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clothing.
There were no mild tones of color. Their colors were all strong,
clean-cut and bright. And as he watched them, Charlie felt for a
fleeting moment, a mild friendliness for these fellow-humans, these
strangers who had come from another world so far away. They were
not monsters, and in
spite of some of the wild suppositions he had read
about, there was no reason to believe that beings from some other
world could not be quite similar to ourselves. Given the same <
conditions, they should be. As they stood talking by the cylinder
panel doorway, Charlie felt suddenly a little embarrassed, as he
noticed one alien off to the side looking at him. The fellow smiled
quickly and winked at Charlie, as they entered the panel
compartment, and Charlie realized that one alien at least must have
been listening to his thought impulses concerning them.
Charlie shrugged his shoulders as he turned back to
Navajo. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to be at least halfway
friendly toward them. It might even help him to escape. They hadn't
been gone long when they returned. Charlie watched as they brought
out several stacks of the black protective clothing and piled them
on the deck. As the bright shafts of sunlight struck them now, he
noticed, they wore a plastic-looking type of sandal-and-sock
combination shoe, again reminding him of Mercury. But most of all,
Charlie was dazzled by that shimmering blue cobalt cape that looked
like the clearest sparkling blue-green ocean water he had ever
seen. And with the gold border and its silver lining inside,
Charlie thought the short cape was one part of their uniform he
wouldn't mind having. And a pair of those track shorts, with the
side cut. Then Charlie was aware that the alien leader was again
repeating an impulse to him.
    "It is not called a uniform,
Primitive. We are four thousand steps beyond the military era.
These garments you see are the standard of the world, our world, with some
variations.
The blue predominant is the male dress. The female
dress is the scarlet-bordered gold cloth, of this same type. You
shall be furnished proper dress, whenever you—"
"I don't want any other clothes!" Charlie replied
quickly, resisting the seeming finality that the change of clothes
implied, the last fading hope for escape. "I—I like the ones I
have."
The alien looked him over, as though for the first
time, all the way from Uncle John's faded old khaki army shirt,
down to the worn blue levis. The alien's eyes showed some interest
as he looked closer at the star-wheeled silver spurs, with their
turquoise mounting, on Charlie's battered riding boots. Charlie
glanced down too, realizing how his tight, dusty levis must look to
them in their bright, clean clothing. But he would not make further
comparison.
"You have, Primitive, the typical tribal
philosophy, the view of a world that is too small for itself.
However, there is time," said the alien leader's impulse, "whenever
you desire more practical garments."
Turning abruptly as Charlie glared at them, the
aliens went across the deck to the panel door, their thoughts once
more going into high gear. Charlie felt sore. Not only at the
aliens, but at himself. For here and now, he was the only Earthman,
the only one of his world, and these aliens had patronized him,
treating him not only like a child but like a stupid one as well.
Well, he'd show these aliens. Sure, maybe they were highly
civilized and all that, but there were things on his world which
were not on theirs. If there were not, they wouldn't have come
here, Charlie reasoned to himself.
What were they on the Earth for, if they hadn't
come for something—something they wanted awfully bad, to come all
the way from Saturn.
"Tribal philosophy," Charlie said aloud. "Nav, I
reckon maybe those aliens think we can't get out, huh. Well, let
them think it, Nav. Just let them think we won't try again." |
     
     
    C H AP T E R S I X
    The Primate's
Son
As Charlie stood there alone with Navajo on the
vast empty