“So the Snark was at work?”
“Not him. I’m convinced he’s reconnaissance, period.”
“Or a pointer?”
“How’s that?”
“A pointer dog. The kind that sights the quail.” “Damn.” Nigel sat very still. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.”
“It’s possible.”
“Hell, yes, it is. Snark wouldn’t need to know what his designers intended.”
“Every now and then he squirts them his findings.” “And they… use the information.”
Nikka said briskly, “It’s just an idea. Those novas— how far away were they?”
“Oh, they varied,” Nigel said absently. “The important point is that they’re all along the same line of sight, seen from here. As though the cause were moving toward us.”
“Nigel, it’s just—”
“I know. Just an idea. But it… fits.”
“Fits what?”
“The wreck out there.” He waved airily. “Some living creatures came here, far back in our past. That ship carried what the Snark called organic forms, not supercomputers.”
“Animals, I think you said.”
“Yes, Snark called us animals, too. No insult intended. He thinks of us as special.”
“Why?”
“We’re uncommon, for one thing. Most life is machine life, he said. And we’re…”
“We’re what?”
Nigel felt oddly uneasy with the word. “Of the universe of essences.”
“What does it mean? I read your classified summary but—”
“I haven’t a clue what it adds up to.”
“The beings in that wreck were in the universe of essences, too, then. They came here to get something.”
“Or give something.”
THIRTEEN
After a day of dazed babbling, Graves awoke in the morning able to speak clearly. Mr. Ichino fried synthetic yeast steak and as they ate Graves confirmed most of the deductions Mr. Ichino had made from the microfilm.
“I’d been on their trail for weeks,” Graves said, propped up in bed. “After them in a ’copter first, then on foot. Got a few long-distance photos, even found some of the vegetation they’d nibbled at, a few rabbit bones, things like that. My trackers pinpointed likely spots. My guide and me, we spotted some just as this damn snow started. Hard as hell, tracking them through this mess.”
“Why not stop?” Mr. Ichino asked.
“They had to slow down sometime. Everything does in the winter up here. If I outlasted them I could maybe move in when they were hibernating or something. Take captives.”
“Was that how you got this?” Mr. Ichino gestured at the bandage over Graves’ ribs.
Graves grimaced. “Yeah. Maybe they weren’t holed up at all, just stopped for a while. I came up on ’em in one of those circular clearings that used to be a root system for redwood trees. Got in close. They were sitting around a kind of stone block with something made out of metal on top of it, all of them kind of looking at it and humming, swaying back and forth, a few beating on the ground.”
“You mentioned that earlier when you first woke up.” “Uh, huh. I thought the sound would cover me, all that chanting. My guide circled around to come in at a different angle. They were worshiping that damn thing, that rod. I got a picture and moved and the one up front, the one who was leading them, he saw me. I got scared. Took a shot at him with my rifle, thinking to run them off maybe.
“Then the leader grabbed that rod. He pointed it at me. I thought maybe it was a club, so I got off another shot. I think I hit him. Then he did something to the end of the rod and a beam came out, so close I could feel the heat in the air. Something like a laser, but a lot wider beam width. I was pumping slugs into him like crazy. He wouldn’t go down. He got my guide—killed the boy. Next time he fired he clipped me in the side. But I’d got the son of a bitch by then, he was finished.
“The others had run off. I got over to him and pulled that rod away from him and took off, not even looking where I was going. I guess they picked up my trail a little later—I saw some of them following me. But they’d learned a lesson. They stayed away, out of easy rifle range. Guess they thought I’d drop finally and they’d get their goddamn rod back. Until I saw your smoke I thought I was finished.”
“You nearly were. That burn cut deep and it could have caused infection. I’m surprised you could stand the pain.”
Graves winced, remembering it. “Yeah. Had to keep going, wading through the snow. Knew they’d get me if I stopped, passed out. But it was worth it.”
“Why? What did it get you?”
“Well, the rod,” Graves said, startled. “Didn’t you find it in my pack?”
Mr. Ichino suddenly remembered the gray metal tube he had examined and put aside.
“Where is it?” Graves sat up and twisted out of the bed, looking around the cabin. Mr. Ichino walked over to the man’s pack. He found the tube lying under it in a corner. He must have dropped it there.
