The important stuff, he thought. Who could judge importance? The
journals and the alien literature, those first of all, of course. But the
rest of it? Which of the rest of it? It was all important; every item should
be taken. And that might be possible. Given time and with no extra
complications, it might be possible to haul it all away, all that was in
this room and stored down in the basement. It all was his and he had a right
to it, for it had been given him. But that did not mean, he knew, that
Galactic Central might not object most strenuously to his taking any of it.
And if that should happen, it was vital that he should be able to get
away with those most important items. Perhaps he should go down into the
basement and lug up those tagged articles of which he knew the purpose. It
probably would be better to take material about which something might be
known than a lot of stuff about which there was nothing known.
He stood undecided, looking all about the room. There were all the
items on the coffee table and those should be taken, too, including the
little flashing pyramid of globes that Lucy had set to working.
He saw that the Pet once again had crawled off the table and fallen on
the floor. He stooped and picked it up and held it in his hands. It had
grown an extra knob or two since the last time he had looked at it and it
was now a faint and delicate pink, whereas the last time he had noticed it
had been a cobalt blue.
He probably was wrong, he told himself, in calling it the Pet. It might
not be alive. But if it were, it was a sort of life he could not even guess
at. It was not metallic and it was not stone, but very close to both. A file
made no impression on it and he’d been tempted a time or two to whack it
with a hammer to see what that might do, although he was willing to bet it
would have no effect at all. It grew slowly, and it moved, but there was no
way of knowing how it moved. But leave it and come back and it would have
moved-a little, not too much. It knew it was being watched and it would not
move while watched. It did not eat so far as he could see and it seemed to
have no wastes. It changed colors, but entirely without season and with no
visible reason for the change.
A being from somewhere in the direction of Sagittarius had given it to
him just a year or two ago, and the creature, Enoch recalled, had been
something for the books. He probably wasn’t actually a walking plant, but
that was what he’d looked like-a rather spindly plant that had been shorted
on good water and cheated on good soil, but which had sprouted a crop of
dime-store bangles that rang like a thousand silver bells when he made any
sort of motion.
Enoch remembered that he had tried to ask the being what the gift might
be, but the walking plant had simply clashed its bangles and filled the
place with ringing sound and didn’t try to answer.
So he had put the gift on one end of the desk and hours later, after
the being was long gone, he found that it had moved to the other end of the
desk. But it had seemed too crazy to think that a thing like that could
move, so he finally convinced himself that he was mistaken as to where he’d
put it. It was not until days later that he was able to convince himself it
moved.
He’d have to take it when he left and Lucy’s pyramid and the cube that
showed you pictures of other worlds when you looked inside of it and a great
deal of other stuff.
He stood with the Pet held in his hand and now, for the first time, he
wondered at why he might be packing.
He was acting as if he’d decided he would leave the station, as if he’d
chosen Earth as against the galaxy. But when and how, he wondered, had he
decided it? Decision should be based on weighing and on measuring and he had
weighed and measured nothing. He had not posed the advantages and the
disadvantages and tried to strike a balance. He had not thought it out.
Somehow, somewhere, it had sneaked up on him-this decision which had seemed
impossible, but now had been reached so easily.
Was it, he wondered, that he had absorbed, unconsciously, such an op
mixture of alien thought and ethics that he had evolved, unknown to himself,
a new way in which to think, perhaps some subconscious way of thought that
had lain inoperative until now, when it had been needed.
There was a box or two out in the shed and he’d go and get them and
finish up the packing of what he’d pick out here. Then he’d go down into the
basement and start lugging up the stuff that he had tagged. He glanced
toward the window and realized, with some surprise, that he would have to
hurry, for the sun was close to setting. It would be evening soon.
He remembered that he’d forgotten lunch, but he had no time to eat. He
could get something later.
He turned to put the Pet back on the table and as he did a faint sound
caught his ear and froze him where he stood.
It was the slight chuckle of a materializer operating and he could not
mistake it. He had heard the sound too often to be able to mistake it.
And it must be, he knew, the official materializer, for no one could
have traveled on the other without the sending of a message.
Ulysses, he thought. Ulysses coming back again. Or perhaps some other
member of Galactic Central. For if Ulysses had been coming, he would have
sent a message.
He took a quick step forward so he could see the corner where the
materializer stood and a dark and slender figure was stepping out from the
target circle.
“Ulysses!” Enoch cried, but even as he spoke he realized it was not
Ulysses.
For an instant he had the impression of a top hat, of white tie and
tails, of a jauntiness, and then he saw that the creature was a rat that
walked erect, with sleek, dark fur covering its body and a sharp, axlike
rodent face. For an instant, as it turned its head toward him, he caught the
red glitter of its eyes. Then it turned back toward the corner and he saw
that its hand was lifted and was pulling out of a harnessed holster hung
about its miple something that glinted with a metallic shimmer even in the
shadow.
There was something very wrong about it. The creature should have
greeted him. It should have said hello and come out to meet him. But instead
it had thrown him that one red-eyed glance and then turned back to the
corner.
The metallic object came out of the holster and it could only be a gun,
or at least some sort of weapon that one might think of as a gun.
And was this the way, thought Enoch, that they would close the station?
One quick shot, without a word, and the station keeper dead upon the floor.
With someone other than Ulysses, because Ulysses could not be trusted to
kill a long-time friend.
The rifle was lying across the desk top and there wasn’t any time.
But the ratlike creature was not turning toward the room. It still was
facing toward the corner and its hand was coming up, with the weapon
glinting in it.
An alarm twanged within Enoch’s brain and he swung his arm and yelled,
hurling the Pet toward the creature in the corner, the yell jerked out of
him involuntarily from the bottom of his lungs.
For the creature, he realized, had not been intent on the killing of
the keeper, but the disruption of the station. The only thing there was to
aim at in the corner was the control complex, the nerve center of the
station’s operation. And if that should be knocked out, the station would be
dead. To set it in operation once again it would be necessary to send a crew
of technicians out in a spaceship from the nearest station-a trip that would
require many years to make.
At Enoch’s yell, the creature jerked around, dropping toward a crouch,
and the flying Pet, tumbling end for end, caught it in the belly and drove
it back against the wall.
Enoch charged, arms outspread to grapple with the creature. The gun
flew from the creature’s hand and pinwheeled across the floor. Then Enoch