Heirs of the Perisphere

Things had not been going well at the factory for the past 1500 years or so.

A rare thunderstorm, a soaking rain and a freak lightning bolt changed all that.

When the lightning hit, an emergency generator went to work as it had been built to do a millennium and a half before. It cranked up and ran the assembly line a few minutes before freezing up and shedding its brushes and armatures in a fine spray. It had run just long enough to finish up some work in the custom-design section.

The factory completed, hastily certified and wrongly programmed the three products that had been on the assembly line 15 centuries before. Then the place went dark again.

•

"Gawrsh," said one of them, "it shore is dark in here!"

"Well, huh-huh, we can always use the infrared they gave us."

"Wak, wak, wak!" said the third. "What's the big idea?"

•

The custom-order jobs were animato-mechanical simulacra. They were designed to speak and act like the famous cartoon creations of a multimillionaire artist who late in life, in the latter half of the 20th Century, had opened a series of gigantic amusement parks.

Once, these giant theme parks had employed persons in costumes to act as hosts. Then the corporation that had run things after the cartoonist's death had seen the wisdom of building robots.

The simulacra would be less expensive in the long run, would never be late for work, could be programmed to speak many languages and would never try to pick up the clean-cut boys and girls who visited the parks.

These three had been built to be host robots in the third and largest of the parks, the one separated by an ocean from the two others.

•

The tallest of them had started as a cartoon dog but had become upright and had acquired a set of baggy pants, balloon shoes, a sweat shirt, a black vest and white gloves. On his head was a miniature carpenter's hat; long ears hung from it. He had two prominent incisors in his muzzle. He stood almost two meters tall and answered to the name Guf.

The second, a little shorter, was a white duck with a bright-orange bill and feet and a blue-and-white sailor's tunic and cap. He had large eyes with little cuts out of the upper right corners of the pupils. He was naked from the waist down and was the only one of the three without gloves. He answered to the name Dun.

The third and smallest, just over a meter, was a rodent. He wore a red-bibbed play suit with two large gold buttons at the waistline. He was shirtless and had shoes like two pieces of bread dough. His tail was long and thin, like a whip. His bare arms, legs and chest were black, his face a pinkish-tan. His white gloves were especially prominent. His most striking feature was his ears, which rotated on a track, first one way, then the other, so that seen from any angle, they could look like featureless black circles.

His name was Mik. His eyes, like those of Guf, were large, and the pupils were big round dots. His nose ended in a perfect sphere of polished onyx.

•

"Well," said Mik, brushing dust from his body, "I guess we'd better, huh-huh, get to work."

"Uh-hyuk," said Guf. "Won't be many people at thuh Park in weather like thiyus."

"Oh, boy! Oh, boy!" quacked Dun. "Rain! Wak, wak, wak!" He ran out through a huge crack in the factory wall through which streamed rain and mist.

Mik and Guf came behind, FUF ambling with his hands in his pockets. Mik followed him, ranging in the ultraviolet and infrared, getting the feel of the landscape through the rain. "You'd have thought, huh-huh, they might have sent a truck over or something," he said. "I guess we'll have to walk."

"I didn't notice anyone at thuh facktry," said Guf. "Even if it was a day off, yuh'd think some of thuh workers would give unceasingly of their time, because, after all, thuh means jof produckshun must be kept in thuh hands of thuh workers, uh-hyuk!"

Guf's specialty was communicating with visitors for the large totalitarian countries to the west of the Park. He was especially well versed in dialectical materialism and correct Mao thought.

As abruptly as it had started, the storm ended. Great ragged gouts broke in the clouds revealing fast-moving cirrus, a bright-blue sky, the glow of a warming sun.

Mik looked around, consulting his programming. "That way, guys!" he said, unsure of himself. There were no familiar landmarks. All around them was rubble, and far away in the other direction was a sluggish ocean.

•

It was getting dark. The three sat on a pile of concrete.

"Looks like thuh Park is closed," said Guf.

Mik sat with his hands under his chin. "This just isn't right, guys," he said. "We were supposed to report to the programming hut to get our first day's instructions. Now we can't even find the Park!"

"Well, uh-hyuk," said Guf, "I seem tuh remember we could get aholt of thuh satellite in a 'mergency."

"Sure!" said Mik, jumping to his feet and pounding his fist into his glove. "That's it! Let's see, what frequency was that?"

"Six point five oh four," said Dun. He looked eastward. "Maybe I'll go to the ocean."

"Better stay here whiles we find somethin' out," said Guf.

"Well, make it snappy," said Dun.

Mik tuned in the frequency and broadcast the Park's call letters.

•

"Zzzzzz. What? Hoosat?"

"Uh, this is Mik, a simulacrum at the Park. We're trying to get hold of one of the other Parks for, huh-huh, instructions."

"In what language do you wish to communicate?" asked the satellite.

"Oh, sorry, huh-huh. We speak Japanese to each other, but we'll switch over to Artran if that's easier for you." Guf and Dun turned in also.

"It's been a very long while since anyone spoke with me from down there." The satellite's well-modulated voice snapped and popped. "If you must know," Hoosat continued, "it's been a while since anyone contacted me from anywhere. I can't say much for the stability of my orbit, either. Once, I was forty thousand kilometers up, very stable...."

"Could you put us through to one of the other Parks or maybe the studio itself, it you can do that? We'd, huh-huh, like to find out where to report for work."

"I'll attempt it," said Hoosat. There was a pause and some static. "Predictably, there's no answer at any of the locations."

"Where are thuh folks?" asked Guf.

"I don't know. We satellites and monitoring stations used to worry about that frequently. Something happened to them."

"What?" asked all three robots at once.

"Hard to comprehend," said Hoosat.

"Ten or fifteen centuries ago. Very noisy in all spectra, then silence. Most of the ground stations ceased functioning within a century of that."

Then there was a burst of fuzzy static.

"Hello? Hoosat?" asked the satellite. "It's been a long time since anyone...."

"It's still us!" said Mik. "The simulacra from the Park. We---

"Oh, that's right. What can I do for you?"

"Tell us where the people went."

"I have no idea."

"Well, where can we find out?" asked Mik.

"You might try the library."

"Where's that?"

"Let me focus in. I can give you the coordinates. Do you have standard navigational programming?"

"Boy, do we!" said Mik.

"Well, here's what you do...."

•

"I'm sure there used to be many books here," said Mik. "It all seems to have turned to powder, though, doesn't it?"

"Doggone wizoo-wazoo waste of time," said Dun. He sat on one of the piles of dirt in the large broken-down building of which only one massive wall still stood. The recent rain had turned the meter-deep powder on the floor into a papier-mâché sludge.

"I guess there's nothing to do but start looking," said Mik.

•

"Hey, Mik, looka this!" yelled Guf. He came running with a steel box. "I found this just over there."

The box was plain, unmarked. There was a heavy lock to which Mik applied various pressures.

"It's, huh-huh, stuck."

"Gimme that!"

"Gimme that!" yelled Dun. He (continued on page 152)Heirs of the Perisphere(continued from page 90) grabbed it. Soon he was muttering under his beak. "Doggone razzle-frazzin' dad-gum thing!" He pulled and pushed, his face and bill turning redder and redder. He gripped the box with both his feet and hands. "Doggone dad-gum!" he yelled.

Suddenly he grew teeth, his brow slammed down, his shoulders tensed and he went into a blurred fury of movement. "Wak, wak, wak, wak, wak!" he screamed.

The box broke open and flew into three parts. So did the book inside.

Dun was still tearing in his fury.

"Wait! Look out, Dun!" yelled Mik.

"Wait!"

"Gawrsh!" said Guf, running after the pages blowing in the breeze. "Help me, Mik!"

Dun stood atop the rubble, parts of the box and the book gripped in each hand. He simulated hard breathing, the redness draining from his face.

"It's open," he said quietly.

•

"Well, from what we've got left," said Mik, "this is called The Book of the Time Capsule, and it says they buried a cylinder a very, very long time ago. They printed up five thousand copies of this book and sent it to places all around the world where they thought it would be safe. They printed this book on acid-free paper and stuff like that so it wouldn't fall apart.

"And they thought what they put in the time capsule itself could explain to later generations what people were like in their day. So I figure maybe it could explain something to us, too."

"Well, let's go," said Dun.

"Well, huh-huh," said Mik. "I checked with Hoosat and gave him the coordinates and, huh-huh, it's quite a little ways away."

"How far?" asked Dun, his brow beetling.

"Oh, huh-huh, about eighteen thousand kilometers. Just about halfway around the world."

"Oh, my aching feet!" said Dun.

"That's not literally true," said Guf. He turned to Mik. "Yuh think we should go that far?"

"Well, I'm not sure what we'll find. Those pages were lost when Dun opened the box. . . ."

"I'm sorry," said Dun in a contrite, small voice.

"But the people of that time were sure that everything could be explained by what was in the capsule."

"And yuh think it's still there?" asked Guf.

Mik put a determined look on his face. "I figure the only thing for us to do is set our caps, start out and whistle a little tune," he said.

"Yuh don't have a cap, Mik," said Guf.

"Well, I can still whistle! Let's go, fellas," he said. "It's this way!"

He puckered his lips and blew a work song. Dun quacked a tune about boats and water. Guf hummed The East Is Red.

They set off in this way across what had been the bottom of the Sea of Japan.

•

They were having troubles. Three weeks before, they had come to the end of all the songs with which each had been programmed and had had to start repeating themselves.

Their lubricants were beginning to fail; their hastily wired circuitry was overworked. Guf had a troublesome extensor in his ankle that sometimes hung up. But he went along cheerfully, sometimes hopping and quickstepping to catch up with the others when the foot refused to flex.

The major problem was the cold. There was a vast difference between the climate they had been built for and the one they found themselves in. The landscape was rocky and empty, the wind blew fiercely and it had begun to snow.

The terrain was difficult and the maps Hoosat had given them were outdated. Something drastic had changed the course of rivers, the land, the shore line of the ocean itself. They detoured frequently.

The cold worked hardest on Dun. He was poorly insulated, and they had to slow their pace to his. He would do anything to avoid a snowdrift and so expended even more energy.

They stopped in the middle of a raging blizzard.

"Uh, Mik?" said Guf. "I don't think Dun can go much farther in this weather. An' my leg is givin' me lots o' problems. Yuh think maybe we could find someplace to hole up fer a spell?"

Mik looked at the bleakness and the whipping snow around them. "I guess you're right. Warmer weather would do us all some good. We'd conserve both heat and energy. Let's find a good place."

"Hey, Dun," said Guf. "Let's find a hideyhole!"

"Oh, goody gumdrops!" said Dun. "I'm so cold."

They eventually found a deep rock shelter with a low fault crevice at the back. Mik had them gather up what sparse vegetation there was and take it into the shelter. Mik talked to HOOSAT, then wriggled his way through the brush they had piled to the other two.

Inside, they could barely hear the wind and snow. It was only slightly warmer than outside, but it felt wonderful and safe.

"I told Hoosat to wake us up when it got warmer," said Mik. "Then we'll get on to that time capsule and find out all about people."

"G'night, Mik," said Guf.

"Good night, Dun," said Mik.

"Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite. Wak, wak, wak," said Dun.

They shut themselves off.

•

Mik woke up. It was dark in the rock shelter, but it was also much warmer.

The brush was all crumbled away. A meter of rock and dust covered the cave floor, the dust stirring in the warm wind.

"Hey, fellas!" said Mik. "Hey, wake up. Spring is here!"

They stirred themselves.

"Let's go thank Hoosat and get our bearings and be on our way," said Mik.

They stepped outside.

The stars were in the wrong places.

"Uh-oh!" said Guf.

"Would you look at that?" said Dun.

"I think we overslept," said Mik. "Let's see what Hoosat has to say."

"Huh? Hoosat?"

"Hello. This is Dun and Mik and Guf."

Hoosat's voice now sounded like a badger whistling through its teeth.

"Glad to see ya up," said the satellite.

"We asked you to wake us up as soon as it got warmer!" said Mik.

"It just got warmer."

"It did?" asked Guf.

"Shoulda seen it," said Hoosat. "Ice everywhere. Big ol' glaciers. You still aimin' to dig up that capsule thing?"

"Yes," said Mik, "we are."

"Well, you got an easy trip from now on. No more mountains in the way."

"What about people?" asked Mik.

"I ain't heard from any. My friend the military satellite said he thought he saw some fires, little teeny ones, but his eyes weren't what they used to be. He's gone now, too."

"Thuh fires mighta been built by people?" asked Guf.

"It's sorta likely. Weather ain't been much for lightning," said Hoosat. "Hey, bub, you still got all those coordinates I give you?"

"I think so," said Mik.

"Well, I better give you new ones off these new constellations. Hold still; my aim ain't so good anymore." He dumped a bunch of numbers into Mik's head. "I won't be talkin' to you much longer."

"Why not?" they all asked.

"Well, you know . . . my orbit. I feel better now than I have in centuries. Real spry. Must be the ionization. Started a couple o' weeks ago. Sure has been nice talkin' to you young fellers after so long a time. Sure am glad I remembered to wake (continued on page 180)Heirs of the Perisphere(continued from page 152) you up. I wish y'all a lotta luck. Boy, this air has a punch like a mule. Be careful. Goodbye."

A cross the unfamiliar stars overhead, a point of light blazed, streaked in a long arc, then died on the night.

"Well," said Mik, "we're on our own."

"Gawrsh, I feel all sad," said Guf.

•

The trip was uneventful for the next few months. They walked across the long land bridge down a valley between stumps of mountains with the white teeth of glaciers still on them. They crossed a low range and entered flat land, without topsoil, from which dry river courses ran to the south. Then there was a land where things were flowering after the long winter. New streams sprang up.

They saw fire once and detoured but found only a burnt patch of forest. Once, way off in the distance, they saw a speck of light but didn't go to investigate, thinking it only another prairie fire.

Within 200 kilometers of their goal, the land changed again to a flat, sandy waste littered with huge rocks. Little vegetation grew. There were few insects and animals, mostly lizards, which Dun chased every chance he got. The warmth seemed to be doing him good.

Guf's leg worsened. The foot first stuck, then flopped and windmilled. Guf kept humming songs and raggedly marching along with the other two.

Dun stopped, turned and watched behind them.

"What's wrong?" asked Mik.

"I got a feeling we're being followed," said Dun, squatting down behind a rock.

All three watched for a few minutes, ranging up and down the spectrum.

"Dun, I think mebbe yer seein' things, uh-hyuk," said Guf.

They continued on, Dun stopping occasionally to watch their trail.

When they passed one of the last trees, Mik had them all take limbs from it. "Might come in handy for pushing and digging," he said.

•

They stood on a plain of sand and rough dirt. There were huge piles of rubble all around. Far off was another ocean and to the north, a long, curving patch of green.

"We'll go to the ocean, Dun," said Mik, "after we get through here."

He was walking around in a smaller and smaller circle. Then he stopped. "Well, huh-huh, here we are," he said. "Latitude forty degrees, forty-four minutes, thirty-four seconds, point oh eight nine North. Longitude seventy-three degrees, fifty minutes, forty-three seconds, point eight four two West, by the way they used to figure it. The capsule is straight down, twenty-eight meters below the original surface. We've got a long way to go, because there's no telling how much soil has drifted over that. It's in a concrete tube, and we'll have to dig to the very bottom to get at the capsule. Let's get working."

It was early morning when they started. Just after noon, they found the top of the tube with its bronze tablet.

"Here's where the hard work starts," said Mik.

•

It took almost a week of continuous effort. Slowly the tube was exposed as the hole around it grew larger. Since Guf could work better standing still, they had him dig all the time, while Dun and Mik both dug and pushed rock and dirt clear of the crater.

They found some long, flat iron rods part way down and threw away the worn tree limbs and used the metal to better effect.

On one of his trips to push dirt out of the hole, Dun came back looking puzzled.

"I'm sure I saw something moving out there," he said. "When I looked, it went away."

"There yuh go again," said Guf. "Here, Dun, help me lift this rock."

It was hard work. Their motors were taxed. It rained once, and for a while there was a dust storm.

•

"Thuh way I see it," said Guf, looking at their handiwork, "is that yuh treat it like a great ol' big tree made o' rock."

They stood at the bottom of a vast crater. Up from its center stood the concrete tube.

"We've reached twenty-six meters," said Mik. "The capsule itself should be in the last two point three eight one six meters. So we should chop it off," he quickly calculated, "about here!" He drew a line all around the tube with a piece of chalky rock.

They began to smash at the concrete with rocks and pieces of iron and steel.

•

"Timber!" yelled Dun.

The column above the line lurched and with a crash shattered itself against the side of the crater wall.

"Oh, boy! Oh, boy!"

"Come help me, Guf," said Mik.

Inside the jagged top of the remaining shaft, an eyebolt stood out of the core.

They climbed up on the edge, reached in and raised the gleaming Cupraloy time capsule from its resting place.

On its side was a message to the finders, and just below the eyebolt at the top was a line and the words Cut Here.

"Well," said Mik, shaking Guf's and Dun's hands, "we did it, by gum!"

He looked at it a moment.

"How're we gonna open it?" asked Guf. "That metal shore looks tough!"

"I think maybe we can abrade it around the cutting line with sandstone and, well ... go get me a real big, sharp piece of iron, Dun."

When Dun brought it, Mik handed the iron to Guf and put his long tail over a big rock.

"Go ahead, Guf," he said. "Won't hurt me a bit."

Guf slammed the piece of iron down.

"Uh-hyuk!" he said. "Clean as a whistle!"

Mik took his severed tail, sat down cross-legged near the eyebolt, poured sand on the cutting line and began to rub it across the line with his tail.

It took a full day, turning the capsule every few hours.

They pulled off the eyebolt end. A dusty, waxy mess was revealed.

"That'll be what's left of the waterproof mastic," said Mik. "Help me, you two." They lifted the capsule. "Twist!" he said.

The metal groaned. "Now, pull!"

A long, thin inner core, two meters by a third of a meter, slid out.

"OK," said Mik, putting down the capsule shell and wiping away mastic. "This inner shell is threaded in two parts. Turn that way; I'll turn this."

They did. Inside was a shiny sealed glass tube through which they could dimly see shapes and colors.

"Wow!" said Guf. "Looka that!"

"Oh, boy! Oh, boy!" said Dun.

"That's Pyrex," said Mik. "When we break that, we'll be through."

"I'll do it," said Dun, picking up a rock.

"Careful!" said Guf.

The rock shattered the glass. There was a loud noise as the partial vacuum disappeared.

"Oh, boy!" said Dun.

"Let's do this carefully," said Mik. "It's all supposed to be in some kind of order."

The first things they found were the messages from four famous humans and another whole copy of The Book of the Time Capsule. Guf picked that up.

There was another book, with a black cover and a gold cross on it. Then they came to a section marked Articles of common use. The first small packet was labeled Contributing to Convenience, Comfort, Health and Safety. Mik opened it.

Inside were an alarm clock, bifocals, a camera, a pencil, a nail file, a padlock and keys, a toothbrush, tooth powder, a safety pin, a knife, a fork and a slide rule.

The next packet was labeled Pertaining to the Grooming and Vanity of Women. Inside were an Elizabeth Arden Cyclamen Color Harmony Box, a rhinestone clip and a woman's hat, style of autumn 1938, designed by Lilly Daché.

"Golly-wow!" said Dun and put the hat on over his.

The next packet was marked for the pleasure, use and education of children.

First out was a small spring-driven toy car, then a small doll and a set of alphabet blocks. Then Mik reached in and pulled out a small cup.

He stared at it a long time. On the side of the cup was a decal with the name of the man who had created them and a picture of Mik, waving his hand in greeting.

"Gawrsh, Mik," said Guf, "it's you!"

A tossed rock threw up a shower of dirt next to his foot.

They all looked up.

Around the crater edge stood men, women and children dressed in ragged skins. They had sharp sticks, rocks and ugly clubs.

"Oh, boy," said Dun. "People!" He started toward them.

"Hello!" he said. "We've been trying to find you for a long time. Do you know the way to the Park? We want to learn all about you."

He was speaking to them in Japanese.

The mob hefted its weapons. Dun switched to another language.

"I said, we come in peace. Do you know the way to the Park?" he asked in Swedish.

They started down the crater, rocks flying before them.

"What's the matter with you?" yelled Dun. "Wak, wak, wak!" He raised his fists.

"Wait!" said Mik in English. "We're friends!"

Some of the crowd veered off toward him.

"Uh-oh!" said Guf. He took off, clanking up the most sparsely defended side of the depression.

Then the ragged people yelled and charged.

They got the duck first.

He stood, fists out, jumping up and down on one foot, hopping mad. Several grabbed him, one by the beak. They smashed at him with clubs, pounded him with rocks. He injured three of them seriously before they smashed him into a white-blue-and-orange pile.

"Couldn't we, huh-huh, talk this over?" asked Mik. They stuck a sharp stick into his ear mechanism, jamming it. One of his gloved hands was mashed. He fought back with the other and kicked his feet. He hurt them, but he was small. A boulder trapped his legs; then they danced on him.

Guf made it out of the crater. He had picked the side with the most kids and they drew back, thinking he was attacking them. When they saw he was trying to escape, they gave gleeful chase, bouncing sticks and rocks off his hobbling form.

"Whoa!" he yelled as more people ran to intercept him and he skidded to a stop. He ran up a long, slanting pile of rubble. More humans poured out of the crater to get him.

He reached the end of the long, high mound above the crater rim. His attackers paused, throwing sticks and rocks, yelling at him.

"Halp!" Guf yelled. "Haaaaaaaaaalp!"

An arrow sailed into the chest of his nearest attacker.

Guf turned. Other humans, dressed in cloth, stood in a line around the far side of the crater. They had bows and arrows, metal-tipped spears and carried iron knives in their belts.

As Guf watched, the archers sent another flight of arrows into the people who had attacked the robots.

The skin-dressed band of humans screamed and fled up out of the crater, down from the mounds, leaving their wounded and the scattered contents of the time capsule behind them.

•

It took a while, but soon the human in command of the metal-using people and Guf made themselves understood to each other. The language was a very changed English/Spanish mixture.

"We're sorry we didn't know you were here sooner," the man said to Guf. "We rarely get out this far, and we heard you were here only this morning. Those others," he said with a grimace, "who followed you here from the Wastes won't bother you anymore."

He pointed to the patch of green to the north. "Our lands and village are there. We found this place twenty years ago. It's a good land, but others raid it as often as they can."

Guf looked down into the crater with its toppled column and debris. Cigarettes and tobacco drifted from the glass cylinder. The microfilm, with all its books and knowledge, was tangled all over the rocks. Samples of aluminum, hypernic and ferrovanadium gleamed in the dust. Razor blades, an airplane gear and glass wool were strewn up the sides of the slope.

The message from Grover Whalen opening the World's Fair and knowledge of how to build the microfilm reader were lost. The newsreel, with its pictures of Howard Hughes, Jesse Owens and Babe Ruth, bombings in China and a Miami Beach fashion show, was ripped and torn. The golf ball was in the hands of one of the fleeing children. Poker chips lay side by side with tungsten wire, combs, lipstick. Guf tried to guess what some of the items were.

"They destroyed one of your party," said the commander. "I think the other one is still alive."

"I'll tend to 'em," said Guf.

"We'll take you back to our village," said the man. "There are lots of things we'd like to know about you."

"That goes double fer us," said Guf. "Those other folks pretty much tore up what we came to find."

Guf picked up the small cup from the ground. He walked to where they had Mik propped up against a rock.

"Hello, Guf," he said. "Huh-huh, I'm not in such good shape." His glove hung uselessly on his left arm. His ears were bent and his nose was chipped. He gave off a noisy whir when he moved.

"Oh, hyuk-hyuk," said Guf. "We'll go back with these nice people, and yuh'll rest up and be right as rain, I guarantee."

"Dun didn't make it, did he, Guf?"

Guf was quiet a moment. "Nope, Mik, he didn't. I'm shore sorry it turned out this way. I'm gonna miss thuh ol' hothead."

"Me, too," said Mik. "Are we gonna take him with us?"

"Shore thing," said Guf. He waved to the nearby men.

•

The town was in a green valley watered by two streams full of fish. There were small fields of beans, tomatoes and corn in town, and cattle and sheep grazed on the hillsides, watched over by guards. There were a coppersmith's shop, a council hut and many houses of wood and stone.

Guf was walking up the hill to the house Mik was in.

They had been there a little more than two weeks, talking with the people of the village, telling them what they knew. Guf usually played with the children when he and Mik didn't have to be around the grown folks. But from the day after they had buried Dun up on the hill, Mik had been getting worse. His legs had quit altogether, and he could now see only in the infrared.

"Hello, Guf," said Mik.

"How yuh doin', pardner?"

"Not so good," said Mik. "Are they making any progress on the flume?"

Two days before, Mik had told them how to get water more efficiently from one of the streams up to the middle of the village.

"We've almost got it now," said Guf. "I'm sure they'll be up and thank yuh when they're finished."

"They don't need to do that," said Mik.

"I know, but these are real nice folks, Mik. And they've had it pretty bad, what with one thing and another. They like talkin' to yuh."

Guf noticed that some of the women and children sat outside the hut, waiting to see Mik.

"I won't stay very long," said Guf. "I gotta get back and organize the cadres into work teams and instructional teams and so forth, like they asked me to help with."

"Sure thing, Guf," said Mik. "I---"

There was a great whirring noise from Mik and the smell of burning silicon.

Guf looked away. "They just don't have thuh stuff here," he said, "that I could use to fix yuh. Maybe I could find somethin' at thuh crater. . . ."

"Don't bother," said Mik. "I doubt. . . ."

Guf looked at the village. "Oh," he said, reaching into the bag someone had made him. "I been meaning to give yuh this fer more'n a week and keep fergettin'." He handed Mik the cup from the time capsule with his picture on the side.

"I've been thinking about this since we found it," said Mik. He turned it in his good hand, barely able to see its outline. "I wonder what else we lost at the crater."

"Lots o' stuff," said Guf, "but we got to keep this."

"This was supposed to last a long time," said Mik, "and tell people what other people were like for future ages? Then the people who put this there must really have liked the man who thought us up!"

"That's fer shore," said Guf.

"And me, too, I wonder?"

"You probably most of all," said Guf.

Mik smiled. The smile froze. His eyes went white and a thin line of condensation rose up from the ear tracks. The hand gripped the cup tightly.

Outside, the people began to sing a real sad song.

•

It was a bright, sunny morning. Guf put flowers on Mik's and Dun's graves at the top of the hill. He patted the earth, stood up uncertainly.

He had replaced his frozen foot with a wood-wheeled cart with which he could skate along almost as easily as walking.

He stood up and thought of Mik. He sat his carpenter's cap forward on his head and whistled a little tune.

He picked up his wooden toolbox and started off down the hill to build the kids a swing set.

"The landscape was rocky and empty, the wind blew fiercely and it had begun to snow."

"'I got a feeling we're being followed,' said Dun, squatting down behind a rock."