“Cut it out, Toots. I know all that. Too well.”
“Just the same, Elmo, you’d better make it: ‘Now is the time for all good Bems to come to the aid of Elmo Scott.’”
The big Doberman stirred on the rag rug. He said, “You needn’t.”
Both human heads turned toward him.
The little brunette stamped a dainty foot. “Elmo!” she said. “Trying a trick like that. That’s how you’ve been spending the time you should have spent writing. Learning ventriloquism!”
“No, Toots,” said the dog. “It isn’t that.”
“Elmo! How do you get him to move his mouth like—” Her eyes went from the dog’s face to Elmo’s and she stopped in mid-sentence. If Elmo Scott wasn’t scared stiff, then he was a better actor than Maurice Evans. She said, “Elmo!” again, but this time her voice was a scared little wail, and she didn’t stamp her foot. Instead she practically fell into Elmo’s lap and, if he hadn’t grabbed her, would probably have fallen from there to the floor.
“Don’t be frightened, Toots,” said the dog.
Some degree of sanity returned to Elmo Scott. He said, “Whatever you are, don’t call my wife Toots. Her name is Dorothy.”
“You call her Toots.”
“That’s—that’s different.”
“I see it is,” said the dog. His mouth lolled open as though he were laughing. “The concept that entered your mind when you used that word ‘wife’ is an interesting one. This is a bisexual planet, then.”
Elmo said, “This is a—uh—What are you talking about?”
“On Andromeda II,” said the dog, “we have five sexes. But we are a highly developed race, of course. Yours is highly primitive. Perhaps I should say lowly primitive. Your language has, I find, confusing connotations; it is not mathematical. But, as I started to observe, you are still in the bisexual stage. How long since you were monosexual? And don’t deny that you once were; I can read the word ‘amoeba’ in your mind.”
“If you can read my mind,” said Elmo, “why should I talk?”
“Consider Toots—I mean Dorothy,” said the dog. “We cannot hold a three-way conversation since you two are not telepathic. At any rate, there shall shortly be more of us in the conversation. I have summoned my companions.” He laughed again. “Do not let them frighten you, no matter in what form they may appear. They are merely Bems.”
“B-bems?” asked Dorothy. “You mean you are b-bug-eyed monsters? That’s what Elmo means by Bems, but you aren’t—”
“That is just what I am,” said the dog. “You are not, of course, seeing the real me. Nor will you see my companions as they really are. They, like me, are temporarily animating bodies of creatures of lesser intelligence. In our real bodies, I assure you, you would classify us as Bems. We have five limbs each and two heads, each head with three eyes on stalks.”
“Where are your real bodies?” Elmo asked.
“They are dead—Wait, I see that word means more to you than I thought at first. They are dormant, temporarily uninhabitable and in need of repairs, inside the fused hull of a spaceship which was warped into this space too near a planet. This planet. That’s what wrecked us.”
“Where? You mean there’s really a spaceship near here? Where?” Elmo’s eyes were almost popping from his head as he questioned the dog.
“That is none of your business, Earthman. If it were found and examined by you creatures, you would possibly discover space travel before you are ready for it. The cosmic scheme would be upset.” He growled. “There are enough cosmic wars now. We were fleeing a Betelgeuse fleet when we warped into your space.”
“Elmo,” said Dorothy, “What’s beetle juice got to do with it? Wasn’t this crazy enough before he started talking about a beetle juice fleet?”
“No,” said Elmo resignedly. “It wasn’t.” For a squirrel had just pushed its way through a hole in the bottom of the screen door.
It said, “Hyah dar, yo-all. We-uns got yo message, One.”
“See what I mean?” said Elmo.
“Everything is all right, Four,” said the Doberman. “These people will serve our purpose admirably. Meet Elmo Scott and Dorothy Scott; don’t call her Toots.”
“Yessir. Yessum. Ah’s sho gladda meetcha.”
The Doberman’s mouth lolled open again in another laugh; it was unmistakable this time.
“Perhaps I’d better explain Four’s accent,” he said. “We scattered, each entering a creature of low mentality and from that vantage point contacting the mind of some member of the ruling species, learning from that mind the language and the level of intelligence and degree of imagination. I take it from your reaction that Four has learned the language from a mind which speaks a language differing slightly from yours.”
“Ah sho did,” said the squirrel.
Elmo shuddered slightly. “Not that I’m suggesting it, but I’m curious to know why you didn’t take over the higher species directly,” he said.
The dog looked shocked. It was the first time Elmo had ever seen a dog look shocked, but the Doberman managed it.
“It would be unthinkable,” he declared. “The cosmic ethic forbids the taking over of any creature of an intelligence over the four level. We Andromedans are of the twenty-three level, and I find you Earthlings—”
“Wait!” said Elmo. “Don’t tell me. It might give me an inferiority complex. Or would it?”
“Ah fears it might,” said the squirrel.
The Doberman said, “So you can see that it is not purely coincidence that we Bems should manifest ourselves to you who are a writer of what I see you call science-fiction. We studied many minds and yours was the first one we found capable of accepting the premise of visitors from Andromeda. Had Four here, for example, tried to explain things to the woman whose mind he studied, she would probably have gone insane.”
“She sho would,” said the squirrel.
A chicken thrust its head through the hole in the screen, clucked, and pulled its head out again.
“Please let Three in,” said the Doberman. “I fear that you will not be able to communicate directly with Three. He has found that subjectively to modify the throat structure of the creature he inhabits in order to enable it to talk would be a quite involved process. It does not matter. He can communicate telepathically with one of us, and we can relay his comments to you. At the moment he sends you his greetings and asks that you open the door.”
The clucking of the chicken (it was a big black hen, Elmo saw) sounded angry and Elmo said, “Better open the door, Toots.”
Dorothy Scott got off his lap and opened the door. She turned a dismayed face to Elmo and
