Joe showed up one day simply undulating with pleasure. He had another silvery ball, larger than the other two. He placed it in front of me, then sang to his own. (“I want you to hear this, Kip!”)
As soon as he ceased the larger sphere spoke in English: “I want you to hear this, Kip!”
Squirming with delight, Joe swapped spheres and told me to say something.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked.
(“What do you want me to say?”) the larger sphere sang in Vegan.
That was my last session with Prof Joe.
Despite unstinting help, despite the Mother Thing’s ability to make herself understood, I was like the Army mule at West Point: an honorary member of the student body but not prepared for the curriculum. I never did understand their government. Oh, they had government, but it wasn’t any system I’ve heard of. Joe knew about democracies and representation and voting and courts of law; he could fish up examples from many planets. He felt that democracy was “a very good system, for beginners.” It would have sounded patronizing, except that is not one of their faults.
I never met one of their young. Joe explained that children should not see “strange creatures” until they had learned to feel understanding sympathy. That would have offended me if I hadn’t been learning some “understanding sympathy” myself. Matter of fact, if a human ten-year-old saw a Vegan, he would either run, or poke it with a stick.
I tried to learn about their government from the Mother Thing, in particular how they kept the peace—laws, crimes, punishments, traffic regulations, etc.
It was as near to flat failure as I ever had with her. She pondered a long time, then answered: (“How could one possibly act against one’s own nature?”)
I guess their worst vice was that they didn’t have any. This can be tiresome.
The medical staff were interested in the drugs in Oscar’s helmet—like our interest in a witch doctor’s herbs, but that is not idle interest; remember digitalis and curare.
I told them what each drug did and in most cases I knew the Geneva name as well as the commercial one. I knew that codeine was derived from opium, and opium from poppies. I knew that dexedrine was a sulphate but that was all. Organic chemistry and biochemistry are not easy even with no language trouble. We got together on what a benzene ring was, Peewee drawing it and sticking in her two dollars’ worth, and we managed to agree on “element,” “isotope,” “half life,” and the periodic table. I should have drawn structural formulas, using Peewee’s hands—but neither of us had the slightest idea of the structural formula for codeine and couldn’t do it even when supplied with kindergarten toys which stuck together only in the valences of the elements they represented.
Peewee had fun, though. They may not have learned much from her; she learned a lot from them.
I don’t know when I became aware that the Mother Thing was not, or wasn’t quite, a female. But it didn’t matter; being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
If Noah launched his ark on Vega Five, the animals would come in by twelves. That makes things complicated. But a “mother thing” is one who takes care of others. I am not sure that all mother things were the same gender; it may have been a matter of temperament.
I met one “father thing.” You might call him “governor” or “mayor,” but “parish priest” or “scoutmaster” is closer, except that his prestige dominated a continent. He breezed in during a session with Joe, stayed five minutes, urged Joe to do a good job, told me to be a good boy and get well, and left, all without hurrying. He filled me with the warm self-reliance that Dad does—I didn’t need to be told that he was a “father thing.” His visit had a flavor of “royalty visiting the wounded” without being condescending—no doubt it was hard to work me into a busy schedule.
Joe neither mothered nor fathered me; he taught me and studied me—“a professor thing.”
Peewee showed up one day full of bubbles. She posed like a mannequin. “Do you like my new spring outfit?”
She was wearing silvery tights, plus a little hump like a knapsack. She looked cute but not glamorous, for she was built like two sticks and this get-up emphasized it.
“Very fancy,” I said. “Are you learning to be an acrobat?”
“Don’t be silly, Kip; it’s my new space suit—a real one.”
I glanced at Oscar, big and bulky and filling the closet and said privately, “Hear that, chum?”
(“It takes all kinds to make a world.”)
“Your helmet won’t fit it, will it?”
She giggled. “I’m wearing it.”
“You are? ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’?”
“Pretty close. Kip, disconnect your prejudices and listen. This is like the Mother Thing’s suit except that it’s tailored for me. My old suit wasn’t much good—and that cold cold about finished it. But you’ll be amazed at this one. Take the helmet. It’s there, only you can’t see it. It’s a field. Gas can’t go in or out.” She came close. “Slap me.”
“With what?”
“Oh. I forgot. Kip, you’ve got to get well and up off that bed. I want to take you for a walk.”
“I’m in favor. They tell me it won’t be long now.”
“It had better not be. Here, I’ll show you.” She hauled off and slapped herself. Her hand smacked into something inches from her face.
“Now watch,” she went on. She moved her hand very slowly; it sank through the barrier, she thumbed her nose at me and giggled.
This impressed me—a space suit you could reach into! Why, I would have been able to give Peewee water and dexedrine and sugar pills when she needed them. “I’ll be darned! What does it?”
“A power pack on my back, under the air tank. The tank is good for a week, too, and hoses can’t give trouble because there aren’t any.”
“Uh, suppose you blow a fuse. There you are, with a lungful of vacuum.”
“The Mother Thing says that can’t happen.”
Hmm—I had never known the Mother Thing to be wrong when she made a flat statement.
“That’s not all,” Peewee went on. “It feels like skin, the joints aren’t clumsy, and you’re never hot or cold. It’s like street clothes.”
“Uh, you risk a bad sunburn, don’t you? Unhealthy, you tell me. Unhealthy even on the Moon.”
“Oh, no! The field polarizes. That’s what the field is, sort of. Kip, get them to make you one—we’ll go places!”
I glanced at Oscar. (“Please yourself, pal,” he said distantly. “I’m not the jealous type.”)
“Uh, Peewee, I’ll stick to one I understand. But I’d like to examine that monkey suit of yours.”
“Monkey suit indeed!”
I woke up one morning, turned over, and realized that I was hungry.
Then I sat up with a jerk. I had turned over in bed.
I had been warned to expect it. The “bed” was a bed and my body was back under my control. Furthermore, I was hungry and I hadn’t been hungry the whole time I had been on Vega Five. Whatever that machinery was, it included a way to nourish me without eating.
But I didn’t stop to enjoy the luxury of hunger; it was too wonderful to be a body again, not just a head. I got out of bed, was suddenly dizzy, recovered and grinned. Hands! Feet!
I examined those wonderful things. They were unchanged and unhurt.
Then I looked more closely. No, not quite unchanged.
I had had a scar on my left shin where I had been spiked in a close play at second; it was gone. I once had “Mother” tattooed on my left forearm at a carnival. Mother had been distressed and Dad disgusted, but he had said to leave it as a reminder not to be a witling. It was gone.
There was not a callus on hand or foot.
I used to bite my nails. My nails were a bit long but perfect. I had lost the nail from my right little toe years ago through a slip with a hatchet. It was back.
I looked hastily for my appendectomy scar—found it and felt relieved. I
f it had been missing, I would have wondered if I was me.
There was a mirror over the chest of drawers. It showed me with enough hair to warrant a guitar (I wear a crew cut) but somebody had shaved me.
On the chest was a dollar and sixty-seven cents, a mechanical pencil, a sheet of paper, my watch, and a handkerchief. The watch was running. The dollar bill, the paper, and the handkerchief had been laundered.
My clothes, spandy clean and invisibly repaired, were on the desk. The socks weren’t mine; the material was more like felt, if you will imagine felted material no thicker than Kleenex which stretches instead of tearing. On the floor were tennis shoes, like Peewee’s even to a “U.S. Rubber” trademark, but in my size. The uppers were heavier felted material. I got dressed.
I was admiring the result when Peewee kicked the door. “Anybody home?” She came in, bearing a tray. “Want breakfast?”
“Peewee! Look at me!”
She did. “Not bad,” she admitted, “for an ape. You need a haircut.”
“Yes, but isn’t it wonderful! I’m all together again!”
“You never were apart,” she answered, “except in spots—I’ve had daily reports. Where do you want this?” She put the tray on the desk.
“Peewee,” I asked, rather hurt, “don’t you care that I’m well?”
“Of course I do. Why do you think I made ’em let me carry in your breakfast? But I knew last night that they were going to uncork you. Who do you think cut your nails and shaved you? That’ll be a dollar, please. Shaves have gone up.”
I got that tired dollar and handed it to her.
She didn’t take it. “Aw, can’t you take a joke?”
“‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’”
“Polonius. He was a stupid old bore. Honest, Kip, I wouldn’t take your last dollar.”
“Now who can’t take a joke?”
“Oh, eat your breakfast. That purple juice,” she said, “tastes like orange juice—it’s very nice. The stuff that looks like scrambled eggs is a fair substitute and I had ’em color it yellow—the eggs here are dreadful, which wouldn’t surprise you if you knew where they get them. The buttery stuff is vegetable fat and I had them color it, too. The bread is bread, I toasted it myself. The salt is salt and it surprises them that we eat it—they think it’s poison. Go ahead; I’ve guinea-pigged everything. No coffee.”
“I won’t miss it.”
“I never touch the stuff—I’m trying to grow. Eat. Your sugar count has been allowed to drop so that you will enjoy it.”
The aroma was wonderful. “Where’s your breakfast, Peewee?”
“I ate hours ago. I’ll watch and swallow when you do.”
The tastes were odd but it was just what the doctor ordered—literally, I suppose. I’ve never enjoyed a meal so much.
Presently I slowed down to say, “Knife and fork? Spoons?”
“The only ones on—” She vocalized the planet’s name. “I got tired of fingers and I play hob using what they use. So I drew pictures. This set is mine but we’ll order more.”
There was even a napkin, more felted stuff. The water tasted distilled and not aerated. I didn’t mind. “Peewee, how did you shave me? Not even a nick.”
“Little gismo that beats a razor all hollow. I don’t know what they use it for, but if you could patent it, you’d make a fortune. Aren’t you going to finish that toast?”
“Uh—” I had thought that I could eat the tray. “No, I’m full.”
“Then I will.” She used it to mop up the “butter,” then announced, “I’m off!”
“Where?”
“To suit up. I’m going to take you for a walk!” She was gone.
The hall outside did not imitate ours where it could not be seen from the bed, but a door to the left was a bathroom, just where it should have been. No attempt had been made to make it look like the one at home, and valving and lighting and such were typically Vegan. But everything worked.
Peewee returned while I was checking Oscar. If they had cut him off me, they had done a marvelous job of repairing; even the places I had patched no longer showed. He had been cleaned so thoroughly that there was no odor inside. He had three hours of air and seemed okay in every way. “You’re in good shape, partner.”
(“In the pink! The service is excellent here.”)
“So I’ve noticed.” I looked up and saw Peewee; she was already in her “spring outfit.”
“Peewee, do we need space suits just for a walk?”
“No. You could get by with a respirator, sun glasses, and a sun shade.”
“You’ve convinced me. Say, where’s Madame Pompadour? How do you get her inside that suit?”
“No trouble at all, she just bulges a little. But I left her in my room and told her to behave herself.”
“Will she?”
“Probably not. She takes after me.”
“Where is your room?”
“Next door. This is the only part of the house which is Earth-conditioned.”
I started to suit up. “Say, has that fancy suit got a radio?”
“All that yours has and then some. Did you notice the change in Oscar?”
“Huh? What? I saw that he was repaired and cleaned up. What else have they done?”
“Just a little thing. One more click on the switch that changes antennas and you can talk to people around you who aren’t wearing radios without shouting.”
“I didn’t see a speaker.”
“They don’t believe in making everything big and bulky.”
As we passed Peewee’s room I glanced in. It was not decorated Vegan style; I had seen Vegan interiors through stereo. Nor was it a copy of her own room—not if her parents were sensible. I don’t know what to call it—“Moorish harem” style, perhaps, as conceived by Mad King Ludwig, with a dash of Disneyland.
I did not comment. I had a hunch that Peewee had been given a room “just like her own” because I had one; that fitted the Mother Thing’s behavior—but Peewee had seen a golden chance to let her overfertile imagination run wild. I doubt if she fooled the Mother Thing one split second. She had probably let that indulgent overtone come into her song and had given Peewee what she wanted.
The Mother Thing’s home was smaller than our state capitol but not much; her family seemed to run to dozens, or hundreds—“family” has a wide meaning under their complex interlinkage. We didn’t see any young ones on our floor and I knew that they were being kept away from the “monsters.” The adults all greeted me, inquired as to my health, and congratulated me on my recovery; I was kept busy saying “Fine, thank you! Couldn’t be better.”
They all knew Peewee and she could sing their names.
I thought I recognized one of my therapists, but the Mother Thing, Prof Joe and the boss veterinarian were the only Vegans I was sure of and we did not meet them.
We hurried on. The Mother Thing’s home was typical—many soft round cushions about a foot thick and four in diameter, used as beds or chairs, floors bare, slick and springy, most furniture on the walls where it could be reached by climbing, convenient rods and poles and brackets a person could drape himself on while using the furniture, plants growing unexpectedly here and there as if the jungle were moving in—delightful, and as useful to me as a corset.
Through a series of parabolic arches we reached a balcony. It was not railed and the drop to a terrace below was about seventy-five feet; I stayed back and regretted again that Oscar had no chin window. Peewee went to the edge, put an arm around a slim pillar and leaned out. In the bright outdoor light her “helmet” became an opalescent sphere. “Come see!”
“And break my neck? Maybe you’d like to belay me?”
“Oh, pooh! Who’s afraid of heights?”
“I am when I can’t see what I’m doing.”
“Well, for goodness’ sakes, take my hand and grab a post.”
I let her lead me to a pillar, then looked out.
It was a city in a jungle. Thic
k dark green, so tangled that I could not tell trees from vine and bush, spread out all around but was broken repeatedly by buildings as large and larger than the one we were in. There were no roads; their roads are underground in cities and sometimes outside the cities. But there was air traffic—individual fliers supported by contrivances even less substantial than our own one-man ’copter harnesses or flying carpets. Like birds they launched themselves from and landed in balconies such as the one we stood in.
There were real birds, too, long and slender and brilliantly colored, with two sets of wings in tandem—which looked aerodynamically unsound but seemed to suit them.
The sky was blue and fair but broken by three towering cumulous anvils, blinding white in the distance. “Let’s go on the roof,” said Peewee.
“How?”
“Over here.”
It was a scuttle hole reached by staggered slender brackets the Vegans use as stairs. “Isn’t there a ramp?”
“Around on the far side, yes.”
“I don’t think those things will hold me. And that hole looks small for Oscar.”
“Oh, don’t be a sissy.” Peewee went up like a monkey.
I followed like a tired bear. The brackets were sturdy despite their grace; the hole was a snug fit.
Vega was high in the sky. It appeared to be the angular size of our Sun, which fitted since we were much farther out than Terra is from the Sun, but it was too bright even with full polarization. I looked away and presently eyes and polarizers adjusted until I could see again. Peewee’s head was concealed by what appeared to be a polished chrome basketball. I said, “Hey, are you still there?”
“Sure,” she answered. “I can see out all right. It’s a grand view. Doesn’t it remind you of Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never done any traveling.”
“Except no boulevards, of course. Somebody is about to land here.”
I turned the way she was pointing—she could see in all directions while I was hampered by the built-in tunnel vision of my helmet. By the time I was turned around the Vegan was coming in beside us.
(“Hello, children!”)
“Hi, Mother Thing!” Peewee threw her arms around her, picking her up.