Have space suit-- will travel (21 page)

I took a deep breath and got very dizzy and the lights dimmed.

She was looking at me. “You all right now?”

“Me? Sure! Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Let me help you inside.”

I couldn’t see why, but she did help and I needed it. She sat me on the floor near the door with my back to the wall-I didn’t want to lie down. “Kip, I was so scared!”

“Why?” I couldn’t see what she was worried about. Hadn’t the Mother Thing said that we had all done all right?

“Well, I was. I shouldn’t have let you go out.”

“But the beacon had to be set.”

“Oh, but- You set it?”

“Of course. The Mother Thing was pleased.”

“I’m sure she would have been,” she said gravely.

“She was.”

“Can I do anything? Can I help you out of your suit?”

“Uh . . . no, not yet. Could you find me a drink of water?”

“Right away!”

She came back and held it for me-I wasn’t as thirsty as I had thought; it made me a bit ill. She watched me for some time, then said, “Do you mind if I’m gone a little while? Will you be all right?”

“Me? Certainly.” I didn’t feel well, I was beginning to hurt, but there wasn’t anything she could do.

“I won’t be long.” She began clamping her helmet and I noticed with detached interest that she was wearing her own suit-somehow I had had the impression that she had been wearing Tim’s.

I saw her head for the lock and realized where she was going and why. I wanted to tell her that the Mother Thing would rather not be inside here, where she might . . . where she might-I didn’t want to say “spoil” even to myself.

But Peewee was gone.

I don’t think she was away more than five minutes. I had closed my eyes and I am not sure. I noticed the inner door open. Through it stepped Peewee, carrying the Mother Thing in her arms like a long piece of firewood. She didn’t bend at all.

Peewee put the Mother Thing on the floor in the same position I had last seen her, then undamped her helmet and bawled.

I couldn’t get up. My legs hurt too much. And my arms. “Peewee . . . please, honey. It doesn’t do any good.”

She raised her head. “I’m all through. I won’t cry any more.”

And she didn’t.

We sat there a long time. Peewee again offered to help me out of my suit, but when we tried it, I hurt so terribly, especially my hands and my feet, that I had to ask her to stop. She looked worried. “Kip ... I’m afraid you froze them.”

“Maybe. But there’s nothing to do about it now.” I winced and changed the subject. “Where did you find your suit?”

“Oh!” She looked indignant, then almost gay. “You’d never guess. Inside Jock’s suit.”

“No, I guess I wouldn’t. The Purloined Letter.’ “

“The what?”

“Nothing. I hadn’t realized that old Wormface had a sense of humor.”

Shortly after that we had another quake, a bad one. Chandeliers would have jounced if the place had had any and the floor heaved. Peewee squealed. “Oh! That was almost as bad as the last one.”

“A lot worse, I’d say. That first little one wasn’t anything.”

“No, I mean the one while you were outside.”

“Was there one then?”

“Didn’t you feel it?”

“No.” I tried to remember. “Maybe that was when I fell off in the snow.”

“You fell off? Kip!”

“It was all right. Oscar helped me.”

There was another ground shock. I wouldn’t have minded, only it shook me up and made me hurt worse. I finally came out of the fog enough to realize that I didn’t have to hurt.

Let’s see, medicine pills were on the right and the codeine dispenser was farthest back- “Peewee? Could I trouble you for some water again?”

“Of course!”

“I’m going to take codeine. It may make me sleep. Do you mind?”

“You ought to sleep if you can. You need it.”

“I suppose so. What time is it?”

She told me and I couldn’t believe it. “You mean it’s been more than twelve hours?”

“Huh? Since what?”

“Since this started.”

“I don’t understand, Kip.” She stared at her watch. “It has been exactly an hour and a half since I found you-not quite two hours since the Mother Thing set off the bombs.”

I couldn’t believe that, either. But Peewee insisted that she was right.

The codeine made me feel much better and I was beginning to be drowsy, when Peewee said, “Kip, do you smell anything?”

I sniffed. “Something like kitchen matches?”

“That’s what I mean. I think the pressure is dropping, too. Kip ... I think I had better close your helmet-if you’re going to sleep.”

“All right. You close yours, too?”

“Yes. Uh, I don’t think this place is tight any longer.”

“You may be right.” Between explosions and quakes, I didn’t see how it could be. But, while I knew what that meant, I was too weary and sick- and getting too dreamy from the drug-to worry. Now, or a month from now-what did it matter? The Mother Thing had said everything was okay.

Peewee clamped us in, we checked radios, and she sat down facing me and the Mother Thing. She didn’t say anything for a long time. Then I heard: “Peewee to Junebug-“

“I read you, Peewee.”

“Kip? It’s been fun, mostly. Hasn’t it?”

“Huh?” I glanced up, saw that the dial said I had about four hours of air left. I had had to reduce pressure twice, since we closed up, to match falling pressure in the room. “Yes, Peewee, it’s been swell. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

She sighed. “I just wanted to be sure you weren’t blaming me. Now go to sleep.”

I did almost go to sleep, when I saw Peewee jump up and my phones came to life. “Kip! Something’s coming in the door!”

I came wide awake, realized what it meant. Why couldn’t they have let us be? A few hours, anyhow? “Peewee. Don’t panic. Move to the far side of the door. You’ve got your blue-light gadget?”

“Yes.”

“Pick them off as they come in.”

“You’ve got to move, Kip. You’re right where they will come!”

“I can’t get up.” I hadn’t been able to move, not even my arms, for quite a while. “Use low power, then if you brush me, it won’t matter. Do what I say! Fast!”

“Yes, Kip.” She got where she could snipe at them sideways, raised her projector and waited.

The inner door opened, a figure came in. I saw Peewee start to nail it- and I called into my radio: “Don’t shoot!”

But she was dropping the projector and running forward even as I shouted.

They were “mother thing” people.

It took six of them to carry me, only two to carry the Mother Thing. They sang to me soothingly all the time they were rigging a litter. I swallowed another codeine tablet before they lifted me, as even with their gentleness any movement hurt. It didn’t take long to get me into their ship, for they had landed almost at the tunnel mouth, no doubt crushing the walkway-I hoped so.

Once I was safely inside Peewee opened my helmet and unzipped the front of my suit. “Kip! Aren’t they wonderful?”

“Yes.” I was getting dizzier from the drug but was feeling better. “When do we raise ship?”

“We’ve already started.”

“They’re taking us home?” I’d have to tell Mr. Charton what a big help the codeine was.

“Huh? Oh, my, no! We’re headed for Vega.”

I fainted.

I had been dreaming that I was home; this awoke me with a jerk. “Mother Thing!”

(“Good morning, my son. I am happy to see that you are feeling better.”)

“Oh, I feel fine. I’ve had a good night’s rest-“ I stared, then blurted: “-you’re dead!” I couldn’t stop it.

Her answer sounded warmly, gently humorous, the way you correct a child who has made a natural mistake. (“No, dear, I was merely frozen. I am not as frail as you seem to think me.”)

I blinked and looked again. “Then it wasn’t a dream?”

(“No, it was not a dream.”)

“I thought I was home and-“ I tried to sit up, managed only to raise my head. “I am home!” My room! Clothes closet on the left-hall door behind the Mother Thing-my desk on the right, piled with books and with a Centerville High pennant over it-window beyond it, with the old elm almost filling it-sun-speckled leaves stirring in a breeze.

My slipstick was where I had left it.

Things started to wobble, then I figured it out. I had dreamed only the silly part at the end. Vega-I had been groggy with codeine. “You brought me home.”

(“We brought you home ... to your other home. My home.”)

The bed started to sway. I clutched at it but my arms didn’t move. The Mother Thing was still singing. (“You needed your own nest. So we prepared it.”)

“Mother Thing, I’m confused.”

(“We know that a bird grows well faster in its own nest. So we built yours.”) “Bird” and “nest” weren’t what she sang, but an Unabridged won’t give anything closer.

I took a deep breath to steady down. I understood her-that’s what she was best at, making you understand. This wasn’t my room and I wasn’t home; it simply looked like it. But I was still terribly confused.

I looked around and wondered how I could have been mistaken.

The light slanted in the window from a wrong direction. The ceiling didn’t have the patch in it from the time I built a hide-out in the attic and knocked plaster down by hammering. It wasn’t the right shade, either.

The books were too neat and clean; they had that candy-box look. I couldn’t recognize the bindings. The over-all effect was mighty close, but details were not right.

(“I like this room,”) the Mother Thing was singing. (“It looks like you, Kip.”)

“Mother Thing,” I said weakly, “how did you do it?”

(“We asked you. And Peewee helped.”)

I thought, “But Peewee has never seen my room either,” then decided that Peewee had seen enough American homes to be a consulting expert. “Peewee is here?”

(“She’ll be in shortly.”)

With Peewee and the Mother Thing around things couldn’t be too bad. Except- “Mother Thing, I can’t move my arms and legs.”

She put a tiny, warm hand on my forehead and leaned over me until her enormous, lemur-like eyes blanked out everything else. (“You have been damaged. Now you are growing well. Do not worry.”)

When the Mother Thing tells you not to worry, you don’t. I didn’t want to do handstands anyhow; I was satisfied to look into her eyes. You could sink into them, you could have dived in and swum around. “All right, Mother Thing.” I remembered something else. “Say . . . you were frozen? Weren’t you?”

(“Yes.”)

“But- Look, when water freezes it ruptures living cells. Or so they say.”

She answered primly, (“My body would never permit that!”).

“Well-“ I thought about it. “Just don’t dunk me in liquid air! I’m not built for it.”

Again her song held roguish, indulgent humor. (“We shall endeavor not to hurt you.”) She straightened up and grew a little, swaying like a willow. (“I sense Peewee.”)

There was a knock-another discrepancy; it didn’t sound like a knock on a light-weight interior door-and Peewee called out, “May I come in?” She didn’t wait (I wondered if she ever did) but came on in. The bit I could see past her looked like our upper hall; they’d done a thorough job.

(“Come in, dear.”)

“Sure, Peewee. You are in.”

“Don’t be captious.”

“Look who’s talking. Hi, kid!”

“Hi yourself.”

The Mother Thing glided away. (“Don’t stay long, Peewee. You are not to tire him.”)

“I won’t, Mother Thing.”

(“ ‘Bye, dears.”)

I said, “What are the visiting hours in this ward?”

“When she says, of course.” Peewee stood facing me, fists on hips. She was really clean for the first time in our acquaintance-cheeks pink with scrubbing, hair fluffy-maybe she would be pretty, in about ten years. She was dressed as always but her clothes were fresh, all buttons present, and tears invisibly mended.

“Well,” she said, letting out her breath, “I guess you’re going to be worth keeping, after all.”

“Me? I’m in the pink. How about yourself?”

She wrinkled her nose. “A little frost nip. Nothing. But you were a mess.”

“I was?”

“I can’t use adequate language without being what Mama calls ‘unladylike.’ “

“Oh, we wouldn’t want you to be that.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. You don’t do it well.”

“You won’t let me practice on you?”

She started to make a Peewee retort, stopped suddenly, smiled and came close. For a nervous second I thought she was going to kiss me. But she just patted the bedclothes and said solemnly, “You bet you can, Kip. You can be sarcastic, or nasty, or mean, or scold me, or anything, and I won’t let out a peep. Why, I’ll bet you could even talk back to the Mother Thing.”