The Best of Gene Wolfe

The thunder boomed then, and Dr. Prithivi’s voice said, “Play up to it! Up to the storm. That is ideal for what we are trying to do!”

Indra stood in front of Little Tib and said something about bringing so much rain that it would drown the village; and Dr. Prithivi’s voice told Little Tib to lift the mountain.

Little Tib looked and saw a real mountain, far off and perfect; he knew he could not lift it.

Then the rain came, and the lights went out, and they were standing on the stage in the dark, with icy water beating against their faces. The lightning flashed and Little Tib saw hundreds of people running for their cars; among them were a man with a monkey’s head, and another with an elephant’s, and a man with nine faces.

And then Little Tib was blind again, and there was nothing left but the rough feel of wood underfoot, and the beating of the rain, and the knowledge that Indra was still before him, holding his sword and the eye.

And then a man made all of metal (so that the rain drummed on him) stood there too. He held an ax, and wore a pointed hat, and by the light that shown from his polished surface Little Tib could see Indra too, and the eye.

“Who are you?” Indra said. He was talking to the Metal Man.

“Who are you?” the Metal Man answered. “I can’t see your face behind that wooden mask—but wood has never stood for long against me.” He struck Indra’s mask with his ax; a big chip flew from it, and the string that held it in place broke, and it went clattering down.

Little Tib saw his father’s face, with the rain running from it. “Who are you?” his father said to the Metal Man again.

“Don’t you know me, Georgie?” the Metal Man said. “Why, we used to be old friends, once. I have, if I may say so, a very sympathetic heart, and when—”

“Daddy!” Little Tib yelled.

His father looked at him and said, “Hello, Little Tib.”

“Daddy, if I had known you were Indra I wouldn’t have been scared at all. That mask made your voice sound different.”

“You don’t have to be afraid any longer, Son,” his father said. He took two steps toward Little Tib, and then, almost too quickly to see, his sword blade came up and flashed down.

The Metal Man’s ax was even quicker. It came up and stayed up; Indra’s sword struck it with a crash.

“That won’t help him,” Little Tib’s father said. “They’ve seen him, and they’ve seen you. I wanted to get it over with.”

“They haven’t seen me,” the Metal Man said. “It’s darker here than you think.”

At once it was dark. The rain stopped—or if it continued, Little Tib was not conscious of it. He did not know why he knew, but he knew where he was: he was standing, still standing, in front of the computer, with the devils not yet driven out.

Then the rain was back and his father was there again, but the Metal Man was gone, and the dark came back with a rush until Little Tib was blind again. “Are you still going to kill me, Father?” he asked.

There was no reply, and he repeated his question.

“Not now,” his father said.

“Later?”

“Come here.” Little Tib felt his father’s hand on his arm, the way it used to be. “Let’s sit down.” It drew him to the edge of the platform and helped him to seat himself with his legs dangling over.

“Are you all right?” Little Tib asked.

“Yes,” his father told him.

“Then why do you want to kill me?”

“I don’t want to.” Suddenly his father sounded angry. “I never said I wanted to. I have to do it, that’s all. Look at us; look at what we’ve been. Moving from place to place, working construction, working the land, worshiping the Lord like it was a hundred years ago. You know what we are? We’re jackrabbits. You recall jackrabbits, Little Tib?”

“No.”

“That was before your day. Big old long-legg’d rabbits with long ears like a jackass’s. Back before you were born they decided they weren’t any good, and they all died. For about a year I’d find them on the place, dead, and then there wasn’t any more. They waited to join until it was too late, you see. Or maybe they couldn’t. That’s what’s going to happen to people like us. I mean our family. What do you suppose we’ve been?”

Little Tib, who did not understand the question, said nothing.

“When I was a boy and used to go to school I would hear about all these great men and kings and queens and presidents, and I liked to think that maybe some were family. That isn’t so, and I know it now. If you could go back to Bible times, you’d find our people living in the woods like Indians.”

“I’d like that,” Little Tib said.

“Well, they cut down those woods so we couldn’t do that anymore, and we began scratching a living out of the ground. We’ve been doing that ever since and paying taxes, do you understand me? That’s all we’ve ever done. And pretty soon now there won’t be any call at all for people to do that. We’ve got to join them before it’s too late—do you see?”

“No,” Little Tib said.

“You’re the one. You’re a prodigy and a healer, and so they want you dead. You’re our ticket. Everybody was born for something, and that was what you were born for, Son. Just because of you, the family is going to get in before it’s too late.”