Then she thought she felt cold, but there was a question-y feeling in her mind; she decided the Mother-bug must be asking her if she was cold, and finally realized that that was because she had said they needed clothes.
'No, I'm not cold,' she said. 'We have to have some clothes, that's all. The ones we wore yesterday are dirty. Unless..? Unless they had a soil-remover. Then she'd have to think of some other reason to go back to the rocket. 'Unless you have some old clothes around,' she finished up craftily. But it sounded silly, and her voice sounded too loud anyhow, every time she said anything, as if she were talking to herself ... and how did she know she wasn't, anyhow? How did she know she wasn't making it all up?
The feeling she got was so exactly like the sound of her own mother's little impatient sigh when Dee was being stubborn, that it was suddenly impossible to go on doubting at all.
When the Mother-bug laughed, it tickled in her mind; when the Mother was angry it prickled. When the Mother called to her, it was a feeling that came creeping; when she didn't want to hear, it came seeping anyhow.
Trickle-prickle; creep-seep. I spy. I speard you. It was like seeing and hearing both, if you let it be, or just like knowing what you didn't know a minute before. It could be without the seeing part, as when she thought she heard Petey's voice; or it could be without hearing, just a picture full of meaning, without any words. You didn't really see or hear; you really just found out.
And if you let yourself know the difference, you could tell what was coming from the Mother-bug ... such as thinking she was cold for a minute a little while ago. You could tell, all right, if you wanted to...
It was a lot smarter to make sure you knew the differences to watch for when the Mother-bug was putting something in your head, so you wouldn't get mixed up and start thinking you wanted something yourself, when it was really what she wanted. Or like thinking Petey wanted her to open the door in the rocket, where it was really the Mother-bug...
No it wasn't either ... Petey did want her too, because he heard the Mother-bug calling them from outside, before Dee heard it ... or he understood better what it was, or ... she's telling me all this; I'm not thinking it for myself! Up to that part about Petey being the one who wanted her to open the door, she had been thinking for herself; after that, it was the bug. It was getting easier, now, to tell the difference.
'How do you know Earthish?' she asked out loud, but there wasn't any kind of answer except the question-y feeling again. 'I mean the language we use. I mean how do you know the words to put in my head...?' She stopped talking because her head was hurting; then she realized the Mother-bug was trying to explain, only it was too complicated for her to understand.
Part of it was that the bugs didn't know Earthish, though. She understood that much well enough, and lost the hope she'd had for just an instant that other people were here already. She didn't try to understand the rest. 'How do you make Petey put things in my head?' she asked instead.
It felt as if the Mother was smiling. She didn't make Petey say things at all. He was always saying things, only mostly Dee didn't know how to listen—except, somehow, when the Mother-bug was around, it was easier...
Her head was starting to hurt again, so she stopped asking questions about that. 'Listen,' she said, 'I still have to go back to the rocket.'
She didn't know whether she wanted to come hack here or stay there. No—that was true, all right, that she didn't know; but right now it was the Mother-bug asking her what she wanted to do.
'I don't know,' she said, not trying to pretend anything, because the Mother-bug would have spy-heard that part already. 'Only I have to get back there anyhow; so I'll wait till I get there to decide.'
She'd leave Petey behind, and return at least for a visit?
'No!' she said. That was one thing at least she was sure about. Even if she was sure she was coming back, she couldn't leave Petey all alone here with these bugs. Mommy would ... anybody would get mad at a kid for doing a thing like that!
'No!' she said again. 'I've got to go, and Petey has to go with me; that's all there is to it.' She thought she sounded very firm and grown-up, until she felt the Mother smiling again in the way that made her remember her ... somebody she used to know.
XVIII
THE MORE SHE learned, the less she seemed to know. The Strange child, though still inexplicably frightened, was at last being communicative and co-operative. Yet each new piece of information acquired during the morning's interview had only served to make the puzzle of the Strangers more complex or more abstruse.
How and why they had come here ... even whence they had come ... their habits, customs, biology, psychology ... the nature of the ship in which they lived, and flew ... the very fact of the existence of the older child's continuing fear and doubt ... and Strangest of all, perhaps, the by-now irrefutable fact that neither of the children knew whether their Mother was alive, inside the Ship, or had departed ...
None of these matters were any easier to comprehend now than they had been the day before; and most of them were more confusing.
However, there was now at least some hope of solving some parts of the puzzle ... two parts, in any case. The Strange daughter had agreed, after only slight hesitation, to allow a flying son to come inside the ship with her, and to explain to the Mother, watching through her son's eyes, as much of what was to be found there as she could. The child apparently had felt that by permitting the exploratory visit, she was securing the right of the babe to accompany her on the trip ... a right she would in any case have had for the asking. And there was some further thought in the girl's mind of perhaps not returning ... but Daydanda was not seriously concerned about it. She had refrained carefully from proferring any insistent hospitality, since the daughter's fear of remaining alone with her sibling seemed even greater than that of remaining with the Household, provided only she did not feel herself to be a captive in the House.
It still remained to be seen, of course, whether it would be possible to provide for the two Strangers within the biological economy of the Families. That, however, was the other part of the puzzle that was already on the road to a solution. The daughter had most fortuitously, before leaving the Lady's chamber, ex-pressed an urgent need to perform some biological functions for which, apparently, a waste receptacle of some sort was required. Daydanda had issued rapid orders to one of the more ingenious of the mason sons, to manufacture as best he could a receptacle conforming to the image she found in the child's mind. Then she had seized the opportunity to ask if she might have a nursing daughter take some samples of the milk and other food that had come with them from the ship, and of such other bodily by-products as she had already observed the Strangers to produce; the tears that came from the eyes in the release of grief, and the general bodily exudation for which the child's symbol was sweat, but whose purpose or function she seemed not to understand herself.
Once again, as she had had occasion to do many times before, the Lady regretted the maternal compulsiveness of her own nature that had stood in the way of producing a Scientist within the Household. As matters now stood, the samplings she had secured from the Strange children would have to be flown two full days' journey away, to the Encyclopaedic Seat, for analysis. If she had been willing—just once in all these years—to inhibit the breeding of a full Family in order to devote the necessary nutrient and emotional concentration to the creation of a pair of Scientists, she would be able to have the answer to the present problem in hours instead of days, and without having to forgo the services of two of her best fliers for the duration of the trip there and back. Then, if it appeared necessary to utilize the more varied facilities of the Seat, she could submit her samples with the security of knowing that her own representative there would keep watch over her interests; and that everything learned about the Strange samples would be transmitted instantly and fully from the brother at the Seat to the twin in the Household. Daydanda knew only too well how often in the past the Seat had seen fit to
retain information for its own use, when the products for analysis came from an unrepresented House ...
No use in worrying now, either about what might be, or about what had not been done. One matter, at least, would be resolved before the day was done ... the baffling question of what lay inside that double-arched opening in the wall of the Wings-House ... and along with it, the answer, perhaps, to the puzzle of the Strange children's Mother.
XIX
THIS TIME THEY rode in the litter; and the trip that had taken a long afternoon the day before was accomplished in a short hour of trotting, bouncing progress. Yesterday, the pace had been slowed as much by the litter-bearers' efforts to spare their Lady any unnecessary jostling, as by the shortness of Dee's leg; today Daydanda's labouring sons were inhibited by no such considerations.
At the edge of the clearing they paused, their eyes averted from the shiny hull.
Dee laughed out loud, and ran out into the sunlight. It felt good. She knew she was showing off, but it made her feel better just to stand there and look straight up, because she knew there wasn't one of them that would dare to do it.
'Sissies!' she yelled out, there was no answer ... not even a scolding-feeling from the Mother-bug.
She went back to the litter, got Petey out, and parked him on the muddy ground near the airlock, wondering if it was safe to leave him out there while she went inside. They wouldn't do anything like grabbing him and running off, she decided. The Mother-bug wanted to know about the rocket too much; and the Mother-bug wanted her to come back, too—not just Petey.
Still, she didn't make any move to go inside. It was good standing there in the sun, even without the show-off part of it. She watched Petey grab big chunks of yellow mud and plaster himself with them, and felt the sun soak into her shoulders and warm the top of her head.
This place wouldn't be so bad, she thought, if it wasn't for the trees everyplace, cutting out the sun. Inside the forest, it was always a little bit drippy and damp, and the light was always dimmed. But when you got out into it, the sun here was a good one—better than on Starhope. It felt like the sun used to feel, she thought she remembered, when she was almost as little as Petey, before they went away from Earth.
She wished she could remember more about Earth. Mommy always told her stories about it, but. Morn ...
Don't think about that!
She wished she could remember more about Earth. It was green there, Green like in the forests here, where the treetops lent their colour to everything? That wasn't what Morn ... what the stories meant, she was sure. For just an instant, there was a picture in her mind; and because it came so suddenly, she suspected at first that the Mother-bug put it there, but it didn't feel that way. Then she wasn't sure whether it was somehing she remembered, from when she was very little, or whether it was truly a picture—one she'd seen at school, or on the T-Z. But she was sure that that was how Earth was supposed to look, wherever she was remembering it from.
The trees there were called Appletrees, for a kind of fruit they had, and they grew separated from each other on a hillside, with low branches where the children could climb right up to the tops of them like walking up steps. Then you'd sit in the top, and the breeze would come by, smelling sweet and fresh like Mom ... the way lavender looked. And you would eat sweet fruit from the swaying branch, and...
She jumped as a hairy arm brushed her hand. It was the one with wings who was supposed to go with her into the rocket. It .. he, the Mother said it was her son, pointed to the airlock, and Dee got the question-y feeling again. Then there were words to go with it.
`Go inside now?'
It was surprising at first that his `voice"sounded' just like the Mother-bug's. Then she realized it was the Mother-bug, talking through his mind. Dee understood by now that the words she `heard' were supplied by herself to fit the picture or emotions the other person—that was silly, calling a bug a person!—`sent' to her; but she was pretty sure that the words or the sort-of-a-voice sound she'd make up for one person—bug—would be different from the way she'd `hear' another one.
Anyway, the Mother wanted her to go inside. She decided against leaving Petey outdoors by himself, and picked him up and lifted him in before she climbed through the airlock. The bug with wings came right behind her.
The playroom was a mess. Living in there all the time, Dee hadn't realized how everything was thrown around; but now, when she had a visitor with her—even if he was just a bug—she felt kind of ashamed about the way it all looked. Maybe he wouldn't know the difference ... but he would. She remembered how the inside of their big House was neat and clean all over; and not just the inside ... even the woods were kept tidy all the time. She'd seen a bunch of bugs out picking up dead branches and gathering leaves off the ground on the way over here.
This bug didn't seem to care though. He looked around at everything, with his head bent down backwards so he could see, and Dee got the idea he wanted to know if it was all right to touch things. She picked up a toy and some clothes, and put them into the hands on his front legs. After that, he went around looking and touching and handling things all over the playroom, while Dee hunted up some clothes to take back with them.
She couldn't find very much that was clean, so she took a whole pile of stuff from the floor, and went to the back to put them into the soil remover. The bug followed her. It—he—watched her put the clothes into the square box; he jumped a little when she turned the switch on and it started shaking, as it always did, a little. Dee laughed. Then she went around turning on all the machines that she knew how to work, just to show the bug. She wished she knew how to use the power tool, because that made a whole lot of noise, and did all kinds of different things; but Daddy never let ... but she didn't know how to, that's all.
The bug just stood still in the middle of the room, looking and listening. He didn't even want to touch anything in here, Dee figured; so she asked him out loud, didn't he want to feel what the machines were like? And then she found out she could tell the difference in one bug's voice and another's, because the Mother said a kind of eager, `Thank you—are you sure,' the son-bug said at the same time, kind of nervous-sounding, 'No, thank you! these devices are very Strange ...' and then he must have realized what his Mother wanted, because he said, 'I am afraid I might damage them.'
Dee felt the Mother's smiling then, and with the smile, a question: 'Where do they breath? With what do they eat?'
'Who?' Dee said out loud.
'Those others ... the machines, is your symbol for them.' And at the same time, she saw inside her head a sort of twisty picture of the room all around her. She saw it with her own eyes, the way it really was; and at the same time, she was seeing it the way the Mother-bug must be seeing it—which was the way her son was seeing it, and 'sending' the picture to her. It wasn't much different, mostly just the colours weren't as bright. And somehow, all the machines, the way the Mother-bug saw them, were dive.
Dee laughed. Those bugs were pretty smart, but there were lots of things she knew that they didn't.
'They don't breathe,' she said scornfully; 'they're just machines, that's all.'
'?????'
'They're machines; they do things for people. You turn 'em on and make them work, and then when you're done, you turn them off again. They run on electricity.'
'?????'
She couldn't explain electricity very well. 'It's like ... lightning.' But the Mother didn't know what she meant by that either. 'Don't talk,' the big bug told her; 'make a picture in your head.
Stand near the machine-that-cleans, and make pictures, not words, in your own head, to show how it works for you.'
Deborah tried, but she'd never seen what the machinery looked like inside the soil remover. There wasn't very much of it anyway. Da ... somebody had explained it to her once. There was just a horn—or something like a horn—that kept blowing, without making any noise; at least not any noise that you could hear. The blowing shook all the dirt out of the clothes, a
nd there was a u-v light inside to sterilize them at the same time. That was all she knew, and she didn't know what it really looked like, except for the u-v bulb; and she didn't even know what made that work, really.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'd make a picture for you if I could.'
'Is there one of these creatures ... machines ... you have seen inside?'
She'd seen inside of the freeze unit when it was being fixed once. She tried to remember just how that looked; but it was complicated, and the Mother still didn't seem to understand.
'The little pipes?' she asked, and Dee wasn't sure whether she meant the freezing coils or the wires; but then she was sure it was the wires. 'They bring food to the creature so it can work?'
'No I told you. It's not a "creature". It doesn't even ever eat. The wires just have electricity in them, that's all. Don't you even know what an electric wire is?'
'Where do the pipes ... wires ... bring the electric from?'
Dee looked around. The generator was ... it was in ... 'There's a generator someplace,' she said carelessly. 'It makes electricity; that's what it's for. I can show you how the T-Z works, because somebody I know showed me once.' She went out to the play-room, and started talking, describing her favourite toy, and making pictures in her mind to show the Mother-bug how it worked, and what some of the stories looked like. She talked fast, and kept on talking till she had to stop for breath; but then she realized she didn't have to talk out loud to the Mother, so she went on thinking about stories she'd seen on T-Z, and she decided she'd take it back with some of the film strips, so the Mother could see for herself how it worked.
Machine! An entity capable of absorbing energy in one form, transmitting it to some other form, and expending it in the performance of work ... work requiring judgment, skill, training ... and yet the Strange child said these things were not alive! Daydanda rested on her great couch, but felt no ease, and wished again that she had had the fortitude to go out with the small group. To see for herself ...
Daughters of Earth and Other Stories Page 26