Eye of Cat Part 2

"I see nothing else," he said.

"You have been gone for many years. Have you had an Enemyway?"

"No."

"Perhaps you should."

"Perhaps I will. You know a good Enemyway singer?"

"I am a singer."

"Perhaps I will see you again on this before long."

"I have heard that Star Tracker was a singer. Long ago."

"Yes."

"When you come by again we will talk more of these things."

"Yes."

The man looked back once more, along the trail.

"In the meantime," he said, follow a twisted path.- "I will do that."

Later, as he pa.s.sed along the streaky blue shale and frozen crimson clay of a dry riverbed, naked cottonwoods flanking it like fracture lines against the cold blue of the sky, he thought of the old mas's words and the things of which they reminded him - of the sky creatures and water crea- tures, of the beings of cloud, mist, rain, pollen and corn which had figured so prominently in his childhood imagina- tion - here in the season when the snakes and the thunder still slept.

It had been a long while since he had considered his problems in the old terms. A chindi... Real or of the mind - what difference? Something malicious at his back.

Yes, another way of looking at things...

The day wore on to noon and past it before the b.u.t.te near his home came into view, a high-standing wind-sculpture reminiscent of something he had once seen in a seaweed- fringed valley beneath the waters of an alien ocean. He halted again at this point to eat the rest of his rations. Nature had long moods in the Southwest, he reflected, as he looked off in that direction. While it was true that the land was little altered, there had been some change between the then and the now. He could just make out stands of blue spruce near the monolith's base, a tree he had not seen in this area a century and a half ago. But then the climate had also altered somewhat during the span, the winters becoming a trifle more clement, coming later, ending a bit sooner than they once had.

He filled his pipe and lit it. Shadows like mult.i.tudes of fingers stretched slowly out of the west. To run all this way, then sit and rest when the end was in sight-it seemed the thing to do. Was he afraid? he wondered. Afraid of that d.a.m.ned call? Maybe that was it. Or did he want a last slow- moving view of this piece of his life before something happened to change it? There had been a song.... He could not remember it.

When he felt that the time was proper he rose and began walking through the coolness and shadow toward the large, distant, six-sided house with the door to the east, his hogan that was not exactly a hogan.

The sky was darker by the time he reached the neighbor- hood of his dwelling, and the trees curtained off even more of the light, casting an as yet starless evening over the raised log-and-stucco structure. He wandered about it for several minutes before approaching from the east and mounting the rough-cut decking with which he had surrounded the place.

He entered then and turned on the light. He had his own power supply, rooftop and below-ground.

Moving to the central fogon, he arranged some kindling and struck it to fire. He disrobed then, tossing his Levi's and red-and-white flannel shirt into a hamper along with the rest of his clothing. Crossing to a tall, narrow stall, he entered and set the timer for a three-minute UHF shower. Water was not a thing to be expended lightly in this region. When he emerged, he drew on a buckskin shirt, khaki bush pants and a pair of soft moccasins.

Activating his news recorder and display screen and ad- justing it to some of his general interests, he pa.s.sed to the small, open kitchen area to the right and prepared a meal, amid hanging ristras of chilis and onions.

He ate in a low, fur-covered chair and the walls about him were hung with rugs from Two Gray Hills and Ganado, interspersed with framed photographs of alien landscapes. A rack of weapons hung on the far wall; a meter-square metal platform enclosed by shining vertical bars of varying heights stood nearby, a large console with a display screen to its right. Its message light was still blinking.

When he finished eating, he toyed with his belt unit and put it aside. He went to the kitchen and got a beer.

DISK 1.

CHILEAN QUAKES ABORTED.

TAXTONIES ARRESTED.

and three demonstrators were apprehended after report- edly setting fire to the car belonging to the official responsi- ble for the ruling

PETROCEL DENIES PATENT INFRINGEMENT CLAIMS.

"GREW OUR OWN," DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH INSISTS.

A MILD SPRING FOR MUCH OF THE NATION.

EARLY FLOOD WATCHES IN MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

CHIMPANZEE COMPLAINS OF ART THEFT.

References to a drugged banana figured prominently in the bizarre statement taken today by Los Angeles detectives

KILLED THEM BECAUSE THEY WERE THERE,.

MOTHER OF THREE EXPLAINS.

It's been a long time since you left me.

Don't know what I'm gonna do.

I look up at the sky and wonder - Earthlight always makes me think of you.

COLUMBIA STUDENTS SKYDIVE FROM ORBIT.

TO SET NEW RECORD.

"Naturally the university is proud," Dean Schlobin re- marked, "but

STRAGEAN AMBa.s.sADOR CLOSETED WITH.

SECRETARY-GENERAL.

Stragean Amba.s.sador Daltmar Stango and Consul Orar Bogarthy continue a second day of talks with Secretary- General Walford. Speculation on a breakthrough in trade- agreement negotiations runs high, but so far the news com- munity

W. COAST DOLPHINS PRESS CLAIMS.

A-1 CANNING BELIEVED READY TO SETTLE.

BAKIN M BAWA PREDICTS END OF WORLD AGAIN.

I sip the beer and hear the music, Watch the ships as they arrive.

You packed your bag and went away, love I feel like H-E-L-L5.

CHURCH OF NATURAL LIFE RADICALS SUSPECTED.

IN SPERMOVA BANK BOMBING.

MAN SUES TO RECOVER FORMER PERSONALITY.

Relying on a district court order, Menninger officials performed

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA COMPUTER CHARGED WITH.

FELONY IN BONDS MANIPULATION SCANDAL.

Oh, I'm sittin' here and hurtin'

In this slowly turnin' dive.

If you ever want to reach me Just dial H-E-L-L5.

hate somewhere he still exists and there is no force great enough to keep me from him forever it has taken a long while to learn the ways but soon i will be ready i am ready eight days and had i known then what i know now he would be gone i would be gone burned? burned they say? nevermore amid the slagheaps to chase the crawling tubes and crunch them for their juiciness? but this air too i breathe and only the jagged and the straight lightnings hold me here i know the way beyond them now and the trees outside the walls visions of cities the lesser ones bear i know

the ways i know the forms wait the lesser ones'

twisted minds tell me what i need one will come one day who will know of the one who is not like the others who still exists i will leave for that somewhere he exists eight days i died a little he will die wholly nothing can keep me from him forever i will talk first now i know of it words like the crawling things crunch them taste their juiciness strike now and see the lesser ones draw back now i know them i will use them words to tell him the why of it now i will be a sphere and roll about ha! lesser ones! p hate i will talk it that when tell it then eight days burned hate

BACK WHEN NAYENEZGANI.

and his brother were in the process of disposing of the monsters the People had found in the new world, there were some - such as the Endless Serpent - who were, for various reasons, spared. Yet even these were tamed to a degree in their acknowledgement as necessary evils. The world was indeed becoming a safer place, though some few yet re- mained.

There was, for instance, Tse'Naga'Hai, the Traveling Rock, which rolled after its victims to crush and devour them. Nayenezgani traveled on a rainbow and the crooked lightning in search of it. His brother having counseled him to take the magic knives with him, he had all eight of them about his person.

When he came to the place called Betchil gai, he took out his two black knives, crossed them and planted them. Be- yond, he planted the two blue knives, crosswise. Farther along, he crossed the two yellow knives and planted them.

Farther yet, he planted the two knives with the serrated edges, also crosswise.

He moved then in sight of the giant Rock.

"What are you waiting for, Tse'Naga'Hai?" he asked it.

"Do you not pursue my kind?"

With a crunching, grinding noise, the mossless boulder he had just addressed stirred. It moved slowly in his direction, gaining momentum noticeably after but a few moments. It almost took him by surprise with the speed with which it approached.

But he whirled and raced away. It came on rapidly at his .

back, gaining upon him.

When he reached the place of the serrated knives, Nay- enezgani leaped over them. The Rock rolled across them and a big piece broke away.