“The Pocket History of Mars,” said Rumfoord, “makes no mention of the fact that I have been powerfully influenced by forces emanating from the planet Tralfamadore.” He gritted his teeth.
“Before my dog and I go crackling off through space like buggywhips in the hands of a lunatic,” said Rumfoord, “I should very much like to know what the message you are carrying is.”
“I — I don’t know,” said Salo. “It’s sealed. I have orders — ”
“Against all orders from Tralfamadore,” said Winston Niles Rumfoord, “against all your instincts as a machine, but in the name of our friendship, Salo, I want you to open the message and read it to me now.”
Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and young Chrono, their savage son, picnicked sulkily in the shade of a Titanic daisy by the Winston Sea. Each member of the family had a statue against which to lean.
Bearded Malachi Constant, playboy of the Solar System, still wore his bright yellow suit with the orange question marks. It was the only suit he had.
Constant leaned against a statue of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis was trying to befriend two hostile and terrifyingly huge birds, apparently bald eagles. Constant was unable to identify the birds properly as Titanic bluebirds, since he hadn’t seen a Titanic bluebird yet. He had arrived on Titan only an hour before.
Beatrice, looking like a gypsy queen, smoldered at the foot of a statue of a young physical student. At first glance, the laboratory-gowned scientist seemed to be a perfect servant of nothing but truth. At first glance, one was convinced that nothing but truth could please him as he beamed at his test tube. At first glance, one thought that he was as much above the beastly concerns of mankind as the harmoniums in the caves of Mercury. There, at first glance, was a young man without vanity, without lust — and one accepted at its face value the title Salo had engraved on the statue, Discovery of Atomic Power.
And then one perceived that the young truth-seeker had a shocking erection.
Beatrice hadn’t perceived this yet.
Young Chrono, dark and dangerous like his mother, was already committing his first act of vandalism — or was trying to. Chrono was trying to inscribe a dirty Earthling word on the base of the statue against which he had been leaning. He was attempting the job with a sharp corner of his good luck piece.
The seasoned Titanic peat, almost as hard as diamonds, did the cutting instead, rounding off the corner’s point.
The statue on which Chrono was working was of a family group — a Neanderthal man, his mate, and their baby. It was a deeply-moving piece. The squat, shaggy, hopeful creatures were so ugly they were beautiful.
Their importance and universality was not spoiled by the satiric title Salo had given the piece. He gave frightful titles to all his statues, as though to proclaim desperately that he did not take himself seriously as an artist, not for an instant. The title he gave to the Neanderthal family derived from the fact that the baby was being shown a human foot roasting on a crude spit.
The title was This Little Piggy.
“No matter what happens, no matter what beautiful or sad or happy or frightening thing happens,” Malachi Constant told his family there on Titan, “I’m damned if I’ll respond. The minute it looks like something or somebody wants me to act in some special way, I will freeze.” He glanced up at the rings of Saturn, curled his lip. “Isn’t that just too beautiful for words?” He spat on the ground.
“If anybody ever expects to use me again in some tremendous scheme of his,” said Constant, “be is in for one big disappointment. He will be a lot better off trying to get a rise out of one of these statues.”
He spat again.
“As far as I’m concerned,” said Constant, “the Universe is a junk yard, with everything in it overpriced. I am through poking around in the junk heaps, looking for bargains. Every so-called bargain,” said Constant, “has been connected by fine wires to a dynamite bouquet.” He spat again.