("Yes.")
"But- Look, when water freezes it ruptures living cells. Or so they say."
She answered primly, ("My body would never permit that!").
"Well-" I thought about it. "Just don't dunk me in liquid air! I'm not built for it."
Again her song held roguish, indulgent humor. ("We shall endeavor not to hurt you.") She straightened up and grew a little, swaying like a willow. ("I sense Peewee.")
There was a knock-another discrepancy; it didn't sound like a knock on a light-weight interior door-and Peewee called out, "May I come in?" She didn't wait (I wondered if she ever did) but came on in. The bit I could see past her looked like our upper hall; they'd done a thorough job.
("Come in, dear.")
"Sure, Peewee. You are in."
"Don't be captious."
"Look who's talking. Hi, kid!"
"Hi yourself."
The Mother Thing glided away. ("Don't stay long, Peewee. You are not to tire him.")
"I won't, Mother Thing."
(" ‘Bye, dears.")
I said, "What are the visiting hours in this ward?"
"When she says, of course." Peewee stood facing me, fists on hips. She was really clean for the first time in our acquaintance-cheeks pink with scrubbing, hair fluffy-maybe she would be pretty, in about ten years. She was dressed as always but her clothes were fresh, all buttons present, and tears invisibly mended.
"Well," she said, letting out her breath, "I guess you're going to be worth keeping, after all."
"Me? I'm in the pink. How about yourself?"
She wrinkled her nose. "A little frost nip. Nothing. But you were a mess."
"I was?"
"I can't use adequate language without being what Mama calls ‘unladylike.' "
"Oh, we wouldn't want you to be that."
"Don't be sarcastic. You don't do it well."
"You won't let me practice on you?"
She started to make a Peewee retort, stopped suddenly, smiled and came close. For a nervous second I thought she was going to kiss me. But she just patted the bedclothes and said solemnly, "You bet you can, Kip. You can be sarcastic, or nasty, or mean, or scold me, or anything, and I won't let out a peep. Why, I'll bet you could even talk back to the Mother Thing."
I couldn't imagine wanting to. I said, "Take it easy, Peewee. Your halo is showing."
"I'd have one if it weren't for you. Or flunked my test for it, more likely."
"So? I seem to remember somebody about your size lugging me indoors almost piggy-back. How about that?"
She wriggled. "That wasn't anything. You set the beacon. That was everything."
"Uh, each to his own opinion. It was cold out there." I changed the subject; it was embarrassing us. Mention of the beacon reminded me of something else. "Peewee? Where are we?"
"Huh? In the Mother Thing's home, of course." She looked around and said, "Oh, I forgot. Kip, this isn't really your-"
"I know," I said impatiently. "It's a fake. Anybody can see that."
"They can?" She looked crestfallen. "I thought we had done a perfect job."
"It's an incredibly good job. I don't see how you did it."
"Oh, your memory is most detailed. You must have a camera eye." -and I must have spilled my guts, too! I added to myself. I wondered what else I had said-with Peewee listening. I was afraid to ask; a fellow ought to have privacy.
"But it's still a fake," I went on. "I know we're in the Mother Thing's home. But where's that?"
"Oh." She looked round-eyed. "I told you. Maybe you don't remember -you were sleepy."
"I remember," I said slowly, "something. But it didn't make sense. I thought you said we were going to Vega."
"Well, I suppose the catalogs will list it as Vega Five. But they call it-" She threw back her head and vocalized; it recalled to me the cockcrow theme in Le Coq d'Or. "-but I couldn't say that. So I told you Vega, which is close enough."
I tried again to sit up, failed. "You mean to stand there and tell me we're on Vega? I mean, a ‘Vegan planet'?"
"Well, you haven't asked me to sit down."
I ignored the Peeweeism. I looked at "sunlight" pouring through the window. "That light is from Vega?"
"That stuff? That's artificial sunlight. If they had used real, bright, Vega light, it would look ghastly. Like a bare arc light. Vega is ‘way up the Russell diagram, you know."
"It is?" I didn't know the spectrum of Vega; I had never expected to need to know it.
"Oh, yes! You be careful, Kip-when you're up, I mean. In ten seconds you can get more burn than all winter in Key West-and ten minutes would kill you."
I seemed to have a gift for winding up in difficult climates. What star class was Vega? "A," maybe? Probably "B." All I knew was that it was big and bright, bigger than the Sun, and looked pretty set in Lyra.
But where was it? How in the name of Einstein did we get here? "Peewee? How far is Vega? No, I mean, ‘How far is the Sun?' You wouldn't happen to know?"
"Of course," she said scornfully. "Twenty-seven light-years."
Great Galloping Gorillas! "Peewee-get that slide rule. You know how to push one? I don't seem to have the use of my hands."
She looked uneasy. "Uh, what do you want it for?"
"I want to see what that comes to in miles."
"Oh. I'll figure it. No need for a slide rule."
"A slipstick is faster and more accurate. Look, if you don't know how to use one, don't be ashamed-I didn't, at your age. I'll show you."
"Of course I can use one!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a stupe? But I'll work it out." Her lips moved silently. "One point five nine times ten to the fourteenth miles."
I had done that Proxima Centauri problem recently; I remembered the miles in a light-year and did a rough check in my head-uh, call it six times twenty-five makes a hundred and fifty-and where was the decimal point? "Your answer sounds about right." 159,000,000,000,000 weary miles! Too many zeroes for comfort.
"Of course I'm right!" she retorted. "I'm always right."
"Goodness me! The handy-dandy pocket encyclopedia."
She blushed. "I can't help being a genius."
Which left her wide open and I was about to rub her nose in it-when I saw how unhappy she looked.
I remembered hearing Dad say: "Some people insist that ‘mediocre' is better than ‘best.' They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none. Pfah!"
"I'm sorry, Peewee," I said humbly. "I know you can't. And I can't help not being one... any more than you can help being little, or I can help being big."
She relaxed and looked solemn. "I guess I was being a show-off again." She twisted a button. "Or maybe I assumed that you understand me-like Daddy."
"I feel complimented. I doubt if I do-but from now on I'll try." She went on worrying the button. "You're pretty smart yourself, Kip. You know that, don't you?"
I grinned. "If I were smart, would I be here? All thumbs and my ears rub together. Look, honey, would you mind if we checked you on the slide rule? I'm really interested." Twenty-seven light-years-why, you wouldn't be able to see the Sun, It isn't any great shakes as a star.
But I had made her uneasy again. "Uh, Kip, that isn't much of a slide rule."
"What? Why, that's the best that money can-"
"Kip, please! It's part of the desk. It's not a slide rule."
"Huh?" I looked sheepish. "I forgot. Uh, I suppose that hall out there doesn't go very far?"