But they have it in various degrees, just as all of us drive cars but only a few are fit to be racing drivers. The Mother Thing had it the way Novaës understands a piano. I once read about an actress who could use Italian so effectively to a person who did not understand Italian that she always made herself understood. Her name was "Duce." No, a "duce" is a dictator. Something like that. She must have had what the Mother Thing had.
The first words I had with the Mother Thing were things like "hello" and "good-bye" and "thank you" and "where are we going?" She could project her meaning with those—shucks, you can talk to a strange dog that much. Later I began to understand her speech as speech. She picked up meanings of English words even faster; she had this great talent, and she and Peewee had talked for days while they were prisoners.
But while this is easy for "you're welcome" and "I'm hungry" and "let's hurry," it gets harder for ideas like "heterodyning" and "amino acid" even when both are familiar with the concept. When one party doesn't even have the concept, it breaks down. That's the trouble I had understanding those veterinarians. If we had all spoken English I still would not have understood.
An oscillating circuit sending out a radio signal produces dead silence unless there is another circuit capable of oscillating in the same way to receive it. I wasn't on the right frequency.
Nevertheless I understood them when the talk was not highbrow. They were nice people; they talked and laughed a lot and seemed to like each other. I had trouble telling them apart, except the Mother Thing. (I learned that the only marked difference to them between Peewee and myself was that I was ill and she wasn't.) They had no trouble telling each other apart; their conversations were interlarded with musical names, until you felt that you were caught in Peter and the Wolf or a Wagnerian opera. They even had a leitmotif for me. Their talk was cheerful and gay, like the sounds of a bright summer dawn.
The next time I meet a canary I'll know what he is saying even if he doesn't.
I picked up some of this from Peewee—a hospital bed is not a good place from which to study a planet. Vega Five has Earth-surface gravity, near enough, with an oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water life cycle. The planet would not suit humans, not only because the noonday "sun" would strike you dead with its jolt of ultraviolet but also the air has poisonous amounts of ozone; a trace of ozone is stimulating but a trifle more—well, you might as well sniff prussic acid. There was something else, too, nitrous oxide I think, which was ungood for humans if breathed too long. My quarters were air-conditioned; the Vegans could breathe what I used but they considered it tasteless.
I learned a bit as a by-product of something else; the Mother Thing asked me to dictate how I got mixed up in these things. When I finished, she asked me to dictate everything I knew about Earth, its history, and how we work and live together. This is a tall order—I'm not still dictating because I found out I don't know much. Take ancient Babylonia—how is it related to early Egyptian civilizations? I had only vague notions.
Maybe Peewee did better, since she remembers everything she has heard or read or seen the way Dad does. But they probably didn't get her to hold still long, whereas I had to. The Mother Thing wanted this for the reasons we study the Australian Aborigines and also as a record of our language. There was another reason, too.
The job wasn't easy but there was a Vegan to help me whenever I felt like it, willing to stop if I tired. Call him Professor Josephus Egghead; "Professor" is close enough and his name can't be spelled. I called him Joe and he called me the leitmotif that meant "Clifford Russell, the monster with the frostbite." Joe had almost as much gift for understanding as the Mother Thing. But how do you put over ideas like "tariffs" and "kings" to a person whose people have never had either? The English words were just noise.
But Joe knew histories of many peoples and planets and could call up scenes, in moving stereo and colour, until we agreed on what I meant. We jogged along, with me dictating to a silvery ball floating near my mouth and with Joe curled up like a cat on a platform raised to my level, while he dictated to another microphone, making running notes on what I said. His mike had a gimmick that made it a hush-phone; I did not hear him unless he spoke to me.
Then we would stumble. Joe would stop and throw me a sample scene, his best guess of what I meant. The pictures appeared in the air, positioned for my comfort—if I turned my head, the picture moved to accommodate me. The pix were colour stereo television with perfect life and sharpness—well, give us another twenty years and we'll have them as realistic. It was a good trick to have the projector concealed and to force images to appear as if they were hanging in air, but those are just gimmicks of stereo optics; we can do them any time we really want to—after all, you can pack a lifelike view of the Grand Canyon into a viewer you hold in your hand.
The thing that did impress me was the organization behind it. I asked Joe about it. He sang to his microphone and we went on a galloping tour of their "Congressional Library."
Dad claims that library science is the foundation of all sciences just as math is the key—and that we will survive or founder, depending on how well the librarians do their jobs. Librarians didn't look glamorous to me but maybe Dad had hit on a not very obvious truth.
This "library" had hundreds, maybe thousands, of Vegans viewing pictures and listening to sound tracks, each with a silvery sphere in front of him. Joe said they were "telling the memory." This was equivalent to typing a card for a library's catalogue, except that the result was more like a memory path in brain cells—nine tenths of that building was an electronic brain.
I spotted a triangular sign like the costume jewellery worn by the Mother Thing, but the picture jumped quickly to something else. Joe also wore one (and others did not) but I did not get around to asking about it, as the sight of that incredible "library" brought up the word "cybernetics" and we went on a detour. I decided later that it might be a lodge pin, or like a Phi Beta Kappa key—the Mother Thing was smart even for a Vegan and Joe was not far behind.
Whenever Joe was sure that he understood some English word, he would wriggle with delight like a puppy being tickled. He was very dignified, but this is not undignified for a Vegan. Their bodies are so fluid and mobile that they smile and frown with the whole works. A Vegan holding perfectly still is either displeased or extremely worried.
The sessions with Joe let me tour places from my bed. The difference between "primary school" and "university" caused me to be shown examples. A "kindergarten" looked like an adult Vegan being overwhelmed by babies; it had the innocent rowdiness of a collie pup stepping on his brother's face to reach the milk dish. But the "university" was a place of quiet beauty, strange-looking trees and plants and flowers among buildings of surrealistic charm unlike any architecture I have ever seen—I suppose I would have been flabbergasted if they had looked familiar. Parabolas were used a lot and I think all the "straight" lines had that swelling the Greeks called "entasis"—delicate grace with strength.
Joe showed up one day simply undulating with pleasure. He had another silvery ball, larger than the other two. He placed it in front of me, then sang to his own. ("I want you to hear this, Kip!")
As soon as he ceased the larger sphere spoke in English: "I want you to hear this, Kip!"
Squirming with delight, Joe swapped spheres and told me to say something.
"What do you want me to say?" I asked.
("What do you want me to say?") the larger sphere sang in Vegan.
That was my last session with Prof Joe.
Despite unstinting help, despite the Mother Thing's ability to make herself understood, I was like the Army mule at West Point: an honorary member of the student body but not prepared for the curriculum. I never did understand their government. Oh, they had government, but it wasn't any system I've heard of. Joe knew about democracies and representation and voting and courts of law; he could fish up examples from many planets. He felt that democracy was "a very good system, for beginners." It would have so
unded patronizing, except that is not one of their faults.
I never met one of their young. Joe explained that children should not see "strange creatures" until they had learned to feel understanding sympathy. That would have offended me if I hadn't been learning some "understanding sympathy" myself. Matter of fact, if a human ten-year-old saw a Vegan, he would either run, or poke it with a stick.
I tried to learn about their government from the Mother Thing, in particular how they kept the peace-laws, crimes, punishments, traffic regulations, etc.
It was as near to flat failure as I ever had with her. She pondered a long time, then answered: ("How could one possibly act against one's own nature?")
I guess their worst vice was that they didn't have any. This can be tiresome.
The medical staff were interested in the drugs in Oscar's helmet—like our interest in a witch doctor's herbs, but that is not idle interest; remember digitalis and curare.
I told them what each drug did and in most cases I knew the Geneva name as well as the commercial one. I knew that codeine was derived from opium, and opium from poppies. I knew that dexedrine was a sulphate but that was all. Organic chemistry and biochemistry are not easy even with no language trouble. We got together on what a benzene ring was, Peewee drawing it and sticking in her two dollars' worth, and we managed to agree on "element," "isotope," "half life," and the periodic table. I should have drawn structural formulas, using Peewee's hands—but neither of us had the slightest idea of the structural formula for codeine and couldn't do it even when supplied with kindergarten toys which stuck together only in the valences of the elements they represented.
Peewee had fun, though. They may not have learned much from her; she learned a lot from them.
I don't know when I became aware that the Mother Thing was not, or wasn't quite, a female. But it didn't matter; being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
If Noah launched his ark on Vega Five, the animals would come in by twelves. That makes things complicated. But a "mother thing" is one who takes care of others. I am not sure that all mother things were the same gender; it may have been a matter of temperament.
I met one "father thing." You might call him "governor" or "mayor," but "parish priest" or "scoutmaster" is closer, except that his prestige dominated a continent. He breezed in during a session with Joe, stayed five minutes, urged Joe to do a good job, told me to be a good boy and get well, and left, all without hurrying. He filled me with the warm self-reliance that Dad does—I didn't need to be told that he was a "father thing." His visit had a flavour of "royalty visiting the wounded" without being condescending—no doubt it was hard to work me into a busy schedule.
Joe neither mothered nor fathered me; he taught me and studied me—"a professor thing."
Peewee showed up one day full of bubbles. She posed like a mannequin. "Do you like my new spring outfit?"
She was wearing silvery tights, plus a little hump like a knapsack. She looked cute but not glamorous, for she was built like two sticks and this get-up emphasized it.
"Very fancy," I said. "Are you learning to be an acrobat?
"Don't be silly, Kip; it's my new space suit—a real one.
I glanced at Oscar, big and bulky and filling the closet and said privately, "Hear that, chum?"
("It takes all kinds to make a world.")
"Your helmet won't fit it, will it?"
She giggled. "I'm wearing it."
"You are? 'The Emperor's New Clothes'?"
"Pretty close. Kip, disconnect your prejudices and listen. This is like the Mother Thing's suit except that it's tailored for me. My old suit wasn't much good—and that cold cold about finished it. But you'll be amazed at this one. Take the helmet. It's there, only you can't see it. It's a field. Gas can't go in or out." She came close. "Slap me.
"With what?"
"Oh. I forgot. Kip, you've got to get well and up off that bed. I want to take you for a walk."
"I'm in favour. They tell me it won't be long now."
"It had better not be. Here, I'll show you." She hauled off and slapped herself. Her hand smacked into something inches from her face.
"Now watch," she went on. She moved her hand very slowly; it sank through the barrier, she thumbed her nose at me and giggled.
This impressed me—a space suit you could reach into! Why, I would have been able to give Peewee water and dexedrine and sugar pills when she needed them. "I'll be darned! What does it?"
"A power pack on my back, under the air tank. The tank is good for a week, too, and hoses can't give trouble because there aren't any.
"Uh, suppose you blow a fuse. There you are, with a lungful of vacuum.'
"The Mother Thing says that can't happen."
Hmm—I had never known the Mother Thing to be wrong when she made a flat statement.
"That's not all," Peewee went on. "It feels like skin, the joints aren't clumsy, and you're never hot or cold. It's like street clothes."
"Uh, you risk a bad sunburn, don't you? Unhealthy, you tell me. Unhealthy even on the Moon."
"Oh, no! The field polarizes. That's what the field is, sort of. Kip, get them to make you one—we'll go places!"
I glanced at Oscar. ("Please yourself, pal," he said distantly. "I'm not the jealous type.")
"Uh, Peewee, I'll stick to one I understand. But I'd like to examine that monkey suit of yours."
"Monkey suit indeed!"
I woke up one morning, turned over, and realized that I was hungry.
Then I sat up with a jerk. I had turned over in bed.
I had been warned to expect it. The "bed" was a bed and my body was back under my control. Furthermore, I was hungry and I hadn't been hungry the whole time I had been on Vega Five. Whatever that machinery was, it included a way to nourish me without eating.
But I didn't stop to enjoy the luxury of hunger; it was too wonderful to be a body again, not just a head. I got out of bed, was suddenly dizzy, recovered and grinned. Hands! Feet!
I examined those wonderful things. They were unchanged and unhurt.
Then I looked more closely. No, not quite unchanged
I had had a scar on my left shin where I had been spiked in a close play at second; it was gone. I once had "Mother" tattooed on my left forearm at a carnival. Mother had been distressed and Dad disgusted, but he had said to leave it as a reminder not to be a witling. It was gone.
There was not a callus on hand or foot.
I used to bite my nails. My nails were a bit long but perfect. I had lost the nail from my right little toe years ago through a slip with a hatchet. It was back.
I looked hastily for my appendectomy scar—found it and felt relieved. If it had been missing, I would have wondered if I was me.
There was a mirror over the chest of drawers. It showed me with enough hair to warrant a guitar (I wear a crew cut) but somebody had shaved me.
On the chest was a dollar and sixty-seven cents, a mechanical pencil, a sheet of paper, my watch, and a handkerchief. The watch was running. The dollar bill, the paper, and the handkerchief had been laundered.
My clothes, spanky clean and invisibly repaired, were on the desk. The socks weren't mine; the material was more like felt, if you will imagine felted material no thicker than Kleenex which stretches instead of tearing. On the floor were tennis shoes, like Peewee's even to a "U.S. Rubber" trademark, but in my size. The uppers were heavier felted material. I got dressed.
I was admiring the result when Peewee kicked the door. "Anybody home?" She came in, bearing a tray "Want breakfast?"
"Peewee! Look at me!"
She did. "Not bad," she admitted, "for an ape. You need a haircut."
"Yes, but isn't it wonderful! I'm all together again!"
"You never were apart," she answered, "except in spots—I've had daily reports. Where do you want this?" She put the tray on the desk.
"Peewee," I asked, rather hurt, "don't you care that I'm well?"
"Of course I do.
Why do you think I made 'em let me carry in your breakfast? But I knew last night that they were going to uncork you. Who do you think cut your nails and shaved you? That'll be a dollar, please. Shaves have gone up."
I got that tired dollar and handed it to her.
She didn't take it. "Aw, can't you take a joke?"
"'Neither a borrower nor a lender be.'"
"Polonius. He was a stupid old bore. Honest, Kip, I wouldn't take your last dollar."
"Now who can't take a joke?"
"Oh, eat your breakfast. That purple juice," she said, "tastes like orange juice—it's very nice. The stuff that looks like scrambled eggs is a fair substitute and I had 'em colour it yellow—the eggs here are dreadful, which wouldn't surprise you if you knew where they get them. The buttery stuff is vegetable fat and I had them colour it, too. The bread is bread, I toasted it myself. The salt is salt and it surprises them that we eat it—they think it's poison. Go ahead; I've guinea-pigged everything. No coffee."
"I won't miss it."
"I never touch the stuff—I'm trying to grow. Eat. Your sugar count has been allowed to drop so that you will enjoy it."
The aroma was wonderful. "Where's your breakfast, Peewee?"
"I ate hours ago. I'll watch and swallow when you do."
The tastes were odd but it was just what the doctor ordered—literally, I suppose. I've never enjoyed a meal so much.
Presently I slowed down to say, "Knife and fork? Spoons?"
"The only ones on—" She vocalized the planet's name. "I got tired of fingers and I play hob using what they use. So I drew pictures. This set is mine but we'll order more."
Have Space Suit - Will Travel Page 17
