There was something behind all her words, and her tone, behind the casual indifferent authority, something important, something unpleasant and frightening, but it was hard to pin down and Kandid, for some reason, kept remembering the square black doors and Karl with the two women - just the same, indifferent and imperious.
"Are you listening to me?" asked the pregnant woman. "What can you do?"
"I can't do anything," Kandid said limply.
"Perhaps you know how to control?"
"I did once," said Kandid. Go to hell, he thought, why don't you leave me alone? I ask you how to get to White Rocks, and you start bothering me... He realized suddenly that he was afraid of her, otherwise he'd have gone long ago. She was the master here, and he was a pitiful, dirty, stupid lambkin.
"Did once," she repeated. "Tell that tree to lie down!"
Kandid looked at the tree. It was a big solid tree with a luxuriant topgrowth and shaggy trunk. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Very well," said she. "Kill that tree, then... Not that either? Can you make the living die at all?" "Kill, you mean."
"Not necessarily kill. An armchewer can do that. Make the living die. Compel something living to become dead. Can you?"
"I don't understand," said Kandid. "Don't understand... What on earth do you get up to on your White Rocks if you can't even understand that? You can't make dead things live either?" "No."
"What can you do then? What did you do on White Rocks before you fell down? Just guzzled and denied women?"
"I studied the forest." She regarded him severely.
"Don't dare lie to me. One man can't study the forest, it's like studying the sun. If you won't speak the truth, just say so."
"I really did study the forest," Kandid said. "I studied..." he faltered. "I studied the smallest creatures in the forest. The ones you can't see with your eyes."
"Lying again," said the woman tolerantly. "You can't study what the eye can't see."
"It's possible," said Kandid. "Only you have to have..." he faltered again. Microscope ... lenses ... instruments... That wouldn't get across. Untranslatable. "If you take a drop of water," he said, "if you have the necessary things, you can see thousands upon thousands of tiny animals..."
"You don't need any 'things' for that," the woman said. "I can see you've got corrupted by your dead things on your White Rocks. You're degenerating. I noticed long ago the way you've lost the capacity to see what anybody can see in the forest, even a filthy man... Wait a minute, were you talking about small creatures or the smallest ones? Perhaps you're referring to the constructors?"
"Perhaps," said Kandid. "I don't understand you. I'm speaking of the small creatures that make people ill, but which can cure as well, they help in food production, there's very many of them and they're everywhere... I tried to find out their constituents here in your forest, what sorts there were and what their function was..."
"They're different on White Rocks, of course," she said with sarcasm. "All right, anyway, I've got what your work was. You have no power over the constructors, of course. The veriest village idiot can do more than you... What can I do with you? You came here unasked, after...
"I'm going," Kandid said wearily. "I'm going. Good-bye."
"No wait... Stop, I said!" she cried and Kandid felt the burning hot pincers gripping his elbows from behind. He struggled, but it was pointless. The woman was meditating aloud:
"He did come of his own free will. There have been such cases. If we let him go, he'll go off to his village and be completely useless... There's no point in rounding them up. But if they come voluntarily... Know what I'll do?" she said. "I'll hand you over to the Teachers for night work. After all, there have been successful cases... Off to the Teachers, then, off to the Teachers!" She waved her hand and unhurriedly waddled off into the Reed-beds.
