repairing. Everything was wearing out and breaking down.
“Say,” Potter said. “This sure makes a fool of Dave Hunter.”
“Dave? Big fat Dave?” Jackson said.
Potter said, “Dave says there aren’t any true humans left outside this area.” He poked at Tiber’s helmet curiously. “Our settlement’s an hour away by tractor—our hunting tractor. Earl and I were out hunting flap rabbits. Good meat but hard to bring down—weigh about twenty-five pounds.”
“What do you use?” Tibor asked. “Not that ax, surely.”
Potter and Jackson laughed. “Look at this here.” Potter slid a long brass rod from his trousers. It fitted down inside his pants along his pipe-stem leg.
Tibor examined the rod. It was tooled by hand. Soft brass, carefully bored and straightened. One end was shaped into a nozzle. He peered down it. A tiny metal pin was lodged in a cake of transparent material. “How does it work?” he asked.
“Launched by hand,” Potter said. “Like a blow gun. But once the b-dart is in the air, it follows its target forever. The initial thrust has to be provided.” Potter laughed. “I supply that. A big puff of air.”
“Interesting,” Tibor said with elaborate casualness. Studying the two blue-gray faces, he asked, “Many humans near here?”
“Damn near none,” Potter and Jackson mumbled together. “What do you say about staying with us awhile? The Old Man will be pleased to welcome you; you’re the first human we’ve seen this month. What do you say? We’ll take care of you, feed you, bring you cold plants and animals, for a week, maybe?”
“Sorry,” Tibor said. “Other business. But if I come through here on my way back…” He rummaged in the sack of artifacts and tools next to him. “See this picture?” he said, holding up the dim piece of paper on which was printed a picture—of sorts—of Carleton Lufteufel. “Do you recognize this man?”
Potter and Jackson studied the picture. “A human being,” Potter said. “Frankly, you all tend to look alike to us.” They handed the picture back to Tibor. “But the Old Man might recognize it,” Jackson said. “Come with us; it’s lucky to have a human being staying with you. What do you say?”
“No.” Tibor shook his head. “I have to keep going; I have to find this man.”
Jackson’s face fell in disappointment. “Not for a little while? Overnight? We’ll pump you plenty of cold food. We have a fine lead-sealed cooler the Old Man fixed up.”
“You’re sure there’re no humans in this region?” Tibor said as he prepared to continue on; he slapped the rump of the cow briskly.
“We thought for a while there weren’t any left anywhere. A rumor once in a while. But you’re the first we’ve seen in a couple of years.” Potter pointed west. “There’s a tribe of rollers off that way.” He pointed vaguely south. “A couple of tribes of bugs, too.”
“And some runners,” Jackson said. “And north there’s some kind of underground ones—the blind digging kind.” Potter and Jackson both made a face. “I can’t see them and their bores and scoops. But what the hell.” He grinned. “Everybody has his own way. I guess to you we lizards seem sort of—” He gestured “Weird.”
Tibor said, “What’s the story on this apple tree? Is this the tree from which the Christian-Jewish idea of the serpent in the garden of eden comes?”
“It’s our understanding that the Garden of Eden is located around a hundred miles to the east,” Jackson said. “You’re a Christian, are you?” Tibor nodded. “And that picture you showed us–
“A Christian deity,” Jackson said.
“No.” Tibor shook his head firmly. Amazing, he thought; they don’t seem to know anything about the SOWs or about us. Well, he thought, we didn’t know much about
A third lizard approached. “Greetings, natural,” it said, holding its open palm up in the air. “I just wanted to get a look at a human being.” It studied Tibor. “You’re not all that different. Can you live on the surface?”
“Pretty well,” Tibor said. “But I’m not exactly a human; I’m what we called an inc—incomplete. As you can see.” He showed the third lizard the photo of Carleton Lufteufel. “Have you ever seen this man? Think. It’s important to me.”
“You’re trying to find him?” the third lizard said. “Yes, it’s obvious that you are on a Pilg; why else would you be traveling, especially at night, and with you handicapped by virtue of the fact that you don’t have any legs or feet and no arms. That’s a smart car you’ve built yourself. But
“I’m a painter,” Tibor said simply.
“Then you’re valuable,” the lizard said. “Listen, inc. Did you know that someone’s following you?”
“What?” Tibor said, instantly tense and alert. “Who?” he demanded.
“Another actual human,” the lizard said. “But on a machine with two big wheels, propelled by a chain-linked gear system, pedally operated. A bykel, I think it’s called.”
“Bicycle,” Tibor said.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Can you hide me?” Tibor asked, and then thought, They’re making it up; they just want to get me into their settlement where they can absorb some of my luck.
“Sure we can hide you,” all three lizards said simultaneously.
“On the other hand,” Tibor said, “a human would not kill another human.” But he knew it was untrue; plenty of humans killed and injured other humans; after all, the giant Smash had been brought on by humans.
The three lizards huddled, conferring. Then, abruptly, they stood up, turned to face Tibor. “Do you have any metal money?” Jackson asked, in a kind of deliberately careless, offhand way.
“None,” Tibor said cautiously. This also was untrue; he had an alloy fifty-cent piece in a secret crevasse of his car.
“I ask that,” Jackson said, “because we have a dog we would be willing to sell you.”
“A what? Tibor said.
“Dog.” Potter and Jackson trooped off, disappearing into the darkness; evidently their vision was enormously improved over human standards.
“Have you never seen a dog?” the remaining lizard asked.
“Yes, but it was a long time ago,” Tibor answered, lying again.
The lizard said, “A dog, your dog, would drive off the other human—that is, if you gave him the proper command. They have to be trained, of course; they’re lower on the evolutionary scale as compared to humans and we alike. They’re not like those double-domed dogs people bred before the Smash.”
Tibor said, “Would a dog be able to find the man I am looking for?”
“What man?”
Tibor showed it the blotched photograph of Carleton Lufteufel.
“You want him?” the lizard said, studying the face. “Is he a neat guy?”
“I can’t say,” Tibor said obliquely.
The lizard handed him back the photograph. “Is there a reward?”
Tibor pondered. “A fifty-cent piece,” he said.
“Really?” The lizard fluffed up his scales excitedly. “Payable dead or alive?”
“He can’t die,” Tibor said.
“Everyone dies.”
“He will not die.”
“Is he—supernatural?”
“Yes.” Tibor nodded.
“I have never seen a supernatural,” the lizard declared; he shook his head firmly. “Not in my entire life.”
“You have a religion, do you?”
““Yes. We worship the dawn.”
“Quaint,” Tibor said.
“When the sun comes,” the lizard said, “evil vanishes from the world. Do you believe there’s life on the sun?”
“It’s too hot,” Tibor said.
“But they could be made out of diamonds.”
Tibor said, “Nothing can live on the sun.”
