Hunt the Space-Witch! (4 page)

Stalemate. Harkins held the animal at arm's length. It raged and spat impotently, unable to reach him. He did not dare let go, but his strength couldn't hold out indefinitely, he knew.

Slowly, clawing futilely, the animal forced him backward. Harkins felt the muscles of his upper arms quivering from the strain; he pushed backward, and the animal howled in pain. The other head gnashed its ruined teeth savagely.

Overhead, strange bird-cries resounded, and once Harkins glanced upward to see a row of placid, bright-wattled birds waiting impassively on a tree-limb. Their mouths glittered toothily, and they were like no birds he had ever seen before, but he knew instinctively what function they served in the forest. They were vultures, ready to go to work as soon as the stalemate broke.

And it was going to break soon. Harkins would be unable to hold the maddened animal off for long. His fingers were trembling, and soon the log would slip from his grasp. And then—

A flashing metallic hand reached down from somewhere above, and abruptly the pressure relaxed. To his astonishment, Harkins watched the hand draw the animal upward.

He followed it with his eyes. A robot stood over them, faceless, inhuman, contemplating the fierce beast it held in its metal grip. Harkins blinked. He had become so involved in the struggle that he had not heard the robot's approach.

The robot seized the animal by each of its throats, and
tore
. Casually, it flipped the still-living body into the shrubbery, where it thrashed for a moment and subsided—and then the robot continued through the forest, while the vultures from the tree-limb swooped down upon their prize.

Harkins sank down on a decaying stump and sucked in his breath. His over-tensed arms shook violently and uncontrollably.

It was as if the robot had been sent there for the mission of destroying the carnivore—and, mission completed, had returned to its base, having no further interest in Harkins' doings.

I'm just a pawn
, he thought suddenly. The realization hit him solidly, and he slumped in weariness. That was the answer, of course: pawn. He was being manipulated. He had been shunted out of his own era, thrown in and out of Jorn's village, put in and out of deadly peril. It was a disquieting thought, and one that robbed him of his strength for some minutes. He knew his limitations, but he had liked to think of himself as master of his fate. He wasn't, now.

All right—where do I go from here?

No answer came. Deciding that his manipulator was busy somewhere else on the chessboard at the moment, he pulled himself to his feet and slowly began to move deeper into the forest.

He walked warily this time, keeping an eye out for wildlife. There might not be any robots' hands to rescue him, the next time.

The forest seemed calm again. Harkins walked step by step, moving further and further into the heart of the woods, leaving Jorn's village far behind. It was getting toward afternoon, and he was starting to tire.

He reached a bubbling spring and dropped gratefully by its side. The water looked fresh and clear; he dipped a hand in, feeling the refreshing coolness, and wet his fingers. Drawing the hand out, he touched it experimentally to his lips. The water tasted pure, but he wrinkled his forehead in doubt.

“Go ahead and drink,” a dry voice said suddenly. “The water's perfectly good.”

Harkins sprang up instantly. “Who said that?”

“I did.”

He looked around. “I don't see anybody. Where are you?”

“Up here on the rock,” the voice said. “Over here, silly.”

Harkins turned in the direction of the voice—and saw the speaker. “Who—what are you?”

“Men call me the Watcher,” came the calm reply.

The Watcher was mounted on the huge rock through whose cleft base the stream flowed. Harkins saw a man, or something like a man, with gray-green, rugose skin, pale, sightless eyes, and tiny, dangling boneless arms. Its mouth was wide and grotesque, contorted into something possibly intended to be a grin.

Harkins took a step backward in awe and surprise.

“I'm not pretty,” the Watcher said. “But you don't have to run. I won't hurt you. Go on—drink your fill, and then we can talk.”

“No,” Harkins said uneasily. “Who are you, anyway? What are you doing here?”

The thick lips writhed in a terrifying smirk. “What am
I
doing here? I have been here for two thousand years and more, now. I might ask what you are doing here.”

“I—don't know,” Harkins said.

“I know you don't know,” the Watcher said mockingly. He emitted an uproarious chuckle, and his soft, pale belly jiggled obscenely. “Of course you don't know! How could you be expected to know?”

“I don't like riddles,” Harkins said, feeling angry and sensing the strange unreality of the conversation. “What are you?”

“I was a man, once.” Suddenly the mocking tone was gone. “My parents were human. I—am not.”

“Parents?”

“Thousands of years ago. In the days before the War. In the days before the Star Giants came.” The wide mouth drooped sadly. “In the world that once was—the world you were drawn from, poor mystified thing.”

“Just what do you know about me?” Harkins demanded.

“Too much,” said the Watcher wearily. “Take your drink first, and then I'll explain.”

Harkins' throat felt as if it had been sandpapered. He knelt and let the cool brook water enter. Finally, he rose. The Watcher had not moved; he remained seated on the rock, his tiny, useless arms folded in bizarre parody of a human gesture.

“Sit down,” the Watcher said. “I have a story two thousand years long to tell.”

Harkins took a seat on a stone and leaned against a tree trunk. The Watcher began to speak.

The story began in Harkins' own time, or shortly afterward. The Watcher traced the history of the civilization that had developed in the early centuries of the Third Millennium, told of the rise of the underground cities and the people who had built the robots that still roved the forest.

War had come—destroying that society completely, save for a few bands of survivors. Some of the cities had survived too, but the minds that had guided the robot brains were gone, and the robots continued to function in the duties last assigned. The underground cities had become taboo places, though savage bands lived above them, never venturing beneath the surface.

Down below, in the tunnels of the dead ones, the mutant descendants of the city-builders lived. The Different Ones, those of whom Jorn had spoken. Most of them lived in the cities; a few others in the forests.

“I am one of those,” said the Watcher. “I have not moved from this spot since the year the Star Giants came.”

“The Star Giants,” Harkins said. “Who are they?”

The flabby shoulders shrugged. “They came from the stars, long after we had destroyed ourselves. They live here, watching the survivors with great curiosity. They toy with the tribes, set them in conflict with each other, and study the results with deep interest. For some reason they don't bother me. They seem never to pass this way in the forest.”

“And the robots?”

“They'll continue as they are till the end of time. Nothing can destroy them, nothing can swerve them from their activity—and nothing can command them.”

Harkins leaned forward intently. The Watcher had given him all the answers he needed but one.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

“You?” The mutant laughed coldly. “You're the random factor. It would ruin the game to tell you too many answers. But I'll grant you this much information:
You can go home if you get control of the robots
.”

“What? How?”

“Find that out for yourself,” the Watcher said. “I'll keep a close lookout for you, blind as I am, but I won't help you more than I have.”

Harkins smiled and said, “What if I force you to tell me?”

“How could you possibly do that?” Again the wide lips contorted unpleasantly. “How could you ever force me to do anything I didn't want to do?”

“Like this,” Harkins said, in sudden rage. He pried out of the earth the stone he was sitting on and hoisted it above his head.

No
.

It was a command, unvoiced. The stone tumbled from Harkins' nerveless hands and thudded to the ground. Harkins stared at his numbed fingers.

“You learn slowly,” the Watcher said. “I am blind, but that doesn't mean I don't see—or react. I repeat: how could you force me to do anything?”

“I—can't,” Harkins said hesitantly.

“Good. Admission of weakness is the first step toward strength. Understand that I brought you to me deliberately, that at no time during this interview have you operated under your own free will, and that I'm perfectly capable of determining your future actions if I see fit. I don't, however, care that greatly to interfere.”

“You're
the chess player, then!” Harkins said accusingly.

“Only one of them,” the mutant said. “And the least important of them.” He unfolded his pitiful arms. “I brought you to me for no other reason than diversion—and now you tire me. It is time for you to leave.”

“Where do I go?”

“The nerve-center of the situation is in Tunnel City,” the Watcher said. “You must pass through there on your way home. Leave me.”

Without waiting for a second command, Harkins rose and began to walk away. After ten steps, he glanced back. The Watcher's arms were folded once across his chest again.

“Keep going,” the mutant said. “You've served your purpose.”

Harkins nodded and started walking again.
I'm still a pawn
, he thought bitterly.
But
—
whose pawn am I?

Chapter Four

After he put a considerable distance between himself and the Watcher, Harkins paused by the side of a ponderous grainy-barked tree and tried to assimilate the new facts.

A game was being played out between forces too great for his comprehension. He had been drawn into it for reasons unknown, and—unless the Watcher had lied—the way out for him lay through Tunnel City.

He had no idea where that city was, nor did he know what he was supposed to find there.
You can go home if you get control of the robots
, the Watcher had said. And the strange mutant had implied that Tunnel City was the control-center of the robots. But he had also said that nothing could command the robots!

Harkins smiled. There must be a way for him to get there. The time had come for him to do some manipulation of his own. He had been a puppet long enough; now he would pull a few strings.

He looked up. Late afternoon shadows were starting to fall, and the sky was darkening. He would have to move quickly if he wanted to get there by nightfall. Rapidly, he began to retrace his steps through the forest, following the beaten path back toward Jorn's village. He traveled quickly, half walking, half running. Now and then he saw the bald head of a Star Giant looming up above a faroff treetop, but the aliens paid no attention to him. Once, he heard the harsh sound of a robot driving through the underbrush.

Strange forces were at play here. The Star Giants—who were they? What did they want on Earth—and what part did they take in the drama now unfolding? They seemed remote, detached, as totally unconcerned with the pattern of events as the mindless robots that moved through the forest. Yet Harkins knew that that was untrue.

The robots interested him philosophically. They represented Force—unstoppable, uncontrollable Force, tied to some pre-set and long-forgotten pattern of activity. Why had the robot saved him from the carnivore? Was that part of the network of happenings, he wondered, or did the chess game take precedence over even the robot activity-pattern?

There was the interesting personal problem of the relationship between Jorn and Katha, too; it was a problem he would be facing again soon. Katha loved Jorn, obviously—and, with savage ambivalence, hated him as well. Harkins wondered just where he would fit into the situation when he returned to Jorn's village. Jorn and Katha were many-sided, unpredictable people; and he depended on their whims for the success of his plan.

Wheels within wheels
, he thought wryly. Pawns in one game dictate the moves in a smaller one. He stepped up his pace; night was approaching rapidly. The forest grew cold.

The village became visible at last, a huddled gray clump half-seen through the heavy fronds of the forest. Harkins slowed to a walk as he drew near.

It was still early; the villagers had not yet eaten their community supper. Harkins paused at the edge of the forest, standing by a deadly-looking tree whose leaves were foot-long spikes of golden horn, and wondered what was the safest way of approaching the village.

Suddenly, a twig crackled behind him. He turned.

“I thought I told you never to come back here, Harkins. What are you doing here, now?”

“I came back to talk to you, Jorn.”

The big man was wearing only a loincloth, and his long-limbed body, covered by a thick black mat of hair, looked poised for combat. A muscle twitched uncontrollably in Jorn's cheek.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“The Tunnel City,” Harkins said.

“I don't want to hear about it,” Jorn snapped. “I said I'd kill you if you came back here, and I meant it. I don't want you playing with Katha.”

“I wasn't playing with Katha. She threw herself on me.”

“Same thing,” Jorn said. “In the eyes of the tribe, I'm being betrayed. I can't have that, Harkins.” The rumbling voice sounded almost desperate. Harkins saw suddenly how close to insanity the power-drive was, when it cropped out as nakedly as in this pure dictatorship.

“Would you really
need
Katha,” Harkins asked, “if I made you lord of the world?”

“What do you mean by that?” Jorn sounded suspicious, but interested despite himself.