Gordon Dickson The Stranger

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son," said Jix- "We'll get it right now for you." ,
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"I don't want your food!" cried William, desper-
ately. "It isn't real! It isn't honest."
"Why, yes it is," said Jix. "Now, you know that;
too, Mr. Johnson. It's just as real as the food you used to get by killing
animals and cooking up plants.
128
Gordon R. Dickson
It's just made out of the essential raw materials, that's all."
"I say it's fake!" William jerked about on the grass between them as if he
would get up and run, but did not do so. "It's not right." He whimpered,
dropping his voice and head. "It's not right," he whispered to the grass
between his spread legs. He lifted his head-
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"All right," he said defiantly. "Make me eat it."
"Mr. Johnson," said Raby, "we couldn't do a thing like that. Could we, Jix?"
"Not unless Mr. Johnson really wants us to," said
Jix, firmly. "And we know he doesn't."
William brought his face around slowly to sneer in the face of the older boy-
"Oh, you're sure about that, are you?" he said, softly. "You're so sure." Jix
did not pull his face back or alter his expression as the man's hot breath
fanned his eyelashes. "You're so sure you know what I really want, and you try
so hard to give it to me, don't you?
And why? Why?"
"We feel sorry for you, Mr. Johnson," said Jix.
"I'd bet you do. I'll just bet you do." William pushed himself suddenly
forward and onto his knees, so that he kneeled before Jix looming over him.
"Do you know what I am?" he said softly. "I'm a physi-
cist, a research physicist. I've got four degrees, do you know that? Four
college degrees! I've got a million-dollar appropriation to do whatever I
want
and I did something with it nobody ever did before, something nobody was ever
intelligent enough and skillful enough, and trained enough to do before. I
traveled into the future, into the far future. That's the kind of man I am."
"We know, Mr. Johnson," said Raby, from behind him. "You told us, you know,
lots of times."
"Then what're we sitting here for?" cried William, sitting back on his knees
and looking from one to the other. "Where are the men who ought to be talking
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to me? Where are the scientists? Where are the histo-
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"There aren't any, Mr. Johnson," said Jix. "Every-
body told you that. Not the way you think. Every-
body knows all about those things you know, but they're too busy to bother
with them."
"Busy? Busy at what?" cried William.
"We told you and told you, Mr. Johnson," said
Raby, patiently, "that it's no use your trying to make us tell you, because
there isn't any language for ex-
plaining what people do. You've just got to under-
stand."
"Try me. Make me understand."
"But you can't," said Raby. "You weren't bred to understand. It took
generations and generations of gene selection and crossing to evolve people
who could understand. That's why the grownups don't have anything to talk to
you about."
"Then why do you two talk to me?" William clenched his fists. "Why you?"
"But we're just children, Mr. Johnson."
"Children!" William's voice broke on a fresh sob.
"Call yourselves children! Oh, no. Children are little and not strong. You
show them things. Children be-
lieve you. You? Children?"
"But we are," said Jix, calmly.
"No. you're not." William straightened up, star-
ing at them. "Children? You're monsters. Monsters stronger than I am. Monsters
who know everything, who can do anything, who haven't a shred of natural
feeling. Children? Children laugh. Children cry. You don't laugh or cry,
either one of you. You don't hate.
You don't love."
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"Mr. Johnson!" said Raby. "You know better than that. We love everybody- We
love you, too."
"Love? Me? When you torture me like this, day after day? When you follow me
around, making a fool of me, always hounding me, showing me up "
130 Gordon R. Dickson
"We'll go away if you want," said Jix. "But every time we go away, you come
looking for us."
"Not you! Not you!" William shook his clenched fists above his head. "I want
real people, adult peo-
ple to talk to."
"But nobody has time to talk to you but us," said
Jix. "We told you that. Besides, we want to look after you. You're liable to
get hurt if we don't watch you.
You're always doing something that's going to get
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nger.txt you hurt when we leave you alone, then we have to catch you before
you do." He gestured at the wide hole a few yards off. "You nearly fell into
the quarry, day before yesterday."
"The quarry!" groaned William. "Oh, God! And why did you make a quarry there
in the first place?
Did you just want one? Or did you want to play King
Arthur with a real stone castle?"
"Our father wanted it," said Raby. "We told you that."
"He?" William gave a shout of high-pitched laugh-
ter. "The great man? The mysterious head of the household, who doesn't even
exist part of the time?
You mean he needed real stone? Plain stone?" Wil-
liam's voice rose on waves of hysterical laughter.
"Plain, ordinary limestone? What for?"
The two boys looked at each other helplessly.
"It's one of those things I have to understand, isn't it?" shouted William,
leaping to his feet. "Liars! Fake!"
He began to dance before them, stamping his feet and bobbing his shoulders
like a savage. "Mumbo jumbo! Witch doctor! Witch doctor! Spirits of the mumbo
.. . jumbo .. - mumbo " Abruptly, he stopped chanting and dancing and stared
at them, his face falling into a look of agony. He fell to his knees and
stretched out his skinny arms to them. Dragg-
ing himself forward on his knees, he approached them.
"Please," he said, "please ... oh please! You can
THE QLARRY 131
do anything. I know you can do anything. Put me out of my misery. Make me
happy here. Make me not know any different. Make me forget. Fix me ... fix me-
The two boys looked at him with sad and solemn eyes.
"Poor Mr. Johnson," said Jix. "We can't do that. If you understood, you'd know
it wasn't right for us to do it. If we changed you, it would spoil you, and we
would be spoiled by doing such a thing. It isn't right for people to be
changed, Mr. Johnson, except by themselves."
"But I'm not people" he clawed at their glittering tunics "I'm an animal. I'm
a pet. Have pity . . . oh, have pity "
"No, Mr. Johnson," said Jix. "Even you know that.
You're not an animal or a pet at all. You're a human man with a soul who has
to find his own way, like everybody."
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