The laboratory rooms were hot, and not just because they had been in the part of the ship that had been allowed to heat up in the solar passage. Things were being made here, and there were furnaces and ovens to make them in.
Sandy was entranced. In the first chamber two old Hakh’hli were tending a plastics blender, out of which fabrics were being extruded in a dozen colors and textures. “For you,” the boss said proudly. “These will be socks, these will be underwear, this is a ‘necktie.’ But if you want to see something really interesting, go next door.”
Next door was really interesting, as promised, and even hotter than the fabric room. Part of the heat came from a furnace. An elderly Senior was standing over a couple of technicians who were carefully maneuvering a crucible. They tipped the crucible, and tiny, shiny, orange-glowing droplets fell into a tall vat. Sandy couldn’t see inside it, but he heard a sudden violent sputtering from within.
Then the senior reached inside—Sandy blinked, but evidently the water inside was still cool in spite of the molten droplets it had quenched—and pulled out a couple of fingernail-sized, irregular lumps of yellow metal. He tossed them back and forth, hissing in amused discomfort, then handed one to Sandy. “Gold,” he said proudly, using the English words. “Ith for you. Ith to give tho can buy thingth.”
“Yes, to buy things,” Sandy nodded eagerly. How many lessons they had had in “buying” and “shopping” and “paying”! The little golden nugget almost burned Sandy’s palm, but he held it with reverence because it was an Earth kind of thing.
“I think buying things is silly,” Obie put in, curiously fondling one of the little chunks of metal. He glanced up, and his eyes sprang a quick tear of surprise. “Theseus!” he cried. “I didn’t expect to see you here!”
It was obvious that the other young Hakh’hli hadn’t expected to see them either. Theseus was one of the three or four twelves of young Hakh’hli who had trained with them through all their childhood and growth, then suddenly been taken away from them when the final half-twelve had been selected for the Earth mission.
The other thing that was obvious was that the goldsmith hadn’t expected them to meet and didn’t like the fact that they had. He excused himself and huddled over a communications screen as Theseus said suspiciously, “You two aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s orders not, that’s why!”
“That’s not a reason,” Obie said stubbornly, sticking to their story. “We were ordered to stay in our quarters, that’s all. Then we were ordered to go—somewhere—and nobody said we couldn’t look around. What are you doing here?”
“I’m picking some things up,” said the reject. “You’ll be swallowing your own spit if they catch you here.”
“Why? What’s the big secret?”
“We’re not supposed to discuss it,” Theseus said firmly, and he and Obie inched nose to nose, glaring at each other.
It was never a good idea for Lysander to get between any two Hakh’hli who were about to get physical, but these two were his friends—well, Obie was definitely his friend, no doubt of that, and Theseus had at least been a comrade, before the group had been split up. He opened his mouth to try reason.
It wasn’t necessary. A voice from the communicator squawked at them. “John William Washington! HoCeth’ik ti’Koli-kak!” It was MyThara’s voice, and the fact that she called them by their formal names told them how much trouble they were in. Sandy darted a furious glance at the goldsmith for turning them in, but there was no time to argue. “I did not believe the Thenior when he called, but it’th true,” MyThara went on. “You are both where you have no buthiness being! Meet me at onthe in your quarterth, Lythander! And you, Oberon, get back to the thimulator chamber where you belong!”
When MyThara got to the cohort’s quarters, slower than Lysander because she was limping more than ever, she found him at his carrel, gazing at the picture of his mother. It wasn’t entirely guile on his part. When he was in trouble he had always found solace in gazing at the only memento he had of the woman who had given him birth. But it wasn’t entirely without guile, either, because he had learned early on that MyThara’s wrath at any transgression could often be muted if he played on her sympathy.
“That ith no uthe, Lythander,” she said sternly. “You have been very wicked today!”
“I know I have, MyThara,” he said in penitence. But he added, anyway, “MyThara? Why is this the only picture I have of her?”
She hissed reprovingly at him, but he could see that she was taking the bait. “It ith not a Hakh’hli cuthtom to keep picturth of dead people,” she reminded him.
“But I’m not a Hakh’hli!”
“Indeed not,” she agreed, with sympathy creeping into her voice. “Well, thith ith the betht we could do. We found it in your father’th ‘wallet.’ It ith a good likeneth, though.”
“You know what she looked like?” he asked eagerly. “Of courthe,” said MyThara, and added considerately, “She wath very beautiful. For an Earth perthon, I mean. You look like her, I think.”
Sandy gave her a skeptical scowl. “What are you talking about? She’s so skinny, and I’m so fat!”
“You are not fat, Lythander. That ith muthle.”
“But look at the difference between us!”
“Of courthe there ith a differenthe. The differenthe ith becauthe you grew up here on the ship. Earth gravity ith only eight-twelfthth of ship normal. If your mother had come to uth ath a baby she would be a lot thtockier, too.”
“Yes,” Sandy said reasonably, “I see that, but—”
MyThara’s patience had worn out. “Thandy! Don’t think I don’t know what you are doing.”
“I beg your pardon?” he said, trying to look innocent.
She wrinkled her nose in sorrow, looking weary as well as disappointed. “Oh, Lythander,” she said, shuddering in sadness. “How could you?”
“That’s Lysander,” he snapped, to hurt her feelings.
“Ekthcuthe—I mean,” she said, angrily forcing out the sibilants, “excuse me. I am quite tired, dear Lysander, but I am also disappointed. May I tell you a tht—a story?”
“I don’t see any way of stopping you,” he said.
She looked at him sadly, but began her story. “Once, long ago, when I was only half-tailed, a hawkbee queen escaped. She flew into the thpatheth between the wallth and laid eggth—” she was lisping badly again, but Sandy didn’t have the heart to tell her—“and there wath a whole hawkbee netht that no one knew about. Then she laid queen eggth. When they hatched, the new queenth flew away, and new nethtth were thtarted, all out of thight. No one knew. Only people kept complaining. Where do all thethe hawkbeeth come from? What can they be living on, there aren’t any bugth here, are there?
“And then—” She paused, looking dire. “And then there came a time when the pilot wanted to make a courthe adjuthtment, and he fed hith inthructionth into the thentral command controller machine—and it didn’t rethpond! The ship didn’t change courthe!”
“Golly,” Lysander said.
His nurse waggled her tongue solemnly. “Golly, indeed,” she said. “Of courthe, the backup thythtemth took over, and the courthe change wath made. But when they checked out the mathter machine, it hada hawkbee netht in it! The netht had short-thircuited itth relayth! And, oh, Thandy, you would not believe how hard it wath, for twelveth of dayth after that, to thcan every thpan of the ductth and ventth and pathageth! Everyone wath working an extra twelfth-day every day until it wath cleaned up and the latht wild hawkbee netht wath wiped out. Do you thee the moral of the thtory?”
“Of course,” Sandy said promptly. “Or, no. Not exactly. What is it?”
She touched the tip of her tongue to his arm before she spoke. “The moral,” she said, “ith that even good thingth can do great harm if they are done in thecret. Now do you thee what I mean?”
“Certainly I do,” said Lysander, certain that she would go on to explain it anyway.
“Thertainly you do,” she agreed. “The moral ith that you mutht never keep thecretth from your thuperiorth.”
Sandy thought that over for a moment. “They keep secrets from me,” he objected. “They didn’t tell us why Theseus and the rest aren’t allowed to see us any more.”
“But that’th very different, ithn’t it? You don’t need to know thothe thingth. At leatht you don’t need it now, and when you do, you’ll be told. But the Theniorth need to know, becauthe they’re the oneth who have to make the dethisionth, after all. You don’t, do you?”
“No,” Lysander said thoughtfully. “I don’t make any decisions.” But he wished, all the same, that at least now and then he did.