*This is the first of many statements which, wrongly interpreted, have caused some readers to believe that Sutton meant to say that life, regardless of its intelligence or moral precepts, is the beneficiary of destiny. His first line should refute this entire line of reasoning, for Sutton used the pronoun 'we' and all students of semantics are agreed that it is a common idiom for any genus, when speaking of itself, to use such a personal pronoun. Had Sutton meant all life, he would have written 'all life' But by using the personal pronoun, he undeniably was referring to his own genus, the human race, and the human race alone. He apparently erroneously believed, a not uncommon belief of the day, that the Earth had been the first planet of the galaxy to know the quickening of life. There is no doubt that, in part, Sutton's revelations of his great discovery of destiny have been tampered with. Assiduous research and study, however, have resulted in determining beyond reasonable doubt which portions are genuine and which are not. Those parts which patently have been altered will be noted and the reasons for this belief will be carefully and frankly pointed out.
Sutton riffled through the pages quickly. More than half the text was taken up by the fine-print footnotes. Some of the pages had two or three lines of actual text and the rest was filled with lengthy explanation and refutation.
He slapped the book shut, held it between his flattened palms.
I tried so hard, he thought. I repeated and reiterated and underscored. Not human life alone, but all life. Everything that was aware.
And yet they twist my words.
They fight a war so that my words shall not be the words I wrote, so that the things I meant to say shall be misinterpreted. They scheme and fight and murder so that the great cloak of destiny shall rest on one race alone… so that the most vicious race of animals ever spawned shall steal the thing that was meant not for them alone, but for every living thing.
And somehow I must stop it. Somehow it must be stopped. Somehow my words must stand, so that all may read and know without the smoke screen of petty theorizing and learned interpretation and weasel logic.
For it is so simple. Such a simple thing. All life has destiny, not human life alone.
There is one destiny creature for every other living thing. For every living thing and then to spare. They wait for life to happen and each time it occurs one of them is there and stays there until that particular life is ended. How, I do not know, nor why. I do not know if the actual Johnny is lodged within my mind and being or if he merely keeps in contact with me from Cygni. But I know that he is with me. I know that he will stay.
And yet the Revisionists will twist my words and discredit me. They will change my book and dig up old scandals about the Suttons so that the mistakes of my forebears, magnified many times, will tend to smear my name.
They sent back a man who talked to John H. Sutton and he told them things that they could have used. For John Sutton said that there are skeletons in every family closet and in that he spoke the truth. And, old and garrulous as he was, he talked about those skeletons.
But those tales were not carried forward into the future to be of any use, for the man who heard them came tramping up the road with a bandage on his head and no shoes on his feet. Something happened and he could not go back.
Something happened.
Something…
Sutton rose slowly.
Something happened, he said, talking to himself, and I know what it was.
Six thousand years ago in a place that was called Wisconsin.
He moved forward, heading for the pilot's chair.
Asher Sutton was going to Wisconsin.
XXXI
Christopher Adams came into his office and hung up his hat and coat.
He turned around and pulled out the chair before his desk, and in the act of sitting down he froze and listened.
The psych-tracer burped at him.
Christopher Adams straightened from his half-sitting, half-standing position and put on his hat and coat again.
Going out, he slammed the door behind him.
And in all his life, he had never slammed a door.
XXXII
Sutton breasted the river, swimming with slow, sure strokes. The water was warm against his body and it talked to him with a deep, important voice and Sutton thought, It is trying to tell me something, as it has tried to tell the people something all down through the ages. A mighty tongue talking down the land, gossiping to itself when there is no one else to hear, but trying, always trying to tell its people the news it has to tell. Some of them, perhaps, have grasped a certain truth and a certain philosophy from the river, but none of them have ever reached the meaning of the river's language, for it is an unknown language.
Like the language, Sutton thought, I used to make my notes. For they had to be in a language which no one else could read, a language that had been forgotten in the galaxy aeons before any tongue now living lisped its baby talk. Either a language that had been forgotten or one that never could be known.
I do not know that language, Sutton told himself, the language of my notes. I do not know whence it came or when or how. I asked, but they would not tell me. Johnny tried to tell me once, but I could not grasp it, for it was a thing that the brain of Man could not accept.
I know its symbols and the things they stand for, but I do not know the sounds that make it. My tongue might not be able to form the sounds that make the spoken language. For all I know it might be the language that this river talks…or the language of some race that went to disaster and to dust a million years ago.
The black of night came down to nestle against the black of flowing river and the moon had not risen, would not rise for many hours to come. The starlight made little diamond points on the rippling waves of the pulsing river, and on the shore ahead the lights of homes made jagged patterns up and down the land.
Herkimer has the notes, Sutton told himself, and I hope he has sense enough to hide them. For I will need them later, but not now. I would like to see Herkimer, but I can't take the chance, for they'll be watching him. And there's no doubt they have a tracer on me, but if I move fast enough, I can keep out of their way.
His feet struck gravel bottom and he let himself down, waded up the shelving shore. The night wind struck him and he shivered, for the river had been warm from a day of sun and the wind had a touch of chill.
Herkimer, of course, would be one of those who had come back to see that he wrote the book as he would have written it if there had been no interference. Herkimer and Eva…and of the two, Sutton told himself, he could trust Herkimer the most. For an android would fight, would fight and die for the thing that the book would say. The android and the dog and horse and honeybee and ant. But the dog and horse and honeybee and ant would never know, for they could not read.
He found a grassy bank and sat down and took off his clothes to wring them dry, then put them on again. Then he struck out across the meadow toward the highway that arrowed up the valley.
No one would find the ship at the bottom of the river…not for a while, at least. And a few hours was all he needed. A few hours to ask a thing that he must know, a few hours to get back to the ship again.
But he couldn't waste any time. He had to get the information the quickest way he could. For if Adams had a tracer on him, and Adams would have a tracer on him, they would already know that he had returned to Earth.
