10
On returning to the hut, he was startled by a huge figure standing dark and immobile before his door. His heart hammering, he said, “Joe?”
“Yeah,” answered the bass drum voice. Joe advanced to nun and said, “There’th been thomone not human here. I can thmell him. He got a funny thtink, different than you humanth got. You know, it remindth me …”
He was silent for a while. Sam waited, knowing that the ponderous stone wheels were grinding out the flour of thought. Then Joe said, “Veil, I’ll be damned!” “What is it, Joe?”
“It’th been tho long ago, it happened on Earth, you know, thometime before I got killed there. No, it couldn’t be. Jethuth Chritht, if vhat you thay ith true about how long ago I lived, it mutht’ve been maybe a hundred thouthand yearth ago!” “Come on, Joe, don’t leave me hanging up in the air.”
“Veil, you ain’t going to believe thith. But you got to remember that my nothe hath a memory, too.”
“It ought to, it’s bigger than your brain,” Sam said. “Out with it, or are you trying to kill me with frustrated curiosity?”
“All right, Tham. I vath on the track of a vifthangkruilth tribethman, they lived about ten mileth from uth on the other thide of a big hill that looked like …” “Never mind the details, Joe,” Sam snapped.
“Veil, it vath late in the day and I knew I vath getting clothe to my enemy becauthe hith printth were tho frethh. And then I heard a noithe that made me think maybe the guy I vath following had backtracked on me and I vath going to get hith club thyoved all the vay up instead of vithevertha. Tho I dropped to the ground and crawled tvardth the noithe. And gueth vhat I thaw? Great Thcott, vhy didn’t I ever tell you thith before? Vat a dummy I am!”
“I’ll go along with that. So. . . ?”
“Veil, the guy I vath trailing had gotten vind of me, though I don’t know how, thinthe I’m ath thilent ath a veathel thneaking up on a bird, big ath I am. Anyvay, he had backtracked and might’ve come up behind me, maybe. But he vath lying on the ground, out cold ath a cavedigger’th ath. And there vere two humanth thtanding by him. Now, I’m ath brave ath the nektht guy and maybe braver, but thith vath the firtht time I ever thaw humanth, and it vath poththible I vath thcared. Cauthyiouth, anyvay.
“They vere dreththed up in clotheth, vat you’ve dethcribed to me ath clotheth. They had thome funny looking thingth in their handth, about a foot long, thick black thtickth that veren’t vood, looked more like the thteel that Bloodakth’th akthe ith made of.
“I vath veil hidden but thothe bathtardth had thorne vay of knowing I vath there. One of them pointed the thtick at me, and I became unconthious. Paththed out. Vhen I came to, the two humanth and the vif vere gone. I got to hell out of there, but I never forgot that thmell.” Sam said, “That’s the whole story?”
Joe nodded. Sam said, “I’ll be damned! Does that mean that these . . . these people . . . have been keeping an eye on us for half a million years? Or more? Or are they the same people?” “Vhat do you mean?”
Sam told Joe that he must never tell anybody else what he was going to hear. He knew that the titanthrop could be trusted, yet when he explained he felt misgivings. X had required him not to utter a word to anybody else.
Joe nodded so much that the silhouette of his nose was like a log rising and falling in a heavy sea. “It all tieth in. It’th quite a cointhidenthe, ain’t it? Me theeing them on Earth, then being taken along on Ikhnaton’th ekthpedithion and theeing the tower and airthyip, and now you being picked by thith Ekth to build the thteamboat. How about that, huh?”
Sam was so excited that he could not fall asleep until shortly before dawn. He managed to rouse himself for breakfast, though he would have preferred to stay in bed. While the Vikings, the German, Joe, and he were eating the contents of their grails, he told them a heavily censored version of his experience. But he told it as if it had been a dream. If he had not had Joe’s olfactory backing for the mysterious stranger’s presence, he would have thought it was a dream.