Clifford Simak - All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

It seemed impossible. And yet, she had thought of time and space for nearly forty lifetimes. With nothing but a brain to work with, with no tools, no chance of experimentation — all alone, with nothing but her thoughts, she had solved the deep-shrouded mysteries of space and time. Never dreaming, perhaps, that such knowledge could be used to a certain purpose.

Metal feet scraped across the laboratory floor and Gary whirled to come face to face with Engineer 1824. The metal man had advanced upon them unawares.

His thought came to them, clear, calm, unhurried thought, devoid of all emotion, impersonal, yet with a touch of almost human warmth.

"I heard your thoughts," he said, "and I am afraid that you might think I meant to hear them. But I am very glad I did. You wonder why the Engineers brought you here. You wonder why the Engineers can't do this work unaided."

They stood guiltily, like schoolboys caught at some forbidden act.

"I will tell you," the thought went on, "and I hope you will understand. It is difficult to tell you. Hard to tell you, because we Engineers are full of pride. Conditions being different, we would never tell you."

It sounded like a confession, and Gary stared at the metal man in stricken surprise, but there was no sign of expression upon the metal face, no hint of thought within the glowing eyes.

"We are an old and tired people," said the Engineer. "We have lived too long. We have always been a mechanistic people and as the years went on we became even more so. We plod from one thing to another. We have no imagination. The knowledge that we have, the powers we hold, were inherited by us. Inherited from a great race, the greatest race that ever lived. We have added something to that knowledge, but so very little. So very, very little when you think of all the time that has passed away since it was handed to us."

"Oh!" cried Caroline and then put her hand up as if to cover her mouth, and it clanged against the quartz of the helmet. She looked at Gary and he saw pity in her eyes.

"No pity for us, please," said the Engineer. "For we are a proud people and have the right to be. We have kept an ancient trust and kept it well. We have abided by the heritage that is ours. We have kept intact the charge that was given us."

In the little silence Gary had a sense of ancient things, of old plays played out upon a stage that had dissolved in dust these many thousand years. A sense of an even greater race upon an even greater planet. An old, old heraldry carried down through cosmic ages by these metal men.

"But you are young," declared the Engineer. "Your race is young and unspoiled. You have fallen into no grooves. Your mind is free. You are full of imagination and initiative. I sensed it when I talked with you back in your own system. And that is what we need… that is what we must have. Imagination to grasp the problem that is offered. Imagination to peer around the corner. A dreaming contemplation of what is necessary to be done, and then the vigorous initiative to meet the challenge that the dream may bring."

Again a silence.

"That is why we are so glad to have you here," went on the Engineer. "That is why I know I can tell you what must be told."

He hesitated for a moment and a million fears speared at Gary's brain. Something that must be told! Something they hadn't known before. An even greater threat to face?

They waited breathlessly.

"You should know," said the Engineer, "but I almost fear to tell you. It is this: Upon you, and you alone, must rest the fate of the universe. You are the only ones to save it."

"Upon us," cried Tommy. "Why, that is mad! You can't mean it!"

Kingsley's hands were clenched and the bearish rumble was rising in his throat. "What about those others?" he asked. "All those others you brought here, along with us?"

"I sent them back," declared the Engineer. "They were no help to us."

Gary felt the cold wind from space reach out and flick his face again. Man — and Man alone — stood between the universe and destruction. Little, puny Man. Man, with a body so delicate that he would be smashed to a bloody pulp if exposed unprotected to the naked gravity of this monstrous world. Little Man, groping toward the light, groping, feeling, not knowing where he went.

And then the blast of trumpets sounded in the air — the mythical trumpets calling men to crusade. The ringing peal that for the last ten thousand years has sent Man out to war, clutching at his sword.

"But why?" Kingsley was thundering.

"Because," said the Engineer, "we could not work with them. They could not work with one another. We could hardly understand them. Their process of intelligence was so unfathomable, their thought process so twisted, that understanding was almost impossible. How we ever made them understand sufficiently to bring them here, I will never know. Many times we almost despaired. Their minds are so different from ours, so very, very different. Poles apart in thought."

Why, sure, thought Gary, that would be the way one would expect to find it. There was no such thing as parallel physical evolution, why should there be parallel mental evolution?

"Not that their mentality is not as valid as our intelligence," said the Engineer. "Not that they might not have even a greater grasp of science than we. But there could have been no co-ordination, no understanding for us to work together."

"But," said Caroline, "we can understand your thoughts. You can understand ours. And yet we are as far removed from you as they."

The Engineer said nothing.

"And you look like us," said Tommy, quietly. "We are protoplasm and you are metal, but we each have arms and legs…"

"It means nothing," said the Engineer. "Absolutely nothing how a thing is made, the shape that one is made in." There was almost an edge of anger in his thoughts.

"Don't you worry, old man," said Herb. "We'll save the universe. I don't know how in hell we'll do it, but we'll save it for you."

"Not for us," the Engineer corrected, "but for those others. For all life that now exists within the universe. For all life that in time to come may exist within the universe."

"There," said Gary, hardly realizing that he spoke aloud, "is an ideal big enough for any man."

An ideal. Something to fight for. A spur that kept Man going on, striving, fighting his way ahead.

Save the universe for that monstrosity in the glass sphere with its shifting vapors, for the little, wriggling, slug-like things, for the mottled terror with the droopy mouth and the glint of humor in his eyes.

"But how?" asked Tommy. "How are we going to do it?"

Kingsley ruffled at him. "We'll do it," he thundered.

He wheeled on the Engineer. "Do you know what kind of energy would exist within the inter-space?" he asked.

"No," said the Engineer, "I cannot tell you that. Perhaps the Hellhounds. But that's impossible."

"Is there any other place?" asked Gary in a voice cold as steel. "Anyone else who could tell us?"

"Yes," said the Engineer. "There is one other race. I think that they might tell you. But not yet. Not yet. It is too dangerous."

"We don't care," said Herb. "We humans eat up danger."

"Let us try it," said Gary. "Just a couple of us. If something happened, the others would be left to carry on…"

"No," said the Engineer, and there was a terrible finality in the single thought.

"Why can't we go out ourselves and find out?" asked Herb. "We could make a little universe just for ourselves. Float right out into this fifth-dimension space and study the energy that we find."

"Splendid," purred Kingsley. "Absolutely splendid. Except there isn't any energy yet. Won't be until the two universes rub and then it will be too late."

"Yes," said Caroline, smiling at Herb, "we have to know before the energy is produced. When the universes rub, it will flood in upon us in such great quantity that we'll be wiped out almost immediately. The first contracting rush of space and time will engulf us. Remember, we're just inside the universal rim."