But there was one sense of satisfaction that was missing. The greatest, deepest darkness the tall one now moving down into the center, to where a young boy s body should have lain was not at all satisfied. All the shadow-fears that looked on slowly stilled their hissing, becoming afraid themselves, as that master darkness towered over the place where Darryl should have been and wasn t.
Gone! the Lone Power cried. Gone again!
Find him!!
With a vast wind-rush rustling of terror, the shadows vanished. The Lone One, furious, sweptItsdarknesses about Itself. They writhed like an angry cloak, wrapped in close around their master. A second later,It was gone.
And Kit andPonch stood there at the edge of it all, behind the door, in the dark, shaking.
It didn t even notice you,Ponch said, confused but relieved.That s good .
No argument.But what about Darryl Kit was seriously confused.How could he be there and nothe there at the same time
I don t know,Ponch said.But I want to go home now. And when we get home, I want a biscuit .
Five biscuits, Kit said.Maybe ten.Let s get out of here .
They started making their way back through the carved corridors of the hill. Where did he go Kit said after a while, when he started to get his breath back, for he d held it again and again.
The Lone One He didn t go anywhere. He s still where he always is: here. One side ofPonch s mouth curled again in a soft growl.
No, I meant Darryl.
Oh. It may take me a little while to find out.Ponch s nose was working again.But I don t think this is the first time he s done this maneuver; he did it too quickly. I can scent the change. I can find where he goes next .
They came out of the dark, back into that pitiless day. What I don t get is,why she doing it Kit said, looking out across the endless, scorched, barren waste. Why doesn t he get it over with Not that he didn t look like he was having a bad time. But running away from the Lone One is no way to end an Ordeal. Sooner or later you have to tackleIt head-on before It catches you from behind, when you re not looking, and finishes you off.
Idon t know. I m not a wizard. But I know what it s like to be scared .
Kit heard the pity in his dog s voice, and was slightly surprised. NormallyPonch saved his concern for members of the family, or friends. You re sure you can pick up the trail again
Any time.But not right now.Ponch trotted away from the bottom of the cliff, purposeful, not looking back.I m tired .
ButPonch is sad, too, Kit thought.And that makes it worse . Come on, big guy, he said. Let s go.
Together, they vanished.
Conversations
Nita looked up out of darkness at the giant robot that was staring down at her.
At the time this seemed like the most natural thing in the world. There she stood, barefoot, in her long, pink-striped nightshirt, and there stood the robot, glittering in the single spotlight that shone down on the dark floor. The gleam of thedownfalling light on the metal of the robot s skin was nearly blinding.What kind of metal is that, I wonder Nita thought, for the skinsheened a number of colors, from a hot blue through magenta to a greenish yellow, depending on how the robot moved. Right now it was shifting idly from foot to foot, as if it was waiting for something to happen.
Titanium, Nita thought, recalling some jewelry she d seen one of her classmates wearing to school recently; it had had the same hot-colored sheen as the robot s skin.
Or was it palladium I forget. Hello Nita called up to the robot.
There was no reply. But the robot did hold still, then, and incline its head a little to look down in Nita s general direction. There was no telling whether it was actually looking at her: Where eyes normally would have been, there was a horizontal slit, which probably had sensors behind it. The robot strongly resembled the kind of giant robot that kept turning up on Saturday morning television, and Nita found herself wondering whether this one might suddenly start breaking apart into jet fighters and tanks and other such paraphernalia. But for the moment, it just stood there.
Nita started to get a strange, repetitive,ticktock feeling in the back of her head an emotion or thought recurring, again and again, as regular and inevitable as clockwork, but recurring at a distance, in a muffled kind of way. It wasn t a pleasant feeling, either it was a kind of thought or emotion that you would suffer from, rather than experience with any particular pleasure. Fortunately, it wasn t so acute that Nita had to pay much attention to it, though she felt vaguely sorry for the robot, if this weary feeling did, indeed, belong to it.
Is there anything I can do for you Nita called, more loudly this time. There was no question of speaking to the robot more conversationally: Its head was at least fifty feet above the ground.This is like having a conversation with a flagpole , Nita thought.
The robot took a clunky step toward her, then another,then suddenly hunkered down in front of her with a great groan and screech of complaining, over-stressed metal. Nita thought at first that it might fall over, it looked so unsteady, and it wobbled and leaned from left to right to left again. It was intent on her, though again Nita couldn t be sure how she knew that: The metal face was blank, and it had no way to change its expression even if one had been there.
So what is it Nita said. Give me a clue!
It loomed over her, possibly considering what to say. As machine intelligences went, the robot already seemed pretty reticent: Nita s limited experience with mechanical life-forms suggested that they were big talkers, but this one didn t seem to be so inclined. It just leaned over her, the size of a small apartment building, and a tongue-tied one at that.
Oh, wait a minute,now I know what it is, Nita said. You want to talk to my sister, right I m really sorry, but she s asleep right now.
No response from the shining form. Asleep Nita said. Temporarily nonfunctional Off-line
The robot suddenly began emitting what Nita thought at first were more metal-stress sounds, but after she got past how deafening they were, she found she could catch the occasional word through them, and the words were in the Speech.Oh good , Nita thought, for there were quite a few alien species scattered throughout the Local Group of galaxies who knew the Speech, using it as a convenient common tongue.
[Grind, groan, screech]difficulty[screech-moan-crash] entropy[moan, moan, clunk-crash] communications, the robot said. And then said nothing more, butjust wobbled back and forth amid a whine of gyros, trying to keep its balance.
Nita was getting confused.Why can t I understand it Uh, okay, she said in the Speech, I think I got a little of that. Something s interfering with your communications. What exactly did you want to communicate about Do you have some other kind of problem that needs to be solved
The robot just crouched there, wobbling, for several moments. Then it said, Solve[scream-of-metal, grind, ratchet] problem[moan, moan, much higher moan, crash] cyclic-insoluble[grind, grind] time[extremely long-duration whirly-noisemaker sound, crash, clunk] no solution[screeeeeeech, crashcrashcrash ] trap[boom] .
Nita revised her original opinion about having conversations with flagpoles. This was more like a dialogue with a garbagetruck, that being the only other thing in her immediate experience that sounded anything like this. I m really sorry, she said, but I m having a lot of trouble understanding you. It s my fault, probably. Can you tell me more clearly how I can help you Just what is it that you need
The huge shape crouched there for a few more moments, then, wobbling, it got up. For a long, long moment it stood over her, seeming to gaze down at her from that great height but Nita still couldn t be sure. Then the robot turned, and slowly and clumsily went clanking off into the darkness, out of the spotlight where it and Nita had been standing.
Nita broke out in a sudden sweat, feeling that she d missed something important. Look, she called after it hurriedly, feeling incredibly inadequate and useless, I really am sorry I can t help you! If you come back later, when my sister s awake, she should be able to figure out what it is you need. Please, come back later!
But it was gone.
and Nita found herself staring at the dark ceiling of her bedroom. The sun wasn t yet up outside, and she was still sweating, and feeling stupid, and wondering what on Earth to make of the experience she d just had.
At least it wasn t a nightmare, like that other one, she thought.
But on second thought, considering how spectacularly dumb she felt right now, Nita wasn t so sure
There was no chance of getting back to sleep, so Nita showered and got dressed for school, ate a cereal bowl s worth of breakfast that she didn t really feel like eating, and then dawdled over a cup of tea until it was time to wake her dad. This was an addition to Nita s morning routine that she heartily wished she didn t have to deal with, but her father really needed her to do it.Recently he d been turning off his alarm clock and going back to sleep without even being aware of having done so.
She knocked at the bedroom door. Daddy
No answer.
Daddy it s six-thirty.
After a few seconds came the sound Nita had been bracing herself for, the sound she didn t think her dad knew he made: a low, miserable moan, which spoke entirely too clearly of how he felt, deep down inside, all the time now. But this was the only time ofday that sound got out, before he was completely awake. Nita controlled herself as strictly as she could, absolutely intent on not making things any worse for him by sounding miserable herself.
Do you want me to make some coffee Nita said.