Clifford Simak - The Shipshape Miracle - And Other Stories

Although, he told himself, that might not be entirely right.

Maybe he had been wrong in thinking, in the first flush of his bitterness, that he was a pet.

Maybe he was a playmate, an adult Earthman downgraded to the status of a child—and a stupid child, at that. Maybe, if he had been wrong on the pet angle, he was wrong in the belief, as well, that it had been the children of Kimon who had arranged the immigration of the Earth folk.

And if it hadn’t been simply a childish matter of asking in some kids from across the tracks, if the adults of Kimon had had a hand in it, what was the setup then? A school project, a certain phase of progressive education? Or a sort of summer camp project, designed to give the deserving, but underprivileged, Earthman a vacation away from the squalor of their native planet? Or simply a safe way in which the children of Kimon might amuse and occupy themselves, be kept from underfoot?

We should have guessed it long ago, Bishop told himself. But even if some of us might have entertained the thought, that we were either pet or playmate, we would have pushed it far away from us, would have refused to recognize it, for our pride is too tender and too raw for a thought like that.

“There you are, sir,” said the cabinet. “Almost as good as new. Tomorrow you can take the dressing off.”

He stood before the cabinet without answering. He withdrew his hand and let it fall to his side, like so much dead weight.

Without asking if he wanted it, the cabinet produced a drink.

“I made it long and strong,” said the cabinet. “I thought you needed it.”

“Thank you,” Bishop said.

He took the drink and stood there with it, not touching it, not wanting to touch it until he’d finished out the thought.

And the thought would not finish out.

There was something wrong. Something that didn’t track.

Our pride is too raw and tender—

There was something there, some extra words that badly needed saying.

“There is something wrong, sir.”

“Nothing wrong,” said Bishop.

“But your drink.”

“I’ll get around to it.”

The Normans had sat their horses on that Saturday afternoon, with the leopard banners curling in the breeze, with the pennons on their lances fluttering, with the sun upon their armor and the scabbards clinking as the horses pranced. They had charged, as history said they had, and they were beaten back. That was entirely right, for it had not been until late afternoon that the Saxon wall was broken and the final fight around the dragon standard had not taken place until it was nearly dark.

But there had been no Taillefer, riding in the fore to throw up his sword and sing.

On that history had been wrong.

A couple of centuries later, more than likely, some copyist had whiled away a monotonous afternoon by writing into the prosaic story of the battle the romance and the glitter of the charge of Taillefer. Writing it in protest against the four blank walls, against his Spartan food, against the daily dullness when spring was in the air and a man should be in the fields or woods instead of shut indoors, hunched with his quills and inkpots.

And that is the way it is with us, thought Bishop. We write the half-truth and the half-lie in our letters home. We conceal a truth or we obscure a fact or we add a line or two that, if not a downright lie, is certainly misleading.

We do not face up to facts, he thought. We gloss over the man crawling in the grass, with his torn-out guts snagging on the brambles. We write in the Taillefer.

And if we only did it in our letters, it would not be so bad. But we do it to ourselves. We protect our pride by lying to ourselves. We shield our dignity by deliberate indignation.

“Here,” he said to the cabinet, “have a drink on me.”

He set the glass, still full, on the top of the cabinet.

The cabinet gurgled in surprise.

“I do not drink,” it said.

“Then take it back and put it in the bottle.”

“I can’t do that,” said the cabinet, horrified. “It’s already mixed.”

“Separate it, then.”

“It can’t be separated,” wailed the cabinet. “You surely don’t expect me—”

There was a little swish and Maxine stood in the center of the room.

She smiled at Bishop.

“What goes on?” she asked.

The cabinet wailed at her. “He wants me to unmix a drink. He wants me to separate it, the liquor from the mix. He knows I can’t do that.”

“My, my,” she said. “I thought you could do anything.”

“I can’t unravel a drink,” the cabinet said primly. “Why don’t you take it off my hands?”

“That’s a good idea,” said the girl. She walked forward and picked up the drink.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked Bishop. “Turning chicken on us?”

“I just don’t want a drink,” said Bishop. “Hasn’t a man got a right to—”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course you have.”

She sipped the drink, looking at him above the rim.

“What happened to your hand?”

“Burned it.”

“You’re old enough not to play with fire.”

“You’re old enough not to come barging into a room this way,” Bishop told her. “One of these days you’ll reassemble yourself in the precise spot where someone else is standing.”

She giggled. “That would be fun,” she said. “Think of you and I—”

“It would be a mess,” said Bishop.

“Invite me to sit down,” said Maxine. “Let’s act civilized and social.”

“Sure, sit down,” said Bishop.

She picked out a couch.

“I’m interested in this business of teleporting yourself,” said Bishop. “I’ve asked you before, but you never told me—”

“It just came to me,” she said.

“But you can’t teleport. Humans aren’t parapsychic—”

“Some day, Buster, you’ll blow a fuse. You get so steamed up.”

He went across the room and sat down beside her.

“Sure, I get steamed up,” he said. “But—”

“What now?”

“Have you ever thought … well, have you ever tried to work at it? Like moving something else, some object—other than yourself?”

“No, I never have.”

“Why not?”

“Look, Buster. I drop in to have a drink with you and to forget myself. I didn’t come primed for a long technical discussion. I couldn’t anyway. I just don’t understand. There’s so much we don’t understand.”

She looked at him and there was something very much like fright brimming in her eyes.

“You pretend that you don’t mind,” she said. “But you do mind. You wear yourself out pretending that you don’t mind at all.”

“Then let’s quit pretending,” Bishop said. “Let’s admit—”

She had lifted the glass to drink and now, suddenly it slipped out of her hand.

“Oh—”

The glass halted before it struck the floor. It hovered for a moment, then it slowly rose. She reached out and grasped it.

And then it slipped again from her suddenly shaking hand. This time it hit the floor and spilled.

“Try it again,” said Bishop.

She said, “I never tried. I don’t know how it happened. I just didn’t want to drop it, that was all. I wished I hadn’t dropped it and then—”

“But the second time—”

“You fool,” she screamed. “I tell you I didn’t try. I wasn’t putting on an exhibition for you. I tell you that I don’t know what happened.”

“But you did it. It was a start.”

“A start?”

“You caught the glass before it hit the floor. You teleported it back into your hand.”

“Look, Buster,” she said grimly, “quit kidding yourself. They’re watching all the time. They play little tricks like that. Anything for a laugh.”