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and slow fires began to smolder behind bedroom walls. And northwest of
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nger.txt the city, a great automatic freight transport subtly altered its
blind, obedient course through the skies, so aiming itself toward a living
area in a small sub-
MX KNOWS BEST 123
urb called Kingsdale. Its speed when it hit would be upwards of eight hundred
miles an hour.
And under the light, the first five cards lay to-
gether on the table m a little heap.
Morg, James Alien. CANCELLED
Bolver, Gait Winton Harvey. CANCELLED
Aneurme, Jasper Renee. CANCELLED
Aneurine, Leia Mane. CANCELLED
Campanelh. Frank Thomas. CANCELLED
The Quarry f^TJe went in under here," said the older of the
JL JLtwo boys. "I saw him."
"He couldn't get under a rock like that, Jix," the other said. "He's too big."
"But he's awful skinny," said Jix. "Raby, you go around the other side and
I'll call him. If he comes out your way, you hold him until I get there." Raby
went off, and Jix bent down the opening. "Mr. John-
son!" he called. "Come on out, Mr. Johnson! It's only us."
Under the rock William Johnson twitched convul-
sively and squirmed deeper into the mold-smelling earth. He pressed his mouth
to it, its grittiness against his teeth, to hide the sound of his breathing.
Hol-
lowed and drawn out between earth and rock, Jix's voice reached down to him
again.
"Mr. Johnson, you come out now. If you don't come out, I'll have to come in
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and get you."
William did not move. Then, after a long, breath-
held moment, he heard the rattle and scrape of a body crawling toward him
under the rock. He made a high, squeaking sound in his throat and suddenly
threw himself away from the approaching sound, 124
THE QUARRY 125
scrabbling back and up through the loose earth to the far underside of the
rock. The light of day broke suddenly in on him, and he saw the far
overhanging edge of the rock. Then he was out from under it, into the grass
and the sun. He jerked to his feet, ready to run, and then two slim arms
caught and held him.
"Jix!" cried the voice of Raby, triumphant. "I got him! I got him here!"
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There was the sound from under the rock behind him and a second later Jix came
around to stand before Johnson. Dirt had refused to cling to Jix's shimmering
shorts and tunic. He stood in front of
William, his head about shoulder-high on the man, his face as beautiful as a
profile on a cameo, sad and concerned.
"Mr. Johnson." he said, "why do you run off like that?'Don't you know how easy
it is for you to get hurt? We've told you and told you, Mr. Johnson."
William did not answer. He whimpered and strug-
gled ineffectually in Raby's grasp.
"What'll we do, Jix?" asked Raby. "He's all ex-
cited, and he's going to hurt himself if he doesn't stop fighting."
"I think he wants to get back under the rock," said
Jix. "Let's take him away to where there's nothing for him to crawl under.
Then maybe he'll relax."
He led off. Raby followed, holding William's arms and pushing him along. As
they went, William's re-
sistance slowly melted. He ceased to fight against
Raby's urging and the tension went out of his arms.
After a little while the younger boy let him go and he trudged along with them
with his head bowed, his gray hair falling forward over his gaunt, youngish-
looking face and his arms in their iridescent sleeves
he was dressed in the same fashion as Jix and Raby
swinging limply on either side.
126 Gordon R. Dickson
They had been on the side of a stone-tumbled hill, just below its peak. This
peak they went up and over now, and down the far side onto a smooth falling-
away of land, so carpeted with fine grass that it seemed almost parklike. In
the nearer distance was a great, abrupt hole several acres in area, with a
glimpse of vertical sides of white rock. Beyond this were the hazy blue
shoulders of the foothills to the mountains, and here and there amongst them a
flash or hint of bright color that gave no clue to its shape or purpose in
being.
They went on until they reached the smooth lawn-
level grass beside the quarry; and there the two boys sat down, pulling
William down with them. They sat cross-legged like Indians in a rough circle.
William's eyes, for all that his body was loose again, were still abstract and
wild. They stared away at the foothills; and slowly two tears formed in them,
welled up and began to streak their way down his hollow cheeks.
"Home " he said suddenly, brokenly, "home "
Jix reached over and rhythmically, slowly, sooth-
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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Gordon%20%20Dickson%20-%20The%20Stra
nger.txt ingly, rubbed William's near shoulder.
"Now. Mr. Johnson," he said, "you know you can't go home. You can only go
forward in time, not back.
We told you and told you," he almost chanted the words, matching the rhythm of
his moving hand, "and told you you can't go back."
William put his head down and sobbed.
"Now. Mr. Johnson," said Jix, "it's really no use getting all unhappy. If
you'll just look up and around you, you'll see all sorts of things to feel
good about.
See how the foothills seem to go right up into the air like towers look, Mr.
Johnson." Slowly, as if unwill-
ingly, the man raised his head and turned it toward the foothills. "That
darker blue behind them, that haze, that's really the mountains, only the
humidi-
THE QUARRY 127
ty's up and we've got a temperature inversion back a ways. Isn't that
something to see, Mr. Johnson?"
William swallowed, looking off in the direction indicated.
"And look at this," broke in Raby. plucking a sin-
gle blade of grass and holding it up before his face, "look at this, Mr.
Johnson. See how fine and sharp the lines are. So beautiful. And all complete
and whole in one little piece. Doesn't that make you happy?"
Suddenly, William knocked the hand holding the blade of grass aside.
"No!" he cried. "No!"
"Please, Mr. Johnson," said Jix, now rubbing his hand soothingly up and down
the sharp adult spine.
"Try just a little bit to like things. You'll feel a lot better if you do.
It's nice here, but you won't let yourself like it."
"It's not!" William snapped his head back and forth, glaring first in one
young face and then in the other. "Not like home!"
"But you can't go home," said Raby. "And it really wasn't very nice back then,
Mr.'Johnson, you know that as well as we do, but you won't admit it. It was
dirty, and people were sick all the time, now wasn't it?"
"No!" exploded William. "It was fine, and plain and natural " He sobbed again,
suddenly. "There were people you could talk to. Plain people, who liked
ordinary things and lived in real houses- They ate real food real, cooked
food."
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