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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31661-h.zip b/31661-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7479be --- /dev/null +++ b/31661-h.zip diff --git a/31661-h/31661-h.htm b/31661-h/31661-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e1f85e --- /dev/null +++ b/31661-h/31661-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2152 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Exile from Space, by Judith Merril + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.u {text-decoration:underline; } + +.sidenote { + width: 100%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Exile from Space, by Judith Merril + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Exile from Space + +Author: Judith Merril + +Release Date: March 16, 2010 [EBook #31661] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXILE FROM SPACE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe November 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="sidenote"><i>"They" worried about the impression she'd make. Who</i> could +<i>imagine that she'd fall in love, passionately, the way others of her +blood must have done?</i></div> + +<p> </p> +<h1>exile from space</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2><i>by ... Judith Merril</i></h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>Who <span class="u">was</span> this strange girl who had been born in this +place—and still it wasn't her home?...</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I don't know where they got the car. We made three or four stops +before the last one, and they must have picked it up one of those +times. Anyhow, they got it, but they had to make a license plate, +because it had the wrong kind on it.</p> + +<p>They made me some clothes, too—a skirt and blouse and shoes that +looked just like the ones we saw on television. They couldn't make me +a lipstick or any of those things, because there was no way to figure +out just what the chemical composition was. And they decided I'd be as +well off without any driver's license or automobile registration as I +would be with papers that weren't exactly perfect, so they didn't +bother about making those either.</p> + +<p>They were worried about what to do with my hair, and even thought +about cutting it short, so it would look more like the women on +television, but that was one time I was way ahead of them. I'd seen +more shows than anyone else, of course—I watched them almost every +minute, from the time they told me I was going—and there was one +where I'd seen a way to make braids and put them around the top of +your head. It wasn't very comfortable, but I practiced at it until it +looked pretty good.</p> + +<p>They made me a purse, too. It didn't have anything in it except the +diamonds, but the women we saw always seemed to carry them, and they +thought it might be a sort of superstition or ritual necessity, and +that we'd better not take a chance on violating anything like that.</p> + +<p>They made me spend a lot of time practicing with the car, because +without a license, I couldn't take a chance on getting into any +trouble. I must have put in the better part of an hour starting and +stopping and backing that thing, and turning it around, and weaving +through trees and rocks, before they were satisfied.</p> + +<p>Then, all of a sudden, there was nothing left to do except <i>go</i>. They +made me repeat everything one more time, about selling the diamonds, +and how to register at the hotel, and what to do if I got into +trouble, and how to get in touch with them when I wanted to come back. +Then they said good-bye, and made me promise not to stay <i>too</i> long, +and said they'd keep in touch the best they could. And then I got in +the car, and drove down the hill into town.</p> + +<p>I knew they didn't want to let me go. They were worried, maybe even a +little afraid I wouldn't want to come back, but mostly worried that I +might say something I shouldn't, or run into some difficulties they +hadn't anticipated. And outside of that, they knew they were going to +miss me. Yet they'd made up their minds to it; they planned it this +way, and they felt it was the right thing to do, and certainly they'd +put an awful lot of thought and effort and preparation into it.</p> + +<p>If it hadn't been for that, I might have turned back at the last +minute. Maybe they were worried; but <i>I</i> was petrified. Only of +course, I wanted to go, really. I couldn't help being curious, and it +never occurred to me then that I might miss them. It was the first +time I'd ever been out on my own, and they'd promised me, for years +and years, as far back as I could remember, that some day I'd go back, +like this, by myself. But....</p> + +<p>Going back, when you've been away long enough, is not so much a +homecoming as a dream <i>deja vu</i>. And for me, at least, the dream was +not entirely a happy one. Everything I saw or heard or touched had a +sense of haunting familiarity, and yet of <i>wrongness</i>, too—almost a +nightmare feeling of the oppressively inevitable sequence of events, +of faces and features and events just not-quite-remembered and +not-quite-known.</p> + +<p>I was born in this place, but it was not my home. Its people were not +mine; its ways were not mine. All I knew of it was what I had been +told, and what I had seen for myself these last weeks of preparation, +on the television screen. And the dream-feeling was intensified, at +first, by the fact that I did not know <i>why</i> I was there. I knew it +had been planned this way, and I had been told it was necessary to +complete my education. Certainly I was aware of the great effort that +had been made to make the trip possible. But I did not yet understand +just <i>why</i>.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was just that I had heard and watched and thought and +dreamed too much about this place, and now I was actually there, the +reality was—not so much a disappointment as—just sort of <i>unreal</i>. +Different from what I knew when I <i>didn't</i> know.</p> + +<p>The road unwound in a spreading spiral down the mountainside. Each +time I came round, I could see the city below, closer and larger, and +less distinct. From the top, with the sunlight sparkling on it, it had +been a clean and gleaming pattern of human civilization. Halfway down, +the symmetry was lost, and the smudge and smoke began to show.</p> + +<p>Halfway down, too, I began to pass places of business: restaurants and +gas stations and handicraft shops. I wanted to stop. For half an hour +now I had been out on my own, and I still hadn't seen any of the +people, except the three who had passed me behind the wheels of their +cars, going up the road. One of the shops had a big sign on it, "COME +IN AND LOOK AROUND." But I kept going. One thing I understood was that +it was absolutely necessary to have money, and that I must stop +nowhere, and attempt nothing, till after I had gotten some.</p> + +<p>Farther down, the houses began coming closer together, and then the +road stopped winding around, and became almost straight. By that time, +I was used to the car, and didn't have to think about it much, and for +a little while I really enjoyed myself. I could see into the houses +sometimes, through the windows, and at one, a woman was opening the +door, coming out with a broom in her hand. There were children playing +in the yards. There were cars of all kinds parked around the houses, +and I saw dogs and a couple of horses, and once a whole flock of +chickens.</p> + +<p>But just where it was beginning to get really interesting, when I was +coming into the little town before the city, I had to stop watching it +all, because there were too many other people driving. That was when I +began to understand all the fuss about licenses and tests and traffic +regulations. Watching it on television, it wasn't anything like being +in the middle of it!</p> + +<p>Of course, what I ran into there was really nothing; I found that out +when I got into the city itself. But just at first, it seemed pretty +bad. And I still don't understand it. These people are pretty bright +mechanically. You'd think anybody who could <i>build</i> an automobile—let +alone an atom bomb—could <i>drive</i> one easily enough. Especially with a +lifetime to learn in. Maybe they just like to live dangerously....</p> + +<p>It was a good thing, though, that I'd already started watching out for +what the other drivers were doing when I hit my first red light. That +was something I'd overlooked entirely, watching street scenes on the +screen, and I guess they'd never noticed either. They must have taken +it for granted, the way I did, that people stopped their cars out of +courtesy from time to time to let the others go by. As it was, I +stopped because the others did, and just happened to notice that they +began again when the light changed to green. It's really a very good +system; I don't see why they don't have them at all the intersections.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>From the first light, it was eight miles into the center of Colorado +Springs. A sign on the road said so, and I was irrationally pleased +when the speedometer on the car confirmed it. Proud, I suppose, that +these natives from my own birth-place were such good gadgeteers. The +road was better after that, too, and the cars didn't dart in and out +off the sidestreets the way they had before. There was more traffic on +the highway, but most of them behaved fairly intelligently. Until we +got into town, that is. After that, it was everybody-for-himself, but +by then I was prepared for it.</p> + +<p>I found a place to park the car near a drugstore. That was the first +thing I was supposed to do. Find a drugstore, where there would likely +be a telephone directory, and go in and look up the address of a hock +shop. I had a little trouble parking the car in the space they had +marked off, but I could see from the way the others were stationed +that you were supposed to get in between the white lines, with the +front of the car next to the post on the sidewalk. I didn't know what +the post was for, until I got out and read what it said, and then I +didn't know what to do, because I didn't <i>have</i> any money. Not yet. +And I didn't dare get into any trouble that might end up with a +policeman asking to see my license, which always seemed to be the +first thing they did on television, when they talked to anybody who +was driving a car. I got back in the car and wriggled my way out of +the hole between the other cars, and tried to think what to do. Then I +remembered seeing a sign that said "Free Parking" somewhere, not too +far away, and went back the way I'd come.</p> + +<p>There was a sort of park, with a fountain spraying water all over the +grass, and a big building opposite, and the white lines here were much +more sensible. They were painted in diagonal strips, so you could get +in and out quite easily, without all that backing and twisting and +turning. I left the car there, and remembered to take the keys with +me, and started walking back to the drugstore.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That was when it hit me.</p> + +<p>Up to then, beginning I guess when I drove that little stretch coming +into Manitou, with the houses on the hills, and the children and yards +and dogs and chickens, I'd begun to feel almost as if I belonged here. +The people seemed so <i>much</i> like me—as long as I wasn't right up +against them. From a little distance, you'd think there was no +difference at all. Then, I guess, when I was close enough to notice, +driving through town, I'd been too much preoccupied with the car. It +didn't really get to me till I got out and started walking.</p> + +<p>They were all so <i>big</i>....</p> + +<p>They were big, and their faces and noses and even the pores of their +skin were too big. And their voices were too loud. And they <i>smelled</i>.</p> + +<p>I didn't notice that last much till I got into the drugstore. Then I +thought I was going to suffocate, and I had a kind of squeezing +upside-down feeling in my stomach and diaphragm and throat, which I +didn't realize till later was what they meant by "being sick." I stood +over the directory rack, pretending to read, but really just +struggling with my insides, and a man came along and shouted in my ear +something that sounded like, "Vvvm trubbb lll-lll-lll ay-dee?" (I +didn't get that sorted out for hours afterwards, but I don't think +I'll ever forget just the way it sounded at the time. Of course, he +meant, "Having trouble, little lady?") But all I knew at the time was +he was too big and smelled of all kinds of things that were unfamiliar +and slightly sickening. I couldn't answer him. All I could do was turn +away so as not to breathe him, and try to pretend I knew what I was +doing with the directory. Then he hissed at me ("Sorry, no offense," I +figured out later), and said clearly enough so I could understand even +then, "Just trying to help," and walked away.</p> + +<p>As soon as he was gone, I walked out myself. Directory or no +directory, I had to get out of that store. I went back to where I'd +left the car, but instead of getting in it, I sat down on a bench in +the park, and waited till the turmoil inside me began to quiet down.</p> + +<p>I went back into that drugstore once before I left, purposely, just to +see if I could pin down what it was that had bothered me so much, +because I never reacted that strongly afterwards, and I wondered if +maybe it was just that it was the first time I was inside one of their +buildings. But it was more than that; that place was a regular +snake-pit of a treatment for a stranger, believe me! They had a +tobacco counter, and a lunch counter and a perfume-and-toiletries +section, and a nut-roasting machine, and just to top it off, in the +back of the store, an open-to-look-at (<i>and</i> smell) pharmaceutical +center! Everything, all mixed together, and compounded with stale +human sweat, which was also new to me at the time. And no air +conditioning.</p> + +<p>Most of the air conditioning they have is bad enough on its own, with +chemical smells, but those are comparatively easy to get used to ... +and I'll take them <i>any</i> time, over what I got in that first dose of +<i>Odeur d'Earth</i>.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Anyhow, I sat on the park bench about fifteen minutes, I guess, +letting the sun and fresh air seep in, and trying to tabulate and +memorize as many of the components of that drugstore smell as I could, +for future reference. I was simply going to have to adjust to them, +and next time I wanted to be prepared.</p> + +<p>All the same, I didn't feel prepared to go back into the same place. +Maybe another store wouldn't be quite as bad. I started walking in the +opposite direction, staying on the wide main street, where all the big +stores seemed to be, and two blocks down, I ran into luck, because +there was a big bracket sticking out over the sidewalk from the front +of a store halfway down a side street, and it had the three gold balls +hanging from it that I knew, from television, meant the kind of place +I wanted. When I walked down to it, I saw too that they had a sign +painted over the window: "We buy old gold and diamonds."</p> + +<p>Just <i>how</i> lucky that was, I didn't realize till quite some time +later. I was going to look in the Classified Directory for "Hock +Shops." I didn't know any other name for them then.</p> + +<p>Inside, it looked exactly like what I expected, and even the smell was +nothing to complain about. Camphor and dust and mustiness were strong +enough to cover most of the sweaty smell, and those were smells of a +kind I'd experienced before, in other places.</p> + +<p>The whole procedure was reassuring, because it all went just the way +it was supposed to, and I knew how to behave. I'd seen it in a show, +and the man behind the grilled window even <i>looked</i> like the man on +the screen, and talked the same way.</p> + +<p>"What can we do for you, girlie?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to sell a diamond," I told him.</p> + +<p>He didn't say anything at first, then he looked impatient. "You got it +with you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh ... yes!" I opened my purse, and took out one of the little +packages, and unwrapped it, and handed it to him. He screwed the lens +into his eye, and walked back from the window and put it on a little +scale, and turned back and unscrewed the lens and looked at me.</p> + +<p>"Where'd you get this, lady?" he asked me.</p> + +<p>"It's mine," I said. I knew just how to do it. We'd gone over this +half a dozen times before I left, and he was behaving exactly the way +we'd expected.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said. "Can't do much with an unset stone like +this...." He pursed his lips, tossed the diamond carelessly in his +hand, and then pushed it back at me across the counter. I had to keep +myself from smiling. It was just the way they'd said it would be. The +people here were still in the Mech Age, of course, and not nearly +conscious enough to communicate anything at all complex or abstract +any way except verbally. But there is nothing abstract about avarice, +and between what I'd been told to expect, and what I could feel +pouring out of him, I knew precisely what was going on in his mind.</p> + +<p>"You mean you don't <i>want</i> it?" I said. "I thought it was worth quite +a lot...."</p> + +<p>"Might have been once." He shrugged. "You can't do much with a stone +like that any more. Where'd you get it, girlie?"</p> + +<p>"My mother gave it to me. A long time ago. I wouldn't sell it, +except.... Look," I said, and didn't have to work hard to sound +desperate, because in a way I was. "Look, it must be worth +<i>some</i>thing?"</p> + +<p>He picked it up again. "Well ... what do you want for it?"</p> + +<p>That went on for quite a while. I knew what it was supposed to be +worth, of course, but I didn't hope to get even half of that. He +offered seventy dollars, and I asked for five hundred, and after a +while he gave me three-fifty, and I felt I'd done pretty well—for a +greenhorn. I put the money in my purse, and went back to the car, and +on the way I saw a policeman, so I stopped and asked him about a +hotel. He looked me up and down, and started asking questions about +how old I was, and what was my name and where did I live, and I began +to realize that being so much smaller than the other people was going +to make life complicated. I told him I'd come to visit my brother in +the Academy, and he smiled, and said, "Your <i>brother</i>, is it?" Then he +told me the name of a place just outside of town, near the Academy. It +wasn't a hotel; it was a <i>mo</i>tel, which I didn't know about at that +time, but he said I'd be better off there. A lot of what he said went +right over my head at the time; later I realized what he meant about +"a nice respectable couple" running the place. I found out later on, +too, that he called them up to ask them to keep an eye on me; he +thought I was a nice girl, but he was worried about my being alone +there.</p> + +<p>By this time, I was getting hungry, but I thought I'd better go and +arrange about a place to stay first. I found the motel without much +trouble, and went in and registered; I knew how to do that, at +least—I'd seen it plenty of times. They gave me a key, and the man +who ran the place asked me did I want any help with my bags.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," I said. "No, thanks. I haven't got much."</p> + +<p>I'd forgotten all about that, and they'd never thought about it +either! These people always have a lot of different clothes, not just +one set, and you're supposed to have a suitcase full of things when +you go to stay anyplace. I said I was hungry anyway, and wanted to go +get something to eat, and do a couple of other things—I didn't say +what—before I got settled. So the woman walked over with me, and +showed me which cabin it was, and asked was everything all right?</p> + +<p>It looked all right to me. The room had a big bed in it, with sheets +and a blanket and pillows and a bedspread, just like the ones I'd seen +on television. And there was a chest of drawers, and a table with more +small drawers in it, and two chairs and a mirror and one door that +went into a closet and one that led to the bathroom. The fixtures in +there were a little different from the ones they'd made for me to +practice in, but functionally they seemed about the same.</p> + +<p>I didn't look for any difficulty with anything there except the bed, +and that wasn't <i>her</i> fault, so I assured her everything was just +fine, and let her show me how to operate the gas-burner that was set +in the wall for heat. Then we went out, and she very carefully locked +the door, and handed me the key.</p> + +<p>"You better keep that door locked," she said, just a little sharply. +"You never know...."</p> + +<p>I wanted to ask her <i>what</i> you never know, but had the impression that +it was something <i>every</i>body was supposed to know, so I just nodded +and agreed instead.</p> + +<p>"You want to get some lunch," she said then, "there's a place down the +road isn't too bad. Clean, anyhow, and they don't cater too much to +those ... well, it's clean." She pointed the way; you could see the +sign from where we were standing. I thanked her, and started the car, +and decided I might as well go there as anyplace else, especially +since I could see she was watching to find out whether I did or not.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>These people are all too big. Or almost all of them. But the man +behind the counter at the diner was enormous. He was tall and fat with +a beefy red face and large open pores and a fleshy mound of a nose. I +didn't like to look at him, and when he talked, he boomed so loud I +could hardly understand him. On top of all that, the smell in that +place was awful: not quite as bad as the drugstore, but some ways +similar to it. I kept my eyes on the menu, which was full of +unfamiliar words, and tried to remember that I was hungry.</p> + +<p>The man was shouting at me—or it was more like growling, I guess—and +I couldn't make out the words at first. He said it again, and I sorted +out syllables and matched them with the words on the card, and then I +got it:</p> + +<p>"Goulash is nice today, miss...."</p> + +<p>I didn't know what goulash was, and the state my stomach was in, with +the smells, I decided I'd better play safe, and ordered a glass of +milk, and some vegetable soup.</p> + +<p>The milk had a strange taste to it. Not <i>bad</i>—just <i>different</i>. But +of course, this came from cows. That was all right. But the vegetable +soup...!</p> + +<p>It was quite literally putrid, made as near as I could figure out from +dead animal juices, in which vegetables had been soaked and cooked +till any trace of flavor or nourishment was entirely removed. I took +one taste of that, and then I realized what the really nauseating part +of the odor was, in the diner and the drugstore both. It was rotten +meat, dead for some time, and then heated in preparation for eating.</p> + +<p>The crackers that came with the soup were good; they had a nice salty +tang. I ordered more of those, with another glass of milk, and sat +back sipping slowly, trying to adjust to that smell, now that I +realized I'd probably find it anywhere I could find food.</p> + +<p>After a while, I got my insides enough in order so that I could look +around a little and see the place, and the other people in it. That +was when I turned around and saw Larry sitting next to me.</p> + +<p>He was beautiful. He <i>is</i> beautiful. I know that's not what you're +supposed to say about a man, and he wouldn't like it, but I can only +say what I see, and of course that's partly a matter of my own +training and my own feelings about myself.</p> + +<p>At home on the ship, I always wanted to cut off my hair, because it +was so black, and my skin was so white, and they didn't go together. +But they wouldn't let me; they liked it that way, I guess, but <i>I</i> +didn't. No child wants to feel like a freak, and nobody else had hair +like that, or dead-white colorless skin, either.</p> + +<p>Then, when I went down there, and saw all the humans, I was still a +freak because I was so small.</p> + +<p>Larry's small, too. Almost as small as I am. And he's all one color. +He has hair, of course, but it's so light, and his skin is so dark +(both from the sun, I found out), that he looks just about the same +lovely golden color all over. Or at least as much of him as showed +when I saw him that time, in the diner.</p> + +<p>He was beautiful, and he was my size, and he didn't have ugly rough +skin or big heavy hands. I stared at him, and I felt like grabbing on +to him to make sure he didn't get away.</p> + +<p>After a while I realized my mouth was half-open, and I was still +holding a cracker, and I remembered that this was very bad manners. I +put the cracker down and closed my mouth. He smiled. I didn't know if +he was laughing at the odd way I was acting, or just being friendly, +but I smiled back anyhow.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said. "I mean, hello. How do you do, and I'm sorry if +I startled you. I shouldn't have been staring."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i>," I said, and meant to finish, <i>You were staring?</i> But he went +right on talking, so that I couldn't finish.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what else you can expect, if you go around looking like +that," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry...." I started again.</p> + +<p>"And you should be," he said sternly. "Anybody who walks into a place +like this in the middle of a day like this looking the way you do has +got to expect to get stared at a little."</p> + +<p>The thing is, I wasn't used to the language; not used <i>enough</i>. I +could communicate all right, and even understand some jokes, and I +knew the spoken language, not some formal unusable version, because I +learned it mostly watching those shows on the television screen. But I +got confused this time, because "looking" means two different things, +active and passive, and I was thinking about how I'd been <i>looking at</i> +him, and....</p> + +<p>That was my lucky day. I didn't want him to be angry at me, and the +way I saw it, he was perfectly justified in scolding me, which is what +I thought he was doing. But I <i>knew</i> he wasn't really angry; I'd have +felt it if he was. So I said, "You're right. It was very rude of me, +and I don't blame you for being annoyed. I won't do it any more."</p> + +<p>He started laughing, and this time I knew it was friendly. Like I +said, that was my lucky day; <i>he</i> thought I was being witty. And, from +what he's told me since, I guess he realized then that <i>I</i> felt +friendly too, because before that he'd just been bluffing it out, not +knowing how to get to know me, and afraid <i>I</i>'d be sore at <i>him</i>, just +for talking to me!</p> + +<p>Which goes to show that sometimes you're better off not being <i>too</i> +familiar with the local customs.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The trouble was there were too many things I didn't know, too many +small ways to trip myself up. Things they couldn't have foreseen, or +if they did, couldn't have done much about. All it took was a little +caution and a lot of alertness, plus one big important item: staying +in the background—not getting to know any one person too well—not +giving any single individual a chance to observe too much about me.</p> + +<p>But Larry didn't mean to let me do that. And ... I didn't want him to.</p> + +<p>He asked questions; I tried to answer them. I did know enough at least +of the conventions to realize that I didn't have to give detailed +answers, or could, at any point, act offended at being questioned so +much. I <i>didn't</i> know enough to realize that reluctance or irritation +on my part wouldn't have made him go away. We sat on those stools at +the diner for most of an hour, talking, and after a little while I +found I could keep the conversation on safer ground by asking <i>him</i> +about himself, and about the country thereabouts. He seemed to enjoy +talking.</p> + +<p>Eventually, he had to go back to work. As near as I could make out, he +was a test-pilot, or something like it, for a small experimental +aircraft plant near the city. He lived not too far from where I was +staying, and he wanted to see me that evening.</p> + +<p>I hadn't told him where the motel was, and I had at least enough +caution left not to tell him, even then. I did agree to meet him at +the diner, but for lunch the next day again, instead of that evening. +For one thing, I had a lot to do; and for another, I'd seen enough on +television shows to know that an evening date was likely to be pretty +long-drawn-out, and I wasn't sure I could stand up under that much +close scrutiny. I had some studying-up to do first. But the lunch-date +was fine; the thought of not seeing him at all was terrifying—as if +he were an old friend in a world full of strangers. That was how I +felt, that first time, maybe just because he was almost as small as I. +But I think it was more than that, really.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I drove downtown again, and found a store that seemed to sell all +kinds of clothing for women. Then when I got inside, I didn't know +where to start, or what to get. I thought of just buying one of +everything, so as to fill up a suitcase; the things I had on seemed to +be perfectly satisfactory for actual <i>wearing</i> purposes. They were +quite remarkably—when you stopped to think of it—similar to what +most of the women I'd seen that day were wearing, and of course they +weren't subject to the same problems of dirtying and wrinkling and +such as the clothes in the store were.</p> + +<p>I walked around for a while, trying to figure out what all the +different items, shapes, sizes, and colors, were for. Some racks and +counters had signs, but most of them were unfamiliar words like +<i>brunchies</i>, or <i>Bermudas</i> or <i>scuffs</i>; or else they seemed to be +mislabeled, like <i>dusters</i> for a sort of button-down dress, and +<i>Postage Stamp Girdles</i> at one section of a long counter devoted to +"Foundation Garments." For half an hour or so, I wandered around in +there, shaking my head every time a saleswoman came up to me, because +I didn't know, and couldn't figure out, what to ask for, or how to ask +for it.</p> + +<p>The thing was, I didn't dare draw too much attention to myself by +doing or saying the wrong things. I'd have to find out more about +clothes, somehow, before I could do much buying.</p> + +<p>I went out, and on the same block I found a show-window full of +suitcases. That was easy. I went in and pointed to one I liked, and +paid for it, and walked out with it, feeling a little braver. After +all, nobody had to know there was nothing in it. On the corner, I saw +some books displayed in the window of a drug store. It took all the +courage I had to go in there, after my first trip into one that looked +very much like it, but I wanted a dictionary. This place didn't smell +quite so strong; I suppose the pharmacy was enclosed in back, and I +don't believe it had a lunch counter. Anyhow, I got in and out +quickly, and walked back to the car, and sat down with the dictionary.</p> + +<p>It turned out to be entirely useless, at least as far as <i>brunchies</i> +and <i>Bermudas</i> were concerned. It had "scuff, v.," with a definition; +"v.," I found out, meant <i>verb</i>, so that wasn't the word I wanted, but +when I remembered the slippers on the counter with the sign, it made +sense in a way.</p> + +<p>Not enough sense, though. I decided to forget about the clothes for a +while. The next problem was a driver's license.</p> + +<p>The policeman that morning had been helpful, if over-interested, and +since policemen directed traffic, they ought to have the information I +wanted. I found one of them standing on a streetcorner looking not too +busy, and asked him, and if his hair hadn't been brown instead of +reddish (and only half there) I'd have thought it was the same one I +talked to before. He wanted to know how old I was, and where was I +from, and what I was doing there, and did I have a car, and was I +<i>sure</i> I was nineteen?</p> + +<p>Well, of course, I wasn't sure, but they'd told me that by the local +reckoning, that was my approximate age. And I almost slipped and said +I <i>had</i> a car, until I realized that I didn't have a right to drive +one till I had a license. After he asked that one question, I began to +feel suspicious about everything else he asked, and the interest he +expressed. He was helpful, but I had to remember too, that it was the +police who were charged with watching for suspicious characters, +and—well, it was the last time I asked a policeman for information.</p> + +<p>He <i>did</i> tell me where I could rent a car to take my road test, +though, and where to apply for the test. The Courthouse turned out to +be the big building behind the square where I'd parked the car that +morning, and arranging for the test turned out to be much simpler +than, by then, I expected it to be. In a way, I suppose, all the +questions I had to answer when I talked to the policeman had prepared +me for the official session—though they didn't seem nearly so +inquisitive there.</p> + +<p>By this time, I'd come to expect that they wouldn't believe my age +when I told them. The woman at the window behind the counter wanted to +see a "birth certificate," and I produced the one piece of +identification I had; an ancient and yellowed document they had kept +for me all these years. From the information it contained, I suspected +it might even <i>be</i> a birth certificate; whether or not, it apparently +satisfied her, and after that all she wanted was things like my +address and height and weight. Fortunately, they had taken the +trouble, back on the ship, to determine these statistics for me, +because things like that were always coming up on television shows, +especially when people were being questioned by the police. For the +address, of course, I used the motel. The rest I knew, and I guess we +had the figures close enough to right so that at least the woman +didn't question any of it.</p> + +<p>I had my road test about half an hour later, in a rented car, and the +examiner said I did very well. He seemed surprised, and I don't +wonder, considering the way most of those people contrive to mismanage +a simple mechanism like an automobile. I guess when they say Earth is +still in the Mechanical Age, what they mean is that humans are just +<i>learning</i> about machines.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The biggest single stroke of luck I had at any time came during that +road test. We passed a public-looking building with a sign in front +that I didn't understand.</p> + +<p>"What's that place?" I asked the examiner, and he said, as if anyone +would know what he meant, "That? Oh—the Library."</p> + +<p>I looked it up in my dictionary as soon as I was done at the License +Bureau, and when I found out what it was, everything became a great +deal simpler.</p> + +<p>There was a woman who worked there, who showed me, without any +surprise at my ignorance, just how the card catalogue worked, and what +the numbering system meant; she didn't ask me how old I was, or any +other questions, or demand any proof of any kind to convince her I had +a right to use the place. She didn't even bother me much with +questions about what I was looking for. I told her there were a <i>lot</i> +of things I wanted to know, and she seemed to think that was a good +answer, and said if she could help me any way, not to hesitate to ask, +and then she left me alone with those drawers and drawers full of +letter-and-number keys to all the mysteries of an alien world.</p> + +<p>I found a book on how to outfit your daughter for college, that +started with underwear and worked its way through to jewelry and +cosmetics. I also found a whole shelf full of law books, and in one of +them, specific information about the motor vehicle regulations in +different States. There was a wonderful book about diamonds and other +precious stones, particularly fascinating because it went into the +chemistry of the different stones, and gave me the best +measuring-stick I found at any time to judge the general level of +technology of that so-called Mechanical Age.</p> + +<p>That was all I had time for, I couldn't believe it was so late, when +the librarian came and told me they were closing up, and I guess my +disappointment must have showed all over me, because she asked if I +wouldn't like to have a card, so I could take books home?</p> + +<p>I found out all I needed to get a card was identification. I was +supposed to have a reference, too, but the woman said she thought +perhaps it would be all right without one, in my case. And then, when +I wanted to take a volume of the Encyclopedia Americana, she said they +didn't usually circulate that, but if I thought I could bring it back +within a day or two....</p> + +<p>I promised to, and I never did, and out of everything that happened, +that's the one thing I feel badly about. I think she must have been a +very unusual and <i>good</i> sort of woman, and I wish I had kept my +promise to her.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Some of the stores downtown were still open. I bought the things I'd be +expected to have, as near as I could make out from the book on college +girls: panties and a garter belt and a brassiere, and stockings. A slip +and another blouse, and a coat, because even in the early evening it was +beginning to get chilly. Then the salesgirl talked me into gloves and a +scarf and some earrings. I was halfway back to the car when I remembered +about night clothes, and went back for a gown and robe and slippers. That +didn't begin to complete the college girls' list, but it seemed like a +good start. I'd need a dress, too, I thought, if I ever did go out with +Larry in the evening ... but that could wait.</p> + +<p>I put everything into the suitcase, and drove back to the motel. On +the way, I stopped at a food store, and bought a large container of +milk, and some crackers, and some fruit—oranges and bananas and +apples. Back in my room, I put everything away in the drawers, and +then sat down with my book and my food, and had a wonderful time. I +was hungry, and everything tasted good, away from the dead meat +smells, and what with clothes in the drawers and everything, I was +beginning to feel like a real Earth-girl.</p> + +<p>I even took a bath in the bathroom.</p> + +<p>A good long one. Next to the library, that's the thing I miss most. It +would be even better, if they made the tubs bigger, so you could swim +around some. But just getting wet all over like that, and splashing in +the water, is fun. Of course, we could never spare enough water for +that on the ship.</p> + +<p>Altogether, it was a good evening; everything was fine until I tried +to sleep in that bed. I felt as if I was being suffocated all over. +The floor was almost as bad, but in a different way. And once I got to +sleep, I guess I slept well enough, because I felt fine in the +morning. But then, I think I must have been on a mild oxygen jag all +the time I was down there; nothing seemed to bother me too much. That +morning, I felt so good I worked up my courage to go into a +restaurant again—a different one. The smell was beginning to be +familiar, and I could manage better. I experimented with a cereal +called oatmeal, which was delicious, then I went back to the motel, +packed up all my new belongings, left the key on the desk—as +instructed by the sign on the door—and started out for Denver.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Denver, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, is more of a true +metropolitan area than Colorado Springs; that means—on Earth—that it +is dirtier, more crowded, far less pleasant to look at or live in, and +a great deal more convenient and efficient to do business in. In +Denver, and with the aid of a Colorado driver's license for casual +identification, I was able to sell two of my larger diamonds fairly +quickly, at two different places, for something approximating half of +their full value. Then I parked the car they had given me on a side +street, took my suitcase, coat, and book with me, and walked to the +nearest car sales lot. I left the keys in the old car, for the +convenience of anyone who might want it.</p> + +<p>Everything went extraordinarily smoothly, with just one exception. I +had found out everything I needed to know in that library, except that +when dealing with humans, one must always allow for waste time. If I +had realized that at the time I left Colorado Springs that morning, +everything might have turned out very differently indeed—although +when I try to think just what other way it <i>could</i> have turned out, I +don't quite know ... and I wonder, too, how much they knew, or +planned, before they sent me down there....</p> + +<p>This much is sure: if I hadn't assumed that a 70-mile trip, with a +60-mile average speed limit, would take approximately an hour and a +half, and if I had realized that buying an automobile was not the same +simple process as buying a nightgown, I wouldn't have been late for my +luncheon appointment. And if I'd been there on time, I'd never have +made the date for that night. As it was, I started out at seven +o'clock in the morning, and only by exceeding the speed limit on the +last twenty miles of the return trip did I manage to pull into that +diner parking space at five minutes before two.</p> + +<p>His car was still there!</p> + +<p>It is so easy to look back and spot the instant of recognition or of +error. My relief when I saw his car ... my delight when I walked in +and saw and <i>felt</i> his mixture of surprise and joy that I had come, +with disappointment and frustration because it was so late, and he had +to leave almost immediately. And my complete failure, in the midst of +the complexities of these inter-reactions, to think logically, or to +recognize that his ordinary perceptions were certainly the equivalent +of my own....</p> + +<p>At that moment, I wasn't thinking <i>about</i> any of these things. I spent +a delirious sort of five minute period absorbing his feelings about +me, and releasing my own at him. I hadn't planned to do it, not so +soon, not till I knew much more than I did—perhaps after another +week's reading and going about—but when he said that since I'd got +there so late for lunch, I'd <i>have</i> to meet him for dinner, I found I +agreed with him perfectly.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>That afternoon, I bought a dress. This, too, took a great deal of +time, even more than the car, because in the one case I simply had to +look at a number of component parts, and listen to the operation of +the motor, and feel for the total response of the mechanism, to +determine whether it was suitable or not—but in the other, I had +nothing to guide me but my own untrained taste, and the dubious +preferences of the salesgirl, plus what I <i>thought</i> Larry's reactions +<i>might</i> be. Also, I had to determine, without seeming too ignorant, +just what sort of dress might be suitable for a dinner date—and +without knowing for sure just how elaborate Larry's plans for the +evening might be.</p> + +<p>I learned a lot, and was startled to find that I enjoyed myself +tremendously. But I couldn't make up my mind, and bought three dresses +instead of one. It was after that, emboldened by pleasure and success, +that I went back to that first drugstore. The Encyclopedia volume I +had taken from the library, besides containing the information I +wanted on Colorado, had an article on Cosmetics. I decided powder was +unnecessary, although I could understand easily enough how important +it must be to the native women, with their thick skin and large pores +and patchy coloring; that accounted for the fact that the men were +mostly so much uglier ... and I wondered if Larry used it, and if that +was why his skin looked so much better than the others'.</p> + +<p>Most of the perfumes made me literally ill; a few were inoffensive or +mildly pleasant, if you thought of them just as smells, and not as +something to be mistaken for one's <i>own</i> smell. Apparently, though, +from the amount of space given over to them on the counter, and the +number of advertisements I had seen or heard for one brand or another, +they were an essential item. I picked out a faint lavender scent, and +then bought some lipstick, mascara, and eyebrow pencil. On these last +purchases, it was a relief to find that I had no opportunity to +display my ignorance about nuances of coloring, or the merits of one +brand over another. The woman behind the counter knew exactly what I +should have, and was not interested in hearing any of my opinions. She +even told me how to apply the mascara, which was helpful, since the +other two were obvious, and anyhow I'd seen them used on television, +and the lipstick especially I had seen women use since I'd been here.</p> + +<p>It turned out to be a little more difficult than it looked, when I +tried it. Cosmetics apparently take a good deal more experience than +clothing, if you want to have it look <i>right</i>. Right by <i>their</i> +standards, I mean, so that your face becomes a formal design, and will +register only a minimum of actual emotion or response.</p> + +<p>I was supposed to meet Larry in the cocktail lounge of a hotel in +Manitou Springs, the smaller town I'd passed through the day before on +my way down from the mountain. I drove back that way now, with all my +possessions in my new car, including the purse that held not only my +remaining diamonds and birth certificate, but also a car registration, +driver's license, wallet, money, and makeup. A little more than +halfway there, I saw a motel with a "Vacancy" sign out, and an +attractive clean look about it. I pulled in and got myself a room with +no more concern than if I'd been doing that sort of thing all my life.</p> + +<p>This time there was no question about my age, nor was there later on +that evening, in the cocktail lounge or anywhere else. I suppose it +was the lipstick that made the difference, plus a certain increase in +self-confidence; apparently I wasn't too small to be an adult, +provided I looked and acted like one.</p> + +<p>The new room did not have a bathtub. There was a shower, which was +fun, but not as much as the tub had been. Dressing was <i>not</i> fun, and +when I was finished, the whole effect still didn't look right, in +terms of my own mental image of an Earth-woman dressed for a date.</p> + +<p>It was the shoes, of course. This kind of dress wanted high heels. I +had tried a pair in the store, and promptly rejected the whole notion. +Now I wondered if I'd been too hasty, but I realized I could not +conceivably have added that discomfort to the already-pressing +difficulties of stockings and garter belt.</p> + +<p>This last problem got so acute when I sat down and tried to drive the +car, that I did some thinking about it, and decided to take them off. +It seemed to me that I'd seen a lot of bare legs with flat heels. It +was only with high heels that stockings were a real necessity. Anyhow, +I pulled the car over to the side on an empty stretch of road, and +wriggled out of things with a great deal of difficulty. I don't +believe it made much difference in my appearance. No one <i>seemed</i> to +notice, and I do think the lack of heels was more important.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>All of this has been easy to put down. The next part is harder: partly +because it's so important; partly because it's personal; partly +because I just don't remember it all as clearly.</p> + +<p>Larry was waiting for me when I got to the hotel. He stood up and +walked over to me, looking at me as if I were the only person in the +room besides himself, or as if he'd been waiting all his life, and +only just that moment saw what it was he'd been waiting for. I don't +know how I looked at him, but I know how I felt all of a sudden, and I +don't think I can express it very well.</p> + +<p>It was odd, because of the barriers to communication. The way he felt +and the way I did are not things to put into words, and although I +couldn't help but feel the impact of <i>his</i> emotion, I had to remember +that he was deaf-and-blind to mine. All I could get from him for that +matter, was a sort of generalized <i>noise</i>, loud but confused, without +any features or details.</p> + +<p>He smiled, and I smiled, and he said, "I didn't know if you'd really +come ..." and I said, "Am I late?" and he said, "Not much. What do you +want to drink?"</p> + +<p>I knew he meant something with alcohol in it, and I didn't dare, not +till I'd experimented all alone first.</p> + +<p>"Could I get some orange juice?" I asked.</p> + +<p>He smiled again. "You can get anything you want. You don't drink?" He +took my arm, and walked me over to a booth in the back corner, and +went on without giving me a chance to answer. "No, of course you +don't. Just orange juice and milk. Listen, Tina, I've been scared to +ask you, but we might as well get it over with. How old are you +anyhow?..." We sat down, but he still didn't give me a chance to +answer. "No, that's not the right question. Who are you? What are you? +What makes a girl like you exist at all? How come they let you run +around on your own like this? Does your mother.... Never mind me, +honey. I've got no business asking anything. Sufficient unto the +moment, and all that. I'm just talking so much because I'm so nervous. +I haven't felt like this since ... since I first went up for a solo in +a Piper Cub. I didn't think you'd come, and you did, and you're still +here in spite of me and my dumb yap. Orange juice for the lady, +please," he told the waiter, "and a beer for me. Draft."</p> + +<p>I just sat there. As long as he kept talking, I didn't have to. He +looked just as beautiful as he had in the diner, only maybe more so. +His skin was smoother; I suppose he'd just shaved. And he was wearing +a tan suit just a shade darker than his skin, which was just a shade +darker than his hair, and there was absolutely nothing I could say out +loud in his language that would mean anything at all, so I waited to +see if he'd start talking again.</p> + +<p>"You're not mad at me, Tina?"</p> + +<p>I smiled and shook my head.</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>say</i> something then."</p> + +<p>"It's more fun listening to you."</p> + +<p>"You say that just like you mean it ... or do you mean <i>funny</i>?"</p> + +<p>"No. I mean that it's hard for me to talk much. I don't know how to +say a lot of the things I want to say. And most people don't say +anything when they talk, and I don't like listening to their voices, +but I do like yours, and ... I can't help liking what you say ... it's +always so <i>nice</i>. About me, I mean. Complimentary. Flattering."</p> + +<p>"You were right the first time. And you seem to be able to say what +you mean very clearly."</p> + +<p>Which was just the trouble. Not only able to, but unable not to. It +didn't take any special planning or remembering to say or act the +necessary lies to other humans. But Larry was the least alien person +I'd ever known. Dishonesty to him was like lying to myself. Playing a +role for him was pure schizophrenia.</p> + +<p>Right then, I knew it was a mistake. I should never have made that +date, or at least not nearly so soon. But even as I thought that, I +had no more intention of cutting it short or backing out than I did of +going back to the ship the next day. I just tried not to talk too +much, and trusted to the certain knowledge that I was as important to +him as he was to me—so perhaps whatever mistakes I made, whatever I +said that sounded <i>wrong</i>, he would either accept or ignore or +forgive.</p> + +<p>But of course you can't just sit all night and say nothing. And the +simplest things could trip me up. Like when he asked if I'd like to +dance, and all I had to say was "No, thanks," and instead, because I +<i>wanted</i> to try it, I said, "I don't know how."</p> + +<p>Or when he said something about going to a movie, and I agreed +enthusiastically, and he gave me a choice of three different ones that +he wanted to see ... "Oh, anyone," I told him. "You're easy to +please," he said, but he insisted on my making a choice. There was +something he called "an old-Astaire-Rogers," and something else that +was made in England, and one current American one with stars I'd seen +on television. I wanted to see either of the others. I could have said +so, or I could have named one, any one. Instead I heard myself +blurting out that I'd never been to a movie.</p> + +<p>At that point, of course, he began to ask questions in earnest. And at +that point, schizoid or not, I had to lie. It was easier, though, +because I'd been thoroughly briefed in my story, for just such +emergencies as this—and because I could talk more or less +uninterruptedly, with only pertinent questions thrown in, and without +having to react so much to the emotional tensions between us.</p> + +<p>I told him how my parents had died in an automobile accident when I +was a baby; how my two uncles had claimed me at the hospital; about +the old house up on the mountainside, and the convent school, and the +two old men who hated the evils of the world; about the death of the +first uncle, and at long last the death of the second, and the lawyers +and the will and everything—the whole story, as we'd worked it out +back on the ship.</p> + +<p>It answered everything, explained everything—even the unexpected item +of not being able to eat meat. My uncles were vegetarians, which was +certainly a harmless eccentricity compared to most of the others I +credited them with.</p> + +<p>As a story, it was pretty far-fetched, but it hung together—and in +certain ways, it wasn't even <i>too</i> far removed from the truth. It was, +anyhow, the closest thing to the truth that I could tell—and I +therefore delivered it with a fair degree of conviction. Of course it +wasn't designed to stand up to the close and personal inspection Larry +gave it; but then he <i>wanted</i> to believe me.</p> + +<p>He seemed to swallow it. What he did, of course, was something any man +who relies, as he did, on his reflexes and responses to stay alive, +learns to do very early—he filed all questions and apparent +discrepancies for reference, or for thinking over when there was time, +and proceeded to make the most of the current situation.</p> + +<p>We both made the most of it. It was a wonderful evening, from that +point on. We went to the Astaire-Rogers picture, and although I missed +a lot of the humor, since it was contemporary stuff from a time before +I had any chance to learn about Earth, the music and dancing were fun. +Later on, I found that dancing was not nearly as difficult or +intricate as it looked—at least not with Larry. All I had to do was +give in to a natural impulse to let my body follow his. It felt +wonderful, from the feet on up.</p> + +<p>Finally, we went back to the hotel, where we'd left my car, and I +started to get out of his, but he reached out an arm, and stopped me.</p> + +<p>"There's something else I guess you never did," he said. His voice +sounded different from before. He put both his hands on my shoulders, +and pulled me toward him, and leaned over and kissed me.</p> + +<p>I'd seen it, of course, on television.</p> + +<p>I'd seen it, but I had no idea....</p> + +<p>That first time, it was something I felt on my lips, and felt so +sweetly and so strongly that the rest of me seemed to melt away +entirely. I had no other sensations, except in that one place where +his mouth touched mine. That was the first time.</p> + +<p>When it stopped, the world stopped, and I began again, but I had to +sort out the parts and pieces and put them all together to find out +who I was. While I did this, his hands were still on my shoulders, +where they'd been all along, only he was holding me at arm's distance +away from him, and looking at me curiously.</p> + +<p>"It really was, wasn't it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"What?" I tried to say, but the sound didn't come out. I took a breath +and "Was what?" I croaked.</p> + +<p>"The first time." He smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun coming +up in the morning, and then his arms went all the way around me. I +don't know whether he moved over on the seat, or I did, or both of us. +"Oh, baby, baby," he whispered in my ear, and then there was the +second time.</p> + +<p>The second time was like the first, and also like dancing, and some +ways like the bathtub. This time none of me melted away; it was all +there, and all close to him, and all warm, and all tingling with +sensations. I was more completely alive right then than I had ever +been before in my life.</p> + +<p>After we stopped kissing each other, we stayed very still, holding on +to each other, for a while, and then he moved away just a little, +enough, to breathe better.</p> + +<p>I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get out of the car. I +didn't even want to be separated from him by the two or three inches +between us on the seat. But he was sitting next to me now, staring +straight ahead, not saying anything, and I just didn't know what came +next. On television, the kiss was always the end of the scene.</p> + +<p>He started the car again.</p> + +<p>I said, "I have to ... my car ... I...."</p> + +<p>"We'll come back," he said. "Don't worry about it. We'll come back. +Let's just drive a little...?" he pulled out past my car, and turned +and looked at me for a minute. "You don't want to go now, do you? +Right away?"</p> + +<p>I shook my head, but he wasn't looking at me any more, so I took a +breath and said out loud, "No."</p> + +<p>We came off a twisty street onto the highway. "So that's how it hits +you," he said. He wasn't exactly talking to me; more like thinking out +loud. "Twenty-seven years a cool cat, and now it has to be a crazy +little midget that gets to you." He had to stop then, for a red +light—the same light I'd stopped at the first time on the way in. +That seemed a long long time before.</p> + +<p>Larry turned around and took my hand. He looked hard at my face, "I'm +sorry, hon. I didn't mean that the way it sounded."</p> + +<p>"What?" I said. "What do you mean?" I hadn't even tried to make sense +out of what he was saying before; he wasn't talking to me anyhow.</p> + +<p>"Kid," he said, "maybe that was the first time for you, but in a +different way it was the first time for me too." His hand opened and +closed around mine, and his mouth opened and closed too, but nothing +came out. The light was green; he noticed, and started moving, but it +turned red again. This time he kept watching it.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose anybody ever told you about the birds and the bees +and the butterflies," he said.</p> + +<p>"Told me <i>what</i> about them?" He didn't answer right away, so I thought +about it. "All I can think of is they all have wings. They all fly."</p> + +<p>"So do I. So does a fly. What I mean is ... the hell with it!" He +turned off the highway, and we went up a short hill and through a sort +of gateway between two enormous rocks. "Have you ever been here?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so...."</p> + +<p>"They call it The Garden of the Gods. I don't know why. I like it here ... +it's a good place to drive and think."</p> + +<p>There was a lot of moonlight, and the Garden was all hills and drops +and winding roads between low-growing brush, and everywhere, as if the +creatures of some giant planet had dropped them, were those towering +rocks, their shapes scooped out and chiseled and hollowed and twisted +by wind, water and sand. Yes, it was lovely, and it was non-intrusive. +Just what he said—a good place to drive and think.</p> + +<p>Once he came to the top of a hill, and stopped the car, and we looked +out over the Garden, spreading out in every direction, with the +moonlight shadowed in the sagebrush, and gleaming off the great rocks. +Then we turned and looked at each other, and he reached out for me and +kissed me again; after which he pulled away as if the touch of me hurt +him, and grabbed hold of the wheel with a savage look on his face, and +raced the motor, and raised a cloud of dust on the road behind us.</p> + +<p>I didn't understand, and I felt hurt. I wanted to stop again. I wanted +to be kissed again. I didn't like sitting alone on my side of the +seat, with that growl in his throat not quite coming out.</p> + +<p>I asked him to stop again. He shook his head, and made believe to +smile.</p> + +<p>"I'll buy you a book," he said. "All about the birds and the bees and +a little thing we have around here we call sex. I'll buy it tomorrow, +and you can read it—you <i>do</i> know how to read, don't you?—and then +we'll take another ride, and we can park if you want to. Not tonight, +baby."</p> + +<p>"But I <i>know</i>...." I started, and then had sense enough to stop. I +knew about sex; but what I knew about it didn't connect with kissing +or parking the car, or sitting close ... and it occurred to me that +maybe it did, and maybe there was a lot I <i>didn't</i> know that wasn't on +Television, and wasn't on the Ship's reference tapes either. Morals +and mores, and nuances of behavior. So I shut up, and let him take me +back to the hotel again, to my own car.</p> + +<p>He leaned past me to open the door on my side, but he couldn't quite +make it, and I had my fourth kiss. Then he let go again, and almost +pushed me out of the car; but when I started to close the door behind +me, he called out, "Tomorrow night?"</p> + +<p>"I ... all right," I said. "Yes. Tomorrow night."</p> + +<p>"Can I pick you up?"</p> + +<p>There was no reason not to this time. The first time I wouldn't tell +him where I lived, because I knew I'd have to change places, and I +didn't know where yet. I told him the name of the motel, and where it +was.</p> + +<p>"Six o'clock," he said.</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I don't remember driving back to my room. I think I slept on the bed +that night, without ever stopping to determine whether it was +comfortable or not. And when I woke up in the morning, and looked out +the window at a white-coated landscape, the miracle of snow (which I +had never seen before; not many planets have as much water vapor in +their atmospheres as Earth does.) in summer weather seemed trivial in +comparison to what had happened to me.</p> + +<p>Trivial, but beautiful. I was afraid it would be very cold, but it +wasn't.</p> + +<p>I had gathered, from the weather-talk in the place where I ate +breakfast, that in this mountain-country (it was considered to be very +high altitude there), snow at night and hot sun in the afternoon was +not infrequent in the month of April, though it was unusual for May.</p> + +<p>It was beautiful to look at, and nice to walk on, but it began melting +as soon as the sun was properly up, and then it looked awful. The red +dirt there is pretty, and so is the snow, but when they began merging +into each other in patches and muddy spots, it was downright ugly.</p> + +<p>Not that I cared. I ate oatmeal and drank milk and nibbled at a piece +of toast, and tried to plan my activities for the day. To the library +first, and take back the book they'd lent me. Book ... all right then, +get a book on sex. But that was foolish; I <i>knew</i> all about sex. At +least I knew ... well, what did I know? I knew their manner of +reproduction, and....</p> + +<p>Just why, at that time and place, I should have let it come through to +me, I don't know. I'd managed to stay in a golden daze from the time +in the Garden till that moment, refusing to think through the +implications of what Larry said.</p> + +<p>Sex. Sex is mating and reproduction. Dating and dancing and kissing +are parts of the courtship procedure. And the television shows all +stop with kissing, because the mating itself is taboo. Very simple. +Also <i>very</i> taboo.</p> + +<p>Of course, they didn't <i>say</i> I couldn't. They never said anything +about it at all. It was just obvious. It wouldn't even work. We were +<i>different</i>, after all.</p> + +<p>Oh, technically, biologically, of course, we were probably +cross-fertile, but....</p> + +<p>The whole thing was so obviously <i>impossible</i>!</p> + +<p>They should have warned me. I'd never have let it go this far, if I'd +known.</p> + +<p>Sex. Mating. Marriage. Tribal rites. Rituals and rigamaroles, and stay +here forever. Never go back.</p> + +<p><i>Never go back?</i></p> + +<p>There was an instant's sheer terror, and then the comforting knowledge +that they wouldn't <i>let</i> me do that. I had to go back.</p> + +<p>Baby on a spaceship?</p> + +<p>Well, <i>I</i> was a baby on a spaceship, but that was different. How +different? I was older. I wasn't born there. Getting born is +complicated. Oxygen, gravity, things like that. You can't raise a +<i>human</i> baby on a spaceship.... <i>Human?</i> What's human? What am I? +Never mind the labels. It would be <i>my</i> baby....</p> + +<p>I didn't want a baby. I just wanted Larry to hold me close to him and +kiss me.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I drove downtown and on the way to the library I passed a bookstore, +so I stopped and went in there instead. That was better. I could buy +what I wanted, and not have to ask permission to take it out, and if +there was more than one, I could have all I wanted.</p> + +<p>I asked the man for books about sex. He looked so startled, I realized +the taboo must apply on the verbal level too.</p> + +<p>I didn't care. He showed me where the books were, and that's all that +mattered. "Non-fiction here," he said. "That what you wanted, Miss?"</p> + +<p>Non-fiction. Definitely. I thanked him, and picked out half a dozen +different books. One was a survey of sexual behavior and morals; +another was a manual of techniques; one was on the psychology of sex, +and there was another about abnormal sex, and one on physiology, and +just to play safe, considering the state of my own ignorance, one that +announced itself as giving a "clear simple explanation of the facts of +life for adolescents."</p> + +<p>I took them all to the counter, and paid for them, and the man still +looked startled, but he took the money. He insisted on wrapping them +up, though, before I could leave.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The next part of this is really Larry's story, but unable as I am, +even now, to be <i>certain</i> about his unspoken thoughts, I can only tell +it as I experienced it. I didn't do anything all that day, except wade +through the books I'd bought, piece-meal, reading a few pages here and +a chapter there. The more I read, the more confused I got. Each writer +contradicted all the others, except in regard to the few basic +biological facts that I already knew. The only real addition to my +factual knowledge was the information in the manual of technique about +contraception—and that was rather shocking, even while it was +tempting.</p> + +<p>The mechanical contrivances these people made use of were foolish, of +course, and typical of the stage of culture they are going through. If +I wanted to prevent conception, while engaging in an act of sexual +intercourse, I could, do so, of course, but....</p> + +<p>The shock to the glandular system wouldn't be too severe; it was the +psychological repercussions I was thinking about. The idea of pursuing +a course of action whose sole motivation was the procreative urge, and +simultaneously to decide by an act of will to refuse to procreate....</p> + +<p>I <i>could</i> do it, theoretically, but in practice I knew I never would.</p> + +<p>I put the book down and went outside in the afternoon sunshine. The +motel was run by a young married couple, and I watched the woman come +out and put her baby in the playpen. She was laughing and talking to +it; she looked happy; so did the baby.</p> + +<p>But <i>I</i> wouldn't be. Not even if they let me. I couldn't live here and +bring up a child—children?—on this primitive, almost barbaric, +world. Never ever be able fully to communicate with anyone. Never, +ever, be entirely honest with anyone.</p> + +<p>Then I remembered what it was like to be in Larry's arms, and wondered +what kind of communication I could want that might surpass that. Then +I went inside and took a shower and began to dress for the evening.</p> + +<p>It was too early to get dressed. I was ready too soon. I went out and +got in the car, and pulled out onto the highway and started driving. I +was halfway up the mountain before I knew where I was going, and then +I doubled my speed.</p> + +<p>I was scared. I ran away.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was still some snow on the mountain top. Down below, it would be +warm yet, but up there it was cold. The big empty house was full of +dust and chill and I brought fear in with me. I wished I had known +where I was going when I left my room; I wanted my coat. I wanted +something to read while I waited. I remembered the library book and +almost went back. Instead, I went to the dark room in back that had +once been somebody's kitchen, and opened the cupboard and found the +projector and yelled for help.</p> + +<p>I didn't know where they were, how far away, whether cruising or +landed somewhere, or how long it would take. All I could be sure of +was that they couldn't come till after dark, full dark, and that would +be, on the mountain top, at least another four hours.</p> + +<p>There was a big round black stove in a front room, that looked as if +it could burn wood safely. I went out and gathered up everything I +could find nearby that looked to be combustible, and started a fire, +and began to feel better. I beat the dust off a big soft chair, and +pulled it over close to the stove, and curled up in it, warm and +drowsy and knowing that help was on the way.</p> + +<p>I fell asleep, and I was in the car with Larry again, in front of that +hotel, every cell of my body tinglingly awake, and I woke up, and +moved the chair farther back away from the fire, and watched the sun +set through the window—till I fell asleep again, and dreamed again, +and when I woke, the sun was gone, but the mountain top was brightly +lit. I had forgotten about the moon.</p> + +<p>I tried to remember what time it rose and when it set, but all I knew +was it had shone as bright last night in the Garden of the Gods.</p> + +<p>I walked around, and went outside, and got more wood, and when it was +hot in the room again, I fell asleep, and Larry's hands were on my +shoulders, but he wasn't kissing me.</p> + +<p>He was shouting at me. He sounded furious, but I couldn't feel any +anger. "You God-damn little idiot!" he shouted. "What in the name of +all that's holy...? ... put you over my knee and.... For God's sake, +baby," he stopped shouting, "what did you pull a dumb trick like this +for?"</p> + +<p>"I was scared. I didn't even plan to do it. I just did."</p> + +<p>"Scared? My God, I should think you would be! Now listen, babe. I +don't know yet what's going on, and I don't think I'm going to like it +when I find out. I don't like it already that you told me a pack of +lies last night. Just the same, God help me, I don't think it's what +it sounds like. But I'm the only one who doesn't. Now you better give +it to me straight, because they've got half the security personnel of +this entire area out hunting for you, and nobody else is going to care +much what the truth is. My God, on top of everything else, you had to +<i>run away</i>! Now, give out, kid, and make it good. This one has got to +stick."</p> + +<p>I didn't understand a lot of what he said. I started trying to +explain, but he wouldn't listen. He wanted something else, and I +didn't know what.</p> + +<p>Finally, he made me understand.</p> + +<p>He'd almost believed my story the night before. Almost, but there was +a detail somewhere that bothered him. He couldn't remember it at +first; it kept nudging around the edge of his mind, but he didn't know +what it was. He forgot about it for a while. Then, in the Garden, I +made my second big mistake. (He didn't explain all of this then; he +just accused, and I didn't understand this part completely until +later.) I wanted him to park the car.</p> + +<p>Any girl on Earth, no matter how sheltered, how inexperienced, would +have known better than that. As he saw it, he had to decide whether I +was just so carried away by the night and the mood and the moment +that I didn't <i>care</i>—or whether my apparent innocence was a pose all +along.</p> + +<p>When we separated in front of the hotel that night, we both had to +take the same road for a while. Larry was driving right behind me for +a good three miles, before I turned off at the motel. And that was +when he realized what the detail was that had been bothering him: my +car.</p> + +<p>The first time he saw me, I was driving a different make and model, +with Massachusetts plates on it. He was sure of that, because he had +copied it down when he left the luncheonette, the first time we met.</p> + +<p>Larry had never told me very clearly about the kind of work he did. I +knew it was something more or less "classified," having to do with +aircraft—jet planes or experimental rockets, or something like that. +And I knew, without his telling me, that the work—not just the <i>job</i>, +but the work he did at it—was more important to him than anything +else ever had been. More important, certainly, than he had ever +expected any woman to be.</p> + +<p>So, naturally, when he met me that day, and knew he wanted to see me +again, but couldn't get my address or any other identifying +information out of me, he had copied down the license number of my +car, and turned it in, with my name, to the Security Officer on the +Project. A man who has spent almost every waking moment from the age +of nine planning and preparing to fit himself for a role in humanity's +first big fling into space doesn't endanger his security status by +risking involuntary contamination from an attractive girl. The little +aircraft plant on the fringes of town was actually a top-secret key +division in the Satellite project, and if you worked there, you took +precautions.</p> + +<p>The second time I met him at the luncheonette, he had been waiting so +long, and had so nearly given up any hope of my coming, that he was no +longer watching the road or the door when I finally got there—and +when he left, he was so pleased at having gotten a dinner date with +me, that he didn't notice much of anything at all. Not except out of +the corner of one eye, and with only the slightest edge of +subconscious recognition: just enough so that some niggling detail +that was out-of-place kept bothering him thereafter; and just enough +so that he made a point of stopping in the Security Office again that +afternoon to add my new motel address to the information he'd given +them the day before.</p> + +<p>The three-mile drive in back of my Colorado plates was just about long +enough, finally, to make the discrepancy register consciously.</p> + +<p>Larry went home and spent a bad night. His feelings toward me, as I +could hardly understand at the time, were a great deal stronger, or at +least more clearly defined, than mine about him. But since he was +more certain just what it was he wanted, and less certain what <i>I</i> +did, every time he tried to fit my attitude in the car into the rest +of what he knew, he'd come up with a different answer, and nine +answers out of ten were angry and suspicious and agonizing.</p> + +<p>"Now look, babe," he said, "you've got to see this. I trusted <i>you</i>; +really, all the time, I did trust you. But I didn't trust <i>me</i>. By the +time I went to work this morning, I was half-nuts. I didn't know +<i>what</i> to think, that's all. And I finally sold myself on the idea +that if you were what you said you were, nobody would get hurt, +and—well, if you <i>weren't</i> on the level, I better find out, quick. +You see that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said.</p> + +<p>"Okay. So I told them about the license plates, and about—the other +stuff."</p> + +<p>"What other stuff?" What else was there? How stupid could I be?</p> + +<p>"I mean, the—in the car. The way you—Listen, kid," he said, his face +grim and demanding again. "It's still just as true as it was then. I +<i>still</i> don't know. They called me this evening, and said when they +got around to the motel to question you, you'd skipped out. They also +said that Massachusetts car was stolen. And there were a couple of +other things they'd picked up that they wouldn't tell me, but they've +got half the National Guard and all the Boy Scouts out after you by +now. They wanted me to tell them anything I could think of that might +help them find this place. I couldn't think of anything while I was +talking to them. Right afterwards, I remembered plenty of +things—which roads you were familiar with, and what you'd seen before +and what you hadn't, stuff like that, so—"</p> + +<p>"So you—?"</p> + +<p>"So I came out myself. I wanted to find you first. Listen, babe, I +love you. Maybe I'm a sucker, and maybe I'm nuts, and maybe +I-don't-know-what. But I figured maybe I could find out more, and +easier on you, than they could. And honey, it better be good, because +I don't think I've got what it would take to turn you in, and now I've +found you—"</p> + +<p>He let it go there, but that was plenty. He was willing to listen. He +wanted to believe in me, because he wanted me. And finding me in the +house I'd described, where I'd said it was, had him half-convinced. +But I still had to explain those Massachusetts plates. And I couldn't.</p> + +<p>I was psychologically incapable of telling him another lie, now, when +I knew I would never see him again, that this was the last time I +could ever possibly be close to him in any way. I couldn't estrange +myself by lying.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>And I was <i>also</i> psychologically incapable—I found out—of telling +the truth. They'd seen to that.</p> + +<p>It was the first time I'd ever hated them. The first time, I suppose, +that I fully realized my position with them.</p> + +<p>I could not tell the truth, and I would not tell a lie; all I could do +was explain this, and hope he would believe me. I could explain, too, +that I was no spy, no enemy; that those who had prevented me from +telling what I wanted to tell were no menace to his government or his +people.</p> + +<p>He believed me.</p> + +<p>It was just that simple. He believed me, because I suppose he knew, +without knowing how he knew it, that it was truth. Humans are not +incapable of communication; they are simply unaware of it.</p> + +<p>I told him, also, that they were coming for me, that I had called +them, and—regretfully—that he had better leave before they came.</p> + +<p>"You said they weren't enemies or criminals. You were telling the +truth, weren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was. They won't <i>harm</i> you. But they might...." I couldn't say +it. I didn't know the words when I tried to say it. <i>Might take you +away with them ... with us....</i></p> + +<p>"Might what?"</p> + +<p>"Might ... oh, I don't <i>know</i>!"</p> + +<p>Now he was suspicious again. "All right," he said. "I'll leave. You +come with me."</p> + +<p>It was just that simple. Go back with him. Let them come and not find +me. What could they do? Their own rules would keep them from hunting +for me. They couldn't come down among the people of Earth. Go back. +Stop running.</p> + +<p>We got into his car, and he turned around and smiled at me again, like +the other time.</p> + +<p>I smiled back, seeing him through a shiny kind of mist which must have +been tears. I reached for him, and he reached for me at the same time.</p> + +<p>When we let go, he tried to start the car, and it wouldn't work. Of +course. I'd forgotten till then. I started laughing and crying at the +same time in a sort of a crazy way, and took him back inside and +showed him the projector. They'd forgotten to give me any commands +about not doing that, I guess. Or they thought it wouldn't matter.</p> + +<p>It did matter. Larry looked it over, and puzzled over it a little, and +fooled around, and asked me some questions. I didn't have much +technical knowledge, but I knew what it did, and he figured out the +way it did it. Nothing with an electro-magnetic motor was going to +work while that thing was turned on, not within a mile or so in any +direction. And there wasn't any way to turn it off. It was a homing +beam, and it was on to stay—foolproof.</p> + +<p>That was when he looked at me, and said slowly, "You got here three +days ago, didn't you, babe?"</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>"There was—God-damn it, it's too foolish! There was a—a <i>flying +saucer</i> story in the paper that day. Somebody saw it land on a hilltop +somewhere. Some crackpot. Some ... how about it, kid?"</p> + +<p>I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no, and I did the only thing +that was left, which was to get hysterical. In a big way.</p> + +<p>He had to calm me down, of course. And I found out why the television +shows stop with the kiss. The rest is very private and personal.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><i>Author's note: This story was dictated to me by a five-year-old +boy—word-for-word, except for a very few editorial changes of my own. +He is a very charming and bright youngster who plays with my own +five-year-old daughter. One day he wandered into my office, and +watched me typing for a while, then asked what I was doing. I answered +(somewhat irritably, because the children are supposed to stay out of +the room when I'm working) that I was trying to write a story.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>What kind of a story?</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>A grown-up story.</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>But what</i> kind?"</p> + +<p><i>"A science-fiction story." The next thing I was going to do was to +call my daughter, and ask her to take her company back to the +playroom. I had my mouth open, but I never got a syllable out. Teddy +was talking.</i></p> + +<p><i>"I don't know where they got the car," he said. "They made three or +four stops before the last...." He had a funny look on his face, and +his eyes were glazed-looking.</i></p> + +<p><i>I had seen some experimental work with hypnosis and post-hypnotic +performance. After the first couple of sentences, I led Teddy into the +living-room, and switched on the tape-recorder. I left it on as long +as he kept talking. I had to change tapes once, and missed a few more +sentences. When he was done, I asked him, with the tape still running, +where he had heard that story.</i></p> + +<p><i>"What story?" he asked. He looked perfectly normal again.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>The story you just told me.</i>"</p> + +<p><i>He was obviously puzzled.</i></p> + +<p>"<i>The</i> science-fiction <i>story</i>," <i>I said</i>.</p> + +<p><i>"I don't know where they got the car," he began; his face was set and +his eyes were blank.</i></p> + +<p><i>I kept the tape running, and picked up the parts I'd missed before. +Then I sent Teddy off to the playroom, and played back the tape, and +thought for a while.</i></p> + +<p><i>There was a little more, besides what you've read. Parts of it were +confused, with some strange words mixed in, and with sentences +half-completed, and a feeling of ambivalence or censorship or +inhibition of some kind preventing much clarity. Other parts were +quite clear. Of these, the only section I have omitted so far that +seems to me to belong in the story is this one:—</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The baby will have to be born on Earth! They have decided that +themselves. And for the first time, I am glad that they cannot +communicate with me as perfectly as they do among themselves. I can +think some things they do not know about.</p> + +<p>We are not coming back. I do not think that I will like it on Earth +for very long, and I do not know—neither does Larry—what will happen +to us when the Security people find us, and we cannot answer their +questions. But—</p> + +<p>I am a woman now, and I love like a woman. Larry will not be their +pet; so I cannot be. I am not sure that I am fit to be what Larry +thinks of as a "human being." He says I must learn to be "my own +master." I am not at all sure I could do this, if it were necessary, +but fortunately, this is one of Larry's areas of semantic confusion. +The feminine of <i>master</i> is <i>mistress</i>, which has various meanings.</p> + +<p>Also, there is the distinct possibility, from what Larry says, that we +will not, <i>either</i> of us, be allowed even as much liberty as we have +here.</p> + +<p>There is also the matter of gratitude. <i>They</i> brought me up, took care +of me, taught me, loved me, gave me a way of life, and a knowledge of +myself, infinitely richer than I could ever have had on Earth. Perhaps +they even saved my life, healing me when I was quite possibly beyond +the power of Earthly medical science to save. But against all this—</p> + +<p><i>They</i> caused the damage to start with. It was <i>their</i> force-field +that wrecked the car and killed my parents. <i>They</i> have paid for it; +<i>they</i> are paying for it yet. <i>They</i> will continue to pay, for more +years than make sense in terms of a human lifetime. <i>They</i> will +continue to wander from planet to planet and system to system, because +<i>they</i> have broken <i>their</i> own law, and now may never go home.</p> + +<p>But <i>I</i> can.</p> + +<p>I am a woman, and Larry is a man. We will go home and have our baby. +And perhaps the baby will be the means of our freedom, some day. If we +cannot speak to save ourselves, he may some day be able to speak for +us.</p> + +<p>I do not think the blocks they set in us will penetrate my womb as my +own thoughts, I hope, already have.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><i>Author's note: Before writing this story—as a story—I talked with +Johnny's parents. I approached them cautiously. His mother is a big +woman, and a brunette. His father is a friendly fat redhead. I already +knew that neither of them reads science-fiction. The word is not +likely to be mentioned in their household.</i></p> + +<p><i>They moved to town about three years ago. Nobody here knew them +before that, but there are rumors that Johnny is adopted. They did not +volunteer any confirmation of that information when I talked to them, +and they did not pick up on any of the leads I offered about his +recitation.</i></p> + +<p><i>Johnny himself is small and fair-haired. He takes after his paternal +grandmother, his mother says....</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Exile from Space, by Judith Merril + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXILE FROM SPACE *** + +***** This file should be named 31661-h.htm or 31661-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/6/6/31661/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Exile from Space + +Author: Judith Merril + +Release Date: March 16, 2010 [EBook #31661] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXILE FROM SPACE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe November 1956. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + +[_"They" worried about the impression she'd make. Who_ could + _imagine that she'd fall in love, passionately, the way others of her + blood must have done?_] + + + exile from space + + + _by ... Judith Merril_ + + + Who _was_ this strange girl who had been born in this + place--and still it wasn't her home?... + + * * * * * + + + + +I don't know where they got the car. We made three or four stops +before the last one, and they must have picked it up one of those +times. Anyhow, they got it, but they had to make a license plate, +because it had the wrong kind on it. + +They made me some clothes, too--a skirt and blouse and shoes that +looked just like the ones we saw on television. They couldn't make me +a lipstick or any of those things, because there was no way to figure +out just what the chemical composition was. And they decided I'd be as +well off without any driver's license or automobile registration as I +would be with papers that weren't exactly perfect, so they didn't +bother about making those either. + +They were worried about what to do with my hair, and even thought +about cutting it short, so it would look more like the women on +television, but that was one time I was way ahead of them. I'd seen +more shows than anyone else, of course--I watched them almost every +minute, from the time they told me I was going--and there was one +where I'd seen a way to make braids and put them around the top of +your head. It wasn't very comfortable, but I practiced at it until it +looked pretty good. + +They made me a purse, too. It didn't have anything in it except the +diamonds, but the women we saw always seemed to carry them, and they +thought it might be a sort of superstition or ritual necessity, and +that we'd better not take a chance on violating anything like that. + +They made me spend a lot of time practicing with the car, because +without a license, I couldn't take a chance on getting into any +trouble. I must have put in the better part of an hour starting and +stopping and backing that thing, and turning it around, and weaving +through trees and rocks, before they were satisfied. + +Then, all of a sudden, there was nothing left to do except _go_. They +made me repeat everything one more time, about selling the diamonds, +and how to register at the hotel, and what to do if I got into +trouble, and how to get in touch with them when I wanted to come back. +Then they said good-bye, and made me promise not to stay _too_ long, +and said they'd keep in touch the best they could. And then I got in +the car, and drove down the hill into town. + +I knew they didn't want to let me go. They were worried, maybe even a +little afraid I wouldn't want to come back, but mostly worried that I +might say something I shouldn't, or run into some difficulties they +hadn't anticipated. And outside of that, they knew they were going to +miss me. Yet they'd made up their minds to it; they planned it this +way, and they felt it was the right thing to do, and certainly they'd +put an awful lot of thought and effort and preparation into it. + +If it hadn't been for that, I might have turned back at the last +minute. Maybe they were worried; but _I_ was petrified. Only of +course, I wanted to go, really. I couldn't help being curious, and it +never occurred to me then that I might miss them. It was the first +time I'd ever been out on my own, and they'd promised me, for years +and years, as far back as I could remember, that some day I'd go back, +like this, by myself. But.... + +Going back, when you've been away long enough, is not so much a +homecoming as a dream _deja vu_. And for me, at least, the dream was +not entirely a happy one. Everything I saw or heard or touched had a +sense of haunting familiarity, and yet of _wrongness_, too--almost a +nightmare feeling of the oppressively inevitable sequence of events, +of faces and features and events just not-quite-remembered and +not-quite-known. + +I was born in this place, but it was not my home. Its people were not +mine; its ways were not mine. All I knew of it was what I had been +told, and what I had seen for myself these last weeks of preparation, +on the television screen. And the dream-feeling was intensified, at +first, by the fact that I did not know _why_ I was there. I knew it +had been planned this way, and I had been told it was necessary to +complete my education. Certainly I was aware of the great effort that +had been made to make the trip possible. But I did not yet understand +just _why_. + +Perhaps it was just that I had heard and watched and thought and +dreamed too much about this place, and now I was actually there, the +reality was--not so much a disappointment as--just sort of _unreal_. +Different from what I knew when I _didn't_ know. + +The road unwound in a spreading spiral down the mountainside. Each +time I came round, I could see the city below, closer and larger, and +less distinct. From the top, with the sunlight sparkling on it, it had +been a clean and gleaming pattern of human civilization. Halfway down, +the symmetry was lost, and the smudge and smoke began to show. + +Halfway down, too, I began to pass places of business: restaurants and +gas stations and handicraft shops. I wanted to stop. For half an hour +now I had been out on my own, and I still hadn't seen any of the +people, except the three who had passed me behind the wheels of their +cars, going up the road. One of the shops had a big sign on it, "COME +IN AND LOOK AROUND." But I kept going. One thing I understood was that +it was absolutely necessary to have money, and that I must stop +nowhere, and attempt nothing, till after I had gotten some. + +Farther down, the houses began coming closer together, and then the +road stopped winding around, and became almost straight. By that time, +I was used to the car, and didn't have to think about it much, and for +a little while I really enjoyed myself. I could see into the houses +sometimes, through the windows, and at one, a woman was opening the +door, coming out with a broom in her hand. There were children playing +in the yards. There were cars of all kinds parked around the houses, +and I saw dogs and a couple of horses, and once a whole flock of +chickens. + +But just where it was beginning to get really interesting, when I was +coming into the little town before the city, I had to stop watching it +all, because there were too many other people driving. That was when I +began to understand all the fuss about licenses and tests and traffic +regulations. Watching it on television, it wasn't anything like being +in the middle of it! + +Of course, what I ran into there was really nothing; I found that out +when I got into the city itself. But just at first, it seemed pretty +bad. And I still don't understand it. These people are pretty bright +mechanically. You'd think anybody who could _build_ an automobile--let +alone an atom bomb--could _drive_ one easily enough. Especially with a +lifetime to learn in. Maybe they just like to live dangerously.... + +It was a good thing, though, that I'd already started watching out for +what the other drivers were doing when I hit my first red light. That +was something I'd overlooked entirely, watching street scenes on the +screen, and I guess they'd never noticed either. They must have taken +it for granted, the way I did, that people stopped their cars out of +courtesy from time to time to let the others go by. As it was, I +stopped because the others did, and just happened to notice that they +began again when the light changed to green. It's really a very good +system; I don't see why they don't have them at all the intersections. + + * * * * * + +From the first light, it was eight miles into the center of Colorado +Springs. A sign on the road said so, and I was irrationally pleased +when the speedometer on the car confirmed it. Proud, I suppose, that +these natives from my own birth-place were such good gadgeteers. The +road was better after that, too, and the cars didn't dart in and out +off the sidestreets the way they had before. There was more traffic on +the highway, but most of them behaved fairly intelligently. Until we +got into town, that is. After that, it was everybody-for-himself, but +by then I was prepared for it. + +I found a place to park the car near a drugstore. That was the first +thing I was supposed to do. Find a drugstore, where there would likely +be a telephone directory, and go in and look up the address of a hock +shop. I had a little trouble parking the car in the space they had +marked off, but I could see from the way the others were stationed +that you were supposed to get in between the white lines, with the +front of the car next to the post on the sidewalk. I didn't know what +the post was for, until I got out and read what it said, and then I +didn't know what to do, because I didn't _have_ any money. Not yet. +And I didn't dare get into any trouble that might end up with a +policeman asking to see my license, which always seemed to be the +first thing they did on television, when they talked to anybody who +was driving a car. I got back in the car and wriggled my way out of +the hole between the other cars, and tried to think what to do. Then I +remembered seeing a sign that said "Free Parking" somewhere, not too +far away, and went back the way I'd come. + +There was a sort of park, with a fountain spraying water all over the +grass, and a big building opposite, and the white lines here were much +more sensible. They were painted in diagonal strips, so you could get +in and out quite easily, without all that backing and twisting and +turning. I left the car there, and remembered to take the keys with +me, and started walking back to the drugstore. + + * * * * * + +That was when it hit me. + +Up to then, beginning I guess when I drove that little stretch coming +into Manitou, with the houses on the hills, and the children and yards +and dogs and chickens, I'd begun to feel almost as if I belonged here. +The people seemed so _much_ like me--as long as I wasn't right up +against them. From a little distance, you'd think there was no +difference at all. Then, I guess, when I was close enough to notice, +driving through town, I'd been too much preoccupied with the car. It +didn't really get to me till I got out and started walking. + +They were all so _big_.... + +They were big, and their faces and noses and even the pores of their +skin were too big. And their voices were too loud. And they _smelled_. + +I didn't notice that last much till I got into the drugstore. Then I +thought I was going to suffocate, and I had a kind of squeezing +upside-down feeling in my stomach and diaphragm and throat, which I +didn't realize till later was what they meant by "being sick." I stood +over the directory rack, pretending to read, but really just +struggling with my insides, and a man came along and shouted in my ear +something that sounded like, "Vvvm trubbb lll-lll-lll ay-dee?" (I +didn't get that sorted out for hours afterwards, but I don't think +I'll ever forget just the way it sounded at the time. Of course, he +meant, "Having trouble, little lady?") But all I knew at the time was +he was too big and smelled of all kinds of things that were unfamiliar +and slightly sickening. I couldn't answer him. All I could do was turn +away so as not to breathe him, and try to pretend I knew what I was +doing with the directory. Then he hissed at me ("Sorry, no offense," I +figured out later), and said clearly enough so I could understand even +then, "Just trying to help," and walked away. + +As soon as he was gone, I walked out myself. Directory or no +directory, I had to get out of that store. I went back to where I'd +left the car, but instead of getting in it, I sat down on a bench in +the park, and waited till the turmoil inside me began to quiet down. + +I went back into that drugstore once before I left, purposely, just to +see if I could pin down what it was that had bothered me so much, +because I never reacted that strongly afterwards, and I wondered if +maybe it was just that it was the first time I was inside one of their +buildings. But it was more than that; that place was a regular +snake-pit of a treatment for a stranger, believe me! They had a +tobacco counter, and a lunch counter and a perfume-and-toiletries +section, and a nut-roasting machine, and just to top it off, in the +back of the store, an open-to-look-at (_and_ smell) pharmaceutical +center! Everything, all mixed together, and compounded with stale +human sweat, which was also new to me at the time. And no air +conditioning. + +Most of the air conditioning they have is bad enough on its own, with +chemical smells, but those are comparatively easy to get used to ... +and I'll take them _any_ time, over what I got in that first dose of +_Odeur d'Earth_. + + * * * * * + +Anyhow, I sat on the park bench about fifteen minutes, I guess, +letting the sun and fresh air seep in, and trying to tabulate and +memorize as many of the components of that drugstore smell as I could, +for future reference. I was simply going to have to adjust to them, +and next time I wanted to be prepared. + +All the same, I didn't feel prepared to go back into the same place. +Maybe another store wouldn't be quite as bad. I started walking in the +opposite direction, staying on the wide main street, where all the big +stores seemed to be, and two blocks down, I ran into luck, because +there was a big bracket sticking out over the sidewalk from the front +of a store halfway down a side street, and it had the three gold balls +hanging from it that I knew, from television, meant the kind of place +I wanted. When I walked down to it, I saw too that they had a sign +painted over the window: "We buy old gold and diamonds." + +Just _how_ lucky that was, I didn't realize till quite some time +later. I was going to look in the Classified Directory for "Hock +Shops." I didn't know any other name for them then. + +Inside, it looked exactly like what I expected, and even the smell was +nothing to complain about. Camphor and dust and mustiness were strong +enough to cover most of the sweaty smell, and those were smells of a +kind I'd experienced before, in other places. + +The whole procedure was reassuring, because it all went just the way +it was supposed to, and I knew how to behave. I'd seen it in a show, +and the man behind the grilled window even _looked_ like the man on +the screen, and talked the same way. + +"What can we do for you, girlie?" + +"I'd like to sell a diamond," I told him. + +He didn't say anything at first, then he looked impatient. "You got it +with you?" + +"Oh ... yes!" I opened my purse, and took out one of the little +packages, and unwrapped it, and handed it to him. He screwed the lens +into his eye, and walked back from the window and put it on a little +scale, and turned back and unscrewed the lens and looked at me. + +"Where'd you get this, lady?" he asked me. + +"It's mine," I said. I knew just how to do it. We'd gone over this +half a dozen times before I left, and he was behaving exactly the way +we'd expected. + +"I don't know," he said. "Can't do much with an unset stone like +this...." He pursed his lips, tossed the diamond carelessly in his +hand, and then pushed it back at me across the counter. I had to keep +myself from smiling. It was just the way they'd said it would be. The +people here were still in the Mech Age, of course, and not nearly +conscious enough to communicate anything at all complex or abstract +any way except verbally. But there is nothing abstract about avarice, +and between what I'd been told to expect, and what I could feel +pouring out of him, I knew precisely what was going on in his mind. + +"You mean you don't _want_ it?" I said. "I thought it was worth quite +a lot...." + +"Might have been once." He shrugged. "You can't do much with a stone +like that any more. Where'd you get it, girlie?" + +"My mother gave it to me. A long time ago. I wouldn't sell it, +except.... Look," I said, and didn't have to work hard to sound +desperate, because in a way I was. "Look, it must be worth +_some_thing?" + +He picked it up again. "Well ... what do you want for it?" + +That went on for quite a while. I knew what it was supposed to be +worth, of course, but I didn't hope to get even half of that. He +offered seventy dollars, and I asked for five hundred, and after a +while he gave me three-fifty, and I felt I'd done pretty well--for a +greenhorn. I put the money in my purse, and went back to the car, and +on the way I saw a policeman, so I stopped and asked him about a +hotel. He looked me up and down, and started asking questions about +how old I was, and what was my name and where did I live, and I began +to realize that being so much smaller than the other people was going +to make life complicated. I told him I'd come to visit my brother in +the Academy, and he smiled, and said, "Your _brother_, is it?" Then he +told me the name of a place just outside of town, near the Academy. It +wasn't a hotel; it was a _mo_tel, which I didn't know about at that +time, but he said I'd be better off there. A lot of what he said went +right over my head at the time; later I realized what he meant about +"a nice respectable couple" running the place. I found out later on, +too, that he called them up to ask them to keep an eye on me; he +thought I was a nice girl, but he was worried about my being alone +there. + +By this time, I was getting hungry, but I thought I'd better go and +arrange about a place to stay first. I found the motel without much +trouble, and went in and registered; I knew how to do that, at +least--I'd seen it plenty of times. They gave me a key, and the man +who ran the place asked me did I want any help with my bags. + +"Oh, no," I said. "No, thanks. I haven't got much." + +I'd forgotten all about that, and they'd never thought about it +either! These people always have a lot of different clothes, not just +one set, and you're supposed to have a suitcase full of things when +you go to stay anyplace. I said I was hungry anyway, and wanted to go +get something to eat, and do a couple of other things--I didn't say +what--before I got settled. So the woman walked over with me, and +showed me which cabin it was, and asked was everything all right? + +It looked all right to me. The room had a big bed in it, with sheets +and a blanket and pillows and a bedspread, just like the ones I'd seen +on television. And there was a chest of drawers, and a table with more +small drawers in it, and two chairs and a mirror and one door that +went into a closet and one that led to the bathroom. The fixtures in +there were a little different from the ones they'd made for me to +practice in, but functionally they seemed about the same. + +I didn't look for any difficulty with anything there except the bed, +and that wasn't _her_ fault, so I assured her everything was just +fine, and let her show me how to operate the gas-burner that was set +in the wall for heat. Then we went out, and she very carefully locked +the door, and handed me the key. + +"You better keep that door locked," she said, just a little sharply. +"You never know...." + +I wanted to ask her _what_ you never know, but had the impression that +it was something _every_body was supposed to know, so I just nodded +and agreed instead. + +"You want to get some lunch," she said then, "there's a place down the +road isn't too bad. Clean, anyhow, and they don't cater too much to +those ... well, it's clean." She pointed the way; you could see the +sign from where we were standing. I thanked her, and started the car, +and decided I might as well go there as anyplace else, especially +since I could see she was watching to find out whether I did or not. + + * * * * * + +These people are all too big. Or almost all of them. But the man +behind the counter at the diner was enormous. He was tall and fat with +a beefy red face and large open pores and a fleshy mound of a nose. I +didn't like to look at him, and when he talked, he boomed so loud I +could hardly understand him. On top of all that, the smell in that +place was awful: not quite as bad as the drugstore, but some ways +similar to it. I kept my eyes on the menu, which was full of +unfamiliar words, and tried to remember that I was hungry. + +The man was shouting at me--or it was more like growling, I guess--and +I couldn't make out the words at first. He said it again, and I sorted +out syllables and matched them with the words on the card, and then I +got it: + +"Goulash is nice today, miss...." + +I didn't know what goulash was, and the state my stomach was in, with +the smells, I decided I'd better play safe, and ordered a glass of +milk, and some vegetable soup. + +The milk had a strange taste to it. Not _bad_--just _different_. But +of course, this came from cows. That was all right. But the vegetable +soup...! + +It was quite literally putrid, made as near as I could figure out from +dead animal juices, in which vegetables had been soaked and cooked +till any trace of flavor or nourishment was entirely removed. I took +one taste of that, and then I realized what the really nauseating part +of the odor was, in the diner and the drugstore both. It was rotten +meat, dead for some time, and then heated in preparation for eating. + +The crackers that came with the soup were good; they had a nice salty +tang. I ordered more of those, with another glass of milk, and sat +back sipping slowly, trying to adjust to that smell, now that I +realized I'd probably find it anywhere I could find food. + +After a while, I got my insides enough in order so that I could look +around a little and see the place, and the other people in it. That +was when I turned around and saw Larry sitting next to me. + +He was beautiful. He _is_ beautiful. I know that's not what you're +supposed to say about a man, and he wouldn't like it, but I can only +say what I see, and of course that's partly a matter of my own +training and my own feelings about myself. + +At home on the ship, I always wanted to cut off my hair, because it +was so black, and my skin was so white, and they didn't go together. +But they wouldn't let me; they liked it that way, I guess, but _I_ +didn't. No child wants to feel like a freak, and nobody else had hair +like that, or dead-white colorless skin, either. + +Then, when I went down there, and saw all the humans, I was still a +freak because I was so small. + +Larry's small, too. Almost as small as I am. And he's all one color. +He has hair, of course, but it's so light, and his skin is so dark +(both from the sun, I found out), that he looks just about the same +lovely golden color all over. Or at least as much of him as showed +when I saw him that time, in the diner. + +He was beautiful, and he was my size, and he didn't have ugly rough +skin or big heavy hands. I stared at him, and I felt like grabbing on +to him to make sure he didn't get away. + +After a while I realized my mouth was half-open, and I was still +holding a cracker, and I remembered that this was very bad manners. I +put the cracker down and closed my mouth. He smiled. I didn't know if +he was laughing at the odd way I was acting, or just being friendly, +but I smiled back anyhow. + +"I'm sorry," he said. "I mean, hello. How do you do, and I'm sorry if +I startled you. I shouldn't have been staring." + +"_You_," I said, and meant to finish, _You were staring?_ But he went +right on talking, so that I couldn't finish. + +"I don't know what else you can expect, if you go around looking like +that," he said. + +"I'm sorry...." I started again. + +"And you should be," he said sternly. "Anybody who walks into a place +like this in the middle of a day like this looking the way you do has +got to expect to get stared at a little." + +The thing is, I wasn't used to the language; not used _enough_. I +could communicate all right, and even understand some jokes, and I +knew the spoken language, not some formal unusable version, because I +learned it mostly watching those shows on the television screen. But I +got confused this time, because "looking" means two different things, +active and passive, and I was thinking about how I'd been _looking at_ +him, and.... + +That was my lucky day. I didn't want him to be angry at me, and the +way I saw it, he was perfectly justified in scolding me, which is what +I thought he was doing. But I _knew_ he wasn't really angry; I'd have +felt it if he was. So I said, "You're right. It was very rude of me, +and I don't blame you for being annoyed. I won't do it any more." + +He started laughing, and this time I knew it was friendly. Like I +said, that was my lucky day; _he_ thought I was being witty. And, from +what he's told me since, I guess he realized then that _I_ felt +friendly too, because before that he'd just been bluffing it out, not +knowing how to get to know me, and afraid _I_'d be sore at _him_, just +for talking to me! + +Which goes to show that sometimes you're better off not being _too_ +familiar with the local customs. + + * * * * * + +The trouble was there were too many things I didn't know, too many +small ways to trip myself up. Things they couldn't have foreseen, or +if they did, couldn't have done much about. All it took was a little +caution and a lot of alertness, plus one big important item: staying +in the background--not getting to know any one person too well--not +giving any single individual a chance to observe too much about me. + +But Larry didn't mean to let me do that. And ... I didn't want him to. + +He asked questions; I tried to answer them. I did know enough at least +of the conventions to realize that I didn't have to give detailed +answers, or could, at any point, act offended at being questioned so +much. I _didn't_ know enough to realize that reluctance or irritation +on my part wouldn't have made him go away. We sat on those stools at +the diner for most of an hour, talking, and after a little while I +found I could keep the conversation on safer ground by asking _him_ +about himself, and about the country thereabouts. He seemed to enjoy +talking. + +Eventually, he had to go back to work. As near as I could make out, he +was a test-pilot, or something like it, for a small experimental +aircraft plant near the city. He lived not too far from where I was +staying, and he wanted to see me that evening. + +I hadn't told him where the motel was, and I had at least enough +caution left not to tell him, even then. I did agree to meet him at +the diner, but for lunch the next day again, instead of that evening. +For one thing, I had a lot to do; and for another, I'd seen enough on +television shows to know that an evening date was likely to be pretty +long-drawn-out, and I wasn't sure I could stand up under that much +close scrutiny. I had some studying-up to do first. But the lunch-date +was fine; the thought of not seeing him at all was terrifying--as if +he were an old friend in a world full of strangers. That was how I +felt, that first time, maybe just because he was almost as small as I. +But I think it was more than that, really. + + * * * * * + +I drove downtown again, and found a store that seemed to sell all +kinds of clothing for women. Then when I got inside, I didn't know +where to start, or what to get. I thought of just buying one of +everything, so as to fill up a suitcase; the things I had on seemed to +be perfectly satisfactory for actual _wearing_ purposes. They were +quite remarkably--when you stopped to think of it--similar to what +most of the women I'd seen that day were wearing, and of course they +weren't subject to the same problems of dirtying and wrinkling and +such as the clothes in the store were. + +I walked around for a while, trying to figure out what all the +different items, shapes, sizes, and colors, were for. Some racks and +counters had signs, but most of them were unfamiliar words like +_brunchies_, or _Bermudas_ or _scuffs_; or else they seemed to be +mislabeled, like _dusters_ for a sort of button-down dress, and +_Postage Stamp Girdles_ at one section of a long counter devoted to +"Foundation Garments." For half an hour or so, I wandered around in +there, shaking my head every time a saleswoman came up to me, because +I didn't know, and couldn't figure out, what to ask for, or how to ask +for it. + +The thing was, I didn't dare draw too much attention to myself by +doing or saying the wrong things. I'd have to find out more about +clothes, somehow, before I could do much buying. + +I went out, and on the same block I found a show-window full of +suitcases. That was easy. I went in and pointed to one I liked, and +paid for it, and walked out with it, feeling a little braver. After +all, nobody had to know there was nothing in it. On the corner, I saw +some books displayed in the window of a drug store. It took all the +courage I had to go in there, after my first trip into one that looked +very much like it, but I wanted a dictionary. This place didn't smell +quite so strong; I suppose the pharmacy was enclosed in back, and I +don't believe it had a lunch counter. Anyhow, I got in and out +quickly, and walked back to the car, and sat down with the dictionary. + +It turned out to be entirely useless, at least as far as _brunchies_ +and _Bermudas_ were concerned. It had "scuff, v.," with a definition; +"v.," I found out, meant _verb_, so that wasn't the word I wanted, but +when I remembered the slippers on the counter with the sign, it made +sense in a way. + +Not enough sense, though. I decided to forget about the clothes for a +while. The next problem was a driver's license. + +The policeman that morning had been helpful, if over-interested, and +since policemen directed traffic, they ought to have the information I +wanted. I found one of them standing on a streetcorner looking not too +busy, and asked him, and if his hair hadn't been brown instead of +reddish (and only half there) I'd have thought it was the same one I +talked to before. He wanted to know how old I was, and where was I +from, and what I was doing there, and did I have a car, and was I +_sure_ I was nineteen? + +Well, of course, I wasn't sure, but they'd told me that by the local +reckoning, that was my approximate age. And I almost slipped and said +I _had_ a car, until I realized that I didn't have a right to drive +one till I had a license. After he asked that one question, I began to +feel suspicious about everything else he asked, and the interest he +expressed. He was helpful, but I had to remember too, that it was the +police who were charged with watching for suspicious characters, +and--well, it was the last time I asked a policeman for information. + +He _did_ tell me where I could rent a car to take my road test, +though, and where to apply for the test. The Courthouse turned out to +be the big building behind the square where I'd parked the car that +morning, and arranging for the test turned out to be much simpler +than, by then, I expected it to be. In a way, I suppose, all the +questions I had to answer when I talked to the policeman had prepared +me for the official session--though they didn't seem nearly so +inquisitive there. + +By this time, I'd come to expect that they wouldn't believe my age +when I told them. The woman at the window behind the counter wanted to +see a "birth certificate," and I produced the one piece of +identification I had; an ancient and yellowed document they had kept +for me all these years. From the information it contained, I suspected +it might even _be_ a birth certificate; whether or not, it apparently +satisfied her, and after that all she wanted was things like my +address and height and weight. Fortunately, they had taken the +trouble, back on the ship, to determine these statistics for me, +because things like that were always coming up on television shows, +especially when people were being questioned by the police. For the +address, of course, I used the motel. The rest I knew, and I guess we +had the figures close enough to right so that at least the woman +didn't question any of it. + +I had my road test about half an hour later, in a rented car, and the +examiner said I did very well. He seemed surprised, and I don't +wonder, considering the way most of those people contrive to mismanage +a simple mechanism like an automobile. I guess when they say Earth is +still in the Mechanical Age, what they mean is that humans are just +_learning_ about machines. + + * * * * * + +The biggest single stroke of luck I had at any time came during that +road test. We passed a public-looking building with a sign in front +that I didn't understand. + +"What's that place?" I asked the examiner, and he said, as if anyone +would know what he meant, "That? Oh--the Library." + +I looked it up in my dictionary as soon as I was done at the License +Bureau, and when I found out what it was, everything became a great +deal simpler. + +There was a woman who worked there, who showed me, without any +surprise at my ignorance, just how the card catalogue worked, and what +the numbering system meant; she didn't ask me how old I was, or any +other questions, or demand any proof of any kind to convince her I had +a right to use the place. She didn't even bother me much with +questions about what I was looking for. I told her there were a _lot_ +of things I wanted to know, and she seemed to think that was a good +answer, and said if she could help me any way, not to hesitate to ask, +and then she left me alone with those drawers and drawers full of +letter-and-number keys to all the mysteries of an alien world. + +I found a book on how to outfit your daughter for college, that +started with underwear and worked its way through to jewelry and +cosmetics. I also found a whole shelf full of law books, and in one of +them, specific information about the motor vehicle regulations in +different States. There was a wonderful book about diamonds and other +precious stones, particularly fascinating because it went into the +chemistry of the different stones, and gave me the best +measuring-stick I found at any time to judge the general level of +technology of that so-called Mechanical Age. + +That was all I had time for, I couldn't believe it was so late, when +the librarian came and told me they were closing up, and I guess my +disappointment must have showed all over me, because she asked if I +wouldn't like to have a card, so I could take books home? + +I found out all I needed to get a card was identification. I was +supposed to have a reference, too, but the woman said she thought +perhaps it would be all right without one, in my case. And then, when +I wanted to take a volume of the Encyclopedia Americana, she said they +didn't usually circulate that, but if I thought I could bring it back +within a day or two.... + +I promised to, and I never did, and out of everything that happened, +that's the one thing I feel badly about. I think she must have been a +very unusual and _good_ sort of woman, and I wish I had kept my +promise to her. + + * * * * * + +Some of the stores downtown were still open. I bought the things I'd be +expected to have, as near as I could make out from the book on college +girls: panties and a garter belt and a brassiere, and stockings. A slip +and another blouse, and a coat, because even in the early evening it was +beginning to get chilly. Then the salesgirl talked me into gloves and a +scarf and some earrings. I was halfway back to the car when I remembered +about night clothes, and went back for a gown and robe and slippers. That +didn't begin to complete the college girls' list, but it seemed like a +good start. I'd need a dress, too, I thought, if I ever did go out with +Larry in the evening ... but that could wait. + +I put everything into the suitcase, and drove back to the motel. On +the way, I stopped at a food store, and bought a large container of +milk, and some crackers, and some fruit--oranges and bananas and +apples. Back in my room, I put everything away in the drawers, and +then sat down with my book and my food, and had a wonderful time. I +was hungry, and everything tasted good, away from the dead meat +smells, and what with clothes in the drawers and everything, I was +beginning to feel like a real Earth-girl. + +I even took a bath in the bathroom. + +A good long one. Next to the library, that's the thing I miss most. It +would be even better, if they made the tubs bigger, so you could swim +around some. But just getting wet all over like that, and splashing in +the water, is fun. Of course, we could never spare enough water for +that on the ship. + +Altogether, it was a good evening; everything was fine until I tried +to sleep in that bed. I felt as if I was being suffocated all over. +The floor was almost as bad, but in a different way. And once I got to +sleep, I guess I slept well enough, because I felt fine in the +morning. But then, I think I must have been on a mild oxygen jag all +the time I was down there; nothing seemed to bother me too much. That +morning, I felt so good I worked up my courage to go into a +restaurant again--a different one. The smell was beginning to be +familiar, and I could manage better. I experimented with a cereal +called oatmeal, which was delicious, then I went back to the motel, +packed up all my new belongings, left the key on the desk--as +instructed by the sign on the door--and started out for Denver. + + * * * * * + +Denver, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, is more of a true +metropolitan area than Colorado Springs; that means--on Earth--that it +is dirtier, more crowded, far less pleasant to look at or live in, and +a great deal more convenient and efficient to do business in. In +Denver, and with the aid of a Colorado driver's license for casual +identification, I was able to sell two of my larger diamonds fairly +quickly, at two different places, for something approximating half of +their full value. Then I parked the car they had given me on a side +street, took my suitcase, coat, and book with me, and walked to the +nearest car sales lot. I left the keys in the old car, for the +convenience of anyone who might want it. + +Everything went extraordinarily smoothly, with just one exception. I +had found out everything I needed to know in that library, except that +when dealing with humans, one must always allow for waste time. If I +had realized that at the time I left Colorado Springs that morning, +everything might have turned out very differently indeed--although +when I try to think just what other way it _could_ have turned out, I +don't quite know ... and I wonder, too, how much they knew, or +planned, before they sent me down there.... + +This much is sure: if I hadn't assumed that a 70-mile trip, with a +60-mile average speed limit, would take approximately an hour and a +half, and if I had realized that buying an automobile was not the same +simple process as buying a nightgown, I wouldn't have been late for my +luncheon appointment. And if I'd been there on time, I'd never have +made the date for that night. As it was, I started out at seven +o'clock in the morning, and only by exceeding the speed limit on the +last twenty miles of the return trip did I manage to pull into that +diner parking space at five minutes before two. + +His car was still there! + +It is so easy to look back and spot the instant of recognition or of +error. My relief when I saw his car ... my delight when I walked in +and saw and _felt_ his mixture of surprise and joy that I had come, +with disappointment and frustration because it was so late, and he had +to leave almost immediately. And my complete failure, in the midst of +the complexities of these inter-reactions, to think logically, or to +recognize that his ordinary perceptions were certainly the equivalent +of my own.... + +At that moment, I wasn't thinking _about_ any of these things. I spent +a delirious sort of five minute period absorbing his feelings about +me, and releasing my own at him. I hadn't planned to do it, not so +soon, not till I knew much more than I did--perhaps after another +week's reading and going about--but when he said that since I'd got +there so late for lunch, I'd _have_ to meet him for dinner, I found I +agreed with him perfectly. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon, I bought a dress. This, too, took a great deal of +time, even more than the car, because in the one case I simply had to +look at a number of component parts, and listen to the operation of +the motor, and feel for the total response of the mechanism, to +determine whether it was suitable or not--but in the other, I had +nothing to guide me but my own untrained taste, and the dubious +preferences of the salesgirl, plus what I _thought_ Larry's reactions +_might_ be. Also, I had to determine, without seeming too ignorant, +just what sort of dress might be suitable for a dinner date--and +without knowing for sure just how elaborate Larry's plans for the +evening might be. + +I learned a lot, and was startled to find that I enjoyed myself +tremendously. But I couldn't make up my mind, and bought three dresses +instead of one. It was after that, emboldened by pleasure and success, +that I went back to that first drugstore. The Encyclopedia volume I +had taken from the library, besides containing the information I +wanted on Colorado, had an article on Cosmetics. I decided powder was +unnecessary, although I could understand easily enough how important +it must be to the native women, with their thick skin and large pores +and patchy coloring; that accounted for the fact that the men were +mostly so much uglier ... and I wondered if Larry used it, and if that +was why his skin looked so much better than the others'. + +Most of the perfumes made me literally ill; a few were inoffensive or +mildly pleasant, if you thought of them just as smells, and not as +something to be mistaken for one's _own_ smell. Apparently, though, +from the amount of space given over to them on the counter, and the +number of advertisements I had seen or heard for one brand or another, +they were an essential item. I picked out a faint lavender scent, and +then bought some lipstick, mascara, and eyebrow pencil. On these last +purchases, it was a relief to find that I had no opportunity to +display my ignorance about nuances of coloring, or the merits of one +brand over another. The woman behind the counter knew exactly what I +should have, and was not interested in hearing any of my opinions. She +even told me how to apply the mascara, which was helpful, since the +other two were obvious, and anyhow I'd seen them used on television, +and the lipstick especially I had seen women use since I'd been here. + +It turned out to be a little more difficult than it looked, when I +tried it. Cosmetics apparently take a good deal more experience than +clothing, if you want to have it look _right_. Right by _their_ +standards, I mean, so that your face becomes a formal design, and will +register only a minimum of actual emotion or response. + +I was supposed to meet Larry in the cocktail lounge of a hotel in +Manitou Springs, the smaller town I'd passed through the day before on +my way down from the mountain. I drove back that way now, with all my +possessions in my new car, including the purse that held not only my +remaining diamonds and birth certificate, but also a car registration, +driver's license, wallet, money, and makeup. A little more than +halfway there, I saw a motel with a "Vacancy" sign out, and an +attractive clean look about it. I pulled in and got myself a room with +no more concern than if I'd been doing that sort of thing all my life. + +This time there was no question about my age, nor was there later on +that evening, in the cocktail lounge or anywhere else. I suppose it +was the lipstick that made the difference, plus a certain increase in +self-confidence; apparently I wasn't too small to be an adult, +provided I looked and acted like one. + +The new room did not have a bathtub. There was a shower, which was +fun, but not as much as the tub had been. Dressing was _not_ fun, and +when I was finished, the whole effect still didn't look right, in +terms of my own mental image of an Earth-woman dressed for a date. + +It was the shoes, of course. This kind of dress wanted high heels. I +had tried a pair in the store, and promptly rejected the whole notion. +Now I wondered if I'd been too hasty, but I realized I could not +conceivably have added that discomfort to the already-pressing +difficulties of stockings and garter belt. + +This last problem got so acute when I sat down and tried to drive the +car, that I did some thinking about it, and decided to take them off. +It seemed to me that I'd seen a lot of bare legs with flat heels. It +was only with high heels that stockings were a real necessity. Anyhow, +I pulled the car over to the side on an empty stretch of road, and +wriggled out of things with a great deal of difficulty. I don't +believe it made much difference in my appearance. No one _seemed_ to +notice, and I do think the lack of heels was more important. + + * * * * * + +All of this has been easy to put down. The next part is harder: partly +because it's so important; partly because it's personal; partly +because I just don't remember it all as clearly. + +Larry was waiting for me when I got to the hotel. He stood up and +walked over to me, looking at me as if I were the only person in the +room besides himself, or as if he'd been waiting all his life, and +only just that moment saw what it was he'd been waiting for. I don't +know how I looked at him, but I know how I felt all of a sudden, and I +don't think I can express it very well. + +It was odd, because of the barriers to communication. The way he felt +and the way I did are not things to put into words, and although I +couldn't help but feel the impact of _his_ emotion, I had to remember +that he was deaf-and-blind to mine. All I could get from him for that +matter, was a sort of generalized _noise_, loud but confused, without +any features or details. + +He smiled, and I smiled, and he said, "I didn't know if you'd really +come ..." and I said, "Am I late?" and he said, "Not much. What do you +want to drink?" + +I knew he meant something with alcohol in it, and I didn't dare, not +till I'd experimented all alone first. + +"Could I get some orange juice?" I asked. + +He smiled again. "You can get anything you want. You don't drink?" He +took my arm, and walked me over to a booth in the back corner, and +went on without giving me a chance to answer. "No, of course you +don't. Just orange juice and milk. Listen, Tina, I've been scared to +ask you, but we might as well get it over with. How old are you +anyhow?..." We sat down, but he still didn't give me a chance to +answer. "No, that's not the right question. Who are you? What are you? +What makes a girl like you exist at all? How come they let you run +around on your own like this? Does your mother.... Never mind me, +honey. I've got no business asking anything. Sufficient unto the +moment, and all that. I'm just talking so much because I'm so nervous. +I haven't felt like this since ... since I first went up for a solo in +a Piper Cub. I didn't think you'd come, and you did, and you're still +here in spite of me and my dumb yap. Orange juice for the lady, +please," he told the waiter, "and a beer for me. Draft." + +I just sat there. As long as he kept talking, I didn't have to. He +looked just as beautiful as he had in the diner, only maybe more so. +His skin was smoother; I suppose he'd just shaved. And he was wearing +a tan suit just a shade darker than his skin, which was just a shade +darker than his hair, and there was absolutely nothing I could say out +loud in his language that would mean anything at all, so I waited to +see if he'd start talking again. + +"You're not mad at me, Tina?" + +I smiled and shook my head. + +"Well, _say_ something then." + +"It's more fun listening to you." + +"You say that just like you mean it ... or do you mean _funny_?" + +"No. I mean that it's hard for me to talk much. I don't know how to +say a lot of the things I want to say. And most people don't say +anything when they talk, and I don't like listening to their voices, +but I do like yours, and ... I can't help liking what you say ... it's +always so _nice_. About me, I mean. Complimentary. Flattering." + +"You were right the first time. And you seem to be able to say what +you mean very clearly." + +Which was just the trouble. Not only able to, but unable not to. It +didn't take any special planning or remembering to say or act the +necessary lies to other humans. But Larry was the least alien person +I'd ever known. Dishonesty to him was like lying to myself. Playing a +role for him was pure schizophrenia. + +Right then, I knew it was a mistake. I should never have made that +date, or at least not nearly so soon. But even as I thought that, I +had no more intention of cutting it short or backing out than I did of +going back to the ship the next day. I just tried not to talk too +much, and trusted to the certain knowledge that I was as important to +him as he was to me--so perhaps whatever mistakes I made, whatever I +said that sounded _wrong_, he would either accept or ignore or +forgive. + +But of course you can't just sit all night and say nothing. And the +simplest things could trip me up. Like when he asked if I'd like to +dance, and all I had to say was "No, thanks," and instead, because I +_wanted_ to try it, I said, "I don't know how." + +Or when he said something about going to a movie, and I agreed +enthusiastically, and he gave me a choice of three different ones that +he wanted to see ... "Oh, anyone," I told him. "You're easy to +please," he said, but he insisted on my making a choice. There was +something he called "an old-Astaire-Rogers," and something else that +was made in England, and one current American one with stars I'd seen +on television. I wanted to see either of the others. I could have said +so, or I could have named one, any one. Instead I heard myself +blurting out that I'd never been to a movie. + +At that point, of course, he began to ask questions in earnest. And at +that point, schizoid or not, I had to lie. It was easier, though, +because I'd been thoroughly briefed in my story, for just such +emergencies as this--and because I could talk more or less +uninterruptedly, with only pertinent questions thrown in, and without +having to react so much to the emotional tensions between us. + +I told him how my parents had died in an automobile accident when I +was a baby; how my two uncles had claimed me at the hospital; about +the old house up on the mountainside, and the convent school, and the +two old men who hated the evils of the world; about the death of the +first uncle, and at long last the death of the second, and the lawyers +and the will and everything--the whole story, as we'd worked it out +back on the ship. + +It answered everything, explained everything--even the unexpected item +of not being able to eat meat. My uncles were vegetarians, which was +certainly a harmless eccentricity compared to most of the others I +credited them with. + +As a story, it was pretty far-fetched, but it hung together--and in +certain ways, it wasn't even _too_ far removed from the truth. It was, +anyhow, the closest thing to the truth that I could tell--and I +therefore delivered it with a fair degree of conviction. Of course it +wasn't designed to stand up to the close and personal inspection Larry +gave it; but then he _wanted_ to believe me. + +He seemed to swallow it. What he did, of course, was something any man +who relies, as he did, on his reflexes and responses to stay alive, +learns to do very early--he filed all questions and apparent +discrepancies for reference, or for thinking over when there was time, +and proceeded to make the most of the current situation. + +We both made the most of it. It was a wonderful evening, from that +point on. We went to the Astaire-Rogers picture, and although I missed +a lot of the humor, since it was contemporary stuff from a time before +I had any chance to learn about Earth, the music and dancing were fun. +Later on, I found that dancing was not nearly as difficult or +intricate as it looked--at least not with Larry. All I had to do was +give in to a natural impulse to let my body follow his. It felt +wonderful, from the feet on up. + +Finally, we went back to the hotel, where we'd left my car, and I +started to get out of his, but he reached out an arm, and stopped me. + +"There's something else I guess you never did," he said. His voice +sounded different from before. He put both his hands on my shoulders, +and pulled me toward him, and leaned over and kissed me. + +I'd seen it, of course, on television. + +I'd seen it, but I had no idea.... + +That first time, it was something I felt on my lips, and felt so +sweetly and so strongly that the rest of me seemed to melt away +entirely. I had no other sensations, except in that one place where +his mouth touched mine. That was the first time. + +When it stopped, the world stopped, and I began again, but I had to +sort out the parts and pieces and put them all together to find out +who I was. While I did this, his hands were still on my shoulders, +where they'd been all along, only he was holding me at arm's distance +away from him, and looking at me curiously. + +"It really was, wasn't it?" he said. + +"What?" I tried to say, but the sound didn't come out. I took a breath +and "Was what?" I croaked. + +"The first time." He smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun coming +up in the morning, and then his arms went all the way around me. I +don't know whether he moved over on the seat, or I did, or both of us. +"Oh, baby, baby," he whispered in my ear, and then there was the +second time. + +The second time was like the first, and also like dancing, and some +ways like the bathtub. This time none of me melted away; it was all +there, and all close to him, and all warm, and all tingling with +sensations. I was more completely alive right then than I had ever +been before in my life. + +After we stopped kissing each other, we stayed very still, holding on +to each other, for a while, and then he moved away just a little, +enough, to breathe better. + +I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get out of the car. I +didn't even want to be separated from him by the two or three inches +between us on the seat. But he was sitting next to me now, staring +straight ahead, not saying anything, and I just didn't know what came +next. On television, the kiss was always the end of the scene. + +He started the car again. + +I said, "I have to ... my car ... I...." + +"We'll come back," he said. "Don't worry about it. We'll come back. +Let's just drive a little...?" he pulled out past my car, and turned +and looked at me for a minute. "You don't want to go now, do you? +Right away?" + +I shook my head, but he wasn't looking at me any more, so I took a +breath and said out loud, "No." + +We came off a twisty street onto the highway. "So that's how it hits +you," he said. He wasn't exactly talking to me; more like thinking out +loud. "Twenty-seven years a cool cat, and now it has to be a crazy +little midget that gets to you." He had to stop then, for a red +light--the same light I'd stopped at the first time on the way in. +That seemed a long long time before. + +Larry turned around and took my hand. He looked hard at my face, "I'm +sorry, hon. I didn't mean that the way it sounded." + +"What?" I said. "What do you mean?" I hadn't even tried to make sense +out of what he was saying before; he wasn't talking to me anyhow. + +"Kid," he said, "maybe that was the first time for you, but in a +different way it was the first time for me too." His hand opened and +closed around mine, and his mouth opened and closed too, but nothing +came out. The light was green; he noticed, and started moving, but it +turned red again. This time he kept watching it. + +"I don't suppose anybody ever told you about the birds and the bees +and the butterflies," he said. + +"Told me _what_ about them?" He didn't answer right away, so I thought +about it. "All I can think of is they all have wings. They all fly." + +"So do I. So does a fly. What I mean is ... the hell with it!" He +turned off the highway, and we went up a short hill and through a sort +of gateway between two enormous rocks. "Have you ever been here?" he +asked. + +"I don't think so...." + +"They call it The Garden of the Gods. I don't know why. I like it here ... +it's a good place to drive and think." + +There was a lot of moonlight, and the Garden was all hills and drops +and winding roads between low-growing brush, and everywhere, as if the +creatures of some giant planet had dropped them, were those towering +rocks, their shapes scooped out and chiseled and hollowed and twisted +by wind, water and sand. Yes, it was lovely, and it was non-intrusive. +Just what he said--a good place to drive and think. + +Once he came to the top of a hill, and stopped the car, and we looked +out over the Garden, spreading out in every direction, with the +moonlight shadowed in the sagebrush, and gleaming off the great rocks. +Then we turned and looked at each other, and he reached out for me and +kissed me again; after which he pulled away as if the touch of me hurt +him, and grabbed hold of the wheel with a savage look on his face, and +raced the motor, and raised a cloud of dust on the road behind us. + +I didn't understand, and I felt hurt. I wanted to stop again. I wanted +to be kissed again. I didn't like sitting alone on my side of the +seat, with that growl in his throat not quite coming out. + +I asked him to stop again. He shook his head, and made believe to +smile. + +"I'll buy you a book," he said. "All about the birds and the bees and +a little thing we have around here we call sex. I'll buy it tomorrow, +and you can read it--you _do_ know how to read, don't you?--and then +we'll take another ride, and we can park if you want to. Not tonight, +baby." + +"But I _know_...." I started, and then had sense enough to stop. I +knew about sex; but what I knew about it didn't connect with kissing +or parking the car, or sitting close ... and it occurred to me that +maybe it did, and maybe there was a lot I _didn't_ know that wasn't on +Television, and wasn't on the Ship's reference tapes either. Morals +and mores, and nuances of behavior. So I shut up, and let him take me +back to the hotel again, to my own car. + +He leaned past me to open the door on my side, but he couldn't quite +make it, and I had my fourth kiss. Then he let go again, and almost +pushed me out of the car; but when I started to close the door behind +me, he called out, "Tomorrow night?" + +"I ... all right," I said. "Yes. Tomorrow night." + +"Can I pick you up?" + +There was no reason not to this time. The first time I wouldn't tell +him where I lived, because I knew I'd have to change places, and I +didn't know where yet. I told him the name of the motel, and where it +was. + +"Six o'clock," he said. + +"All right." + +"Good night." + +"Good night." + + * * * * * + +I don't remember driving back to my room. I think I slept on the bed +that night, without ever stopping to determine whether it was +comfortable or not. And when I woke up in the morning, and looked out +the window at a white-coated landscape, the miracle of snow (which I +had never seen before; not many planets have as much water vapor in +their atmospheres as Earth does.) in summer weather seemed trivial in +comparison to what had happened to me. + +Trivial, but beautiful. I was afraid it would be very cold, but it +wasn't. + +I had gathered, from the weather-talk in the place where I ate +breakfast, that in this mountain-country (it was considered to be very +high altitude there), snow at night and hot sun in the afternoon was +not infrequent in the month of April, though it was unusual for May. + +It was beautiful to look at, and nice to walk on, but it began melting +as soon as the sun was properly up, and then it looked awful. The red +dirt there is pretty, and so is the snow, but when they began merging +into each other in patches and muddy spots, it was downright ugly. + +Not that I cared. I ate oatmeal and drank milk and nibbled at a piece +of toast, and tried to plan my activities for the day. To the library +first, and take back the book they'd lent me. Book ... all right then, +get a book on sex. But that was foolish; I _knew_ all about sex. At +least I knew ... well, what did I know? I knew their manner of +reproduction, and.... + +Just why, at that time and place, I should have let it come through to +me, I don't know. I'd managed to stay in a golden daze from the time +in the Garden till that moment, refusing to think through the +implications of what Larry said. + +Sex. Sex is mating and reproduction. Dating and dancing and kissing +are parts of the courtship procedure. And the television shows all +stop with kissing, because the mating itself is taboo. Very simple. +Also _very_ taboo. + +Of course, they didn't _say_ I couldn't. They never said anything +about it at all. It was just obvious. It wouldn't even work. We were +_different_, after all. + +Oh, technically, biologically, of course, we were probably +cross-fertile, but.... + +The whole thing was so obviously _impossible_! + +They should have warned me. I'd never have let it go this far, if I'd +known. + +Sex. Mating. Marriage. Tribal rites. Rituals and rigamaroles, and stay +here forever. Never go back. + +_Never go back?_ + +There was an instant's sheer terror, and then the comforting knowledge +that they wouldn't _let_ me do that. I had to go back. + +Baby on a spaceship? + +Well, _I_ was a baby on a spaceship, but that was different. How +different? I was older. I wasn't born there. Getting born is +complicated. Oxygen, gravity, things like that. You can't raise a +_human_ baby on a spaceship.... _Human?_ What's human? What am I? +Never mind the labels. It would be _my_ baby.... + +I didn't want a baby. I just wanted Larry to hold me close to him and +kiss me. + + * * * * * + +I drove downtown and on the way to the library I passed a bookstore, +so I stopped and went in there instead. That was better. I could buy +what I wanted, and not have to ask permission to take it out, and if +there was more than one, I could have all I wanted. + +I asked the man for books about sex. He looked so startled, I realized +the taboo must apply on the verbal level too. + +I didn't care. He showed me where the books were, and that's all that +mattered. "Non-fiction here," he said. "That what you wanted, Miss?" + +Non-fiction. Definitely. I thanked him, and picked out half a dozen +different books. One was a survey of sexual behavior and morals; +another was a manual of techniques; one was on the psychology of sex, +and there was another about abnormal sex, and one on physiology, and +just to play safe, considering the state of my own ignorance, one that +announced itself as giving a "clear simple explanation of the facts of +life for adolescents." + +I took them all to the counter, and paid for them, and the man still +looked startled, but he took the money. He insisted on wrapping them +up, though, before I could leave. + + * * * * * + +The next part of this is really Larry's story, but unable as I am, +even now, to be _certain_ about his unspoken thoughts, I can only tell +it as I experienced it. I didn't do anything all that day, except wade +through the books I'd bought, piece-meal, reading a few pages here and +a chapter there. The more I read, the more confused I got. Each writer +contradicted all the others, except in regard to the few basic +biological facts that I already knew. The only real addition to my +factual knowledge was the information in the manual of technique about +contraception--and that was rather shocking, even while it was +tempting. + +The mechanical contrivances these people made use of were foolish, of +course, and typical of the stage of culture they are going through. If +I wanted to prevent conception, while engaging in an act of sexual +intercourse, I could, do so, of course, but.... + +The shock to the glandular system wouldn't be too severe; it was the +psychological repercussions I was thinking about. The idea of pursuing +a course of action whose sole motivation was the procreative urge, and +simultaneously to decide by an act of will to refuse to procreate.... + +I _could_ do it, theoretically, but in practice I knew I never would. + +I put the book down and went outside in the afternoon sunshine. The +motel was run by a young married couple, and I watched the woman come +out and put her baby in the playpen. She was laughing and talking to +it; she looked happy; so did the baby. + +But _I_ wouldn't be. Not even if they let me. I couldn't live here and +bring up a child--children?--on this primitive, almost barbaric, +world. Never ever be able fully to communicate with anyone. Never, +ever, be entirely honest with anyone. + +Then I remembered what it was like to be in Larry's arms, and wondered +what kind of communication I could want that might surpass that. Then +I went inside and took a shower and began to dress for the evening. + +It was too early to get dressed. I was ready too soon. I went out and +got in the car, and pulled out onto the highway and started driving. I +was halfway up the mountain before I knew where I was going, and then +I doubled my speed. + +I was scared. I ran away. + + * * * * * + +There was still some snow on the mountain top. Down below, it would be +warm yet, but up there it was cold. The big empty house was full of +dust and chill and I brought fear in with me. I wished I had known +where I was going when I left my room; I wanted my coat. I wanted +something to read while I waited. I remembered the library book and +almost went back. Instead, I went to the dark room in back that had +once been somebody's kitchen, and opened the cupboard and found the +projector and yelled for help. + +I didn't know where they were, how far away, whether cruising or +landed somewhere, or how long it would take. All I could be sure of +was that they couldn't come till after dark, full dark, and that would +be, on the mountain top, at least another four hours. + +There was a big round black stove in a front room, that looked as if +it could burn wood safely. I went out and gathered up everything I +could find nearby that looked to be combustible, and started a fire, +and began to feel better. I beat the dust off a big soft chair, and +pulled it over close to the stove, and curled up in it, warm and +drowsy and knowing that help was on the way. + +I fell asleep, and I was in the car with Larry again, in front of that +hotel, every cell of my body tinglingly awake, and I woke up, and +moved the chair farther back away from the fire, and watched the sun +set through the window--till I fell asleep again, and dreamed again, +and when I woke, the sun was gone, but the mountain top was brightly +lit. I had forgotten about the moon. + +I tried to remember what time it rose and when it set, but all I knew +was it had shone as bright last night in the Garden of the Gods. + +I walked around, and went outside, and got more wood, and when it was +hot in the room again, I fell asleep, and Larry's hands were on my +shoulders, but he wasn't kissing me. + +He was shouting at me. He sounded furious, but I couldn't feel any +anger. "You God-damn little idiot!" he shouted. "What in the name of +all that's holy...? ... put you over my knee and.... For God's sake, +baby," he stopped shouting, "what did you pull a dumb trick like this +for?" + +"I was scared. I didn't even plan to do it. I just did." + +"Scared? My God, I should think you would be! Now listen, babe. I +don't know yet what's going on, and I don't think I'm going to like it +when I find out. I don't like it already that you told me a pack of +lies last night. Just the same, God help me, I don't think it's what +it sounds like. But I'm the only one who doesn't. Now you better give +it to me straight, because they've got half the security personnel of +this entire area out hunting for you, and nobody else is going to care +much what the truth is. My God, on top of everything else, you had to +_run away_! Now, give out, kid, and make it good. This one has got to +stick." + +I didn't understand a lot of what he said. I started trying to +explain, but he wouldn't listen. He wanted something else, and I +didn't know what. + +Finally, he made me understand. + +He'd almost believed my story the night before. Almost, but there was +a detail somewhere that bothered him. He couldn't remember it at +first; it kept nudging around the edge of his mind, but he didn't know +what it was. He forgot about it for a while. Then, in the Garden, I +made my second big mistake. (He didn't explain all of this then; he +just accused, and I didn't understand this part completely until +later.) I wanted him to park the car. + +Any girl on Earth, no matter how sheltered, how inexperienced, would +have known better than that. As he saw it, he had to decide whether I +was just so carried away by the night and the mood and the moment +that I didn't _care_--or whether my apparent innocence was a pose all +along. + +When we separated in front of the hotel that night, we both had to +take the same road for a while. Larry was driving right behind me for +a good three miles, before I turned off at the motel. And that was +when he realized what the detail was that had been bothering him: my +car. + +The first time he saw me, I was driving a different make and model, +with Massachusetts plates on it. He was sure of that, because he had +copied it down when he left the luncheonette, the first time we met. + +Larry had never told me very clearly about the kind of work he did. I +knew it was something more or less "classified," having to do with +aircraft--jet planes or experimental rockets, or something like that. +And I knew, without his telling me, that the work--not just the _job_, +but the work he did at it--was more important to him than anything +else ever had been. More important, certainly, than he had ever +expected any woman to be. + +So, naturally, when he met me that day, and knew he wanted to see me +again, but couldn't get my address or any other identifying +information out of me, he had copied down the license number of my +car, and turned it in, with my name, to the Security Officer on the +Project. A man who has spent almost every waking moment from the age +of nine planning and preparing to fit himself for a role in humanity's +first big fling into space doesn't endanger his security status by +risking involuntary contamination from an attractive girl. The little +aircraft plant on the fringes of town was actually a top-secret key +division in the Satellite project, and if you worked there, you took +precautions. + +The second time I met him at the luncheonette, he had been waiting so +long, and had so nearly given up any hope of my coming, that he was no +longer watching the road or the door when I finally got there--and +when he left, he was so pleased at having gotten a dinner date with +me, that he didn't notice much of anything at all. Not except out of +the corner of one eye, and with only the slightest edge of +subconscious recognition: just enough so that some niggling detail +that was out-of-place kept bothering him thereafter; and just enough +so that he made a point of stopping in the Security Office again that +afternoon to add my new motel address to the information he'd given +them the day before. + +The three-mile drive in back of my Colorado plates was just about long +enough, finally, to make the discrepancy register consciously. + +Larry went home and spent a bad night. His feelings toward me, as I +could hardly understand at the time, were a great deal stronger, or at +least more clearly defined, than mine about him. But since he was +more certain just what it was he wanted, and less certain what _I_ +did, every time he tried to fit my attitude in the car into the rest +of what he knew, he'd come up with a different answer, and nine +answers out of ten were angry and suspicious and agonizing. + +"Now look, babe," he said, "you've got to see this. I trusted _you_; +really, all the time, I did trust you. But I didn't trust _me_. By the +time I went to work this morning, I was half-nuts. I didn't know +_what_ to think, that's all. And I finally sold myself on the idea +that if you were what you said you were, nobody would get hurt, +and--well, if you _weren't_ on the level, I better find out, quick. +You see that?" + +"Yes," I said. + +"Okay. So I told them about the license plates, and about--the other +stuff." + +"What other stuff?" What else was there? How stupid could I be? + +"I mean, the--in the car. The way you--Listen, kid," he said, his face +grim and demanding again. "It's still just as true as it was then. I +_still_ don't know. They called me this evening, and said when they +got around to the motel to question you, you'd skipped out. They also +said that Massachusetts car was stolen. And there were a couple of +other things they'd picked up that they wouldn't tell me, but they've +got half the National Guard and all the Boy Scouts out after you by +now. They wanted me to tell them anything I could think of that might +help them find this place. I couldn't think of anything while I was +talking to them. Right afterwards, I remembered plenty of +things--which roads you were familiar with, and what you'd seen before +and what you hadn't, stuff like that, so--" + +"So you--?" + +"So I came out myself. I wanted to find you first. Listen, babe, I +love you. Maybe I'm a sucker, and maybe I'm nuts, and maybe +I-don't-know-what. But I figured maybe I could find out more, and +easier on you, than they could. And honey, it better be good, because +I don't think I've got what it would take to turn you in, and now I've +found you--" + +He let it go there, but that was plenty. He was willing to listen. He +wanted to believe in me, because he wanted me. And finding me in the +house I'd described, where I'd said it was, had him half-convinced. +But I still had to explain those Massachusetts plates. And I couldn't. + +I was psychologically incapable of telling him another lie, now, when +I knew I would never see him again, that this was the last time I +could ever possibly be close to him in any way. I couldn't estrange +myself by lying. + + * * * * * + +And I was _also_ psychologically incapable--I found out--of telling +the truth. They'd seen to that. + +It was the first time I'd ever hated them. The first time, I suppose, +that I fully realized my position with them. + +I could not tell the truth, and I would not tell a lie; all I could do +was explain this, and hope he would believe me. I could explain, too, +that I was no spy, no enemy; that those who had prevented me from +telling what I wanted to tell were no menace to his government or his +people. + +He believed me. + +It was just that simple. He believed me, because I suppose he knew, +without knowing how he knew it, that it was truth. Humans are not +incapable of communication; they are simply unaware of it. + +I told him, also, that they were coming for me, that I had called +them, and--regretfully--that he had better leave before they came. + +"You said they weren't enemies or criminals. You were telling the +truth, weren't you?" + +"Yes, I was. They won't _harm_ you. But they might...." I couldn't say +it. I didn't know the words when I tried to say it. _Might take you +away with them ... with us...._ + +"Might what?" + +"Might ... oh, I don't _know_!" + +Now he was suspicious again. "All right," he said. "I'll leave. You +come with me." + +It was just that simple. Go back with him. Let them come and not find +me. What could they do? Their own rules would keep them from hunting +for me. They couldn't come down among the people of Earth. Go back. +Stop running. + +We got into his car, and he turned around and smiled at me again, like +the other time. + +I smiled back, seeing him through a shiny kind of mist which must have +been tears. I reached for him, and he reached for me at the same time. + +When we let go, he tried to start the car, and it wouldn't work. Of +course. I'd forgotten till then. I started laughing and crying at the +same time in a sort of a crazy way, and took him back inside and +showed him the projector. They'd forgotten to give me any commands +about not doing that, I guess. Or they thought it wouldn't matter. + +It did matter. Larry looked it over, and puzzled over it a little, and +fooled around, and asked me some questions. I didn't have much +technical knowledge, but I knew what it did, and he figured out the +way it did it. Nothing with an electro-magnetic motor was going to +work while that thing was turned on, not within a mile or so in any +direction. And there wasn't any way to turn it off. It was a homing +beam, and it was on to stay--foolproof. + +That was when he looked at me, and said slowly, "You got here three +days ago, didn't you, babe?" + +I nodded. + +"There was--God-damn it, it's too foolish! There was a--a _flying +saucer_ story in the paper that day. Somebody saw it land on a hilltop +somewhere. Some crackpot. Some ... how about it, kid?" + +I couldn't say yes and I couldn't say no, and I did the only thing +that was left, which was to get hysterical. In a big way. + +He had to calm me down, of course. And I found out why the television +shows stop with the kiss. The rest is very private and personal. + + * * * * * + +_Author's note: This story was dictated to me by a five-year-old +boy--word-for-word, except for a very few editorial changes of my own. +He is a very charming and bright youngster who plays with my own +five-year-old daughter. One day he wandered into my office, and +watched me typing for a while, then asked what I was doing. I answered +(somewhat irritably, because the children are supposed to stay out of +the room when I'm working) that I was trying to write a story._ + +"_What kind of a story?_" + +"_A grown-up story._" + +"_But what_ kind?" + +_"A science-fiction story." The next thing I was going to do was to +call my daughter, and ask her to take her company back to the +playroom. I had my mouth open, but I never got a syllable out. Teddy +was talking._ + +_"I don't know where they got the car," he said. "They made three or +four stops before the last...." He had a funny look on his face, and +his eyes were glazed-looking._ + +_I had seen some experimental work with hypnosis and post-hypnotic +performance. After the first couple of sentences, I led Teddy into the +living-room, and switched on the tape-recorder. I left it on as long +as he kept talking. I had to change tapes once, and missed a few more +sentences. When he was done, I asked him, with the tape still running, +where he had heard that story._ + +_"What story?" he asked. He looked perfectly normal again._ + +"_The story you just told me._" + +_He was obviously puzzled._ + +"_The_ science-fiction _story_," _I said_. + +_"I don't know where they got the car," he began; his face was set and +his eyes were blank._ + +_I kept the tape running, and picked up the parts I'd missed before. +Then I sent Teddy off to the playroom, and played back the tape, and +thought for a while._ + +_There was a little more, besides what you've read. Parts of it were +confused, with some strange words mixed in, and with sentences +half-completed, and a feeling of ambivalence or censorship or +inhibition of some kind preventing much clarity. Other parts were +quite clear. Of these, the only section I have omitted so far that +seems to me to belong in the story is this one:--_ + + * * * * * + +The baby will have to be born on Earth! They have decided that +themselves. And for the first time, I am glad that they cannot +communicate with me as perfectly as they do among themselves. I can +think some things they do not know about. + +We are not coming back. I do not think that I will like it on Earth +for very long, and I do not know--neither does Larry--what will happen +to us when the Security people find us, and we cannot answer their +questions. But-- + +I am a woman now, and I love like a woman. Larry will not be their +pet; so I cannot be. I am not sure that I am fit to be what Larry +thinks of as a "human being." He says I must learn to be "my own +master." I am not at all sure I could do this, if it were necessary, +but fortunately, this is one of Larry's areas of semantic confusion. +The feminine of _master_ is _mistress_, which has various meanings. + +Also, there is the distinct possibility, from what Larry says, that we +will not, _either_ of us, be allowed even as much liberty as we have +here. + +There is also the matter of gratitude. _They_ brought me up, took care +of me, taught me, loved me, gave me a way of life, and a knowledge of +myself, infinitely richer than I could ever have had on Earth. Perhaps +they even saved my life, healing me when I was quite possibly beyond +the power of Earthly medical science to save. But against all this-- + +_They_ caused the damage to start with. It was _their_ force-field +that wrecked the car and killed my parents. _They_ have paid for it; +_they_ are paying for it yet. _They_ will continue to pay, for more +years than make sense in terms of a human lifetime. _They_ will +continue to wander from planet to planet and system to system, because +_they_ have broken _their_ own law, and now may never go home. + +But _I_ can. + +I am a woman, and Larry is a man. We will go home and have our baby. +And perhaps the baby will be the means of our freedom, some day. If we +cannot speak to save ourselves, he may some day be able to speak for +us. + +I do not think the blocks they set in us will penetrate my womb as my +own thoughts, I hope, already have. + + * * * * * + +_Author's note: Before writing this story--as a story--I talked with +Johnny's parents. I approached them cautiously. His mother is a big +woman, and a brunette. His father is a friendly fat redhead. I already +knew that neither of them reads science-fiction. The word is not +likely to be mentioned in their household._ + +_They moved to town about three years ago. Nobody here knew them +before that, but there are rumors that Johnny is adopted. They did not +volunteer any confirmation of that information when I talked to them, +and they did not pick up on any of the leads I offered about his +recitation._ + +_Johnny himself is small and fair-haired. He takes after his paternal +grandmother, his mother says...._ + + * * * * * + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Exile from Space, by Judith Merril + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXILE FROM SPACE *** + +***** This file should be named 31661.txt or 31661.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/6/6/31661/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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