Clifford D. Simak

He swung upon the tree and the tree was empty. The dark cloud that had seethed around its trunk was gone. The branches stood out in sharp and natural relief against the western sky.

Gone, Maxwell thought. Not dead, but gone. The substance of an elemental creature gone back to the elements, the unimaginable bonds that had held it together in strange semblance of life, finally weakening to let the last of it slip away, blowing off into the air and sunlight like a pinch of thrown dust.

Alive, the Banshee had been a hard thing to get along with. Dead, it was no easier. For a short space of time he had felt compassion for it, as a man must feel for anything that dies. But the compassion, he knew, had been wasted, for the Banshee must have died in silent laughter at the human race.

There was just one hope, to persuade Time to hold up the sale of the Artifact so he could have the time to contact Arnold and tell his story to him, persuade him, somehow, that what he told was true. A story, Maxwell realized, that now became even more fantastic than it had been before.

He turned about and started down the ravine. Before he reached the woods, he stopped and looked back up the slope. The thorn tree stood squat against the sky, sturdy and solid, braced solid in the soil.

When he passed the fairy dancing green a gang of trolls were grumpily at work, raking and smoothing out the ground, laying new sod to replace that which had been gouged out by the bouncing stone. Of the stone there was no sign.

Maxwell was halfway back to Wisconsin Campus when Ghost materialized and took the seat next to him.

“I have a message from Oop,” he said, ignoring any preliminary approach to conversation. “You are not to return to the shack. The newspaper people seem to have sniffed you out. When they came to inquire, Oop went into action, without, I would guess, too much thought or judgment. He put the bum’s rush on them, but they’re still hanging around, on the lookout for you.”

“Thanks,” said Maxwell. “I appreciate being told. Although as a matter of fact, I don’t imagine it makes too much difference now.”

“Events,” asked Ghost, “do not march too well?”

“They barely march at all,” Maxwell told him. He hesitated, then said, “I suppose Oop has told you what is going on.”

“Oop and I are as one,” said Ghost. “Yes, of course he’s told me. He seemed to take it for granted that you knew he would. But you may rest assured…”

“It’s not that,” said Maxwell. “I was only wondering if I had to recite it all again for you. You know, then, that I went to the reservation to check on the Lambert painting.”

“Yes,” said Ghost. “The one that Nancy Clayton has.”

“I have a feeling,” Maxwell told him, “that I may have found out more than I had expected to. I did find out one thing that doesn’t help at all. It was the Banshee who tipped off the Wheeler about the price the crystal planet wanted. The Banshee was supposed to tell me, but he told the Wheeler instead. He claims he told the Wheeler before he knew about me, but I have some doubt of that. The Banshee was dying when he told me, but that doesn’t mean that he told the truth. He always was a slippery customer.”

“The Banshee dying?”

“He’s dead now. I sat with him until he died. I didn’t show him the photo of the painting. I didn’t have the heart to intrude upon him.”

“But despite this he told you about the Wheeler.”

“Only to let me know that he had hated the human race since it first began its evolutionary climb. And to let me know that he was finally getting even. He would have liked to have said that the goblins and the rest of the Little Folk hated us as well, but he never quite got around to that. Knowing, perhaps, that I would not believe it. Although something that the O’Toole had said earlier made me realize that there probably is some ancestral resentment. Resentment, but probably not any real hatred. But the Banshee did confirm that a deal is being made for the Artifact and that the Artifact actually is the price for the crystal planet. I thought so from the first, of course. And what the Wheeler said last night made it almost a certainty. Although I couldn’t be absolutely sure, for it doesn’t seem that the Wheeler himself is actually sure of the situation. If he were, what would have been the point of waylaying me and offering me a job? It sounded to me as if he were trying to buy me off, as if he were afraid that there was something I could do to louse up his deal.”

“It looks fairly hopeless, then,” Ghost observed. “My good friend, I am very sorry for this. Is there anything that we can do to help-Oop and me and perhaps even that girl who drank with you and Oop so staunchly. The one who has the cat.”