City (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by Clifford D. Simak

  The body was a lulu. A sledge hammer couldn’t dent it and it would never rust. But that wasn’t all.

  Never figured a body’d make this much difference to me. Never knew how ramshackle and worn out the old one really was. A poor job from the first, although it was the best that could be done in the days when it was made. Machinery sure is wonderful, the tricks they can make it do.

  It was the robots, of course. The wild robots. The Dogs had fixed it up with them to make the body. Not very often the Dogs had much truck with the robots. Got along all right and all of that – but they got along because they let one another be, because they didn’t interfere, because neither one was nosey.

  There was a rabbit stirring in his den – and Jenkins knew it. A raccoon was out on a midnight prowl and Jenkins knew that, too – knew the cunning, sleek curiosity that went on within the brain behind the little eyes that stared at him from the clump of hazel brush. And off to the left, curled up beneath a tree, a bear was sleeping and dreaming as he slept – a glutton’s dream of wild honey and fish scooped out of a creek, with ants licked from the underside of an upturned rock as relish for the feast.

  And it was startling – but natural. As natural as lifting one’s feet to walk, as natural as normal hearing was. But it wasn’t hearing and it wasn’t seeing. Nor yet imagining. For Jenkins knew with a cool, sure certainty about the rabbit in the den and the coon in the hazel brush and the bear who dreamed in his sleep beneath the tree.

  And this, he thought, is the kind of bodies the wild robots have – for certainly if they could make one for me, they’d make them for themselves.

  They have come a long ways, too, in seven thousand years, even as the Dogs have travelled far since the exodus of humans. But we paid no attention to them, for that was the way it had to be. The robots went their way and the Dogs went theirs and they did not question what one another did, had no curiosity about what one another did. While the robots were building spaceships and shooting for the stars, while they built bodies, while they worked with mathematics and mechanics, the Dogs had worked with animals, had forged a brotherhood of the things that had been wild and hunted in the days of Man – had listened to the cobblies and tried to probe the depths of time to find there was no time.

  And certainly if the Dogs and robots have gone as far as this, the Mutants had gone farther still. And they will listen to me, Jenkins said, they will have to listen, for I’m bringing them a problem that falls right into their laps. Because the Mutants are men – despite their ways, they are the sons of Man. They can bear no rancour now, for the name of Man is a dust that is blowing with the wind, the sound of leaves on a summer day – and nothing more.

  Besides, I haven’t bothered them for seven thousand years – not that I ever bothered them. Joe was a friend of mine, or as close to a friend as a Mutant ever had. He’d talk with me when he wouldn’t talk with men. They will listen to me – they will tell me what to do. And they will not laugh.

  Because it’s not a laughing matter. It’s just a bow and arrow, but it’s not a laughing matter. It might have been at one time, but history takes the laugh out of many things. If the arrow is a joke, so is the atom bomb, so is the sweep of disease-laden dust that wiped out whole cities, so is the screaming rocket that arcs and falls ten thousand miles away and kills a million people.

  Although now there are no million people. A few hundred, more or less, living in the houses that the Dogs built for them because then the Dogs still knew what human beings were, still knew the connection that existed between them and looked on men as gods. Looked on men as gods and told the old tales before the fire of a winter evening and built against the day when Man might return and pat their heads and say, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’

  And that wasn’t right, said Jenkins striding down the hill, that wasn’t right at all. For men did not deserve that worship, did not deserve the godhood. Lord knows I loved them well enough, myself. Still love them, for that matter – but not because they are men, but because of the memory of a few of the many men.

  It wasn’t right that the Dogs should build for Man. For they were doing better than Man had ever done. So I wiped the memory out and a long, slow work it was. Over the long years I took away the legends and misted the memory and now they call men websters and think that’s what they are.

  I wondered if I had done right. I felt like a traitor and I spent bitter nights when the world was asleep and dark and I sat in the rocking chair and listened to the wind moaning in the eaves. For it was a thing I might not have the right to do. It was a thing the Websters might not have liked. For that was the hold they had on me, that they still have on me, that over the stretch of many thousand years I might do a thing and worry that they might not like it.

  But now I know I’m right. The bow and arrow is the proof of that. Once I thought that Man might have got started on the wrong road, that somewhere in the dim, dark savagery that was his cradle and his toddling place, he might have got off on the wrong foot, might have taken the wrong turning. But I see that I was wrong. There’s one road and one road alone that Man may travel – the bow and arrow road.

  I tried hard enough, Lord knows I really tried.

  When we rounded up the stragglers and brought them home to Webster House, I took away their weapons, not only from their hands but from their minds. I re-edited the literature that could be re-edited and I burned the rest. I taught them to read again and sing again and think again. And the books had no trace of war or weapons, no trace of hate or history, for history is hate – no battles or heroics, no trumpets.

  But it was wasted time, Jenkins said to himself. I know now that it was wasted time. For a man will invent a bow and arrow, no matter what you do.

  He had come down the long hill and crossed the creek that tumbled towards the river and now he was climbing again, climbing against the dark, hard uplift of the cliff-crowned hill.

  There were tiny rustlings and his new body told his mind that it was mice, mice scurrying in the tunnels they had fashioned in the grass. And for a moment he caught the little happiness that went with the running, playful mice, the little, unformed, uncoagulated thoughts of happy mice.

  A weasel crouched for a moment on the bole of a fallen tree and his mind was evil, evil with the thought of mice, evil with remembrance of the old days when weasels made a meal of mice. Blood hunger and fear, fear of what the Dogs might do if he killed a mouse, fear of the hundred eyes that watched against the killing that once had stalked the world.

  But a man had killed. A weasel dare not kill, and a man had killed. Without intent, perhaps, without maliciousness. But he had killed. And the Canons said one must not take a life.

  In the years gone by others had killed and they had been punished. And the man must be punished, too. But punishment was not enough. Punishment, alone, would not find the answer. The answer must deal not with one man alone, but with all men, with the entire race. For what one of them had done, the rest were apt to do. Not only apt to do, but bound to do – for they were men, and men had killed before and would kill again.

  The Mutant castle reared black against the sky, so black that it shimmered in the moonlight. No light came from it and that was not strange at all, for no light had come from it ever. Nor, so far as anyone could know, had the door ever opened into the outside world. The Mutants had built the castles, all over the world, and had gone into them and that had been the end. The Mutants had meddled in the affairs of men, had fought a sort of chuckling war with men and when the men were gone, the Mutants had gone, too.

  Jenkins came to the foot of the broad stone steps that led up to the door and halted. Head thrown back, he stared at the building that reared its height above him.

  I suppose Joe is dead, he told himself. Joe was long-lived, but he was not immortal. He would not live forever. And it will seem strange to meet another Mutant and know it isn’t Joe.

  He started the climb, going very slowly, every nerve alert, wa
iting for the first sign of chuckling humour that would descend upon him.

  But nothing happened.

  He climbed the steps and stood before the door and looked for something to let the Mutants know that he had arrived.

  But there was no bell. No buzzer. No knocker. The door was plain, with a simple latch. And that was all.

  Hesitantly, he lifted his fist and knocked and knocked again, then waited. There was no answer. The door was mute and motionless.

  He knocked again, louder this time. Still there was no answer.

  Slowly, cautiously, he put out a hand and seized the latch, pressed down with his thumb. The latch gave and the door swung open and Jenkins stepped inside.

  ‘You’re cracked in the brain,’ said Lupus. ‘I’d make them come and find me. I’d give them a run they would remember. I’d make it tough for them.’

  Peter shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s the way you’d do it, Lupus, and maybe it would be right for you. But it would be wrong for me. Websters never run away.’

  ‘How do you know?’ the wolf asked pitilessly. ‘You’re just talking through your hair. No webster had to run away before and if no webster had to run away before, how do you know they never—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Peter.

  They travelled in silence up the rocky path, breasting the hill.

  ‘There’s something trailing us,’ said Lupus.

  ‘You’re just imagining,’ said Peter. ‘What would be trailing us?’

  ‘I don’t know, but—’

  ‘Do you smell anything?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Did you hear anything or see anything?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, but—’

  ‘Then nothing’s following us,’ Peter declared, positively. ‘Nothing ever trails anything any more.’

  The moonlight filtered through the treetops, making the forest a mottled black and silver. From the river valley came the muffled sound of ducks in midnight argument. A soft breeze came blowing up the hillside, carrying with it a touch of river fog.

  Peter’s bowstring caught in a piece of brush and he stopped to untangle it. He dropped some of the arrows he was carrying and stooped to pick them up.

  ‘You better figure out some other way to carry them things,’ Lupus growled at him. ‘You’re all the time getting tangled up and dropping them and—’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Peter told him, quietly. ‘Maybe a bag of some sort to hang around my shoulder.’

  They went on up the hill.

  ‘What are you going to do when you get to Webster House?’ asked Lupus.

  ‘I’m going to see Jenkins,’ Peter said. ‘I’m going to tell him what I’ve done.’

  ‘Fatso’s already told him.’

  ‘But maybe he told him wrong. Maybe he didn’t tell it right. Fatso was excited.’

  ‘Lame-brained, too,’ said Lupus.

  They crossed a patch of moonlight and plunged on up the darkling path.

  ‘I’m getting nervous,’ Lupus said. ‘I’m going to go back. This is a crazy thing you’re doing. I’ve come part way with you, but—’

  ‘Go back, then,’ said Peter bitterly. ‘I’m not nervous. I’m—’

  He whirled around, hair rising on his scalp.

  For there was something wrong – something in the air he breathed, something in his mind – an eerie, disturbing sense of danger and, much more than danger, a loathsome feeling that clawed at his shoulder blades and crawled along his back with a million prickly feet.

  ‘Lupus!’ he cried. ‘Lupus!’

  A bush stirred violently down the trail and Peter was running, pounding down the trail. He ducked around a bush and skidded to a halt. His bow came up and with one motion he picked an arrow from his left hand, nocked it to the cord.

  Lupus was stretched upon the ground, half in shade and half in moonlight. His lip was drawn back to show his fangs. One paw still faintly clawed.

  Above him crouched a shape. A shape – and nothing else. A shape that spat and snarled, a stream of angry sound that screamed in Peter’s brain. A tree branch moved in the wind and the moon showed through and Peter saw the outline of the face – a faint outline, like the half erased chalk lines upon a dusty board. A skull-like face with mewling mouth and slitted eyes and ears that were tufted with tentacles.

  The bow cord hummed and the arrow splashed into the face – splashed into it and passed through and fell upon the ground. And the face was there, still snarling.

  Another arrow nocked against the cord and back, far back, almost to the ear. An arrow driven by the snapping strength of well-seasoned straight-grained hickory – by the hate and fear and loathing of the man who pulled the cord.

  The arrow spat against the chalky outlines of the face, slowed and shivered, then fell free.

  Another arrow and back with the cord. Farther yet this time. Farther for more power to kill the thing that would not die when an arrow struck it. A thing that only slowed an arrow and made it shiver and then let it pass on through.

  Back and back – and back. And then it happened.

  The bow string broke.

  For an instant, Peter stood there with the useless weapon dangling in one hand, the useless arrow hanging from the other. Stood and stared across the little space that separated him from the shadow horror that crouched across the wolf’s grey body.

  And he knew no fear. No fear, even though the weapon was no more. But only flaming anger that shook him and a voice that hammered in his brain with one screaming word:

  KILL-KILL-KILL.

  He threw away the bow and stepped forward, hands hooked at his side, hooked into puny claws.

  The shadow backed away – backed away in a sudden pool of fear that lapped against its brain – fear and horror at the flaming hatred that beat at it from the thing that walked towards it. Hatred that seized and twisted it. Fear and horror it had known before – fear and horror and disquieting resignation – but this was something new. This was a whiplash of torture that seared across its nerves, that burned across its brain.

  This was hatred.

  The shadow whimpered to itself – whimpered and mewed and backed away and sought with frantic fingers of thought within its muddled brain for the symbols of escape.

  The room was empty – empty and old and hollow. A room that caught up the sound of the creaking door and flung it into muffled distances, then hurled it back again. A room heavy with the dust of forgetfulness, filled with the brooding silence of aimless centuries.

  Jenkins stood with the door pull in his hand, stood and flung all the sharp alertness of the new machinery that was his body into the corners and the darkened alcoves. There was nothing. Nothing but the silence and the dust and darkness. Nor anything to indicate that for many years there had been anything but silence, dust and darkness. No faintest tremor of a residuary thought, no footprints on the floor, no fingermarks scrawled across the table.

  An old song, an incredibly old song – a song that had been old when he had first been forged, crept out of some forgotten corner of his brain. And he was surprised that it still was there, surprised that he had ever known it – and knowing it, dismayed at the swirl of centuries that it conjured up, dismayed at the remembrance of the neat white houses that had stood upon a million hills, dismayed at the thought of men who had loved their acres and walked them with the calm and quiet assurance of their ownership.

  Annie doesn’t live here any more.

  Silly, said Jenkins to himself. Silly that some absurdity of an all-but-vanished race should rise to haunt me now. Silly.

  Annie doesn’t live here any more.

  Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the sparrow—

  He closed the door behind him and walked across the room.

  Dust-covered furniture stood waiting for the man who had not returned. Dust-covered tools and gadgets lay on the table tops. Dust covered the titles of the rows of books that filled the massive bookcase.

  They are gone,
said Jenkins, talking to himself. And no one knew the hour or the reason of their going. Nor even where they went. They slipped off in the night and told no one they were leaving. And sometimes, no doubt, they think back and chuckle – chuckle at the thought of our thinking that they still are here, chuckle at the watch we keep against their coming out.

  There were other doors and Jenkins strode to one. With his hand upon the latch he told himself the futility of opening it, the futility of searching any further. If this one room was old and empty, so would be all the other rooms.

  His thumb came down and the door came open and there was a blast of heat, but there was no room. There was desert – a gold and yellow desert stretching to a horizon that was dim and burnished in the heat of a great blue sun.

  A green and purple thing that might have been a lizard, but wasn’t, skittered like a flash across the sand, its tiny feet making the sound of eerie whistling.

  Jenkins slammed the door shut, stood numbed in mind and body.

  A desert. A desert and a thing that skittered. Not another room, not a hall, nor yet a porch – but a desert.

  And the sun was blue – blue and blazing hot.

  Slowly, cautiously, he opened the door again, at first a crack and then a little wider.

  The desert still was there.

  Jenkins slammed the door and leaned with his back against it, as if he needed the strength of his metal body to hold out the desert, to hold out the implication of the door and desert.

  They were smart, he told himself. Smart and fast on their mental feet. Too fast and too smart for ordinary men. We never knew just how smart they were. But now I know they were smarter than we thought.

  This room is just an anteroom to many other worlds, a key that reaches across unguessable space to other planets that swing around unknown suns. A way to leave this earth without ever leaving it – a way to cross the void by stepping through a door.

  There were other doors and Jenkins stared at them, stared and shook his head.

  Slowly he walked across the room to the entrance door. Quietly, unwilling to break the hush of the dust-filled room, he lifted the latch and let himself out and the familiar world was there. The world of moon and stars, of river fog drifting up between the hills, of treetops talking to one another across the notches of the hills.