It was totally unexpected, to Dylan as well as Rush. The time for this
sort of thing was past, the age was done, and for a long while neither
of them fully understood.
"C'mon," Rush said with exasperation.
Dylan shook his head, marveling at himself. "I'll be with you in a
little while."
Rush came near and looked questioningly into his face.
"Listen," Dylan said hurriedly, "we only need one. If we could just get
one back to a lab we'd at least have some clue to what they are. This
way we don't know anything. We can't just cut and run." He struggled
with the unfamiliar, time-lost words. "We got to make a stand."
* * * * *
He turned from Rush and lay forward on his belly in the snow. He could
feel his heart beating against the soft white cushion beneath him.
There was no time to look at this calmly and he was glad of that. He
spent some time being very much afraid of the unknown things beyond
the trees, but even then he realized that this was the one thing in his
life he had to do.
It is not a matter of dying, he thought, but of _doing_. Sooner or
later a man must do a thing which justifies his life, or the life is
not worth living. The long cold line of his existence had reached this
point, here and now in the snow at this moment. He would go on from
here as a man ... or not at all.
Rush had sat down beside him, beginning to understand, watching without
words. He was an old man. Like all Earthmen, he had never fought with
his hands. He had not fought the land, or the tides, or the weather, or
any of the million bitter sicknesses which Man had grown up fighting,
and he was beginning to realize that somewhere along the line he had
been betrayed. Now, with a dead paw of the enemy in his hand, he did
not feel like a man. And he was ready to fight now, but it was much
too late and he saw with a vast leaden shame that he did not know how,
could not even begin.
"Can I help?" he said.
Dylan shook his head. "Go back and let them know about the robots, and,
if the ship is ready to leave before I get back, well--then good luck."
He started to slither forward on his belly but Rush reached out and
grabbed him, holding with one hand to peace and gentleness and the soft
days which were ending.
"Listen," he said, "you don't owe anybody."
Dylan stared at him with surprise. "I know," he said, and then he
slipped up over the mound before him and headed for the trees.
* * * * *
Now what he needed was luck. Just good, plain old luck. He didn't know
where they were or how many there were or what kinds there were, and
the chances were good that one of them was watching him right now.
Well, then he needed some luck. He inched forward slowly, carefully,
watching the oncoming line of trees. The snow was falling on him in
big, leafy flakes and that was fine, because the blackness of his suit
was much too distinct and the more white he was the better. Even so,
it was becoming quite dark by now and he thought he had a chance. He
reached the first tree.
Silently he slipped off his heavy cap. The visor got in his way and
above all he must be able to see. He let the snow thicken on his hair
before he raised himself on his elbows and looked outward.
There was nothing but the snow and the dead quiet and the stark white
boles of the trees. He slid past the first trunk to the next, moving
forward on his elbows with his pistol in his right hand. His elbow
struck a rock and it hurt and his face was freezing. Once he rubbed
snow from his eyebrows. Then he came through the trees and lay down
before a slight rise, thinking.
Better to go around than over. But if anything is watching, it is most
likely watching from above.
Therefore, go around and come back up from behind. Yes.
His nose had begun to run. With great care he crawled among some large
rocks, hoping against hope that he would not sneeze. Why had nothing
seen him? Was something following him now? He turned to look behind him
but it was darker now and becoming difficult to see. But he would have
to look behind him more often.
He was moving down a gorge. There were large trees above him and he
needed their shelter, but he could not risk slipping down the sides of
the gorge. And far off, weakly, out of the gray cold ahead, he heard a
noise.
He lay face down in the snow, listening. With a slow, thick shuffle, a
thing was moving through the trees before him. In a moment he saw that
it was not coming toward him. He lifted his head but saw nothing. Much
more slowly now, he crawled again. The thing was moving down the left
side of the gorge ahead, coming away from the rise he had circled. It
was moving without caution and he worried that if he did not hurry, he
would lose it. But for the life of him he couldn't stand up.
* * * * *
The soldier went forward on his hands and knees. When his clothes hung
down, the freezing cold entered his throat and shocked his body, which
was sweating. He shifted his gun to his gloved hand and blew on the
bare fingers of his right, still crawling. When he reached the other
end of the gorge, he stood upright against a rock wall and looked in
the direction of the shuffling thing.
He saw it just as it turned. It was a great black lump on a platform.
The platform had legs and the thing was plodding methodically upon a
path which would bring it past him. It had come down from the rise and
was rounding the gorge when Dylan saw it. It did not see him.
If he had not ducked quickly and brought up his gun, the monkey would
not have seen him either, but there was no time for regret. The monkey
was several yards to the right of the lump on the platform when he
heard it start running, and he had to look up this time and saw it
leaping toward him over the snow.
All right, he said to himself. His first shot took the monkey in the
head, where the eyes were. As the thing crashed over, there was a hiss
and a stench, and flame seared into his shoulder and the side of his
face. He lurched to the side, trying to see, his gun at arm's-length as
the lump on the platform spun toward him. He fired four times. Three
bolts went home in the lump, the fourth tore a leg off the platform and
the whole thing fell over.
Dylan crawled painfully behind a rock, his left arm useless. The
silence had come back again and he waited, but neither of the alien
things moved. Nothing else moved in the woods around him. He turned his
face up to the falling snow and let it come soothingly upon the awful
wound in his side.
After a while he looked out at the monkey. It had risen to a sitting
position but was frozen in the motion of rising. It had ceased to
function when he hit the lump. Out of the numbness and the pain, he
felt a great gladness rising.
The guide. He had killed the guide.
* * * * *
He would not be cautious any more. Maybe some of the other robots were
self-directing and dangerous, but they could be handled. He went to the
lump, stared at it without feeling. A black doughy bulge was swelling
out through one of the holes.
It was too big to carry, but he would have to take something back. He
went over and took the monkey by a stiff jutting arm and began dragging
it back toward the village.
Now he began to stumble. It was dark and he was very tired. But the
steel he had been forging in his breast was complete, and the days
which were coming would be days full of living. He would walk with big
shoulders and he would not bother to question, because Man was not born
to live out his days at home, by the fire.
It was a very big thing that Dylan had learned and he could not express
it, but he knew it all the same, knew it beyond understanding. And so
he went home to his people.
One by one, increasing, in the wee black corner of space which Man had
taken for his own, other men were learning. And the snow fell and the
planets whirled, and, when it was spring where Dylan had fought, men
were already leaping back out to the stars.