Clifford Simak - A Heritage of Stars

She spat upon the ground. "The innocence of you," she said, is terrible to behold. They'd slip a knife between my ribs. They have no love of me. They' hate me. When their fears become too great, or their greed too great, or something else too great for them to bear, they come to me, yammering for help. But they come only when there's nowhere else to go, for they seem to think there's something dirty about dealing with a witch. They fear me and because of this fear; they hate me. They' bate me even when they' come to me for help."

"In that case, you should have been gone long since."

"There was something told me I should stay," she said. "Even when I knew that I should go. Even when I knew I was a fool not going, I still stayed on, as if I might be waiting for something. I wondered why and now I know. Perhaps my' powers are greater than I dreamed. I waited for a champion and now I have one."

"The hell you have," he said.

She thrust out her chin, "I am going with you. I don't care what you say, I am going with you.

"I'm going west," he said, "and you're not going with me."

"We'll first move to the south," she said. "I know the way to go. I'll show you the way to go. South to the river and then up the river. There we'll be safe. The horde will stick to higher ground. The river valley is hard traveling and they'll not go near it.

"I'll be traveling fast," he said, "moving in the night."

"Meg has spells," she said. "She has powers that can be used. She can sense the minds of others."

He shook his head.

"I have a horse," she told him. "No great noble steed, but a gentle animal and intelligent that can carry what we need."

I carry what I need upon my hack."

"I have against the trip a ham, a slab of bacon, flour, salt. blankets a spyglass."

"What do you mean, ‘spyglass'?"

"A double-barreled spyglass."

"Binoculars, you mean.

"From long ago," she said. "Paid as a fee by a man who was very much afraid and came to seek my help."

"Binoculars would be handy," Cushing said.

"There, you see. I would not hold you up. I am spry of foot

and Andy is a fey horse. He can slip along so softly he is never

noticed. And you, noble seeker of a legend, would not leave a

helpless woman.

He snorted. "Helpless," he said.

"So, laddie, you must see that we could be of aid to one another. You with your prowess and Old Meg with her powers— "No," he said.

"Let us go down to the house," she said. "There we'll find a modicum of buckwheat flour to make some cakes, a jug of sorghum, perhaps a slice of ham. While we eat, you can tell me about this thing you seek and we will lay our plans."

"I'll eat your cakes," he said, "but it will gain you nothing. You are not going with me."

They set out with the first light of the rising moon. Cushing took the lead, pondering how it had come about that he had agreed to let Meg come along. He had kept on saying no and she had kept on saying yes and here they were, the two of them together. Could it have been witchery? he asked himself. If that should be the case—it might be, after all—it could be all right to have her with him. If she could perform witchery on others as well as she had on him, perhaps it was all right.

Although, it was cumbersome, he told himself. One man could slip through the woods with no thought for anyone but himself, could keep a low profile, could travel as he willed. This was not possible with two people and a horse. Especially with the horse. He should have said, he knew, "It's all right for you to come along, but the horse must stay behind." Face to face with Andy, he'd not been able to say it. He could no more have abandoned Andy than all those years ago he could have abandoned the animals when he left the coulee.

Meg had said that Andy was a fey horse and Cushing did not know about that, but when one laid eyes upon him, it could be seen that he was a loving and a trusting horse. A humble horse, as well, with no illusions about being a noble charger. A patient animal that relied on human kindness and consideration. He was a bag of bones, but despite that, there was about him a certain air of competency.

Cushing headed southwesterly, striking for the Minnesota River valley, as Meg had said they should. The Minnesota was a small, meandering stream that wriggled like a snake between low bluffs to join the Mississippi at a little distance south of where, the night before, he had crossed the larger river. The valley was heavily wooded and would afford good cover, although following its windings would add many miles to the westward journey.

He wondered, thinking of it, where they might be going. Somewhere in the West; that was all he knew. That was all Wilson had known. But how far west and in what part of the West? On the nearby high plains, or in the foothills of the Rockies, or even in the great southwestern deserts? Blind, he told himself, so blind a seeking that when one thought of it, it seemed an errant madness. Meg, when he had told her of the Place, thought that she could recall once hearing such a legend, but she could not remember when she'd heard it or whom she'd heard it from. But she had not scoffed at it; she was too glad of a chance to flee the city to engage in any scoffing. Somewhere along the way, perhaps, they'd be able to pick up further word of it. As they went west there might he someone they'd encounter who had further word of it. That is, if there were any word at all; if, in fact, there were a Place of Going to the Stars.

And if there were such a place, once they got there, what would be the profit or significance? Even if they found the place and found evidence that man at one time had flown to the stars, what would this knowledge change? Would the nomads stop their raiding and their pillaging? Would the city tribes establish the nucleus of a decent government? Would men come trooping into the university to create a renaissance that would lift mankind out of the bestial abyss into which it had been plunged?

None of these things, he knew, would happen. There'd be left only the satisfaction of knowing that at one time, more than a thousand years before, men had left the solar system and gone into the cosmos. There might be pride in that, of course, hut pride alone was poor coin in the sort of place the world had now become.

And yet, he told himself, there could he no turning hack. he'd set out upon a quest, perhaps impulsively, guided by emotion rather than by reason, and profitless as it might be, he must somehow keep the faith. Even if the faith be foolish, it somehow must be kept. He tried to reason why this should he and he found no answer.

By now the moon had risen well into the eastern sky. The city was behind them and they were deep into the suburbs. Off to the right a one-time water tower sagged out of the perpendicular; in a few more years it would come crashing down.

Cushing halted and waited for the others to come up. Andy humped his muzzle in a gentle greeting against his chest, blowing softly through his nostrils. Cushing rubbed the furred head gently, pulling at the ears

"He likes you," said Meg, "and it's not everyone he likes. He 15 a discerning horse. But there's no reason why he shouldn't like you, for he, as well as I, reads the mark upon you.

"Let's forget this business," Cushing said, "of a mark upon

— For I haven't any' mark. ‘What do you know of this country? Should we keep on as we re going, or should we move toward the south?"

"To the south," she said. "The quicker we get into the valley, the safer we will be."

"This horde you were telling me about—how far off are they?"

"A day or two, mayhaps. City scouts a week ago sighted them a hundred miles to the west, pulling their forces together and about to move. It is most likely they'll move at an easy pace, for in their minds there can seem no hurry. The city lies there for their easy picking and they would have no way of knowing that they had been spotted."