Clifford Simak - A Choice of Gods

A foot crunched on the paving stones and Jason swung around in his chair. Thatcher was hurrying toward him.

"Mr. Jason, sir," the robot said, "there is someone calling on the radio. I told him to wait and I would put you on."

Jason rose from the chair. He was aware of a weakness in his knees, a goneness in his belly. This was it, he thought, this was it at last. He wasn't ready for it. He would never, he realized, have been ready for it.

"Thank you, Thatcher," he said. "There is something I'd like you to do for me."

"Anything at all, sir." Thatcher was excited. Jason looked at him curiously—he had never thought he'd see Thatcher excited.

"Would you please send one of the robots down to Red Cloud's camp. Tell him what has happened. Tell him that I need him. Ask him if he'll come."

"Immediately," said Thatcher. "I'll make the trip myself."

"That is fine," said Jason. "I had hoped you would. Horace knows you. He might resent any other robot yelling him awake."

Thatcher turned and started off.

"Just a moment," Jason said. "There is something further. Would you ask Red Cloud to send someone up the river and fetch Stanley down. We should have him here. And Hezekiah, too. One of the other robots can rout out Hezekiah."

He had killed that last bear when it had been so close that there had been no time to get off a decent shot. He had killed all the others, too—one bear for each of the claws in the necklace that hung about his throat. Some of the others, perhaps all of them, had been killed by the arrows he had fired—stout, true, well-fletched arrows driven by a powerful bow. But now he could not be sure, not absolutely sure, about the arrows.

Although it was not only killing. It was healing, too.

He had killed the bears, but he had healed the trees. He had thought so at the time and now he was sure he had. He had sensed something wrong with them and he had made it right, although he had never really known what had been wrong with them.

The alien came hobbling through the moonlit trees and squatted close to him. It made the worms go round and round and tumble all about. It had been following him for days and he was weary of it.

"Get out of here," he yelled. "Go away," he shouted.

It paid no attention. It stayed there, redistributing the worms. He had been tempted at times to do to it whatever it was he had done to the bears. But he told himself that it would not be right to do it to the alien. The alien was no real threat, or at least he didn't think it was; it was just a nuisance.

The alien squirmed closer.

"I gave you what you wanted," shouted David Hunt at it. "I fixed up what was wrong with you. I took away the ache. Now leave me alone."

The alien backed away.

David crouched at the foot of the mighty maple and tried to think it out—although, actually, there was not too much to think about. The record seemed quite clear: He had cured the trees, he had cured this strange creature which continually came sneaking up on him, he had cured the bird of its broken wing and an old black bear of an aching tooth and he had purged a bed of asters of a deadly thing that sucked the life from them (and was not quite easy in his mind on that one, for in helping the asters it appeared that he had killed some other form of life—a lowly life perhaps, but it still was life). As if a great compassion came rolling out of him to make all things well and whole and yet, quite strangely, he felt no great compassion. Rather, he felt an uneasiness when he sensed an unwell or aching thing and somehow he must make it right again. Right, perhaps, so he'd not be bothered with it. Was he to go through life, he wondered, sensing all the wrongness with the world? He had been all right until that night he had listened to the trees—until he had sensed the wrongness in them, he had been oblivious to wrongness, had not been aware of wrongness and quite carefree because he did not know of it. Something in the music, he wondered. Something in the robot that had stood beside him? And what did it mean, he wondered—that he must go stumbling through life aware of every little trouble, every little ill, and could get no rest or peace until he bad fixed them all?

Out of the corner of his eye, David Hunt saw the alien creeping closer. He waved his hands at it in a pantomime of pushing it away.

"Get out of here!" he yelled.

Jason picked up the microphone and thumbed the switch. And what did one say, he wondered. Was there a convention of radio conversation? If so, he didn't know it.

He said, "This is Jason Whitney of the planet Earth. Are you still out there?"

He waited and after a pause the voice came: "Jason who? Please identify."

"Jason Whitney."

"Whitney. Are you a human? Or another robot?"

"I am human," Jason said.

"Are you qualified to talk with us?"

"I am the only one who can. I'm the only human here."

"The only…"

"There are other humans. Not many. Only a few of us. At the moment the others are not here."

The voice was puzzled, but it said, "Yes, we understand. We were told there were few humans. A few humans only and some robots."

Jason sucked in his breath, cutting off the questions that came unbidden to his tongue. How would you know? Who told you there were humans? Certainly not John. And if any of the others out in space had found the People, they would come post ing back to Earth to bring the news as quickly as they could, just as John had done. No one would have found the People and talked with them casually and then gone on without getting word to Earth.

Should he let them know, he wondered, that their coming had been anticipated? Like how come it took so long, we had expected you much sooner. That would set them back on their heels exactly as they had set him back on his. But he throttled the desire. He could tell them nothing now. It might be to Earth's advantage if they did not know.

"We had not expected," said the voice, "to find a directional beam or a radio. Once we found the beam, of course…"

"Our robots," Jason said, "use radios to talk back and forth."

"But the beam…"

"I see no reason why you and I should argue," Jason told them smoothly. "Especially since I have no idea who you are."

"But the beam…"

"Just on the bare chance," said Jason, "that someone might want to visit us. It takes little effort to keep it operational. Now please identify yourself. Tell me who you are."

"We once lived on Earth," the voice said. "We were taken from it long ago. Now we are coming back."

"Then," said Jason, calmly, "you must be the People. We had wondered, all these years, what could have happened to you."

"The People?"

"That is what we called you—if you are the ones who disappeared from Earth."

"We are the ones."

"Well, welcome back," said Jason.

He smiled quietly to himself. As if they'd just stepped across the road to visit friends and were late in getting back. It could not be the way they had expected it. What they had expected, more than likely, was a sort of gibbering joy that they had found their way back to Earth and that after all the years the poor creatures who had been left behind were united once again with others of their race.

"We had expected we would have to hunt for you," the voice said. "We had feared, in fact, that we would not find you."

Jason chuckled. "You have been spared that fear. Are you coming in to visit us? I don't quite see how you can. We have no landing field."

"We need no field. We'll send down a boat, with two men. The boat can land anywhere. Just keep the beam going. The boat will ride it down."

"There's a cornfield near the house," said Jason. "You'll recognize it by the corn shocks. You can manage there?"