Read Online No Life of Their Own: And Other Stories (The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak Book 5) by Clifford D. Simak - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Clifford D. Simak
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turned to me. “Steve, can you communicate with him?”
“Communicate?”
“Talk to him. With signs, perhaps? Or the reading of the lips? Or some other way?”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Please, would you do it then?”
So I put on my glasses and looked around until I found Nature Boy. I had quite a time making him understand what we planned to do. It wasn’t any easier to talk with him with all those crazy halflings standing all around him and making motions at me and pointing at the live-it, then tapping their own heads.
I was sweating plenty, for I was afraid that I had not got it all across to him, but I knew that any more of it would do no more than confuse him.
So I told Butch’s Pa that we were all set, and Butch’s Pa handed Butch the gun, and the rest stepped back a ways, and there was Butch with the gun and me standing right behind him. And there was Nature Boy standing in that other place, and a bunch of those silly halflings clustered all about him, and they sure didn’t know about the alien gun or they’d not have been standing there. And Nature Boy looked like someone who’d been stood against a wall and was being executed without even any blindfold.
Out of the tail of my eye, I saw Fancy Pants floating off to one side of us, and he was the saddest-looking sack you ever saw.
Suddenly there was a strange white flash of brilliance as all the prisms and the mirrors moved on the gun that Butch was holding. He had pulled a trigger, or whatever it was.
For a second, straight in front of us, a funny sort of hole seemed to open up in the place that should not have been there at all—a jagged, ragged hole that appeared in nothingness. And I caught sight of Nature Boy jumping through the hole the second it stayed open.
And there he was, staggering a bit from the jump that he had made—only he was not alone. He had one of the halflings with him!
He had him by the wrist in a good tight grip and it was plain to see that he had jerked him through with him, for the halfling did not seem at all happy about what had happened to him. I saw at once that it was the halfling who had the live-it on his head.
Butch pushed the halfling toward me and he said: “Here, Steve. It was the only way I could get your live-it back.”
I saw that Butch was letting go of the halfling and I grabbed quick by the other wrist and was somewhat surprised to find that he was solid. I would not have been astonished if my hand had gone right through him, for he still had that swirl-smoky look about him, although it seemed to me he might be hardening up a bit and becoming more substantial.
Pa moved over close beside me, saying, “You be careful, Steve!”
“Aw, he’s all right,” I said. “He’s not even trying to get away from me.”
Someone raised a shout and I whirled around and stared.
A half-dozen of the halflings had grabbed hold of the edges of that door into the other world, and they were tugging for dear life so it would stay open, and pouring out of it was that entire herd of halflings! They were shoving and pushing and scrambling to get through, and there were a lot more of them, it seemed to me, than I had thought there were.
We just stood there and watched them until they all were through. We didn’t do a thing because there was not a thing we could do. And they stood there in a bunch, packed tight together, staring back at us.
The sheriff came alongside Pa. He pushed back his hat until it roosted on his neck. You could see that the sheriff was flabbergasted and I enjoyed it, for it had been apparent from the very first that the sheriff hadn’t believed a word he’d heard about the halflings.
I don’t know, maybe he still was thinking that it might be nothing but some sort of alien joke. You could see, without half trying, that the sheriff didn’t cotton to any aliens.
“How come,” he asked suspiciously, “that this one here has got a live-it on?”
So I told him and he blinked at me, dazed
“Communicate?”
“Talk to him. With signs, perhaps? Or the reading of the lips? Or some other way?”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Please, would you do it then?”
So I put on my glasses and looked around until I found Nature Boy. I had quite a time making him understand what we planned to do. It wasn’t any easier to talk with him with all those crazy halflings standing all around him and making motions at me and pointing at the live-it, then tapping their own heads.
I was sweating plenty, for I was afraid that I had not got it all across to him, but I knew that any more of it would do no more than confuse him.
So I told Butch’s Pa that we were all set, and Butch’s Pa handed Butch the gun, and the rest stepped back a ways, and there was Butch with the gun and me standing right behind him. And there was Nature Boy standing in that other place, and a bunch of those silly halflings clustered all about him, and they sure didn’t know about the alien gun or they’d not have been standing there. And Nature Boy looked like someone who’d been stood against a wall and was being executed without even any blindfold.
Out of the tail of my eye, I saw Fancy Pants floating off to one side of us, and he was the saddest-looking sack you ever saw.
Suddenly there was a strange white flash of brilliance as all the prisms and the mirrors moved on the gun that Butch was holding. He had pulled a trigger, or whatever it was.
For a second, straight in front of us, a funny sort of hole seemed to open up in the place that should not have been there at all—a jagged, ragged hole that appeared in nothingness. And I caught sight of Nature Boy jumping through the hole the second it stayed open.
And there he was, staggering a bit from the jump that he had made—only he was not alone. He had one of the halflings with him!
He had him by the wrist in a good tight grip and it was plain to see that he had jerked him through with him, for the halfling did not seem at all happy about what had happened to him. I saw at once that it was the halfling who had the live-it on his head.
Butch pushed the halfling toward me and he said: “Here, Steve. It was the only way I could get your live-it back.”
I saw that Butch was letting go of the halfling and I grabbed quick by the other wrist and was somewhat surprised to find that he was solid. I would not have been astonished if my hand had gone right through him, for he still had that swirl-smoky look about him, although it seemed to me he might be hardening up a bit and becoming more substantial.
Pa moved over close beside me, saying, “You be careful, Steve!”
“Aw, he’s all right,” I said. “He’s not even trying to get away from me.”
Someone raised a shout and I whirled around and stared.
A half-dozen of the halflings had grabbed hold of the edges of that door into the other world, and they were tugging for dear life so it would stay open, and pouring out of it was that entire herd of halflings! They were shoving and pushing and scrambling to get through, and there were a lot more of them, it seemed to me, than I had thought there were.
We just stood there and watched them until they all were through. We didn’t do a thing because there was not a thing we could do. And they stood there in a bunch, packed tight together, staring back at us.
The sheriff came alongside Pa. He pushed back his hat until it roosted on his neck. You could see that the sheriff was flabbergasted and I enjoyed it, for it had been apparent from the very first that the sheriff hadn’t believed a word he’d heard about the halflings.
I don’t know, maybe he still was thinking that it might be nothing but some sort of alien joke. You could see, without half trying, that the sheriff didn’t cotton to any aliens.
“How come,” he asked suspiciously, “that this one here has got a live-it on?”
So I told him and he blinked at me, dazed
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