Hal Clement - Natives of Space

“Probably the same information used by whoever compiled the Earth digest in this handbook.

Tes, my dear, can’t you see that whoever investigated this world couldn’t have stirred a mile from the spot he landed — and must have landed in a very primitive spot. He made no mention of electrical apparatus, metallurgical develop-ment, aircraft — all the things we’ve seen since we got here. Mankind must be in the age of scientific develop-ment. That investigator was criminally lax. If it weren’t for the letter of the law, I’d reveal myself to a human being right now.

“All sciences tend to progress in relation to each other; and I don’t believe that a race capable of creating the flying machine we saw two days ago would be lacking in the medical skill to treat the case we have here. We will figure out a means to get this being into the hands of its own people again, and that will solve the problem. We should be able to get away sometime tonight.”

Tes felt a great weight roll from her mind. There seemed little doubt that the program her husband had outlined was practical.

“Just how do you plan to approach a man, or group of them, carrying an injured member of their own race — a child, at that — and get away not only unharmed, but unobserved?” she asked, from curiosity rather than de-structive criticism.

“It should not be difficult. There are several dwelling places not far down the road. I can take the creature, place it in plain sight in front of one of them, then withdraw to a safe distance, and attract attention by throwing stones or starting a fire or something of that sort. It must be dark enough by now; we’ll go up right away, and if it isn’t we can wait a little while.”

It was. It was also raining, though not heavily; the boy’s prediction of the morning had been fulfilled. Tes maneuvered the little ship as close as possible to the quarry’s edge, while Thrykar once again transferred his burden across the short but unavoidable stretch of water. He pulled it out on dry, or comparatively dry, land, and signaled Tes to close the hatch and submerge. She was to wait for him just below the surface, ready to depart the moment he returned.

That detail attended to, he turned, straightened up, and coiled and uncoiled his tentacles two or three times after the manner of a man flexing his muscles for a severe task. He realized that, in the transportation of a one-hundred-fifteen pound body some three-quarters of a mile, he had taken on a job to which his strength might barely be equal; but the alternative of bringing.he ship closer to the town was unthinkable as yet. He bent over, picked Jimmy up, and started toward the road, keeping to the right side of the drive that led to the quarry.

It was even harder than he had expected. His muscles were strained and sore from the unaccustomed exertion earlier in the day; and by the time he was halfway to the road he knew that some other means of transportation would have to be found. He let his supple body curve under its load, and gently eased his burden to the ground.

Whether he had grown careless, or the rain had muffled the scuffling sound of approaching human feet, he was never sure; but he was unaware of the fact that he was not alone until the instant a beam of light lanced out of the darkness straight into his eyes, paralyzing him with astonishment and dismay.

Jackie Wade had heard nothing, either; but that may be attributed to Thrykar’s unshod feet, the rain, and Jackie’s own preoccupation with the question of his brother’s whereabouts. He was not yet actually worried, though his parents were beginning to be. Once or twice before, one or the other of the boys had remained at a comrade’s home for supper. They were, however, supposed to telephone in such an event, and the rather stringent penalties imposed for failure to do so had made them both rather punctilious in that matter.

Jackie had not told about his brother’s sore foot; he had simply offered, after supper, to go looking for him on the chance that he might be at the home of a friend who did not possess a telephone. He had no expectation that Jimmy would be at the quarry; he could think of no reason why he should be; but in passing the drive, he thought it would do no harm to look. Jimmy might have been there, and left some indication of the fact.

He knew the way well enough to dispense with all but occasional blinks of the flashlight he was carrying; so he was almost on top of the dark mass in the drive before he saw it. When he did he stopped, and, without dreaming for a moment that it was more than a pile of brush or something of that sort, left, perhaps, by one of the other boys, turned the beam of his light on it.

He didn’t even try to choke back the yell of astonish-ment and terror that rose to his lips. His gaze flickered over, accepted, and dismissed in one split second the body of his brother stretched on the wet ground; he stared for a long moment at the object bent over it.

He saw a black, glittering wet body, wide and thick as his own at the upper end, and tapering downwards; a dome-shaped head set on top of the torso without any intermediary neck; great, flat appendages, suggestive in the poor light of wings, spreading from the sides of the body; and a pair of great, staring, wide-set eyes that reflected the light of his flash as redly as do human optics.

That was all he had time to see before Thrykar moved, and he saw none of that very clearly. The alien straight-ened his flexible body abruptly, at the same time rocking backward on his short legs away from Jimmy’s body; and the muscles in his sinewy, streamlined torso and abdomen did not share any part of the feebleness inherent in his slender tentacles. When he straightened, it was with a snap; he did not merely come erect, but leaped upward and backward out of the cone of light, with his great fins spread wide for all the assistance they could give. He completely cleared the enormous block of stone lying beside the drive, and the sound of his descent on the other side was drowned in Jackie’s second and still more heartfelt yell.

For a moment Thrykar lay where he had fallen; then he recognized his surroundings, dark as it was. He was in the space he had used that afternoon for an operating theater; and with that realization he remembered the path among the rocks and bushes which he had used in carrying the boy to the ship. As silently as he could, he crept along it toward the water; but as yet he did not dare signal Tes.

Behind him he heard the voice of the creature who had seen him. It seemed to be calling — “Jimmy! Jimmy! Wake up! What’s the matter!” — but Thrykar could not understand the words.

What he did understand was the pound of running feet, diminishing along the drive and turning down the road toward the town. Instantly he rapped out an urgent signal to Tes, and abandoning caution made his way as rapidly as possible to the quarry’s edge. A faint glow a few feet away marked the hatch in the top of the hull, and he plunged into the water toward it. Thirty seconds later he was inside and at the control board, with the hatch sealed behind him; and without further preamble or delay, he sent the little ship swooping silently upward, into and through the dripping overcast, and out into the void away from Earth.

Jackie, questioned by his father while the doctor was at work, told the full truth to the best of his ability; and was in consequence sincerely grieved at the obvious doubt that greeted his tale. He honestly believed that the thing he had seen crouched over his brother’s body had been winged, and had departed by air. The doctor had already noted and commented on the wound in Jim’s throat, and the head of the Wade family had been moved to find out what he could about vampire bats. In consequence, he was doing his best to shake his younger son’s insistence on the fact that he had seen something at least as large as a man. He was not having much luck, and was beginning to lose his temper.