Clifford D. Simak - The Thing in the Stone.pdf - Clifford D.Simak - chomaroma

Title : The Thing in the Stone

Author : Clifford D. Simak

Original copyright year: 1970

Genre : science fiction

Comments : to my knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book

Source : scanned and OCR-read from a paperback edition with Xerox TextBridge

Pro 9.0, proofread in MS Word 2000.

Date of e-text : February 21, 2000

Prepared by : Anada Sucka

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The Thing in the Stone

Clifford D. Simak

He walked the hills and knew what the hills had seen through geologic

time. He listened to the stars and spelled out what the stars were saying. He

had found the creature that lay imprisoned in the stone. He had climbed the

tree that in other days had been climbed by homing wildcats to reach the den

gouged by time and weather out of the cliff's sheer face. He lived alone on a

worn-out farm perched on a high and narrow ridge that overlooked the

confluence of two rivers. And his next-door neighbor, a most ill-favored man,

drove to the county seat, thirty miles away, to tell the sheriff that this

reader of the hills, this listener to the stars was a chicken thief.

The sheriff dropped by within a week or so and walked across the yard to

where the man was sitting in a rocking chair on a porch that faced the river

hills. The sheriff came to a halt at the foot of the stairs that ran up to the

porch.

'I'm Sheriff Harley Shepherd,' he said. 'I was just driving by. Been some

years since I been out in this neck of the woods. You are new here, aren't

you?'

The man rose to his feet and gestured at another chair. 'Been here three

years or so,' he said. 'The name is Wallace Daniels. Come up and sit with me.'

The sheriff climbed the stairs and the two shook hands, then sat down in

the chairs.

'You don't farm the place,' the sheriff said.

The weed-grown fields came up to the fence that hemmed in the yard.

Daniels shook his head. 'Subsistence farming, if you can call it that. A

few chickens for eggs. A couple of cows for milk and butter. Some hogs for

meat -- the neighbors help me butcher. A garden of course, but that's about

the story.'

'Just as well,' the sheriff said. 'The place is all played out. Old Amos

Williams, he let it go to ruin. He never was no farmer.'

'The land is resting now,' said Daniels. 'Give it ten years -- twenty

might be better -- and it will be ready once again. The only things it's good

for now are the rabbits and the woodchucks and the meadow mice. A lot of

birds, of course. I've got the finest covey of quail a man has ever seen.'

'Used to be good squirrel country,' said the sheriff. 'Coon, too. I

suppose you still have coon. You have a hunter, Mr. Daniels?'

'I don't own a gun,' said Daniels.

The sheriff settled deeply into the chair, rocking gently.

'Pretty country out here,' he declared. 'Especially with the leaves

turning colors. A lot of hardwood and they are colorful. Rough as hell, of

course, this land of yours. Straight up and down, the most of it. But pretty.'

'It's old country,' Daniels said. 'The last sea retreated from this area

more than four hundred million years ago. It has stood as dry land since the

end of the Silurian. Unless you go up north, on to the Canadian Shield, there

aren't many places in this country you can find as old as this.'

'You a geologist, Mr. Daniels?'

'Not really. Interested, is all. The rankest amateur. I need something to

fill my time and I do a lot of hiking, scrambling up and down these hills. And

you can't do that without coming face to face with a lot of geology. I got

interested. Found some fossil brachiopods and got to wondering about them.

Sent off for some books and read up on them. One thing led to another and -- '

'Brachiopods? Would they be dinosaurs, or what? I never knew there were

dinosaurs out this way.'

'Not dinosaurs,' said Daniels. 'Earlier than dinosaurs, at least the ones

I found. They're small. Something like clams or oysters. But the shells are

hinged in a different sort of way. These were old ones, extinct millions of

years ago. But we still have a few brachiopods living now. Not too many of

them.'

'It must be interesting.'

'I find it so,' said Daniels.

'You knew old Amos Williams?'

'No. He was dead before I came here. Bought the land from the bank that

was settling his estate.'

'Queer old coot,' the sheriff said. 'Fought with all his neighbors.

Especially with Ben Adams. Him and Ben had a line fence feud going on for

years. Ben said Amos refused to keep up the fence. Amos claimed Ben knocked it

down and then sort of, careless-like, hazed his cattle over into Amos's

hayfield. How you get along with Ben?'

'All right,' Daniels said. 'No trouble. I scarcely know the man.'

'Ben don't do much farming, either,' said the sheriff. Hunts and fishes,

hunts ginseng, does some trapping in the winter. Prospects for minerals now

and then.'

'There are minerals in these hills,' said Daniels. 'Lead and zinc. But it

would cost more to get it out than it would be worth. At present prices, that

is.'

'Ben always has some scheme cooking.' said the sheriff. 'Always off on

some wild goose chase. And he's a pure pugnacious man. Always has his nose out

of joint about something. Always on the prod for trouble. Bad man to have for

an enemy. Was in the other day to say someone's been lifting a hen or two of

his. You haven't been missing any, have you?'

Daniels grinned. 'There's a fox that levies a sort of tribute on the coop

every now and then. I don't begrudge them to him.'

'Funny thing,' the sheriff said. 'There ain't nothing can rile up a farmer

like a little chicken stealing. It don't amount to shucks, of course, but they

get real hostile at it.'

'If Ben has been losing chickens,' Daniels said, 'more than likely the

culprit is my fox.'

'Your fox? You talk as if you own him.'

'Of course I don't. No one owns a fox. But he lives in these hills with

me. I figure we are neighbours. I see him every now and then and watch him.

Maybe that means I own a piece of him. Although I wouldn't be surprised if he

watches me more than I watch him. He moves quicker than I do.'

The sheriff heaved himself out of the chair.

'I hate to go,' he said. 'I declare it has been restful sitting here and

talking with you and looking at the hills. You look at them a lot, I take it.'

'Quite a lot,' said Daniels.

He sat on the porch and watched the sheriff's car top the rise far down

the ridge and disappear from sight.

What had it all been about? he wondered. The sheriff hadn't just happened

to be passing by. He'd been on an errand. All this aimless, friendly talk had

not been for nothing and in the course of it he'd managed to ask lots of

questions.

Something about Ben Adams, maybe? Except there wasn't too much against

Adams except he was bone-lazy. Lazy in a weasely sort of way. Maybe the

sheriff had got wind of Adams' off-and-on moonshining operation and was out to

do some checking, hoping that some neighbor might misspeak himself. None of

them would, of course, for it was none of their business, really, and the

moonshining had built up no nuisance value. What little liquor Ben might make

didn't amount to much. He was too lazy for anything he did to amount to much.

From far down the hill he heard the tinkle of a bell. The two cows were

finally heading home. It must be much later, Daniels told himself, than he had

thought. Not that he paid much attention to what time it was. He hadn't for

long months on end, ever since he'd smashed his watch when he'd fallen off the

ledge. He had never bothered to have the watch fixed. He didn't need a watch.

There was a battered old alarm clock in the kitchen but it was an erratic

piece of mechanism and not to be relied upon. He paid slight attention to it.

In a little while, he thought, he'd have to rouse himself and go and do

the chores -- milk the cows, feed the hogs and chickens, gather up the eggs.

Since the garden had been laid by there hadn't been much to do. One of these

days he'd have to bring in the squashes and store them in the cellar and there

were those three or four big pumpkins he'd have to lug down the hollow to the

Perkins kids, so they'd have them in time to make jack-o-lanterns for

Halloween. He wondered if he should carve out the faces himself or if the kids

would rather do it on their own.

But the cows were still quite a distance away and he still had time. He

sat easy in his chair and stared across the hills.

And they began to shift and change as he stared.

When he had first seen it, the phenomenon had scared him silly. But now he

was used to it.

As he watched, the hills changed into different ones. Different vegetation

and strange life stirred on them.

He saw dinosaurs this time. A herd of them, not very big ones. Middle

Triassic, more than likely. And this time it was only a distant view -- he

himself was not to become involved. He would only see, from a distance, what

ancient time was like and would not be thrust into the middle of it as most

often was the case.

He was glad. There were chores to do.

Watching, he wondered once again what more he could do. It was not the

dinosaurs that concerned him, nor the earlier amphibians, nor all the other

creatures that moved in time about the hills.

What disturbed him was that other being that lay buried deep beneath the

Platteville limestone.

Someone else should know about it. The knowledge of it should be kept

alive so that in the days to come -- perhaps in another hundred years -- when

man's technology had reached the point where it was possible to cope with such

a problem, something could be done to contact -- and perhaps to free -- the

dweller in the stone.

There would be a record, of course, a written record. He would see to

that. Already that record was in progress -- a week by week (at times a day to

day) account of what he had seen, heard and learned. Three large record books

now were filled with his careful writing and another one was well started. All

written down as honestly and as carefully and as objectively as he could bring

himself to do it.

But who would believe what he had written? More to the point, who would

bother to look at it? More than likely the books would gather dust on some

hidden shelf until the end of time with no human hand ever laid upon them. And

even if someone, in some future time, should take them down and read them,

first blowing away the accumulated dust, would he or she be likely to believe?

The answer lay clear. He must convince someone. Words written by a man

long dead -- and by a man of no reputation -- could be easily dismissed as the

product of a neurotic mind. But if some scientist of solid reputation could be

made to listen, could be made to endorse the record, the events that paraded

across the hills and lay within them could stand on solid ground, worthy of

full investigation at some future date.

A biologist? Or a neuropsychiatrist? Or a paleontologist?

Perhaps it didn't matter what branch of science the man was in. Just so

he'd listen without laughter. It was most important that he listen without

laughter.

Sitting on the porch, staring at the hills dotted with grazing dinosaurs,

the listener to the stars remembered the time he had gone to see the

paleontologist.

'Ben,' the sheriff said. 'you're way out in left field. That Daniels

fellow wouldn't steal no chickens. He's got chickens of his own.'

'The question is,' said Adams, 'how did he get them chickens?'

'That makes no sense,' the sheriff said. 'He's a gentleman. You can tell

that just by talking with him. An educated gentleman.'

'If he's a gentleman,' asked Adams, 'what's he doing out here? This ain't

no place for gentlemen. He showed up two or three years ago and moved out to

this place. Since that day he hasn't done a tap of work. All he does is wander

up and down the hills.'

'He's a geologist,' said the sheriff. 'Or anyway interested in geology. A

sort of hobby with him. He tells me he looks for fossils.'

Adams assumed the alert look of a dog that has sighted a rabbit. 'So that

is it,' he said. 'I bet you it ain't fossils he is looking for.'

'No,' the sheriff said.

'He's looking for minerals,' said Adams. 'He's prospecting, that's what

he's doing. These hills crawl with minerals. All you have to do is know where

to look.'

'You've spent a lot of time looking,' observed the sheriff. 'I ain't no

geologist. A geologist would have a big advantage. He would know rocks and

such.'

'He didn't talk as if he were doing any prospecting. Just interested in

the geology, is all. He found some fossil clams.'

'He might be looking for treasure caves,' said Adams. 'He might have a map

or something.'

'You know damn well,' the sheriff said, 'there are no treasure caves.'

'There must be,' Adams insisted. 'The French and Spanish were here in the

early days. They were great ones for treasure, the French and Spanish. Always

running after mines. Always hiding things in caves. There was that cave over

across the river where they found a skeleton in Spanish armour and the

skeleton of a bear beside him, with a rusty sword stuck into where the bear's

gizzard was.'

Clifford D. Simak - The Thing in the Stone.pdf

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