"A lot worse, I'd say. That first little one wasn't anything."
"No, I mean the one while you were outside."
"Was there one then?"
"Didn't you feel it?"
"No." I tried to remember. "Maybe that was when I fell off in the snow."
"You fell off? Kip!"
"It was all right. Oscar helped me."
There was another ground shock. I wouldn't have minded, only it shook me up and made me hurt worse. I finally came out of the fog enough to realize that I didn't have to hurt.
Let's see, medicine pills were on the right and the codeine dispenser was farthest back- "Peewee? Could I trouble you for some water again?"
"Of course!"
"I'm going to take codeine. It may make me sleep. Do you mind?"
"You ought to sleep if you can. You need it."
"I suppose so. What time is it?"
She told me and I couldn't believe it. "You mean it's been more than twelve hours?"
"Huh? Since what?"
"Since this started."
"I don't understand, Kip." She stared at her watch. "It has been exactly an hour and a half since I found you-not quite two hours since the Mother Thing set off the bombs."
I couldn't believe that, either. But Peewee insisted that she was right.
The codeine made me feel much better and I was beginning to be drowsy, when Peewee said, "Kip, do you smell anything?"
I sniffed. "Something like kitchen matches?"
"That's what I mean. I think the pressure is dropping, too. Kip ... I think I had better close your helmet-if you're going to sleep."
"All right. You close yours, too?"
"Yes. Uh, I don't think this place is tight any longer."
"You may be right." Between explosions and quakes, I didn't see how it could be. But, while I knew what that meant, I was too weary and sick- and getting too dreamy from the drug-to worry. Now, or a month from now-what did it matter? The Mother Thing had said everything was okay.
Peewee clamped us in, we checked radios, and she sat down facing me and the Mother Thing. She didn't say anything for a long time. Then I heard: "Peewee to Junebug-"
"I read you, Peewee."
"Kip? It's been fun, mostly. Hasn't it?"
"Huh?" I glanced up, saw that the dial said I had about four hours of air left. I had had to reduce pressure twice, since we closed up, to match falling pressure in the room. "Yes, Peewee, it's been swell. I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
She sighed. "I just wanted to be sure you weren't blaming me. Now go to sleep."
I did almost go to sleep, when I saw Peewee jump up and my phones came to life. "Kip! Something's coming in the door!"
I came wide awake, realized what it meant. Why couldn't they have let us be? A few hours, anyhow? "Peewee. Don't panic. Move to the far side of the door. You've got your blue-light gadget?"
"Yes."
"Pick them off as they come in."
"You've got to move, Kip. You're right where they will come!"
"I can't get up." I hadn't been able to move, not even my arms, for quite a while. "Use low power, then if you brush me, it won't matter. Do what I say! Fast!"
"Yes, Kip." She got where she could snipe at them sideways, raised her projector and waited.
The inner door opened, a figure came in. I saw Peewee start to nail it- and I called into my radio: "Don't shoot!"
But she was dropping the projector and running forward even as I shouted.
They were "mother thing" people.
It took six of them to carry me, only two to carry the Mother Thing. They sang to me soothingly all the time they were rigging a litter. I swallowed another codeine tablet before they lifted me, as even with their gentleness any movement hurt. It didn't take long to get me into their ship, for they had landed almost at the tunnel mouth, no doubt crushing the walkway-I hoped so.
Once I was safely inside Peewee opened my helmet and unzipped the front of my suit. "Kip! Aren't they wonderful?"
"Yes." I was getting dizzier from the drug but was feeling better. "When do we raise ship?"
"We've already started."
"They're taking us home?" I'd have to tell Mr. Charton what a big help the codeine was.
"Huh? Oh, my, no! We're headed for Vega."
I fainted.
Chapter 9
I had been dreaming that I was home; this awoke me with a jerk. "Mother Thing!"
("Good morning, my son. I am happy to see that you are feeling better.")
"Oh, I feel fine. I've had a good night's rest-" I stared, then blurted: "-you're dead!" I couldn't stop it.
Her answer sounded warmly, gently humorous, the way you correct a child who has made a natural mistake. ("No, dear, I was merely frozen. I am not as frail as you seem to think me.")
I blinked and looked again. "Then it wasn't a dream?"
("No, it was not a dream.")
"I thought I was home and-" I tried to sit up, managed only to raise my head. "I am home!" My room! Clothes closet on the left-hall door behind the Mother Thing-my desk on the right, piled with books and with a Centerville High pennant over it-window beyond it, with the old elm almost filling it-sun-speckled leaves stirring in a breeze.
My slipstick was where I had left it.
Things started to wobble, then I figured it out. I had dreamed only the silly part at the end. Vega-I had been groggy with codeine. "You brought me home."
("We brought you home ... to your other home. My home.")
The bed started to sway. I clutched at it but my arms didn't move. The Mother Thing was still singing. ("You needed your own nest. So we prepared it.")
"Mother Thing, I'm confused."
("We know that a bird grows well faster in its own nest. So we built yours.") "Bird" and "nest" weren't what she sang, but an Unabridged won't give anything closer.
I took a deep breath to steady down. I understood her-that's what she was best at, making you understand. This wasn't my room and I wasn't home; it simply looked like it. But I was still terribly confused.
I looked around and wondered how I could have been mistaken.
The light slanted in the window from a wrong direction. The ceiling didn't have the patch in it from the time I built a hide-out in the attic and knocked plaster down by hammering. It wasn't the right shade, either.
The books were too neat and clean; they had that candy-box look. I couldn't recognize the bindings. The over-all effect was mighty close, but details were not right.
("I like this room,") the Mother Thing was singing. ("It looks like you, Kip.")
"Mother Thing," I said weakly, "how did you do it?"
("We asked you. And Peewee helped.")
I thought, "But Peewee has never seen my room either," then decided that Peewee had seen enough American homes to be a consulting expert. "Peewee is here?"
("She'll be in shortly.")
With Peewee and the Mother Thing around things couldn't be too bad. Except- "Mother Thing, I can't move my arms and legs."
She put a tiny, warm hand on my forehead and leaned over me until her enormous, lemur-like eyes blanked out everything else. ("You have been damaged. Now you are growing well. Do not worry.")
When the Mother Thing tells you not to worry, you don't. I didn't want to do handstands anyhow; I was satisfied to look into her eyes. You could sink into them, you could have dived in and swum around. "All right, Mother Thing." I remembered something else. "Say... you were frozen? Weren't you?"