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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Rag and Bone Men - -Author: Algis Budrys - -Release Date: March 28, 2016 [EBook #51589] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAG AND BONE MEN *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="386" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>THE RAG AND BONE MEN</h1> - -<p>By ALGIS BUDRYS</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Magazine February 1962.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>Unfortunate castaway! Marooned<br /> -far from home—with nothing to<br /> -share his loneliness but humans!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The other one—Charpantier, he called himself—he and I were going back -up the hill to the Foundation, carrying our bags, when I happened to -remark I didn't think the Veld was sane anymore. (I call myself Maurer.)</p> - -<p>Charpantier said nothing for a moment. We kept walking, up the gravel -path between the unimaginatively clipped hedges. But he was frowning a -little, and after a while he said in an absent way: "Now, how would one -determine that?" He looked straight into my eyes, which is something -that has always upset me, and challenged: "I don't think one could."</p> - -<p>I felt the shock of inadequacy. Words come out of me—perfectly -accurate words, I know; but I never know how, and sometimes when asked -I forget.</p> - -<p>Now I must be very lucid; I must be his kind of man, I thought, and -picked my way among my words. "These things he's had us get," I said, -putting the burlap bag down and stopping so as to hold Charpantier in -one place.</p> - -<p>"He wants to build something unEarthly," Charpantier said, annoyed -because I was playing his kind of trick on him, and so baldly. "What -standards do you propose to judge by?"</p> - -<p>But I was right and he was wrong. Now it remained to make him see how. -"Yes. He wants to build something unEarthly. Out of Earthly parts. -He wants to take six radio tubes for an Earthly radio, three pieces -of Earthly Lucite exactly 1/4 Earthly inch thick, a roll of Earthly -16-gauge wire, a General Electric heat lamp, and all these other -things—the polystyrene foam blocks, the polyurethane plastic sheeting, -the polyvinyl insulating tape; what have you in your bag, Charpantier? -Out of all this, he wants to make a Veldish thing."</p> - -<p>"He's spent years learning about Earthly things," Charpantier pointed -out. "For years, we've brought him books. Men. Everything he needs. -Now he's learned what the Earthly equivalents of Veldish materials -are, and he's ready to make his new transporter." Charpantier had a -dark face—dark hair, dark beard, dark eyes. When his dark brows drew -together it was easy to see that his best expression was dark scorn.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"I think he's desperate," I said. "I think he's learned all he can. -He's learned what the nearest Earthly equivalents to Veldish things -are. And he's learned that all Earth can give him nothing closer. I -don't see how he could do better. Even he. You cannot make apples of -cabbages. But he wants to get home—you know he wants so much to leave -here and get home—and now he's desperate, and is going to try making -a new transporter out of materials nothing like those in the one that -broke and marooned him here."</p> - -<p>"And it won't function?" Charpantier asked. "There is that risk. But -why shouldn't he try? What's insane in that?"</p> - -<p>"I fear it might work. I fear it might work in ways a transporter -should not." And I shivered, for if I say something I feel it, and I do -not feel anything I don't believe is right. I have been wrong, but not -often ... or perhaps I forget.</p> - -<p>Charpantier smiled. "How should a Veld transporter work?"</p> - -<p>"That's not the point!" I cried at Charpantier's obstinacy in being -Charpantier. "I don't have to know. The Veld has to know, and be insane -enough to try something different. Look—" I said, searching, being -my own kind of man, now, and letting the words come straight from the -images in my head. "Assume a man. Assume a man stranded on an island, -for years. Assume he has ways of realizing his heart's desire, if only -he can find the things to work with. But it's a small island. And while -it's a good island how can it give a marooned man not only comfort but -heart's desire? He searches. He perhaps send messengers, if he himself -cannot penetrate the jungle; such messengers as he can command. And, -in the end, after years, he knows he cannot have exactly what he wants. -But he can have something very near it. So, in the end, he takes a rag, -and a bone, and a hank of hair—"</p> - -<p>"And makes a woman?" Charpantier laughed. "If he fails, what of it?"</p> - -<p>"But if he succeeds, Charpantier! If he <i>succeeds</i>!" Couldn't he see? -"What sort of woman?"</p> - -<p>Charpantier looked at me for a moment, but I hadn't made him see. He -saw only me, and I had taken up his time without delivering value. So -he chastised me.</p> - -<p>"The Veld made me and you. Are you dissatisfied?"</p> - -<p>He had that trick, Charpantier. If you tried to give him a problem he -couldn't solve, he gave you a greater problem of your own, to add to -the one you already carried.</p> - -<p>I picked up my bag and followed him up the hill to the Foundation, -where the Veld timelessly waited.</p> - -<p>It was dusk, and as I walked I turned my eyes up to the stars. One eye -was larger than the other, and a different color. My nose sat askew -on my lumpen face. Though Charpantier was a hunchback, and lacked a -finger, still he was a handsome hunchback. But I, whom the Veld had -made second, with Charpantier's example, was merely whole. And from my -eyes, tears.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>We entered the Foundation. It had been erected around the Veld, when he -first came and there were men who could question.</p> - -<p>Now the building was neat and kept up, but all its many rooms were -empty, and all its many machines were still. Charpantier had his -cottage on the West—a very learned man had used it, while working with -the Veld—and I had mine on the East, where a military commander had -kept his family.</p> - -<p>The Veld lived in the heart of the Foundation, in the odd-shaped room -whose walls traced the configuration he had been forced to assume when -his broken transporter had interrupted his journey between—where?—and -the home he pined for. Men came from the town below the hill to care -for the building, but Charpantier or I had to go fetch them. They no -longer questioned. They distressed us with their constant need for -commanding, and so every time they were finished with their work we -commanded them homeward. No Earthly creature lived on the hill.</p> - -<p>The Veld was kindly, but an end comes to kindness. The time came when -the questioning of men would have led them, if answered, irrevocably -into Veldish ways.</p> - -<p>It was perhaps a kindness, too, that the Veld did what he did to -questioning creatures. But however it may have been, now there were -only men to be commanded. Charpantier commanded in the West, and I in -the East, and the Veld, though he permitted us to question all men, and -each other, commanded us.</p> - -<p>Charpantier and I did not often speak to each other while in the -Foundation. We were too near the Veld, and insufficiently full of -ourselves. But as we rode down the elevator, with its noise of metal -sliding all alone in the world, Charpantier looked at me. And I knew -what he looked.</p> - -<p>I have thought to myself that Charpantier says of everything: "Why -is this thing not perfect?" while I say to myself: "Where is the -perfection in this thing?" Surely my thought is as potent as his. But -you see his advantage over me, for he was forever safe from what I -might look at him, but I, I was not safe.</p> - -<p>We reached the chamber of the Veld. We opened the door and displayed -our accumulation to his perceptions.</p> - -<p>"My-being reflects you," the Veld told us from his perception, and -seeing that he was become beautiful, I knew we had done well. "Now will -I make, and take my way, and you in your sorrow stay to see the world -restored."</p> - -<p>This was as he had promised the world, and us, before he put an end -to questioning. Though only we remembered. But I wondered—I did not -question; I wondered—as I imagined his making of the new transporter, -taking my imagined thing from what I knew of how he had made us; I -wondered whether the world was safe.</p> - -<p>I thought of the chamber beside this one, where we had been born. I -had often been there, only to look. There is the tank—the Rochester, -Minnesota, Biophysical Equipment Co. tank. And there is the Velikaya -Socialisticheskaya Rossiya coagulator, and the IBM 704, and the Braun, -Boveri heater. There stand the cabinets, with their Torsen, Held -Artztmetal refrigeration units. And the cabinets stand full of flasks -and ampules, and there is the autoclave full of Becton-Dickinson Yale -syringes, and dangling from the wall are the Waldos the Veld used to -manipulate all these things.</p> - -<p>And of all these Earthly things, the Veld made men not entirely -Earthly, for the Veld is a Veld.</p> - -<p>Now soon, the new transporter would take the Veld away—in ways I -wondered were perilous—and it would be Charpantier and I who stayed to -see the world restored.</p> - -<p>Charpantier and I, who called ourselves, but had no names.</p> - -<p>He commanded us to go and we went, I East, Charpantier West. I saw -Charpantier hurry down his side of the hill, handsome and hasty under -the stars. I walked—for me, to run is to risk—and I trembled, -for me to feel is to know, and the Veld was desperate. He slept at -night, secure from questions even though he slept, for his power once -exercised was irrevocable so long as he existed. But tonight he did not -sleep; he made.</p> - -<p>I thought of my assumed man, on his assumed island, red-eyed and -tremulous of hand, bent over his pot, stirring, stirring, unable to -wait for morning. I thought of the light from his fire, shining on -the dumb eyes of his faithful messengers waiting at the edge of his -clearing. The messengers are dismissed from service, yet not quite sure -they are dismissed. And I thought of this Earth, and the Veld's old -promise to us that tomorrow it would wake knuckling its eyes, and need -a loving voice to say there was an end to nightmares.</p> - -<p>I would speak and Charpantier would speak, but what would we say? And -in what voices, born of the Veld's touch on the Waldos? And would there -be more than speaking to do?</p> - -<p>I did not think there was much I could do but speak. Charpantier lacks -a finger, but I ... I have hands, but I lack them.</p> - -<p>Oh, but the stars were cold! The Moon in this season was a day Moon, -and now below the horizon. Stars, stars and galaxies, but beyond them, -where the Veldish beings lived, nothing I could see, and below the -stars, too, here where I reached the brow of the hill and clumsily -opened my wings, here, too, nothing, as I lurched into the night and in -great strain beat toward the places of men.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I had a favorite place; the place I had chosen to begin to speak from. -It was small, as men measure things—a few lights in the darkness, -here the sheen of a lake, there the tiered wooliness of trees—a town -in which I had disposed those men who must first unbind themselves -from the years of no questioning. For unlike the Veld and his -transporter—and even the Veld needed a transporter—Charpantier and I -could not be everywhere.</p> - -<p>It was my thought to reassure these men first, and have them go out -and reassure others, as older brothers will soothe the younger in the -night. I knew from an old argument that Charpantier planned the same. -But, of course, they would not be the same sort of men for Charpantier -as for me.</p> - -<p>Still, they were all men. Once they had all rubbed the sleep from their -eyes they would tell each other what they saw, and in the end and all -men would have agreed on the shape of the world, so it would not matter -what imperfections Charpantier pointed out, or what implicit glories I -perceived.</p> - -<p>If the Veld's hand did not tremble as he stirred his pot.</p> - -<p>And yet it had—it had; Charpantier had said more than he thought, when -he thought to stop up my mouth with myself.</p> - -<p>I faced away from the Foundation, now mile on mile behind me. But my -eyes turned inward, and in me my mind hovered over the Veld. I had no -actual distant eye—no way of seeing beyond the curve of the world or -through the haze of the air; no ear to listen to a sound so far away it -cannot urge the molecules of air my pinions grope at. But often it is -well enough to think, for any thought seems accurate enough to act on, -and in time thoughts grow so practiced that they might well be eyes. -And so I saw the Veld, though I did not see him, and I saw him falter.</p> - -<p>In me, the Veld suddenly told: "I have made, and I go. Forgive me for -your sorrow." And I forgave him, as I had forgiven him long ago. For -his duty was to men, not to ourselves who were part of that duty. And -Charpantier, I knew, had nothing to forgive, for he was glad of his -sorrow.</p> - -<p>The wind numbed my eyes. I wept.</p> - -<p>Under the cold stars, my crude cheeks glistened. I hovered over the -town, where some men slept and some men worked, because some machines -run during the day and some run at night, and I listened for anything -else the Veld might have to tell, for he was my irrevocable commander -as long as he existed on this Earth. I also listened with the ear of -habituated thought.</p> - -<p>And I heard. In my mind's eye, I saw the Veld use the Earthly -transporter, but it was not with my mind's ear alone that I heard what -I heard.</p> - -<p>The pot erupts. The stranded man claws back in agony so great he -cannot even scream, arms, legs and face smoldering, and jounces on the -ground, to lie, to moan, to be a long mindless time dying. And at the -clearing's edge the little messengers have no one to say what could be -done to soothe him.</p> - -<p>What now? Where to go, what to do, how to repair?</p> - -<p>Oh, Veld, Veld, long-living Veld, what truly eternal sorrow!</p> - -<p>I sank down through the air, bereft and graceless. What could I do for -the Veld? All that remained to me was what I could say to men. But I -knew as I landed among them that the Veld's promise could not be kept, -since the Veld was still here.</p> - -<p>I cried out to the men: "Awake! Arise!" They stumbled out of their -houses, but when I said to the first of them: "Question me!" he -obediently answered: "How?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I go back to where the Foundation was, now and then. I bring doctors -with me, after each time it seems to me I have found a way to tell them -what to seek. The Veld lies where his chamber was, before the stone -decayed, and tells me nothing.</p> - -<p>If he truly reflects me, as he is now, then I don't know if I can bear -to wait for the day when I can dash myself down from the outraged air -and surrender myself to the sea-speckled rocks. The doctors say that -if only someone would tell them what questions to ask about the Veld, -and if only someone would give them the answers to the questions, they -might be able to do something.</p> - -<p>Charpantier is there sometimes, and mocks me. "You're getting crazier -every day, Maurer," he says. "Suppose you restore the Veld? Then what? -Does he make another transporter?" He shakes his head. "Poor Maurer. -What're you doing to these people you bring here? What do you want from -them? Something the Veld himself couldn't accomplish?"</p> - -<p>I try. I try to tell them how to question, and I command them to -question. And I hope the Veld dies. But though Charpantier and I—even -Charpantier and I—are growing a little older, the Veld is only -moribund, and no more dead than he was before the days when thirty -generations of men battled to keep the southernmost edge of the -creeping ice from burying the Veld beyond the reach of hope.</p> - -<p>For I hope—though I can see a sprig of silver, here and there, in -Charpantier's darkness now. The Veld must be accessible to my hope, -though I must command millions of men.</p> - -<p>And I think Charpantier hopes, too, because so long as he can see me -failing he knows I am imperfect, but he wishes perfection for me. I -know he brings no doctors only because he has not yet found a way for a -man to respond to the command, "Be perfect!"</p> - -<p>Each time the hope dies, I tell my men: "Go home, now. Rest." And -they go home. But I? I blunder about, thinking that perhaps if I -could kill the Veld, that would be an end to it. But nothing can kill -the Veld, unless it be something the Veld knows of. So first we must -heal the Veld. And healed he will once again seek his heart's desire, -hopelessly. As do I. As do I.</p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rag and Bone Men, by Algis Budrys - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAG AND BONE MEN *** - -***** This file should be named 51589-h.htm or 51589-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/5/8/51589/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Rag and Bone Men - -Author: Algis Budrys - -Release Date: March 28, 2016 [EBook #51589] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAG AND BONE MEN *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - - THE RAG AND BONE MEN - - By ALGIS BUDRYS - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine February 1962. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - Unfortunate castaway! Marooned - far from home--with nothing to - share his loneliness but humans! - - -The other one--Charpantier, he called himself--he and I were going back -up the hill to the Foundation, carrying our bags, when I happened to -remark I didn't think the Veld was sane anymore. (I call myself Maurer.) - -Charpantier said nothing for a moment. We kept walking, up the gravel -path between the unimaginatively clipped hedges. But he was frowning a -little, and after a while he said in an absent way: "Now, how would one -determine that?" He looked straight into my eyes, which is something -that has always upset me, and challenged: "I don't think one could." - -I felt the shock of inadequacy. Words come out of me--perfectly -accurate words, I know; but I never know how, and sometimes when asked -I forget. - -Now I must be very lucid; I must be his kind of man, I thought, and -picked my way among my words. "These things he's had us get," I said, -putting the burlap bag down and stopping so as to hold Charpantier in -one place. - -"He wants to build something unEarthly," Charpantier said, annoyed -because I was playing his kind of trick on him, and so baldly. "What -standards do you propose to judge by?" - -But I was right and he was wrong. Now it remained to make him see how. -"Yes. He wants to build something unEarthly. Out of Earthly parts. -He wants to take six radio tubes for an Earthly radio, three pieces -of Earthly Lucite exactly 1/4 Earthly inch thick, a roll of Earthly -16-gauge wire, a General Electric heat lamp, and all these other -things--the polystyrene foam blocks, the polyurethane plastic sheeting, -the polyvinyl insulating tape; what have you in your bag, Charpantier? -Out of all this, he wants to make a Veldish thing." - -"He's spent years learning about Earthly things," Charpantier pointed -out. "For years, we've brought him books. Men. Everything he needs. -Now he's learned what the Earthly equivalents of Veldish materials -are, and he's ready to make his new transporter." Charpantier had a -dark face--dark hair, dark beard, dark eyes. When his dark brows drew -together it was easy to see that his best expression was dark scorn. - - * * * * * - -"I think he's desperate," I said. "I think he's learned all he can. -He's learned what the nearest Earthly equivalents to Veldish things -are. And he's learned that all Earth can give him nothing closer. I -don't see how he could do better. Even he. You cannot make apples of -cabbages. But he wants to get home--you know he wants so much to leave -here and get home--and now he's desperate, and is going to try making -a new transporter out of materials nothing like those in the one that -broke and marooned him here." - -"And it won't function?" Charpantier asked. "There is that risk. But -why shouldn't he try? What's insane in that?" - -"I fear it might work. I fear it might work in ways a transporter -should not." And I shivered, for if I say something I feel it, and I do -not feel anything I don't believe is right. I have been wrong, but not -often ... or perhaps I forget. - -Charpantier smiled. "How should a Veld transporter work?" - -"That's not the point!" I cried at Charpantier's obstinacy in being -Charpantier. "I don't have to know. The Veld has to know, and be insane -enough to try something different. Look--" I said, searching, being -my own kind of man, now, and letting the words come straight from the -images in my head. "Assume a man. Assume a man stranded on an island, -for years. Assume he has ways of realizing his heart's desire, if only -he can find the things to work with. But it's a small island. And while -it's a good island how can it give a marooned man not only comfort but -heart's desire? He searches. He perhaps send messengers, if he himself -cannot penetrate the jungle; such messengers as he can command. And, -in the end, after years, he knows he cannot have exactly what he wants. -But he can have something very near it. So, in the end, he takes a rag, -and a bone, and a hank of hair--" - -"And makes a woman?" Charpantier laughed. "If he fails, what of it?" - -"But if he succeeds, Charpantier! If he _succeeds_!" Couldn't he see? -"What sort of woman?" - -Charpantier looked at me for a moment, but I hadn't made him see. He -saw only me, and I had taken up his time without delivering value. So -he chastised me. - -"The Veld made me and you. Are you dissatisfied?" - -He had that trick, Charpantier. If you tried to give him a problem he -couldn't solve, he gave you a greater problem of your own, to add to -the one you already carried. - -I picked up my bag and followed him up the hill to the Foundation, -where the Veld timelessly waited. - -It was dusk, and as I walked I turned my eyes up to the stars. One eye -was larger than the other, and a different color. My nose sat askew -on my lumpen face. Though Charpantier was a hunchback, and lacked a -finger, still he was a handsome hunchback. But I, whom the Veld had -made second, with Charpantier's example, was merely whole. And from my -eyes, tears. - - * * * * * - -We entered the Foundation. It had been erected around the Veld, when he -first came and there were men who could question. - -Now the building was neat and kept up, but all its many rooms were -empty, and all its many machines were still. Charpantier had his -cottage on the West--a very learned man had used it, while working with -the Veld--and I had mine on the East, where a military commander had -kept his family. - -The Veld lived in the heart of the Foundation, in the odd-shaped room -whose walls traced the configuration he had been forced to assume when -his broken transporter had interrupted his journey between--where?--and -the home he pined for. Men came from the town below the hill to care -for the building, but Charpantier or I had to go fetch them. They no -longer questioned. They distressed us with their constant need for -commanding, and so every time they were finished with their work we -commanded them homeward. No Earthly creature lived on the hill. - -The Veld was kindly, but an end comes to kindness. The time came when -the questioning of men would have led them, if answered, irrevocably -into Veldish ways. - -It was perhaps a kindness, too, that the Veld did what he did to -questioning creatures. But however it may have been, now there were -only men to be commanded. Charpantier commanded in the West, and I in -the East, and the Veld, though he permitted us to question all men, and -each other, commanded us. - -Charpantier and I did not often speak to each other while in the -Foundation. We were too near the Veld, and insufficiently full of -ourselves. But as we rode down the elevator, with its noise of metal -sliding all alone in the world, Charpantier looked at me. And I knew -what he looked. - -I have thought to myself that Charpantier says of everything: "Why -is this thing not perfect?" while I say to myself: "Where is the -perfection in this thing?" Surely my thought is as potent as his. But -you see his advantage over me, for he was forever safe from what I -might look at him, but I, I was not safe. - -We reached the chamber of the Veld. We opened the door and displayed -our accumulation to his perceptions. - -"My-being reflects you," the Veld told us from his perception, and -seeing that he was become beautiful, I knew we had done well. "Now will -I make, and take my way, and you in your sorrow stay to see the world -restored." - -This was as he had promised the world, and us, before he put an end -to questioning. Though only we remembered. But I wondered--I did not -question; I wondered--as I imagined his making of the new transporter, -taking my imagined thing from what I knew of how he had made us; I -wondered whether the world was safe. - -I thought of the chamber beside this one, where we had been born. I -had often been there, only to look. There is the tank--the Rochester, -Minnesota, Biophysical Equipment Co. tank. And there is the Velikaya -Socialisticheskaya Rossiya coagulator, and the IBM 704, and the Braun, -Boveri heater. There stand the cabinets, with their Torsen, Held -Artztmetal refrigeration units. And the cabinets stand full of flasks -and ampules, and there is the autoclave full of Becton-Dickinson Yale -syringes, and dangling from the wall are the Waldos the Veld used to -manipulate all these things. - -And of all these Earthly things, the Veld made men not entirely -Earthly, for the Veld is a Veld. - -Now soon, the new transporter would take the Veld away--in ways I -wondered were perilous--and it would be Charpantier and I who stayed to -see the world restored. - -Charpantier and I, who called ourselves, but had no names. - -He commanded us to go and we went, I East, Charpantier West. I saw -Charpantier hurry down his side of the hill, handsome and hasty under -the stars. I walked--for me, to run is to risk--and I trembled, -for me to feel is to know, and the Veld was desperate. He slept at -night, secure from questions even though he slept, for his power once -exercised was irrevocable so long as he existed. But tonight he did not -sleep; he made. - -I thought of my assumed man, on his assumed island, red-eyed and -tremulous of hand, bent over his pot, stirring, stirring, unable to -wait for morning. I thought of the light from his fire, shining on -the dumb eyes of his faithful messengers waiting at the edge of his -clearing. The messengers are dismissed from service, yet not quite sure -they are dismissed. And I thought of this Earth, and the Veld's old -promise to us that tomorrow it would wake knuckling its eyes, and need -a loving voice to say there was an end to nightmares. - -I would speak and Charpantier would speak, but what would we say? And -in what voices, born of the Veld's touch on the Waldos? And would there -be more than speaking to do? - -I did not think there was much I could do but speak. Charpantier lacks -a finger, but I ... I have hands, but I lack them. - -Oh, but the stars were cold! The Moon in this season was a day Moon, -and now below the horizon. Stars, stars and galaxies, but beyond them, -where the Veldish beings lived, nothing I could see, and below the -stars, too, here where I reached the brow of the hill and clumsily -opened my wings, here, too, nothing, as I lurched into the night and in -great strain beat toward the places of men. - - * * * * * - -I had a favorite place; the place I had chosen to begin to speak from. -It was small, as men measure things--a few lights in the darkness, -here the sheen of a lake, there the tiered wooliness of trees--a town -in which I had disposed those men who must first unbind themselves -from the years of no questioning. For unlike the Veld and his -transporter--and even the Veld needed a transporter--Charpantier and I -could not be everywhere. - -It was my thought to reassure these men first, and have them go out -and reassure others, as older brothers will soothe the younger in the -night. I knew from an old argument that Charpantier planned the same. -But, of course, they would not be the same sort of men for Charpantier -as for me. - -Still, they were all men. Once they had all rubbed the sleep from their -eyes they would tell each other what they saw, and in the end and all -men would have agreed on the shape of the world, so it would not matter -what imperfections Charpantier pointed out, or what implicit glories I -perceived. - -If the Veld's hand did not tremble as he stirred his pot. - -And yet it had--it had; Charpantier had said more than he thought, when -he thought to stop up my mouth with myself. - -I faced away from the Foundation, now mile on mile behind me. But my -eyes turned inward, and in me my mind hovered over the Veld. I had no -actual distant eye--no way of seeing beyond the curve of the world or -through the haze of the air; no ear to listen to a sound so far away it -cannot urge the molecules of air my pinions grope at. But often it is -well enough to think, for any thought seems accurate enough to act on, -and in time thoughts grow so practiced that they might well be eyes. -And so I saw the Veld, though I did not see him, and I saw him falter. - -In me, the Veld suddenly told: "I have made, and I go. Forgive me for -your sorrow." And I forgave him, as I had forgiven him long ago. For -his duty was to men, not to ourselves who were part of that duty. And -Charpantier, I knew, had nothing to forgive, for he was glad of his -sorrow. - -The wind numbed my eyes. I wept. - -Under the cold stars, my crude cheeks glistened. I hovered over the -town, where some men slept and some men worked, because some machines -run during the day and some run at night, and I listened for anything -else the Veld might have to tell, for he was my irrevocable commander -as long as he existed on this Earth. I also listened with the ear of -habituated thought. - -And I heard. In my mind's eye, I saw the Veld use the Earthly -transporter, but it was not with my mind's ear alone that I heard what -I heard. - -The pot erupts. The stranded man claws back in agony so great he -cannot even scream, arms, legs and face smoldering, and jounces on the -ground, to lie, to moan, to be a long mindless time dying. And at the -clearing's edge the little messengers have no one to say what could be -done to soothe him. - -What now? Where to go, what to do, how to repair? - -Oh, Veld, Veld, long-living Veld, what truly eternal sorrow! - -I sank down through the air, bereft and graceless. What could I do for -the Veld? All that remained to me was what I could say to men. But I -knew as I landed among them that the Veld's promise could not be kept, -since the Veld was still here. - -I cried out to the men: "Awake! Arise!" They stumbled out of their -houses, but when I said to the first of them: "Question me!" he -obediently answered: "How?" - - * * * * * - -I go back to where the Foundation was, now and then. I bring doctors -with me, after each time it seems to me I have found a way to tell them -what to seek. The Veld lies where his chamber was, before the stone -decayed, and tells me nothing. - -If he truly reflects me, as he is now, then I don't know if I can bear -to wait for the day when I can dash myself down from the outraged air -and surrender myself to the sea-speckled rocks. The doctors say that -if only someone would tell them what questions to ask about the Veld, -and if only someone would give them the answers to the questions, they -might be able to do something. - -Charpantier is there sometimes, and mocks me. "You're getting crazier -every day, Maurer," he says. "Suppose you restore the Veld? Then what? -Does he make another transporter?" He shakes his head. "Poor Maurer. -What're you doing to these people you bring here? What do you want from -them? Something the Veld himself couldn't accomplish?" - -I try. I try to tell them how to question, and I command them to -question. And I hope the Veld dies. But though Charpantier and I--even -Charpantier and I--are growing a little older, the Veld is only -moribund, and no more dead than he was before the days when thirty -generations of men battled to keep the southernmost edge of the -creeping ice from burying the Veld beyond the reach of hope. - -For I hope--though I can see a sprig of silver, here and there, in -Charpantier's darkness now. The Veld must be accessible to my hope, -though I must command millions of men. - -And I think Charpantier hopes, too, because so long as he can see me -failing he knows I am imperfect, but he wishes perfection for me. I -know he brings no doctors only because he has not yet found a way for a -man to respond to the command, "Be perfect!" - -Each time the hope dies, I tell my men: "Go home, now. Rest." And -they go home. But I? I blunder about, thinking that perhaps if I -could kill the Veld, that would be an end to it. But nothing can kill -the Veld, unless it be something the Veld knows of. So first we must -heal the Veld. And healed he will once again seek his heart's desire, -hopelessly. As do I. 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