A Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak Page B

powers are puny and the touching of those two lives almost makes me wish I had no powers at all. It might be better not to know. The thing within the brain case fills me with sadness, and the rock, with fearfulness.”
    She shuddered. “That rock, laddie. It was old—so old, so hard, so cynical. Although cynical is not the word. Uncaring. Maybe that’s the word. A thing filled with repulsive memories so old they are petrified. As if they came from someplace else. No memories such as could be produced upon the earth. From somewhere outside. From a place of everlasting night, where no sun has ever shone and there is no such thing as gladness.”
    They came upon only one person in their travel—a filthy old man who lived in a cave he had dug out of a hillside facing the river, the cave shored up with timbers, to provide a noisome den in which he could sleep or take shelter from the weather. Two lackadaisical hounds barked at the intruders, with a singular lack of enthusiasm, until the old man shushed them. The dogs settled down beside him, resuming their sleep, their hides twitching to dislodge the flies that settled on them. The man grinned, showing rotted teeth.
    â€œWorthless,” he said, nodding at the hounds. “Most worthless dawgs I ever had. Once they were good cooners, but now they’ve taken to treeing demons. Never knew there were so many demons in these parts. Of course, it’s the demons’ fault; they pester them dawgs. But it makes a man mad to spend the night out chasing coon, then find a demon up the tree. ’Tain’t worth a man’s time to kill one of them. There ain’t nothing you can do with demons. They’re so tough you can’t cook them enough to get a tooth into them, and even if you could, the taste of them would turn your stomach over.”
    He continued, “You folks know, don’t you, there’s war parties on the prowl. Mostly they stay out on the prairie. No need of coming down here, because there’s water to be found out there. Some big chief has got a burr underneath his tail and he’s out to make some coup. Heading for the cities, more than likely. He’s like to get his clock cleaned. Them city tribes are mean, I tell you. All sorts of dirty tricks. No thing like fighting fair. Any way to win. And I s’pose that’s all right, although it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Them war parties have been going through right sprightly for the last week or so. Thinning out a little now. In another week or two, you’ll see them trailing back, rubbing out their tracks with their dragging rumps.”
    He spat into the dust and said, “What’s that you got there with you? I been studying it and it makes no sort of sense. It looks plumb like one of those robots some people talk about from a long time back. My grandma, I remember, she had stories about robots. Stories about a lot of things, clacking all the time, always telling stories. But you know, even when I was a tad, I knew that they were only stories. There never was a lot of them things that she talked about. There never was no robots. I asked her where she heard them stories and she said her grandma had told them to her and that her grandma probably had heard them from her grandma. It do beat hell how old folks keep them stories going. You’d think that in time they’d just die out. But not, I guess, when there are so many grandmas clacking all the time.”
    He continued, “Would you folks be of a mind to break bread with me? It’s almost that time now and I’d be proud to have you. I have a sack of fish and a haunch of coon that still is pretty fresh.…”
    â€œNo, thank you, sir,” said Cushing. “We’re in something of a hurry. We must be getting on.”
    Two days later, just before sunset, Cushing, traveling along the riverbank with Meg and Andy, glanced up at the bluff and saw Rollo tearing down it. He