The Star Road

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “But—I—” He was lost in a fresh spate of sobs.

  “What, sweetheart?”

  “I—promised—Harvey—”

  “Hush,” she said. “Here—” The violence of his grief was abating. She produced a clean white tissue from the pocket of her apron. “Blow your nose. That’s right. Now, what did you promise Harvey?”

  “To—” He hiccupped. “To show him a Christmas tree.” “Oh,” she said, softly. She rocked him a little in her arms. “Well, you know honey,” she said, “Harvey’s a Cidorian; and he’s never seen a Christmas tree at all before. So this one would seem just as wonderful to him as that tree on the spaceship did to you last Christmas.”

  He blinked and sniffed and looked at her doubtfully. “Yes, it would,” she assured him gently. “Honey—Cidorians aren’t like people. I know Harvey can talk and even make pretty good sense sometimes—but he isn’t really like a human person. When you get older, you’ll understand that better. His world is out there in the water and everything on land like we have it is a little hard for him to understand.” “Didn’t he ever know about Christmas?”

  “No, he never did.”

  “Or see a Christmas tree, or get presents?”

  “No, dear.” She gave him a final hug. “So why don’t you go out and get him and let him take a look at the tree. I’ll bet he’ll think it’s beautiful.”

  “Well ... all right!” Allan turned and ran suddenly to the kitchen, where he began to climb into his boots.

  “Don’t forget your jacket,” said his mother. “The breeze comes up after the sun goes down.”

  He struggled into his jacket, snapped on his mudshoes and ran down to the inlet. Harvey was there waiting for him. Allan let the Cidorian climb onto the arm of his jacket and carried the great light bubble of him back into the house.

  “See there,” he said, after he had taken off his boots with one hand and carried Harvey into the living room. “That’s a Christmas tree, Harvey.”

  Harvey did not answer immediately. He shimmered, balanced in the crook of Allan’s elbow, his long filaments spread like silver hair over and around the jacket of the boy.

  “It’s not a real Christmas tree, Harvey,” said Allan. “But that doesn’t matter. We have to make do with what we have because what makes Christmas is the loving and the giving. Do you know that?”

  “I did not know,” said Harvey.

  “Well, that’s what it is.”

  “It is beautiful,” said Harvey. “A Christmas tree beautiful.”

  “There, you see,” said Allan’s mother, who had been standing to one side and watching. “I told you Harvey would think it was beautiful, Allan.”

  “Well, it’d be more beautiful if we had some real shiny ornaments to put on it, instead of little bits of foil and beads and things. But we don’t care about that, Harvey.”

  “We do not care,” said Harvey.

  “I think, Allan,” said his mother, “you better take Harvey back now. He’s not built to be out of the water too long, and there’s just time to wrap your presents before bed.”

  “All right,” said Allan. He started for the kitchen, then stopped. “Did you want to say good night to Harvey, Mommy?”

  “Good night, Harvey,” she said.

  “Good night,” answered Harvey, in his croaking voice.

  Allan dressed and took the Cidorian back to the inlet. When he returned, his mother already had the wrapping papers in all their colors, and the ribbons and boxes laid out on his bed in the bedroom. Also laid out was the pocket whetstone he was giving his father for Christmas and a little inch-and-a-half-high figure he had molded out of native clay, kiln-baked and painted to send home to Adlan’s grandmother and grandfather, who were his mother’s parents. It cost fifty units to ship an ounce of weight back to Earth, and the little figure was just under an ounce—but the grandparents would pay the freight on it from their end. Seeing everything ready, Allan went over to the top drawer of his closet.

  “Close your eyes,” he said. His mother closed them, tight.

  He got out the pair of work gloves he was giving his mother and smuggled them into one of the boxes.

  They wrapped the presents together. After they were finished and had put the presents under the thorn tree, with its meager assortment of homemade ornaments, Allan lingered over the wrappings. After a moment, he went to the box that held his toys and got out the container of toy spacemen. They were molded of the same clay as his present to his grandparents. His father had made and fired them, his mother had painted them. They were all in good shape except the astrogator, and his right hand—the one that held the pencil—was broken off. He carried the astrogator over to his mother.

  “Let’s wrap this, please,” he said.

  “Why, who’s that for?” she asked, looking down at him. He rubbed the broken stump of the astrogator’s arm, shyly.

  “It’s a Christmas present ... for Harvey.”

  She gazed at him.

  “Your astrogator?” she said. “How’ll you run your spaceship without him?”

  “Oh, I’ll manage,” he said.

  “But, honey,” she said. “Harvey’s not like a little boy. What could he do with the astrogator? He can’t very well play with it.”

  “No,” said Allan. “But he could keep it. Couldn’t he?”

  She smiled, suddenly.

  “Yes,” she said. “He could keep it. Do you want to wrap it and put it under the tree for him?”

  He shook his head, seriously.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think Harvey can open packages very well. I’ll get dressed and take it down to the inlet and give it to him now.”

  “Not tonight, Allan,” his mother said. “It’s too late. You should be in bed already. You can take it to him tomorrow.”

  “Then he won’t have it when he wakes up in the morning!”

  “All right, then,” she said. “I’ll take it. But you’ve got to pop right into bed, now.”

  “I will.” Allan turned to his closet and began to dig out his pajamas. When he was securely established in the warm, blanketing field of the bed, she kissed him and turned out everything but the night light.

  “Sleep tight,” she said, and taking the broken-armed astrogator, went out of the bedroom, closing the door all but a crack behind her.

  She set the dishwasher and turned it on. Then, taking the astrogator again, she put on her own jacket and mudshoes and went down to the shores of the inlet.

  “Harvey?” she called.

  But Harvey was not in sight. She stood for a moment, looking out over the darkened night country of low-lying earth and water, dimly revealed under the cloud-obscured face of Cidor’s nearest moon. A loneliness crept into her from the alien land and she caught herself wishing her husband was home. She shivered a little under her jacket and stooped down to leave the astrogator by the water’s edge. She had turned away and was half-way up the slope to the house when she heard Harvey’s voice calling her.

  She turned about. The Cidorian was at the water’s edge— halfway out onto the land, holding wrapped up in his filaments the small shape of the astrogator. She went back down to him, and he slipped gratefully back into the water. He could move on land, but found the labor exhausting.

  “You have lost this,” he said, lifting up the astrogator.

  “No, Harvey,” she answered. “It’s a Christmas present. From Allan. For you.”

  He floated where he was without answering, for a long moment. Finally:

  “I do not understand,” he said.

  “I know you don’t,” she sighed, and smiled a little at the same time. “Christmas just happens to be a time when we all give gifts to each other. It goes a long way back . . Standing there in the dark, she found herself trying to explain; and wondered, listening to the sound of her own voice, that she should feel so much comfort in talking to only Harvey. When she was finished with the story of Christmas and what the reasons were that had moved Allan, she fell s
ilent. And the Cidorian rocked equally silent before her on the dark water, not answering.

  “Do you understand?” she asked at last.

  “No,” said Harvey. “But it is a beautiful.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s a beautiful, all right.” She shivered suddenly, coming back to this chill damp world from the warm country of her childhood. “Harvey,” she said suddenly. “What’s it like out on the river—and the sea? Is it dangerous?” “Dangerous?” he echoed.

  “I mean with the water-bulls and all. Would one really attack a man in a boat?”

  “One will. One will not,” said Harvey.

  “Now I don’t understand you, Harvey.”

  “At night,” said Harvey, “they come up from deep in the water. They are different. One will swim away. One will come up on the land to get you. One will lie still and wait.”

  She shuddered.

  “Why?” she said.

  “They are hungry. They are angry,” said Harvey. “They are water-bulls. You do not like them?” She shuddered.

  “I’m petrified.” She hesitated. “Don’t they ever bother you?” “No. I am . . .” Harvey searched for the word. “Electric.” “Oh.” She folded her arms about her, hugging the warmth in to her body. “It’s cold,” she said. “I’m going in.”

  In the water, Harvey stirred.

  “I would like to give a present,” he said. “I will make a present.”

  Her breath caught a little in her throat.

  “Thank you, Harvey,” she said, gently and solemnly. “We will be very happy to have you make us a present.”

  “You are welcome,” said Harvey.

  Strangely warmed and cheered, she turned and went back up the slope and into the peaceful warmth of the house. Harvey, floating still on the water, watched her go. When at last the door had shut behind her, and all light was out, he turned and moved toward the entrance to the inlet.

  It appeared he floated, but actually he was swimming very swiftly. His hundreds of hair-like filaments drove him through the dark water at amazing speed, but without a ripple. Almost, it seemed as if the water was no heavy substance to him but a matter as light as gas through which he traveled on the faintest impulse of a thought. He emerged from the mouth of the inlet and turned upriver, moving with the same ease and swiftness past the little flats and islands. He traveled upriver until he came to a place between two islands where the water was black and deep and the thorn bushes threw their sharp shadows across it in the silver path of the moonlight.

  Here he halted. And there rose slowly before him, breaking the smooth surface of the water, a huge and frog-like head, surmounted by two stubby cartilaginous projections above the tiny eyes. The head was as big as an oil drum, but it had come up in perfect silence. It spoke to him in vibrations through the water that Harvey understood.

  “Is there a sickness among the shocking people that drives them out of their senses, to make you come here?”

  “I have come for beautiful Christmas,” said Harvey, “to make you into a present.”

  It was an hour past dawn the following morning that Chester Dumay, Allan’s father, came down the river. The Colony’s soil expert was traveling with him and their two boats were tied together, proceeding on a single motor. As they came around the bend between the two islands, they had been talking about an acid condition in the soil of Chester’s fields, where they bordered the river. But the soil expert—his name was Pere Hama, a lean little dark man—checked himself suddenly in mid-sentence.

  “Just a minute—” he said, gazing off and away past Chester Dumay’s shoulder. “Look at that.”

  Chester looked, and saw something large and dark floating half-away, caught against the snag of a half-drowned tree that rose up from the muddy bottom of the river some thirty feet out from the far shore. He turned the boat-wheel and drove across toward it.

  “What the devil-”

  They came up close and Chester cut the motor to let the boats drift in upon the object. The current took them down and the nearer hull bumped against a great black expanse of swollen hide, laced with fragile silver threads and gray-scarred all over by what would appear to have been a fiery whip. It rolled idly in the water.

  “A water-bull!” said Hama.

  “Is that what it is?” queried Chester, fascinated. “I never saw one.”

  “I did—at Third Landing. This one’s a monster. And dead!” There was a note of puzzlement in the soil expert’s voice.

  Chester poked gingerly at the great carcass and it turned a little. Something like a gray bubble rose to show itself for a second dimly through several feet of murky water, then rolled under out of sight again.

  “A Cidorian,” said Chester. He whistled. “All crushed. But who’d have thought one of them could take on one of these!” He stared at the water-bull body.

  Hama shuddered a little, in spite of the fact that the sun was bright.

  “And win—that’s the thing,” the soil expert said. “Nobody ever suspected—” He broke off suddenly. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Oh, we’ve got one in our inlet that my son plays with a lot—call him Harvey,” said Chester. “I was just wondering ...”

  “I wouldn’t let my kid near something that could kill a water-bull,” said Hama.

  “Oh, Harvey’s all right,” said Chester. “Still . . .” Frowning, he picked up the boathook and shoved off from the carcass, turning about to start up the motor again. The hum of its vibration picked up in their ears as they headed downriver once more. “All the same, I think there’s no point in mentioning this to the wife and boy—no point in spoiling their Christmas. And later on, when I get a chance to get rid of Harvey quietly . . .”

  “Sure,” said Hama. “I won’t say a word. No point in it.”

  They purred away down the river.

  Behind them, the water-bull carcass, disturbed, slid free of the waterlogged tree and began to drift downriver. The current swung it and rolled, slowly, over and over until the crushed central body of the dead Cidorian rose into the clean air. And the yellow rays of the clear sunlight gleamed from the glazed pottery countenance of a small toy astrogator, all wrapped about with silver threads, and gilded it.

  3-PART PUZZLE

  The Mologhese ship twinkled across the light years separating the human-conquered planets of the Bahrin system from Mologh. Aboard her, the Mologh Envoy sat deep in study. For he was a thinker as well as a warrior, the Envoy, and his duties had gone far beyond obtaining the capsule propped on the Mologhese version of a desk before him—a sealed message capsule containing the diplomatic response of the human authorities to the proposal he had brought from Mologh. His object of study at the moment, however, was not the capsule, but a translation of something human he had painfully resolved into Mologhese terms. His furry brow wrinkled and his bulldog-shaped jaw clamped as he worked his way through it. He had been over it a number of times, but he still could not conceive of a reason for a reaction he had observed among human young to its message. It was, he had been reliably informed, one of a group of such stories for the human young. —What he was looking at in translation was approximately this:—

  THE THREE (Name) (Domestic animals) (Name)

  Once upon a time there was a (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) who lived under a bridge and one day he became very hungry. He was sitting there thinking of good things to eat when he heard the sounds of someone crossing the bridge over his head. (Sharp hoof-sound) —(sharp hoof-sound) went the sounds on the bridge overhead.

  “Who’s there?” cried the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature).

  “It’s only I, the smallest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name)” came back the answer.

  “Well, I am the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) who lives under the bridge,” replied the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) “and I’m coming up to eat you all up.”

  “Oh, don’t do that, please!” cried the smallest (Name) (Domes
tic animal) (Name). “I wouldn’t even make you a good meal. My (relative), the (middle-sized? next-oldest?) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) will be along in a minute. Let me go. He’s much bigger than I. You’ll get a much better meal out of him. Let me go and eat him instead.”

  “Very well,” said the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature); and (hoof-sound)—(hoof-sound) the (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) hurried across the bridge to safety.

  After a while the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) heard (heavier hoof-sound)—(heavier hoof-sound) on the bridge overhead.

  “Who’s there?” he cried.

  “It is I, the (middle-sized?) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name),” replied a (deeper?) voice.

  “Then I am coming up to eat you up,” said the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature). “Your smaller (relative?) the smallest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) told me you were coming and I let him go by so I could have a bigger meal by eating you. So here I come.”

  “Oh, you are, are you?” said the (middle-sized) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name). “Well, suit yourself; but our oldest (relative?), the big (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) will be along in just a moment. If you want to wait for him, you’ll really have a meal to remember.”

  “Is that so?” said the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature), who was very (greedy? Avaricious? Gluttonous?).

  “All right, go ahead.” And the (middle-sized) (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) went (heavier hoof-sound)—(heavier hoof-sound) across the bridge to safety.

  It was not long before the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) heard (thunderous hoof-sound) —(thunderous hoof-sound) shaking the bridge overhead.

  “Who’s there?” cried the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature).

  “It is I!” rumbled an (earth-shaking?) deep (bass?) voice. “The biggest (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name). Who calls?”

  “I do!” cried the (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature). “And I’m coming up to eat you all up!” And he sprang up on the bridge. But the big (Name) (Domestic animal) (Name) merely took one look at him, and lowered (his?) head and came charging forward, with his (horns?) down. And he butted that (horrendous, carnivorous, mythical creature) over the hills and so far away he could never find his way back to bother anyone ever again.