He knew now that this was indeed a cusp of necessity� but he resolved to balance on the point of the cusp until he grokked all of it - since it was possible that Jubal, knowing that a cusp was approaching, had sent him under water to keep him from acting wrongly at the cusp.
He would wait� but in the meantime he would hold this gun and its wrongness carefully under his eye. Not at the moment being limited to two eyes facing always one way, being able to see all around him if needful, he continued to watch the gun and the man stepping out of the car while he went inside the car.
More wrongness than he would have believed possible! Other men were in there, all but one of them crowding toward the door. Their minds smelled like a pack of Khaugha who had scented an unwary nymph and each one held in his hands a something having wrongness.
As he had told Jubal, Smith knew that shape alone was never a prime determinant; it was necessary to go beyond shape to essence in order to grok. His own people passed through five major shapes: egg, nymph, nestling, adult - and Old One which had no shape. Yet the essence of an Old One was already patterned in the egg.
These somethings that these men carried seemed like guns. But Smith did not assume that they were guns; he examined one most carefully first. It was much larger than any gun he had ever seen, its shape was very different, and its details were quite different.
It was a gun.
He examined each of the others, separately and just as carefully. They were guns.
The one man who was still seated had strapped to him a small gun.
The car itself had built into it two enormous guns - plus other things which Smith could not grok but which he felt had wrongness also.
He stopped and seriously considered twisting the car, its contents, and all - letting it topple away. But, in addition to his lifelong inhibition against wasting food, he knew that he did not fully grok what was happening. Better to move slowly, watch carefully, and help and share at the cusp by following Jubal's lead� and if right action for him was to remain passive, then go back to his body when the cusp had passed and discuss it all with Jubal later.
He went back outside the car and watched and listened and waited.
The first man to get out talked with Jubal concerning many things which Smith could only file without grokking; they were beyond his experience. The other men got out and spread out; Smith spread his attention to watch all of them. The car raised, moved backwards, stopped again, which relieved the beings it had sat on; Smith grokked with them to the extent that he could spare attention, trying to soothe their hurtings.
The first man handed papers to Jubal; in turn they were passed to Anne. Smith read them along with her. He recognized their word shapings as being concerned with certain human rituals of healing and balance, but, since he had encountered these rituals only in Jubal's law library, he did not try to grok the papers then, especially as Jubal seemed quite untroubled by them - the wrongness was elsewhere. He was delighted to recognize his own human name on two of the papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as if he were two places at once - impossible as that was for any but an Old One.
Jubal and the first man turned and walked toward the pool, with Anne close behind them. Smith relaxed his time sense a little to let them move faster, keeping it stretched just enough so that he could comfortably watch all the men at once. Two of the men closed in and flanked the little group.
The first man stopped near the group of his friends by the pool, looked at them, then took a picture from his pocket, looked at it, and looked at Jill. Smith felt her fear and trouble mount and he became very alert. Jubal had told him, "Protect Jill. Don't worry about wasting food. Don't worry about anything else. Protect Jill."
Of course, he would protect Jill in any case, even at the risk of acting wrongly in some other fashion. But it was good to have Jubal's blanket reassurance; it left his mind undivided and untroubled.
When the first man pointed at Jill and the two men flanking him hurried toward her with their guns of great wrongness. Smith reached out through his Doppelganger and gave them each that tiny twist which causes to topple away.
The first man stared at where they had been and reached for his gun - and he was gone, too.
The other four started to close in. Smith did not want to twist them. He felt that Jubal would be more pleased with him if he simply stopped them. But stopping a thing, even an ash tray, is work-and Smith did not have his body at hand. An Old One could have managed it, all four together, but Smith did what he could do, what he had to do.
Four feather touches-they were gone.
He felt more intense wrongness from the direction of the car on the ground and went at once to it-grokked to a quick decision, and car and pilot were gone.
He almost overlooked the car riding cover patrol in the air. Smith started to relax when he had disposed of the car on the ground-when suddenly he felt wrongness and trouble increase, and he looked up.
The second car was coming in for a landing right where he was.
Smith stretched his time sense to his personal limit and went to the car in the air, inspected it carefully, grokked that it was as choked with utter wrongness as the first had been� tilted it into neverness. Then he returned to the group by the pool.
All his friends seemed quite excited; Dorcas was sobbing and Jill was holding her and soothing her. Anne alone seemed untouched by the emotions Smith felt seething around him. But wrongness was gone, all of it, and with it the trouble that had disturbed his meditations earlier. Dorcas, he knew, would be healed faster and better by Jill than by anyone-Jill always grokked a hurting fully and at once. Disturbed by emotions around him, slightly apprehensive that he might not have acted in all ways rightly at the point of cusp-or that Jubal might to grok him-Smith decided that he was now free to leave. He slipped back into the pool, found his body, grokked that it was still as he had left it, unharmed-slipped it back on.
He considered contemplating the events at the cusp, But they were too new, too recent; he was not ready to enfold them, not ready to praise and cherish the men he had been forced to move. Instead he returned happily to the task he had been on. "Sherbet" Sherbetlee" "Sherbetzide"- He had reached "Tinwork" and was about to consider "Tiny" when he felt Jill's touch approaching him. He unswallowed his tongue and made himself ready, knowing that his brother Jill could not remain very long under water without distress.
As she touched him, he reached out, took her face in his hands and kissed her. It was a thing he had learned to do quite lately and he did not feel that he grokked it perfectly. It had the growing-closer of the water ceremony. But it had something else, too� something he wanted very much to grok in perfect fullness.
XVI
JUBAL HARSHAW DID NOT WAIT for Gillian to dig her problem child out of the pool; he left instructions for Dorcas to be given a sedative and hurried to his study, leaving Anne to explain (or not explain) the events of the last ten minutes. "Front!" he called out over his shoulder.
Miriam turned and caught up with him. "I guess I must be 'front,'" she said breathlessly. "But, Boss, what in the-"
"Girl, not one word."
"But, Boss-"
"Zip it, I said. Miriam, about a week from now we'll all sit down and get Anne to tell us what we really did see. But right now everybody and his cousins will be phoning here and reporters will be crawling out of the trees-and I've got to make a couple of calls first. I need help. Are you the sort of useless female who comes unstuck when she's needed? That reminds me- Make a note to dock Dorcas's pay for the time she spent having hysterics."