‘I’m starving,’ said the illustration. ‘The people who usually set out food for me have gone on a vacation. I’ve been scrounging ever since. Have you, perhaps, sometime in your life, tried scrounging for your food?’
‘I don’t think,’ said Blake, ‘that I ever have.’
It did not disappear. It kept on staying and it kept on talking and there was no getting rid of it.
Good God, thought Blake, here I go again!
‘If you are hungry,’ he said, ‘we should get at the hamper. Is there anything, especially, that you like to eat?’
‘I eat,’ said the creature, ‘anything, that Homo sapiens can. I am not fussy in the least. My metabolism seems to match most admirably with the denizens of Earth.’
Together they walked over to the hamper and Blake lifted off the cover.
‘You seem unconcerned,’ said the creature, ‘by my appearance from the log jam.’
‘It’s no concern of mine,’ said Blake, trying to think fast, but unable to prod his mind out of its jog. ‘We have sandwiches here and some cake and a bowl of. I believe – yes, a bowl of potato salad, and some devilled eggs.’
‘If you don’t mind, I will take a couple of those sandwiches.’
‘Go right ahead,’ invited Blake.
‘You do not intend to join me?’
‘I had breakfast just a while ago.’
The creature sat down with a sandwich in each hand and began eating ravenously.
‘You must pardon my poor table manners,’ it said to Blake, ‘but I have not had any decent food for almost two weeks. I suppose that I expect too much. These people that take care of me set out real food for me. Not like a lot of people do – just a bowl of milk.’
Crumbs clung to its trembling whiskers and it went on eating. It finished the two sandwiches and reached out a hand, halted with it poised above the hamper.
‘You do not mind?’ it asked.
‘Not at all,’ said Blake.
It took another sandwich.
‘You will pardon me,’ it asked, ‘but how many of you are there?’
‘How many of me?’
‘Yes, of you. How many of you are there?’
‘Why,’ said Blake, ‘there is only one of me. How could there be more?’
‘It was foolish of me, of course,’ said the creature, ‘but when I first saw you, I could have sworn there were more than one of you.’
He began eating the sandwich, but at a somewhat slower rate than he’d employed on the other two.
He finished it and dabbed delicately at his whiskers, knocking off the crumbs.
‘I thank you very much,’ he said.
‘You are most welcome,’ said Blake. ‘Are you sure you won’t have another one?’
‘Not a sandwich, perhaps. But if you had some cake to spare.’
‘Help yourself,’ said Blake.
The creature helped itself.
‘And now,’ said Blake, ‘you’ve asked me a question. Would you say it might be fair if I asked you one.’
‘Very fair, indeed,’ the creature said. ‘Go ahead and ask it.’
‘I have found myself wondering,’ said Blake, ‘exactly who and what you are.’
‘Why bless you,’ said the creature, ‘I thought that you would know. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t recognize me.’
Blake shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t.’
‘I am a Brownie,’ said the creature, bowing. ‘At your service, sir.’
9
Dr. Michael Daniels was waiting at his desk when Blake was ushered into his office.
‘How are you feeling this morning?’ Daniels asked.
Blake grinned bleakly. ‘Not too badly, after the going over you gave me yesterday. Were there any tests that you left out?’
‘We sort of threw the book at you,’ Daniels admitted. ‘There’s still a test or two, if. . .’
‘No, thank you.’
Daniels gestured at a chair. ‘Make yourself comfortable. We have some things to talk about.’
Blake took the indicated chair. Daniels pulled a fat folder in front of him and opened it.
‘I would assume,’ said Blake, ‘that you have been doing some checking on what might have happened out in space – what happened to me, I mean. Any luck at all?’
Daniels shook his head. ‘None. We’ve gone over the passenger and crew lists of all missing ships. That is, Space Administration has. They’re as interested in this as I am, perhaps even more so.’
‘Passenger lists wouldn’t tell you much,’ said Blake. ‘I’d be just a name and we don’t know…’
‘True,’ said Daniels, ‘but there are also fingerprints and voice prints. And you aren’t there.’
‘Somehow I got out into space…’
‘Yes, we know you did. Also someone froze you. Someone took the trouble to freeze you. If we could find out why someone did that, we’d know a lot more than we do. But, of course, when a ship is lost, the records are lost.’
‘I’ve been doing some thinking myself,’ said Blake. ‘We have been presuming all the time that I was frozen so that my life would be spared. Which means it was done before whatever happened to the ship had come about. How could anyone know what was going to happen? Oh, I suppose there would be situations where they would. Have you ever thought that I was frozen and thrown off the ship because they didn’t want me aboard, because I’d done something or they were afraid of me or something of the sort?’
‘No,’ said Daniels, ‘I had never thought of that. I had thought, however, that you may not have been the only one frozen and encapsulated, that it might have been done to others and that they still are out there. You just happened to be the one that was found. Given time, it could be a way in which a long shot could be taken to save some lives – I would suspect important lives.’
‘Let’s get back to this business of them giving me the old heave-ho off the ship. If I had been such a louse that they felt they had to pitchfork me into space, why the elaborate attempt to save my life?’
Daniels shook his head. ‘I couldn’t even guess. All we’re doing is dealing in assumptions. You may have to resign yourself to the possibility that you will never know. I had hoped that you would be able to dig back to a recognition of your past, but you haven’t so far. There’s a fairly good chance you may never be able to. After a while we can resort to some psychiatric treatment that could help. Although I’ll tell you quite frankly that it may not.’
‘Are you telling me to give up?’
‘No. Just trying to tell you the truth. We’ll keep on trying so long as you’re willing to go along with us. But I thought we owed it to you to tell you there is a chance we’ll never get an answer.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ said Blake.
‘How did the fishing go the other day?’ asked Daniels.
‘Alright,’ said Blake. ‘I caught six trout and had a good day in the open. Which, I suspect, was what you wanted.’
‘Any hallucinations?”
‘Yes.’ said Blake. ‘There was a hallucination. I didn’t tell you about it. Just held it back. Decided this morning I’d tell you. What’s one hallucination more or less? When I was out fishing I met a Brownie.’
‘Oh,’ said Daniels.
‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I met a Brownie. I talked with him. He ate up most of my lunch. You know what I mean. One of those little folks that appear in children’s stories. With big pointed ears and a high, peaked cap. Only this one didn’t have a cap. And he had a rodent face.’
‘You were fortunate. It’s not many people who ever see a Brownie. Fewer yet who talk with them.’
‘You mean there are such things!’
‘Why, yes, of course there are. A migrant people from the Coonskin stars. Not very many of them. The root stock was brought to earth … oh, I’d guess a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago. One of the exploration ships. The idea was that the Brownies would visit us for a short while – a sort of cultural exchange, I gather – then would go back home. But they liked it here and formally applied for permission to stay. After that they scattered, disappeared gradually. They took to the woods. There they found places to live – burrows, caves, hollow trees.’
He shook his head in some perplexity.
‘A strange people. They rejected most of the material advantages that we offered them. Wanted nothing to do with our civilization, were unimpressed with our culture, but they liked the planet. Liked it as a place to live, but in their own way, of course. We don’t know too much about them. Highly civilized, it would appear, but in a different way than we. Intelligent, but with different values from the ones we hold. Some of them, I understand, have attached themselves to certain families or individuals who set out food for them, or supply them cloth for clothing, or other needs they may have from time to time. It is a curious relationship. The Brownies aren’t pets of these people. Maybe you could call them good luck talisman. Much the relationship that the literary Brownies were assigned.’