Highway of Eternity

by Clifford D. Simak

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Boone.

  “No more ridiculous than your corner stepping.”

  They ate in silence for a time and finally pushed aside their plates. Wolf had finished more quickly and was curled comfortably at Boone’s feet.

  Enid asked Corcoran, “Will David be coming soon? He was with you in the traveler, wasn’t he?”

  Corcoran squirmed uncomfortably. “I have sad news, Miss Enid. David is dead. I’m sorry. I … I’m very sorry.”

  For a moment, she sat stricken, saying nothing. She sobbed, then fought to regain control. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Henry came to us. He’d found where you and Boone landed, but you were both gone. He tracked your traveler into the future and found that you had been there, but had left. So the three of us went back to the prehistoric period, hoping that we …”

  “But how …?”

  “A sabertooth,” said Corcoran. “David had his shotgun and he killed it when it attacked us. But it reached him before it died.”

  “David killed by a sabertooth?”

  Corcoran nodded dumbly.

  “He never would fire a gun,” she said. “He went hunting, but always with an empty gun. He took the shells out.”

  “Back there,” said Corcoran, “I insisted he keep it loaded. When the cat came at us, he acted to protect both of us. If he hadn’t, the cat would have killed us both.”

  “You were with him when he died?”

  “Just for a moment. He was almost dead when I reached him.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Corcoran shook his head. “He didn’t have the time. I buried him as best I could. A rock-lined grave with stones on top. I said some words over him. I’m not sure the right ones. I’m not good at that.”

  “And Henry?”

  “Henry left before it happened. He went to track down the third traveler.”

  Enid rose from the chair. She said to Boone, “Will you walk with me?”

  “Certainly,” said Boone. “Whatever you may wish.”

  They moved out from the area, Enid clinging to Boone’s arm. Wolf trailed along behind them.

  At the table, when they were out of hearing, Horseface said to Corcoran, “I have a feeling that what you told was not the entire truth. You embroidered it.”

  “Of course I embroidered it. What would you have done? I was asleep when the cat killed him. It carried him off to eat. Would you tell that to his sister?”

  “I would not. You have a kind soul.”

  “I’m a stupid coward,” said Corcoran.

  Down the road, Enid said to Boone, “I don’t want to cry. David would not have wanted me to dissolve in tears.”

  “Go ahead and cry,” said Boone. “Crying sometimes helps. I feel like crying myself. I liked David. During the short time I was with him, I liked him very much.”

  “In the family,” she said, “he was my favorite person. We could talk together and we had our private jokes. David seemed happy-go-lucky, but he was never silly. He was an expert with the traveler and ran errands for us to other times. He brought books and the guns for Timothy, liquor for Horace, other stuff for Emma. I never asked him to get anything for me, but he always brought me gifts—jewelry, a book of poetry, perfume.

  “And now he’s dead. Buried in the prehistoric past. And he fired a gun. I never thought he could. He was too civilized, too much the gentleman. But when it came to life or death, he did.

  “Now I’m going to cry. I don’t want to, I shouldn’t—but I am. Please hold me, Tom, while I cry.”

  The crying lasted for a time, but finally lessened and came to an end. When it was all done, she lifted a tear-streaked face, and Boone kissed her gently.

  “Let’s go back,” she said.

  When they reached the table again, Horseface and Corcoran were sitting where they had been before, talking to each other.

  “We’ve been discussing further moves,” Corcoran said. “What should we do next? Neither of us has any sound ideas.”

  “Going is no problem,” Horseface told them. “The net will take us wherever we may list.”

  “We could return to Hopkins Acre,” Boone suggested. He looked At Enid. “Would you like that?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “There’s nothing there.”

  “There was that star we found,” said Boone. “The one with the X painted on it. It has an inhabited planet. Enid’s television showed that.”

  Horseface rumbled doubtfully. “You think that it’s important because it has the X. So did I at first, but I’m not so sure now. The X could be meant to warn us to stay away.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Boone admitted. “It could well be. Like the signs of a cross marked on the doors of plague-stricken houses in the Middle Ages.”

  “I would much like to visit the center of the galaxy,” Horseface suggested. “We could go in the net …”

  Boone had leaped to his feet. Behind Horseface and Corcoran, a faint flicker glimmered in the air, and there was a thump. A traveler came to rest just beyond the table.

  The rest of them, except for The Hat, jumped up. The Hat continued sitting, saying nothing.

  “That’s my traveler!” Enid shouted. “It is the one I lost, the one I left behind.”

  “The one that was stolen from you,” said Corcoran. “Henry told me that he found the traveler had been hauled away.”

  “But if it was stolen,” Enid asked, “why should it be here?”

  The port came open and a man stepped out, staring about and then looking at them. Corcoran moved toward him. “Martin,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here. Is Stella with you?”

  “No, she has other interests now,” Martin answered. He seemed uncertain, as if confused at what he saw.

  Enid asked quietly, “Is this the Martin who held the outpost for us in New York?”

  “None other,” Corcoran answered. “He ran away when I told him someone was inquiring about a place called Hopkins Acre.”

  “And now he has stolen my machine.”

  “You are Enid, aren’t you?” Martin asked. “Yes, you must be. I did not steal your traveler. I purchased it from the man who stole it. An ignorant man. Scared as well. The key was still in it, but he was afraid to turn it on. He had no idea what might happen and was glad to sell the traveler for a pittance. Since I then had two machines, I took this one, and Stella kept the other.”

  “You found Enid’s machine and now you come to us,” said Boone. “Tell us how you did it.”

  Martin glanced around again, then shrugged. “There are ways,” he said vaguely.

  “I’ll bet there are,” said Corcoran. “And you’d be the one to know them. For whom are you working now?”

  “For no one. For myself. I’m working on my own,” Martin answered.

  “And doing well, I suppose?”

  “Not too badly. Corcoran, I can’t understand your hostility. I always paid you well, gave you a lot of business.”

  “You conned me,” said Corcoran. “You conned everyone.”

  A face peeped out of the traveler.

  “An Infinite!” cried Enid. “You have an Infinite in there!”

  Martin turned and yelled at the peeping Infinite. “All right! I told you not to show yourselves until I called you. But you couldn’t wait, you had to look. Now you might as well come out.”

  Three Infinites tumbled out of the traveler and stood in an awkward line. They were crazy-looking creatures, not more than four feet tall and rigged out in what appeared to be black robes and cowls. From under the cowls, pinched features peered out.

  “So you’re working for them now,” said Boone.

  “At the moment. They are all refugees. The Infinites are held in some kind of quarantine by a group called the Galactic Center, which has taken it upon itself, with no authority, to imprison them on their planet. These three managed to get loose. I heard of their plight and agreed to help them.”

  One of the Inf
inites stepped forward and spoke in a liquid voice. “We plead your understanding. You are members of a race to whom we gave our services. We made most of your race immortal, free of any threat. We are a highly moral people, doing good for others and asking nothing in return. Now we are victims of injustice, seeking friends who will stand with us and speak on our behalf against the cruel and unjust quarantine …”

  “You feel you are ill-treated?” Enid asked, too gently.

  “Yes, we do, milady.”

  “And you want us to help you?”

  “That is our earnest wish.”

  “You drove us into exile,” said Enid, “and when we fled, you sent killer monsters to hunt us down …”

  “We three, the most of us, had nothing to do with killer monsters. There was a certain faction among us, bloated by arrogance …”

  “Those of bloated arrogance are still with you?”

  “We suppose they are. But we had nothing to do with them. They are a separate problem. We three are refugee ambassadors who seek understanding and help.”

  Boone asked Martin, “How much do you have to do with this?”

  “Almost nothing,” Martin said. “I only hire conveyance.”

  Enough of this, a voice said in their minds.

  “Who was that?” asked Martin, startled.

  “It’s The Hat,” Boone said. “That’s the way he talks, directly to you without bothering with spoken words.”

  “Just a moment,” said Enid. “Before we go further, I want this Martin to hand me back the keys to the traveler.”

  “I think that’s a reasonable request,” said Corcoran. He looked at Martin, who fidgeted, uncertain, then fumbled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Corcoran. Corcoran took them to Enid and gave them to her.

  “I would not have tried to get away,” said Martin, trying to restore his ruffled dignity.

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” said Boone. He turned to The Hat. “I’m sorry for the interruption. You were about to say?”

  I was about to say, said The Hat, that there is only one logical destination for us. Not the core of the galaxy, nor any star with an X upon it, whatever that is. Who ever heard of a star with X painted on it?

  “It was on the chart,” said Horseface. “One star had an X marked on it.”

  “So what place would you suggest?” asked Boone.

  “If you are going anywhere,” announced the robot, coming out of his cubicle, “I am going, too. For too long I have stayed here with no one showing up except this Hat, who never so much as passes the time of day with me. I’ll take my stove and the mechanism that supplies the food I cook. You’ll need me along, or you might starve. There’s no telling where this crazy Hat will take you. He never eats and knows nothing of comforts or necessities. He is …”

  “That is quite enough,” said Boone. “You’ve convinced us.” He turned to Horseface and asked, “Will the net hold all of us?”

  “Indeed,” said Horseface. “The net will take us.”

  “What will we do with the traveler?” Enid asked.

  “It will be safe here,” Horseface told her. “The net is far better.”

  “But where are we going?” asked Corcoran. “That Galactic Center sounded attractive, if anyone knows how to reach it.”

  We go to the planet of the Rainbow People, said The Hat. The Infinites ask for justice and justice they will find there.

  “I don’t give a damn what the Infinites want,” Boone said. “We need some place where we can get some answers. There have been too many daft places and mad happenings. This road, Jay’s tree …”

  You are confused? asked The Hat.

  “Considerably.”

  Then we go to the Rainbow People, said The Hat. They can supply answers.

  “Very well,” Horseface growled. “We’ll go to the Rainbow People. So let us load the net with what we take and climb aboard.”

  Something bumped against Boone’s leg. He looked down at Wolf.

  “You, too,” he said. “We’ll take you along, but stick close to me. This one could be creepy.”

  13

  Horace

  The robot swung the axe, severing the rope that held the ballista cup in place. The great arm, responding to unleashed tension, swung up swiftly, hurling the boulder that lay in the cup against the wall. Against the wall, but not flying over it. At the impact of the boulder, the wall rang like the clanging of a mighty bell. The boulder came tumbling down the slope from which the wall rose. Robots scattered, getting out of the way of the rolling stone, which barely missed the ballista before coming to a halt.

  Two primitive steam engines, earlier used to haul the ballista into place, stood a little distance off, panting under their head of steam.

  Conrad plodded slowly to where Horace stood.

  “It’s no use,” the robot said. “We aren’t going to be able to heave a stone over that wall. It’s the configuration of the wall that defeats us. It flares up and out at the top and we are forced to position the machine too far back to give us the arc we need. And besides, to tell you the honest truth, which I have told you many times before, I fail to grasp the point of it.”

  “The point,” said Horace, “is that somehow we’re going to attract the attention of whoever is living in the city. They can’t just sit there and ignore us, as they have been doing all this time. They have to be made to recognize that we are here and come out to talk with us.”

  “I’m not quite sure why you are so set on that,” Conrad told him. “If I were you, I’d be inclined to be better satisfied if they continued to pay no attention to us. We don’t know who or what they are. Once we attract their attention, if we do, we may be sorry that we did.”

  Horace glowered up at the wall. It was a monstrous structure, looming high into the sky, a milky white barrier that ran for miles all around the ridge top, closing in the city.

  Emma said, a little piteously, “Why don’t we let it be, Horace? You have become obsessed with it. You spend all your time scheming at how you are going to get at those people.”

  “They know we’re here,” Horace fumed. “They send out flyers every now and then to look us over, then go back. We are knocking at their door and we get no answer. That’s not right, I tell you. That simply isn’t right. This is the first time in my life I have been ignored and I won’t stand for it.”

  “I don’t know what else we can do,” said Conrad. “We have modified the boulder-thrower and we still can’t pitch anything over the wall.”

  “If we did,” said Horace, “they’d pay us some attention. Toss a few boulders over that wall and they’d pay attention to us.”

  “Why don’t you come over to the tent,” suggested Emma. “Sit down for a while. Eat something, maybe. You haven’t eaten for hours. You must be hungry.”

  Horace paid her no attention. He kept staring at the white, defiant wall.

  “We’ve tried everything,” he said. “We circled the entire wall, looking for doors or gates. We built fires and sent up smoke signals. Someone would have seen them. They ignored the signals. We tried to climb the wall and it can’t be climbed. It’s smooth. There is no place a man can get hold of it. It isn’t stone and it isn’t metal. It looks more like a ceramic. But who can make a ceramic that can withstand a thrown boulder?”

  “Whoever is in there can,” said Conrad. “Don’t ask me how they do it.”

  “We talked about a tower that would reach the top of the wall,” said Horace, with a question in his voice.

  “It wouldn’t work,” said Conrad. “It would have to be high. We have trees from which we can make timber, but not the kind of timber to build the tower you have in mind. Also, there is the question of anchoring its base securely.”

  “We also talked about a ramp. I suppose that’s out of the question, also.”

  “There is no way we could move enough dirt to build that sort of ramp.”

  “I suppose so,” said Horace. “If we only had a flier.”
<
br />   “Look,” said Conrad, “my robots and I have done the best we can. We built steam engines, and they are working well. We can build almost anything that runs on the ground, but air travel is beyond our skills. We don’t know the theory; we couldn’t machine the parts. And the energy? You couldn’t power a flier with wood and coal.” He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know how long we can keep the ballista working. We’re running out of rope. Every time we use it, we waste ten feet of rope.”

  “You can splice rope.”

  “That we have done,” said Conrad. “But each time you splice it, you lose a few feet of it.”

  “We could make more rope.”

  “We can try. The material we’ve tried has not worked out well.”

  “You see,” said Emma. “It isn’t any use. The wall has got you stopped.”

  “No, it hasn’t!” Horace raged. “I’ll find a way to beat it. I’ll force the people in that city to pay me some attention.”

  A robot standing nearby said, “There is something coming.”

  When they turned around to look, they saw that a flier from the city was approaching for a landing.

  Horace leaped into the air, waving his arms in triumph.

  “Finally,” he yelled. “Finally someone is coming out to talk. That is all we ever wanted. Just someone to come out and talk.”

  The flier landed and the passenger was getting out of it—a human, not some kind of crummy alien. There was an alien in it, but it stayed in the flier. More than likely, Horace told himself, the alien was the aviator.

  Emma started forward uncertainly, then stopped and stared, as if not believing what she saw. Then she moved again, running toward the man who had climbed out of the flier.

  “It’s Timothy,” muttered Horace, talking to himself. “Wouldn’t you know it would be Timothy?”

  Then he was hurrying forward, with Conrad trailing along behind him.

  “So it’s you,” said Horace, sourly, coming up to Timothy. “What are you doing here? We thought we’d seen the last of you.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful!” gushed Emma. “He’s back with us again.”

  Timothy thrust out his hand, briefly meeting Horace’s unwilling clasp.

  “I see you’re still at it, Horace,” he said. “As uncouth as ever.”