He looked up wonderingly. "Here? On this planet?" he asked eagerly.
A brilliant butterfly wandered past. The bird eyed it longingly and shivered into a rainbow of colors and darted away after it.
"Come back!" Alsint shouted. He couldn't find them unaided. He had to have directions.
The bird didn't return immediately. It played with the butterfly, flashing around it. Presently it tired of the sport and came back to the branch it had perched on. "Pretty bit of fluff," it said breathlessly.
"Never mind that," said Alsint impatiently. "What about those people? Are they on this world?"
"Oh, not here," said the bird. "A thousand planets away."
Alsint groaned. The bird had been trained by a madman and was alternately raising his hopes and crushing them.
"Not so," said the bird. "Here's history: a hundred and forty years ago, a couple, plant mechanics, were marooned — for the same reason." It flew from the perch and alighted on the plant machine, dipping its bill in a collecting tray. "Good stuff," it said, clattering its beak.
Alsint said nothing. It would tell him when it got ready, not before.
"The plant machine's fine," said the bird. "It's a plant that's been taken apart. Can you put it back together?"
"No more than it is," said Alsint. "No one can."
"No one you know," said the bird. "Here's more history: A hundred and forty years ago, this couple learned how to put it together — and it grew. A hundred and thirty years ago, they knew how to take an animal apart and keep it alive. A hundred and twenty years ago, they put the animal together and made it work in a new way."
The bird sidled along the branch. "What's the difference between plant and animal?" it asked.
There were countless differences, on any level Alsint wanted to think about. Cellular, organizational, whatever he named. But the bird had something simple in mind.
"There are some plants which can move a little," Alsint said slowly. "And there are some animals that hardly move at all. But the real difference, if there is any, is motion."
"Right. You'll get along fine," said the bird. "A hundred and twenty years ago, this couple — who by then had several children — put an animal together in a new way and got — pure motion."
That was what had been puzzling him, and now he knew. "Teleports," he said. "They can teleport."
"They can't," said the bird. "The mind's best for thinking — they say. And they've kept theirs uncluttered." The bird cocked a glittering eye. "I don't know about minds. I never had one."
If they couldn't teleport, how had the bird got here?
Alsint glanced at the bird. It wasn't perched on the plant machine and the wings were folded. Six feet off the ground it hovered, and not a breath of air stirring.
"Behind you," said the bird.
It didn't twitch a feather, but it was behind him now and he hadn't seen it move.
"Teleports, yes," said the bird. "But they can't do it. We do it for them."
The bird had been outside the visionport of the spaceship. If it could teleport itself, why not air too?
That was only part of it. The bird had followed him, but how had it foreseen this end?
"Did you know this would happen?" he asked.
"Plant mechanics are always getting marooned," said the bird. "We've gathered up quite a few. They work with the plant and a plant belongs on a planet. The rhythm is different from that of a machine."
He knew that. He could feel it, though he had never put it into words. "Go tell them where I am," he said. "I can live until they send a ship."
"A ship?" said the bird. "So slow? They don't believe in waiting. They've got all the beautiful planets that men don't want — just for the asking, though they don't have to ask. They need the right kind of people to live on them."
They didn't believe in waiting. A shadow fell across his face. Alsint looked up. Something was dropping down from the sky. Not a ship — not the conventional kind, anyway. It was the kind they would use. On planets on which all the food was grown naturally and no heavy elements were needed, what would be transported? People.
Not moving a wing, it came down, first fast and then slow. It stood in front of him, towering, a giant abstract figure of a woman with wings. There was frost on it.
He went to it and it covered him with wings.
There was no sensation at all except cold, which lasted only a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, the strange, beautiful ship was dropping down on another planet, more pleasant than the last. Men and women were coming out of the houses to meet him. One of them looked something like Larienne.
End
About the Author
F. L. Wallace (1915-2004) also wrote under the names: Floyd L. Wallace and Floyd Wallace. FL Wallace was a noted science fiction and mystery writer. He was born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1915, and died in Tustin, California, in 2004. Wallace spent most of his life in California as a writer and mechanical engineer after attending the University of Iowa. His first published story, "Hideaway," appeared in the magazine Astounding.
Other works by F.L. Wallace
Centauri
Second Landing
Bolden's Pets
Student Body
Forget Me Nearly
Tangle Hold
Accidental Flight
The Impossible Voyage Home
Hideaway
Accidental Flight
Delay in Transit (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
Delay in Transit
Student Body (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
Worlds in Balance
Tangle Hold
The Music Master
Seasoned Traveler
Forget Me Nearly
The Deadly Ones (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
The Impossible Voyage Home
The Man Who Was Six
Simple Psiman
Big Ancestor (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
End as a World (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
Bolden's Pets
The Assistant Self
Mezzerow Loves Company (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
A Little Thing for the House
Queen of Clothes
The Nevada Virus (by Floyd Wallace)
Variant Title: The Nevada Virus (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
Growing Season (as by Floyd L. Wallace)
Second Landing (as by Floyd Wallace)
Privates All (as by Floyd Wallace)
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