among them who care for such things. Binnda and the others are the impresarios. They decide whether or not a given company can perform for their clientele, do you see?”
“I don’t!” I glared at her. “Are you trying to tell me that this whole thing is just a scheme of Henry Davidson-Jones to kidnap opera singers for a bunch of Martians?”
“Oh, no, Nolly! Not only opera singers. And certainly there aren’t any Martians. And nobody gets kidnapped— well, your own case is quite unusual, isn’t it? And Mr. Davidson-Jones does much, much more than arrange tours for artists. But,” she sighed, “from your point of view at the present time, well, yes, I suppose you could say that. Nolly? I’m really terribly sorry, but I do have another engagement. So if there’s nothing else you need just now—”
“I need to know what’s going on!” I yelled, but Norah just smiled serenely .
“When you’re as old as I am,” she said, “you’ll learn to take just one day at a time.” I scowled at her. She didn’t mind. She just said, “Sit down on that nice, comfy puff, love. Eat something; you need your strength. Sam will call you when he’s ready.”
And she left me there, in that room with not even a chair, just a sort of warm, vibrating hassock that did its best to put me to sleep.
How do I explain what it was like to find myself, without warning, on the second moon of the seventh planet of the star Aldebaran?
The answer is, I don’t. Not so anyone can really understand, anyway. I was like a chimpanzee suddenly snatched out of his African jungle home and dropped in the middle of Times Square. Nothing made sense. Everything was either scary or infuriating.
I should have been better off than the chimp, because I was better informed. After all, I was a pretty sophisticated, reasonably well-informed human being. I had traveled all over the world. I had heard all about the things people said about life on Mars (none there) and flying saucers (all unreal) and the far stars and the universe in general. I’d even watched Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and all those other somebody-must-be-out-there people on the Johnny Carson show, explaining how they were pretty sure that there probably were almost certainly some other intelligent races in the universe, most likely … but, unfortunately, not very many of them, they would add, because they’d been listening real hard on the big radio telescopes for a long time, and what they’d heard was zilch.
That was the big difference between me and the chimp. The poor chimp would have been astonished to find this new world possible. I, on the other hand, was triply bewildered, because I knew perfectly well it was impossible.
So I wasn’t just angry, exhausted, and confused. I was in traumatic, if not indeed terminal, culture shock, and that was before I’d even met the Mother or seen the statue at Execution Square.
“I said you can come in now,” snapped the voice of Sam Shipperton.
It woke me up. I’d drowsed off on that warm, vibrating hassock, with one of the sandwiches uneaten in my hand. Sam Shipperton was standing over me, and he wasn’t alone.
The—ah—the thing with him was not at all human.
It was the same thing I had seen on top of the piano while I was singing, only now I could get a good look at it. What it mostly looked like was a big bedbug, the size of a dachshund. Maybe it looked a little more like one of those extinct things I used to get as rubbery plastic models out of the gum machines in Asbury Park. Those were called trilobites. This particular trilobite-looking thing was standing on the table and chirping up at Shipperton as he stood there.
It was chirping in English, but so shrill and so fast that I couldn’t quite make out the words. “Yeah, yeah,” Shipperton said absently, glowering down at me. “I’ll take care of it.”
There was a final admonitory burst of chirping from the bedbug. Then it hopped down from the table and
“I don’t!” I glared at her. “Are you trying to tell me that this whole thing is just a scheme of Henry Davidson-Jones to kidnap opera singers for a bunch of Martians?”
“Oh, no, Nolly! Not only opera singers. And certainly there aren’t any Martians. And nobody gets kidnapped— well, your own case is quite unusual, isn’t it? And Mr. Davidson-Jones does much, much more than arrange tours for artists. But,” she sighed, “from your point of view at the present time, well, yes, I suppose you could say that. Nolly? I’m really terribly sorry, but I do have another engagement. So if there’s nothing else you need just now—”
“I need to know what’s going on!” I yelled, but Norah just smiled serenely .
“When you’re as old as I am,” she said, “you’ll learn to take just one day at a time.” I scowled at her. She didn’t mind. She just said, “Sit down on that nice, comfy puff, love. Eat something; you need your strength. Sam will call you when he’s ready.”
And she left me there, in that room with not even a chair, just a sort of warm, vibrating hassock that did its best to put me to sleep.
How do I explain what it was like to find myself, without warning, on the second moon of the seventh planet of the star Aldebaran?
The answer is, I don’t. Not so anyone can really understand, anyway. I was like a chimpanzee suddenly snatched out of his African jungle home and dropped in the middle of Times Square. Nothing made sense. Everything was either scary or infuriating.
I should have been better off than the chimp, because I was better informed. After all, I was a pretty sophisticated, reasonably well-informed human being. I had traveled all over the world. I had heard all about the things people said about life on Mars (none there) and flying saucers (all unreal) and the far stars and the universe in general. I’d even watched Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and all those other somebody-must-be-out-there people on the Johnny Carson show, explaining how they were pretty sure that there probably were almost certainly some other intelligent races in the universe, most likely … but, unfortunately, not very many of them, they would add, because they’d been listening real hard on the big radio telescopes for a long time, and what they’d heard was zilch.
That was the big difference between me and the chimp. The poor chimp would have been astonished to find this new world possible. I, on the other hand, was triply bewildered, because I knew perfectly well it was impossible.
So I wasn’t just angry, exhausted, and confused. I was in traumatic, if not indeed terminal, culture shock, and that was before I’d even met the Mother or seen the statue at Execution Square.
“I said you can come in now,” snapped the voice of Sam Shipperton.
It woke me up. I’d drowsed off on that warm, vibrating hassock, with one of the sandwiches uneaten in my hand. Sam Shipperton was standing over me, and he wasn’t alone.
The—ah—the thing with him was not at all human.
It was the same thing I had seen on top of the piano while I was singing, only now I could get a good look at it. What it mostly looked like was a big bedbug, the size of a dachshund. Maybe it looked a little more like one of those extinct things I used to get as rubbery plastic models out of the gum machines in Asbury Park. Those were called trilobites. This particular trilobite-looking thing was standing on the table and chirping up at Shipperton as he stood there.
It was chirping in English, but so shrill and so fast that I couldn’t quite make out the words. “Yeah, yeah,” Shipperton said absently, glowering down at me. “I’ll take care of it.”
There was a final admonitory burst of chirping from the bedbug. Then it hopped down from the table and
Similar Books
