Special Deliverance

10

Lansing worked at the forked sapling he had cut, forming a crutch for Jurgens.

The Parson got up from where he was sitting and threw some more wood on the fire.

“Where is the Brigadier?” he asked.

“He went to help Jurgens in,” said Mary.

“Why should he do that? Why not leave him where he is?”

“Because it isn’t right,” said Mary. “Jurgens should be here with the rest of us.”

The Parson said nothing, sat down again.

Sandra walked around the fire to stand beside Mary. “There’s something nosing around out there in the dark,” she said. “I heard it sniffling.”

“It’s probably the Brigadier. He went out to get Jurgens.”

“It’s not the Brigadier. It goes on four feet. The Brigadier doesn’t sniffle.”

“Some small animal,” said Lansing, looking up from his work. “Whenever a campfire’s built there are always some of them around. Drawn by curiosity — they have to see what is going on — or maybe snooping around on the chance they can pick up something to eat.”

“It makes me nervous,” said Sandra.

“All of our nerves are a bit on edge,” Mary told her. “The cube…”

“Let’s all forget about the cube right now,” Lansing suggested. “With morning light we’ll have a better look at it.” “I, for one, will have no better look at it,” said the Parson. “It is a thing of evil.”

The Brigadier came into the edge of the firelight, one arm around the lurching Jurgens.

“What’s this I hear about a thing of evil?” he asked, his voice booming.

The Parson said nothing. The Brigadier eased Jurgens to the ground between Mary and the Parson.

“He can barely get along,” said the Brigadier. “That leg is almost worthless. There’s no way to fix it better?”

Mary shook her head. “There is a broken component in the knee and no replacement for it. Some of the hip arrangement is twisted out of shape. I was able to restore some function to the leg, but that was all. Edward’s crutch will help him get around.”

The Brigadier lowered himself to a place next to Lansing.

“I could swear,” he said, “that when I was coming in I heard someone mention evil.”

“Leave it be,” Lansing curtly told him. “Let it lie.”

“No need, worthy pedagogue,” said the Parson, “to attempt to impose yourself between the man of cloth and the man at arms. We might as well have it out.”

“All right, if you insist,” said Lansing, “but be gentlemen while you’re about it.”

“I’m always a gentleman,” said the Brigadier. “It is instinctive with me. An officer and a gentleman. That’s the way it goes, the two of them together. This clownish friend of ours—”

The Parson interrupted. “I simply said the cube was a thing of evil. Perhaps my opinion only, but I am trained to make such observations and the Brigadier is not.”

“How do you make it evil?” asked the Brigadier.

“Why, the very look of it to start with. And the warning strip of sand around it. Men of good will put in that warning strip and we should have honored it. The one of us who did not paid very dearly for it.”

“A warning strip it may be,” said the Brigadier, “planted with booby traps, one of which our metal friend encountered. But if my interpretation is correct, men of good will had nothing to do with it. If your men had been really of a deep good will, they would have built a fence around it. What you are trying to do, Parson, is to scare us off. If something holds a threat you label it evil, and that gives you the excuse to turn your back and walk away-from it. My way would be to invade the strip, being very cautious, using poles or prods or whatever other means I could to unmask and disarm the booby traps. There is something about the cube that I am certain someone does not wish us to learn. Perhaps some fact of great value, and I, for one, do not propose to turn my back upon it.”

“That is quite in keeping with your basic character,” said the Parson, “and I’ll not go a step out of my way to dissuade you. But I do feel it my solemn duty to warn you that evil forces are best left alone.”

“There you go again with this talk of evil. What is evil, may I ask? How would you define an evil?”

“If you have to ask,” the Parson told him, “it would be a waste of breath to attempt to tell you.”

“Did anyone see exactly what happened out there when Jurgens was hurt?” asked Mary. “He himself saw nothing. He says he was hit, that something struck him a blow. But he did not see it strike.”

“I saw not a thing,” the Parson said, “and I was standing where I should have seen. The fact that I saw nothing convinces me more than ever that it was an evil force.” “I saw something,” said Lansing, “or thought I saw something. I didn’t mention it because I could not be certain. I saw, strange as it may sound, a motion. A flicker. A flicker that was gone so fast I could not be sure I’d seen it. I’m not certain even now.”

“I cannot understand this talk of evil,” Sandra said. “The cube is beautiful. It makes the breath catch in my throat. I sense no evil in it.”

“Yet it attacked Jurgens,” Mary said.

“Yes, I know. But even knowing that, I still see the beauty in it; to me there is no evil there.”

“Well spoken,” said the Brigadier. “There speaks our poetess — what did you call yourself, a certified poetess?” “You are correct,” Sandra said, speaking softly. “You cannot know what that means to me. Only in my world could you know the honor — almost the glory — of being certified a poetess. There are many poets, very many of them, all skilled in their profession, but very few who are certified as poets.”

“I cannot imagine such a world,” the Parson said. “It must be a faerie place. Many good words, perhaps, but no good works.”

“You are right in saying you cannot imagine it,” said Sandra. “You’d feel out of place there.”

“And that,” the Brigadier told the Parson, “should hold you for a while.”

All of them sat in silence for a time, then Sandra said, “There it is again. There’s something prowling this campfire. I hear the sniffling again.”

“I hear nothing,” said the Brigadier. “My dear, it’s your imagination. There is nothing out there.”

Another silence, then the Parson asked, “What do we do come morning?”

“We look over the cube,” said the Brigadier. “We look it over well, being very careful. Then, if we find nothing that throws light on the situation, we continue on our way. Up ahead of us, if the shabby innkeeper was telling us the truth, there is a city, and it seems to me that in a city we may find more of interest than we are finding here. If we wish and it seems reasonable, we always have the option of returning to the cube and having a go at it again.”

The Parson pointed to Jurgens and spoke to Lansing. “Will he be able to travel?”

Lansing held up the crutch he was working on. “It will take him awhile to get accustomed to this. It’s a fairly bad job. I wish I could have done better, but there are no other materials at hand. He’ll be able to travel, but he’ll be slow. We’ll have to match our pace to his. As I see it, there isn’t any hurry.”

“There might be,” said the Brigadier. “We have no indication of the parameters of this expedition. There may be time limits of which we are not aware.”

“Before we can begin to operate effectively,” said Mary, “we must gain some clues as to why we’re here. We should not pass up anything that might give us such clues. I think we should spend time with the cube until we are convinced it has nothing to offer us.”

“It has been my feeling,” said the Brigadier, “that in a city we might gather more information than we can out here in this barren land. In a city we’ll find people we can talk with.”

“If we can understand them,” said Mary. “If they’ll talk to us. If they don’t chase us out or clap us into jail.”

“Yes, there are those considerations,” agreed the Brigadier.

“It’s time, I think, that we should turn in,” said the Parson. “We’ve had a long, hard day and we’ll need our rest for yet another.”

“I’ll stand the first watch,” offered the Brigadier. “After that Lansing and you, Parson, will split the remainder of the watch. You can make your own arrangements.”

“There is no need of anyone standing watch,” said Jurgens. “That particular chore is mine. I never sleep. I have no need of sleep. I promise that I will stay alert. You can place your trust in me.”