"How much do you remember, Jason? How much, really, from the old days? Not how our tribe found your people, but all the rest of it."
"I remember rather vividly," said Jason. "And so should you. You were a young man, with me, when it happened. We were both at the impressionable age. It should have made a great impact on us."
Red Cloud shook his head. "My memory is dim. There are too many other things. I can scarcely remember any other life than the one we live today."
"My remembrance is in a book, or in many books," said Jason, gesturing at the shelf behind the desk. "It all is written down. My grandfather began it, some fifty years after it happened, writing it down so we'd not forget, so it would not become a myth. He wrote all that he could remember of what had happened and once that was finished, he made regular entries. When he finally died, I took up the work. It all is written down, from the day it happened."
"And when you die," asked Red Cloud, "who then will do the writing?"
"I do not know," said Jason.
"Jason, a thing I have often wondered, but have never asked. May I ask it now?"
"Certainly. Anything at all"
"Why did you never go out to the stars?"
"Perhaps because I can't."
"But you never tried. You never really wanted to."
"The others went out one by one," said Jason, "until only Martha and I were left. It seemed that someone should stay. It seemed that we should not leave Earth entirely. Someone belonged here. An anchor man, perhaps, for the others who had gone. To keep the home fires burning. Be here to welcome the others back when they wanted to come home. To keep a place for them."
"They do come back, of course. And you are here to welcome them."
"Some of them," said Jason. "Not all. My brother, John, was one of the first to go. He has not been back. We've had no word of him. I often wonder where he is. If he is still alive,"
"You imply a responsibility to stay. But, Jason, that can't be the entire story."
"It's part of it, I think. At one time more a part of it than it is now. John and I were the oldest. My sister, Janice, is younger. We still see her occasionally and Martha talks with her quite often. If John had stayed, Martha and I might have gone, I said maybe we didn't because we couldn't. I don't really believe that. The ability seems to be inherent. Man probably had it for a long time before he began to use it. For it to develop time was needed and the longer life gave us time. Perhaps it would have developed even without the longer life if we'd not been so concerned, so fouled up, with our technology. Somewhere we may have taken the wrong turning, accepted the wrong values and permitted our concern with technology to mask our real and valid purpose. The concern with technology may have kept us from knowing what we had. These abilities of ours could not struggle up into our consciousness through the thick layers of machines and cost estimates and all the rest of it. And when we talk about abilities, it's not simply going to the stars. Your people don't go to the stars. There may be no need of you to do so. You have become, instead, a part of your environment, living within its texture and understanding it. It went that way for you…"
"But if you could go, why don't you? Surely you could be away for a little time. The robots.would take care of things. They'd keep the home fires burning, keep the welcome ready for those who wanted to return."
Jason shook his head. "It is too late now. I fall increasingly in love with this house and with these acres as the years go on. I feel a part of it. I'd be lost without the house and land—and Earth. I couldn't live without them. A man can't walk the same land, live in the same house, for almost five thousand years…"
"I know," said Red Cloud. "The band, as its members increased, split up and scattered, becoming many bands. Some are on the prairies, others eastward in the forests. I stick to these two rivers…"
"I am guilty of bad manners," Jason said. "I should have asked first off. How is Mrs. Cloud?"
"Happy. With a new camp to boss, she is in her glory"
"And your sons and grandsons many times removed?"
"Only a few of the grandsons still are with us," Red Cloud said. "The sons and other grandsons are with other bands. We hear from them at times. Running Elk, my grandson thrice removed, was killed by a grizzly about a year ago. A runner came to tell us. Otherwise they all are well and happy."
"I grieve for you," said Jason. "Running Elk was a grandson to be proud of."
Red Cloud bowed his head in thanks. "Mrs. Jason, I gather, is in good health."
Jason nodded. "She spends a lot of time talking with the others. She is most proficient at it. Much more so than I am. Telepathy seems to be second nature to her. Each evening she has much news to tell. There are a lot of us now. I have no idea how many. Martha would know better than I do. She keeps it all in mind. All the relationships, who married whom and so on. Some thousands of us, surely."
"You told me once before, many years ago, that some intelligences had been found in space, but none like us. In the years since we've been gone…"
"You're right," said Jason. "None like us. Some contacts. Some friendly, some not so friendly, some indifferent to us. The most of them so alien to us they set one's teeth on edge. And, of course, the wandering alien travelers that sometimes visit Earth."
"And that is all? No cooperating…"
"No, that isn't all," said Jason. "Something has arisen that is most disturbing. A whiff of something most disturbing. Like a bad smell on the wind. From somewhere out in the center…"
"The center of what, Jason?"
"The center of the galaxy. The core. An intelligence of some sort. We just sniffed the edge of it and that's enough…"
"Hostile?"
"No, not hostile. Cold. Intelligent, too intelligent. Cold and indifferent. Analytical. Oh,hell, I can't tell you. There's no way to tell you. As if an angleworm could sniff the intelligence of a human. More than that. More difference between it and us than there is between man and angleworm."
"It's got you scared?"
"Scared? I guess so. Upset. Apprehensive. Only comfort is that we probably are beneath their notice."
"Then why worry?"
"Not worrying too much. It isn't that. Just that a man feels uncertain knowing there is something like that in the galaxy with him. As if you stumbled across a pit of concentrated evil."
"But it isn't evil."
"I don't think so. I don't know what it is. Neither does anyone else. We just caught a whiff…"
"You haven't detected it? You, yourself?"
"No. Some of the others. Two of the others out in the stars."
"No need to worry, more than likely. Just stay out of the way. I wonder, though—could it have had something to do with the People leaving? It seems unlikely, though. You still have no idea, Jason, of why it happened, why all the People went away."
"None at all," said Jason.
"You were speaking of the aliens that came to Earth…"
"Yes," said Jason. "It is strange how they come to Earth these days. Not many of them, of course. Not many that we know about. Two or three in the last century, although I guess, when you come to think of it, with all the space there is and the distances, that is quite a lot. But they never seemed to come before. It's only happened since the People left. Although it is possible they may have been coming in the old days and were never seen, or if seen, unrecognized for what they were. Maybe we didn't see them because we were unprepared to recognize them. Even if we'd seen them, we would have closed our eyes to them. We'd have felt uncomfortable in the presence of something that we couldn't understand and so, with one grand gesture, we'd have wiped them all away. We would have said they can't be here, they aren't here, we never saw them, and that would be the end of it."