“Will you get psychiatric help?”
‘‘No.
“I bless you,” the Walker-on-Earth said, and made a motion with his right hand: a slow and dignified gesture of blessing. Seth Morley bowed his head, pressed his right hand against his eyes… and found that black tears had lodged in the hollows of his face. Even now, he marveled. That awful old cat; I should have forgotten him years ago. I guess you never really forget such things, he thought. It’s all in there, in the mind, buried until something like this comes up.
“Thank you,” he said, when the blessing ended.
“You will see him again,” the Walker said. “When you sit with us in Paradise.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly as he was?”
“Yes.”
“Will he remember me?”
“He remembers you now. He waits. He will never stop waiting.”
“Thanks,” Morley said. “I feel a lot better.”
The Walker-on-Earth departed.
Entering the cafeteria of the kibbutz, Seth Morley sought out his wife. He found her eating curried lamb shoulder at a table in the shadows of the edge of the room. She barely nodded as he seated himself facing her.
“You missed dinner,” she said presently. “That’s not like you.”
Morley said, “I saw him.”
“Who?” She eyed him keenly.
“The Walker-on-Earth. He came to tell me that the noser I picked out would have killed us. We never would have made it.”
“I knew that,” Mary said. “I knew that—thing would never have gotten us there.”
Morley said, “My cat is still alive.”
“You don’t have a cat.”
He grabbed her arm, halting her motions with the fork. “He says we’ll be all right; we’ll get to Delmak-O and I can begin the new job.”
“Did you ask him what the new job is all about?”
“I didn’t think to ask him that, no.”
“You fool.” She pried his hand loose and resumed eating. “Tell me what the Walker looked like.”
“You’ve never seen it?”
“You know I’ve never seen it!”
“Beautiful and gentle. He held out his hand and blessed me.”
“So it manifested itself to you as a man. Interesting. If it had been as a woman you wouldn’t have listened to—”
“I pity you,” Morley said. “It’s never intervened to save you. Maybe it doesn’t consider you worth saving.”
Mary, savagely, threw down her fork; she glowered at him with animal ferocity. Neither of them spoke for a time.
“I’m going to Delmak-O alone,” Morley said at last. “You think so? You really think so? I’m going with you; I want to keep my eyes on you at all times. Without me—”
“Okay,” he said scathingly. “You can come along. What the hell do I care? Anyhow if you stayed here you’d be having an affair with Gossim, ruining his life—” He ceased speaking, panting for breath.
In silence, Mary continued eating her lamb.
3
“You are one thousand miles above the surface of Delmak-O,” the headphone clamped against Ben Tallchief’s ear declared. “Switch to automatic pilot, please.”
“I can land her myself,” Ben Tallchief said into his mike. He gazed at the world below him, wondering at its colors. Clouds, he decided. A natural atmosphere. Well, that answers one of my many questions. He felt relaxed and confident. And then he thought of his next question: Is this a god-world? And that issue sobered him.
He landed without difficulty… stretched, yawned, belched, unfastened his seat belt, stood up, awkwardly walked to the hatch, opened the hatch, then went back to the control room to shut off the still active rocket engine. While he was at it he shut off the air supply, too. That seemed to be all. He clambered down the iron steps and bounced his way clumsily onto the surface of the planet.
Next to the field a row of flat-roofed buildings: the tiny colony’s interwoven installations. Several persons were moving toward his noser, evidently to greet him. He waved, enjoying the feel of the plastic leather steering gloves—that and the very great augmentation of his somatic self which his bulky suit provided.
“Hi!” a female voice called.
“Hi,” Ben Tallchief said, regarding the girl. She wore a dark smock, with matching pants, a general issue outfit that matched the plainness of her round, clean, freckled face. “Is this a god-world?” he asked, walking leisurely toward her.
“It is not a god-world,” the girl said, “but there are some strange things out there.” She gestured toward the horizon vaguely; smiling at him in a friendly manner she held out her hand. “I’m Betty Jo Berm. Linguist. You’re either Mr. Tallchief or Mr. Morley; everyone else is here already.”
“Tallchief,” he said.
“I’ll introduce you to everyone. This elderly gentleman is Bert Kosler, our custodian.”
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Kosler.” Handshake.
“I’m glad to meet you, too,” the old man said. “This is Maggie Walsh, our theologian.”
“Glad to meet you, Miss Walsh.” Handshake. Pretty girl.
“Glad to meet you, too, Mr. Tallchief.”
“Ignatz Thugg, thermoplastics.”
“Hi, there.” Overly masculine handshake. He did not like Mr. Thugg.
“Dr. Milton Babble, the colony’s M.D.”
“Nice to know you, Dr. Babble.” Handshake. Babble, short and wide, wore a colorful short-sleeved shirt. His face had on it a corrupt expression which was hard to penetrate.
“Tony Dunkelwelt, our photographer and soil-sample expert.”
“Nice to meet you.” Handshake.
“This gentleman here is Wade Frazer, our psychologist.” A long, phony handshake with Frazer’s wet, unclean fingers.
“Glen Belsnor, our electronics and computer man.”
“Glad to meet you,” Handshake. Dry, horny, competent hand.
A tall, elderly woman approached, supporting herself with a cane. She had a noble face, pale in its quality but very fine. “Mr. Tallchief,” she said, extending a slight, limp hand to Ben Tallchief. “I am Roberta Rockingham, the sociologist. It’s nice to meet you. We’ve all been wondering and wondering about you.”
Ben said, “Are you the Roberta Rockingham?” He felt himself glow with the pleasure of meeting her. Somehow he had assumed that the great old lady had died years ago. It confused him to find himself being introduced to her now.
“And this,” Betty Jo Berm said, “is our clerk-typist, Susie Dumb.”
“Glad to know you, Miss—” He paused.
“Smart,” the girl said. Full-breasted and wonderfully shaped. “Suzanne Smart. They think it’s funny to call me Susie Dumb.” She extended her hand and they shook.
Betty Jo Berm said, “Do you want to look around, or just what?”
Ben said, “I’d like to know the purpose of the colony. They didn’t tell me.”
“Mr. Tallchief,” the great old sociologist said, “they didn’t tell us either.” She chuckled. “We’ve asked everyone in turn as he arrives and no one knows. Mr. Morley, the last man to arrive—he won’t know either, and then where will we be?”
To Ben, the electronics maintenance man said, “There’s no problem. They put up a slave satellite; it’s orbiting five times a day and at night you can see it go past. When the last person arrives—that’ll be Morley—we’re instructed to remote activate the audio tape transport aboard the satellite, and from the tape we’ll get our instructions and an explanation of what we’re doing and why we’re here and all the rest of that crap; everything we want to know except ‘How do you make the refrig colder so the beer doesn’t get warm?’ Yeah, maybe they’ll tell us that, too.”
A general conversation among the group of them was building up. Ben found himself drifting into it without really understanding it. “At Betelgeuse 4 we had cucumbers, and we didn’t grow them from moonbeams, the way you hear.”
“I’ve never seen him.”
“Well, he exists. You’ll see him someday.”
“We’ve got a linguist so evidently there’re sentient organisms here, but so far our expeditions have been informal, not scientific. That’ll change when—”