“And afterwards?”
Alice understood that I was just as capable of watching the television as she. She said:
“And then they asked me to greet the space men.”
“And who was it who asked you?”
“Someone. You don’t know him.”
“Alice, have you ever made the acquaintances of the term ‘corporal punishment?’“
“It’s when they spank you. But I thought that was just in fairy tales.”
“I fear we shall have to turn fairy tales into reality. Why do you always get into places you shouldn’t go?”
Alice pouted, but suddenly the red basket in her hands began to shake.
“And just what is that?”
“A gift. From Poloskov.”
“You inveigled you begged a gift from him. Now, that simply isn’t….”
“I didn’t ask him for anything. It’s a shusher. Poloskov brought them back from Sirius. It’s a baby shusher. A shusher-cub. A shushin. Shushy?”
And Alice carefully reached into the basket and lifted out a small, six pawed little animal similar to a kangaroo. The baby shusher had large, compound eyes. He was turning them every which way, clutching tightly at Alice’s dress with the upper pair of paws.
“See, he loves me already.” Alice said. “I’m going to make him a bed.”
I already knew the story about the shushers. Everyone knew the story about the shushers, my fellow biologists especially. I had five shushers in the zoo already, and in a day or so we were expecting additions to their family.
Poloskov and Zeleny had discovered the Shusers on one of the planets of the Sirius system. They were tame, harmless little animals who wouldn’t go a step from the spacemen once they found the Earthmen’s camp. They turned out to be mammals, although in behavior they more resembled terrestrial penguins. They exhibited quiet curiosity and were constantly attempting to crawl into the most unlikely and unhealthy places. Zeleny even had to save a shusher once before it could drown in a large can of condensed milk. The expedition made an entire film about the shushers which had been enormously successful on the entertainment channels and the web.
Unfortunately the expedition simply did not have enough time to study the shushers as they should have; they knew the shushers came into the expedition’s camp at sunrise and vanished with the sun, hiding in among the rocks.
However they managed it, when the expedition had already taken off for home, Poloskov discovered three shushers who had evidently gotten aboard the ship. Naturally Poloskov’s first thought was that the shushers had been brought on board as contraband by one of the expedition’s members, but the distress of his comrades was so sincere that Poloskov soon abandoned his suspicions.
The appearance of the shushers produced a whole mass of consequent problems. First of all they might very well be a source of some unknown infection. Secondly, they might very well die en route back to Earth when the ship made its jump. Thirdly, no one knew what they ate. And so on.
But all of the dangers proved, in the end, to be chimeras. The shushers went through disinfection without the slightest problem at all, they dutifully subsisted on bouillon and dried fruits. This made them a lifelong enemy in Zeleny, who had a taste for fruit himself and had to spend the last months of the expedition getting his vitamins from pills in order to ‘feed the mice.’
Over the course of the long flight back to Earth the Shushes gave birth to six kits. As a result the ship reached Earth orbit filled to the gills with shushers and shusher kits. They turned out to be quick witted little animals and, other than Zeleny, none of the crew suffered the slightest unpleasantness or inconvenience.
I remember the historic moment when the expedition landed back on Earth, when, under the glare of the television and film cameras the airlock opened, and, instead of the spacemen, first through the orifice was an astonishing, furry animal. And after that came several more, just smaller. You could hear the gasp of astonishment around the world, but it cut off a moment later when a laughing Poloskov followed the shushers from out of the ship. In his hands he had one of the kits, condensed milk still smeared on its fur.
One part of the contingent of animals ended up in the zoo, others remained with spacemen who refused to give them up. Poloskov’s shusher kit finally reached Alice. The Lord alone knows how my daughter charmed the spaceman out of the shusher.
Shusher lived in a large basket right beside Alice’s bed; he got along fine without meat, slept nights, made friends with the cats and the large Martian Mantis, and he purred in a low, quiet voice when Alice petted him or told him how good he was or what he had done wrong.
Shusher grew very quickly and two months later he stood as tall as my daughter. They went for walks in the small garden across the street and Alice never put a collar and leash on to him.
“But what if something frightens him?” I asked. “He might get run over.”
“No, nothing frightens him. And anyway, he’d really be embarrassed if I put him on a leash. He’s really very sensitive.”
One time Alice could not get to sleep. She was very cranky and after I put her to bed she called me on the house com and insisted that I read to her about Doctor Doolittle.
“Not now, kid.” I said. “I have work to do right now. Besides, it’s time you started reading your own books.”
“But it’s not in the book, Papa. It’s still on the old microfilm and the letters are too small.”
“So that’s why we have the book reader. If you don’t want to read yourself, turn on the sound.”
“But I’d have to get up, and it’s cold.”
“Then you have to wait a while. When I finish writing I’ll turn it on for you.”
“If you won’t do it, I’ll ask Shusher.”
“Ask him all you want.” I laughed.
And a few minutes later I suddenly heard from the room next door the microfilm reader voice say: “…lived in a little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks….”.
And that meant Alice had gotten out of bed anyway and turned on the reader.
“Back to bed right now!” I shouted. “Go to sleep!”
“But I am in the bed.”
“You mustn’t lie to me. Just who turned on the reader?”
“Shusher.”
One thing I will not permit is for my daughter to grow up a liar. I put aside my work, went into her room, planning to have a very serious conversation.
The book reader screen on the wall had been turned on. Shusher was at the control panel. On the screen Doctor Doolittle was surrounded by unfortunate animals.
“And how did you manage to teach him to do that trick?” I was truly astonished.
“I didn’t teach him to do anything. He knows how to do it all on his own.”
Shusher crossed his upper pair of paws on his chest in embarrassment.
There was a strained moment of silence.
“Oh well…” I finally started to say.
“Pardon me.” A high pitched, husky voice broke the silence. It was Shusher speaking. “But I really did teach myself. It wasn’t very difficult.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“It wasn’t at all difficult.” Shusher repeated. “You showed me how to work it yourself when you showed Alice the tale of the Mantis king the day before yesterday.”
“No, that doesn’t matter. How did you learn to speak?”
“I showed him how.” Alice said.
“But I don’t understand it at all! Dozens of biologists are working with the shushers and not once has a single shusher said a word to any of us!”
“But our shusher can read too, can’t you?”
“Somewhat.”
“He’s told me a lot of interesting things…”
“I’ve become great friends with your daughter.”
“But why were you silent for so long?”
“He’s timid.” Alice answered for him.
Shusher blinked his eyes.
A Parition of the Night