The Werewolf Principle

23

'I'll walk you a piece down the road, said the Brownie when they left the diner.

The morning sun was topping the horizon behind them and their elongated shadows bobbed along the road in front of them. The paving, Blake noted, was broken and eroded.

'They don't keep up the roads, he said, 'the way I remember them.

'No need to, said the Brownie. 'No wheels. No need of a smooth surface since there isn't any contact. The cars all ride on cushions of air. They only need roads as designation strips and to keep the traffic out of people's hair. Now, when they lay out a new road, they just set out a double row of stakes, to show the drivers the location of the highway.

They jogged along, not hurrying. A flock of blackbirds rose in a blue of flashing wings out of a marshy swale off to the left.

'Flocking up, the Brownie said. 'They'll be leaving soon. Cheeky things, the blackbirds. Not like larks or robins.

'You know about these wild things?

'We live with them, the Brownie said. 'We get to understand them. Some we get so we can almost talk with them. Not birds, though. Birds and fish are stupid. But raccoons and foxes, musk rats and mink — they are all real people.

'You live out in the woods, I understand.

'In the woods and fields. We conform to ecology. We take things as we find them. We adapt to circumstances. We are blood brothers to all life. No quarrel with anyone.

Blake tried to remember what Daniels had told him. A strange sort of little people who had taken a liking to the Earth, not because of the dominant life form that inhabited it, but because of the planet itself. Perhaps, Blake thought, because they found in the non-dominant residents, in the few remaining wild denizens of the woods and fields, the sort of simple associations that they liked. Insisting on living their own way of life to go their independent way, and yet beggars and moochers, attaching themselves in a slipshod alliance with anyone who would provide whatever simple needs they had.

'I met another of your people a few days ago, said Blake. 'You'll pardon me, but I can't be sure. Could you…

'Oh no, the Brownie said. 'That was another one of us. He was the one who spotted you.

'Spotted me?

'Oh yes, indeed. As one who would bear watching. He said that there was more than one of you and that you were in trouble. He sent out word we should, any one of us who could, keep an eye on you.

'Apparently you've been doing a good job of it. It didn't take you long to pick me up.

'When we set out to accomplish something, the Brownie said, with pride, 'we can be most efficient.

'And I? Where do I fit in?

'I am not sure exactly, said the Brownie. 'We are to keep an eye on you. You only need to know we're watching. You can count on us.

'I thank you, Blake told him. 'I thank you very much. And that was all he needed, he told himself — to have these crazy little creatures keeping tabs on him.

They walked along in silence for a time and then Blake asked: 'He told you, this one that I met, to keep an eye on me…

'Not just me alone…

'I know that, said Blake. 'He told all of you. Would you mind explaining how he told the rest of you? Or maybe it's a stupid question. There are mail and telephones.

The Brownie made a clucking sound of immense disgust. 'We wouldn't be caught dead, he said, 'using such contrivances. It would be against our principles and there really is no need to use them. We just pass the word along.

'You mean you are telepathic.

'Well, to tell you the honest truth, I don't know if we are or not. We can't transmit words, if that is what you mean. But we have a oneness. It gets a bit hard to explain.

'I would imagine so, said Blake. 'A sort of tribal psychic grapevine.

'You don't make any sense to me, the Brownie said, 'but if you want to think of it that way, I guess it does no harm.

'I suppose, said Blake, 'there are a lot of people that you keep an eye on.

It would be just like them, he told himself, a bunch of little busybodies very much concerned with other people's lives.

'There are no others, said the Brownie. 'Not at the moment, anyhow. He told us there were more than one of you and…

'What has that got to do with it?

'Why, bless you, said the Brownie, 'that's the whole of it. How often does one find a creature there is more than one of? Would you mind telling me, I wonder, just how many…

'There are three of me, said Blake.

The Brownie jigged in triumph. 'I knew there were! he crowed. 'I made a bet with myself that there were three of you. One of you is warm and shaggy, but with a terrible temper. Can you tell me this is so?

'Yes, said Blake, 'I would suppose it is.

'But the other one of you, the Brownie said, 'baffles me entirely.

'Welcome to the club, said Blake. 'He baffles me as well.