by Algis Budrys
_White_ _Biped_
_"In Heaven's name, Doctor, when will this thing be over?"_
BL was Riya. Riya was: _Big brown beast, looming large, looking lonely._ _BL=MTR_ _Equation not meaningful, not valid._
* * * * *
Almost resolved, only a few traces of the initial conflict remained.Phildee put the tips of his right fingers to his mouth. He dug his toeinto the ground, gouged a semicircular furrow, and smoothed it over withhis sole.
Riya continued to look at him from where she was standing, two or threefeet away. Haltingly, she reached out her mind again--hesitating notbecause of fear of another such reaction on Phildee's part, for that hadbeen far beyond her capacity to understand, but because even theslightest rebuff on the part of a child to a gesture as instinctive as aTerrestrial mother's caress was something that none of the people hadever encountered before.
While her left-behind intellectual capacity still struggled to reconcilethe feel of childhood with a visual image of complete unfamiliarity, thewarm mind-caress went gently forth again.
Phildee made up his mind. Ordinarily, he was immune to the smallemotional problems that beclouded less rational intellects. He wasunused to functioning in other than a cause/effect universe. Motherswere usually--though sometimes not--matronly women who spent the greaterpart of roughly twenty years per child in conscious pre-occupation with,and/or subconscious or conscious rejection of, their offspring.
In his special case, Mother was a warm place, a frantic, hysteric voice,the pressure of the spasmodically contractile musculature linked to herhyperthyroid metabolism. Mother was a thing from before birth.
Riya--Riya bore a strong resemblance to an intelligent cow. In anyphysiological sense, she could no more be his mother than--
The second caress found him not unaccustomed to it. It enfolded hisconsciousness, tenderly, protectingly, empathetic.
Phildee gave way to instinct.
* * * * *
The fur along the ridge of Riya's spine prickled with a well-rememberedhappiness as she felt the hesitant answering surge in Phildee's mind.Moving surely forward, she nuzzled his face. Phildee grinned. He ran hisfingers through the thick fur at the base of her short neck.
_Big warm wall of brown fur._
_Cool, happy nose._
_Happy, happy, eyes._
Great joy welled up in Riya. No shameful trot across the mountains facedher now. No hesitant approach to the huddled, suspicious wildlings wasbefore her. The danger of sharp female hooves to be avoided, of skulkingat the edge of the herd in hope of an anxious male, was a thing nolonger to be half-fearfully approached.
With a nudge of her head, she directed Phildee down the path to the oldrange while she herself turned around. She stood motionless for asweeping scan of the plain below her. The couples were scattered overthe grass--but couples only, the females as yet unfulfilled.
This, too, was another joy to add to the greatest of all. So many thingsabout her calf were incomprehensible--the only dimly-felt overtones ofprojected symbology that accompanied Phildee's emotional reactions, thealien structure--so many, many things. Her mind floundered vainlythrough the complex data.
But all that was nothing. What did it matter? The Time had been, and foranother season, she was a dam.
* * * * *
Phildee walked beside her down the path, one fist wrapped in the fur ofher flank, short legs windmilling.
They reached the plain, and Riya struck out across it toward thegreatest concentration of people, her head proudly raised. She stoppedonce, and deliberately cropped a mouthful of grass with unconcern, butresumed her pace immediately thereafter.
With the same unconcern, she nudged Phildee into the center of the groupof people, and, ignoring them, began teaching her calf to feed.
_Eat. (Picture of Phildee/calf on all fours, cropping the plainsgrass.)_
Phildee stared at her in puzzlement. Grass was not food. He sent thedata emphatically.
Riya felt the tenuous discontent. She replied with tender understanding.Sometimes the calf was hesitant.
_Eat. (Gently, understandingly, but firmly. [Repetition of picture.])_She bent her head and pushed him carefully over, then held his head downwith a gentle pressure of her muzzle. _Eat._
Phildee squirmed. He slipped out from under her nose and regained hisFeet. He looked at the other people, who were staring in puzzlement atRiya and himself.
He felt himself pushed forward again. _Eat._
Abruptly, he realized the situation. In a culture of herbivores, whatfood could there be but herbiage? There would be milk, in time, but notfor--he probed--months.
In probing, too, he found the visualization of his life with her readyat the surface of Riya's mind.
There was no shelter on the plain. His fur was all the shelternecessary.
_But I don't have any fur._
In the fall, they would move to the southern range.
_Walk? A thousand miles?_
He would grow big and strong. In a year, he would be a sire himself.
* * * * *
His reaction was simple, and practiced. He adjusted his reality conceptto Reimannian topology. Not actually, but subjectively, he felt himselfbeginning to slip Earthward.
Riya stiffened in alarm. The calf was straying. The knowledge wasrelayed from her mother-centers to the telepathic functions.
_Stop. You cannot go there. You must be with your mother. You are notgrown. Stop. Stay with me. I will protect you. I love you._
* * * * *
The universe shuddered. Phildee adjusted frantically. Cutting throughthe delicately maintained reality concept was a scrambling, jammingfrequency of thought. In terror, he flung himself backward into Riya'sworld. Standing completely still, he probed frantically into Riya'smind.
And found her mind only fumblingly beginning to intellectualize thesimple formulization of what her instinctive centers had computed,systematized, and activated before her conscious mind had even begun todoubt that everything was well.
His mind accepted the data, and computed.
Handless and voiceless, not so fast afoot in their bulkiness as theweakest month-old calf, the people had long ago evolved the restraintsnecessary for rearing their children.
If the calf romped and ran, his mother ran beside him, and the calf wasnot permitted to run faster than she. If a calf strayed from itssleeping mother, it strayed only so far, and then the mother woke--butthe calf had already long been held back by the time her intelligenceawoke to the straying.
The knowledge and computations were fed in Phildee's rational centers.The Universe--and Earth--were closed to him. He must remain here.
But human children could not survive in this environment.
He had to find a solution--instantly.
He clinched his fists, feeling his arm muscles quiver.
His lower lip was pulled into his mouth, and his teeth sank in.
The diagram--the pattern--bigger--stronger--try--try--this is notreal--_this_ is real: brown earth, white clouds, blue sky--try--mouthfull of warm salt ...
_F is for Phildee!_ _O is for Out!_ _R is for Riya!_ _T is for Topology!_ _H is for happiness and home!_
* * * * *
Riya shook herself. She stood in the furrows of a plowed field, her eyesvacant with bewilderment. She stared uncomprehendingly at the walls andthe radar tower, the concrete shoulders of the air raid bunkers. She sawantiaircraft quick-firers being hastily cranked around and down at her,heard Phildee's shout that saved her life, and understood none of it.
But none of it mattered. Her strange calf was with her, standing besideher with his fingers locked in her fur, and she could feel the warmresponse in his mind as she touched him with her caress again.
She saw the other little calves erupting out of the low dormitorybuild
ings, and something within her crooned.
Riya nuzzled her foundling. She looked about her at the War Orphans'Relocation Farm with her happy, happy eyes.
