“Where did you get it?”
“Off a tree. It’s Mewhu’s. Apparently he used it for a parachute. On the way down, a tree branch speared through one of these rings and he slipped out of it and fell and broke his arm.”
“What are we going to do with him, Jack?”
“I’ve been worrying about that myself. We can’t sell him to a sideshow.” He paused thoughtfully. “There’s no doubt that he has a lot that would be of value to humanity. Why, this thing alone would change the face of the earth! Listen—I weigh a hundred and seventy. I fell on this thing suddenly, when I lost my grip on a tree, and it bore my weight immediately. Mewhu weighs more than I do, judging from his build. It took his weight when he lifted his feet off the ground while he was holding it over his head. If it can do that, it or a larger version should be able, not only to drive, but to support an aircraft. If for some reason that isn’t possible, the power of those little jets certainly could turn a turbine.”
“Will it wash clothes?” Iris was glum.
“That’s exactly what I mean. Light, portable, and more power than it has any right to have—of course it’ll wash clothes. And drive generators, and cars, and … Iris, what do you do when you have something as big as this?”
“Call a newspaper, I guess.”
“And have a hundred thousand people peeking and prying all over the place, and Congressional investigations, and what all? Uh-uh!”
“Why not ask Harry Zinsser?”
“Harry? I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I never said that. It’s just that you and he go off in the corner and chatter about mulpitude amputation and debilities of reactance and things like that, and I have to sit, knit—and spit when I want someone’s attention. Harry’s all right.”
“Gosh, honey, you’ve got it. Harry’ll know what to do. I’ll go right away!”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind. With that hole in the roof? I thought you said you could have it patched up for the night at least. By the time you get back here it’ll be dark.”
The prospect of sawing out the ragged hole in the roof was suddenly the least appealing thing in the world. But there was logic and an “or else” tone to what she said. He sighed and went off, mumbling something about the greatest single advance in history awaiting the whim of a woman. He forgot that he was wearing Mewhu’s armpit altitudinizer. Only his first two paces were on the ground, and Iris hooted with laughter at his clumsy walking on air. When he reached the ground he set his jaw and leaped lightly up to the roof. “Catch me now, you and your piano legs,” he taunted cheerfully, ducked the lancelike clothes prop she hurled at him, and went back to work.
As he sawed, he was conscious of a hubbub down below.
“Dah-dee!” “Mr-r-roo ellue—”
He sighed and put down the saw. “What is it?”
“Mewhu wants his flyin’ belt!”
Jack looked at the roof, at the lower shed, and decided that his old bones could stand it if he had to get down without a ladder. He took the jet-tipped rod and dropped it. It stayed perfectly horizontal, falling no slower and no faster than it had when he had ridden it down. Mewhu caught it, deftly slipped his splinted arm through it—it was astonishing how careful he was of the arm, and yet how little it inconvenienced him—then the other arm, and sprang up to join Jack on the roof.
“What do you say, fella?”
“Woopen yew weep.”
“I know how you feel.” He knew the silver man wanted to tell him something, but he couldn’t help him out. He grinned and picked up the saw. Mewhu took it out of his hand and tossed it off the roof, being careful to miss Molly, who was dancing back to get a point of vantage.
“What’s the big idea?”
“Dellihew hidden,” said Mewhu. “Pento deh numinew heh,” and he pointed at the flying belt and at the hole in the roof.
“You mean I’d rather fly off in that thing than work? Brother, you got it. But I’m afraid I have to—”
Mewhu circled his arm, pointing all around the hole in the roof, and pointed again to the pogo-chute, indicating one of the jet motors.
“I don’t get it,” said Jack.
Mewhu apparently understood, and an expression of amazement crossed his mobile face. Kneeling, he placed his good hand around one of the little jet motors, pressed two tiny studs, and the casing popped open. Inside was a compact, sealed, and simple-looking device, the core of the motor itself, apparently. There seemed to be no other fastening. Mewhu lifted it out and handed it to Jack. It was about the size and shape of an electric razor. There was a button on the side. Mewhu pointed at it, pressed the back, and then moved Jack’s hand so that the device was pointed away from them both. Jack, expecting anything, from nothing at all to the “blinding bolt of searing, raw energy” so dear to the science-fiction world, pressed the button.
The gadget hissed, and snuggled back into his palm in an easy recoil.
“That’s fine,” said Jack, “but what do I do with it?” Mewhu pointed at Jack’s cut, then at the device.
“Oh,” said Jack. He bent close, aimed the thing at the end of the saw cut, and pressed the button. Again the hiss and the slight, steady recoil, and a fine line appeared in the wood. It was a cut, about half as thick as the saw cut, clean and even and, as long as he kept his hand steady, very straight. A fine cloud of pulverized wood rose out of the hole in the roof, carried on a swirl of air.
Jack experimented, holding the jet close to the wood and away from it. He found that it cut finer the closer he got to it. As he drew it away from the wood, the slot got wider and the device cut slower until at about eighteen inches it would not cut at all. Delighted, Jack quickly cut and trimmed the hole. Mewhu watched, grinning. Jack grinned back, knowing how he would feel if he introduced a saw to some primitive who was trying to work wood with a machete.
When he was finished, he handed the jet back to the silver man and slapped his shoulder. “Thanks a million, Mewhu.”
“Jeek,” said Mewhu, and reached for Jack’s neck. One of his thumbs lay on Jack’s collarbone, the other on his back, over the scapula. Mewhu squeezed twice, firmly.
“That the way you shake hands back home?” smiled Jack. He thought it likely. Any civilized race was likely to have a manual greeting. The handshake had evolved from a raised palm, indicating that the saluter was unarmed. It was quite possible that this was an extension, in a slightly different direction, of the same sign. It would indeed be an indication of friendliness to have two individuals present their throats to each other.
With three deft motions, Mewhu slipped the tiny jet back into its casing and, holding the rod with one hand, stepped off the roof, letting himself be lowered in that amazing thistledown fashion to the ground. Once there, he tossed the rod back. Jack was startled to see it hurtle upward like any earthly object. He grabbed it and missed. It reached the top of its arc, and as soon as it started down again the jets cut in, and it sank easily to him. He put it on and floated down to join Mewhu.
The silver man followed Jack to the garage, where he kept a few pieces of milled lumber. He selected some one-inch pine boards and dragged them out into the middle of the floor, to measure them and mark them off to the size he wanted to knock together a simple trap door covering for the useless stair well, a process which Mewhu watched with great interest.
Jack took up the flying belt and tried to open the streamlined shell to remove the cutter. It absolutely defied him. He pressed, twisted, wrenched, and pulled. All it did was to hiss gently when he moved it toward the floor.
“Eek, Jeek,” said Mewhu. He took the jet from Jack and pressed it. Jack watched closely, then he grinned and took the cutter.
He swiftly cut the lumber up with it, sneering gayly at the ripsaw which hung on the wall. Then he put the whole trap together with a Z-brace, trimmed off the few rough corners, and stood back to admire it. He realized instantly that it was too heavy to carry by himself, let alone lift it to the roof. If Mewhu had two goo
d hands, now—He scratched his head.
“Carry it on the flyin’ belt, Daddy.”
“Molly! What made you think of that?”
“Mewhu tol’ … I mean, I sort of—”
“Let’s get this straight once and for all. How does Mewhu talk to you?”
“I dunno, Daddy. It’s sort of like I remembered something he said, but not the … the words he said. I jus’ … jus’ …” she faltered, and then said vehemently, “I don’t know, Daddy. Truly I don’t.”
“What’d he say this time?”
She looked at Mewhu. Again Jack noticed the peculiar swelling of Mewhu’s silver mustache. She said, “Put the door you jus’ made on the flyin’ belt and lift it. The flyin’ belt’ll make it fall slow, and you can push it along while … it’s … fallin’.”
Jack looked at the door, at the jet device, and got the idea. When he had slipped the jet rod under the door, Mewhu gave him a lift. Up it came; and then Mewhu, steadying it, towed it well outside the garage before it finally sank to the ground. Another lift, another easy tow, and they covered thirty more feet. In this manner they covered the distance to the house, with Molly skipping and laughing behind, pleading for a ride and praising the grinning Mewhu.
At the house, Jack said, “Well, Einstein Junior, how do we get it up on the roof?”
Mewhu picked up Molly’s yo-yo and began to operate it deftly. Doing so, he walked around the corner of the house.
“Hey!”
“He don’t know, Daddy. You’ll have to figger it out.”
“You mean he could dream up that slick trick for carrying it out here and now his brains give out?”
“I guess so, Daddy.”
Jack Garry looked after the retreating form of the silver man and shook his head. He was already prepared to expect better than human reasoning from Mewhu, even if it was a little different. He couldn’t quite phase this with Mewhu’s shrugging off a problem in basic logic. Certainly a man with his capabilities would not have reasoned out such an ingenious method of bringing the door out here without realizing that that was only half the problem. He wondered if the solution was so obvious to Mewhu that he couldn’t be bothered explaining it.
Shrugging, Jack went back to the garage and got a small block and tackle. He had to put up a big screw hook on the eave, and another on the new trap door; and once he had laboriously hauled the door up until the tackle was two-locked it was a little more than arduous to work it over the edge and drag it into position. Mewhu had apparently quite lost interest. It was two hours later, just as he put the last screw in the tower bolt on the trap door and was calling the job finished, that he heard Mewhu begin to shriek again. He dropped his tools, shrugged into the jet stick, and sailed off the roof.
“Iris! Iris! What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, Jack. He’s …”
Jack pounded around to the front of the house. Mewhu was lying on the ground in the midst of some violent, tearing convulsion. He lay on his back, arching it high, digging his heels into the turf, and his head was bent back at an impossible angle, so that his weight was on his heels and his forehead. His good arm pounded the ground though the splinted one lay limp. His lips writhed and he uttered an edgy, gasping series of ululations quite horrible to listen to. He seemed to be able to scream as loudly when inhaling as when exhaling.
Molly stood beside him, watching him hypnotically. She was smiling. Jack knelt beside the writhing form and tried to steady it. “Molly, stop grinning at the poor fellow.”
“But—he’s happy, Daddy.”
“He’s what?”
“Can’t you see, silly? He feels good, that’s all. He’s laughing!”
“Iris, what’s the matter with him? Do you know?”
“He took some aspirin again, that’s all I can tell you.”
“He ate four,” said Molly. “He loves ’em.”
“What can we do, Jack?”
“I don’t know, honey,” said Jack worriedly. “Better just let him work it out. Any emetic or sedative we give him might be harmful.”
The attack slackened and ceased suddenly, and Mewhu went quite limp. Again, with his hand over the man’s chest, Jack felt the strange double pulsing.
“Out cold,” he said.
Molly said in a strange, quiet voice, “No, Daddy. He’s lookin’ at dreams.”
“Dreams?”
“A place with a or’nge sky,” said Molly. He looked up sharply. Her eyes were closed. “Lots of Mewhus. Hunderds an’ hunderds—big ones. As big as Mr. Thorndyke.” (Thorndyke was an editor whom they knew in the city. He was six feet seven.) “Round houses, an’ big airplanes with … sticks fer wings.”
“Molly, you’re talking nonsense,” her mother said worriedly. Jack shushed her. “Go on, baby.”
“A place, a room. It’s a … Mewhu is there and a bunch more. They’re in … in lines. Rows. There’s a big one with a yella hat. He keeps them in rows. Here’s Mewhu. He’s outa the line. He’s jumpin’ out th’ window with a flyin’ belt.” There was a long silence. Mewhu moaned.
“Well?”
“Nothin’, Daddy … wait! It’s … all … fuzzy. Now there’s a thing, a kinda summarine. Only on the ground, not in the water. The door’s open. Mewhu is … is inside. Knobs, and clocks. Pull on the knobs. Push a—Oh. Oh! It hurts!” She put her fists to her temples.
“Molly!”
Molly opened her eyes and said quite calmly, “Oh, I’m all right, Mommy. It was a thing in the dream that hurt, but it didn’t hurt me. It was all a bunch of fire an’ … an’ a sleepy feeling, only bigger. An’ it hurt.”
“Jack, he’ll harm the child!”
“I doubt it,” said Jack.
“So do I,” said Iris wonderingly, and then, almost inaudibly, “Now, why did I say that?”
“Mewhu’s asleep,” said Molly suddenly.
“No more dreams?”
“No more dreams. Gee. That was—funny.”
“Come and have some lunch,” said Iris. Her voice shook a little. They went into the house. Jack looked down at Mewhu, who was smiling peacefully in his sleep. He thought of putting the strange creature to bed, but the day was warm and the grass was thick and soft where he lay. He shook his head and went into the house.
“Sit down and feed,” Iris said.
He looked around. “You’ve done wonders in here,” he said. The litter of lath and plaster was gone, and Iris’ triumphant antimacassars blossomed from the upholstery. She curtsied. “Thank you, m’lord.”
They sat around the card table and began to do damage to tongue sandwiches. “Jack.”
“Mm-m?”
“What was that—telepathy?”
“Think so. Something like that. Oh, wait’ll I tell Zinsser! He’ll never believe it.”
“Are you going down to the airfield this afternoon?”
“You bet. Maybe I’ll take Mewhu with me.”
“That would be a little rough on the populace, wouldn’t it? Mewhu isn’t the kind of fellow you can pass off as your cousin Julius.”
“Heck, he’d be all right. He could sit in the back seat with Molly while I talked Zinsser into coming out to have a look at him.”
“Why not get Zinsser out here?”
“You know that’s silly. When we see him in town he’s got time off. Out here he’s tied to that airport almost every minute.”
“Jack, do you think Molly’s quite safe with that creature?”
“Of course. Are you worried?”
“I … I am, Jack. But not about Mewhu. About me. I’m worried because I think I should worry more, if you see what I mean.”
Jack leaned over and kissed her. “The good old maternal instinct at work,” he chuckled. “Mewhu’s new and strange and might be dangerous. At the same time Mewhu’s hurt, and he’s inoffensive, so something in you wants to mother him, too.”
“There you really have something,” Iris said thoughtfully. “He’s as big and ugly as you are, and unquest
ionably more intelligent. Yet I don’t mother you.”
Jack grinned. “You’re not kiddin’.” He gulped his coffee and stood up. “Eat it up, Molly, and go wash your hands and face. I’m going to have a look at Mewhu.”
“You’re going into the airport, then?” asked Iris.
“If Mewhu’s up to it. There’s too much I want to know, too much I haven’t the brains to figure out. I don’t think I’ll get all the answers from Zinsser, by any means; but between us we’ll figure out what to do about this thing. Iris, it’s big!”
Full of wild speculation, he stepped out on the lawn. Mewhu was sitting up, happily contemplating a caterpillar.
“Mewhu.”
“Dew?”
“How’d you like to take a ride?”
“Hubilly grees. Jeek?”
“I guess you don’t get the idea. C’mon,” said Jack, motioning toward the garage. Mewhu very, very carefully set the caterpillar down on a blade of grass and rose to follow; and just then the most unearthly crash issued from the garage. For a frozen moment no one moved, and then Molly’s voice set up a hair-raising reiterated screech. Jack was pounding toward the garage before he knew he had moved.
“Molly! What is it?”
At the sound of his voice the child shut up as if she were switch operated.
“Molly!”
“Here I am, Daddy,” she said in an extremely small voice. She was standing by the car, her entire being concentrated in her protruding, faintly quivering lower lip. The car was nose-foremost through the back wall of the garage.
“Daddy, I didn’t mean to do it; I just wanted to help you get the car out. Are you going to spank me? Please, Daddy, I didn’t—”
“Quiet!”
She was quiet immediately. “Molly, what on earth possessed you to do a thing like that? You know you’re not supposed to touch the starter!”
“I was pretending, Daddy, like it was a summarine that could fly, the way Mewhu did.”
Jack threaded his way through this extraordinary shambles of syntax. “Come here,” he said sternly. She came, her paces half-size, her feet dragging, her hands behind her where her imagination told her they would do the most good. “I ought to whack you, you know.”
Killdozer! Page 37
