Christopher Adams straightened from his half-sitting, half-standing position and put on his hat and coat again.
Going out, he slammed the door behind him.
And in all his life, he had never slammed a door.
XXXII
Sutton breasted the river, swimming with slow, sure strokes. The water was warm against his body and it talked to him with a deep, important voice and Sutton thought, It is trying to tell me something, as it has tried to tell the people something all down through the ages. A mighty tongue talking down the land, gossiping to itself when there is no one else to hear, but trying, always trying to tell its people the news it has to tell. Some of them, perhaps, have grasped a certain truth and a certain philosophy from the river, but none of them have ever reached the meaning of the river's language, for it is an unknown language.
Like the language, Sutton thought, I used to make my notes. For they had to be in a language which no one else could read, a language that had been forgotten in the galaxy aeons before any tongue now living lisped its baby talk. Either a language that had been forgotten or one that never could be known.
I do not know that language, Sutton told himself, the language of my notes. I do not know whence it came or when or how. I asked, but they would not tell me. Johnny tried to tell me once, but I could not grasp it, for it was a thing that the brain of Man could not accept.
I know its symbols and the things they stand for, but I do not know the sounds that make it. My tongue might not be able to form the sounds that make the spoken language. For all I know it might be the language that this river talks…or the language of some race that went to disaster and to dust a million years ago.
The black of night came down to nestle against the black of flowing river and the moon had not risen, would not rise for many hours to come. The starlight made little diamond points on the rippling waves of the pulsing river, and on the shore ahead the lights of homes made jagged patterns up and down the land.
Herkimer has the notes, Sutton told himself, and I hope he has sense enough to hide them. For I will need them later, but not now. I would like to see Herkimer, but I can't take the chance, for they'll be watching him. And there's no doubt they have a tracer on me, but if I move fast enough, I can keep out of their way.