Gateways (44 page)

Somehow he found the time to be president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. And did I mention that he wrote the definitive article on the Roman emperor Tiberius for . . . the
Encyclopedia Britannica
?

Freddy’s an easy man for me to envy—if I’d had his energy and talent, I wouldn’t have needed mine.

—F
RANK
M. R
OBINSON

Well, honey, I saw the elephants and that was the start of it. I’d heard about them only I’d never seen any before, so I hid and watched them swinging along the street. I counted them, too, counting with chunks of cement when I ran out of fingers. Two tens and three was what it was, only after the first ten there started to be people, too, keeping in their shadows, just one here and one there and staying down so you knew they didn’t want the spiders to see them.

No, they weren’t walking fast at all. They had to step over things all the time, and go around them, too, and hold on to the tail of the one in front, you know how they do, and all that slowed them down. It wasn’t hard for the people to keep up at all.

Well, honey, I should’ve gone with the last elephant, and I knew it, only I was scared and it took me a time to get my guts up. Then I ran from one place to the next one, keeping to the shadows as much as I could. That’s how you do. I know I’ve told you before, but it’s how you do and don’t you never forget it.

It took me a long time to catch up, but I did because they went clear out of the city. That was where we lived then, in the city. There had been buildings and houses for us there once, only the spiders broke it, I don’t know why, and smashed everything down flat after. Edwards, he knew the name of it and told me one time, only I don’t remember it. It never seemed right to me that the city should have a name like it was a woman. Only Edwards, he had known it when it was still alive, see? So what was just the city to me was Minny or whatever the name was to Edwards, only she was dead.

Well, honey, I’d never been out of the city before and it scared the shit out of me. I wanted to go back and go back quick, only there were two or three reasons not to. One was that there was so much to see out there, like great big bushes that grew on top of big tall posts. You know what a bush is?

That’s right, like a broom upside down only green. A bush is alive, too, like grass, only it can’t move—just stay right where it is and grow. I used to cut sticks off them to clean my teeth. Quite a few of us did that.

The other one was that the shadows were getting long, you know, honey? Like when lights are turned down and there is only this one light a long ways away. Back then all of us had just the one light, really. The sun was what everybody called it, and it was way up overhead, way too far for anybody to touch, ever.

No, not even if I climbed up on something. It was big and bright and we couldn’t turn it off. Or turn it on, either. Back before the spiders, people had made these little lights you could shake. That was the way you fed them, and when you’d shaken them enough you could turn them on to see things, and turn them off, too, when you didn’t want the things to see you. I used to have one, only it broke.

Well, honey, the sun wasn’t like that. Not at all. It turned itself on and it rolled across the dome so the spiders could see into all the dark places and look for us. Only when it got to the other side it went out, and then it was our turn. We could go all around and they couldn’t see us hardly at all unless we lit cook fires. Which we had to do, you see, when we had something that had to be cooked. Mostly that was one of us. We killed each other and ate the meat a lot more there than we do here, because there wasn’t as much to eat there. Nowhere near like here. If you went out looking when there was lots of sunshine—that was light from the big light way up—the spiders would get you, probably. Only if you went out looking when it was dark, somebody else would.

If you went out by yourself, it was really, really tough, because it could be five or six of them, sometimes a family or just friends. I got away from that many two or three times, but it was never easy.

So that was another reason not to go back. I’d be in strange parts after dark, and it was the way lots of people got jumped.

Only the main thing was I was hungry. It was going to be poison hard to get something to eat back in the city and probably I wouldn’t. And I figured that there had to be food where the elephants were going or the others wouldn’t be following them. I was right, too.

Out there past where the city had been, there was a spider boat. It was this one we’re on right now, only you can’t ever understand how big it was. It was bigger than the whole city and higher than the dome, and it sparkled everywhere just like broken glass in the sun.

Well, sure, honey. If I’d have thought, I would’ve known you’d never seen broken glass. Only I’ve seen a lot of it, and it was the thing I thought
of when I saw that spider boat. Ever since then, I’ve been wondering how it looks at night, because it wasn’t night yet when I saw it. I bet it looks the way the stars do, only you’ve never seen them either. There’s a place where you can see them. I’ll show it to you as soon as I’ve got the time.

Say you and me were out in the grass country, and we went to the river, up toward the clean part where there aren’t any lizards, or not many, anyhow. And say you dipped up some water and threw it in the air so the light hit it. On the outside, this spider boat looks like that only a million million times bigger and more sparkly. It seemed like it went up forever, and spread out bigger than the city, like I said, and the bottom of it was sunk down into the dirt by the weight of the top, so I couldn’t really see how big it was.

And the elephants went in there, up a big bridge that hadn’t been smashed at all, still holding each other’s tails. You know how they do. They walked so far through the boat that I was ready to quit, and I saw a lot of stuff that looked good anyway. Some did quit—

Yeah, elephants will do anything the spiders tell them to do. They’re only animals, honey, but they’re not just animals either. The river lizards are just animals and they don’t hear the spiders. Neither do the dogs.

Back in the city we had dogs and they could be bad. But we’d catch them and eat them whenever we could, so there wasn’t hardly any left. The grass-country dogs are bigger and meaner than ours ever were, and trying to kill them is a real good way to get hurt. I saw one bite right through a spear once.

That’s right, I went in with the elephants and so did the other people. We went quite a ways inside the boat, then through a big door into the grass country. It was dark in there, and I’ll tell you I didn’t like that one bit. It wasn’t because I was scared of the dogs or the lions. I didn’t know about either one yet. I wasn’t scared of the elephants either. They’d let us walk real close, keeping in their shadows, so it didn’t seem likely they were going to do anything much to me. No, it was the people that scared me. See, I figured they’d be hungry.

That was pretty much how it was, too. I came on three of them, and started talking like I was one of them, hoping they’d be friends, that we could all go looking through the grass for something to eat, and water, too.

It was a man and two women, and when they saw me and saw the shine of my knife—it wasn’t as dark as this in there then, and their eyes had got used to it—they went right along. Not saying we were all together, but talking like it. Then two more came up, and I wasn’t too sure, so I backed off a little. After that, the biggest man you ever saw came, and more with
him. They hadn’t hardly gotten there when they tried to get behind me, and I ran.

Two were after me just like a couple of arrows, only we didn’t have arrows then. Here I’ve got to stop and go back and tell you about the big man. His name was Kazi, only I never found it out until after I killed him. When I was talking to him, I told him what a nice place I thought he had here and how I’d bring him three more, all women, from the city tomorrow. It was the sort of stuff I always said when I was trying to get away, only I could make a real good pitch for it, make it sound like these women were real and they’d come if I said everything was cool. I didn’t think it would go over with him, only it seemed like I ought to try it.

Yeah, that’s right. Mostly right, anyway.

Only when I saw those guys slipping off I knew it was time to go. What I didn’t know was how fast two of them were—first thing I knew, they were so close I could hear them sucking air.

Then I tripped. It was lucky, I guess, because both of them fell over me, only I’d lost my knife when I fell. One stabbed the other one thinking he was me, and I hid in the grass. Pretty soon the third one came, and they helped the stabbed man up and promised him they wouldn’t eat him unless he died. I don’t know if he believed them, but I didn’t.

I hunted around through the grass after that looking for my knife. It took me a long, long time and I kept thinking that pretty soon it would be light again. Only it wasn’t, and I finally found it. Just before that, I heard a lion roar. He was still roaring off and on when I found it.

Sure I do—Hack drew it there for me. Lions have always been lucky for me. Sometimes I think maybe it’s lions and me like it’s elephants and spiders. You remember when there was this one lioness that was killing us? I said all right we’ve gotta kill her and I want five men brave enough to help me. I sort of hoped all the men would volunteer, you know? But I only got four.

The five of us went off anyway, and when we were alone I told them, okay, we’re the Lion Friends. You’re special, all four of you. Stick with me and nothing bad is going to happen to you, ever. We did the handgrip thing and swore, and off we went.

Yeah, you’re right, honey. I told you about running away from Kazi, right. And finding my knife in the grass, right? Well, I felt pretty good about things then, only I was still hungry and it seemed like it would be light soon and I wouldn’t be the only one in sight. Night is worse than day out there in the grass country, only I didn’t know that yet.

I was sort of cussing my knife inside for being lost so long and making
me waste all that time when I heard something moving through the grass. I stopped right where I was and listened, and after a while I sort of crouched down. For a long, long time I didn’t hear it again. Then I did. It was big, I could tell that, and moving really, really slow. Only it was so big it couldn’t help making some noise when it moved.

No, not its feet. It was just pushing the grass to one side that I heard. The grass whispered every time it did that, and there wasn’t any way to stop it.

At first I thought it was probably an elephant. Only by that time I had a pretty good idea of where it was—what direction, I mean. I knew it was close, too. I just didn’t know how close. But when I looked in that direction I couldn’t see a thing. Even little elephants are really big, and the dome was getting light by then. I was pretty sure I’d be able to see an elephant, even a little one quite a ways off.

After a while I got a good fix on how far it was, too, and it was close. Really, really close. So I thought it was probably good to eat, and if it came close enough for me to see it I’d kill it and have something to eat.

The big round snout of it came first, and it was just light enough by then for me to see the teeth. Their lips don’t cover their teeth right. I hope you don’t ever see one so close you can notice that.

I jumped and it charged. It knocked me off my jump so I fell in the grass, but I bounced up quick and ran before it figured out where I was.

That’s right, it was a river lizard. The big ones come up out of the water when it gets dark and hunt along the shore if they’re real hungry. The little ones don’t do it, because they know the big ones will eat them if they catch them. They’re a lot like people, those river lizards.

The thing was, I was close to the river, and I hadn’t even known it. That’s not a good place to be any time, but when it’s dark it’s the worst place in the boat. Well, honey, I wanted a drink of water almost as much as I wanted something to eat, but that river water looked dirty and stunk, so I just backtracked it instead. I’d like to say here how smart I was, but the truth was that the thing I was most afraid of was going in circles. If I did that, I’d find myself back with Kazi and those guys. Only I figured that if I followed the river it would never circle back.

What I hadn’t figured on, was that the water would clear up, but I sure was glad to see it. When I thought about it, I saw that the spiders must pump it out up there in the hills, and filter it when it gets where it’s going, and maybe even boil it or something. Anyway, I had a drink and it was pretty good. After a while, when I’d walked quite a bit and was getting hot, I had another one that was even cooler and better than the first one. By that time
the water was so clear I could see there weren’t any river lizards hanging around in it. There weren’t any on the bank either.

So I got in and had a nice swim, like I used to swim in the lake back home when it was summer and the weather got hot. That could be pretty dangerous back home, and probably it was dangerous where I was, too, only I didn’t see any dogs or anything.