Clifford Simak - I Am Crying All Inside - And Other Stories

The queer thing rumbled on and the vine tensed itself, every fiber alert for struggle. Just let it get so much as one slight grip upon the thing—

The prey came closer and for one sense-shattering moment it seemed it would be out of reach. Then it lurched slightly to one side as it struck a hump in the ground and the vine’s tip reached out and grasped, secured a hold, wound itself in a maddened grip and hauled, hauled with all the might of almost a quarter mile of trailing power.

Inside the ground car, Don Mackenzie felt the machine lurch sickeningly, kicked up the power and spun the tractor on its churning treads in an effort to break loose.

Back of him Bradford Smith uttered a startled whoop and dived for an energy gun that had broken from its rack and was skidding across the floor. Nellie, upset by the lurch, was flat on her back, jammed into a corner. The Encyclopedia, at the moment of shock, had whipped out its coiled-up taproot and tied up to a pipe. Now, like an anchored turtle, it swayed pendulum-wise across the floor.

Glass tinkled and metal screeched on metal as Nellie thrashed to regain her feet. The ground car reared and seemed to paw the air, slid about and plowed great furrows in the ground.

“It’s a vine!” shrieked Smith.

Mackenzie nodded, grim-lipped, fighting the wheel. As the car slewed around, he saw the arcing loops of the attacker, reaching from the grove of rifle trees. Something pinged against the vision plate, shattered into a puff of dust. The rifle trees were limbering up.

Mackenzie tramped on the power, swung the car in a wide circle, giving the vine some slack, then quartered and charged across the prairie while the vine twisted and flailed the air in looping madness. If only he could build up speed, slap into the stretched-out vine full tilt, Mackenzie was sure he could break its hold. In a straight pull, escape would have been hopeless, for the vine, once fastened on a thing, was no less than a steel cable of strength and determination.

Smith had managed to get a port open, was trying to shoot, the energy gun crackling weirdly. The car rocked from side to side, gaining speed while bulletlike seeds from the rifle trees pinged and whined against it.

Mackenzie braced himself and yelled at Smith. They must be nearing the end of their run. Any minute now would come the jolt as they rammed into the tension of the outstretched vine.

It came with terrifying suddenness, a rending thud. Instinctively, Mackenzie threw up his arms to protect himself, for one startled moment knew he was being hurled into the vision plate. A gigantic burst of flame flared in his head and filled the universe. Then he was floating through darkness that was cool and soft and he found himself thinking that everything would be all right, everything would be … everything—

But everything wasn’t all right. He knew that the moment he opened his eyes and stared up into the mass of tangled wreckage that hung above him. For many seconds he did not move, did not even wonder where he was. Then he stirred and a piece of steel bit into his leg. Carefully he slid his leg upward, clearing it of the steel. Cloth ripped with an angry snarl, but his leg came free.

“Lie still, you lug,” something said, almost as if it were a voice from inside of him.

Mackenzie chuckled. “So you’re all right,” he said.

“Sure. I’m all right,” said Nicodemus. “But you got some bruises and a scratch or two and you’re liable to have a headache if you—”

The voice trailed off and stopped. Nicodemus was busy. At the moment, he was the medicine cabinet, fashioning from pure energy those things that a man needed when he had a bruise or two and was scratched up some and might have a headache later.

Mackenzie lay on his back and stared up at the mass of tangled wreckage.

“Wonder how we’ll get out of here,” he said.

The wreckage above him stirred. A gadget of some sort fell away from the twisted mass and gashed his cheek. He swore—unenthusiastically.

Someone was calling his name and he answered.

The wreckage was jerked about violently, literally torn apart. Long metal arms reached down, gripped him by the shoulders and yanked him out, none too gently.

“Thanks, Nellie,” he said.

“Shut up,” said Nellie, tartly.

His knees were a bit wabbly and he sat down, staring at the ground car. It didn’t look much like a ground car any more. It had smashed full tilt into a boulder and it was a mess.

To his left Smith also was sitting on the ground and he was chuckling.

“What’s the matter with you,” snapped Mackenzie.

“Jerked her right up by the roots,” exulted Smith. “So help me, right smack out of the ground. That’s one vine that’ll never bother anyone again.”

Mackenzie stared in amazement. The vine lay coiled on the ground, stretching back toward the grove, limp and dead. Its smaller tendrils still were entwined in the tangled wreckage of the car.

“It hung on,” gasped Mackenzie. “We didn’t break its hold!”

“Nope,” agreed Smith, “we didn’t break its hold, but we sure ruined it.”

“Lucky thing it wasn’t an electro,” said Mackenzie, “or it would have fried us.”

Smith nodded glumly. “As it is it’s loused us up enough. That car will never run again. And us a couple of thousand miles from home.”

Nellie emerged from a hole in the wreckage, with the Encyclopedia under one arm and a mangled radio under the other. She dumped them both on the ground. The Encyclopedia scuttled off a few feet, drilled his taproot into the soil and was at home.

Nellie glowered at Mackenzie. “I’ll report you for this,” she declared, vengefully. “The idea of breaking up a nice new car! Do you know what a car costs the company? No, of course, you don’t. And you don’t care. Just go ahead and break it up. Just like that. Nothing to it. The company’s got a lot more money to buy another one. I wonder sometimes if you ever wonder where your pay is coming from. If I was the company, I’d take it out of your salary. Every cent of it, until it was paid for.”

Smith eyed Nellie speculatively. “Some day,” he said, “I’m going to take a sledge and play tin shinny with you.”

“Maybe you got something there,” agreed Mackenzie. “There are times when I’m inclined to think the company went just a bit too far in making those robots cost-conscious.”

“You don’t need to talk like that,” shrilled Nellie. “Like I was just a machine you didn’t need to pay no attention to. I suppose next thing you will be saying it wasn’t your fault, that you couldn’t help it.”

“I kept a good quarter mile from all the groves,” growled Mackenzie. “Who ever heard of a vine that could stretch that far?”

“And that ain’t all, neither,” yelped Nellie. “Smith hit some of the rifle trees.”

The two men looked toward the grove. What Nellie said was true. Pale wisps of smoke still rose above the grove and what trees were left looked the worse for wear.

Smith clucked his tongue in mock concern.

“The trees were shooting at us,” retorted Mackenzie.

“That don’t make any difference,” Nellie yelled. “The rule book says—”

Mackenzie waved her into silence. “Yes, I know. Section 17 of the Chapter on Relations with Extraterrestrial Life: ‘No employee of this company may employ weapons against or otherwise injure or attempt to injure or threaten with injury any inhabitant of any other planet except in self-defense and then only if every means of escape or settlement has failed.’”

“And now we got to go back to the post,” Nellie shrieked. “When we were almost there, we got to turn back. News of what we did will get around. The moss probably has started it already. The idea of ripping a vine up by the roots and shooting trees. If we don’t start back right now, we won’t get back. Every living thing along the way will be laying for us.”