the world was edging in toward war.
Although, perhaps, he should not be worrying about what happened to the
world. He could renounce the world, could resign from the human race any
time he wished. If he never went outside, if he never opened up the door,
then it would make no difference to him what the world might do or what
might happen to it. For he had a world. He had a greater world than anyone
outside this station had ever dreamed about. He did not need the Earth.
But even as be thought it, he knew he could not make it stick. For, in
a very strange and funny way, he still did need the Earth.
He walked over to the door and spoke the phrase and the door came open.
He walked into the shed and it closed behind him.
He went around the corner of the house and sat down on the steps that
led up to the porch.
This, he thought, was where it all had started. He had been sitting
here that summer day of long ago when the stars had reached out across vast
gulfs of space and put the finger on him.
The sun was far down the sky toward the west and soon it would be
evening. Already the heat of the day was falling off, with a faint, cool
breeze creeping up out of the hollow that ran down to the river valley. Down
across the field, at the edge of the woods, crows were wheeling in the sky
and cawing.
It would be hard to shut the door, he knew, and keep it shut. Hard
never to feel the sun or wind again, to never know the smell of the changing
seasons as they came across the Earth. Man, he told himself, was not ready
for that. He had not as yet become so totally a creature of his own created
environment that he could divorce entirely the physical characteristics of
his native planet. He needed sun and soil and wind to remain a man.
He should do this oftener, Enoch thought, come out here and sit, doing
nothing, just looking, seeing the trees and the river to the west and the
blue of the Iowa hills across the Mississippi, watching the crows wheeling
in the skies and the pigeons strutting on the ridgepole of the barn.
It would be worth while each day to do it, for what was another hour of
aging? He did not need to save his hours-not now he didn’t. There might come
a time when he’d become very jealous of them and when that day came, he
could hoard the hours and minutes, even the seconds, in as miserly a fashion
as he could manage.
He heard the sound of the running feet as they came around the farther
corner of the house, a stumbling, exhausted running, as if the one who ran
might have come a far way.
He leapt to his feet and strode out into the yard to see who it might
be and the runner came stumbling toward him, with her arms outstretched. He
put out an arm and caught her as she came close to him, holding her close
against him so she would not fall.
“Lucy!” he cried. “Lucy! What has happened, child?”
His hands against her back were warm and sticky and he took one of them
away to see that it was smeared with blood. The back of her dress, he saw,
was soaked and dark.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her away from him so he
could see her face. It was wet with crying and there was terror in the
face-and pleading with the terror.
She pulled away from him and turned around. Her hands came up and
slipped her dress off her shoulders and let it slide halfway down her back.
The flesh of the shoulders were ribboned by long slashes that still were
oozing blood.
She pulled the dress up again and turned to face him. She made a
pleading gesture and pointed backward down the hill, in the direction of the
field that ran down to the woods.
There was motion down there, someone coming through the woods, almost
at the edge of the old deserted field.
She must have seen it, too, for she came close against him, shivering,
seeking his protection.
He bent and lifted her in his arms and ran for the shed. He spoke the
phrase and the door came open and he stepped into the station. Behind him he
heard the door go sliding shut.
Once inside, he stood there, with Lucy Fisher cradled in his arms, and
knew that what he’d done had been a great mistake-that it was something
that, in a sober moment, he never would have done, that if he’d given it a
second thought, he would not have done it.
But he had acted on an impulse, with no thought at all. The girl had
asked protection and here she had protection, here nothing in the world ever
could get at her. But she was a human being and no human being, other than
himself, should have ever crossed the threshold.
But it was done and there was no way to change it. Once across the
threshold, there was no way to change it.
He carried her across the room and put her on the sofa, then stepped
back. She sat there, looking up at him, smiling very faintly, as if she did
not know if she were allowed to smile in a place like this. She lifted a
hand and tried to brush away the tears that were upon her cheeks.
She looked quickly around the room and her mouth made an O of wonder.
He squatted down and patted the sofa and shook a finger at her, hoping
that she might understand that he meant she should stay there, that she must
go nowhere else. He swept an arm in a motion to take in all the remainder of
the station and shook his head as sternly as he could.
She watched him, fascinated, then she smiled and noped, as if she might
have understood.
He reached out and took one of her hands in his own, and holding it,
patted it as gently as he could, trying to reassure her, to make her
understand that everything was all right if she only stayed exactly where
she was.
She was smiling now, not wondering, apparently, if there were any
reason that she should not smile.
She reached out her free hand and made a little fluttering gesture
toward the coffee table, with its load of alien gadgets.
He noped and she picked up one of them, turning it admiringly in her
hand.
He got to his feet and went to the wall to take down the rifle.
Then he went outside to face whatever had been pursuing her.
17
Two men were coming up the field toward the house and Enoch saw that
one of them was Hank Fisher, Lucy’s father. He had met the man, rather
briefly, several years ago, on one of his walks. Hank had explained, rather
sheepishly and when no explanation had been necessary, that he was hunting
for a cow which had strayed away. But from his furtive manner, Enoch had
deduced that his errand, rather than the hunting of a cow, had been somewhat
on the shady side, although he could not imagine what it might have been.
The other man was younger. No more, perhaps, than sixteen or seventeen.
More than likely, Enoch told himself, he was one of Lucy’s brothers.
Enoch stood by the porch and waited.
Hank, he saw, was carrying a coiled whip in his hand, and looking at
it, Enoch understood those wounds on Lucy’s shoulders. He felt a swift flash
of anger, but tried to fight it down. He could deal better with Hank Fisher
if he kept his temper.
The two men stopped three paces or so away.
“Good afternoon,” said Enoch.
“You seen my gal?” asked Hank.
“And if I have?” asked Enoch.
“I’ll take the hide off of her,” yelled Hank, flourishing the whip.
“In such a case,” said Enoch, “I don’t believe I’ll tell you anything.”
“You got her hid,” charged Hank.
“You can look around,” said Enoch.
Hank took a quick step forward, then thought better of it.
“She got what she had coming to her,” he yelled.
“And I ain’t finished with her yet. There ain’t no one, not even my own
flesh and blood, can put a hex on me.”
Enoch said nothing. Hank stood, undecided.
“She mepled,” he said. “She had no call to meple. It was none of her
damn business.”
The young man said, “I was just trying to train Butcher. Butcher,” he
explained to Enoch, “is a coon hound pup.”
“That is right,” said Hank. “He wasn’t doing nothing wrong. The boys