Molly jumped up and down and clapped her hands, speechless with delight. The only words Garry could find were a reiterated, “Ah, no!”
Mewhu stood where he was, smiling his engaging smile, waiting for them. They walked toward him, and when they were close he leaped again and soared out toward the road.
“What do you do with a thing like this?” breathed Jack. “Who do you go to, and what do you say to him?”
“Le’s just keep him for a pet, Daddy.”
Jack took her hand, and they followed the bounding, soaring silver man. A pet! A member of some alien race, from some unthinkable civilization—and obviously highly trained, too, for no ordinary individual would be the first to make such a trip. What was his story? Was he an advance guard? Or was he the sole survivor of his people? How far had he come? From Mars? Venus?
They caught up with, him at the house. He was standing by the ladder. His strange rod was lying quiet on the ground. He was fascinatedly operating Molly’s yo-yo. When he saw them, he threw down the yo-yo, picked up his device, and, slipping it across his shoulders, sprang high in the air and drifted down to the roof. “Eee-yu!” he said, with emphasis, and jumped off backward. So stable was the rod that as he sank through the air his long body swung to and fro.
“Very nice,” said Jack. “Also spectacular. And I have to go back to work.” He went to the ladder.
Mewhu bounded over to him and caught his arm, whimpering and whistling in his peculiar speech. He took the rod and extended it toward Jack.
“He wants you to use it,” said Molly.
“No, thanks,” said Jack, a trace of his tree-climbing vertigo returning to him. “I’d just as soon use the ladder.” And he put his hand out to it.
Mewhu, hopping with frustration, reached past him and toppled the ladder. It levered over a box as it fell and struck Jack painfully on the shin.
“I guess you better use the flyin’ belt, Daddy.”
Jack looked at Mewhu. The silver man was looking as pleasant as he could with that kind of a face; on the other hand, it might just possibly be wise to humor him a little. Being safely on the ground to begin with, Jack felt that it might not matter if the fantastic thing wouldn’t work for him. And if it failed him over the roof—well, the house wasn’t very tall.
He shrugged his arms through the two rings. Mewhu pointed to the roof, to Jack, made a jumping motion. Jack took a deep breath, aimed carefully, and hoping the gadget wouldn’t work, jumped.
He shot up close to the house—too close. The eave caught him a resounding thwack on precisely the spot where the ladder had just hit him. The impact barely checked him. He went sailing up over the roof, hovered for a breathless second, and then began to come down. For a moment he thought his flailing legs would find purchase on the far edge of the roof. He just missed it. All he managed to do was to crack the same shin, in the same place, mightily on the other eave. Trailing clouds of profanity, he landed standing—in Iris’ wash basket. Iris, just turning from the clothesline, confronted him.
“Jack! What on earth are you...get out of that! You’re standing right on my wash with your dirty...oh!”
“Oh-oh!” said Jack, and stepped backward out of the wash basket. His foot went into Molly’s express wagon, which Iris used to carry the heavy basket. To get his balance, he leaped—and immediately rose high in the air. This time his luck was better. He soared completely over the kitchen wing of the house and came to earth near Molly and Mewhu.
“Daddy, you were just like a bird! Me next, huh, Daddy?”
“I’m going to be just like a corpse if your mother’s expression means what I think it does. Don’t you touch that!” He shucked off the “flyin’-belt” and dived into the house just as Iris rounded the corner. He heard Molly’s delighted “He went that way” as he plowed through the shambles of the living room and out the front door. As the kitchen door slammed he was rounding the house. He charged up to Mewhu, snatched the gadget from him, slipped it on, and jumped. This time his judgment was faultless. He cleared the house easily although he came very near landing astride the clothesline. When Iris, panting and furious, stormed out of the house, he was busily hanging sheets.
“Just what,” said Iris, her voice crackling at the seams, “do you think you’re doing?”
“Just giving you a hand with the laundry, m’love,” said Jack.
“What is that...that object on your back?”
“Another evidence of the ubiquity of the devices of science fiction,” said Jack blandly. “This is a multilateral, three-dimensional mass adjuster, or pogo-chute. With it I can fly like a gull, evading the cares of the world and the advances of beautiful redheads, at such times as their passions are distasteful to me.”
“Sometime in the very near future, you gangling hatrack, I am going to pull the tongue out of your juke box of a head and tie a bowknot in it.” Then she laughed.
He heaved a sigh of relief, went and kissed her. “Darling, I am sorry. I was scared silly, dangling from this thing. I didn’t see your clothes basket, and if I had I don’t know how I’d have steered clear.”
“What is it, Jack? How does it work?”
“I dunno. Jets on the ends. They blast hard when there’s a lot of weight pushing them toward the earth. They blast harder near the earth than up high. When the weight on them slacks off a bit, they throttle down. What makes them do it, what they use for power—I just wouldn’t know. As far as I can see, they suck in air at the top and blow it out through the jets. And, oh yes—they point directly downward no matter which way the rod is turned.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Off a tree. It’s Mewhu’s. Apparently he used it for a parachute. On the way down, a tree branch speared through one of these rings and he slipped out of it and fell and broke his arm.”
“What are we going to do with him, Jack?”
“I’ve been worrying about that myself. We can’t sell him to a sideshow.” He paused thoughtfully. “There’s no doubt that he has a lot that would be of value to humanity. Why, this thing alone would change the face of the earth! Listen—I weigh a hundred and seventy. I fell on this thing suddenly, when I lost my grip on a tree, and it bore my weight immediately. Mewhu weighs more than I do, judging from his build. It took his weight when he lifted his feet off the ground while he was holding it over his head. If it can do that, it or a larger version should be able, not only to drive, but to support an aircraft. If for some reason that isn’t possible, the power of those little jets certainly could turn a turbine.”
“Will it wash clothes?” Iris was glum.
“That’s exactly what I mean. Light, portable, and more power than it has any right to have—of course it’ll wash clothes. And drive generators, and cars, and...Iris, what do you do when you have something as big as this?”
“Call a newspaper, I guess.”
“And have a hundred thousand people peeking and prying all over the place, and Congressional investigations, and what all? Uh-uh!”
“Why not ask Harry Zinsser?”
“Harry? I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I never said that. It’s just that you and he go off in the corner and chatter about mulpitude amputation and debilities of reactance and things like that, and I have to sit, knit—and spit when I want someone’s attention. Harry’s all right.”
“Gosh, honey, you’ve got it. Harry’ll know what to do. I’ll go right away.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind. With that hole in the roof? I thought you said you could have it patched up for the night at least. By the time you get back here it’ll be dark.”
The prospect of sawing out the ragged hole in the roof was suddenly the least appealing thing in the world. But there was logic and an “or else” tone to what she said. He sighed and went off, mumbling something about the greatest single advance in history awaiting the whim of a woman. He forgot that he was wearing Mewhu’s armpit altitudinizer. Only his first two paces were on the ground, an
d Iris hooted with laughter at his clumsy walking on air. When he reached the ground he set his jaw and leaped lightly up to the roof. “Catch me now, you and your piano legs,” he taunted cheerfully, ducked the lancelike clothes prop she hurled at him, and went back to work.
As he sawed, he was conscious of a hubbub down below.
“Dah-dee!” “Mr-r-roo ellue—”
He sighed and put down the saw. “What is it?”
“Mewhu wants his flyin’ belt!”
Jack looked at the roof, at the lower shed, and decided that his old bones could stand it if he had to get down without a ladder. He took the jet-tipped rod and dropped it. It stayed perfectly horizontal, falling no slower and no faster than it had when he had ridden it down. Mewhu caught it, deftly slipped his splinted arm through it—it was astonishing how careful he was of the arm, and yet how little it inconvenienced him—then the other arm, and sprang up to join Jack on the roof.
“What do you say, fella?”
“Woopen yew weep.”
“I know how you feel.” He knew the silver man wanted to tell him something, but he couldn’t help him out. He grinned and picked up the saw. Mewhu took it out of his hand and tossed it off the roof, being careful to miss Molly, who was dancing back to get a point of vantage.
“What’s the big idea?”
“Dellihew hidden,” said Mewhu. “Pento deh numinew heh,” and he pointed at the flying belt and at the hole in the roof.
“You mean I’d rather fly off in that thing than work? Brother, you got it. But I’m afraid I have to—”
Mewhu circled his arm, pointing all around the hole in the roof, and pointed again to the pogo-chute, indicating one of the jet motors.
“I don’t get it,” said Jack.
Mewhu apparently understood, and an expression of amazement crossed his mobile face. Kneeling, he placed his good hand around one of the little jet motors, pressed two tiny studs, and the casing popped open. Inside was a compact, sealed, and simple-looking device, the core of the motor itself, apparently. There seemed to be no other fastening. Mewhu lifted it out and handed it to Jack. It was about the size and shape of an electric razor. There was a button on the side. Mewhu pointed at it, pressed the back, and then moved Jack’s hand so that the device was pointed away from them both. Jack, expecting anything, from nothing at all to the “blinding bolt of searing, raw energy” so dear to the science-fiction world, pressed the button.
The gadget hissed, and snuggled back into his palm in an easy recoil.
“That’s fine,” said Jack, “but what do I do with it?”
Mewhu pointed at Jack’s cut, then at the device.
“Oh,” said Jack. He bent close, aimed the thing at the end of the saw cut, and pressed the button. Again the hiss and the slight, steady recoil, and a fine line appeared in the wood. It was a cut, about half as thick as the saw cut, clean and even and, as long as he kept his hand steady, very straight. A fine cloud of pulverized wood rose out of the hole in the roof, carried on a swirl of air.
Jack experimented, holding the jet close to the wood and away from it. He found that it cut finer the closer he got to it. As he drew it away from the wood, the slot got wider and the device cut slower until at about eighteen inches it would not cut at all. Delighted, Jack quickly cut and trimmed the hole. Mewhu watched, grinning. Jack grinned back, knowing how he would feel if he introduced a saw to some primitive who was trying to work wood with a machete.
When he was finished, he handed the jet back to the silver man and slapped his shoulder. “Thanks a million, Mewhu.”
“Jeek,” said Mewhu, and reached for Jack’s neck. One of his thumbs lay on Jack’s collarbone, the other on his back, over the scapula. Mewhu squeezed twice, firmly.
“That the way you shake hands back home?” smiled Jack. He thought it likely. Any civilized race was likely to have a manual greeting. The handshake had evolved from a raised palm, indicating that the saluter was unarmed. It was quite possible that this was an extension, in a slightly different direction, of the same sign. It would indeed be an indication of friendliness to have two individuals present their throats to each other.
With three deft motions, Mewhu slipped the tiny jet back into its casing and, holding the rod with one hand, stepped off the roof, letting himself be lowered in that amazing thistledown fashion to the ground. Once there, he tossed the rod back. Jack was startled to see it hurtle upward like any earthly object. He grabbed it and missed. It reached the top of its arc, and as soon as it started down again the jets cut in, and it sank easily to him. He put it on and floated down to join Mewhu.
The silver man followed Jack to the garage, where he kept a few pieces of milled lumber. He selected some one inch pine boards and dragged them out into the middle of the floor, to measure them and mark them off to the size he wanted to knock together a simple trap-door covering for the useless stair well, a process which Mewhu watched with great interest.
Jack took up the flying belt and tried to open the streamlined shell to remove the cutter. It absolutely defied him. He pressed, twisted, wrenched, and pulled. All it did was to hiss gently when he moved it toward the floor.
“Eek, Jeek,” said Mewhu. He took the jet from Jack and pressed it. Jack watched closely, then he grinned and took the cutter.
He swiftly cut the lumber up with it, sneering gayly at the ripsaw which hung on the wall. Then he put the whole trap together with a Z-brace, trimmed off the few rough corners, and stood back to admire it. He realized instantly that it was too heavy to carry by himself, let alone lift it to the roof. If Mewhu had two good hands, now—He scratched his head.
“Carry it on the flyin’ belt, Daddy.”
“Molly! What made you think of that?”
“Mewhu tol’...I mean, I sort of—”
“Let’s get this straight once and for all. How does Mewhu talk to you?”
“I dunno, Daddy. It’s sort of like I remembered something he said, but not the...the words he said. I jus’...jus’ …she faltered, and then said vehemently, “I don’t know, Daddy. Truly I don’t.”
“What’d he say this time?”
She looked at Mewhu. Again Jack noticed the peculiar swelling of Mewhu’s silver mustache. She said, “Put the door you jus’ made on the flyin’ belt and lift it. The flyin’ belt’ll make it fall slow, and you can push it along while...it’s...failin’.”
Jack looked at the door, at the jet device, and got the idea. When he had slipped the jet rod under the door, Mewhu gave him a lift. Up it came; and then Mewhu, steadying it, towed it well outside the garage before it finally sank to the ground. Another lift, another easy tow, and they covered thirty more feet. In this manner they covered the distance to the house, with Molly skipping and laughing behind, pleading for a ride and praising the grinning Mewhu.
At the house, Jack said, “Well, Einstein Junior, how do we get it up on the roof?”
Mewhu picked up Molly’s yo-yo and began to operate it deftly. Doing so, he walked around the corner of the house.
“Hey!”
“He don’t know, Daddy. You’ll have to figger it out.”
“You mean he could dream up that slick trick for carrying it out here and now his brains give out?”
“I guess so, Daddy.”
Jack Garry looked after the retreating form of the silver man and shook his head. He was already prepared to expect better than human reasoning from Mewhu, even if it was a little different. He couldn’t quite phase this with Mewhu’s shrugging off a problem in basic logic. Certainly a man with his capabilities would not have reasoned out such an ingenious method of bringing the door out here without realizing that that was only half the problem. He wondered if the solution was so obvious to Mewhu that he couldn’t be bothered explaining it.
Shrugging,’ Jack went back to the garage and got a small block and tackle. He had to put up a big screw hook on the eave, and another on the new trap door; and once he had laboriously hauled the door up until the tackle was
two-locked, it was a little more than arduous to work it over the edge and drag it into position. Mewhu had apparently quite lost interest. It was two hours later, just as he put the last screw in the tower bolt on the trap door and was calling the job finished, that he heard Mewhu begin to shriek again. He dropped his tools, shrugged into the jet stick, and sailed off the roof.
“Iris! Iris! What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, Jack. He’s...”
Jack pounded around to the front of the house. Mewhu was lying on the ground in the midst of some violent, tearing convulsion. He lay on his back, arching it high, digging his heels into the turf; and his head was bent back at an impossible angle, so that his weight was on his heels and his forehead. His good arm pounded the ground though the splinted one lay limp. His lips writhed and he uttered an edgy, gasping series of ululations quite horrible to listen to. He seemed to be able to scream as loudly when inhaling as when exhaling.
Molly stood beside him, watching him hypnotically. She was smiling. Jack knelt beside the writhing form and tried to steady it. “Molly, stop grinning at the poor fellow.”
“But—he’s happy, Daddy.”
“He’s what?”
“Can’t you see, silly? He feels good, that’s all. He’s laughing!”
“Iris, what’s the matter with him? Do you know?”
“He took some aspirin again, that’s all I can tell you.”
“He ate four,” said Molly. “He loves ’em.”
“What can we do, Jack?”
“I don’t know, honey,” said Jack worriedly. “Better just let him work it out. Any emetic or sedative we give him might be harmful.”
The attack slackened and ceased suddenly, and Mewhu went quite limp. Again, with his hand over the man’s chest, Jack felt the strange double pulsing.
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