The flier skimmed along the ridge, following its slope until it reached the top. Then it began to drop toward a wide green lawn, at one side of which stood a house. It settled on the lawn and the canopy came up. The pilot chittered at them and Spike rolled out on the lawn. Somewhat confused, Timothy followed him and stood beside the flier. Looking up the slope of lawn, he stared at the house, drawing in his breath in astonishment. With a few differences, it was the house on Hopkins Acre.

  A gangling creature that had a slender body, bowed legs, and dangling arms was coming down the slope toward them. It headed straight for Timothy and stopped in front of him. It said in English, “I am your interpreter and companion and, I trust, your friend. You may call me Hugo, which is not my name, of course, but I understand it is a name that comes easily to your tongue.”

  Timothy gulped. When he could speak, he asked, “Can you tell me what is going on?”

  “Everything,” said Hugo, “in its own good time. But first, accompany me to your domicile. There a meal awaits.”

  He started up the lawn, with Timothy trailing after and Spike gamboling to one side of them. Behind them the flier was rising from the ground.

  There were certain variations, but for all intents and purposes, the place appeared to be another Hopkins Acre. The lawn was well groomed, the trees well placed, the contour of the land very similar. There was one incongruity—everywhere one looked mountains rose against the skyline, while at Hopkins Acre the nearest mountain had been hundreds of miles away.

  They reached the house and climbed the wide stone stairs to the massive door. Spike had deserted them and was skittering happily down the lawn.

  Hugo pulled open one of the doors and they stepped in. Inside there might be differences, but it took some time to see them. Ahead of them lay the dark drawing room, with shadowy furniture crouched within, and beyond was the dining room with the table set and ready.

  “There is a saddle of mutton,” Hugo said. “We understand it is a favorite dish of yours. A small one, but there are only the two of us to eat it.”

  “But mutton—here!”

  “When we do things here,” said Hugo, “we do them properly, or as closely as we can. We have immense respect for the varying cultures that reside within this community.”

  Timothy stumbled across the drawing room to come to the dining room. The table was set for two and there was a clatter in the kitchen.

  “Of course,” said Hugo, “you will not find the guns of Horace in the gun room, although there is a gun room. There is your study, also, but quite empty, I’m afraid. We could not duplicate your books and notes, for which we are regretful, but there are certain limitations that could not be surmounted. I am certain there is material we can furnish that will replace the books.”

  “But wait a minute,” protested Timothy. “How did you know about Horace and his guns, about my study and my books, and about the mutton? How did you know all this?”

  “Think a moment, if you will,” Hugo told him, “then make an educated guess.”

  “Spike! We harbored, all these years, a viper in our midst?”

  “Not a viper. A very diligent observer. If it had not been for him, you would not be here.”

  “And the others? Horace and Emma? You pounced on me. How about the others? Can you go back and get them?”

  “We could, I suppose. But we won’t. You are the one we want.”

  “Why me? Why should you want me?”

  “You’ll learn of that in time. I promise you it will be nothing bad.”

  “The other two are human, too. If you want humans …”

  “Not just humans. A certain kind of human. Think on it and tell me true. Do you like Horace? D
o you admire the way he thinks?”

  “Well, no. But Emma …”

  “She’d be unhappy without Horace. She has grown to be very much like Horace.”

  It was true, Timothy admitted to himself. Emma did love Horace, and had come to think as he did. Even so, it wasn’t right that the two of them be left in that arid desert while, he supposed, he’d be living here.

  “Please take your place at the table,” Hugo told him. “Your place is at the table’s head, for you are the lord of the manor and so should conduct yourself. I shall sit at your right hand, for I am your right hand person. You have perceived, perhaps, that I am a humanoid. My bodily system works much the same as yours does and I ingest my food as you do, although I must admit that I had some trouble in adjusting my palate to the sort of food you eat. But now I have come to enjoy the greater part of your fare. Mutton is my favorite dish.”

  Timothy said, stiffly, “We ate many other things.”

  “Oh, I know very well you did. Spike, I must tell you, missed very few details. But now let us sit and I shall ring the kitchen that we are here and hungry.”

  Timothy pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat down in it. He noted that the tablecloth was clean and white as snow, the napkins correctly folded. Somehow that made him feel more comfortable. Hugo rang the kitchen bell and sat down at Timothy’s right hand. “Here,” he said, reaching for a bottle, “we have an excellent port. Would you care for it?”

  Timothy nodded. Three other humanoids, almost exact copies of Hugo, came out of the kitchen. One of them carried a platter bearing the mutton. He saw that some of the meat had been sliced and that was one thing, he thought with indelicate glee, that Spike had bollixed up. No one sliced a roast or a bird in the kitchen; the carving of good meat was reserved as an important table rite. Another brought in a tureen of soup and served it, ladling it into the soup bowls set at the two places. The third put down a large dish of vegetables beside the roast.