“Hi,” he said to the autofac.

A shiver passed through the runners. “Don’t talk to it like that,” Earl said, nervously. “Have more respect; this thing can kill us all.”

“Greetings,” Tibor said.

“If you’re pompous or boorish,” Earl said quietly, “it’ll kill us.” His tone was patient. As if, Tibor thought, he’s addressing a child. And perhaps that is what I am, vis-a-vis this construct: a baby who knows no better. This thing, after all, is no natural mutant. It was made.

“My friend,” Tibor said to the autofac. “Can you help me?”

Earl groaned.

“You call it, then,” Tibor said to him, feeling irritated. How many verbal rituals had to surround the summoning of the intelligence of this wartime human construct? Evidently a very large number. “Look,” he said to Earl, and also to the autofac, “I need its help but I’m not going to fall in a groveling heap and pray it to install new wheel bearings in my cart. It’s not worth it.” The hell with it, he thought. These are the entities which brought our race down; these did us in.

“Mighty autofac,” Earl said sonorously. “We pray for your good assistance. This wretched armless/legless man cannot complete his journey without your beneficent assistance. Could you take a moment to examine his vehicle? The right front wheel bearings have failed him in his hour of need.” He paused, listening intently, his doglike head cocked.

“Here it comes,” the smallest of the runners said in a rapt, appreciative tone of voice; he seemed awed.

The lid of the autofac slid back. A lift from beneath the entrance thrust up a tall metal stalk, on the end of which a bullhorn could be seen. The bullhorn swiveled, then lined itself up so that it directly faced Tibor.

“You are pregnant, are you?” the bullhorn brayed. “I can supply you with ancient cures: arsenic, iron rust, water in which the dead have been immersed, mule’s kidneys, the froth from the mouth of a camel—which do you prefer?”

“No,” Earl said. “He’s not pregnant. He has a wheel bearing that’s running dry. Try to pay attention, sir.”

“I’ll not be talked to like that,” the autofac said. A second rod jutted up, now. It appeared to have a gas nozzle mounted at ground level. “You must die,” the autofac said, and emitted several meager puffs of gray smoke. The runners retreated. “I require great amounts of freczibble…” The dour sounds emitted by the autofac faded into an indistinct mass of noise; something in the speech circuit had failed to function. The two vertical rods whipped back and forth in agitation, emitted a little more gas, harmlessly, then became inert. A curl of black Smoke ascended from the entranceway of the autofac, then a whine. Of gear teeth, Tibor decided.

To Earl, Tibor said, “Why is it so hostile?”

Immediately coarse clouds of black issued forth from the underground reality which was the autofac. “I’m not hostile!” the bullhorn honked with wrath. “You goddamn lying son of a bitch.” A hiss, like steam released in an emergency overload, and then a huge crashing roar, as if a tone of garbage-can lids had been upset by raccoons. Then—silence.

“I think you killed it,” the smallest of the runners said to Earl.

“Christ,” Earl said, witty disgust. “Well, it probably couldn’t have helped you anyhow.” His voice quavered, then. “It would appear that I have screwed everything up. I wonder what we do now.”

Tibor said, “I’ll continue on my way.” He flicked the cow with a manual extensor; the cow mooed, granted, and slowly resumed its march, back in the direction from which they had come.

“Wait,” Earl said, raising a furred hand. “Let’s try once more.” He searched in his tunic, and brought forth a notepad and a ballpoint pen of prewar vintage. “We’ll submit our request in writing, like they used to do. We’ll just drop it down into the hole. And if that don’t work, we’ll give up.” He painfully, slowly scribbled on the notepad, then tore the top page off, and walked slowly toward the inert entrance to the subsurface autofac.

“Once warned twice burned,” the smallest of the runners piped.

“Forget it,” Tibor said to the runners; again he nudged the cow electronically, and he and she moved off, groaningly, the dry wheel bearings of his cart clacking noisily.

“The trouble may have existed in the bullhorn,” Earl said, still trying to knit the situation together. “If we bypass that—”

“Goodbye,” Tibor said, and continued on.

He felt melancholy. A soothing sort, a land of inner peace. Had the runners managed that? He wondered. They were said to…the big runner Earl had radiated anything but peace, however. Very strange, he thought; the runners are like the calm eye of the storm that everyone talks about but which no one sees. Peace in the center of chaos, perhaps.

As his cart lumbered on, pulled by his tireless cow, Tibor began to sing.

He could not remember how-the rest of the old hymn went, so he tried another.

That didn’t sound right. So he tried the Old One Hundred, the doxology:

Or however it was that the hymn went.

He felt better, now. And then all at once he realized that his wheel bearing had stopped complaining. He peered down, and saw the grim news: the wheel had entirely stopped turning. The bearings had seized up.

Well, thus it goes, he thought as he reined the cow to a halt. This is as far as we go, you and I. He sat listening to the sounds around him, noises from the trees and shrubbery, little animals at work, even smaller ones at play: the offspring of the world, maimed and grotesque as they might be, had the right to frolic about in the warm morning sun. The owls had retired; now came the red-tailed hawks. He heard a far-off bird, and was comforted.

The bird sang words, now. Brighten up the corner, it called. Again it sang the few words, and then trilled out, Praise Him from whom the wing and trees, the rocks and thank you. Tweet, toodle. It started from the beginning again, tracing each previous outburst.

A meta-mutant bird, he realized. A teilhard de chardin: forward oddity. Does it understand what it sings? he wondered. Or is it like a parrot? He could not tell. He could not go that way; he could only sit. Damn that wheel bearing, he said savagely to himself. If I could converse with the meta-bird maybe I could learn something. Maybe it has seen the Deus Irae and would know where he is.

Something at his right lashed the bushes, something large. And now he saw—saw and did not believe.

A huge worm had begun to uncurl and move toward him. It thrust the bushes aside; it dragged itself on its own oily slime, and as it came toward him it began to scream, high-pitched, strident. Not knowing what to do, he sat frozen, waiting. The rivulets of slime splashed over tarnished gray and brown and green leaves, withering both them and their branches. Dead fruit fell from the rotting trees; there arose a cloud of dry soil particles as the worm snorted and swung its way toward him. “Hi there!” the worm shrieked. It had almost reached him. “I can kill you!” the worm declared, tossing spit and dust and slime in his direction. “Get away and leave me! I guard something very precious, something you want but cannot have. Do you understand? Do you hear me?”

Tibor said, “I can’t leave.” His voice shook; with his trembling body he engineered a quick movement; he brought forth his derringer once more and aimed it at the cranium of the worm.