Clifford Simak - Time is the Simplest Thing

The houses dwindled out, and he reached the last street in the town. Here the prairie ended and the land began to tumble down, in a jumble of wooded hills and knolls, each one lower than the last, and he knew that the Missouri lay beyond. Somewhere down there where the last hill ended, the mighty stream gurgled on its way with its shifting sand bars and its willow islands.

He made his way across a field and climbed a fence and went down the bank of a steep ravine and at the bottom of it was a tiny creek that chuckled at its banks and just beyond was a pool with a clump of willows growing close beside it.

Blaine got down on his hands and knees and crawled beneath the willows. It was a perfect hideout. It was outside the town and there was nothing to bring anybody here — the stream was too small to fish and it was too late for swimming. He would not be disturbed.

There would be no one to sense the flashing mirror he carried in his mind; there’d be no one to yell “Parry!”

And come night he could move on.

He ate three of the hamburgers and drank some of the coffee.

The sun came up and filtered through the willows to make a dappled pattern of sunshine and shadow.

From the town came far-off sounds — the rumble of a truck, the purring of an engine, the barking of some dogs, the calling of a mother rounding up the kids.

It had been a long road from that night in Fishhook, Blaine told himself, sitting in the willow shade and poking with a stick into the sandy ground. A long ways from Charline’s and from Freddy Bates. And up until this moment he’d had no time to even think about it.

There had been a question then, and there was still a question now: Whether it had been smart to run away from Fishhook; whether, despite all Godfrey Stone had said, it might not have been the wiser course to stay and take his chances of whatever Fishhook might have had in store.

He sat there and thought about it and he went back to the bright blue room where all had been set in motion. And he saw the room again as if it were only yesterday — better than if it were only yesterday. The alien stars were shining faintly down on this room which had no roof, and the bright blue floor was smooth beneath the rolling of his wheels, and the room was filled with the weird fabricated pieces that might have been furniture or art objects or appliances or almost anything at all.

It all came alive for him as it should not come alive — clear and concise, with no rough edges and nothing blurred, with not a thing put in and not a thing left out.

The Pinkness was sprawling at its ease and it roused and said to him: So you came back again!

And he was really there.

Without machine or body, without any outward trappings, with nothing but his naked mind, Shepherd Blaine had come back to the Pinkness.

You cannot see a mind.

But the Pinkness saw it, or sensed it — or at least it knew that the mind was there.

And to Shepherd Blaine there was no surprise and no alienness. It seemed almost as if he were coming home, for the bright blue of the room was much more homelike and familiar than it had seemed that first time.

Well, the Pinkness said, looking the mind up and down, you make a pretty pair!

And that was it, of course, thought the part of the mind that still was Shepherd Blaine — he, or at least a part of him, perhaps as much as half of him, had come home, indeed. For he was, in some percentage not yet determined, perhaps impossible to determine, a part of the alien he faced. He was Shepherd Blaine, traveler from Earth, and likewise a carbon copy of this thing that dwelt in the bright blue room.

And how are you getting on? the alien asked most affably. As if he didn’t know.

There is just one thing, said Blaine, hurrying to get it in against the time when he might be forced to go from here. There is just one thing. You’ve made us like a mirror. We bounce back at people.

Why, of course, the alien told him. That is the only way to do it. On an alien planet you would need some shielding. You don’t want intelligences prying round in you. So you bounce back their prying. Here at home, of course, there would be no need. . . .

But you don’t understand, protested Blaine. It doesn’t protect us. It attracts attention to us. It almost got us killed.

There is no such thing, the alien told Blaine, gruffly. There is no such thing as killed. There is no such thing as death. It is such a horrid waste. Although I may be wrong. It seems to me that there was a planet, very long ago . . .

One could almost hear him riffling through the dry filing cases of his cluttered memory.

Yes, he said, there was a planet. There were several planets. And it was a shame. I cannot understand it. It makes no sense at all.

I can assure you, Blaine told him, that on my planet there is death for everything. For every single thing. . . .

For everything?

Well, I can’t be sure. Perhaps . . .

You see, the creature said. Even on your planet it is not universal.

I do not know, said Blaine. It seems to me that I remember there are deathless things.

Normal things, you mean.

Death has a purpose, Blaine persisted. It is a process, a function that has made the development of species and the differentiation of species possible on my planet. It averts the dead end. It is an eraser that wipes out mistakes, that provides for new beginnings.

The Pinkness settled down. You could sense its settling down — smugly, primly getting set for a long and satisfactory exchange of ideas and, perhaps, an argument.

It may be so, it said, but it’s very primitive. It goes back to the ooze. There are better ways. There even is a point where there is no further need of this improvement that you speak of.

But, first of all, he asked, are you satisfied?

Satisfied?

Well, you’re an improved thing yourself. An expanded thing. You are part yourself and you are partly me.

And you are partly me as well.

The Pinkness seemed to chuckle. But there are just the two of you — yourself and me — and I am so many things I cannot begin to tell you. I have done a lot of visiting and I’ve picked up a lot of things, including many minds, and some of them, I don’t mind telling you, were hardly worth the trading. But do you know, for all the visiting I’ve done, almost no one ever visits me. I cannot tell you how I appreciate this visit. There was a being once who came to visit me quite often, but it was so long ago it’s a bit hard to recall. By the way, you measure time, don’t you — surface time, that is?

Blaine told him how humans measure time.

Hm, now, let’s see, the creature said, doing rapid mental calculation, that would make it about ten thousand of your years ago.

That this creature came to visit you?

That is right, the Pinkness said. You are the first since then. And you came visiting me. You didn’t wait for me to visit you. And you had that machine. . . .

How come, Blaine asked, you had to ask me about our count of time? You had it all. You traded minds with me. You have everything I know.

Of course, the Pinkness mumbled. Of course I had it. But I hadn’t dug it out. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how cluttered up I am.

And that was true, Blaine thought. Even with just one extra mind, he was cluttered up. He wondered. . . .

Yes, of course, the Pinkness told him. You’ll get it straightened out in time. It takes a little while. You’ll become one mind, not two. You’ll get together. You’ll make a team. You like it this way, don’t you?