_... Walden's study. The familiar curtains drawn aside, and the shelves
behind them. The rows of bright-backed, box-like objects, most of them
old and spotted, quite unhygienic ..._
Gwin shook her head at the perception, but Myron nodded.
"Books. I didn't know there were any outside the museums."
Walden smiled again. "Only mine. Books are fascinating things. All the
knowledge of a race, gathered together on a few shelves...."
"Knowledge?" Myron shrugged. "Imagine storing knowledge in those--boxes.
What are they? What's in them? Just words...."
The books faded as Walden sighed. "You'd be surprised what the old race
did, with just those--boxes."
He looked across at Eric, who was now bouncing his ball and counting,
out loud, up to three, and then going back and starting again.
"The boy can learn what's in those books. Just as if he'd gone to school
back in the old times."
Myron and Gwin looked doubtfully at each other, and then over at the
corner where Eric played unheeding. Perhaps Walden could help.
Perhaps....
"Eric," Gwin said aloud.
"Yes, mother?"
"We've decided you're going to go to school, the way you want to. Mr.
Walden here is going to be your teacher. Isn't that nice?"
Eric looked at her and then at the old man. Strangers didn't often come
out on the sunporch. Strangers usually left him alone.
He bounced the ball again without answering.
"Say something, Eric," his mother commanded.
Eric looked back at Walden. "He can't teach me to be like other
children, can he?"
"No," Walden said. "I can't."
"Then I don't want to go to school." Eric threw the ball across the room
as hard as he could.
"But there once were other people like _you_," Walden said. "Lots of
them. And you can learn about them, if you want to."
"Other people like me? Where?"
Myron and Gwin looked helplessly at each other and at the old man. Gwin
began to cry and Myron cursed softly, on the perception level so that
Eric wouldn't hear them.
But Walden's face was gentle and understanding as he answered, so
understanding that Eric couldn't help wanting desperately to believe
him.
"Everyone was like you once," Walden said. "A long time ago."
* * * * *
It was a new life for Eric. Every day he would go over to Walden's and
the two of them would pull back the curtains in the study and Walden
would lift down some of the books. It was as if Walden was giving him
the past, all of it, as fast as he could grasp it.
"I'm really like the old race, Walden?"
"Yes, Eric. You'll see just how much like them...."
Identity. Here in the past, in the books he was learning to read, in the
pictures, the pages and pages of scenes and portraits. Strange scenes,
far removed from the gardens and the quiet houses and the wordless smile
of friend to friend.
Great buildings and small. The Parthenon in the moonlight, not too many
pages beyond the cave, with its smoky fire and first crude wall
drawings. Cities bright with a million neon lights, and still later,
caves again--the underground stations of the Moon colonies. All unreal,
and yet--
They were his people, these men in the pictures. Strange men, violent
men: the barbarian trampling his enemy to death beneath his horse's
hooves, the knight in armor marching to the Crusade, the spaceman. And
the quieter men: the farmer, the artisan, the poet--they too were his
people, and far easier to understand than the others.
[Illustration]
The skill of reading mastered, and the long, sweeping vistas of the
past. Their histories. Their wars. "Why did they fight, Walden?" And
Walden's sigh. "I don't know, Eric, but they did."
So much to learn. So much to understand. Their art and music and
literature and religion. Patterns of life that ebbed and flowed and
ebbed again, but never in quite the same way. "Why did they change so
much, Walden?" And the answer, "You probably know that better than I,
Eric...."
Perhaps he did. For he went on to the books that Walden ignored.
Their mathematics, their science. The apple's fall, and the orbits
of planets. The sudden spiral of analysis, theory, technology. The
machines--steamships, airplanes, spaceships....
And the searching loneliness that carried the old race from the caves of
Earth to the stars. The searching, common to the violent man and the
quiet man, to the doer and the dreaming poet.
_Why do we hunger, who own the Moon and trample the shifting dust
of Mars?_
_Why aren't we content with the worlds we've won? Why don't we
rest, with the system ours?_
_We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want
the stars...._
"Have you ever been to the stars, Walden?"
Walden stared at him. Then he laughed. "Of course not, Eric. Nobody goes
there now. None of our race has ever gone. Why should we?"
There was no explaining. Walden had never been lonely.
And then one day, while he was reading some fiction from the middle
period of the race, Eric found the fantasy. Speculation about the
future, about their future.... About the new race!
He read on, his heart pounding, until the same old pattern came clear.
They had foreseen conflict, struggle between old race and new, suspicion
and hatred and tragedy. The happy ending was superficial. Everyone was
motivated as they had been motivated.
He shut the book and sat there, wanting to reach back across the years
to the old race writers who had been so right and yet so terribly,
blindly wrong. The writers who had seen in the new only a continuation
of the old, of themselves, of their own fears and their own hungers.
"Why did they die, Walden?" He didn't expect an answer.
"Why does any race die, Eric?"
His own people, forever removed from him, linked to him only through the
books, the pictures, and his own backward-reaching emotions.
"Walden, hasn't there _ever_ been anyone else like me, since they died?"
Silence. Then, slowly, Walden nodded.
"I wondered how long it would be before you asked that. Yes, there have
been others. Sometimes three or four in a generation."
"Then, perhaps...."
"No," Walden said. "There aren't any others now. We'd know it if there
were." He turned away from Eric, to the plastic wall that looked out
across the garden and the children playing and the long, level,
flower-carpeted plain.
"Sometimes, when there's more than one of them, they go out there away
from us, out to the hills where it's wild. But they're found, of course.
Found, and brought back." He sighed. "The last of them died when I was a
boy."
Others like him. Within Walden's lifetime, others, cut off from their
own race, lonely and rootless in the midst of the new. Others like him,
but not now, in his lifetime. For him there were only the books.
The old race was gone, gone with all its conflicts, all its violence,
its stupidity--and its flaming rockets in the void and its Parthenon in
the moonlight.
* * * * *
Eric came into the study and stopped. The room was filled with
strangers. There were half a dozen men besides Walden, most of them
fairly old, white-haired and studious looking. They all turned to look
at him, watched him gravely without speaking.
"Well, there he is." Walden looked from face to face. "Are you still
worried? Do you still think that one small boy constitutes a threat to
the race? What about you, Abbot?"
"I don't know. I still think he should have been institutionalized in
the beginning."
"Why? So you could study the brain processes of the lower animals?"
Walden's thoughts were as sarcastic as he could send them.
"No, of course not. But don't you see what you've done, by teaching him
to read? You've started him thinking of the old race. Don't deny it."
"I don't."
The thin man, Drew, broke in angrily. "He's not full grown yet. Just
fourteen, isn't he? How can you be sure what he'll be like later? He'll
be a problem. They've always been problems."
They were afraid. That was what was the matter with them. Walden sighed.
"Tell them what you've been studying, Eric," he said aloud.
For a minute Eric was too tongue-tied to answer. He stood motionless,
waiting for them to laugh at him.
"Go on. Tell them."
"I've been reading about the old race," Eric said. "All about the stars.
About the people who went off in the starships and explored our whole
galaxy."
"What's a galaxy?" the thin man said. Walden could perceive that he
really didn't know.
Eric's fear lessened. These men weren't laughing at him. They weren't
being just polite, either. They were interested. He smiled at them,
shyly, and told them about the books and the wonderful, strange tales of
the past that the books told. The men listened, nodding from time to
time. But he knew that they didn't understand. The world of the books
was his alone....
"Well?" Walden looked at the others. They looked back. Their emotions
were a welter of doubt, of indecision.
"You've heard the boy," Walden said quietly, thrusting his own
uneasiness down, out of his thoughts.
"Yes." Abbot hesitated. "He seems bright enough--quite different from
what I'd expected. At least he's not like the ones who grew up wild in
the hills. This boy isn't a savage."
Walden shrugged. "Maybe they weren't savages either," he suggested.
"After all, it's been fifty years since the last of them died. And a lot
of legends can spring up in fifty years."
"Perhaps we have been worrying unnecessarily." Abbot got up to go, but
his eyes still held Walden's. "But," he added, "it's up to you to watch
him. If he reverts, becomes dangerous in any way, he'll have to be
locked up. That's final."
The others nodded.
"I'll watch him," Walden told them. "Just stop worrying."
He stood at the door and waited until they were out of sight. Then and
only then did he allow himself to sigh and taste the fear he'd kept
hidden. The old men, the men with authority, were the dangerous ones.
Walden snorted. Even with perception, men could be fools.
* * * * *
The summer that Eric was sixteen Walden took him to the museum. The
aircar made the trip in just a few hours--but it was farther than Eric
had ever traveled in his life, and farther than most people ever
bothered traveling.
The museum lay on an open plain where there weren't many houses. At
first glance it was far from impressive. Just a few big buildings,
housing the artifacts, and a few old ruins of ancient constructions,
leveled now and half buried in the sands.
"It's nothing." Eric looked down at it, disappointed. "Nothing at all."
"What did you expect?" Walden set the aircar down between the two
largest buildings. "You knew it wouldn't be like the pictures in the
books. You knew that none of the old race's cities are left."
"I know," Eric said. "But I expected more than this."
He got out of the car and followed Walden around to the door of the
first building. Another man, almost as old as Walden, came toward them
smiling. The two men shook hands and stood happily perceiving each
other.
"This is Eric," Walden said aloud. "Eric, this is Prior, the caretaker
here. He was one of my schoolmates."
"It's been years since we've perceived short range," Prior said. "Years.
But I suppose the boy wants to look around inside?"
Eric nodded, although he didn't care too much. He was too disappointed
to care. There was nothing here that he hadn't seen a hundred times
before.
They went inside, past some scale models of the old cities. The same
models, though a bit bigger, that Eric had seen in the three-dimensional
view-books. Then they went into another room, lined with thousands of
books, some very old, many the tiny microfilmed ones from the middle
periods of the old race.
"How do you like it, Eric?" the caretaker said.
"It's fine," he said flatly, not really meaning it. He was angry at
himself for feeling disappointment. Walden had told him what to expect.
And yet he'd kept thinking that he'd walk into one of the old cities and
be able to imagine that it was ten thousand years ago and others were
around him. Others like him....
Ruins. Ruins covered by dirt, and no one of the present race would even
bother about uncovering them.
Prior and Walden looked at each other and smiled. "Did you tell him?"
the caretaker telepathed.
"No. I thought we'd surprise him. I knew all the rest would disappoint
him."
"Eric," the caretaker said aloud. "Come this way. There's another room I
want to show you."
He followed them downstairs, down a long winding ramp that spiraled
underground so far that he lost track of the distance they had
descended. He didn't much care anyway. Ahead of him, the other two were
communicating, leaving him alone.
"Through here," Prior said, stepping off the ramp.
They entered a room that was like the bottom of a well, with smooth
stone sides and far, far above them a glass roof, with clouds apparently
drifting across its surface. But it wasn't a well. It was a vault,
forever preserving the thing that had been the old race's masterpiece.
It rested in the center of the room, its nose pointing up at the sky. It
was like the pictures, and unlike them. It was big, far bigger than Eric
had ever visualized it. It was tall and smooth and as new looking as if
its builders had just stepped outside for a minute and would be back in
another minute to blast off for the stars.
"A starship," Walden said. "One of the last types."
"There aren't many left," Prior said. "We're lucky to have this one in
our museum."
Eric wasn't listening. He was looking at the ship. The old race's ship.
His ship.
"The old race built strange things," Prior said. "This is one of
the strangest." He shook his head. "Imagine the time they put in on
it.... And for what?"
Eric didn't try to answer him. He couldn't explain why the old ones had
built it. But he knew. He would have built it himself, if he'd lived
then. _We have cast off the planets like outgrown toys, and now we want
the stars...._
His people. His ship. His dream.
* * * * *
The old caretaker showed him around the museum and then left him alone
to explore by himself. He had all the time he wanted.
He studied. He worked hard all day long, scarcely ever leaving the
museum grounds. He studied the subjects that now were the most
fascinating to him of all the old race's knowledge--the subjects that
related to the starships. Astronomy, physics, navigation, and the
complex charts of distant stars, distant planets, worlds he'd never
heard of before. Worlds that to the new race were only pin-pricks of
light in the night sky.
All day long he studied. But in the evening he would go down the winding
ramp to the ship. The well was lighted with a softer, more diffuse
illumination than that of the houses. In the soft glow the walls and the
glass-domed roof seemed to disappear and the ship looked free, pointing
up at the stars.
He didn't try to tell the caretaker what he thought. He just went back
to his books and his studies. There was so much he had to learn. And now
there was a reason for his learning. Someday, when he was fully grown
and strong and had mastered all he needed from the books, he was going
to fly the ship. He was going to look for his people, the ones who had
left Earth before the new race came....
He told no one. But Walden watched him, and sighed.
"They'll never let you do it, Eric. It's a mad dream."
"What are you talking about?"
"The ship. You want to go to the stars, don't you?"
Eric stared at him, more surprised than he'd been in years. He had said
nothing. There was no way for Walden to know. Unless he'd perceived
it--and Eric couldn't be perceived, any more than he could perceive
other people....
Walden shook his head. "It wasn't telepathy that told me. It was your
eyes. The way you look at the ship. And besides, I've known you for
years now. And I've wondered how long it would be before you thought of
this answer."
"Well, why not?" Eric looked across at the ship, and his throat caught,
choking him, the way it always did. "I'm lonely here. My people are
gone. Why shouldn't I go?"
"You'd be lonelier inside that ship, by yourself, away from Earth, away
from everything, and with no assurance you'd ever find anyone at all,
old race or new or alien...."
Eric didn't answer. He looked back at the ship, thinking of the books,
trying to think of it as a prison, a weightless prison carrying him
forever into the unknown, with no one to talk to, no one to see.
Walden was right. He would be too much alone in the ship. He'd have to
postpone his dream.
He'd wait until he was old, and take the ship and die in it....
Eric smiled at the thought. He was seventeen, old enough to know that
his idea was adolescent and melodramatic. He knew, suddenly, that he'd
never fly the ship.
* * * * *
The years passed. Eric spent most of his time at the museum. He had his
own aircar now, and sometimes he flew it home and visited with his
parents. They liked to have him come. They liked it much better than
having to travel all the way to the museum to visit him.
Yet, though he wasn't dependent on other people any more, and could fly
the aircar as he chose, he didn't do much exploring. He didn't have any
desire to meet strangers. And there were always the books.
"You're sure you're all right?" his mother said. "You don't need
anything?"
"No. I'm fine."
He smiled, looking out through the sunporch wall into the garden. It
seemed years and years since he'd pressed his nose to the glass,
watching the butterflies. It had been a long time.
"I've got to get going," he said. "I want to be back at the museum by
dark."
"Well, if you're sure you won't stay...."
They said goodbye and he went out and got into the aircar and started
back. He flew slowly, close to the ground, because he really had plenty
of time and he felt lazy. He skimmed along over a valley and heard
laughter and dipped lower. A group of children was playing. Young
ones--they even talked aloud sometimes as they played. Children....
There were so many children, always in groups, laughing....
He flew on, quickly, until he was in a part of the country where he
didn't see any houses. Just a stream and a grove of trees and bright
flowers. He dropped lower, stopped, got out and walked down to the
stream.
It was by another stream that he'd met the children who had laughed at
him, years ago. He smiled, sadly.
He felt alone, but in a different sense from his usual isolation. He
felt free, away from people, away even from the books and their unspoken
insistence that their writers were dead and almost forgotten. He stood
by the edge of the stream, watching water spiders scoot across the
rippled surface.
This was the same. This stream had probably been here when the old race
was here, maybe even before the old race had even come into existence.
Water spiders. Compared to man, their race was immortal....
The sun was low when he turned away from the stream and walked back to
where he had parked the aircar. He scarcely looked about him as he
walked. He was sure he was alone, and he felt no caution, no need to
watch and listen.
But as he turned toward the car he saw the people. Two. Young, about his
own age. A boy and a girl, smiling at each other, holding hands.
They weren't a dozen feet in front of him. But they didn't notice him.
They were conscious of no one but each other. As Eric watched, standing
frozen, unwilling to draw attention to himself by even moving or backing
up, the two leaned closer together. Their arms went around each other,
tightly, and they kissed.
They said nothing. They kissed, and then stood apart and went on looking
at each other. Even without being able to perceive, Eric could feel
their emotion.
Then they turned, slowly, toward him. In a moment they would be aware of
him. He didn't want them to think he was spying on them, so he went
toward them, making no effort to be quiet, and as he moved they stepped
still farther apart and looked at him, startled.
They looked at each other as he passed, even more startled, and the
girl's hand went up to her mouth in surprise.
They know, Eric thought bitterly. They know I'm different.
He didn't want to go back to the museum. He flew blindly, not looking
down at the neat domed houses and the gardens and the people, but ahead,
to the eastern sky and the upthrust scarp of the hills. The hills, where
people like him had fled, for a little while.
The occasional aircars disappeared. The gardens dropped away, and the
ordered color, and there was grass and bare dirt and, ahead, the
scraggly trees and out-thrust rocks of the foothills. No people. Only
the birds circling, crying to each other, curious about the car. Only
the scurrying animals of the underbrush below.
A little of the tension drained from him as he climbed. Perhaps in these
very hills men like him had walked, not many generations ago. Perhaps
they would walk there again, amid the disorder of tree and canyon and
tumbled rock. Amid the wildness, the beauty that was neither that of the
gardens nor that of the old race's cities, but older, more enduring than
either.
Below him were other streams, but these were swift-flowing, violent,
sparkling like prismed sunlight as they cascaded over the rocks. Their
wildness called to him, soothed him as the starship soothed him, as the
gardens and the neat domed houses never could.
He knew why his kind had fled to the hills, for whatever little time
they had. He knew too that he would come again.
Searching. Looking for his own kind.
That was what he was doing. That was what he had always intended to do,
ever since he had heard of the others like himself, the men who had come
here before him. He realized his motive suddenly, and realized too the
futility of it. But futile or not, he would come again.
For he was of the old race. He shared their hungering.
* * * * *
Walden was reading in his study when the council members arrived. They
came without advance warning and filed in ceremoniously, responding
rather coolly to his greeting.
"We're here about the boy," Abbot began abruptly. "He's at the museum
now, isn't he?"