He let go of her suddenly. For a moment she thought he might have guessed her thoughts. He halted and stared at the gardening robot as it went about its work.
“I’ve been a fool,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Couldn’t we bring one of the robots with us? A gardener could help clear a path and carry some of our supplies.”
“Of course!” She was sorry she had not seen such an obvious possibility herself. “The mind wouldn’t be able to speak to us, but it could watch through the robot and have a record of where we go. It could map the land the way it is now, and we’d have a guide for later. If we get lost, it’ll be able to guide us back, if it has a record of where we were.”
He folded his arms. “I should have seen that before.”
“I think we should go as soon as possible,” she said. “We’ve done about as much planning as we can, and we’ll be safer with a robot.”
“We ought to think about this. Maybe we should send the gardener out alone first, see what it finds before we go ourselves. That’d be even safer.”
“Do you really want to leave at all?” she burst out. “You keep finding reasons to put it off.”
“I just want us to have every advantage we can.”
“That isn’t it. You’re afraid to go—you’d rather just pretend.”
The remote look she was so used to had come into his eyes again. He stooped quickly, picked up his cat, and went inside without answering.
It was pointless to get angry at him. She was as frightened of the outside as he was, however she tried to hide it. But if they waited too long, they might never find the courage to go.
Nita sat in her room, brooding. Sven had hardly spoken at all during dinner the night before, and had retreated to his room after eating; he had not appeared for their morning meal. Perhaps he was expecting her to apologize to him. She tensed with resentment; his silences always made her feel that she was in the wrong. Why should she say she was sorry for saying what she thought?
At last she left her room and entered the one directly across the hall. A green garment with a skirt lay on the couch near the window; she had found it a few days ago, when she was searching closets for things they might use, and had been meaning to try it on. She sighed. It would be so easy to stay here, to eat the cafeteria’s foods, sleep on her cushioned platform, and amuse herself with the clothes she found.
She moved toward the window. From here, she could see the forest to the south; its tall trees reached toward the sky. Nita pressed her hands against the window, then glanced down toward the surface in front of the tower.
She froze, unable to believe what she was seeing. A craft sat below, a flat, elongated vehicle with a silvery bubble on its top. She had seen such a craft only in the Institute’s visual records, among the images that had shown the vehicles her people used.
She was too stunned to move for a moment. Why was it here? It had to be an illusion; she kept expecting the craft to disappear.
She tore herself away from the window and stumbled toward the screen near the door. “Where’s Sven?” she asked the mind.
“He is in his room. He has asked not to be disturbed—”
“This is important. Tell him to come to this room right away.”
She went back to the window; the craft was still there. She squinted, but it was impossible to see through the opaque bubble. The door whispered open behind her; she turned.
Sven’s hair was damp, and a towel was draped around his shoulders; he zipped up his coverall as he hurried to her side. “What is it, Nita?”
“Look below.”
He gazed through the window; she saw him tense. “When did you see it?”
“Just now.”
“How long has it been there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone’s out there,” he said. “They’re alive, they’ve come here at last. They might be in the lobby already—they don’t need authorization to get that far.”
He darted toward the screen. “Has anyone entered the tower?” he asked.
“I see no one there,” the screen replied.
“There’s a craft outside,” Sven said. “Do you know how long it’s been there?”
“I have no sensors overlooking that area outside, as you well know. I cannot answer.”
“You communicated with the outside long ago,” Sven said. “Can you speak to whoever’s inside that craft?”
“I shall try.”
“Wait!” Nita cried. “We don’t know what they want. They might be dangerous.”
“Then we’d better find that out,” Sven said. He looked back at the screen. “Go ahead.”
“I hear nothing,” the mind said. “I see nothing. Either the communication circuits of the craft are impaired or they are closed.”
“Why haven’t they come out?” Nita muttered.
Sven stepped to the window. “Maybe they’re afraid,” he said. “They might be waiting for someone to come out to them.” He glanced toward the screen. “Are any robots near the lobby?”
“There are two in the garden,” the mind answered.
“Send one of them through the lobby and out to that craft.”
Nita waited, unable to take her eyes from the vehicle. In a few moments, she saw the small form of a gardener robot moving toward the craft; it halted near the vehicle’s side.
“I see the craft now,” the mind said from the screen. “I have seen its kind before, when the world was open to me. This one shows signs of wear—its surface is stained and scratched. I cannot view what is inside.”
“Come out,” Nita whispered. “Come out and let us see you.” Why was the craft here? Had descendants of their people been able to hide elsewhere? Had they seen their guardians’ ship depart? Maybe that was why no one had come to the Institute before.
“We have to let them know we’re here,” Sven said. “I’d better go down there.”
She grabbed at his sleeve. “You can’t go alone.”
“I’ll be careful. They’re probably just afraid to come out.”
“You can’t know that,” she objected. “I should come with you.”
“No.” He shook off her hand. “I’ll just step outside the door, so they can see me. If anything happens to me, you’ve got to protect the Institute somehow. They may not be authorized, but they could have other ways of getting past the lobby.”
“Take your wand.”
He shook his head. “I have to show them we don’t mean any harm.”
He left the room before she could say anything else. She leaned against the window. They couldn’t mean to harm them, she thought; perhaps they only wanted to be certain that her guardian’s people were gone. They had been hiding all this time, probably fearful of what Llipel and Llare intended; it must have taken all of their courage to travel here now.
Then she saw that the craft was moving. The vehicle lifted slowly from the surface, hovered for a moment, then floated toward the forest.
“Come back!” she screamed, although she knew no one could hear her. “Don’t go!” The craft was above the trees now and moving rapidly toward the south. “We’re here! Don’t go away now!” She hit the pane with her fist. “Come back!”
Sven was running toward the robot, too late. The craft continued on its way, shrinking as it raced away from them.
“Through the robot’s viewscreen,” the mind said, “I was able to note the direction in which the craft was traveling. Should it continue on that same course, it would indeed reach that city to the south you mentioned. I cannot tell you if that is its destination; I cannot tell you if that city still stands. The outside is still silent and invisible to me.”
Nita was sitting on the floor under the small screen. Sven stood near the window, gazing out at where the craft had been. “It could have gone to that city,” he said.
“That is a possibility,” the mind replied.
“If we went there,” Sven said, “
then we might find them, and it’s a place we have a chance of reaching.” He turned and rested his back against the window. “If they came here because they saw the ship leave, they can’t be too far away. The craft was going south, and the city’s the closest place to us in that direction.”
“But they might be farther away,” Nita said.
“They might. But there’s a chance—”
“Maybe they’ll come back.”
“They don’t know we’re here,” Sven said. “They may have no reason to return. We haven’t been in the lobby since yesterday afternoon. They might have been out there waiting most of the night and part of the morning before you saw them. They probably thought no one was here.”
She was silent.
“You know what this means,” Sven went on. “We’ll have to go outside and look for them. I don’t know if we can wait here hoping they’ll come back. Think of what they might be going through—hiding from Llipel and Llare all those years, worrying about why they were here, wondering what’s in here now. We have to tell them it’s time to stop hiding. We could help them, and they might be able to help us, too.”
“If they’ve changed,” she said.
“If they haven’t, then we have to know that.”
“We might not find them.”
“Maybe not. But we’ll learn something about the outside, and we can make other trips later. We’ll search everywhere we can, leave messages outside somehow so they know we’re here.”
“They may not know our words,” she said. Perhaps she and Sven would not even be able to communicate with them. She could not think of that. She and the boy would find a way to speak to them.
If people lived and had changed, then Earth could live again. The past could be forgotten; they could build something new. Even the ones in the cold room might be brought to life; what happened to them depended on her and Sven.
She stood up. “When do you want to leave?” she asked.
“As soon as possible. If they are in that city, we don’t know how long they’ll stay. They may decide to search somewhere else.”
“Then we’ll go tomorrow.”
“I have to go,” Nita said as she picked up her cat. Dusky wriggled in her arms and clawed at her silvery suit; the cat seemed a little heavier. “You’ll have to look out for yourself now.”
She set Dusky on the floor. A robot would feed the cats and let them into the garden every day until she and Sven returned. She assumed that they would return, and refused to dwell on the possibility that they might not.
Sven helped her tie a makeshift pack on her back, then handed her a helmet. More supplies had been tied up in coveralls and attached to the robot with straps of surgical tape. They had decided to take one of the gardeners, and the squat machine looked overburdened.
“Are you ready?” Sven asked.
She nodded. His compass hung around his neck with his authorization; he closed his protective suit, then took his helmet from one of the gardener’s two metal limbs. The machine lifted slightly, then floated toward the doors as they followed.
Sven touched her arm lightly before they walked outside. The sun was still below the trees to the east. Nita gazed ahead and refused to look back.
14
The forest, filled with an eerie green light, was darker than Nita had expected, the trees so close around her that she could not see more than a few paces ahead. Sven glanced at his compass from time to time, to make certain that they were heading south; without the compass, she suspected that they would have been lost within a few moments. Thick roots covered the ground, forcing her to lift her feet with almost every step. The underbrush was thick; she was grateful for the sturdy fabric that protected her legs.
The trees rustled in the wind, twigs cracked under their boots, birds chirped above them. She was used to the muted sounds of the Institute; she had not expected so much noise. The air smelled of leaves, dirt, pine, and a more pungent odor she could not place.
The gardener floated on ahead of Sven. Except for an order to the robot from time to time, the boy said nothing.
Their progress was slow. Once in a while, they were forced to stop so that the robot could clear away some of the thick, tangled underbrush. Nita soon became aware of the weight of the pack she was carrying. Her shoulders ached; her helmet, which was attached to her belt with a piece of surgical tape, bumped against her hip. She longed to put it on, but would then be cut off from any sounds that might signal danger. The suit she wore, and the coverall under it, were light enough, but she was not used to walking so far in boots, and her feet were beginning to hurt. She refused to complain; Sven was probably equally uncomfortable.
They kept their hands near their wands, prepared to fire if necessary. Every strange sound caused her to raise her weapon, but she could not fire at everything she heard without using up its charge. They had attached four other weapons to the robot, but she did not want to waste them. She hoped that the sight of the robot would frighten away anything dangerous.
They stopped once to rest. She looked back along the way they had come, noting a place where the gardener had broken the twigs of a shrub. “I wonder how far we’ve gone,” she said.
“Hard to tell.”
Something rustled behind her; she jumped to her feet and reached for her wand. Birds cawed and then were silent. She could not see what had made the noise; she sat down again and sipped some of her water.
Sven stood up after he had drunk, then consulted his compass as they trudged on. Nita glanced behind them while Sven kept his eyes on what was ahead. She could not tell how much time was passing; it was dark under the trees and she was unable to glimpse the sun through the branches of oak and pine. Her fears grew until her stomach was tight and her face clammy with perspiration. She told herself that the gardener could guide them back, now that it had images of their route and a trail was marked by their passing. But she could not give up so soon.
The ground was beginning to slope now, sometimes so steeply that she had to cling to limbs of tree trunks while descending a hill. The closeness of so many trees was disturbing; she felt grateful that not all of their journey would be spent in this wood. They would reach the plain, and that could not be as disturbing as this forest. They would get to the plain—if they found the river, if they made it to the edge of the forest, if the panic rising inside her did not overpower her completely. She forced herself to suppress those thoughts.
They came to a spot where the trees were not so close together. Sven ordered the robot to stop, then shrugged out of his pack. Nita removed hers, remembered to search the ground for snakes, then sat down.
“You can eat first,” Sven said. “I’ll keep watch.”
She drank from her bottle, then ate a flat square of bread and beans. They had enough food, but water would be a problem if they did not find the river; they and the robot had only enough water for a few days. Now she was almost hoping that they did not find the river so that they would have an excuse to turn back.
Sven was gazing at a tree trunk. “Some of this bark’s been stripped,” he said. “An animal must have eaten it.” He poked at a strawy mass with his foot. “And this looks like a dropping of some kind. I saw something like it on the screen.” He cleared his throat. “The images didn’t really prepare me for this, though. It’s hard to believe anyone once lived here.”
She groaned as she stood up, and wished that she could rest. Sven knelt and began to search through his pack. She heard a branch snap and saw something move under the trees. Without thinking, she pulled out her weapon and fired; she heard a thump.
Sven got to his feet. “Did you hit it?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. He stumbled over to where the ray had struck, then motioned to her. A large animal lay on the ground, its antlers tangled in a shrub.
“It’s a deer,” he said. “I don’t think it would have hurt us.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“It’s all right. Better
to be safe.” He sat down; he had just started to eat when the deer moved, staggered to its feet, and disappeared among the trees.
Sven frowned. “That deer couldn’t have been out for ten minutes, or even five. Apparently these weapons can kill a small creature but don’t stun a large one for very long.”
“They were meant to be used against people. That must be why.”
Sven looked grim as he finished his food. “We’ll have to keep that in mind if we see anything big.” He stood up. “Rested enough?”
“I think so.” She sighed; her pack felt even heavier.
Nita soon noticed other trees where bark had been pulled off in strips, as well as trunks marked by scratches. Occasionally their path crossed areas that looked trampled; she wondered if they were part of an animal trail.
Throughout the day, while they walked or when they were resting, she could not shake the feeling that they were being watched. Every wilderness image she had viewed on the screen flooded into her mind—furry creatures called bears that could kill a human being if provoked, large cats that preyed on smaller creatures, wolves with sharp teeth. The records had said that most such creatures avoided people; that had been easier to believe when she was safe inside the Institute.
“It’s getting darker,” she called out to Sven. Already it was becoming harder to see. “We ought to stop before we can’t see at all.”
“There’s a clearing just ahead. We’ll stop there.”
They came to a small glade; the reddish evening sky was barely visible through the branches arching overhead. Sven set the gardener to work gathering wood while he and Nita cleared a space for a fire, then dug a hollow for the fire in the ground. The air was warm, but the fire would protect them from the forest’s inhabitants.
The library records had shown them how to build a fire. Yet even after they had broken up the wood and laid it out, it took some time to get the fire started with the heating rod they had brought from one of the laboratories. Their tinder went out twice; then a flame died before it could catch. By the time Sven fanned another small flame into a blaze, the sky above was nearly completely dark.
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