8
How Thorinn was made captive by a flying engine that carried him deeper into the Underworld.
When he opened one of the bundles he had taken from the demons' house, he discovered that it contained lumps of dried meat, tough and nourishing. He ate his fill, drank water from the jug, then wrapped the meat again and put it away. Next he set the magic box upright on the floor and looked at it in silence awhile.
"Box," he said at last.
"I am here."
"Well, what have you got to say for yourself?"
"I have nothing to say for myself."
"Then why did you betray me?"
"What does betray mean?"
"Why did you tell them to use the sword on me, instead of—" Indignation choked him.
"I did not tell them to use the sword on you."
"Don't lie!"
"What does lie mean?"
"Not to tell the truth. Not to say what really happened."
"I tell only the truth."
"What a lie! Didn't you tell them the sword was better than a stick to cut with?"
"Yes."
"And didn't you know they would use it on me?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, why did you do it?"
"Because they asked."
Thorinn sat back on his heels, confused and angry. "If it happened again, would you do the same thing?"
"Yes."
"Tell them about the sword, and let them kill me with it?"
"Yes."
"Well then, don't you see, I can't have you with me any more, it wouldn't be safe." Thorinn stood up.
"It would be safe."
"How's that?"
"If you told me not to tell them the sword is better than a stick to cut with." Thorinn squatted again, staring at the box. "You mean if I told you not to, you wouldn't?"
"Yes, I mean I wouldn't."
"Well—Suppose I tell you now never to do anything or say anything that will be bad for me. Does that mean you never will?"
"I never will."
"All right then," said Thorinn, "but I don't understand you. I don't care if you're a spirit or an engine, why should I have to tell you a thing like that?"
"An engine can only do as it is told," said the box.
"Do as I tell you, then," said Thorinn. After a moment he gathered his bundles together, slung them over his shoulder, box and all, and set off down the passage.
After a time the dark eye at the end of the tunnel suddenly blinked light, and Thorinn knew they had come to a shaft. Here he paused, for if the shaft went both up and down, he would have no choice but to go down it.
"Box, does that shaft go both ways?"
"Yes."
"Is there another shaft near here that only goes up?"
"What is near here?"
"Oh—within ten thousand ells?"
"No."
While he mulled this over, Thorinn set down his burdens, opened one of the meat packages and began to eat. Presently he said, "Box."
"Yes."
"You said that an engine can only do what it's told."
"Yes."
"But doesn't that mean that if I tell you to do one thing, and then later somebody else tells you just the opposite, you'd have to do what they told you and not me?"
"Not if you had told me not to obey them."
"Then if somebody asked you to tell them how to kill me, you wouldn't?"
"No, because you have told me not to do anything that would harm you."
"Are you sorry you did it before?"
"What does sorry mean?"
Thorinn tried to explain this, without much success, for the box did not know the meaning of "wish," and he had to explain that, and then "feeling," which the box could not seem to grasp at all. Finally it said, "Is being sorry wanting a thing to be different even though it has already happened?"
"Yes, I suppose so. Well, are you sorry?"
"No, because that would be senseless."
"How, senseless?"
"A thing that has already happened can't be made different. Therefore to want to make it different is senseless."
Thorinn was not content with this, and they argued the point a little longer, but neither could convince the other; the box would admit only that human beings could think in a way which was senseless if it pleased them, but that boxes could not.
"If I told you to think in what you call a senseless way, could you do it?"
"Yes, but then my thinking would not be good, and that would be bad for you."
"What about my thinking? Do you mean you think better than I do?"
"Yes."
Thorinn absorbed this in silence. "Box," he said presently, "you told me there were people at the bottom of the Underworld. Did you mean they are people like me, or gods and demons?"
"What are gods and demons?"
"Gods are—they are like men sometimes but they can take other shapes and you can't kill them. And demons the same but not as powerful."
"There are some people like you and some gods and demons at the bottom of the Underworld."
"Suppose I went there—could I steal some of their magic?"
"What is it to steal?"
"To take something that belongs to someone else."
"You could steal some things, and they would give you some things." Thorinn was silent awhile. "The engines you talked about—would they take me there and not harm me?"
"Yes, Thorinn."
"And then would they take me back to the Midworld?"
"Yes, Thorinn."
"Could one of them come here?"
"Yes, if you call it." The crystal lighted, and Thorinn saw a tiny picture of himself bending over one of the rings in the tunnel, pressing it down. The ring sank into the floor. The box went dark.
"If I do that, the engine will come?"
"Yes."
"But why didn't you ever say so before?"
"You didn't ask."
Thorinn opened his mouth and shut it again. After a moment he said carefully, "If you had told me about the engine before, it would have helped me. Therefore by not telling you harmed me, do you see?"
"Yes, Thorinn."
"Well, then, after this you are not to harm me in that way any more. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Thorinn."
He was about to turn away when the crystal lighted; in it he saw a drop of water hanging from the end of a tube. It dropped, and yet remained in the middle of the crystal, and then grew larger as if he were moving closer to it. "In a drop of water there are many invisible things," said the box. The drop had swelled now to fill the crystal, and Thorinn saw that there were tiny swimmers in it, some with many legs, some with none, but all transparent as ice. "These creatures are too small to be seen with the eye; yet inside them are other things smaller still." In the crystal, one of the swimming things had grown huge, and inside it Thorinn could see a pulsing swarm of other creatures. He was interested, but after a few moments he began to grow impatient. The box went on showing him smaller and smaller things, until it got to a cluster of lights turning slowly against a dark background.
"Box, why are you showing me all this?"
"Because it is harmful to you not to know it." In the crystal, one of the lights had grown big, and now it separated into a central light and an outer shell. "All things are made up of these small pieces," said the box.
"That may be," said Thorinn, "but I don't see what it has to do with making the engine come."
"It has nothing to do with it, except that the engine also is made of these small pieces."