With one move, Snuffles had killed the leader, cornered three of the others, and cut off the remaining two from base weapons, to be hunted down later. There was nothing unintentional about it. Had he chosen another moment, when another than John Hardy was on guard, then Hardy alive would still somehow have been a threat to him, even weaponless. But, with Hardy dead, all the rest were no match for the animal.
Brian and Georgina lingered on the edge of the plain to watch the other three, though they knew that their own lives depended on getting out of there.
“Two could get away,” said Georgina, “if a third would make a rush for it and force Snuffles into another charge.”
“But none of them will,” said Brian. “The third would die.”
It was a game, but it couldn't last long. Phelan whimpered and tried to climb the rock wall at the blind end of his pocket. Margie cajoled and told Snuffles how good friends they had always been, and wouldn't he let her go? Billy Cross filled his pipe and lit it and sat down to wait it out.
Phelan went first, and he died like a craven. But no one, not sure how he himself might die, should hold that overly against a man.
Snuffles thundered in, cut him down in the middle of a scream, and rushed back to his commanding spot in the middle of the weapons center.
Margie spread out her hands and began to cry, softly, not really in terror, when he attacked. The pseudo-bear broke her neck, but with a blow that was almost gentle in comparison with the others, and he scurried again to center.
And Billy Cross puffed on his pipe. “I hate to go like this, Snuff, old boy. In fact, I hate to go at all. If I made a mistake to die for, it was in being such a pleasant, trusting fellow. I wonder if you ever noticed, Snuff, what a fine, upstanding fellow I really am?”
And that was the last thing Billy Cross ever said, for the big animal struck him dead with one tearing blow. And the smoke still drifted in the air from Billy's pipe.
Then it was like black thunder coming out of the valley after the other two, for that clumsy animal could move. They had a start on him, Brian and Georgina had, of a hundred yards. And soon their terror subsided to half-terror as they realized that the shoulder-shot bear animal could not catch them till they were exhausted.
In a wild run, they could even increase their lead over him. But they would tire soon and they did not know when he would tire. He had herded them away from the campsite and the weapons. And they were trapped with him on a small planet.
Till day's end, and through the night, and next day (maybe five hours in all) he followed them, until they could hardly keep going. Then they lost him, but in the dark did not know if he was close or not. And at dawn they saw him sitting up and watching them from quarter of a mile away.
But now the adversaries rested and watched. The animal may have stiffened up from his shot. The two humans were so weary that they did not intend to run again till the last moment.
“Do you think there is any chance that it was all a sudden fury and that he may become friendly again?” Georgina asked Brian.
“It was not a sudden fury. It was a series of very calculated moves.”
“Do you think we could skirt around and beat him back to the weapons center?”
“No. He has chosen a spot where he can see for miles. And he has the interceptor's advantage — any angle we take has to be longer than his. We can't beat him back and he knows it.”
“Do you think he knows that the weapons are weapons?”
“Yes.”
“And that all our signal equipment is left at the center and that we can't communicate?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he's smarter than we are?”
“He was smarter in selecting his role. It is better to be the hunter than the hunted. But it isn't unheard of for the hunted to outsmart the hunter.”
“Brian, do you think you would have died as badly as Daniel or as well as Billy?”
“No. No to both.”
“I was always jealous of Margie, but I loved her at the end. She didn't scream. She didn't act scared. Brian, what will happen to us now?”
“Possibly we will be saved in the nick of time by the Marines.”
“I didn't know they had them any more. Oh, you mean the ship. But that's still a week away, Earth time. Do you think Snuffles knows it is to come back for us?’
“Yes, he knows. I'm sure of that.”
“Do you think he knows when it will come?”
“Yes, I have the feeling that he knows that too.”
“But will he be able to catch us before then?”
“I believe that all parties concerned will play out the contest with one eye on the clock.”
Snuffles had now developed a trick. At sundown of the short day, he would give a roar and come at them. And they would have to start their flight just as the dark commenced. They ran more noisily than he and he would always be able to follow them; but they could never be sure in the dark that he was following, or how closely. They would have to go at top panting, gasping, thumping speed for an hour and a half; then they would ease off for a little in the half hour before dawn. And in the daytime one of them had to watch while the other slept. But Snuffles could sleep as he would, and they were never able to slip away without his waking instantly.
Moreover, he seemed to herd them through the fertile belt in their night runs and let them rest on the barrens in the daytime. It wasn't that food was really scarce; it was that it could only be gathered during time taken from flight and sleep and guard duty.
They also came on a quantity of red fruit that had a weakening and dizzying effect on them, yet they could hardly leave it alone. There was a sort of bean sprout that had the same effect, and a nut, and a cereal grass whose seed they winnowed with their hands as they went along.
“This is a narcotic belt,” said Brian. “I wish we had the time to study it longer, and yet we may get all too much of studying it. We have no idea how far it goes, and this method of testing its products on ourselves may be an effective one, but dangerous.”
From that time on, they were under the influence of the narcotics. They dreamed vividly while awake and walking. And they began to suffer hallucinations which they could not distinguish from reality.
It was only a Bellota day or so after their dreaming began that Brian Carroll felt that the mind of Snuffles was speaking to him. Carroll was an intelligent amateur in that field and he put it to the tests; there are valid tests for it. And he concluded that it was hallucination and not telepathy. Still (and he could see it coming) there would be a time when he would accept his hallucination and believe that the ursine was talking to him. And that would signal that he was crazy and no longer able to evade death there.
Carroll renounced (while he still had his wits) his future belief in the nonsense, just as a man put to torture may renounce anything he concedes or confesses or denies under duress.
Yet, whatever frame it was placed in, Snuffles talked to him from a distance. “Why do you think me a bear, because I am in a bear skin? I do not think you a man though you are in a man skin. You may be a little less. And why do you believe you will die more bravely than Daniel? The longer you run, the meaner will be your death. And you still do not know who I am?”
“No,” said Brian Carroll aloud.
“No what?” asked Georgina Chantal.
“It seems that the bear is talking to me, that he has entered my mind.”
“Me also. Could it be, or is it the narcotic fruit?”
“It couldn't be. It is hallucination brought on by the narcotics, and tiredness from travel, and lack of sleep — and our shock at seeing our friends killed by a boy turned into a monster. There are tests to distinguish telepathic reception from hallucination: objective corroboration, impossible at this time (with Snuffles in his present mood) and probably impossible at any time; sentient parallelism — surely uncertain, for I have more in common with millions of humans than with one pseudo-ursine; circumstantial v
alidity and point-for-point clarity — this is negative, for I know myself to be fevered and confused and my senses unreliable in other matters. By every test that can be made, the indication is that it is not telepathy, that it is hallucination.”
“But there isn't any way to be sure, is there, Brian?”
“None, Georgina; no more than I can prove that it is not a troop of Boy Scouts around a campfire that is causing pain and burning in my gullet, that it is really the narcotic fruit or something else I have eaten conspiring with my weariness and apprehension to discomfort me. I cannot prove it is not Boy Scouts and I cannot prove it is not telepathy, but I consider both unlikely.”
“I don't think it is unlikely at all, Brian. I think that Snuffles is talking to me. When you get a little nuttier and tireder, then you'll believe it too.”
“Oh, yes, I'll believe it then—but it won't be true.”
“It won't matter if it's true or not. Snuffles will have gained his point. Do you know that Snuffles is king of this world?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
“He just told me he was. He told me that if I would help him catch you, he would let me go. But I won't do it. I have become fond of you, Brian. Did you know I never did like men before?”
“Yes. You were called the iceberg.”
“But now I like you very much.”
“You have no one else left to like.”
“It isn't that. It's the mood I'm in. And I won't help Snuffles catch you unless he gives me very much better reasons for it.”
Damn the girl! If she believed Snuffles talked to her, then for all practical purposes he did. And, however the idea of a trade for her life had been implanted in her mind, it would grow there.
Now Snuffles talked to Brian Carroll again, and it was somehow a waste of time to intone the formality that it was hallucination only.
“You still do not know what I am, but you will have to learn it before you die. Hardy knew it at the last minute. Cross guessed it from the first. Phelan still isn't sure. He goes about and looks back at his body lying there, and he still isn't sure. Some people are very hard to convince. But the girl knew it and she spread out her hands.”
In his fever, that was the way the bear animal talked to him.
They ate leaves now and buds. They would have no more of the narcotic fruits even if they had to starve. But narcosis left them slowly, and the pursuit of them tightened.
It was just at sunset one day that disaster struck at Brian. The bear had nearly hypnotized him into immobility, talking inside his head. Georgina had started on before him and repeatedly called for him to follow but for some reason he loitered. When Snuffles made his sudden sundown charge, there seemed no escape for him. Brian was trapped on a rimrock. Georgina had already taken a winding path to the plain below. Brian hesitated, then held his ground for the bruin's charge. He believed that he could draw Snuffles on, and them break to the left or the right at the last instant, and perhaps the animal would plunge over the cliff.
But old Snuff modified but did not halt his charge the last minute. He came in bottom-side first, like an elephant sliding bases, and he knocked Brian off the cliff.
There are few really subjective accounts of dying, since most who die do not live to tell about it. But the way it goes is this:
First one hangs in space; then he is charged by the madly rising ground armed with trees and rocks and weapons. After that is a painful sleep, and much later dazed wakening.
III
He was traveling upside-down, that was sure, and roughly, though at a slow rate of speed. Perhaps that is the normal way for people to travel after they are dead. He was hung from the middle in an odd doubled-up manner, and seemed supported and borne along by something of a boatlike motion, yet of a certain resilience and strength that was more living than even a boat. It had a rough softness, this thing, and a pleasant fragrance. But, though it was bright morning now, it was hard to get a good look at the thing with which he was in contact. All he could see was grass flowing slowly by, and heels.
Heels?
What was this all about? Heels and backs of calves, no more.
He was being carried, carried slung like a sack over her shoulder by Georgina. For the thing of the pleasant fragrance was Georgina Chantal.
She set him down then. It was a very rough valley they were in, and he saw that they had traveled perhaps four miles from the base of the rimrock; and Snuffles had settled down in the morning light a quarter of a mile behind them.
“Georgina, did you carry me all night?”
“Yes.”
“How could you?”
“I changed shoulders sometimes. And you aren't very heavy. This is only a half-gravity planet. Besides, I'm very strong. I could have carried you even on Earth.”
“Why wasn't I killed by the fall?”
“Snuffles says he isn't ready to kill you yet, that he could kill you any time he wanted to with the lightning or rock or poison berry. But you did hit terribly hard. I was surprised to be able to pick you up in one piece. And now Snuffles says that I have lost my last chance.”
“How?”
“Because I carried you away from him before he could get down the cliff in the dark. Now he says he will kill me too.”
“Snuff is inconsistent. If he could kill me any instant with the lightning, why would he be angered if you carried me away from him?”
“I thought of that too. But he says he has his own reasons. And that lightning — do you know that it doesn't lighten all the time everywhere on Bellota? Only in a big circle around Snuffles, as a tribute to him. I've noticed myself that when we get a big lead over him, we almost move clear out of the lightning sphere.”
“Georgina, that animal doesn't really talk to us. It is only our imaginations. It is not accurate to so personify it.”
“It may not be accurate, but if that isn't talk he puts out, then I don't know talk. And a lot of his talk he makes comes true. But I don't care if he does kill me for saving you. I'm silly over you now.”
“We are both of us silly, Georgina, from the condition we are in. But he can't talk to us. He's only an animal run amok. If it was anything else, it would mean that much of what we know is not so.”
Brian had the full effect of it one sunny afternoon a couple of Bellota days later. He was dozing and Georgina was on guard when Snuffles began to talk inside his head.
“You insult me that you do not recognize my identity. When Hardy said that in many mythologies it was the Bear who made the world, he had begun to guess who I was. I am the creator and I made the world. I have heard that there are other worlds besides Bellota, and I am not sure whether I made them or not. But if they are there, I must have made them. They could not have made themselves. And this I did make.
“It isn't an easy thing, or all of you would have made them, and you have not. And there is pride in creation that you could not understand. You said that Bellota was made for fun. It was not made for fun. I am the only one who knows why it was made, for I made it. And it is not a little planet; it is a grand planet. I waited for you to confess your error and be amazed at it. Since you did not, you will have to die. I made you, so I can kill you if I like. I must have made you, since I made all. And if I did not, then I made other things, red squirrels and white birds.
“You have no idea of the achievement itself. I had very little to work with and no model or plans or previous experience. And I made mistakes. I would be the last to deny that I miscalculated the gravity, a simple mathematical error that anyone could make. The planet is too small for the gravity, but I had already embodied the calculated gravity in other works that I did not choose to undo, and I had no material to make a larger planet. So what I have made I have made, and it will continue so. An error, once it is embodied, becomes a new truth.
“You may wonder why my birds have hair. I will confess it, I did not know how to make feathers, nor would you without template or typus. And you are puzzled that my
butterflies sting and my hornets do not? But how was I to know that those fearfully colored monsters should have been harmless? It ill befits one who has never made even the smallest — but why do I try to explain this to you?
“You wonder if I am talking to you or if it is only a delusion of your mind. What is the difference? How could there be anything in your mind if I did not put it there? And do not be afraid of dying. Remember that nothing is lost. When I have the pieces of you, I will use them to make other things. That is the law of conservation of matter as I understand it.
“But do you know that the one thing desired by all is really praise? It is the impelling force, and a creator needs this more than anyone. Things and beings are made to give praise, and if they do not, they are destroyed again. You had every opportunity to give it, and instead you jeered.
“Did any of you ever make a world? I tell you that there are a million things to remember all at once. And there can be no such thing as a bad world, since each of them is a triumph. Whether it was that I made the others and I forgot them is only a premise; or whether I will make them in the future, and they are only now talked of out of their proper time. But some of your own mythologies indicate that I made your own.
“I would tell you more, only you would not understand it. But after I have conserved your matter, then you will know all these things.”
“Snuffles is cranky with me today,” said Georgina Chantal. “Is he also cranky with you?”
“Yes,” said Brian Carroll.
“He says that he made Bellota. Did he tell you that too? Do you believe it?”
“He told me. I do not believe it. We are delirious. Snuffles cannot communicate.”
“You keep saying that, but you aren't sure. He told me that when he chews us up he will take a piece of me and a piece of you and chew them together and make a new thing, since we are belatedly taken with each other. Isn't that nice?”
“How cozy.”
The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty Page 32
