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“They? How many do you have?”
“Two.”
“Where are they?”
The Industrialist touched her arm. “Don't chivvy the child any further,” he said in a low voice. ”If he says he'll get rid of them, he will, and that's punishment enough.”
He dismissed the matter from his mind.
Eight
Lunch was half over when Slim dashed into the dining room. For a moment, he stood abashed, and then he said in what was almost hysteria, “I've got to speak to Red. I've got to say something.”
Red looked up in fright, but the Astronomer said, “I don't think, son, you're being very polite. You've kept lunch waiting.”
“I'm sorry, Father.”
“Oh, don't rate the lad,” said the Industrialist's wife. “He can speak to Red if he wants to, and there was no damage done to the lunch.”
“I've got to speak to Red alone,” Slim insisted.
“Now that's enough,” said the Astronomer with a kind of gentleness that was obviously manufactured for the benefit of strangers and which had beneath it an easily recognized edge. “Take your seat.”
Slim did so, but he ate only when someone looked directly upon him. Even then he was not very successful.
Red caught his eyes. He made soundless words, “Did the animals get loose?”
Slim shook his head slightly. He whispered, “No, it's-”
The Astronomer looked at him hard and Slim faltered to a stop.
With lunch over, Red slipped out of the room, with a microscopic motion at Slim to follow.
They walked in silence to the creek.
Then Red turned fiercely upon his companion. “Look here, what's the idea of telling my dad we were feeding animals?”
Slim said, “I didn't. I asked what you feed animals. That's not the same as saying we were doing it. Besides, it's something else, Red.”
But Red had not used up his grievances. “And where did you go, anyway? I thought you were coming to the house. They acted like it was my fault you weren't there.”
“But I'm trying to tell you about that, if you'd only shut up a second and let me talk. You don't give a fellow a chance.”
“Well, go on and tell me if you've got so much to say.”
“I'm trying to. I went back to the spaceship. The folks weren't there any more and I wanted to see what it was like.”
“It isn't a spaceship,” said Red sullenly. He had nothing to lose.
“It is, too. I looked inside. You could look through the ports and I looked inside and they were dead.”; He looked sick. “They were dead.”
“Who were dead?”
Slim screeched, ”Animals! Like our animals! Only they aren't animals. They're people things from other planets.”
For a moment, Red might have been turned to stone. It didn’t occur to him to disbelieve Slim at this point. Slim looked too genuinely the bearer of just such tidings. He said finally, “Oh, my.”
“Well, what are we going to do? Golly, will we get a whopping if they find out!” He was shivering.
“We better turn them loose,” said Red.
“They'll tell on us.”
“They can't talk our language. Not if they're from another planet”
“Yes, they can. Because I remember my father talking about some stuff like that to my mother when he didn't know I was in the room. He was talking about visitors who could talk with the mind. Telepathery or something. I thought he was making it up.”
“Well, holy smokes. I mean-holy smokes.” Red looked up. “I tell you. My dad said to get rid of them. Let's sort of bury them somewhere or throw them in the creek.”
“He told you to do that?”
“He made me say I had animals and then he said, 'Get rid of them.' I got to do what he says. Holy smokes, he's my dad.”
Some of the panic left Slim's heart. It was a thoroughly legalistic way out. “Well, let's do it right now then, before they find out. Oh, golly, if they find out, will we be in trouble!”
They broke into a run toward the barn, unspeakable visions in their minds.
Nine
It was different, looking at them as though they were “people.” As animals, they had been interesting; as ”people,” horrible. Their eyes, which were neutral little objects before, now seemed to watch them with active malevolence.
“They're making noises,” said Slim in a whisper.
“I guess they're talking or something,” said Red. Fu
The canvas was off but they were just watching. The ground meat, Slim noticed, hadn't been touched.
Slim said, “Aren't you going to do something?”
“Aren't you?”
“You found them.”
“It's your turn now.”
“No, it isn't. You found them. It’s your fault, the whole thing. I was just watching.”
“You joined in, Slim. You know you did.”
“I don't care. You found them and that's what I’ll say when they come here looking for us.”
Red said, “All right for you.” But the thought of the consequences inspired him anyway, and he reached for the cage door.
Slim said, “Wait!”
Red was glad to. He said, “Now what's biting you?”
“One of them's got something on him that looks like it might be iron or something.”
“Where?”
“Right there. I saw it before but I thought it was just part of him. But if he's 'people,' maybe it's a disintegrator gun.”
“What's that?”
“I read about it in the books from Beforethewars. Mostly people with spaceships have disintegrator guns. They point them at you and you get disintegratored.”
“They didn't point it at us till now,” pointed out Red with his heart not quite in it.
“I don't care. I'm not hanging around here and getting disintegratored. I'm getting my father.”
“Cowardy-cat. Yellow cowardy-cat.”
“I don't care. You can call all the names you want, but if you bother them now, you'll get disintegratored. You wait and see, and it'll be all your fault.”
He made for the narrow spiral stairs that led to the main floor of the barn, stopped at its head, then backed away.
Red's mother was moving up, panting a little with the exertion and smiling a tight smile for the benefit of Slim in his capacity as guest.
“Red! You, Red! Are you up there? Now don't try to hide. I know this is where you're keeping them. Cook saw where you ran with the meat.”
Red quavered, “Hello, Ma!”
“Now show me those nasty animals. I'm going to see to it that you get rid of them right away.”
It was over! And despite the imminent corporal punishment, Red felt something like a load fall from him. At least the decision was out of his hands.
“Right there, Ma. I didn't do anything to them, Ma. I didn't know. They just looked like little animals and I thought you'd let me keep them, Ma. I wouldn't have taken the meat only they wouldn't eat grass or leaves and we couldn't find good nuts or berries and Cook never lets me have anything or I would. have asked her and I didn't know it was for lunch and:-”
He was speaking on the sheer momentum of terror and did not realize that his mother did not hear him but, with eyes frozen and popping at the cage, was screaming in thin, piercing tones.