“Where?”
“Right there. I saw it before but I thought it was just part of him. But if he’s ‘people,’ maybe it’s a disintegrator gun.”
“What’s that?”
“I read about it in the books from Beforethewars. Mostly people with space-ships have disintegrator guns. They point them at you and you get disintegratored.”
“They didn’t point it at us till now,” pointed out Red with his heart not quite in it.
“I don’t care. I’m not hanging around here and getting disintegratored. I’m getting my father.”
“Cowardy-cat. Yellow cowardy-cat.”
“I don’t care. You can call all the names you want, but if you bother them now you’ll get disintegratored. You wait and see, and it’ll be all your fault.”
He made for the narrow spiral stairs that led to the main floor of the barn, stopped at its head, then backed away.
Red’s mother was moving up, panting a little with the exertion and smiling a tight smile for the benefit of Slim in his capacity as guest.
“Red! You, Red! Are you up there? Now don’t try to hide. I know this is where you’re keeping them. Cook saw where you ran with the meat.”
Red quavered, “Hello, ma!”
“Now show me those nasty animals? I’m going to see to it that you get rid of them right away.”
It was over! And despite the imminent corporal punishment, Red felt something like a load fall from him. At least the decision was out of his hands.
“Right there, ma. I didn’t do anything to them, ma. I didn’t know. They just looked like little animals and I thought you’d let me keep them, ma. I wouldn’t have taken the meat only they wouldn’t eat grass or leaves and we couldn’t find good nuts or berries and cook never lets me have anything or I would have asked her and I didn’t know it was for lunch and—”
He was speaking on the sheer momentum of terror and did not realize that his mother did not hear him but, with eyes frozen and popping at the cage, was screaming in thin, piercing tones.
X
The Astronomer was saying, “A quiet burial is all we can do. There is no point in any publicity now,” when they heard the screams.
She had not entirely recovered by the time she reached them, running and running. It was minutes before her husband could extract sense from her.
She was saying, finally, “I tell you they’re in the barn. I don’t know what they are. No, no—”
She barred the Industrialist’s quick movement in that direction. She said, “Don’t you go. Send one of the hands with a shotgun. I tell you I never saw anything like it. Little horrible beasts with—with—I can’t describe it. To think that Red was touching them and trying to feed them. He was holding them, and feeding them meat.”
Red began, “I only—”
And Slim said, “It was not—”
The Industrialist said, quickly, “Now you boys have done enough harm today. March! Into the house! And not a word; not one word! I’m not interested in anything you have to say. After this is all over, I’ll hear you out and as for you, Red, I’ll see that you’re properly punished.”
He turned to his wife. “Now whatever the animals are, we’ll have them killed.” He added quietly once the youngsters were out of hearing, “Come, come. The children aren’t hurt and, after all, they haven’t done anything really terrible. They’ve just found a new pet.”
The Astronomer spoke with difficulty. “Pardon me, ma’am, but can you describe these animals?”
She shook her head. She was quite beyond words.
“Can you just tell me if they—”
“I’m sorry,” said the Industrialist, apologetically, “but I think I had better take care of her. Will you excuse me?”
“A moment. Please. One moment. She said she had never seen such animals before. Surely it is not usual to find animals that are completely unique on an estate such as this.”
“I’m sorry. Let’s not discuss that now.”
“Except that unique animals might have landed during the night.”
The Industrialist stepped away from his wife. “What are you implying?”
“I think we had better go to the barn, sir!”
The Industrialist stared a moment, turned and suddenly and quite uncharacteristically began running. The Astronomer followed and the woman’s wail rose unheeded behind them.
XI
The Industrialist stared, looked at the Astronomer, turned to stare again.
“Those?”
“Those,” said the Astronomer. “I have no doubt we appear strange and repulsive to them.”
“What do they say?”
“Why, that they are uncomfortable and tired and even a little sick, but that they are not seriously damaged, and that the youngsters treated them well.”
“Treated them well! Scooping them up, keeping them in a cage, giving them grass and raw meat to eat? Tell me how to speak to them.”
“It may take a little time. Think at them. Try to listen. It will come to you, but perhaps not right away.”
The Industrialist tried. He grimaced with the effort of it, thinking over and over again, “The youngsters were ignorant of your identity.”
And the thought was suddenly in his mind: “We were quite aware of it and because we knew they meant well by us according to their own view of the matter, we did not attempt to attack them.”
“Attack them?” thought the Industrialist, and said it aloud in his concentration.
“Why, yes,” came the answering thought. “We are armed.”
One of the revolting little creatures in the cage lifted a metal object and there was a sudden hole in the top of the cage and another in the roof of the barn, each hole rimmed with charred wood.
“We hope,” the creatures thought, “it will not be too difficult to make repairs.”
The Industrialist found it impossible to organize himself to the point of directed thought. He turned to the Astronomer. “And with that weapon in their possession they let themselves be handled and caged? I don’t understand it.”
But the
