“Let them now be returned forthwith to the space-time whence they came.”
Chapter 12
I didn’t think it was safe to make our atmosphere descent in New Jersey without filing a flight plan. Princeton is near important targets; we might be homed-on by everything up to A-missiles. The Mother Thing got that indulgent chuckle in her song: (“I fancy we can avoid that.”)
She did. She put us down in a side street, sang good-bye and was gone. It’s not illegal to be out at night in space suits, even carrying a rag dolly. But it’s unusual-cops hauled us in. They phoned Peewee’s father and in twenty minutes we were in his study, drinking cocoa and talking and eating shredded wheat.
Peewee’s mother almost had a fit. While we told our story she kept gasping, “I can’t believe it!” until Professor Reisfeld said, “Stop it, Janice. Or go to bed.” I don’t blame her. Her daughter disappears on the Moon and is given up for dead-then miraculously reappears on Earth. But Professor Reisfeld believed us. The way the Mother Thing had “understanding” he had “acceptance.” When a fact came along, he junked theories that failed to match.
He examined Peewee’s suit, had her switch on the helmet, shined a light to turn it opaque, all with a little smile. Then he reached for the phone. “Dario must see this.”
“At midnight. Curt?”
“Please, Janice. Armageddon won’t wait for office hours.”
“Professor Reisfeld?”
“Yes, Kip?”
“Uh, you may want to see other things first.”
“That’s possible.”
I took things from Oscar’s pockets-two beacons, one for each of us, some metal “paper” covered with equations, two “happy things,” and two silvery spheres. We had stopped on Vega Five, spending most of the time under what I suppose was hypnosis while Prof Joe and another professor thing pumped us for what we knew of human mathematics. They hadn’t been learning math from us-oh, no! They wanted the language we use in mathematics, from radicals and vectors to those weird symbols in higher physics, so that they could teach us; the results were on the metal paper. First I showed Professor Reisfeld the beacons. “The Mother Thing’s beat now includes us. She says to use these if we need her. She’ll usually be close by-a thousand light-years at most. But even if she is far away, she’ll come.”
“Oh.” He looked at mine. It was neater and smaller than the one she haywired on Pluto. “Do we dare take it apart?”
“Well, it’s got a lot of power tucked in it. It might explode.”
“Yes, it might.” He handed it back, looking wistful.
A “happy thing” can’t be explained. They look like those little abstract sculptures you feel as well as look at. Mine was like obsidian but warm and not hard; Peewee’s was more like jade. The surprise comes when you touch one to your head. I had Professor Reisfeld do so and he looked awed-the Mother Thing is all around you and you feel warm and safe and understood.
He said, “She loves you. The message wasn’t for me. Excuse me.”
“Oh, she loves you, too.”
“Eh?”
“She loves everything small and young and fuzzy and helpless. That’s why she’s a ‘mother thing.’ ”
I didn’t realize how it sounded. But he didn’t mind. “You say she is a police officer?”
“Well, she’s more of a juvenile welfare officer-this is a slum neighborhood we’re in, backward and pretty tough. Sometimes she has to do things she doesn’t like. But she’s a good cop and somebody has to do nasty jobs. She doesn’t shirk them.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t.”
“Would you like to try it again?”
“Do you mind?”
“Oh, no, it doesn’t wear out.”
He did and got that warm happy look. He glanced at Peewee, asleep with her face in her cereal. “I need not have worried about my daughter, between the Mother Thing-and you.”
“It was a team,” I explained. “We couldn’t have made it without Peewee. The kid’s got guts.”
“Too much, sometimes.”
“Other times you need that extra. These spheres are recorders. Do you have a tape recorder, Professor?”
“Certainly, sir.” We set it up and let a sphere talk to it. I wanted a tape because the spheres are one-shot-the molecules go random again. Then I showed him the metal paper. I had tried to read it, got maybe two inches into it, then just recognized a sign here and there. Professor Reisfeld got halfway down the first page, stopped. “I had better make those phone calls.”