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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df9dac9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51201 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51201) diff --git a/old/51201-h.zip b/old/51201-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 2015e6e..0000000 --- a/old/51201-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/51201-h/51201-h.htm b/old/51201-h/51201-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index aa95a7f..0000000 --- a/old/51201-h/51201-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1728 +0,0 @@ -<!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=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Volpla, by Wyman Guin. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1, .ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; } -.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } -.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } -.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Volpla, by Wyman Guin - -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/license - - -Title: Volpla - -Author: Wyman Guin - -Release Date: February 13, 2016 [EBook #51201] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOLPLA *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="387" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>Volpla</h1> - -<p>By WYMAN GUIN</p> - -<p>Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>The only kind of gag worth pulling, I always<br /> -maintained, was a cosmic one—till I learned the<br /> -Cosmos has a really nasty sense of humor!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>There were three of them. Dozens of limp little mutants that would have -sent an academic zoologist into hysterics lay there in the metabolic -accelerator. But there were three of <i>them</i>. My heart took a great -bound.</p> - -<p>I heard my daughter's running feet in the animal rooms and her -rollerskates banging at her side. I closed the accelerator and walked -across to the laboratory door. She twisted the knob violently, trying -to hit a combination that would work.</p> - -<p>I unlocked the door, held it against her pushing and slipped out so -that, for all her peering, she could see nothing. I looked down on her -tolerantly.</p> - -<p>"Can't adjust your skates?" I asked again.</p> - -<p>"Daddy, I've tried and tried and I just can't turn this old key tight -enough."</p> - -<p>I continued to look down on her.</p> - -<p>"Well, Dad-dee, I can't!"</p> - -<p>"Tightly enough."</p> - -<p>"What?"</p> - -<p>"You can't turn this old key tightly enough."</p> - -<p>"That's what I <i>say</i>-yud."</p> - -<p>"All right, wench. Sit on this chair."</p> - -<p>I got down and shoved one saddle shoe into a skate. It fitted -perfectly. I strapped her ankle and pretended to use the key to tighten -the clamp.</p> - -<p>Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could -create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, -twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust -his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day -old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had -given me the idea of a flying mutant.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When Nijinsky saw me looking at him, he started a little tarantella -about his cage. I smiled with nostalgia when the fifth fingers of his -hands, four times as long as the others, uncurled as he spun about the -cage.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="600" height="365" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>I turned to the fitting of my daughter's other skate.</p> - -<p>"Daddy?"</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"Mother says you are eccentric. Is that true?"</p> - -<p>"I'll speak to her about it."</p> - -<p>"Don't you <i>know</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Do you understand the word?"</p> - -<p>"No."</p> - -<p>I lifted her out of the chair and stood her on her skates. "Tell your -mother that I retaliate. I say <i>she</i> is beautiful."</p> - -<p>She skated awkwardly between the rows of cages from which mutants with -brown fur and blue fur, too much and too little fur, enormously long -and ridiculously short arms, stared at her with simian, canine or -rodent faces. At the door to the outside, she turned perilously and -waved.</p> - -<p>Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and -withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their -limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. -The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a -month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to -learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. -Modulating alleles had smoothed the freakish into a beautiful pattern. -These were no monsters blasted by the dosage of radiation into crippled -structures. They were lovely, perfect little creatures.</p> - -<p>My wife tried the door, too, but more subtly, as if casually touching -the knob while calling.</p> - -<p>"Lunch, dear."</p> - -<p>"Be right there."</p> - -<p>She peeked too, as she had for fifteen years, but I blocked her view -when I slipped out.</p> - -<p>"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace."</p> - -<p>"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out."</p> - -<p>"From me, of course."</p> - -<p>"But you love me just the same."</p> - -<p>"I adore you." She stretched on tiptoe and put her arms over my -shoulders and kissed me.</p> - -<p>My wife did indeed have a delicious-looking buffet ready on the -terrace. The maid was just setting down a warmer filled with hot -hamburgers. I gave the maid a pinch and said, "Hello, baby."</p> - -<p>My wife looked at me with a puzzled smile. "What on Earth's got into -you?"</p> - -<p>The maid beat it into the house.</p> - -<p>I flipped a hamburger and a slice of onion onto a plate and picked up -the ketchup and said, "I've reached the dangerous age."</p> - -<p>"Oh, good heavens!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I dowsed ketchup over the hamburger, threw the onion on and closed it. -I opened a bottle of beer and guzzled from it, blew out my breath and -looked across the rolling hills and oak woods of our ranch to where the -Pacific shimmered. I thought, "All this and three volplas, too."</p> - -<p>I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, "Yes, sir, -the dangerous age. And, lady, I'm going to have fun."</p> - -<p>My wife sighed patiently.</p> - -<p>I walked over and put the arm that held the beer bottle around her -shoulder and chucked her chin up with my other hand. The golden sun -danced in her blue eyes. I watched that light in her beautiful eyes and -said, "But you're the only one I'm dangerous about."</p> - -<p>I kissed her until I heard rollerskates coming across the terrace from -one direction and a horse galloping toward the terrace from the other -direction.</p> - -<p>"You have lovely lips," I whispered.</p> - -<p>"Thanks. Yours deserve the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, too."</p> - -<p>Our son reared the new palomino I had just bought him for his -fourteenth birthday and yelled down, "Unhand that maiden, Burrhead, or -I'll give you lead poisoning."</p> - -<p>I laughed and picked up my plate and sat down in a chair. My wife -brought me a bowl of salad and I munched the hamburger and watched the -boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture.</p> - -<p>I thought, "By God, wouldn't he have a fit if he knew what I have back -there in that lab! Wouldn't they all!"</p> - -<p>The boy carried the saddle up onto the terrace and dropped it. "Mom, -I'd like a swim before I eat." He started undressing.</p> - -<p>"You <i>look</i> as though a little water might help," she agreed, sitting -down next to me with her plate.</p> - -<p>The girl was yanking off her skates. "And I want one."</p> - -<p>"All right. But go in the house and put on your swim suit."</p> - -<p>"Oh, <i>Mother</i>. Why?"</p> - -<p>"Because, dear, I said so."</p> - -<p>The boy had already raced across the terrace and jack-knifed into the -pool. The cool sound of the dive sent the girl scurrying for her suit.</p> - -<p>I looked at my wife. "What's the idea?"</p> - -<p>"She's going to be a young woman soon."</p> - -<p>"Is that any reason for wearing clothes? Look at him. He's a young -<i>man</i> sooner than already."</p> - -<p>"Well, if you feel that way about it, they'll both have to start -wearing clothes."</p> - -<p>I gulped the last of my hamburger and washed it down with the beer. -"This place is going to hell," I complained. "The old man isn't allowed -to pinch the maid and the kids can't go naked." I leaned toward her and -smacked her cheek. "But the food and the old woman are still the best."</p> - -<p>"Say, what goes with you? You've been grinning like a happy ape ever -since you came out of the lab."</p> - -<p>"I told you—"</p> - -<p>"Oh, not that again! You were dangerous at any age."</p> - -<p>I stood up and put my plate aside and bent over her. "Just the same, -I'm going to have a new kind of fun."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She reached up and grabbed my ear. She narrowed her eyes and put a mock -grimness on her lips.</p> - -<p>"It's a joke," I assured her. "I'm going to play a tremendous joke on -the whole world. I've only had the feeling once before in a small way, -but I've always...."</p> - -<p>She twisted my ear and narrowed her eyes even more. "Like?"</p> - -<p>"Well, when my old man was pumping his first fortune out of some oil -wells in Oklahoma, we lived down there. Outside this little town, I -found a litter of flat stones that had young black-snakes under each -slab. I filled a pail with them and took them into town and dumped them -on the walk in front of the movie just as Theda Bara's matinee let out. -The best part was that no one had seen me do it. They just couldn't -understand how so many snakes got there. I learned how great it can be -to stand around quietly and watch people encounter the surprise that -you have prepared for them."</p> - -<p>She let go of my ear. "Is that the kind of fun you're going to have?"</p> - -<p>"Yep."</p> - -<p>She shook her head. "Did I say you are <i>eccentric</i>?"</p> - -<p>I grinned. "Forgive me if I eat and run, dear. Something in the lab -can't wait."</p> - -<p>The fact was that I had something more in the lab than I had bargained -for. I had aimed only at a gliding mammal a little more efficient than -the Dusky Glider of Australia, a marsupial. Even in the basically -mutating colony, there had been a decidedly simian appearance in recent -years, a long shift from the garbage-dump rats I had started with. But -my first volplas were shockingly humanoid.</p> - -<p>They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in -organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of -growth in the metabolic accelerator. When I returned to the lab, they -were already moving about on the mattress and the male was trying to -stand.</p> - -<p>He was a little the larger and stood twenty-eight inches high. Except -for the face, chest and belly, they were covered with a soft, almost -golden down. Where it was bare of this golden fur, the skin was pink. -On their heads and across the shoulders of the male stood a shock of -fur as soft as chinchilla. The faces were appealingly humanoid, except -that the eyes were large and nocturnal. The cranium was in the same -proportion to the body as it is in the human.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When the male spread his arms, the span was forty-eight inches. I held -his arms out and tried to tease the spars open. They were not new. The -spars had been common to the basic colony for years and were the result -of serial mutations effecting those greatly elongated fifth fingers -that had first appeared in Nijinsky. No longer jointed like a finger, -the spar turned backward sharply and ran alongside the wrist almost to -the elbow. Powerful wrist muscles could snap it outward and forward. -Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened.</p> - -<p>The spars added nine inches on each side to his span. As they swept out -and forward, the lateral skin that had, till now, hung in resting folds -was tightened in a golden plane that stretched from the tip of the spar -to his waist and continued four inches wide down his legs to where it -anchored at the little toe.</p> - -<p>This was by far the most impressive plane that had appeared till now. -It was a true gliding plane, perhaps even a soaring one. I felt a -thrill run along my back.</p> - -<p>By four o'clock that afternoon, I was feeding them solid food and, with -the spars closed, they were holding little cups and drinking water from -them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and -decidedly amorous.</p> - -<p>Their humanoid qualities were increasingly apparent. There was a lumbar -curvature and buttocks. The shoulder girdle and pectoral muscles were -heavy and out of proportion, of course, yet the females had only one -pair of breasts. The chin and jaw were humanlike instead of simian and -the dental equipment was appropriate to this structure. What this -portended was brought home to me with a shock.</p> - -<p>I was kneeling on the mattress, cuffing and roughing the male as one -might a puppy dog, when one of the females playfully climbed up my -back. I reached around and brought her over my shoulder and sat her -down. I stroked the soft fur on her head and said, "Hello, pretty one. -Hello."</p> - -<p>The male watched me, grinning.</p> - -<p>He said, "'Ello, 'ello."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As I walked into the kitchen, giddy with this enormous joke, my wife -said, "Guy and Em are flying up for dinner. That rocket of Guy's they -launched in the desert yesterday was a success. It pulled Guy up to -Cloud Nine and he wants to celebrate."</p> - -<p>I danced a little jig the way old Nijinsky might do it. "Oh, great! -Oh, wonderful! Good old Guy! Everybody's a success. It's great. It's -wonderful. Success on success!"</p> - -<p>I danced into the kitchen table and tipped over a basket of green corn. -The maid promptly left the kitchen for some other place.</p> - -<p>My wife just stared at me. "Have you been drinking the lab alcohol?"</p> - -<p>"I've been drinking the nectar of the gods. My Hera, you're properly -married to Zeus. I've my own little Greeks descended from Icarus."</p> - -<p>She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. "Wouldn't you -just settle for a worldly martini?"</p> - -<p>"I will, yes. But first a divine kiss."</p> - -<p>I sipped at my martini and lounged in a terrace chair watching the -golden evening slant across the beautiful hills of our ranch. I -dreamed. I would invent a euphonious set of words to match the Basic -English vocabulary and teach it to them as their language. They would -have their own crafts and live in small tree houses.</p> - -<p>I would teach them legends: that they had come from the stars, that -they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first -white men enter these hills.</p> - -<p>When they were able to take care of themselves, I would turn them -loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before -anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers -would laugh.</p> - -<p>Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He -would conclude, "I am convinced that they have a language and speak it -intelligently."</p> - -<p>The government would issue denials. Reporters would "expose the truth" -and ask, "Where have these aliens come from?" The government would -reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters -and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends.</p> - -<p>Volpla wisdom would become a cult—and of all forms of comedy, cults, I -think, are the funniest.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Darling, are you listening to me?" my wife asked with impatient -patience.</p> - -<p>"What? Sure. Certainly."</p> - -<p>"You didn't hear a word. You just sit there and grin into space." She -got up and poured me another martini. "Here, maybe this will sober you -up."</p> - -<p>I pointed. "That's probably Guy and Em."</p> - -<p>A 'copter sidled over the ridge, then came just above the oak woods -toward us. Guy set it gently on the landing square and we walked down -to meet them.</p> - -<p>I helped Em out and hugged her. Guy jumped out, asking, "Do you have -your TV set on?"</p> - -<p>"No," I answered. "Should I?"</p> - -<p>"It's almost time for the broadcast. I was afraid we would miss it."</p> - -<p>"What broadcast?"</p> - -<p>"From the rocket."</p> - -<p>"Rocket?"</p> - -<p>"For heaven's sake, darling," my wife complained, "I told you about -Guy's rocket being a success. The papers are full of it. So are the -broadcasts."</p> - -<p>As we stepped up on the terrace, she turned to Guy and Em. "He's out of -contact today. Thinks he's Zeus."</p> - -<p>I asked our son to wheel a TV set out onto the terrace while I made -martinis for our friends. Then we sat down and drank the cocktails and -the kids had fruit juice and we watched the broadcast Guy had tuned in.</p> - -<p>Some joker from Cal Tech was explaining diagrams of a multi-stage -rocket.</p> - -<p>After a bit, I got up and said, "I have something out in the lab I want -to check on."</p> - -<p>"Hey, wait a minute," Guy objected. "They're about to show the shots of -the launching."</p> - -<p>My wife gave me a look; you know the kind. I sat down. Then I got up -and poured myself another martini and freshened Em's up, too. I sat -down again.</p> - -<p>The scene had changed to a desert launching site. There was old Guy -himself explaining that when he pressed the button before him, the -hatch on the third stage of the great rocket in the background would -close and, five minutes later, the ship would fire itself.</p> - -<p>Guy, on the screen, pushed the button, and I heard Guy, beside me, give -a sort of little sigh. We watched the hatch slowly close.</p> - -<p>"You look real good," I said. "A regular Space Ranger. What are you -shooting at?"</p> - -<p>"Darling, will you please—be—<i>quiet</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Yeah, Dad. Can it, will you? You're always gagging around."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>On the screen, Guy's big dead-earnest face was explaining more about -the project and suddenly I realized that this was an instrument-bearing -rocket they hoped to land on the Moon. It would broadcast from there. -Well, now—say, that <i>would</i> be something! I began to feel a little -ashamed of the way I had been acting and I reached out and slapped old -Guy on the shoulder. For just a moment, I thought of telling him about -my volplas. But only for a moment.</p> - -<p>A ball of flame appeared at the base of the rocket. Miraculously, the -massive tower lifted, seemed for a moment merely to stand there on a -flaming pillar, then was gone.</p> - -<p>The screen returned to a studio, where an announcer explained that the -film just shown had been taken day before yesterday. Since then, the -rocket's third stage was known to have landed successfully at the south -shore of Mare Serenitatis. He indicated the location on a large lunar -map behind him.</p> - -<p>"From this position, the telemeter known as Rocket Charlie will be -broadcasting scientific data for several months. But now, ladies and -gentlemen, we will clear the air for Rocket Charlie's only general -broadcast. Stand by for Rocket Charlie."</p> - -<p>A chronometer appeared on the screen and, for several seconds, there -was silence.</p> - -<p>I heard my boy whisper, "Uncle Guy, this is the biggest!"</p> - -<p>My wife said, "Em, I think I'll just faint."</p> - -<p>Suddenly there was a lunar landscape on the screen, looking just as -it's always been pictured. A mechanical voice cut in.</p> - -<p>"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Hello, Earth,' from my position in -Mare Serenitatis. First I will pan the Menelaus Mountains for fifteen -seconds. Then I will focus my camera on Earth for five seconds."</p> - -<p>The camera began to move and the mountains marched by, stark and -awesomely wild. Toward the end of the movement, the shadow of the -upright third stage appeared in the foreground.</p> - -<p>Abruptly the camera made a giddy swing, focused a moment, and we were -looking at Earth. At that time, there was no Moon over California. It -was Africa and Europe we were looking at.</p> - -<p>"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Good-by, Earth.'"</p> - -<p>Well, when that screen went dead, there was pandemonium around our -terrace. Big old Guy was so happy, he was wiping tears from his eyes. -The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at -once.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to -one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month. -I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early -infants were females, which sped things up considerably.</p> - -<p>By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut -down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own -way.</p> - -<p>I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model, -and during the months while every female was busy in the metabolic -accelerator, I taught the language to the males. They spoke it softly -in high voices and the eight hundred words didn't seem to tax their -little skulls a bit.</p> - -<p>My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took -the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out -of the lab.</p> - -<p>I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley -about a mile back in the ranch.</p> - -<p>They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously. -They kept me busy relating their words for "tree," "rock," "sky" to the -objects. They had a little trouble with "sky."</p> - -<p>Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to -appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended -perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised -their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes.</p> - -<p>Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His -playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he -was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught -and stopped abruptly at the bottom of a little knoll.</p> - -<p>He probably meant to dive for her. But when he spread his arms, the -spars snapped out and those golden planes sheared into the air. He -sailed over her in a stunning sweep. Then he rose up and up until he -hung in the breeze for a long moment, thirty feet above the ground.</p> - -<p>He turned a plaintive face back to me, dipped worriedly and skimmed -straight for a thorn bush. He banked instinctively, whirled toward us -in a golden flash and crashed with a bounce to the grass.</p> - -<p>The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him -so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little -whoop. After that, it was a carnival.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They learned quickly and brilliantly. They were not fliers; they were -gliders and soarers. Before long, they took agilely to the trees and -launched themselves in beautiful glides for hundreds of feet, banking, -turning and spiraling to a gentle halt.</p> - -<p>I laughed out loud with anticipation. Wait till the first pair of these -was brought before a sheriff! Wait till reporters from the <i>Chronicle</i> -motored out into the hills to witness this!</p> - -<p>Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a -tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool. -They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed -each other. Then they got out and lay on their backs with the planes -stretched to dry.</p> - -<p>I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of -leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I -could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little -actual surviving. I called the male over to me.</p> - -<p>He came and squatted, conference fashion, the elbows resting on the -ground, the wrists crossed at his chest. He spoke first.</p> - -<p>"Before the red men came, did we live here?"</p> - -<p>"You lived in places like this all along these mountains. Now there -are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you -naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors."</p> - -<p>"We can learn again. We want to stay here." His little face was so -solemn and thoughtful that I reached out and stroked the fur on his -head reassuringly.</p> - -<p>We both heard the whir of wings overhead. Two mourning doves flew -across the stream and landed in an oak on the opposite hillside.</p> - -<p>I pointed. "There's your food, if you can kill it."</p> - -<p>He looked at me. "How?"</p> - -<p>"I don't think you can get at them in the tree. You'll have to soar up -above and catch one of them on the wing when they fly away. Think you -can get up that high?"</p> - -<p>He looked around slowly at the breeze playing in the branches and -dancing along the hillside grass. It was as if he had been flying a -thousand years and was bringing antique wisdom to bear. "I can get up -there. I can stay for a while. How long will they be in the tree?"</p> - -<p>"Chances are they won't stay long. Keep your eye on the tree in case -they leave while you are climbing."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He ran to a nearby oak and clambered aloft. Presently he launched -himself, streaked down-valley a way and caught a warm updraft on a -hillside. In no time, he was up about two hundred feet. He began -criss-crossing the ridge, working his way back to us.</p> - -<p>The two girls were watching him intently. They came over to me -wonderingly, stopping now and then to watch him. When they were -standing beside me, they said nothing. They shaded their eyes with -tiny hands and watched him as he passed directly above us at about two -hundred and fifty feet. One of the girls, with her eyes fast on his -soaring planes, reached out and grasped my sleeve tightly.</p> - -<p>He flashed high above the stream and hung behind the crest of the hill -where the doves rested. I heard their mourning from the oak tree. It -occurred to me they would not leave that safety while the hawklike -silhouette of the volpla marred the sky so near.</p> - -<p>I took the girl's hand from my sleeve and spoke to her, pointing as I -did so. "He is going to catch a bird. The bird is in that tree. You -can make the bird fly so that he can catch it. Look here." I got up and -found a stick. "Can you do this?"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="600" height="200" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>I threw the stick up into a tree near us. Then I found her a stick. She -threw it better than I had expected.</p> - -<p>"Good, pretty one. Now run across the stream and up to that tree and -throw a stick into it."</p> - -<p>She climbed skillfully into the tree beside us and launched herself -across the stream. She swooped up the opposite hillside and landed -neatly in the tree where the doves rested.</p> - -<p>The birds came out of the tree, climbing hard with their graceful -strokes.</p> - -<p>I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla -half closed his planes and started dropping. He became a golden flash -across the sky.</p> - -<p>The doves abruptly gave up their hard climbing and fell away with -swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a -little. He veered giddily in the new direction and again dropped like a -molten arrow.</p> - -<p>The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did -something I would not have anticipated—he opened his planes and shot -lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the -bird's crossward flight.</p> - -<p>I saw the planes close momentarily. Then they opened again and the bird -plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and -stood looking back at us.</p> - -<p>The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her -own. The girl who had raised the birds from the tree volplaned back to -us, yammering like a bluejay.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a hero's welcome. He had to walk back, of course—he had no -way to carry such a load in flight. The girls glided out to meet -him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he -strutted in like every human hunter.</p> - -<p>They were raptly curious about the bird. They poked at it, marveled at -its feathers and danced about it in an embryonic rite of the hunt. But -presently the male turned to me.</p> - -<p>"We <i>eat</i> this?"</p> - -<p>I laughed and took his tiny, four-fingered hand. In a sandy spot -beneath a great tree that overhung the creek, I built a small fire for -them. This was another marvel, but first I wanted to teach them how to -clean the bird. I showed them how to spit it and turn it over their -fire.</p> - -<p>Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were -gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal.</p> - -<p>When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep -the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached. -The male walked a little away with me when I left the fire.</p> - -<p>I said again, "Promise me you won't leave here until we've made you -ready for it."</p> - -<p>"We like it here. We will stay. Tomorrow you bring more of us?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. I will bring many more of you, if you promise to keep them all -here in this woods until they're ready to leave."</p> - -<p>"I promise." He looked up at the night sky and, in the firelight, I saw -his wonder. "You say we came from there?"</p> - -<p>"The old ones of your kind told me so. Didn't they tell you?"</p> - -<p>"I can't remember any old ones. You tell me."</p> - -<p>"The old ones told me you came long before the red men in a ship from -the stars." Standing there in the dark, I had to grin, visioning the -Sunday supplements that would be written in about a year, maybe even -less.</p> - -<p>He looked into the sky for a long time. "Those little lights are the -stars?"</p> - -<p>"That's right."</p> - -<p>"Which star?"</p> - -<p>I glanced about and presently pointed over a tree. "From Venus." Then -I realized I had blundered by passing him an English name. "In your -language, Pohtah."</p> - -<p>He looked at the planet a long time and murmured, "Venus. Pohtah."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>That next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods. -There were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design -on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to -eight couples together with the current children of the women. Within -these groups, the adults were promiscuous, but apparently not outside -the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the -males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to -actual parenthood.</p> - -<p>By the end of the week, these super-families were scattered over -about four square miles of the ranch. They had found a new delicacy, -sparrows, and hunted them easily as they roosted at night. I had taught -the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the -local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree -houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through -midday and midnight.</p> - -<p>The afternoon my family returned home, I had a crew of workmen out -tearing down the animal rooms and lab building. The caretakers -had anesthetized all the experimental mutants, and the metabolic -accelerator and other lab equipment was being dismantled. I wanted -nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas -with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the -volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and -develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my -ranch and the fun would be on.</p> - -<p>My wife got out of the car and looked around at the workmen hurrying -about the disemboweled buildings and she said, "What on Earth is going -on here?"</p> - -<p>"I've finished my work and we no longer need the buildings. I'm going -to write a paper about my results."</p> - -<p>My wife looked at me appraisingly and shook her head. "I thought you -meant it. But you really ought to. It would be your first."</p> - -<p>My son asked, "What happened to the animals?"</p> - -<p>"Turned them over to the university for further study," I lied.</p> - -<p>"Well," he said to her, "you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision."</p> - -<p>Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation -on the ranch.</p> - -<p>Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I -could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed -through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes -moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across -the face of the full Moon, but I was the only one who noticed.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I made daily trips out to the original camp to meet the oldest of the -males, who had apparently established himself as a chief of all the -volpla families. He assured me that the volplas were staying close to -the ranch, but complained that the game was getting scarce. Otherwise -things were progressing nicely.</p> - -<p>The males now carried little stone-tipped spears with feathered shafts -that they could throw in flight. They used them at night to bring down -roosting sparrows and in the day to kill their biggest game, the local -rabbits.</p> - -<p>The women wore bluejay feathers on their heads. The men wore plumes of -dove feathers and sometimes little skirts fashioned of rabbit down. I -did some reading on the subject and taught them crude tanning of their -rabbit and squirrel hides for use in their tree homes.</p> - -<p>The tree homes were more and more intricately wrought with expert -basketry for walls and floor and tight thatching above. They were well -camouflaged from below, as I suggested.</p> - -<p>These little creatures delighted me more and more. For hours, I could -watch the adults, both the males and females, playing with the children -or teaching them to glide. I could sit all afternoon and watch them at -work on a tree house.</p> - -<p>So one day my wife asked, "How <i>does</i> the mighty hunter who now returns -from the forest?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, fine. I've been enjoying the local animal life."</p> - -<p>"So has our daughter."</p> - -<p>"What do you mean?"</p> - -<p>"She has two of them up in her room."</p> - -<p>"Two what?"</p> - -<p>"I don't know. What do <i>you</i> call them?"</p> - -<p>I went up the stairs three at a time and burst into my daughter's room.</p> - -<p>There she sat on her bed reading a book to two volplas.</p> - -<p>One of the volplas grinned and said in English, "Hello there, King -Arthur."</p> - -<p>"What's going on here?" I demanded of all three.</p> - -<p>"Nothing, Daddy. We're just reading like we always do."</p> - -<p>"Like <i>always</i>? How long has this been going on?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, weeks and weeks. How long has it been since you came here that -first time to visit me, Fuzzy?"</p> - -<p>The impolite volpla who had addressed me as King Arthur grinned at her -and calculated. "Oh, weeks and weeks."</p> - -<p>"But you're teaching them to read English."</p> - -<p>"Of course. They're such good pupils and so grateful. Daddy, you won't -make them go away, will you? We love each other, don't we?"</p> - -<p>Both volplas nodded vigorously.</p> - -<p>She turned back to me. "Daddy, did you know they can fly? They can fly -right out of the window and way up in the sky."</p> - -<p>"Is that a fact?" I said testily. I looked coldly at the two volplas. -"I'm going to speak to your chief."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Back downstairs again, I raved at my wife. "Why didn't you tell me a -thing like this was going on? How could you let such an unusual thing -go on and not discuss it with me?"</p> - -<p>My wife got a look on her face that I don't see very often. "Now you -listen to me, mister. Your whole life is a secret from us. Just what -makes you think your daughter can't have a little secret of her own?"</p> - -<p>She got right up close to me and her blue eyes snapped little sparks -all over me. "The fact is that I was wrong to tell you at all. I -promised her I wouldn't tell <i>anyone</i>. Look what happened when I did. -You go leaping around the house like a raving maniac just because a -little girl has a secret."</p> - -<p>"A fine secret!" I yelled. "Didn't it occur to you this might be -dangerous? Those creatures are over-sexed and...." I stumbled into an -awful silence while she gave me the dirtiest smile since the days of -the Malatestas.</p> - -<p>"How did <i>you</i> ... suddenly get to <i>be</i> ... the palace eunuch? Those -are sweet lovable little creatures without a harm in their furry little -bodies. But don't think I don't realize what's been going on. You -created them yourself. So, if they have any dirty ideas, I know where -they got them."</p> - -<p>I stormed out of the house. I spun the jeep out of the yard and ripped -off through the woods.</p> - -<p>The chief was sitting at home as comfortable as you please. He was -leaning back against the great oak that hid his tree house. He had a -little fire going and one of the women was roasting a sparrow for him. -He greeted me in volpla language.</p> - -<p>"Do you realize," I blurted angrily, "that there are two volplas in my -daughter's bedroom?"</p> - -<p>"Why, yes," he answered calmly. "They go there every day. Is there -anything wrong with that?"</p> - -<p>"She's teaching them the words of men."</p> - -<p>"You told us some men may be our enemies. We are anxious to know their -words, the better to protect ourselves."</p> - -<p>He reached around behind the tree and, right there in broad daylight, -that volpla pulled a copy of the San Francisco <i>Chronicle</i> out of -hiding. He held it up apologetically. "We have been taking it for some -time from the box in front of your house."</p> - -<p>He spread the paper on the ground between us. I saw by the date that it -was yesterday's. He said proudly, "From the two who go to your house, I -have learned the words of men. As men say, I can 'read' most of this."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I just stood there gaping at him. How could I possibly recoup this -situation so that the stunning joke of the volplas wouldn't be lost? -Would it seem reasonable that the volplas, by observing and listening -to men, had learned their language? Or had they been taught it by a -human friend?</p> - -<p>That was it—I would just have to sacrifice anonymity. My family and I -had found a colony of them on our ranch and taught them English. I was -stuck with it because it was the truth.</p> - -<p>The volpla waved his long thin arm over the front page. "Men are -dangerous. They will shoot us with their guns if we leave here."</p> - -<p>I hastened to reassure him. "It will not be like that. When men -have learned about you, they will leave you alone." I stated this -emphatically, but for the first time I was beginning to see this might -not be a joke to the volplas. Nevertheless, I went on. "You must -disperse the families at once. You stay here with your family so we -remain in contact, but send the other families to other places."</p> - -<p>He shook his head. "We cannot leave these woods. Men would shoot us."</p> - -<p>Then he stood and looked squarely at me with his nocturnal eyes. -"Perhaps you are not a good friend. Perhaps you have lied to us. Why -are you saying we should leave this safety?"</p> - -<p>"You will be happier. There will be more game."</p> - -<p>He continued to stare directly at me. "There will be men. One has -already shot one of us. We have forgiven him and are friends. But one -of us is dead."</p> - -<p>"You are friends with <i>another</i> man?" I asked, stunned.</p> - -<p>He nodded and pointed up the valley. "He is up there today with another -family."</p> - -<p>"Let's go!"</p> - -<p>He had the advantage of short glides, but the volpla chief couldn't -keep up with me. Sometimes trotting, sometimes walking fast, I got way -ahead of him. My hard breathing arose as much out of my anxiety about -the manner of handling this stranger as it did out of the exertion.</p> - -<p>I rounded a bend in the creek and there was my son sitting on the grass -near a cooking fire playing with a baby volpla and talking in English -to an adult volpla who stood beside him. As I approached, my son tossed -the baby into the air. The tiny planes opened and the baby drifted down -to his waiting hands.</p> - -<p>He said to the volpla beside him, "No, I'm sure you didn't come from -the stars. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure my father—"</p> - -<p>I yelled from behind them, "What business do you have telling them -that?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The male volpla jumped about two feet. My son turned his head slowly -and looked at me. Then he handed the baby to the male and stood up.</p> - -<p>"You haven't any business out here!" I was seething. He had destroyed -the whole store of volpla legends with one small doubt.</p> - -<p>He brushed the grass from his trousers and straightened. The way he was -looking at me, I felt my anger turning to a kind of jelly.</p> - -<p>"Dad, I killed one of these little people yesterday. I thought he was a -hawk and I shot him when I was out hunting. I wouldn't have done that -if you had told me about them."</p> - -<p>I couldn't look at him. I stared at the grass and my face got hot.</p> - -<p>"The chief tells me that you want them to leave the ranch soon. You -think you're going to play a big joke, don't you?"</p> - -<p>I heard the chief come up behind me and stand quietly at my back.</p> - -<p>My son said softly, "I don't think it's much of a joke, Dad. I had to -listen to that one crying after I hit him."</p> - -<p>There were big black trail ants moving in the grass. It seemed to me -there was a ringing sound in the sky. I raised my head and looked at -him. "Son, let's go back to the jeep and we can talk about it on the -way home."</p> - -<p>"I'd rather walk." He sort of waved to the volpla he had been talking -to and then to the chief. He jumped the creek and walked away into the -oak woods.</p> - -<p>The volpla holding the baby stared at me. From somewhere far up the -valley, a crow was cawing. I didn't look at the chief. I turned and -brushed past him and walked back to the jeep alone.</p> - -<p>At home, I opened a bottle of beer and sat out on the terrace to wait -for my son. My wife came toward the house with some cut flowers from -the garden, but she didn't speak to me. She snapped the blades of the -scissors as she walked.</p> - -<p>A volpla soared across the terrace and landed at my daughter's bedroom -window. He was there only briefly and relaunched himself. He was -followed from the window in moments by the two volplas I had left with -my daughter earlier in the afternoon. I watched them with a vague -unease as the three veered off to the east, climbing effortlessly.</p> - -<p>When I finally took a sip of my beer, it was already warm. I set it -aside. Presently my daughter ran out onto the terrace.</p> - -<p>"Daddy, my volplas left. They said good-by and we hadn't even finished -the TV show. They said they won't see me again. Did you make them -leave?"</p> - -<p>"No. I didn't."</p> - -<p>She was staring at me with hot eyes. Her lower lip protruded and -trembled like a pink tear drop.</p> - -<p>"Daddy, you did so." She stomped into the house, sobbing.</p> - -<p>My God! In one afternoon, I had managed to become a palace eunuch, a -murderer and a liar!</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Most of the afternoon went by before I heard my son enter the house. I -called to him and he came out and stood before me. I got up.</p> - -<p>"Son, I can't tell you how sorry I am for what happened to you. It -was my fault, not yours at all. I only hope you can forget the shock -of finding out what sort of creature you had hit. I don't know why I -didn't anticipate that such things would happen. It was just that I was -so intent on mystifying the whole world that I...."</p> - -<p>I stopped. There wasn't anything more to say.</p> - -<p>"Are you going to make them leave the ranch?" he asked.</p> - -<p>I was aghast. "After what has happened?"</p> - -<p>"Gee, what <i>are</i> you going to do about them, Dad?"</p> - -<p>"I've been trying to decide. I don't know what I should do that will be -best for them." I looked at my watch. "Let's go back out and talk to -the chief."</p> - -<p>His eyes lighted and he clapped me on the shoulder, man to man. We ran -out and got into the jeep and drove back up to the valley. The late -afternoon Sun glared across the landscape.</p> - -<p>We didn't say much as we wound up the valley between the darkening -trees. I was filled more and more with the unease that had seized me -as I watched the three volplas leave my terrace and climb smoothly and -purposefully into the east.</p> - -<p>We got out at the chief's camp and there were no volplas around. The -fire had burned down to a smolder. I called in the volpla language, but -there was no answer.</p> - -<p>We went from camp to camp and found dead fires. We climbed to their -tree houses and found them empty. I was sick and scared. I called -endlessly till I was hoarse.</p> - -<p>At last, in the darkness, my son put a hand on my arm. "What are you -going to do, Dad?"</p> - -<p>Standing there in those terribly silent woods, I trembled. "I'll have -to call the police and the newspapers and warn everybody."</p> - -<p>"Where do you suppose they've gone?"</p> - -<p>I looked to the east where the stars, rising out of the great pass in -the mountains, glimmered like a deep bowl of fireflies.</p> - -<p>"The last three I saw were headed that way."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>We had been gone from the house for hours. When we stepped out onto the -lighted terrace, I saw the shadow of a helicopter down on the strip. -Then I saw Guy sitting near me in a chair. He was holding his head in -his hands.</p> - -<p>Em was saying to my wife, "He was beside himself. There wasn't a -thing he could do. I had to get him away from there and I thought you -wouldn't mind if we flew over here and stayed with you till they've -decided what to do."</p> - -<p>I walked over and said, "Hello, Guy. What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>He raised his head and then stood and shook hands. "It's a mess. The -whole project will be ruined and we don't dare go near it."</p> - -<p>"What happened?"</p> - -<p>"Just as we set it off—"</p> - -<p>"Set what off?"</p> - -<p>"The rocket."</p> - -<p>"Rocket?"</p> - -<p>Guy groaned.</p> - -<p>"The <i>Venus</i> rocket! Rocket Harold!"</p> - -<p>My wife interjected. "I was telling Guy we didn't know a thing about it -because they haven't delivered our paper in weeks. I've complained—"</p> - -<p>I waved her to silence. "Go on," I demanded of Guy.</p> - -<p>"Just as I pushed the button and the hatch was closing, a flock of owls -circled the ship. They started flying through the hatch and somehow -they jammed it open."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="178" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Em said to my wife, "There must have been a hundred of them. They kept -coming and coming and flying into that hatch. Then they began dumping -out all the recording instruments. The men tried to run a motor-driven -ladder up to the ship and those owls hit the driver on the head and -knocked him out with some kind of instrument."</p> - -<p>Guy turned his grief-stricken face to me. "Then the hatch closed and we -don't dare go near the ship. It was supposed to fire in five minutes, -but it hasn't. Those damned owls could have...."</p> - -<p>There was a glare in the east. We all turned and saw a brief streak of -gilt pencil its way up the black velvet beyond the mountains.</p> - -<p>"That's it!" Guy shouted. "That's the ship!" Then he moaned. "A total -loss."</p> - -<p>I grabbed him by the shoulders. "You mean it won't make it to Venus?"</p> - -<p>He jerked away in misery. "Sure, it will make it. The automatic -controls can't be tampered with. But the rocket is on its way without -any recording instruments or TV aboard. Just a load of owls."</p> - -<p>My son laughed. "Owls! My dad can tell you a thing or two."</p> - -<p>I silenced him with a scowl. He shut up, then danced off across the -terrace. "Man, man! This is the biggest! The most—the greatest—the -end!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The phone was ringing. As I went to the box on the terrace, I grabbed -my boy's arm. "Don't you breathe a word."</p> - -<p>He giggled. "The joke is on you, Pop. Why should I say anything? I'll -just grin once in a while."</p> - -<p>"Now you cut that out."</p> - -<p>He held onto my arm and walked toward the phone box with me, half -convulsed. "Wait till men land on Venus and find Venusians with a -legend about their Great White Father in California. That's when I'll -tell."</p> - -<p>The phone call was from a screaming psychotic who wanted Guy. I stood -near Guy while he listened to the excited voice over the wire.</p> - -<p>Presently Guy said, "No, no. The automatic controls will correct for -the delay in firing. It isn't that. It's just that there aren't any -instruments.... What? What just happened? Calm down. I can't understand -you."</p> - -<p>I heard Em say to my wife, "You know, the strangest thing occurred out -there. I <i>thought</i> it looked like those owls were carrying things on -their backs. One of them dropped something and I saw the men open a -package wrapped in a leaf. You'd never believe what was in it—three -little birds roasted to a nice brown!"</p> - -<p>My son nudged me. "Smart owls. Long trip."</p> - -<p>I put my hand over his mouth. Then I saw that Guy was holding the -receiver limply away from his ear.</p> - -<p>He spluttered. "They just taped a radio message from the rocket. It's -true that the radio wasn't thrown out. But we didn't have a record like -<i>this</i> on that rocket."</p> - -<p>He yelled into the phone. "Play it back." He thrust the receiver at me.</p> - -<p>For a moment, there was only a gritty buzz from the receiver. Then the -tape started playing a soft, high voice. "This is Rocket Harold saying -everything is well. This is Rocket Harold saying good-by to men." There -was a pause and then, in clear volpla language, another voice spoke. -"Man who made us, we forgive you. We know we did not come from the -stars, but we go there. I, chief, give you welcome to visit. Good-by."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>We all stood around too exhausted by the excitement to say anything. I -was filled with a big, sudden sadness.</p> - -<p>I stood for a long time and looked out to the east, where the sprawling -mountain range held a bowl of dancing fireflies between her black -breasts.</p> - -<p>Presently I said to old Guy, "How long do you think it will be before -you have a manned rocket ready for Venus?"</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Volpla, by Wyman Guin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOLPLA *** - -***** This file should be named 51201-h.htm or 51201-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/2/0/51201/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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/license - - -Title: Volpla - -Author: Wyman Guin - -Release Date: February 13, 2016 [EBook #51201] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOLPLA *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Volpla - - By WYMAN GUIN - - Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - The only kind of gag worth pulling, I always - maintained, was a cosmic one--till I learned the - Cosmos has a really nasty sense of humor! - - -There were three of them. Dozens of limp little mutants that would have -sent an academic zoologist into hysterics lay there in the metabolic -accelerator. But there were three of _them_. My heart took a great -bound. - -I heard my daughter's running feet in the animal rooms and her -rollerskates banging at her side. I closed the accelerator and walked -across to the laboratory door. She twisted the knob violently, trying -to hit a combination that would work. - -I unlocked the door, held it against her pushing and slipped out so -that, for all her peering, she could see nothing. I looked down on her -tolerantly. - -"Can't adjust your skates?" I asked again. - -"Daddy, I've tried and tried and I just can't turn this old key tight -enough." - -I continued to look down on her. - -"Well, Dad-dee, I can't!" - -"Tightly enough." - -"What?" - -"You can't turn this old key tightly enough." - -"That's what I _say_-yud." - -"All right, wench. Sit on this chair." - -I got down and shoved one saddle shoe into a skate. It fitted -perfectly. I strapped her ankle and pretended to use the key to tighten -the clamp. - -Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could -create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No, -twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust -his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day -old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had -given me the idea of a flying mutant. - - * * * * * - -When Nijinsky saw me looking at him, he started a little tarantella -about his cage. I smiled with nostalgia when the fifth fingers of his -hands, four times as long as the others, uncurled as he spun about the -cage. - -I turned to the fitting of my daughter's other skate. - -"Daddy?" - -"Yes?" - -"Mother says you are eccentric. Is that true?" - -"I'll speak to her about it." - -"Don't you _know_?" - -"Do you understand the word?" - -"No." - -I lifted her out of the chair and stood her on her skates. "Tell your -mother that I retaliate. I say _she_ is beautiful." - -She skated awkwardly between the rows of cages from which mutants with -brown fur and blue fur, too much and too little fur, enormously long -and ridiculously short arms, stared at her with simian, canine or -rodent faces. At the door to the outside, she turned perilously and -waved. - -Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and -withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their -limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy. -The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a -month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to -learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. - -Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. -Modulating alleles had smoothed the freakish into a beautiful pattern. -These were no monsters blasted by the dosage of radiation into crippled -structures. They were lovely, perfect little creatures. - -My wife tried the door, too, but more subtly, as if casually touching -the knob while calling. - -"Lunch, dear." - -"Be right there." - -She peeked too, as she had for fifteen years, but I blocked her view -when I slipped out. - -"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace." - -"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out." - -"From me, of course." - -"But you love me just the same." - -"I adore you." She stretched on tiptoe and put her arms over my -shoulders and kissed me. - -My wife did indeed have a delicious-looking buffet ready on the -terrace. The maid was just setting down a warmer filled with hot -hamburgers. I gave the maid a pinch and said, "Hello, baby." - -My wife looked at me with a puzzled smile. "What on Earth's got into -you?" - -The maid beat it into the house. - -I flipped a hamburger and a slice of onion onto a plate and picked up -the ketchup and said, "I've reached the dangerous age." - -"Oh, good heavens!" - - * * * * * - -I dowsed ketchup over the hamburger, threw the onion on and closed it. -I opened a bottle of beer and guzzled from it, blew out my breath and -looked across the rolling hills and oak woods of our ranch to where the -Pacific shimmered. I thought, "All this and three volplas, too." - -I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, "Yes, sir, -the dangerous age. And, lady, I'm going to have fun." - -My wife sighed patiently. - -I walked over and put the arm that held the beer bottle around her -shoulder and chucked her chin up with my other hand. The golden sun -danced in her blue eyes. I watched that light in her beautiful eyes and -said, "But you're the only one I'm dangerous about." - -I kissed her until I heard rollerskates coming across the terrace from -one direction and a horse galloping toward the terrace from the other -direction. - -"You have lovely lips," I whispered. - -"Thanks. Yours deserve the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, too." - -Our son reared the new palomino I had just bought him for his -fourteenth birthday and yelled down, "Unhand that maiden, Burrhead, or -I'll give you lead poisoning." - -I laughed and picked up my plate and sat down in a chair. My wife -brought me a bowl of salad and I munched the hamburger and watched the -boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture. - -I thought, "By God, wouldn't he have a fit if he knew what I have back -there in that lab! Wouldn't they all!" - -The boy carried the saddle up onto the terrace and dropped it. "Mom, -I'd like a swim before I eat." He started undressing. - -"You _look_ as though a little water might help," she agreed, sitting -down next to me with her plate. - -The girl was yanking off her skates. "And I want one." - -"All right. But go in the house and put on your swim suit." - -"Oh, _Mother_. Why?" - -"Because, dear, I said so." - -The boy had already raced across the terrace and jack-knifed into the -pool. The cool sound of the dive sent the girl scurrying for her suit. - -I looked at my wife. "What's the idea?" - -"She's going to be a young woman soon." - -"Is that any reason for wearing clothes? Look at him. He's a young -_man_ sooner than already." - -"Well, if you feel that way about it, they'll both have to start -wearing clothes." - -I gulped the last of my hamburger and washed it down with the beer. -"This place is going to hell," I complained. "The old man isn't allowed -to pinch the maid and the kids can't go naked." I leaned toward her and -smacked her cheek. "But the food and the old woman are still the best." - -"Say, what goes with you? You've been grinning like a happy ape ever -since you came out of the lab." - -"I told you--" - -"Oh, not that again! You were dangerous at any age." - -I stood up and put my plate aside and bent over her. "Just the same, -I'm going to have a new kind of fun." - - * * * * * - -She reached up and grabbed my ear. She narrowed her eyes and put a mock -grimness on her lips. - -"It's a joke," I assured her. "I'm going to play a tremendous joke on -the whole world. I've only had the feeling once before in a small way, -but I've always...." - -She twisted my ear and narrowed her eyes even more. "Like?" - -"Well, when my old man was pumping his first fortune out of some oil -wells in Oklahoma, we lived down there. Outside this little town, I -found a litter of flat stones that had young black-snakes under each -slab. I filled a pail with them and took them into town and dumped them -on the walk in front of the movie just as Theda Bara's matinee let out. -The best part was that no one had seen me do it. They just couldn't -understand how so many snakes got there. I learned how great it can be -to stand around quietly and watch people encounter the surprise that -you have prepared for them." - -She let go of my ear. "Is that the kind of fun you're going to have?" - -"Yep." - -She shook her head. "Did I say you are _eccentric_?" - -I grinned. "Forgive me if I eat and run, dear. Something in the lab -can't wait." - -The fact was that I had something more in the lab than I had bargained -for. I had aimed only at a gliding mammal a little more efficient than -the Dusky Glider of Australia, a marsupial. Even in the basically -mutating colony, there had been a decidedly simian appearance in recent -years, a long shift from the garbage-dump rats I had started with. But -my first volplas were shockingly humanoid. - -They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in -organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of -growth in the metabolic accelerator. When I returned to the lab, they -were already moving about on the mattress and the male was trying to -stand. - -He was a little the larger and stood twenty-eight inches high. Except -for the face, chest and belly, they were covered with a soft, almost -golden down. Where it was bare of this golden fur, the skin was pink. -On their heads and across the shoulders of the male stood a shock of -fur as soft as chinchilla. The faces were appealingly humanoid, except -that the eyes were large and nocturnal. The cranium was in the same -proportion to the body as it is in the human. - - * * * * * - -When the male spread his arms, the span was forty-eight inches. I held -his arms out and tried to tease the spars open. They were not new. The -spars had been common to the basic colony for years and were the result -of serial mutations effecting those greatly elongated fifth fingers -that had first appeared in Nijinsky. No longer jointed like a finger, -the spar turned backward sharply and ran alongside the wrist almost to -the elbow. Powerful wrist muscles could snap it outward and forward. -Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened. - -The spars added nine inches on each side to his span. As they swept out -and forward, the lateral skin that had, till now, hung in resting folds -was tightened in a golden plane that stretched from the tip of the spar -to his waist and continued four inches wide down his legs to where it -anchored at the little toe. - -This was by far the most impressive plane that had appeared till now. -It was a true gliding plane, perhaps even a soaring one. I felt a -thrill run along my back. - -By four o'clock that afternoon, I was feeding them solid food and, with -the spars closed, they were holding little cups and drinking water from -them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and -decidedly amorous. - -Their humanoid qualities were increasingly apparent. There was a lumbar -curvature and buttocks. The shoulder girdle and pectoral muscles were -heavy and out of proportion, of course, yet the females had only one -pair of breasts. The chin and jaw were humanlike instead of simian and -the dental equipment was appropriate to this structure. What this -portended was brought home to me with a shock. - -I was kneeling on the mattress, cuffing and roughing the male as one -might a puppy dog, when one of the females playfully climbed up my -back. I reached around and brought her over my shoulder and sat her -down. I stroked the soft fur on her head and said, "Hello, pretty one. -Hello." - -The male watched me, grinning. - -He said, "'Ello, 'ello." - - * * * * * - -As I walked into the kitchen, giddy with this enormous joke, my wife -said, "Guy and Em are flying up for dinner. That rocket of Guy's they -launched in the desert yesterday was a success. It pulled Guy up to -Cloud Nine and he wants to celebrate." - -I danced a little jig the way old Nijinsky might do it. "Oh, great! -Oh, wonderful! Good old Guy! Everybody's a success. It's great. It's -wonderful. Success on success!" - -I danced into the kitchen table and tipped over a basket of green corn. -The maid promptly left the kitchen for some other place. - -My wife just stared at me. "Have you been drinking the lab alcohol?" - -"I've been drinking the nectar of the gods. My Hera, you're properly -married to Zeus. I've my own little Greeks descended from Icarus." - -She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. "Wouldn't you -just settle for a worldly martini?" - -"I will, yes. But first a divine kiss." - -I sipped at my martini and lounged in a terrace chair watching the -golden evening slant across the beautiful hills of our ranch. I -dreamed. I would invent a euphonious set of words to match the Basic -English vocabulary and teach it to them as their language. They would -have their own crafts and live in small tree houses. - -I would teach them legends: that they had come from the stars, that -they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first -white men enter these hills. - -When they were able to take care of themselves, I would turn them -loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before -anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers -would laugh. - -Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He -would conclude, "I am convinced that they have a language and speak it -intelligently." - -The government would issue denials. Reporters would "expose the truth" -and ask, "Where have these aliens come from?" The government would -reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters -and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends. - -Volpla wisdom would become a cult--and of all forms of comedy, cults, I -think, are the funniest. - - * * * * * - -"Darling, are you listening to me?" my wife asked with impatient -patience. - -"What? Sure. Certainly." - -"You didn't hear a word. You just sit there and grin into space." She -got up and poured me another martini. "Here, maybe this will sober you -up." - -I pointed. "That's probably Guy and Em." - -A 'copter sidled over the ridge, then came just above the oak woods -toward us. Guy set it gently on the landing square and we walked down -to meet them. - -I helped Em out and hugged her. Guy jumped out, asking, "Do you have -your TV set on?" - -"No," I answered. "Should I?" - -"It's almost time for the broadcast. I was afraid we would miss it." - -"What broadcast?" - -"From the rocket." - -"Rocket?" - -"For heaven's sake, darling," my wife complained, "I told you about -Guy's rocket being a success. The papers are full of it. So are the -broadcasts." - -As we stepped up on the terrace, she turned to Guy and Em. "He's out of -contact today. Thinks he's Zeus." - -I asked our son to wheel a TV set out onto the terrace while I made -martinis for our friends. Then we sat down and drank the cocktails and -the kids had fruit juice and we watched the broadcast Guy had tuned in. - -Some joker from Cal Tech was explaining diagrams of a multi-stage -rocket. - -After a bit, I got up and said, "I have something out in the lab I want -to check on." - -"Hey, wait a minute," Guy objected. "They're about to show the shots of -the launching." - -My wife gave me a look; you know the kind. I sat down. Then I got up -and poured myself another martini and freshened Em's up, too. I sat -down again. - -The scene had changed to a desert launching site. There was old Guy -himself explaining that when he pressed the button before him, the -hatch on the third stage of the great rocket in the background would -close and, five minutes later, the ship would fire itself. - -Guy, on the screen, pushed the button, and I heard Guy, beside me, give -a sort of little sigh. We watched the hatch slowly close. - -"You look real good," I said. "A regular Space Ranger. What are you -shooting at?" - -"Darling, will you please--be--_quiet_?" - -"Yeah, Dad. Can it, will you? You're always gagging around." - - * * * * * - -On the screen, Guy's big dead-earnest face was explaining more about -the project and suddenly I realized that this was an instrument-bearing -rocket they hoped to land on the Moon. It would broadcast from there. -Well, now--say, that _would_ be something! I began to feel a little -ashamed of the way I had been acting and I reached out and slapped old -Guy on the shoulder. For just a moment, I thought of telling him about -my volplas. But only for a moment. - -A ball of flame appeared at the base of the rocket. Miraculously, the -massive tower lifted, seemed for a moment merely to stand there on a -flaming pillar, then was gone. - -The screen returned to a studio, where an announcer explained that the -film just shown had been taken day before yesterday. Since then, the -rocket's third stage was known to have landed successfully at the south -shore of Mare Serenitatis. He indicated the location on a large lunar -map behind him. - -"From this position, the telemeter known as Rocket Charlie will be -broadcasting scientific data for several months. But now, ladies and -gentlemen, we will clear the air for Rocket Charlie's only general -broadcast. Stand by for Rocket Charlie." - -A chronometer appeared on the screen and, for several seconds, there -was silence. - -I heard my boy whisper, "Uncle Guy, this is the biggest!" - -My wife said, "Em, I think I'll just faint." - -Suddenly there was a lunar landscape on the screen, looking just as -it's always been pictured. A mechanical voice cut in. - -"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Hello, Earth,' from my position in -Mare Serenitatis. First I will pan the Menelaus Mountains for fifteen -seconds. Then I will focus my camera on Earth for five seconds." - -The camera began to move and the mountains marched by, stark and -awesomely wild. Toward the end of the movement, the shadow of the -upright third stage appeared in the foreground. - -Abruptly the camera made a giddy swing, focused a moment, and we were -looking at Earth. At that time, there was no Moon over California. It -was Africa and Europe we were looking at. - -"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Good-by, Earth.'" - -Well, when that screen went dead, there was pandemonium around our -terrace. Big old Guy was so happy, he was wiping tears from his eyes. -The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at -once. - - * * * * * - -I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to -one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month. -I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early -infants were females, which sped things up considerably. - -By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut -down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own -way. - -I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model, -and during the months while every female was busy in the metabolic -accelerator, I taught the language to the males. They spoke it softly -in high voices and the eight hundred words didn't seem to tax their -little skulls a bit. - -My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took -the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out -of the lab. - -I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley -about a mile back in the ranch. - -They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously. -They kept me busy relating their words for "tree," "rock," "sky" to the -objects. They had a little trouble with "sky." - -Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to -appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended -perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised -their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes. - -Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His -playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he -was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught -and stopped abruptly at the bottom of a little knoll. - -He probably meant to dive for her. But when he spread his arms, the -spars snapped out and those golden planes sheared into the air. He -sailed over her in a stunning sweep. Then he rose up and up until he -hung in the breeze for a long moment, thirty feet above the ground. - -He turned a plaintive face back to me, dipped worriedly and skimmed -straight for a thorn bush. He banked instinctively, whirled toward us -in a golden flash and crashed with a bounce to the grass. - -The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him -so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little -whoop. After that, it was a carnival. - - * * * * * - -They learned quickly and brilliantly. They were not fliers; they were -gliders and soarers. Before long, they took agilely to the trees and -launched themselves in beautiful glides for hundreds of feet, banking, -turning and spiraling to a gentle halt. - -I laughed out loud with anticipation. Wait till the first pair of these -was brought before a sheriff! Wait till reporters from the _Chronicle_ -motored out into the hills to witness this! - -Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a -tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool. -They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed -each other. Then they got out and lay on their backs with the planes -stretched to dry. - -I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of -leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I -could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little -actual surviving. I called the male over to me. - -He came and squatted, conference fashion, the elbows resting on the -ground, the wrists crossed at his chest. He spoke first. - -"Before the red men came, did we live here?" - -"You lived in places like this all along these mountains. Now there -are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you -naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors." - -"We can learn again. We want to stay here." His little face was so -solemn and thoughtful that I reached out and stroked the fur on his -head reassuringly. - -We both heard the whir of wings overhead. Two mourning doves flew -across the stream and landed in an oak on the opposite hillside. - -I pointed. "There's your food, if you can kill it." - -He looked at me. "How?" - -"I don't think you can get at them in the tree. You'll have to soar up -above and catch one of them on the wing when they fly away. Think you -can get up that high?" - -He looked around slowly at the breeze playing in the branches and -dancing along the hillside grass. It was as if he had been flying a -thousand years and was bringing antique wisdom to bear. "I can get up -there. I can stay for a while. How long will they be in the tree?" - -"Chances are they won't stay long. Keep your eye on the tree in case -they leave while you are climbing." - - * * * * * - -He ran to a nearby oak and clambered aloft. Presently he launched -himself, streaked down-valley a way and caught a warm updraft on a -hillside. In no time, he was up about two hundred feet. He began -criss-crossing the ridge, working his way back to us. - -The two girls were watching him intently. They came over to me -wonderingly, stopping now and then to watch him. When they were -standing beside me, they said nothing. They shaded their eyes with -tiny hands and watched him as he passed directly above us at about two -hundred and fifty feet. One of the girls, with her eyes fast on his -soaring planes, reached out and grasped my sleeve tightly. - -He flashed high above the stream and hung behind the crest of the hill -where the doves rested. I heard their mourning from the oak tree. It -occurred to me they would not leave that safety while the hawklike -silhouette of the volpla marred the sky so near. - -I took the girl's hand from my sleeve and spoke to her, pointing as I -did so. "He is going to catch a bird. The bird is in that tree. You -can make the bird fly so that he can catch it. Look here." I got up and -found a stick. "Can you do this?" - -I threw the stick up into a tree near us. Then I found her a stick. She -threw it better than I had expected. - -"Good, pretty one. Now run across the stream and up to that tree and -throw a stick into it." - -She climbed skillfully into the tree beside us and launched herself -across the stream. She swooped up the opposite hillside and landed -neatly in the tree where the doves rested. - -The birds came out of the tree, climbing hard with their graceful -strokes. - -I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla -half closed his planes and started dropping. He became a golden flash -across the sky. - -The doves abruptly gave up their hard climbing and fell away with -swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a -little. He veered giddily in the new direction and again dropped like a -molten arrow. - -The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did -something I would not have anticipated--he opened his planes and shot -lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the -bird's crossward flight. - -I saw the planes close momentarily. Then they opened again and the bird -plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and -stood looking back at us. - -The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her -own. The girl who had raised the birds from the tree volplaned back to -us, yammering like a bluejay. - - * * * * * - -It was a hero's welcome. He had to walk back, of course--he had no -way to carry such a load in flight. The girls glided out to meet -him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he -strutted in like every human hunter. - -They were raptly curious about the bird. They poked at it, marveled at -its feathers and danced about it in an embryonic rite of the hunt. But -presently the male turned to me. - -"We _eat_ this?" - -I laughed and took his tiny, four-fingered hand. In a sandy spot -beneath a great tree that overhung the creek, I built a small fire for -them. This was another marvel, but first I wanted to teach them how to -clean the bird. I showed them how to spit it and turn it over their -fire. - -Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were -gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal. - -When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep -the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached. -The male walked a little away with me when I left the fire. - -I said again, "Promise me you won't leave here until we've made you -ready for it." - -"We like it here. We will stay. Tomorrow you bring more of us?" - -"Yes. I will bring many more of you, if you promise to keep them all -here in this woods until they're ready to leave." - -"I promise." He looked up at the night sky and, in the firelight, I saw -his wonder. "You say we came from there?" - -"The old ones of your kind told me so. Didn't they tell you?" - -"I can't remember any old ones. You tell me." - -"The old ones told me you came long before the red men in a ship from -the stars." Standing there in the dark, I had to grin, visioning the -Sunday supplements that would be written in about a year, maybe even -less. - -He looked into the sky for a long time. "Those little lights are the -stars?" - -"That's right." - -"Which star?" - -I glanced about and presently pointed over a tree. "From Venus." Then -I realized I had blundered by passing him an English name. "In your -language, Pohtah." - -He looked at the planet a long time and murmured, "Venus. Pohtah." - - * * * * * - -That next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods. -There were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design -on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to -eight couples together with the current children of the women. Within -these groups, the adults were promiscuous, but apparently not outside -the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the -males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to -actual parenthood. - -By the end of the week, these super-families were scattered over -about four square miles of the ranch. They had found a new delicacy, -sparrows, and hunted them easily as they roosted at night. I had taught -the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the -local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree -houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through -midday and midnight. - -The afternoon my family returned home, I had a crew of workmen out -tearing down the animal rooms and lab building. The caretakers -had anesthetized all the experimental mutants, and the metabolic -accelerator and other lab equipment was being dismantled. I wanted -nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas -with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the -volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and -develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my -ranch and the fun would be on. - -My wife got out of the car and looked around at the workmen hurrying -about the disemboweled buildings and she said, "What on Earth is going -on here?" - -"I've finished my work and we no longer need the buildings. I'm going -to write a paper about my results." - -My wife looked at me appraisingly and shook her head. "I thought you -meant it. But you really ought to. It would be your first." - -My son asked, "What happened to the animals?" - -"Turned them over to the university for further study," I lied. - -"Well," he said to her, "you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision." - -Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation -on the ranch. - -Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I -could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed -through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes -moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across -the face of the full Moon, but I was the only one who noticed. - - * * * * * - -I made daily trips out to the original camp to meet the oldest of the -males, who had apparently established himself as a chief of all the -volpla families. He assured me that the volplas were staying close to -the ranch, but complained that the game was getting scarce. Otherwise -things were progressing nicely. - -The males now carried little stone-tipped spears with feathered shafts -that they could throw in flight. They used them at night to bring down -roosting sparrows and in the day to kill their biggest game, the local -rabbits. - -The women wore bluejay feathers on their heads. The men wore plumes of -dove feathers and sometimes little skirts fashioned of rabbit down. I -did some reading on the subject and taught them crude tanning of their -rabbit and squirrel hides for use in their tree homes. - -The tree homes were more and more intricately wrought with expert -basketry for walls and floor and tight thatching above. They were well -camouflaged from below, as I suggested. - -These little creatures delighted me more and more. For hours, I could -watch the adults, both the males and females, playing with the children -or teaching them to glide. I could sit all afternoon and watch them at -work on a tree house. - -So one day my wife asked, "How _does_ the mighty hunter who now returns -from the forest?" - -"Oh, fine. I've been enjoying the local animal life." - -"So has our daughter." - -"What do you mean?" - -"She has two of them up in her room." - -"Two what?" - -"I don't know. What do _you_ call them?" - -I went up the stairs three at a time and burst into my daughter's room. - -There she sat on her bed reading a book to two volplas. - -One of the volplas grinned and said in English, "Hello there, King -Arthur." - -"What's going on here?" I demanded of all three. - -"Nothing, Daddy. We're just reading like we always do." - -"Like _always_? How long has this been going on?" - -"Oh, weeks and weeks. How long has it been since you came here that -first time to visit me, Fuzzy?" - -The impolite volpla who had addressed me as King Arthur grinned at her -and calculated. "Oh, weeks and weeks." - -"But you're teaching them to read English." - -"Of course. They're such good pupils and so grateful. Daddy, you won't -make them go away, will you? We love each other, don't we?" - -Both volplas nodded vigorously. - -She turned back to me. "Daddy, did you know they can fly? They can fly -right out of the window and way up in the sky." - -"Is that a fact?" I said testily. I looked coldly at the two volplas. -"I'm going to speak to your chief." - - * * * * * - -Back downstairs again, I raved at my wife. "Why didn't you tell me a -thing like this was going on? How could you let such an unusual thing -go on and not discuss it with me?" - -My wife got a look on her face that I don't see very often. "Now you -listen to me, mister. Your whole life is a secret from us. Just what -makes you think your daughter can't have a little secret of her own?" - -She got right up close to me and her blue eyes snapped little sparks -all over me. "The fact is that I was wrong to tell you at all. I -promised her I wouldn't tell _anyone_. Look what happened when I did. -You go leaping around the house like a raving maniac just because a -little girl has a secret." - -"A fine secret!" I yelled. "Didn't it occur to you this might be -dangerous? Those creatures are over-sexed and...." I stumbled into an -awful silence while she gave me the dirtiest smile since the days of -the Malatestas. - -"How did _you_ ... suddenly get to _be_ ... the palace eunuch? Those -are sweet lovable little creatures without a harm in their furry little -bodies. But don't think I don't realize what's been going on. You -created them yourself. So, if they have any dirty ideas, I know where -they got them." - -I stormed out of the house. I spun the jeep out of the yard and ripped -off through the woods. - -The chief was sitting at home as comfortable as you please. He was -leaning back against the great oak that hid his tree house. He had a -little fire going and one of the women was roasting a sparrow for him. -He greeted me in volpla language. - -"Do you realize," I blurted angrily, "that there are two volplas in my -daughter's bedroom?" - -"Why, yes," he answered calmly. "They go there every day. Is there -anything wrong with that?" - -"She's teaching them the words of men." - -"You told us some men may be our enemies. We are anxious to know their -words, the better to protect ourselves." - -He reached around behind the tree and, right there in broad daylight, -that volpla pulled a copy of the San Francisco _Chronicle_ out of -hiding. He held it up apologetically. "We have been taking it for some -time from the box in front of your house." - -He spread the paper on the ground between us. I saw by the date that it -was yesterday's. He said proudly, "From the two who go to your house, I -have learned the words of men. As men say, I can 'read' most of this." - - * * * * * - -I just stood there gaping at him. How could I possibly recoup this -situation so that the stunning joke of the volplas wouldn't be lost? -Would it seem reasonable that the volplas, by observing and listening -to men, had learned their language? Or had they been taught it by a -human friend? - -That was it--I would just have to sacrifice anonymity. My family and I -had found a colony of them on our ranch and taught them English. I was -stuck with it because it was the truth. - -The volpla waved his long thin arm over the front page. "Men are -dangerous. They will shoot us with their guns if we leave here." - -I hastened to reassure him. "It will not be like that. When men -have learned about you, they will leave you alone." I stated this -emphatically, but for the first time I was beginning to see this might -not be a joke to the volplas. Nevertheless, I went on. "You must -disperse the families at once. You stay here with your family so we -remain in contact, but send the other families to other places." - -He shook his head. "We cannot leave these woods. Men would shoot us." - -Then he stood and looked squarely at me with his nocturnal eyes. -"Perhaps you are not a good friend. Perhaps you have lied to us. Why -are you saying we should leave this safety?" - -"You will be happier. There will be more game." - -He continued to stare directly at me. "There will be men. One has -already shot one of us. We have forgiven him and are friends. But one -of us is dead." - -"You are friends with _another_ man?" I asked, stunned. - -He nodded and pointed up the valley. "He is up there today with another -family." - -"Let's go!" - -He had the advantage of short glides, but the volpla chief couldn't -keep up with me. Sometimes trotting, sometimes walking fast, I got way -ahead of him. My hard breathing arose as much out of my anxiety about -the manner of handling this stranger as it did out of the exertion. - -I rounded a bend in the creek and there was my son sitting on the grass -near a cooking fire playing with a baby volpla and talking in English -to an adult volpla who stood beside him. As I approached, my son tossed -the baby into the air. The tiny planes opened and the baby drifted down -to his waiting hands. - -He said to the volpla beside him, "No, I'm sure you didn't come from -the stars. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure my father--" - -I yelled from behind them, "What business do you have telling them -that?" - - * * * * * - -The male volpla jumped about two feet. My son turned his head slowly -and looked at me. Then he handed the baby to the male and stood up. - -"You haven't any business out here!" I was seething. He had destroyed -the whole store of volpla legends with one small doubt. - -He brushed the grass from his trousers and straightened. The way he was -looking at me, I felt my anger turning to a kind of jelly. - -"Dad, I killed one of these little people yesterday. I thought he was a -hawk and I shot him when I was out hunting. I wouldn't have done that -if you had told me about them." - -I couldn't look at him. I stared at the grass and my face got hot. - -"The chief tells me that you want them to leave the ranch soon. You -think you're going to play a big joke, don't you?" - -I heard the chief come up behind me and stand quietly at my back. - -My son said softly, "I don't think it's much of a joke, Dad. I had to -listen to that one crying after I hit him." - -There were big black trail ants moving in the grass. It seemed to me -there was a ringing sound in the sky. I raised my head and looked at -him. "Son, let's go back to the jeep and we can talk about it on the -way home." - -"I'd rather walk." He sort of waved to the volpla he had been talking -to and then to the chief. He jumped the creek and walked away into the -oak woods. - -The volpla holding the baby stared at me. From somewhere far up the -valley, a crow was cawing. I didn't look at the chief. I turned and -brushed past him and walked back to the jeep alone. - -At home, I opened a bottle of beer and sat out on the terrace to wait -for my son. My wife came toward the house with some cut flowers from -the garden, but she didn't speak to me. She snapped the blades of the -scissors as she walked. - -A volpla soared across the terrace and landed at my daughter's bedroom -window. He was there only briefly and relaunched himself. He was -followed from the window in moments by the two volplas I had left with -my daughter earlier in the afternoon. I watched them with a vague -unease as the three veered off to the east, climbing effortlessly. - -When I finally took a sip of my beer, it was already warm. I set it -aside. Presently my daughter ran out onto the terrace. - -"Daddy, my volplas left. They said good-by and we hadn't even finished -the TV show. They said they won't see me again. Did you make them -leave?" - -"No. I didn't." - -She was staring at me with hot eyes. Her lower lip protruded and -trembled like a pink tear drop. - -"Daddy, you did so." She stomped into the house, sobbing. - -My God! In one afternoon, I had managed to become a palace eunuch, a -murderer and a liar! - - * * * * * - -Most of the afternoon went by before I heard my son enter the house. I -called to him and he came out and stood before me. I got up. - -"Son, I can't tell you how sorry I am for what happened to you. It -was my fault, not yours at all. I only hope you can forget the shock -of finding out what sort of creature you had hit. I don't know why I -didn't anticipate that such things would happen. It was just that I was -so intent on mystifying the whole world that I...." - -I stopped. There wasn't anything more to say. - -"Are you going to make them leave the ranch?" he asked. - -I was aghast. "After what has happened?" - -"Gee, what _are_ you going to do about them, Dad?" - -"I've been trying to decide. I don't know what I should do that will be -best for them." I looked at my watch. "Let's go back out and talk to -the chief." - -His eyes lighted and he clapped me on the shoulder, man to man. We ran -out and got into the jeep and drove back up to the valley. The late -afternoon Sun glared across the landscape. - -We didn't say much as we wound up the valley between the darkening -trees. I was filled more and more with the unease that had seized me -as I watched the three volplas leave my terrace and climb smoothly and -purposefully into the east. - -We got out at the chief's camp and there were no volplas around. The -fire had burned down to a smolder. I called in the volpla language, but -there was no answer. - -We went from camp to camp and found dead fires. We climbed to their -tree houses and found them empty. I was sick and scared. I called -endlessly till I was hoarse. - -At last, in the darkness, my son put a hand on my arm. "What are you -going to do, Dad?" - -Standing there in those terribly silent woods, I trembled. "I'll have -to call the police and the newspapers and warn everybody." - -"Where do you suppose they've gone?" - -I looked to the east where the stars, rising out of the great pass in -the mountains, glimmered like a deep bowl of fireflies. - -"The last three I saw were headed that way." - - * * * * * - -We had been gone from the house for hours. When we stepped out onto the -lighted terrace, I saw the shadow of a helicopter down on the strip. -Then I saw Guy sitting near me in a chair. He was holding his head in -his hands. - -Em was saying to my wife, "He was beside himself. There wasn't a -thing he could do. I had to get him away from there and I thought you -wouldn't mind if we flew over here and stayed with you till they've -decided what to do." - -I walked over and said, "Hello, Guy. What's the matter?" - -He raised his head and then stood and shook hands. "It's a mess. The -whole project will be ruined and we don't dare go near it." - -"What happened?" - -"Just as we set it off--" - -"Set what off?" - -"The rocket." - -"Rocket?" - -Guy groaned. - -"The _Venus_ rocket! Rocket Harold!" - -My wife interjected. "I was telling Guy we didn't know a thing about it -because they haven't delivered our paper in weeks. I've complained--" - -I waved her to silence. "Go on," I demanded of Guy. - -"Just as I pushed the button and the hatch was closing, a flock of owls -circled the ship. They started flying through the hatch and somehow -they jammed it open." - -Em said to my wife, "There must have been a hundred of them. They kept -coming and coming and flying into that hatch. Then they began dumping -out all the recording instruments. The men tried to run a motor-driven -ladder up to the ship and those owls hit the driver on the head and -knocked him out with some kind of instrument." - -Guy turned his grief-stricken face to me. "Then the hatch closed and we -don't dare go near the ship. It was supposed to fire in five minutes, -but it hasn't. Those damned owls could have...." - -There was a glare in the east. We all turned and saw a brief streak of -gilt pencil its way up the black velvet beyond the mountains. - -"That's it!" Guy shouted. "That's the ship!" Then he moaned. "A total -loss." - -I grabbed him by the shoulders. "You mean it won't make it to Venus?" - -He jerked away in misery. "Sure, it will make it. The automatic -controls can't be tampered with. But the rocket is on its way without -any recording instruments or TV aboard. Just a load of owls." - -My son laughed. "Owls! My dad can tell you a thing or two." - -I silenced him with a scowl. He shut up, then danced off across the -terrace. "Man, man! This is the biggest! The most--the greatest--the -end!" - - * * * * * - -The phone was ringing. As I went to the box on the terrace, I grabbed -my boy's arm. "Don't you breathe a word." - -He giggled. "The joke is on you, Pop. Why should I say anything? I'll -just grin once in a while." - -"Now you cut that out." - -He held onto my arm and walked toward the phone box with me, half -convulsed. "Wait till men land on Venus and find Venusians with a -legend about their Great White Father in California. That's when I'll -tell." - -The phone call was from a screaming psychotic who wanted Guy. I stood -near Guy while he listened to the excited voice over the wire. - -Presently Guy said, "No, no. The automatic controls will correct for -the delay in firing. It isn't that. It's just that there aren't any -instruments.... What? What just happened? Calm down. I can't understand -you." - -I heard Em say to my wife, "You know, the strangest thing occurred out -there. I _thought_ it looked like those owls were carrying things on -their backs. One of them dropped something and I saw the men open a -package wrapped in a leaf. You'd never believe what was in it--three -little birds roasted to a nice brown!" - -My son nudged me. "Smart owls. Long trip." - -I put my hand over his mouth. Then I saw that Guy was holding the -receiver limply away from his ear. - -He spluttered. "They just taped a radio message from the rocket. It's -true that the radio wasn't thrown out. But we didn't have a record like -_this_ on that rocket." - -He yelled into the phone. "Play it back." He thrust the receiver at me. - -For a moment, there was only a gritty buzz from the receiver. Then the -tape started playing a soft, high voice. "This is Rocket Harold saying -everything is well. This is Rocket Harold saying good-by to men." There -was a pause and then, in clear volpla language, another voice spoke. -"Man who made us, we forgive you. We know we did not come from the -stars, but we go there. I, chief, give you welcome to visit. Good-by." - - * * * * * - -We all stood around too exhausted by the excitement to say anything. I -was filled with a big, sudden sadness. - -I stood for a long time and looked out to the east, where the sprawling -mountain range held a bowl of dancing fireflies between her black -breasts. - -Presently I said to old Guy, "How long do you think it will be before -you have a manned rocket ready for Venus?" - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Volpla, by Wyman Guin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOLPLA *** - -***** This file should be named 51201.txt or 51201.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/2/0/51201/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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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