Hal Clement - Close to Critical

“But that’s getting off the story. When I built my fires a lot of them watched, but couldn’t seem to make anything of it; when I lighted them, there was the biggest crowd of astonished people you ever saw. They didn’t know anything about fire; that’s why there was so much firewood near the cliff, I guess.

“Of course, it had started to rain by the time I lighted up, and it was funny to watch them; they seemed terribly afraid of being outside their holes in the rain, and still didn’t want to miss watching the fires. They kept dithering back and forth, but gradually disappeared into their holes. After a while they were all gone, even though some of them stayed long enough to see what the fires did to the rain.

“I didn’t see any more of them for the rest of the night. The water didn’t get too deep along the face of the cliff, and they were out in the morning as soon as it had dried up.

“I could make a long story out of the rest of the time, but that will have to wait. I learned to talk to them pretty well—the way they put their words together makes a lot of sense once you catch on to it—and got to know them pretty well. The main thing is that they were interested in whatever things I knew that they didn’t, like fire and keeping herds of animals and raising plants for food; and they wanted to know how I’d learned all these things. I told them about you, Fagin; and maybe that was a mistake. A few days ago their teacher, or leader, or whatever you can call him, came to me and said that he wanted me to come back here and bring you down to the cliff so you could teach all the things you know to his people.

“Now, that seemed all right to me. I judged that the more people you knew who could help in the things you want us to do, the better everything will be.” He paused, to give Fagin a chance to answer.

“That’s true enough,” the voice from the robot agreed after the usual interval. “What went wrong?”

“My answer wasn’t worded just right, it seems. I interpreted the proposition as a request, and answered that I would gladly come back home and ask you whether you would come to help the cave people. The leader—his name means Swift, in their words; all their names mean something—became angry indeed. Apparently he expects people to do as he says without any question or hesitation. I had noticed that but had been a little slow in applying my knowledge, I fear. Anyway, I didn’t see how he could expect you to obey his orders.

“Unfortunately, he does; and he decided from my answer that you and the other people of our village would probably refuse. When that happens, his first thought is the use of force; and from the moment I made my answer he began to plan an attack on our village, to carry you away with him whether you wanted to go or not.

“He ordered me to tell hini how to find our village, and when I refused he became angry again. The body of a dead goat that someone had brought in for food was lying nearby, and he picked it up and began to do terrible things to it with his knives. After a while he spoke to me again.

“You see what my knives are doing,” he said. “If the goat were alive, it would not be killed by them; but it would not be happy. The same shall be done to you with the start of the new day, unless you guide my fighters to your village and its Teacher. It is too close to darkness now for you to escape; you have the night to think over what I have said. We start toward your village in the morning—or you will wish we had.” He made two of his biggest fighters stay with me until the rain started. Even after all the time I’d been there no one ever stayed out of the caves after rainfall, so they left me alone when I lighted my fires.

“It took me a long time to decide what to do. If they killed me, they’d still find you sooner or later and you wouldn’t be warned in time; if I went with them it might have been all right, but I didn’t like some of the things Swift had been saying. He seemed to feel things would be better if there were none of your own people left around after he captured you. That seemed to mean that no matter what I did I was going to be killed, but if I kept quiet I might be the only one. That was when I thought of traveling at night; I was just as likely to be killed, but at least I’d die in my sleep—and there was a little chance of getting away with it. After all, a lot of animals that don’t have caves or fire and don’t wake up as early as some of the meat-eaters still manage to live.

“Then I got another idea; I thought of carrying fire with me. After all, we often carry a stick with one end burning for short distances when we’re lighting the night fires; why couldn’t I carry a supply of long sticks, and keep one burning all the time? Maybe the fire wouldn’t be big enough to be a real protection, but it was worth trying. Anyway, what could I lose?

“I picked out as many of the longest sticks around as I could carry, piled them up, and waited until two of my three fires were drowned by raindrops. Then I picked up my sticks, lighted the end of one of them at the remaining fire, and started off as fast as I could.

“I was never sure whether those people stayed awake in their caves or not—as I said, water doesn’t get up to them—but now I guess they don’t. Anyway, no one seemed to notice me as I left.

“You know, traveling at night isn’t nearly as bad as we always thought it would be. It’s not too hard to dodge raindrops if you have enough light to see them coming, and you can carry enough wood to keep you in light for a long time. I must have made a good twenty miles, and I’d have gone farther if I hadn’t made a very silly mistake. I didn’t think to replenish my wood supply until I was burning my last stick, and then there wasn’t anything long enough for my needs in the neighborhood. I didn’t know the country at all; I’d started west instead of north to fool any of the cave people who saw me go. As a result I got smothered in a raindrop within a minute after my last light went out; and it was late enough by then for the stuff to be unbreathable. I’d kept to high ground all the tune, though, so I woke up in the morning before anything had made breakfast of me.”

Nick paused, and like the other listeners—except Fagin —shifted himself to a more comfortable position on his resting legs as the ground shook underfoot. “I made a good, wide sweep around to the west, then circled north and east again to get back here. I was expecting to be caught every minute; those people are marvelous hunters and trackers. I traveled for several hours after dark each night, but stopped in time to find wood and build permanent fires before my sticks went out, after the first time. I didn’t get caught by rain again, and they never caught up with me. They’ll still find the village here sooner or later, though, and I think we ought to move out as quickly as possible.”

For a moment there was silence after Nick finished his report; then the villagers began chattering, each putting forth his own ideas without paying much attention to those of his neighbor. They had picked up quite a few human characteristics. This noise continued for some minutes, with Nick alone waiting silently for Fagin to make some comment.

At last the robot spoke.

“You are certainly right about the cave-dwellers finding the village here; they probably know where it is already. They would have been fools to catch up with you as long as they had reason to suppose you were going home. I see nothing to be gained, however, by leaving; they could follow us anywhere we might go. Now that they know of our existence, we’re going to meet them in very short order.

“I don’t want you people fighting them. I’m rather fond of you all, and have spent quite a long time bringing you up, and would rather not see you butchered. You’ve never done any fighting—it’s one thing I’m not qualified to teach you—and you wouldn’t stand a chance against that tribe.