The buzzing noises continued. They grew louder and sounded more menacing.
Rand tuned the converter again. It gave this translation:
“We are not able to decide what to do with you, strangers. We must ask a higher authority who decides for us. Make no more words, but come with us to our village.”
“Very well,” Rand said. “Take us to your village.”
He turned the converter off. The aliens moved in on them, forming a tight, buzzing circle. Dombey looked as if he wanted to push the aliens away from him.
Rand said, “Do everything they tell us to do, Dombey. Don’t complain, don’t refuse. Above all, don’t touch any of them or look like you want to hit them. Otherwise they’ll kill us. KILL. You understand that, Dombey?”
The jetmonkey nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, boss, I won’t start no fight. But I don’t like them. They’re no good.”
“I don’t like them much either, but there are too many of them to fight. They’re armed and we aren’t. They can kill us, Dombey. Go where they tell you. Do what they want you to do.”
“Okay,” Dombey said agreeably. “You’re the boss, boss.”
Rand looked at Leswick. The metaphysician had said nothing at all for the past five minutes. He had hardly moved through the whole conversation with the aliens. Now he was permitting himself to be shoved along, scarcely noticing. His eyes looked dreamy. He seemed lost in his thoughts.
“What’s the matter with you, professor?” Rand asked. “You synthesizing some new cultural phenomena?”
Leswick didn’t reply.
“Hey, Leswick! I’m talking to you!”
“Will you keep quiet, Rand?” the metaphysician snapped. Rand had never heard him speak so sharply before. “Let me think this out, will you?”
“You’re going to save us through Metaphysical Synthesis?” Rand said sarcastically.
Leswick just glared at him.
“I beg your pardon for interrupting your thoughts,” Rand said. “Sorry! Terribly sorry!” The tone of his voice left no doubt how sorry he really was.
The aliens marched them onward through the jungle.
As they neared the village, Rand began to do some heavy thinking himself. There had to be some way out of this! There had to be some way he could show these suspicious aliens that the three Earthmen were no threat to them.
Maybe there was some way of drawing pictures for them, he thought. Show them the blowup of the ship, show them the crash landing of the lifeship, show them the location of the rescue beacon. Make it clear that we just want to hike to the beacon and signal for help so we can go home.
Another possibility was not to try to explain anything. Let them put us in their jail. Or what passes for a jail among them. And then, in the middle of the night, break out and slip away.
We ought to be able to do it. They look like simple sorts — they wouldn’t guard us too closely. Dombey can lead us in the dark. That would be easier than trying to explain ourselves to them. Even with the converter, we don’t seem to be able to get our ideas across. They’re alien. They don’t think the way we do. They can’t even begin to understand us. And we can’t figure them out, either.
What if they do guard us closely, though?
Then we’ll just have to figure out a logical way of dealing with them, Rand told himself. But nothing logical came into his mind. And now they were at the alien village.
The village was set in a broad clearing. Trees had been chopped down for a great distance on all sides, and bright sunlight came through the opening in the jungle. A small stream ran along one side of the settlement.
The place was fantastically busy. Hundreds more of the barrel-shaped aliens were bustling around in a tremendous hurry, every one of them hard at work. Here, four of them were pounding grain. There, eight of them were putting up a new hut. Over there, six others were trimming logs.
The village consisted of row on row of wooden huts, each one just like all the rest. Every hut was about six feet high and five feet wide. That was big enough to hold one alien, no more. Didn’t they have families, Rand wondered? Furniture? Possessions? How could they live in such tiny cabins?
The huts were laid out in a carefully designed pattern. The rows were neat and straight, each one containing about twenty-five huts except for the rows near the center of the village. Those were shorter, so that a kind of plaza was formed right in the middle of things.
In the center of the plaza stood a single huge hut. It was of the same design as the others, with a flat top and straight sides, but it was about twenty feet high and twenty feet wide. It towered over the smaller buildings like a strange square skyscraper.
That must be where the “higher authority” of the village lives, Rand thought. It’s a temple, or a palace, or maybe a city hall. It’s where the local chief will decide what’s going to happen to us.
The aliens were saying something to him. Rand held the thought-converter toward them for the translation.
“You will go to the great house,” they were telling him. “We will present you to the Mother.”
“Who is the Mother?” Rand asked. But he got no answer.
They walked toward the great house.
He noticed a strange thing: there didn’t seem to be any children in the village, or even any young adults. All of the aliens seemed to be of the same age and size and height.
There was another surprise as he got closer to the great house. Up till now, every villager he had seen was busy doing something. Now Rand saw a few loafers. These aliens lay sprawled on the ground looking remarkably lazy. Their eyes were closed, their mouths drooped open, their arms were folded across their middles. They weren’t dead, but they weren’t very lively, either.
These sleepers had slightly deeper brown skins than the others. Their bodies were soft and flabby. Two or three of them opened their eyes to stare at the Earthmen. But they closed them again after a brief look. All the other villagers were such hard workers. Rand wondered why these lucky few got off so lightly.
They came to the great house, now. Three of the aliens went inside. One of his captors turned to Rand and said, “Clickclick click.”
“Say that again?” The machine translated Rand’s words into clicks.
The alien repeated the noises into the thought-converter. They came out as, “You wait out here.”
“Can’t we go inside?”
“Negative negative negative. NO! Strange ones must not enter great house of the Mother. Stay here while we tell about you to the Mother.”
Rand shrugged. “If you want us to wait, we’ll wait, I guess.”
Time passed — one minute, three, five. Rand began to fidget. What was going on in there? Who was the Mother, and what was she telling these people?
He looked, at the swords of the aliens who guarded them. He didn’t like to think about the wicked-looking barbs along the edges of those blades.
He wondered if their luck was going to run out right here.
Luck had allowed the three of them to survive the explosion aboard the spaceship, when everyone else died. Luck had let them get into the lifeship and make a safe escape. Luck had brought them down on Tuesday unharmed, even though he had never piloted a ship before. Luck had carried them safely through the jungle despite all the hidden dangers.
But now their luck had changed. They were prisoners. Their lives were at the mercy of these alien creatures. Unarmed, outnumbered, they had to depend on the whim of the Mother. Would she spare them? He wondered. They seemed awfully unfriendly.
Another five minutes went by. Then the three aliens who had gone into the great house came out. They buzzed something to the ones who guarded the Earthmen. Rand strained to hear it, but the words were too faint for the converter to pick them up.
Then one of the aliens turned to him and said clearly, “The Mother has decided. You are dangerous. You threaten our safety.”
“No,” Rand protested. “We don’t threaten anybody’s safety. We’ll leave
as soon as we reach our — our friend. Our friend in the east!”
“The Mother says you threaten our safety,” the alien said again, firmly. “And so you must die!”
Not here, Rand thought. Not now. Not like this. Not in a sticky jungle on an unknown planet for a stupid reason.
The ring of guards lifted their swords. The cruel barbs glittered in the hot sunlight. Here it comes, he told himself.
He tried to get ready to die. He was going to go down fighting. Maybe he’d take a few of the barrel-shaped creatures with him.
Then Leswick, who had been silent for a long time, came to life.
“Wait!” he shouted into the converter. “Wait! I demand to see the Mother! I claim the right to return to our hive!”
CHAPTER 13
RAND WAS baffled. He did a double take, blinking in surprise, then stared at Leswick. The little man seemed mysteriously changed. His weak eyes were bright, his hands were outspread, his fingers were trembling nervously.
“What did you say?” Rand asked.
“Hush,” Leswick muttered. To the aliens he said, “Did you hear me? We have become cut off from our hive. We ask you to let us go back to it.”
The aliens were strangely silent for a moment. Then they turned to face each other, and they buzzed and hummed in low tones, talking things over. The converter wasn’t able to pick up their words.
Rand realized in that moment what the world of Bill Dombey must be like. Just now, Rand was as bewildered as the big jetmonkey usually was. His mind was blank. He couldn’t begin to figure out what Leswick was up to.
All he knew was that Leswick and the aliens seemed to understand each other.
The aliens continued to confer. Leswick kept on watching them tensely. The sound of his breathing was harsh and rasping.
Finally one of the aliens hopped forward. “It is all different now. We did not understand your trouble,” the creature said to Leswick. “We will talk to the Mother again. We will see if she will let you speak with her.”
The alien went back into the great house. It was in there about five minutes. Then it came out and announced, “You may enter. The Mother will see you.”
Rand started forward. But Leswick reached out and caught his arm.
“No — I’ll go in alone. You stay out here and keep Dombey company.” Leswick took the converter from him.
“But — “ Rand let the word trail off. He saw that he was out of his depth, now. Without argument, he let the Metaphysical Synthesist enter the building. The ring of guards closed tightly around Dombey and Rand after Leswick went in.
Again time passed with terrible slowness. It began to rain again, but only for a few minutes. Insects circled Rand’s head and he shooed them away. Now and then the aliens exchanged words. But without the converter Rand could understand nothing.
He looked at Dombey. The huge man stood with his arms folded. He didn’t seem to be thinking about anything at all. Dombey wasn’t bothered by the mystery of what was going on. Dombey didn’t even try to figure out such things. Life is simpler that way, Rand thought.
But he couldn’t act that way himself — not with his life at stake. He wanted desperately to know what Leswick was trying to do. Why was he pulling that business about returning to their hive? What hive? Where?
From inside the great house, Leswick called, “Rand, will you come in here now? Better bring Dombey, too.”
“Coming,” Rand called back. He nudged the jetmonkey. “Let’s go in, Tarzan. And remember, stand still, don’t touch anything, don’t make any trouble.”
Dombey grinned. “Sure, boss.”
They went in.
The great house was as dark as a tomb inside. The only light came from three small openings in the roof. Faint beams of brightness slanted into the building.
The air had a stale, musty smell. Rand stood just within the entrance until his eyes grew used to the dimness. Then he saw Leswick in the middle of the room. Leswick pointed to something against the far wall.
“This is the Mother of this tribe, Rand,” he said.
From the rear of the great house came a dull booming sound. The converter translated it: “Welcome, strange ones.”
Rand looked up and back. At first he saw nothing. Then he spied the Mother, high on the wall. She sat on a wide, deep shelf eight or nine feet above the floor, peering down at them.
She was a strange sight. He had never seen anything so weird before.
The Mother was at least twice the size of the ordinary aliens. Her body was a pale greenish-white color, and it was tremendously swollen. She might have been barrel-shaped like the others, once. But now she hardly had any shape at all. She was just a great mass of wrinkled and bloated flesh.
Her legs were tiny, flimsy things. They could never hold up her immense weight, Rand knew. Her eyes, round and bulging, were the size of dishes. Her mouth was an enormous slit in her huge body. She seemed to be terribly old … hundreds, thousands, millions of years old.
The aliens who were guarding the three Earthmen bowed before her. Leswick signaled, and Rand bowed too. Even Dombey got the idea and touched one knee to the floor.
The Mother said, “I am the Mother. You are welcome here, you strangers from another hive. How different you are!”
Rand was tongue-tied with awe. He tried to say something, but no words would come. What could you say to a creature like this? She was like something out of a dream.
“Tell the Mother about our Mother,” Leswick urged him in a dry, insistent voice.
“Our — Mother?” Rand repeated.
“Go ahead, Rand. Tell — her — about — our Mother. Describe our Mother’s wonderful metal body. Speak of our Mother’s marvelous thirty-megacycle carrier beam.”
Rand felt like he was sinking in a quicksand swamp of bewilderment. But only for a moment. Then he caught on and took the hint.
“Yes,” he said. “Our Mother is located to the east, many days’ journey from here. She is taller than we are, and does not move from the place where she stands. Set in her forehead is an eye of great beauty.”
He went on to describe the signal beacon with the most complete details he could supply. As he spoke, his mind protested against the sheer madness of what was taking place. What was the point of making believe that the beacon was their “Mother”? How —
He kept talking until he had run out of things to say.
Then the huge alien being said, “Yes. We know the place and we have seen your Mother. We know her and we have wondered for a long time where her children might be.”
“We wish to return to her,” Leswick said anxiously. “We did not mean to enter your hive, but we became lost in the jungle. We want nothing more than to finish our journey toward our Mother.”
“We understand,” came the solemn reply.
“Then you will help us?”
“Yes,” the Mother said. “Yes, we will cause our people to guide you to your Mother. We know your sorrow and we take pity upon you, strange ones from another hive.”
Leswick dropped to his knees. Rand did the same. Only Dombey remained standing. And then even he, overcome by superstitious awe, lowered himself heavily to the floor.
“We thank you for this kindness, Mother of this hive,” said Leswick with great solemnity.
“Yes, we thank you,” Rand added.
And Dombey chimed in, loud and clear and deep. “Yeah, thanks, Mother. Thanks.”
CHAPTER 14
MUCH LATER, Rand began to understand.
These beings were organized much like ants or bees. Although they weren’t insects, they had an insect-like type of society. Leswick had guessed it first, and he had been right.
Most of the villagers were workers or soldiers. They were all of the same sex — or rather, they didn’t have any sex at all. They never produced young ones. That was why they lived in small huts, one by one.
The Mother was the only member of the tribe who ever had children. She was really and truly the trib
e’s mother. Just as a queen bee lays all the eggs in the hive, the Mother here gave birth to all the villagers and ruled the tribe.
The fat, sleepy loafers outside the great house were her husbands. They were like the drones or males of a beehive. Their only job was to keep the population of the tribe growing.
No children were in sight in the village because each year’s brood was probably hatched at the same time. Very likely the last brood was already full-grown, and the new young ones weren’t due yet. All the workers looked the same since they were all produced by the Mother.
It made sense, now that Rand had had some time to think it over. But he wondered how Leswick had figured it out so quickly. And how had the little philosopher known that that stuff about their own “hive” and “Mother” would work?
Certainly the aliens were friendly now. That night they threw a feast for the three Earthmen in the plaza outside the great house of the Mother. The main course was a kind of thick blue-green jelly with a delicious spicy taste.
Afterwards the aliens gave a concert. At least, Rand thought it was a concert. A dozen of the barrel-shaped beings lined up in a row and made humming-booming noises for about half an hour. Rand was afraid it would be embarrassing if he asked what they were doing. So when it was over he made a little speech of thanks for the music, and hoped he was right.
The Earthmen slept that night in village huts, one man to a hut. Rand didn’t find it pleasant to lie down on the bare dirt floor of the hut. Stray insects kept wandering across it and him. The hut had no windows, and the air was hot and stuffy inside. But he knew he had to be polite. He and Dombey and Leswick were guests here. They had to accept the hospitality of the aliens.
In the morning, ten of the villagers escorted them into the jungle. Five marched in front of them, five in back. They carried their swords in their hands, ready for trouble.
At a steady pace they led the three wanderers farther toward the east. Toward the rescue signal beacon. Toward their Mother.
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