The Werewolf Principle by Simak Clifford D

Author:Simak, Clifford D. [Simak, Clifford D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Philosophy, Classics
ISBN: 9781504013222
Goodreads: 25757528
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi Fantasy
Published: 1967-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

18

The footsteps sounded near, slipping and sliding on the shards of stone that lay outside the cave mouth. A beam of light speared into the cave.

Thinker pulled himself tighter and denser and reduced his field. The field might betray him, he knew, but he could not reduce it much further, even so, for it was a part of him and he could not exist without it. Especially not here, not at this moment, with the chill of the atmosphere sucking hungrily at his energy.

We must be ourselves, he thought. I, myself, and Quester quester’s self and Changer changer’s self. We cannot be more or less than we are and we cannot change except through the process of long, slow evolution, but in the millenia to come might it not be possible that the three would meld as one, that there would not be three separate minds, but one mind only? And that mind would have emotion, which I do not have, which I can recognize, but cannot understand, and the hard, cold, impersonal logic which is mine, but not my companions’, and the keen sharp sensitivity which is Quester’s, but is neither mine nor Changer’s. Blind chance alone that put the three of us together, that put our minds inside a mass of matter which can be made a body—what were the odds that such a happening could have come about? Blind chance or destiny? What was destiny? Was there destiny? Could there be some great, over-riding universal plan and was this happening which had put the three of them together one part of that plan, a necessary step before the plan could reach that remote conclusion toward which it always moved?

The human was crawling closer, the loose rock sliding underneath his feet, his hands clawing at the ground to hold himself against the downhill pull of gravity, the lighted flashlight in one fist bobbing and bouncing so that it threw an erratic arc of light.

He got one elbow over the lip of the cave and hoisted himself upward so that his head was level with the opening.

He gasped and yelled.

“Hey, Bob, this cave has a funny smell. There’s been something in here. Just a while ago.”

Thinker expanded his field, pushing it outward violently. It hit the man like a plunging fist. It knocked his elbow loose from the lip of rock and hurled him outward and away. He twisted and plunged downward. He screamed once, a shriek of terror pushed out of his lungs. Then his body thumped and slid. Thinker could sense its sliding, taking with it rocks that bounced and clicked, trash wood that slithered and rattled. The slithering and the clicking stopped and from the slope below came the sound of splashing.

Thrashing bodies went plunging down the slope, lights bobbing back and forth, sweeping across brush and shiny tree trunks.

Voices cried out:

“Bob, something happened to Harry!”

“Yeah, I heard him yell.”

“He’s down there in the creek. I heard him hit the water.”

The plunging bodies kept on going past, going down the hill in braking rushes.

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