?" "Maybe," Enoch said. "Don't fool around. Don't imagine that I'd hesitate to kill you. In this situation, I'd kill anyone-anyone at all." "Wallace, is there something you can tell me?" "Not a thing," said Enoch. He picked up the lantern. "You're going home?" Enoch noped. "You don't seem to mind us watching you." "No," Enoch told him. "Not your watching. Just your interference. Bring back that body and go on watching if you want to. But don't push me any. Don't lean on me. Keep your hands off. Don't touch anything." "But good God, man, there's something going on. You can tell me something." Enoch hesitated. "Some idea," said Lewis, "of what this is all about. Not the details, just ..." "You bring the body back," Enoch told him, slowly, "and maybe we can talk again." "It will be back," said Lewis. "If it's not," said Enoch, "you're as good as dead right now." Turning, he went across the garden and started up the hill. In the yard, Lewis stood for a long time, watching the lantern bobbing out of sight. 22 Ulysses was alone in the station when Enoch returned. He had sent the Tuban on his way and the Hazer back to Vega. A fresh pot of coffee was brewing and Ulysses was sprawled out on the sofa, doing nothing. Enoch hung up the rifle and blew out the lantern. Taking off his jacket, he threw it on the desk. He sat down in a chair across from the sofa. "The body will be back," he said, "by this time tomorrow." "I sincerely hope," Ulysses said, "that it will do some good. But I'm inclined to doubt it." "Maybe," said Enoch bitterly, "I should not have bothered." "It will show good faith," Ulysses said. "It might have some mitigating effect in the final weighing." "The Hazer could have told me," Enoch said, "where the body was. If he knew it had been taken from the grave, then he must have known where it could be found." "I would suspect he did," Ulysses said, "but, you see, he couldn't tell you. All that he could do was to make his protest. The rest was up to you. He could not lay aside his dignity by suggesting what you should do about it. For the record, he must remain the injured party." "Sometimes," said Enoch, "this business is enough to drive one crazy. Despite the briefings from Galactic Central, there are always some surprises, always yawning traps for you to tumble into." "There may come a day," Ulysses said, "when it won't be like that. I can look ahead and see, in some thousands of years, the knitting of the galaxy together into one great culture, one huge area of understanding. The local and the racial variations still will exist, of course, and that is as it should be, but overriding all of these will be a tolerance that will make for what one might be tempted to call a brotherhood." "You sound," said Enoch, "almost like a human. That is the sort of hope that many of our thinkers have held out." "Perhaps," Ulysses said. "You know that a lot of Earth seems to have rubbed off on-me. You can't spend as long as I did on your planet without picking up at least a bit of it. And by the way, you made a good impression on the Vegan." "I hadn't noticed it," Enoch told him. "He was kind and correct, of course, but little more." "That inscription on the gravestone. He was impressed by that." "I didn't put it there to impress anyone. I wrote it out because it was the way I felt. And because I like the Hazers. I was only trying to make it right for them." "If it were not for the pressure from the galactic factions," Ulysses said, "I am convinced the Vegans would be willing to forget the incident and that is a greater concession than you can realize. It may be that, even so, they may line up with us when the showdown comes." "You mean they might save the station?" Ulysses shook his head. "I doubt anyone can do that. But it will be easier for all of us at Galactic Central if they threw their weight with us." The coffeepot was making sounds and Enoch went to get it. Ulysses had pushed some of the trinkets on the coffee table to one side to make room for two coffee cups. Enoch filled them and set the pot upon the floor. Ulysses picked up his cup, held it for a moment in his hands, then put it back on the table top. "We're in bad shape," he said. "Not like in the old days. It has Galactic Central worried. All this squabbling and haggling among the races, all the pushing and the shoving." He looked at Enoch. "You thought it was all nice and cozy." "No," said Enoch, "not that. I knew that there were conflicting viewpoints and I knew there was some trouble. But I'm afraid I thought of it as being on a fairly lofty plane-gentlemanly, you know, and good-mannered." "That was the way it was at one time. There always have been differing opinions, but they were based on principles and ethics, not on special interests. You know about the spiritual force, of course-the universal spiritual force." Enoch noped. "I've read some of the literature. I don't quite understand, but I'm willing to accept it. There is a way, I know, to get in contact with the force." "The Talisman," said Ulysses. "That's it. The Talisman. A machine, of sorts." "I suppose," Ulysses agreed, "you could call it that. Although the word, 'machine' is a little awkward. More than mechanics went into the making of it. There is just the one. Only one was ever made, by a mystic who lived ten thousand of your years ago. I wish I could tell you what it is or how it is constructed, but there is no one, I am afraid, who can tell you that. There have been others who have attempted to duplicate the Talisman, but no one has succeeded. The mystic who made it left no blueprints, no plans, no specifications, not a single note. There is no one who knows anything about it." "There is no reason, I suppose," said Enoch, "that another should not be made. No sacred taboos, I mean. To make another one would not be sacrilegious." "Not in the least," Ulysses told him. "In fact, we need another badly. For now we have no Talisman. It has disappeared." Enoch jerked upright in his chair. "Disappeared?" he asked. "Lost," said Ulysses. "Misplaced. Stolen. No one knows." "But I hadn't ..." Ulysses smiled bleakly. "You hadn't heard. I know. It is not something that we talk about. We wouldn't dare. The people must not know. Not for a while, at least." "But how can you keep it from them?" "Not too hard to do. You know how it worked, how the custodian took it from planet to planet and great mass meetings were held, where the Talisman was exhibited and contact made through it with the spiritual force. There had never been a schedule of appearances; the custodian simply wandered. It might be a hundred of your years or more between the visits of the custodian to any particular planet. The people hold no expectations of a visit. They simply know there'll be one, sometime; that some day the custodian will show up with the Talisman." "That way you can cover up for years." "Yes," Ulysses said. "Without any trouble." "The leaders know, of course. The administrative people." Ulysses shook his head. "We have told very few. The few that we can trust. Galactic Central knows, of course, but we're a close-mouthed lot." "Then why ..." "Why should I be telling you. I know; I shouldn't. I don't know why I am. Yes, I guess I do. How does it feel, my friend, to sit as a compassionate confessor?" "You're worried," Enoch said. "I never thought I would see you worried." "It's a strange business," Ulysses said. "The Talisman has been missing for several years or so. And no one knows about it-except Galactic Central and the- what would you call it?-the hierarchy, I suppose, the organization of mystics who takes care of the spiritual setup. And yet, even with no one knowing, the galaxy is beginning to show wear. It's coming apart at the seams. In time to come, it may fall apart. As if the Talisman represented a force that all unknowingly held the races of the galaxy together, exerting its influence even when it remained unseen." "But even if it's lost, it's somewhere," Enoch pointed out. "It still would be exerting its influence. It couldn't have been destroyed." "You forget," Ulysses reminded him, "that without its proper custodian, without its sensitive, it is inoperative. For it's not the machine itself that does the trick. The machine merely acts as an intermediary between the sensitive and the spiritual force. It is an extension of the sensitive. It magnifies the capability of the sensitive and acts as a link of some sort. It enables the sensitive to perform his function." "You feel that the loss of the Talisman has something to do with the situation here?" "The Earth station. Well, not directly, but it is typical. What is happening in regard to the station is symptomatic. It involves the sort of petty quarreling and mean bickering that has broken out through many sections of the galaxy. In the old days it would have been-what did you say, gentlemanly and on a plane of principles and ethics." They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the soft sound that the wind made as it blew through the gable gingerbread. "Don't worry about it," Ulysses said. "It is not your worry. I should not have told you. It was indiscreet to do so." "You mean I shouldn't pass it on. You can be sure I won't." "I know you won't," Ulysses said. "I never thought you would." "You really think relations in the galaxy are deteriorating?" "Once," Ulysses said, "the races all were bound together. There were differences, naturally, but these differences were bridged, sometimes rather artificially and not too satisfactorily, but with both sides striving to maintain the artificial bridging and generally succeeding. Because they wanted to, you see. There was a common purpose, the forging of a great cofraternity of all intelligences. We realized that among us, among all the races, we had a staggering fund of knowledge and of techniques-that working together, by putting together all this knowledge and capability, we could arrive at something that would be far greater and more significant than any race, alone, could hope of accomplishing. We had our troubles, certainly, and as I have said, our differences, but we were progressing. We brushed the small animosities and the petty differences underneath the rug and worked only on the big ones. We felt that if we could get the big ones settled, the small ones would become so small they would disappear. But it is becoming different now. There is a tendency to pull the pettiness from underneath the rug and blow it beyond its size, meanwhile letting the major and the important issues fall away." "It sounds like Earth," said Enoch. "In many ways," Ulysses said. "In principle, although the circumstances would diverge immensely." "You've been reading the papers I have been saving for you?" Ulysses noped. "It doesn't look too happy." "It looks like war," said Enoch bluntly. Ulysses stirred uneasily. "You don't have wars," said Enoch. "The galaxy, you mean. No, as we are set up now we don't have wars." "Too civilized?" "Stop being bitter," Ulysses told him. "There has been a time or two when we came very close, but not in recent years. There are many races now in the cofratemity that in their formative years had a history of war." "There is hope for us, then. It's something you outgrow." "In time, perhaps." "But not a certainty?" "No, I wouldn't say so." "I've been working on a chart," said Enoch. "Based on the Mizar system of statistics. The chart says there is going to be war." "You don't need the chart," Ulysses said, "to tell you that." "But there was something else. It was not just knowing if there'd be a war. I had hoped that the chart might show how to keep the peace. There must be a way. A formula, perhaps. If we could only think of it or know where to look or whom to ask or ..." "There is a way," Ulysses said, "to prevent a war." "You mean you know ..." "It's a drastic measure. It only can be used as a last resort." "And we've not reached that last resort?" "I think, perhaps, you have. The kind of war that Earth would fight could spell an end to thousands of years of advancement, could wipe out all the culture, everything but the feeble remnants of civilizations. It could, just possibly, eliminate most of the life upon the planet." "This method of yours-it has been used?" "A few times." "And worked?" "Oh, certainly. We'd not even consider it if it didn't work." "It could be used on Earth?" "You could apply for its application." "I?" "As a representative of the Earth. You could appear before Galactic Central and appeal for us to use it. As a member of your race, you could give testimony and you would be given a hearing. If there seemed to be merit in your plea, Central might name a group to investigate and then, upon the report of its findings, a decision would be made." "You said I. Could anyone on Earth?" "Anyone who could gain a hearing. To gain a hearing, you must know about Galactic Central and you're the only man of Earth who does. Besides, you're a part of Galactic Central's staff. You have served as a keeper for a long time. Your record has been good. We would listen to you." "But one man alone! One man can't speak for an entire race." "You're the only one of your race who is qualified." "If I could consult some others of my race." "You can't. And even if you could, who would believe you?" "That's true," said Enoch. Of course it was. To him there was no longer any strangeness in the idea of a galactic cofraternity, of a transportation network that spread among the stars-a sense of wonder at times, but the strangeness had largely worn off. Although, he remembered, it had taken years. Years even with the physical evidence there before his eyes, before he could bring himself to a complete acceptance of it. But tell it to any other Earthman and it would sound like madness. "And this method?" he asked, almost afraid to ask it, braced to take the shock of whatever it might be. "Stupidity," Ulysses said. Enoch gasped. "Stupidity? I don't understand. We are stupid enough, in many ways, right now." "You're thinking of intellectual stupidity and there is plenty of that, not only on Earth, but throughout the galaxy. What I am talking about is a mental incapacity. An inability to understand the science and the technique that makes possible the kind of war that Earth would fight. An inability to operate the machines that are necessary to fight that kind of war. Turning the people back to a mental position where they would not be able to comprehend the mechanical and technological and scientific advances they have made. Those who know would forget. Those who didn't know could never learn. Back to the simplicity of the wheel and lever. That would make your kind of war impossible." Enoch sat stiff and straight, unable to speak, gripped by an icy terror, while a million disconnected thoughts went chasing one another in a circle through his brain. "I told you it was drastic," Ulysses said. "It has to be. War is something that costs a lot to stop. The price is high." "I couldn't!" Enoch said. "No one could." "Perhaps you can't. But consider this: If there is a war..." "I know. If there is a war, it could be worse. But it wouldn't stop war. It's not the kind of thing I had in mind. People still could fight, still could kill." "With clubs," said Ulysses. "Maybe bows and arrows. Rifles, so long as they still had rifles, and until they ran out of ammunition. Then they wouldn't know how to make more powder or how to get the metal to make the bullets or even how to make the bullets. There might be fighting, but there'd be no holocaust. Cities would not be wiped out by nuclear warheads, for no one could fire a rocket or arm the warhead-perhaps wouldn't even know what a rocket or a warhead was. Communications as you know them would be gone. All but the simplest transportation would be gone. War, except on a limited local scale, would be impossible." "It would be terrible," Enoch said. "So is war," Ulysses said. "The choice is up to you." "But how long?" asked Enoch. "How long would it last? We wouldn't have to go back to stupidity forever?" "Several generations," said Ulysses. "By that time the effect of-what shall we call it? the treatment?-would gradually begin wearing off. The people slowly would shake off their moronic state and begin their intellectual climb again. They'd be given, in effect, a second chance." "They could," said Enoch, "in a few generations after that arrive at exactly the same situation that we have today." "Possibly. I wouldn't expect it, though. Cultural development would be most unlikely to be entirely parallel. There'd be a chance that you'd have a better civilization and a more peaceful people." "It's too much for one man ..." "Something hopeful," Ulysses said, "that you might consider. The method is offered only to those races which seem to us to be worth the saving." "You have to give me time," said Enoch. But he knew there was no time. 23 A man would have a job and supenly be unable to perform it. Nor could the men around him carry on their jobs. For they would not have the knowledge or the backgrounds to do the tasks that they had been doing. They might try, of course-they might keep on trying for a time, but perhaps for not too long. And because the jobs could not be done, the business or the corporation or factory or whatever it might be, would cease its operation. Although the going out of business would not be a formal nor a legal thing. It would simply stop. And not entirely because the jobs could not be done, because no one could muster the business sense to keep it operating, but also because the transportation and communications which made the business possible also would have stopped. Locomotives could not be operated, nor could planes and ships, for there would be no one who would remember how to operate them. There would be men who at one time had possessed all the skills that had been necessary for their operation, but now the skills would have disappeared. There might be some who still would try, with tragic consequences. And there still might be a few who could vaguely remember how to operate the car or truck or bus, for they were simple things to run and it would be almost second nature for a man to drive them. But once they had broken down, there would be no one with the knowledge of mechanics to repair them and they'd not run again. In the space of a few hours' time the human race would be stranded in a world where distance once again had come to be a factor. The world would grow the larger and the oceans would be barriers and a mile would be long once more. And in a few days' time there would be a panic and a hupling and a fleeing and a desperation in the face of a situation that no one could comprehend. How long, Enoch wondered, would it take a city to use the last of the food stacked in its warehouses and then begin to starve? What would happen when electricity stopped flowing through the wires? How long, under a situation such as this, would a silly symbolic piece of paper or a minted coin still retain its value? Distribution would break down; commerce and industry would die; government would become a shadow, with neither the means nor the intelligence to keep it functioning; communications would cease; law and order would disintegrate; the world would sink into a new barbaric framework and would begin to slowly readjust. That readjustment would go on for years and in the process of it there would be death and pestilence and untold misery and despair. In time it would work out and the world would settle down to its new way of life, but in the process of shaking down there'd be many who would die and many others who would lose everything that had spelled out life for them and the purpose of that life. But would it, bad as it might be, be as bad as war? Many would die of cold and hunger and disease (for medicine would go the way of all the rest), but millions would not be annihilated in the fiery breath of nuclear reaction. There would be no poison dust raining from the skies and the waters still would be as pure and fresh as ever and the soil remain as fertile. There still would be a chance, once the initial phases of the change had passed, for the human race to go on living and rebuild society. If one were certain, Enoch told himself, that there would be a war, that war was inescapable, then the choice might not be hard to make. But there was always the possibility that the world could avoid war, that somehow a frail, thin peace could be preserved, and in such a case the desperate need of the galactic cure for war would be unnecessary. Before one could decide, he told himself, one must be sure; and how could one be sure? The chart lying in the desk drawer said there would be a war; many of the diplomats and observers felt that the upcoming peace conference might serve no other purpose than to trigger war. Yet there was no surety. And even if there were, Enoch asked himself, how could one man-one man, alone-take it upon himself to play the role of God for the entire race? By what right did one man make a decision that affected all the rest, all the billions of others? Could he, if he did, ever be able, in the years to come, to justify his choice? How could a man decide how bad war might be and, in comparison, how bad stupidity? The answer seemed to be he couldn't. There was no way to measure possible disaster in either circumstance. After a time, perhaps, a choice either way could be rationalized. Given time, a conviction might develop that would enable a man to arrive at some sort of decision which, while it might not be entirely right, he nevertheless could square with his conscience. Enoch got to his feet and walked to the window. The sound of his footsteps echoed hollowly in the station. He looked at his watch and it was after midnight. There were races in the galaxy, he thought, who could reach a quick and right decision on almost any question, cutting straight across all the tangled lines of thought, guided by rules of logic that were more specific than anything the human race might have. That would be good, of course, in the sense that it made decision possible, but in arriving at decision would it not tend to minimize, perhaps ignore entirely, some of those very facets of the situation that might mean more to the human race than the decision would itself? Enoch stood at the window and stared out across the moonlit fields that ran down to the dark line of the woods. The clouds had blown away and the night was peaceful. This particular spot, he thought, always would be peaceful, for it was off the beaten track, distant from any possible target in atomic war. Except for the remote possibility of some ancient and non-recorded, long forgotten minor conflict in prehistoric days, no battle ever had been fought here or ever would be fought. And yet it would not escape the common fate of poisoned soil and water if the world should supenly, in a fateful hour of fury, unleash the might of its awesome weapons. Then the skies would be filled with atomic ash, which would come sifting down, and it would make little difference where a man might be. Soon or late, the war would come to him, if not in a flash of monstrous energy, then in the snow of death falling from the skies. He walked from the window to the desk and gathered up the newspapers that had come in the morning mail and put them in a pile, noticing as he did so that Ulysses had forgotten to take with him the stack of papers which had been saved for him. Ulysses was upset, he told himself, or he'd not have forgotten the papers. God save us both, he thought; for we have our troubles. It had been a busy day. He had done no more, he realized, than read two or three of the stories in the Times, all touching on the calling of the conference. The day had been too full, too full of direful things. For a hundred years, he thought, things had gone all right. There had been the good moments and the bad, but by and large his life had gone on serenely and without alarming incident. Then today had dawned and all the serene years had come tumbling down all about his ears. There once had been a hope that Earth could be accepted as a member of the galactic family, that he might serve as the emissary to gain that recognition. But now that hope was shattered, not only by the fact that the station might be closed, but that its very closing would be based upon the barbarism of the human race. Earth was being used as a whipping boy, of course, in galactic politics, but the brand, once placed, could not soon be lifted. And in any event, even if it could be lifted, now the planet stood revealed as one against which Galactic Central, in the hope of saving it, might be willing to apply a drastic and degrading action. There was something he could salvage out of all of it, he knew. He could remain an Earthman and turn over to the people of the Earth the information that he had gathered through the years and written down, in meticulous detail, along with personal happenings and impressions and much other trivia, in the long rows of record books which stood on the shelves against the wall. That and the alien literature he had obtained and read and hoarded. And the gadgets and the artifacts which came from other worlds. From all of this the people of the Earth might gain something which could help them along the road that eventually would take them to the stars and to that further knowledge and that greater understanding which would be their heritage-perhaps the heritage and right of all intelligence. But the wait for that day would be long-longer now, because of what had happened on this day, than it had ever been before. And the information that he held, gathered painfully over the course of almost a century, was so inadequate compared with that more complete knowledge which he could have gathered in another century (or a thousand years) that it seemed a pitiful thing to offer to his people. If there could only be more time, he thought. But, of course, there never was. There was not the time right now and there would never be. No matter how many centuries he might be able to devote, there'd always be so much more knowledge than he'd gathered at the moment that the little he had gathered would always seem a pittance. He sat down heavily in the chair before the desk and now, for the first time, he wondered how he'd do it- how he could leave Galactic Central, how he could trade the galaxy for a single planet, even if that planet still remained his own. He drove his haggard mind to find the answer and the mind could find no answer. One man alone, he thought. One man alone could not stand against both Earth and galaxy. 24 The sun streaming through the window woke him and he stayed where he was, not stirring for a moment, soaking in its warmth. There was a good, hard, feeling to the sunlight, a reassuring touch, and for a moment he held off the worry and the questioning. But he sensed its nearness and he closed his eyes again. Perhaps if he could sleep some more it might go away and lose itself somewhere and not be there when he awakened later. But there was something wrong, something besides the worry and the questioning. His neck and shoulders ached and there was a strange stiffness in his body and the pillow was too hard. He opened his eyes again and pushed with his hands to sit erect and he was not in bed. He was sitting in a chair and his head, instead of resting on a pillow, had been laid upon the desk. He opened and shut his mouth to taste it, and it tasted just as bad as he knew it would. He got slowly to his feet, straightening and stretching, trying to work out the kinks that had tied themselves into joints and muscles. As he stood there, the worry and the trouble and the dreadful need of answers seeped back into him, from wherever they'd been hiding. But he brushed them to one side, not an entirely successful brush, but enough to make them retreat a little and crouch there, waiting to close in again. He went to the stove and looked for the coffeepot, then remembered that last night he'd set it on the floor beside the coffee table. He went to get it. The two cups still stood on the table, the dark brown dregs of coffee covering the bottoms of them. And in the mass of gadgets that Ulysses had pushed to one side to make room for the cups, the pyramid of spheres lay tilted on its side, but it still was sparkling and glinting, each successive sphere revolving in an opposite direction to its fellow spheres. Enoch reached out and picked it up. His fingers carefully explored the base upon which the spheres were set, seeking something-some lever, some indentation, some trip, some button-by which it might be turned either on or off. But there was nothing he could find. He should have known, he told himself, that there would be nothing. For he had looked before. And yet yesterday Lucy had done something that had set it operating and it still was operating. It had operated for more than twelve hours now and no results had been obtained. Check that, he thought-no results that could be recognized. He set it back on the table on its base and stacked the cups, one inside the other, and picked them up. He stooped to lift the coffeepot off the floor. But his eyes never left the pyramid of spheres. It was mapening, he told himself. There was no way to turn it on and yet, somehow, Lucy had turned it on. And now there was no way to turn it off-although it probably did not matter if it were off or on. He went back to the sink with the cups and coffeepot. The station was quiet-a heavy, oppressive quietness; although, he told himself, the impression of oppressiveness probably was no more than his imagination. He crossed the room to the message machine and the plate was blank. There had been no messages during the night. It was silly of him, he thought, to expect there would be, for if there were, the auditory signal would be functioning, would continue to sound off until he pushed the lever. Was it possible, he wondered, that the station might already have been abandoned, that whatever traffic that happened to be moving was being detoured around it? That, however, was hardly possible, for the abandonment of Earth station would mean, as well that those beyond it must also be abandoned. There were no shortcuts in the network extending out into the spiral arm to make rerouting possible. It was not unusual for many hours, even for a day, to pass without any traffic. The traffic was irregular and had no pattern to it. There were times when scheduled arrivals bad to be held up until there were facilities to take care of them, and there were other times when there would be none at all, when the equipment would sit idle, as it was sitting now. Jumpy, he thought. I am getting jumpy. Before they closed the station, they would let him know. Courtesy, if nothing else, would demand that they do that. He went back to the stove and started the coffeepot. In the refrigerator he found a package of mush made from a cereal grown on one of the Draconian jungle worlds. He took it out, then put it back again and took out the last two eggs of the dozen that Wins, the mailman, had brought out from town a week or so ago. He glanced at his watch and saw that he had slept later than he thought. It was almost time for his daily walk. He put the skillet on the stove and spooned in a chunk of butter. He waited for the butter to melt, then broke in the eggs. Maybe, he thought, he'd not go on the walk today. Except for a time or two when a blizzard had been raging, it would be the first time he had ever missed his walk. But because he always did it, he told himself, contentiously, was no sufficient reason that he should always take it. He'd just skip the walk and later on go down and get the mail. He could use the time to catch up on all the things he'd failed to do yesterday. The papers still were piled upon his desk, waiting for his reading. He'd not written in his journal, and there was a lot to write, for he must record in detail exactly what had happened and there had been a good deal happening. It had been a rule he'd set himself from the first day, that the station had begun its operation-that he never skimped the journal. He might be a little late at times in getting it all down, but the fact that he was late or that he was pressed for time had never made him put down one word less than he had felt might be required to tell all there was to tell. He looked across the room at the long rows of record books that were crowded on the shelves and thought, with pride and satisfaction, of the completeness of that record. Almost a century of writing lay between the covers of those books and there was not a single day that he had ever skipped. Here was his legacy, he thought; here was his bequest to the world, here would be his entrance fee back into the human race; here was all he'd seen and heard and thought for almost a hundred years of association with those alien peoples of the galaxy. Looking at the rows of books, the questions that he had shoved aside came rushing in on him and this time there was no denying them. For a short space of time he had held them off, the little time he'd needed for his brain to clear, for his body to become alive again He did not fight them now He accepted them, for there was no dodging them. He slid the eggs out of the skillet onto the waiting plate He got the coffeepot and sat down to his breakfast. He glanced at his watch again. There still was time to go on his daily walk. 25 The ginseng man was waiting at the spring. Enoch saw him while still some distance down the trail and wondered, with a quick flash of anger, if he might be waiting there to tell him that he could not return the body of the Hazer, that something had come up, that he had run into unexpected difficulties. And thinking that, Enoch remembered how he'd threatened the night before to kill anyone who held up the return of the body. Perhaps, he told himself, it had not been smart to say that. Wondering whether he could bring himself to kill a man-not that it would be the first man he had ever killed. But that had been long ago and it had been a matter then of kill or being killed. He shut his eyes for a second and once again could see that slope below him, with the long lines of men advancing through the drifting smoke, knowing that those men were climbing up the ridge for one purpose only, to kill himself and those others who were atop the ridge. And that had not been the first time nor had it been the last, but all the years of killing boiled down in essence to that single moment-not the time that came after, but that long and terrible instant when he had watched the lines of men purposefully striding up the slope to kill him. It had been in that moment that he had realized the insanity of war, the futile gesture that in time became all but meaningless, the unreasoning rage that must be nursed long beyond the memory of the incident that had caused the rage, the sheer illogic that one man, by death of misery, might prove a right or uphold a principle. Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today that insanity-turned-principle stood ready to wipe out, if not the race itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries. Lewis had been sitting on a fallen log and now, as Enoch neared, he rose. "I waited for you here," he said. "I hope you don't mind." Enoch stepped across the spring. "The body will be here sometime in early evening," Lewis said. "Washington will fly it out to Madison and truck it here from there." Enoch noped. "I am glad to hear that." "They were insistent," Lewis said, "that I should ask you once again what the body is." "I told you last night," said Enoch, "that I can't tell you anything. I wish I could. I've been figuring for years how to get it told, but there's no way of doing it." "The body is something from off this Earth," said Lewis. "We are sure of that." "You think so," Enoch said, not making it a question. "And the house," said Lewis, "is something alien, too." "The house," Enoch told him, shortly, "was built by my father." "But something changed it," Lewis said. "It is not the way be built it." "The years change things," said Enoch. "Everything but you." Enoch grinned at him. "So it bothers you," he said. "You figure it's indecent." Lewis shook his head. "No, not indecent. Not really anything. After watching you for years, I've come to an acceptance of you and everything about you. No understanding, naturally, but complete acceptance. Sometimes I tell myself I'm crazy, but that's only momentary. I've tried not to bother you. I've worked to keep everything exactly as it was. And now that I've met you, I am glad that is the way it was. But we're going at this wrong. We're acting as if we were enemies, as if we were strange dogs-and that's not the way to do it. I think that the two of us may have a lot in common. There's something going on and I don't want to do a thing that will interfere with it." "But you did," said Enoch. "You did the worst thing that you could when you took the body. If you'd sat down and planned how to do me harm, you couldn't have done worse. And not only me. Not really me, at all. It was the human race you harmed." "I don't understand," 'said Lewis. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand. There was the writing on the stone ..." "That was my fault," said Enoch. "I should never have put up that stone. But at the time it seemed the thing to do. I didn't think that anyone would come snooping around and ..." "It was a friend of yours?" "A friend of mine? Oh, you mean the body. Well, not actually. Not that particular person." "Now that it's done," Lewis said, "I'm sorry." "Sorry doesn't help," said Enoch. "But isn't there something-isn't there anything that can be done about it? More than just bringing back the body?" "Yes," Enoch told him, "there might be something. I might need some help." "Tell me," Lewis said quickly. "If it can be done ..." "I might need a truck," said Enoch. "To haul away some stuff. Records and other things like that. I might need it fast." "I can have a truck," said Lewis. "I can have it waiting. And men to help you load." "I might want to talk to someone in authority. High authority. The President. Secretary of State. Maybe the U.N. I don't know. I have to think