Authors: Clifford D. Simak
Destiny Doll (23 page)
We stood on a rise of ground above the village and the river and all of us were there—all of us except the doll. Sara no longer held the doll. The doll had been left behind, perhaps for someone else to find. The doll and the weapons. Sara no longer had the rifle, nor I the laser gun. There were rules, I thought. There were certain things, certain attitudes of mind perhaps, that could not be brought into this land.
"Mike," said Sara, softly, "this was the place we hunted. This is the place that Knight was hunting. But he never found it because he never found the doll. Or there was something else he missed. There must be many things that could have led him here."
I put out an arm and held her close against me and she lifted up her face and I kissed her and her eyes were bright with gladness.
"We won't go back," she said. "We'll never think of Earth."
"We can't go back," I said. "There is no way to go."
Although there never would be a need of going. We had left it all behind, all we had ever known before, as a child will leave behind a toy he has outgrown.
The village and the river lay below us and fields and woods stretched away to the far horizons. And I knew, somehow, that this was a world without an end and that it was, as well, the end of time, a place that was everlasting and unchanging, with room for everyone.
Somewhere in this land were Smith and Tuck and maybe even Hoot, but we'd probably never find them for we'd not seek for them. The distances were far and there'd be no urge to travel.
The unreality was gone, although the tapestry still remained. And the boat did move upon the water with a flashing of the oars. Boys and girls and dogs, yelling and barking, were running up the hill to greet us and the people in the village all had turned around to stare up at us and some of them were waving.
"Let us go down to meet them," Sara said.
The four of us, abreast, went down the hill to enter into another life.
