gone as far as one might go and then settling down to wait with an ageless
patience that never would grow weary.
_You spoke of help_, the creature said to him. _Why help? You do not
know this other. Why should you want to help?_
‘It is alive,’ said Daniels. ‘It’s alive and I’m alive and is that not
enough?’
_I do not know_, the creature said.
‘I think it is,’ said Daniels.
_And how could you help?_
‘I’ve told you about this business of genetics. I don’t know if I can
explain — ‘
_I have the terms from your mind_, the creature said. _The genetic
code._
‘Would this other one, the one beneath the stone, the one you guard — ‘
_Not guard_, the creature said. _The one I wait for._
‘You will wait for long.’
_I am equipped for waiting. I have waited long. I can wait much longer._
‘Someday,’ Daniels said, ‘the stone will erode away. But you need not
wait that long. Does this other creature know its genetic code?’
_It knows_, the creature said. _It knows far more than I._
‘But all of it,’ insisted Daniels. ‘Down to the last linkage, the final
ingredient, the sequences of all the billions of — ‘
_It knows_, the creature said. _The first requisite of all life is to
understand itself._
‘And it could — it would — be willing to give us that information, to
supply us its genetic code?’
_You are presumptuous_, said the sparkling creature (although the word
was harder than presumptuous). _That is information no thing gives another.
It is indecent and obscene_ (here again the words were not exactly indecent
and obscene). _It involves the giving of one’s self into another’s hands. It
is an ultimate and purposeless surrender._
‘Not surrender,’ Daniels said. ‘A way of escaping from its imprisonment.
In time, in the hundred years of which I told you, the people of my race
could take that genetic code and construct another creature exactly like the
first. Duplicate it with exact preciseness.’
_But it still would be in stone._
‘Only one of it. The original one. That original could wait for the
erosion of the rock. But the other one, its duplicate, could take up life
again.’
And what, Daniels wondered, if the creature in the stone did not wish
for rescue? What if it had deliberately placed itself beneath the stone?
What if it simply sought protection and sanctuary? Perhaps, if it wished,
the creature could get out of where it was as easily as this other one — or
this other thing — had risen from the mound.
_No, it cannot_, said the creature squatting on the ledge. _I was
careless. I went to sleep while waiting and I slept too long._
And that would have been a long sleep, Daniels told himself. A sleep so
long that dribbling soil had mounded over it, that fallen boulders, cracked
off the cliff by frost, had been buried in the soil and that a clump of
birch had sprouted and grown into trees thirty feet high. There was a
difference here in time rate that he could not comprehend.
But some of the rest, he told himself, he had sensed — the devoted
loyalty and the mindless patience of the creature that tracked another far
among the stars. He knew he was right, for the mind of that other thing,
that devoted star-dog perched upon the ledge, came into him and fastened on
his mind and for a moment the two of them, the two minds, for all their
differences, merged into a single mind in a gesture of fellowship and basic
understanding, as if for the first time in what must have been millions of
years this baying hound from outer space had found a creature that could
understand its duty and its purpose.
‘We could try to dig it out,’ said Daniels. ‘I had thought of that, of
course, but I was afraid that it would be injured. And it would be hard to
convince anyone — ‘
_No_, said the creature, _digging would not do. There is much you do not
understand. But this other proposal that you have, that has great merit. You
say you do not have the knowledge of genetics to take this action now. Have
you talked to others of your kind?_
‘I talked to one,’ said Daniels, ‘and he would not listen. He thought I
was mad. But he was not, after all, the man I should have spoken to. In time
I could talk with others but not right now. No matter how much I might want
to — I can’t. For they would laugh at me and I could not stand their
laughter. But in a hundred years or somewhat less I could — ‘
_But you will not exist a hundred years_, said the faithful dog. _You
are a short-lived species. Which might explain your rapid rise. All life
here is short-lived and that gives evolution a chance to build intelligence.
When I first came here I found but mindless entities._
‘You are right,’ said Daniels. ‘I can live no hundred years. Even from
the very start, I could not live a hundred years, and better than half of my
life is gone. Perhaps much more than half of it. For unless I can get out of
this cave I will be dead in days.’
_Reach out_, said the sparkling one. _Reach out and touch me, being._
Slowly Daniels reached out. His hand went through the sparkle and the
shine and he had no sense of matter — it was as if he’d moved his hand
through nothing but air.
_You see_, the creature said, _I cannot help you. There is no way for
our energies to interact. I am sorry, friend._ (it was not friend, exactly,
but it was good enough, and it might have been, Daniels thought, a great
deal more than friend.)
‘I am sorry, too,’ said Daniels. ‘I would like to live.’
Silence fell between them, the soft and brooding silence of a snow-laden
afternoon with nothing but the trees and the rock and the hidden little life
to share the silence with them.
It had been for nothing, then, Daniels told himself, this meeting with a
creature from another world. Unless he could somehow get off this ledge
there was nothing he could do. Although why he should so concern himself
with the rescue of the creature in the stone he could not understand. Surely
whether he himself lived or died should be of more importance to him than
that his death would foreclose any chance of help to the buried alien.
‘But it may not be for nothing,’ he told the sparkling creature. ‘Now
that you know — ‘
_My knowing_, said the creature, _will have no effect. There are others
from the stars who would have the knowledge — but even if I could contact
them they would pay no attention to me. My position is too lowly to converse
with the greater ones. My only hope would be people of your kind and, if I’m
not mistaken, only with yourself. For I catch the edge of thought that you
are the only one who really understands. There is no other of your race who
could even be aware of me._
Daniels nodded. It was entirely true. No other human existed whose brain
had been jumbled so fortunately as to have acquired the abilities he held.
He was the only hope for the creature in the stone and even such hope as he
represented might be very slight, for before it could be made effective he
must find someone who would listen and believe. And that belief must reach
across the years to a time when genetic engineering was considerably
advanced beyond its present state.
_If you could manage to survive the present this_, said the hound from
outer space, _I might bring to bear certain energies and techniques —
sufficiently for the project to be carried through. But, as you must
realize, I cannot supply the means to survive this crisis._
‘Someone may come along,’ said Daniels. ‘They might hear me if I yelled
every now and then.’
He began yelling every now and then and received no answer. His yells
were muffled by the storm and it was unlikely, he knew, that there would be
men abroad at a time like this. They’d be safe beside their fires.
The sparkling creature still perched upon the ledge when Daniels slumped
back to rest. The other made an indefinite sort of shape that seemed much
like a lopsided Christmas tree standing in the snow.
Daniels told himself not to go to sleep. He must close his eyes only for
a moment, then snap them open — he must not let them stay shut for then
sleep would come upon him. He should beat his arms across his chest for
warmth — but his arms were heavy and did not want to work.