The Asses of Balaam

by Randall Garrett

he?"

  "Because I'm _human_! That's the most basic robot command."

  "I don't know," the Eldest said, eying Dodeth shrewdly. "You might notbe a human. You might be a snith. You _look_ like a snith."

  Dodeth swallowed the insult, wondering what the Eldest meant.

  "Arvam," the Eldest Keeper said to the robot, "doesn't he look like asnith to you?"

  "Yes, sir," Arvam agreed.

  Dodeth swallowed that one, too.

  "Then how do you know he _isn't_ a snith, Arvam?"

  "Because he behaves like a human, sir. A snith does not behave like ahuman."

  "And if something does behave like a human, what then?"

  "Anything that behaves like a human is human, sir."

  Dodeth suddenly felt as though his eyes had suddenly focused afterbeing unfocused for a long time. He gestured toward the clearing. "Youmean those ... those _things_ ... are ... _human_?"

  "Yes sir," said Arvam solidly.

  "But they don't even _talk_!"

  "Pardon me for correcting you sir, but they do. I cannot understandtheir speech, but the pattern is clearly recognizable as speech. Mostof their conversation is carried on in tones of subsonic frequency, soyour ears cannot hear it. Apparently, your voices are supersonic tothem."

  "Well, I'll be fried," said Dodeth. He looked at the Elder Keeper."That's why the robots reported they couldn't find any _animal_ ofthat description in the vicinity."

  "Certainly. There weren't any."

  "And we were so fooled by their monstrous appearance that we didn'tpay any attention to their actions," said Dodeth.

  "Exactly."

  "But this makes the puzzle even _worse_," said Dodeth. "How could sucha creature evolve?"

  "Look!" interrupted one of the other Keepers, pointing. "Up there inthe sky!"

  All eyes turned toward the direction the finger pointed.

  It was a silvery speck in the sky that moved and became larger.

  "I don't think they're from our World at all," said the Eldest Keeper.He turned to the patrol robot. "Arvam, go down and tell the pesticiderobots that there is no danger to us. They're still confused, and Ihave a feeling that the humans in that ship up there might not like itif we are caught pointing guns at their friends."

  As Arvam rolled off, Dodeth said "Another World?"

  "Why not?" asked the Eldest. "The Moon, after all, is another World,smaller than ours, to be sure, and airless, but still another World.We haven't thought too much about other Worlds because we have our ownWorld to take care of. But there was a time, back in the days of thebuilders of the surface cities, when our people dreamed such things.But our Moon was the only one close enough, and there was no point ingoing to a place which is even more hellish than our Brightside.

  "But suppose the Yellow Sun also has a planet--or maybe even one ofthe more distant suns, which are hardly more than glimmers of light.They came, and they landed a few of their party to make a smallclearing. Then the ship went somewhere else--to the dark side of ourMoon, maybe, I don't know. But they were within calling range, for theship was called as soon as trouble appeared.

  "We don't know anything about them yet, but we will. And we've got toshow them that we, too, are human. We have a job ahead of us--a job ofcommunication.

  "But we also have a great future if we handle things right."

  Dodeth watched the ship, now grown to a silvery globe of tremendoussize, drift slowly downward toward the clearing. He felt an inwardglow of intense anticipation, and he fidgeted impatiently as he waitedto see what would happen next.

  He rippled a stomp.

  THE END

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