There are few wildernesses so desolate as to offer no food at all for
one who knows what to look for. There is usually some sort of berry
available. One kind of acorn is not bad to eat. Shoots of bracken are
not unlike asparagus. There are some spiny wild plants whose leaves,
if plucked young enough, will yield some nourishment and of course
there are mushrooms. Even on stone one can find liverish rock-tripe
which is edible if one dries it to complete dessication before soaking
it again to make a soup or broth.
Before he searched for food, though, Lockley said abruptly, "You said
you saw the creatures and they weren't men. What did they look like?"
"They were a long way away," Jill told him. "I didn't see them
clearly. They're about the size of men but they just aren't men. Far
away as they were, I could tell that!"
Lockley considered. He shrugged and said, "Rest. I'll be back."
He moved away. He was hungry and he kept his eyes in motion, looking
for something to take back to Jill. But his mind struggled to form a
picture of a creature who'd be the size of a man but would be known
not to be a man even at a distance; whose difference from mankind
couldn't be described because seen at such great distance. Presently
he shook his head impatiently and gave all his attention to the search
for food.
He found a patch of berries on a hillside where there was enough earth
for berry bushes, but not for trees. Bears had been at them, but there
were many left.
He filled his hat with them and made his way back to Jill. She had the
pocket radio on again, but at the lowest possible volume. He put the
berry-filled hat down beside her. She held up a warning hand. Speckles
of sunshine trickled down through the foliage and the tree trunks were
spotted with yellow light. They ate the berries as they heard the
news.
A new official news release was out. And now, twelve hours after the
last, wholly reassuring bulletin, there was no longer any pretense
that the thing in Boulder Lake was merely a meteorite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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