lay back of Stiffy’s shack sometimes drained. Perhaps there had been such a
creek as this, I thought, in Millville’s world before the farmer’s plough
and resultant erosion had reshaped the terrain.
I sat entranced by the flashing diamonds of the water and the tinkle of
the stream. It seemed that a man could sit there forever, warm in the last
rays of the sun and guarded by the hills.
I had put my hands on either side of me and had been idly rubbing them
back and forth across the surface of the stone on which I sat. My hands must
have told me almost instantly that there was something strange about the
surface, but I was so engrossed with the sensations of sun and water that it
took some minutes before the strangeness broke its way into my
consciousness.
When it did, I still remained sitting there, still rubbing the surface
of the stone with the tips of my fingers, but not looking at it, making sure
that I had not been wrong, that the stone had the feel of artificial
shaping.
When I got up and examined the block, there was no doubt of it. The
stone had been squared into a block and there were places where the chisel
marks could still be seen upon it. Around one corner of it still clung a
brittle substance that could be nothing else than some sort of mortar in
which the block had once been set.
I straightened up from my examination and stepped away, back into the
stream, with the water tugging at my ankles.
Not a simple boulder, but a block of stone! A block of stone bearing
chisel marks and with a bit of mortar still sticking to one edge.
The Flowers, then, were not the only ones upon this planet. There were
others – or there had been others. Creatures that knew the use of stone and
had the tools to chip the stone into convenient form and size.
My eyes travelled from the block of stone up the mound that stood at
the water’s edge, and there were other blocks of stone protruding from its
face. Standing frozen, with the glint of water and the silver song
forgotten, I traced out the blocks and could see that once upon a time they
had formed a wall.
This mound, then, was no vagary of nature. It was the evidence of a
work that at one time had been erected by beings that knew the use of tools.
I left the stream and clambered up the mound. None of the stones was
large, none was ornamented; there were just the chisel marks and here and
there the bits of mortar that had lain between the blocks. Perhaps, a
building had stood here at one time. Or it may have been a wall. Or a
monument.
I started down the mound, choosing a path a short way downstream from
where I had crossed the creek, working my way along slowly and carefully,
for the slope was steep, using my hands as brakes to keep myself from
sliding or from fal1ing.
And it was then, hugged close against the slope, that I found the piece
of bone. It had weathered out of the ground, perhaps not too long ago, and
it lay hidden there among the purple flowers. Under ordinary circumstances,
I probably would have missed it. I could not see it well at first, just the
dull whiteness of it lying on the ground. I had slid past it before I saw it
and crawled back to pick it up.
The surface of it powdered slightly at the pressure of my fingers, but
it did not break. It was slightly curved and white, a ghostly, chalky white.
Turning it over in my hand, I made out that it was a rib bone and the shape
and size of it was such that it could be human, although my knowledge was
too slight to be absolutely sure. If it were really humanoid, I told myself,
then it meant that at one time a thing like man had lived here. And could it
mean that something very similar to the human race still resided here?
A planet full of flowers with nothing living on it except the purple
flowers, and more lately Tupper Tyler. That was what I’d thought when I had
seen the flowers spreading to the far horizons, but it had been supposition
only. It was a conclusion I had jumped to without too much evidence.
Although it was in part supported by the seeming fact that nothing else
existed in this particular place – no birds, no insects or animals, not a
thing at all, except perhaps some bacteria and viruses and even these, I
thought, might be essential to the well-being of the Flowers.
Although the outer surface of the bone had chalked off when I picked it
up, it seemed sound in structure. Not too long ago, I knew, it had been a
part of a living thing. Its age probably would depend to a large extent upon
the composition and the moistness of the soil and probably many other
factors. It was a problem for an expert and I was no expert.
Now I saw something else, a little spot of whiteness just to the right
of me. It could have been a white stone lying on the ground, but even as I
looked at it I didn’t think it was. It had that same chalky whiteness of the
rib I had picked up.
I moved over to it and as I bent above it I could see it was no stone.
I let the rib drop from my fingers and began to dig.
The soil was loose and sandy and although I had no tools, my fingers
served the purpose.
As I dug, the bone began to reveal its shape and in a moment I knew it
was a skull – and only a little later that it was a human skull.
I dug it loose and lifted it and while I might have failed to identify
the rib, there was no mistaking this.
I hunkered on the slope and felt pity well inside of me, pity for this
creature that once had lived and died – and a growing fear, as well.
For by the evidence of the skull I held within my hands, I knew for a
certainty that this was not the home world of the Flowers. This was – this
must be a world that they had conquered, or at least had taken over. They
might, indeed, I thought, be very far in time from that old home where
another race (by their description of it, a non-human race) had trained them
to intelligence.
How far back, I wondered, lay the homeland of the Flowers? How many
conquered earths lay between this world and the one where they had risen?
How many other earths lay empty, swept clean of any life that might compete
with the Flowers?
And that other race, the race that had raised and elevated them above
their vegetable existence where was that old race today?
I put the skull back into the hole from which I’d taken it. Carefully,
I brushed back the sand and dirt until it was covered once again, this time
entirely covered, with no part of it showing. I would have liked to take it
back to camp with me so I could have a better look at it. But I knew I
couldn’t, for Tupper must not know what I had found. His mind was an open
book to his friends the Flowers, and I was sure mine wasn’t, for they had
had to use the telephone to get in touch with me. So long as I told Tupper
nothing, the Flowers would never know that I had found the skull. There was
the possibility, of course, that they already knew, that they had the sense
of sight, or perhaps some other sense that was as good as sight. But I
doubted that they had; there was so far no evidence they had. The best bet
was that they were mental symbionts, that they had no awareness beyond the
awareness they shared with minds in other kinds of life.
I worked my way around and down the mound and along the way I found
other blocks of stone. It was becoming evident to me that at some other time
a building had stood upon this site. A city, I wondered, or a town? Although
whatever form it might have taken, it had been a dwelling place.
I reached the creek at the far end of the mound, where it ran close
against the cutbank it had chewed out of the mound, and started wading back
to the place where I had crossed.
The sun had set and with it had gone the diamond sparkle of the water.
The creek ran dark and tawny in the shadow of the first twilight.