And who had it been that said humans were the only liars?
Joke: Wear a blanket around your shoulders and send your ships to Earth for the drivel that they write there – never knowing, never guessing that you have upon your back the very thing that’s needed to break Earth’s monopoly on fiction.
_And that_, said Hart, _is a joke on you._
_If I ever find you, I’ll cram it down your throat._
Angela came up the stairs bearing an offering of peace. She set the kettle on the table. “Some soup,” she said. “I’m good at making soup.”
“Thanks, Angela,” he said. “I forgot to eat today.”
“Why the knapsack, Kemp? Going on a hiker?”
“No, going on vacation.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“I just now made up my mind to go. A little while ago.”
“I’m sorry I was so angry at you. It turned out all right. Green Shirt and his gang made their getaway.”
“So Jasper can come out.”
“He’s already out. He’s plenty sore at you.”
“That’s all right with me. I’m no pal of his.” She sat down in a chair and watched him pack. “Where are you going, Kemp?”
“I’m hunting for an alien.”
“Here in the city? Kemp, you’ll never find him.”
“Not in the city. I’ll have to ask around.”
“But there aren’t any aliens – ”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a crazy fool,” she cried. “You can’t do it, Kemp. I won’t let you. How will you live? What will you do?”
“I’ll write.”
“Write? You can’t write! Not without a yarner.”
“I’ll write by hand. Indecent as it may be, I’ll write by hand because I’ll know the things I write about. It’ll be in my blood and at my fingertips. I’ll have the smell of it and the color of it and the taste of it!”
She leaped from the chair and beat at his chest with tiny fists.
“It’s filthy! It’s uncivilized! It’s – ”
“That’s the way they wrote before. All the millions of stories, all the great ideas, all the phrases that you love to quote. And that is the way it should have stayed. This is a dead-end street we’re on.”
“You’ll come back,” she said. “You’ll find that you are wrong and you’ll come back.”
He shook his head at her. “Not until I find my alien.”
“It isn’t any alien you are after. It is something else. I can see it in you.”
She whirled around and raced out the door and down the stairs.
He went back to his packing and when he had finished, he sat down and ate the soup. Angela, he thought, was right. She was good at making soup.
And she was right in another thing as well. It was no alien he was seeking.
For he didn’t need an alien. And he didn’t need a blanket and he didn’t need a yarner.
He took the kettle to the sink and washed it beneath the tap and dried it carefully. Then he set it in the center of the table where Angela, when she came, would be sure to see it.
Then he took up the knapsack and started slowly down the stairs.
He had reached the street when he heard the cry behind him. It was Angela and she was running after him. He stopped and waited for her.
“I’m going with you, Kemp.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. It’ll be rough and hard. Strange lands and alien people. And we haven’t any money.”
“Yes, we have. We have that fifty. The one I tried to loan you. It’s all I have and it won’t go far, I know. But we have it.”
“You’re looking for no alien.”
“Yes, I am. I’m looking for an alien, too. All of us, I think, are looking for your alien.”
He reached out an arm and swept her roughly to him, held her close against him.
“Thank you, Angela,” he said.
Hand in hand they headed for the spaceport, looking for a ship that would take them to the stars.