And in the noise there seemed to be a word, as if the word were hidden and embedded in the strata of the sound. Bowed down beneath that barrage of sound, it seemed that finally I could feel—not hear, but feel—the word.
"Begone!" it seemed to shout at us. "Begone! Begone! Begone!"
From somewhere out of that moonlit-starlit night, from that land of heaving dunes, came a wind, or some force like a wind, that hammered at us and drove us back—although, come to think of it, it could not have been a wind, for no cloud of sand came with it and there was no roaring such as a wind would make. But it hit us like a fist and staggered us and sent us reeling back.
As I staggered back with the loathesome creature still spraddled on the dune and still raging at us, I realized that there was no longer sand underneath my feet, but some sort of paving.
Then, quite suddenly, the dune was no longer there, but a wall, as if a door we could not see had been slammed before our faces, and when this happened the creature's storm of rage came to an end and in its stead was silence.
But not for long, that silence, for Smith began an insane crying. "He is back again! My friend is back again! He's is in my mind again! He has come back to me."
"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "Shut up that yammering!"
He quieted down a bit, but he went on muttering, flat upon his bottom, with his legs stuck out in front of him and that silly, sickening look of ecstasy painted on his face.
I took a quick look around and saw that we were back where we had come from, in that room with all the panels and behind each panel the shimmering features of another world.
Safely back, I thought with some thankfulness, but through no effort of our own. Finally, given time enough, we might have hauled that door wide enough for us to have gotten through. But we hadn't had to do it; it had been done for us. A creature from that desert world had come along and thrown us out.
The night that had lain over the white world when we had been brought there had given way to day. Through the massive doorway, I could see the faint yellow light of the sun blocked out by the towering structures of the city.
There was no sign of the hobbies or the gnomelike humanoid who had picked the world into which the hobbies threw us.
I shucked up my britches and took the gun off my shoulder. I had some scores to settle.
FOUR
We found them in a large room, which appeared to be a storeroom, one flight down from the lobby that had the doors to all those other worlds.
The little gnomelike creature had our luggage spread out on the floor and was going through it. Several bundles of stuff had been sorted out and he was going through another bag, with the rest of it all stacked neatly to one side, waiting his attention.
The hobbies stood in a semicircle about him, looking on and rocking most sedately and while they had no expression on their carven faces, I thought that I detected in them a sense of satisfaction at having made so good a haul.
They were so engrossed in what was going on that none of them noticed us until we were through the door and had advanced several paces into the room. Then the hobbies, seeing us, reared back upon their rockers and the gnome began to straighten slowly, as if his back might have grown stiff from standing all bent over to go through our things. Still half bent over, he stared up at us through a tangle of unruly hair that hung down across his eyes. He looked like an English sheepdog looking up at us.
All of us stopped and stood together. We didn't speak, but waited.
The gnome finally, straightened up by degrees, very cautiously and slowly. The hobbies stayed motionless, reared back on their rockers.
The gnome rubbed his gnarled hands together. "We were about, my lord," he said, "to come after you."
I motioned with my gun toward the luggage on the floor. He looked at it and shook his head.
"A mere formality," he said. "An inspection for the customs."
"With a view to a heavy tax?" I asked. "A very heavy tax."
"Oh, not at all," he said. "It is merely that there are certain things which must not be allowed upon the planet. Although, if you should be willing, a small gratuity, perhaps. We have so little opportunity to collect anything of value. And we do render services of which you are much in need. The shelter against the danger and the . . ."
I looked around the storeroom. It was piled with crates and baskets and other kinds of less conventionalized containers and there were articles of all sorts all heaped and piled together.
"It seems to me," I said, "that you've been doing not too badly. If you ask me, I think you had no thought to get us. We could have stayed in that desert world forever if it had been up to you."
"I swear," he said. "We were about to open up the door. But we became so interested in the wonderful items that you carried with you that we quite lost track of time."
"Why did you put us there to start with?" Sara asked. "In the desert world?"
"Why, to protect you from the deadly vibrations," be explained. "We, ourselves, took cover. Each time a ship lands there are these vibrations. They always come at night, before the dawning of the day that follows the landing of the ship."
"An earthquake?" I asked. "A shaking of the planet."
"Not of the planet," said the gnome. "A shaking of the senses. It congeals the brain, it bursts the flesh. There can nothing live. That is why we put you in that other world—to save your very lives."
He was lying to us. He simply had to be. Or at least he was lying about his intention to bring us back from the desert world. The kind of rat he was, there was no reason that he should. He had everything we had; there would have been nothing for him to gain by getting us out of the world he'd thrown us into.
"Buster," I said, "I don't buy a word of what you say. Why should the landing of a ship set off vibrations of that kind?"
He laid a crooked finger alongside his bulbous nose. "The world is closed," he said. "None is welcome here. When visitors do come the world makes certain that they die before they can leave the city. And if they should so manage to escape, the planet seals the ship so they can't take off again and spread the word of what they found."
"And yet," I said, "there is a strong directional beam, a homing beam, reaching well out into space. A beam to lure them in. You lured us in and you got rid of us in the desert world and you had everything we had taken from the ship. You had everything but the ship and maybe you are working on how to get the ship—our ship and all the others that are standing out there, sealed. No wonder the hobbies insisted on bringing all our luggage in. They knew what would happen to the ship. Apparently you haven't figured out how to beat this sealing business yet."
He shook his head. "It's a part of the closed planet routine, sir. There must be a way to get around it, but it's not been ciphered yet."
Now that he knew I had him pegged, he'd not bother to deny it. He'd admit everything or almost everything and hope to gain some credit for being frank and forthright. Why was it, I wondered, that so many primates, no matter where you found them, turned out to be such stinkers?
"Another thing that I can't cipher," said the gnome, "is how you all got back here. Never before has there been anyone who could come back from one of the other worlds. Not till we let them out."
"And you claim you were going to let us out?"
"Yes, I swear we were. And you can have all your things. We had no intention of keeping any of them."
"Now, that is fine," I said. "You're becoming reasonable. But there are other things we want."
He bristled a little. "Like what?" he asked.
"Information," I told him. "About another man. A humanoid very much like us. He would have had a robot with him."
He glanced around, trying to make up his mind. I twitched the muzzle of the gun and helped him make it up.
"Long ago," he said. "Very long ago."
"He was the only one to come? The only one of us?"
"No. Even longer than him there were others of you. Six or seven
of them. They went out beyond the city and that was the last I saw of them."
"You didn't put them into another world?"
"Why, yes, of course," he said. "All who come we put there. It is necessary. Each arrival triggers another killing wave. Once that killing wave is done, we are safe until another ship arrives. We put all who arrive into another world, but we always bring them out."
Perhaps, I admitted to myself, he was telling us the truth. Although maybe not all the truth. Perhaps he had another angle that he hadn't sprung on us. Although now, I was fairly certain, even if he had another one he might hesitate to spring it. We had him dead to rights.
"But there is always another killing wave," I reminded him, "when another ship arrives."
"But only in the city," he told me. "Out of the city and you are safe from it."
"And no one, once they arrive, stays in the city?"
"No. They always leave the city. To hunt for something they think they'll find outside the city. All of them always bunt for something."
God, yes, I thought, all of them are on the trail of something. How many other intelligences, in how many different forms, had heard that voice Smith had heard and had been lured to follow it?
"Do they ever tell you," Sara asked, "what it is they hunt for?"
He grinned crookedly. "They are secretive," he said.
"But this other humanoid," Sara reminded him. "The one who came alone, accompanied by the robot . . ."
"Robot? You mean the metal humanoid very like himself?"
"Don't play dumb," I snapped. "You know what a robot is. Those hobbies there are robots."
"We not be robots," Dobbin said. "We be honest hobbies."
"You shut up," I said.
"Yes," said the gnome. "The one with the robot. He also went away and did not come back. But in time the robot did. Although he would tell me nothing. He had not a word to say."
"And the robot still is here?" asked Sara.
The gnome said, "A part of him I have. The part that makes him function, I regret very much, is gone. The brain I suppose you call it. The brain of him is gone. I sold it to the wild hobbies that dwell in the wilderness. Very much they wanted it, very much they paid. Still I could not refuse them. It was worth my life to do it."
"Those wild hobbies?" I asked. "Where do we go to find them?"
He made a shrugging motion. "No telling that," he said. "They wander wide and far. Most often they are found north of here. Very wild indeed."
"What did the wild hobbies want of Roscoe's brain?" asked Sara. "What possible use could it be to them?"
He spread his hands. "How could I know?" he asked. "They are beings one does not question closely. Very rough and wild. They have a hobby's body, but heads they have like you, and arms, and they yell most loudly and are unreasonable."
"Centaurs," said Tuck. "There are many of them, I understand, spread throughout the galaxy. Almost as common as the humanoids. And they are, I understand, as the gentleman here says, most unreasonable. Although I have never met one."
"You sold them only the braincase," I said. "You still have the robot's body here."
"They did not want the body. I still have it here."
I dropped the space lingo and switched to English, speaking to Sara. "What do you think?" I asked. "Do we try to track down Knight?"
"He would be the one . . ."
"If he is still alive, he'd be an old, old man by now. I think the chances are he is not alive. The robot came back. He'd not have left Knight if he were still alive."
"We might find out where he was heading," Sara said. "If we could get the braincase and put it back in Roscoe's body, he might have some idea of what Knight was looking for and where it might be found."
"But he wasn't talking. He wouldn't tell the gnome."
"He might talk to us," said Sara. "After all, we're his people. It was people like us who made him and if he had any loyalty, which I suspect he had, that loyalty also was to a human being."
I turned back to the gnome. "All right," I said, "we'll need the robot's body and maps of the planet. A supply of water. The hobbies to carry us and our packs and . . ."
He threw up his hands in horror, backing away from me, shaking his head stubbornly from side to side. "The hobbies you can't have, he said "I have need of them myself"
"You didn't let me finish.," I said. "We are taking you along."
"That you cannot do," shrilled Dobbin. "He must stay to warn the creatures on incoming ships and get them under cover against the killing wave. Sire, you must understand . . ."
"We'll take care of all of that," I said. "We'll shut off the beam. If there is no beam to lure them, no one will ever come."
"But you can't shut it off," wailed the gnome. "No one can do that, for the location of the transmitter is something that we do not know. I have never found it. I have hunted and the others before me hunted and it has not been found."
He stood before us, dejected. Somehow or other the props had been knocked out from under him.
'Well, I'll be damned," I said.
"It makes sense," said Sara. "It had me puzzled all the time. Whoever built this city installed the beam and our scrawny friend is not the kind of people who could have built this city. He is simply living here—a savage living in a deserted city, picking up whatever scraps he can."
I should have thought of it myself, I knew. But I had been so burned up at being tossed into the desert world, and burned up, too, when I found the gnome going through our things that I'd been out for blood. If that little twerp had made one wrong step, I would have mowed him down.
"Tell us," Sara said to him, "exactly what you are. It wasn't your people who built this city, was it?"
His face was contorted with rage. "You have no right to ask," he screeched. "It is bad enough without you asking it."
"We have every right to ask," I said. "We need to know exactly what is going on. I'll give you about five seconds."
He didn't take five seconds. He legs collapsed and he sat down hard upon the floor. He wrapped his scrawny arms about his middle, hard, and rocked back and forth as if he had the bellyache.
"I'll tell," he moaned. "Do not shoot—I'll tell. But the shame of it! The shame, the shame, the shame."
He looked up at me with beseeching eyes. "I cannot lie," he said. "If I could, I would. But there is someone here who would know if I were lying.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"It is me," said Hoot.
"What have you got?" I asked "A built-in lie detector?"
"One of my feeble capabilities," said Hoot. "Do not ask me how, for I cannot tell you. Deficiencies I have in amplitude, but of this and several others I have good command. And this personage, aware of it, has been telling a semblance of the truth, although not in all its fullness."
The gnome was still staring up at me. "It seems that in times like this," he pleaded, "us humanoids should somehow stick together. There is a common bond . . ."
I said, "Not between you and I, there isn't."
"You are being hard on him," said Sara.
"Miss Foster," I said, "I haven't even started. I intend to hear this."
"But if he has any reason . . ."
"He hasn't any reason. Have you a reason, Buster?" He had a good look at me, then he shook his head.
"My pride is in the dust," he said. "The memories of my ancestors are besmirched. It has been so long—we pretended for so long that at times even we ourselves believed it—that we were the ones who raised this wondrous city. And if you had let me alone, if you had never come, I finally could have died believing it, warm in the presence that it were we who built it. Then it would have been all over, it would not have mattered if someone, or all the universe, should know we were not the architects. For I am the last of us and there is no one further to whom it will ever matter. There are no others after me. The duties I've performed then will be passed on to the hobbies and in the fullness of time they may find some other to whom the
y can pass those duties on. For there must be someone here to warn and save those who arrive upon this planet."
I looked toward Dobbin. "Could you tell me," I asked, "what this is all about?"
"Nothing I will tell you, sire," said Dobbin. "You come to us with a heavy hand. We save your life by putting you in another world, then you suspicion we will not get you out. You are incensed greatly when you find your benefactor satisfying no more than normal curiosity in an examination of your luggage. And you talk of the giving of five seconds and you throw your weight around and act vastly ungracious in every sort of way and you . . ."
"That's enough from you!" I shouted. "I won't take that kind of talk from a crummy robot!"
"We not be robots," Dobbin primly said. "I have told you, yet and yet again, that we be but simple hobbies."
So we were back to that again, to this ridiculous assertion. This strange and stubborn pride. If I'd not been so sore at them, I would have bust out laughing. But as it stood, I'd had about as much of what was going on as I was able to take.
I reached down and grabbed the gnome by the slack of his robe that hung about his chest and lifted him. He dangled and his scrawny legs kicked and kept on kicking as if he were trying to run, but couldn't, since his feet were in the air.
"I've had enough of this," I told him. "I don't know what it is all about and I don't give a damn, but you're giving us what we need and without any quibbling. If you don't, I'll snap your filthy neck."
"Look out!" screamed Sara and as I jerked my head around, I saw the hobbies charging us, rocking forward on their rear rockers and their front rockers lifted menacingly.
I threw the gnome away. I didn't look where I was throwing him. I just heaved him out of there and brought up my gun, remembering, with a sinking feeling, the lack of impression the laser beam had made upon that crystal landing field.. If the hobbies were fabricated of the same material, and it looked as if they were, I'd do just as well by standing off and pegging rocks at them.
But even as I brought the rifle up, Hoot scurried quickly forward and as he scurried forward, suddenly he blazed. That's an awkward way of saying it, but I can't think of any other way of describing it. There he was, scampering forward, his little feet clicking on the floor, then his body quivered with a bluish sort of haze, as if he were an electrical transformer that had gone haywire. The air seemed to shake and everything did a funny sort of jig, then it all was over and the way it was before. Except that all the hobbies were piled into a far corner of the room, all tangled up together, with their rockers waving in the air. I hadn't seen them move—they just suddenly were there. It was as if they had been moved without actually traveling through space. One instant they had been charging us, with their rockers lifted, the next instant they were jammed into the corner.