the lines of men purposefully striding up the slope to kill him.
It had been in that moment that he had realized the insanity of war,
the futile gesture that in time became all but meaningless, the unreasoning
rage that must be nursed long beyond the memory of the incident that had
caused the rage, the sheer illogic that one man, by death of misery, might
prove a right or uphold a principle.
Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race
had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today
that insanity-turned-principle stood ready to wipe out, if not the race
itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had
been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries.
Lewis had been sitting on a fallen log and now, as Enoch neared, he
rose.
“I waited for you here,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Enoch stepped across the spring.
“The body will be here sometime in early evening,” Lewis said.
“Washington will fly it out to Madison and truck it here from there.”
Enoch noped. “I am glad to hear that.”
“They were insistent,” Lewis said, “that I should ask you once again
what the body is.”
“I told you last night,” said Enoch, “that I can’t tell you anything. I
wish I could. I’ve been figuring for years how to get it told, but there’s
no way of doing it.”
“The body is something from off this Earth,” said Lewis. “We are sure
of that.”
“You think so,” Enoch said, not making it a question.
“And the house,” said Lewis, “is something alien, too.”
“The house,” Enoch told him, shortly, “was built by my father.”
“But something changed it,” Lewis said. “It is not the way be built
it.”
“The years change things,” said Enoch.
“Everything but you.”
Enoch grinned at him. “So it bothers you,” he said. “You figure it’s
indecent.”
Lewis shook his head. “No, not indecent. Not really anything. After
watching you for years, I’ve come to an acceptance of you and everything
about you. No understanding, naturally, but complete acceptance. Sometimes I
tell myself I’m crazy, but that’s only momentary. I’ve tried not to bother
you. I’ve worked to keep everything exactly as it was. And now that I’ve met
you, I am glad that is the way it was. But we’re going at this wrong. We’re
acting as if we were enemies, as if we were strange dogs-and that’s not the
way to do it. I think that the two of us may have a lot in common. There’s
something going on and I don’t want to do a thing that will interfere with
it.”
“But you did,” said Enoch. “You did the worst thing that you could when
you took the body. If you’d sat down and planned how to do me harm, you
couldn’t have done worse. And not only me. Not really me, at all. It was the
human race you harmed.”
“I don’t understand,” ‘said Lewis. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.
There was the writing on the stone …”
“That was my fault,” said Enoch. “I should never have put up that
stone. But at the time it seemed the thing to do. I didn’t think that anyone
would come snooping around and …”
“It was a friend of yours?”
“A friend of mine? Oh, you mean the body. Well, not actually. Not that
particular person.”
“Now that it’s done,” Lewis said, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t help,” said Enoch.
“But isn’t there something-isn’t there anything that can be done about
it? More than just bringing back the body?”
“Yes,” Enoch told him, “there might be something. I might need some
help.”
“Tell me,” Lewis said quickly. “If it can be done …”
“I might need a truck,” said Enoch. “To haul away some stuff. Records
and other things like that. I might need it fast.”
“I can have a truck,” said Lewis. “I can have it waiting. And men to
help you load.”
“I might want to talk to someone in authority. High authority. The
President. Secretary of State. Maybe the U.N. I don’t know. I have to think
it out. And not only would I need a way to talk to them, but some measure of
assurance that they would listen to what I had to say.”
“I’ll arrange,” said Lewis, “for mobile short-wave equipment. I’ll have
it standing by.”
“And someone who will listen?”
“That’s right,” said Lewis. “Anyone you say.”
“And one thing more.”
“Anything,” said Lewis.
“Forgetfulness,” said Enoch. “Maybe I won’t need any of these things.
Not the truck or any of the rest of it. Maybe I’ll have to let things go
just as they’re going now. And if that should be the case, could you and
everyone else concerned forget I ever asked?”
“I think we could,” said Lewis. “But I would keep on watching.”
“I wish you would,” said Enoch. “Later on I might need some help. But
no further interference.”
“Are you sure,” asked Lewis, “that there is nothing else?”
Enoch shook his head. “Nothing else. All the rest of it I must do
myself.”
Perhaps, he thought, he’d already talked too much. For how could he be
sure that he could trust this man? How could he be sure he could trust
anyone?
And yet, if he decided to leave Galactic Central and cast his lot with
Earth, he might need some help. There might be some objection by the aliens
to his taking along his records and the alien gadgets. If he wanted to get
away with them, he might have to make it fast.
But did he want to leave Galactic Central? Could he give up the galaxy?
Could he turn down the offer to become the keeper of another station on some
other planet? When the time should come, could he cut his tie with all the
other races and all the mysteries of the other stars?
Already he had taken steps to do those very things. Here, in the last
few moments, without too much thought about it, almost as if he already had
reached his decision, he had arranged a setup that would turn him back to
Earth.
He stood there, thinking, puzzled at the steps he’d taken.
“There’ll be someone here,” said Lewis. “Someone at this spring. If not
myself, then someone else who can get in touch with me.”
Enoch noped absent-mindedly.
“Someone will see you every morning when you take your walk,” said
Lewis. “Or you can reach us here any time you wish.”
Like a conspiracy, thought Enoch. Like a bunch of kids playing cops and
robbers.
“I have to be getting on,” he said. “It’s almost time for mail. Wins
will be wondering what has happened to me.”
He started up the hill.
“Be seeing you,” said Lewis.
“Yeah,” said Enoch. “I’ll be seeing you.”
He was surprised to find the warm glow spreading in him-as if there had
been something wrong and now it was all right, as if there had been
something lost that now had been recovered.
26
Enoch met the mailman halfway down the road that led into the station.
The old jalopy was traveling fast, bumping over the grassy ruts, swishing
through the overhanging bushes that grew along the track.
Wins braked to a halt when he caught sight of Enoch and sat waiting for
him.
“You got on a detour,” Enoch said, coming up to him. “Or have you
changed your route?”
“You weren’t waiting at the box,” said Wins, “and I had to see you.”
“Some important mail?”
“Nope, it isn’t mail. It’s old Hank Fisher. He is down in Millville,
setting up the drinks in Epie’s tavern and shooting off his face.”
“It’s not like Hank to be buying drinks.”
“He’s telling everyone that you tried to kidnap Lucy.”
“I didn’t kidnap her,” Enoch said. “Hank had took a bull whip to her
and I hid her out until he got cooled down.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, Enoch.”
“Maybe. But Hank was set on giving her a beating. He already had hit
her a lick or two.”
“Hank’s out to make you trouble.”
“He told me that he would.”
“He says you kidnapped her, then got scared and brought her back. He
says you had her bid out in the house and when he tried to break in and get
her, he couldn’t do it. He says you have a funny sort of house. He says he
broke an ax blade on a window pane.”
“Nothing funny about it,” Enoch said. “Hank just imagines things.”
“It’s all right so far,” said the mailman. “None of them, in broad
daylight and their right senses, will do anything about it. But come night
they’ll be liquored up and won’t have good sense. There are some of them
might be coming up to see you.”
“I suppose he’s telling them I’ve got the devil in me.”