Sam showed them his single brass farthing. “I brought this,” he said and they all laughed the more. “And I brought one more thing,” he said, and threw open the doors. In walked the ogre, looking for the party he’d been promised.
Sam explained to the ogre that the party would begin straight away the moment he became king. Since the ogre was standing in the only doorway, Sam was made king in no time at all.
Well, after that, Sam set the ogre up in a cave of his very own, and after the neighbors found he wasn’t a bad sort he got on quite well. The ogre became a regular tourist attraction, one of the finest in the kingdom, and brought in a nice regular bit of revenue. Sam opened a charm school with his brother Ned in charge, and that brought in even more money. Sam married the princess himself and everybody lived quite happily from then on. If they haven’t moved away, and I don’t know why they would, they’ll be living there still.
Oh, yes. It took the ogre a full ten years to decide he couldn’t answer Sam’s riddle. Every week he would bundle the answers he’d thought of together and send them to Sam and Sam would send them back. Finally the ogre decided he would never find the right answer to the question, “What is it that is not and never will be?” He opened the paper Sam had given him so long before and took a look. The answer was, “A mouse’s nest in a cat’s ear.” (And that, my little friend, is the only real, true answer there is.)
“Oh, hell,” said the ogre. “I was just about to guess that.”
“There’s a moral, too,” George said. “My mother told it to me and I’ll tell it to you: If you’re bright and use your head, you’ll never go too far wrong. Just keep it in mind, and you’ll get along.”
Right after that, we reached the atmosphere of Grainau. George was busy with his buttons. I was thinking that he meant well enough and I was feeling a bit more friendly toward him.
I had gathered that entering a planet’s atmosphere was a tricky business, but George didn’t seem particularly concerned. The main problem was the same as when leaving the Ship: to strike a balance between one gravity field and the other, so that the people aboard were not plastered against,the floor or left suddenly without any feeling of weight at all. Besides that, he had to take us to the point on the planet to which we were going, and how he did that, I couldn’t tell. Apparently he got bearings from his instruments. The dials and meters said incomprehensible things to me, but by some strange gift of tongues, he understood them. He switched on the vision screens and they showed nothing but a billowy gray blankness beneath us. Without any coaxing from George, the dome above our heads became first translucent and then gradually transparent, our interior lights fading in correspondence to the increasing light from outside.
As we descended, I looked all around through the dome. I was still feeling apprehensive, but my curiosity was getting the better of me. I freed myself from my chair and strained to see all I could, but it wasn’t heartening. In every direction the view was the same, a slightly rolling gray-whiteness that looked soft and bouncy, lit uniformly by the red-orange sun that was low in the sky ahead of us as we traveled, and gradually rose higher. It was the first sun I had seen at close range and I didn’t like the glare it gave off. The automatic polarizer in the dome reduced the brightness until it was bearable to look at the bright disk, but I could see its light was unpleasant. The vision screens showed the same bouncy amorphous whiteness directly beneath us as we moved.
I said, “That isn’t what a planet looks like, is it?”
George laughed and said, “Those are clouds. The planet’s down underneath. It’s like frosting with cake under it.”
He reached to rap at the same switch he’d turned on before and saw it was on. He frowned and then made an announcement to the people below: “We’ll be setting down in about ten minutes.” He hit the switch and it popped up.
“I’m going downstairs,” I said.
“All right,” George said. “I’ll see you later.”
He turned his attention back to his job and we suddenly sliced down into the gray-white clouds and were surrounded by the sick, smothering mass. The lights came up a little in the dome to restore the life that was missing in the grayness outside. It was the most frightening stuff to be lost in that I could imagine and I didn’t want to look at it. I went down the spiral stairs and in the warm haven of the room below I looked for Daddy. He was sitting in an easy chair by himself in the center section. Mr. Tubman, Daddy’s assistant, was watching while the horses were saddled. Men were bustling around doing those last-minute things that people always discover five minutes before it will be too late to do them. Daddy had a book and was reading quite calmly, as I might have expected. Daddy ignores confusion.
I sat down in a heavy brown chair beside him and waited until he looked up. He said, “Hello, Mia. We’re just about there. How are you doing?”
“All right, I guess.” Meaning I was nervous.
“Good. And how are you getting on with George?”
I shrugged. “All right, I guess.”
“I’ve asked him to keep an eye on you today while I’m in conference. He’ll show you around the town. He’s been here before.”
“Are you going to be busy all day long?” I asked.
“I think so. If I wind things up before dark, I’ll find the two of you.”
I had to be satisfied with that. A few moments later we touched down smoothly for a landing. Grainau had heavier gravity than home — that was the first thing I was certain of after all our motion had ceased. I could feel the extra weight as a strain on my calves and arches when I stood up. Something that would take getting used to.
George came downstairs and walked over to us. Daddy stood up and said, “Well, all ready to take over, George?” Meaning me.
George towered over both of us. He nodded.
Daddy smiled and said, “That was a pretty good story, George. You have talents I never suspected you of having.”
“Which story?” I asked.
“The story George was just telling you,” Daddy said. “The speaker was on from the time we left the Ship.”
George grinned. “I didn’t notice that until just a minute ago.”
“It was a fine story,” Daddy said.
I flushed, thoroughly embarrassed. “Oh, no,” I said. To listen to a story like that was one thing, but to have everybody else know it was something else and thoroughly disconcerting.
I shot George an accusing look and then ran for cover, heading for the toilet again. I didn’t want to be seen by anybody.
Daddy was after me and caught me before I got to the separating partition. He grasped my arm and brought me to a stop.
“Hold on, Mia,” he said.
I struggled to get loose. “Let me go.”
“Don’t make a scene, Mia,” he said.
“Let go of me. I don’t want to stay here.”
“Quiet!” he said sharply. “I’m sorry I made the mistake of telling you, but George didn’t do it intentionally. Besides, I enjoyed his story and I’m more than six times your age.”
“That’s different,” I said.
“You may be right, but whether you’re right or not doesn’t make any difference right now. It’s time to go outside. I want you to put yourself together and walk outside with me. When we face these Colons, I want you to be somebody I can be proud of. You don’t want to show up badly in front of these people, do you?”
I shook my head.
“All right,” he said, and let go of me. “Put yourself together.”
Keeping my head averted, I did my best to get a grip on myself. I straightened my blouse and hitched my shorts, and when I was ready, I faced around.