"Want out," stated the spider puppy.
"I can't let you out. I've got work to do." He read the card affixed to the cage: "Mr. Chips" it stated, _Pseudocanis hexapoda hesperae_, Owner: Miss E. Coburn, A-092; there followed a detailed instruction as to diet and care. Mr. Chips ate grubs, a supply of which was to be found in freezer compartment H-118, fresh fruits and vegetables, cooked or uncooked, and should receive iodine if neither seaweed nor artichokes was available. Max thumbed through his mind, went over what he had read about the creatures, decided the instructions were reasonable.
"_Please_ out!" Mr. Chips insisted.
It was an appeal hard to resist. No maiden fayre crying from a dungeon tower had ever put it more movingly. The compartment in which the cats were located was small and the door could be fastened; possibly Mr. Chips could be allowed a little run--but later; just now he had to take care of other animals.
When Max left, Mr. Chips was holding onto the bars and sobbing gently. Max looked back and saw that it was crying real tears; a drop trembled on the tip of its ridiculous little nose; it was hard to walk out on it. He had finished with the stables before tackling the kennel; once the dogs and cats were fed and their cages policed he was free to give attention to his new friend. He had fed it first off, which had stopped the crying. When he returned, however, the demand to be let out resumed.
"If I let you out, will you get back in later?"
The spider puppy considered this. A conditional proposition seemed beyond its semantic attainments, for it repeated, "Want out." Max took a chance.
Mr. Chips landed on his shoulder and started going through his pockets. "Candy," it demanded. "Candy?"
Max stroked it. "Sorry, chum. I didn't know."
"Candy?"
"No candy." Mr. Chips investigated personally, then settled in the crook of Max's arm, prepared to spend a week or more. It wasn't, Max decided, much like a puppy and certainly not like a spider, except that six legs seemed excessive. The two front ones had little hands; the middle legs served double duty. It was more like a monkey, but felt like a cat. It had a slightly spicy fragrance and seemed quite clean.
Max tried talking to it, but found its intellectual attainments quite limited. Certainly it used human words meaningfully but its vocabulary was not richer than that which might be expected of a not-too-bright toddler.
When Max tried to return it to its cage there ensued twenty minutes of brisk exercise, broken by stalemates. Mr. Chips swarmed over the cages, causing hysterics among the cats. When at last the spider puppy allowed itself to be caught it still resisted imprisonment, clinging to Max and sobbing. He ended by walking it like a baby until it fell asleep.
This was a mistake. A precedent had been set and thereafter Max was not permitted to leave the kennel without walking the baby.
He wondered about the "Miss Coburn" described on the tag as Mr. Chips' owner. All of the owners of cats and dogs had shown up to visit their pets, but Mr. Chips remained unvisited. He visualized her as a sour and hatchet-faced spinster who had received the pet as a going-away present and did not appreciate it. As his friendship with the spider puppy grew his mental picture of Miss E. Coburn became even less attractive.
The _Asgard_ was over a week out and only days from its first spatial transition before Max had a chance to compare conception with fact. He was cleaning the stables, with Mr. Chips riding his shoulder and offering advice, when Max heard a shrill voice from the kennel compartment. "Mr. _Chips!_ Chipsie! Where are you?"
The spider puppy sat up suddenly and turned its head. Almost immediately a young female appeared in the door; Mr. Chips squealed, "Ellie!" and jumped to her arms. While they were nuzzling each other Max looked her over. Sixteen, he judged, or seventeen. Or maybe even eighteen--shucks, how was a fellow to tell when womenfolk did such funny things to their faces? Anyhow she was no beauty and the expression on her face didn't help it any.
She looked up at him and scowled. "What were you doing with Chipsie? Answer me that!"
It got his back fur up. "Nothing," he said stiffly. "If you will excuse me, ma'am, I'll get on with my work." He turned his back and bent over his broom.
She grabbed his arm and swung him around. "Answer me! Or ... or--I'll tell the Captain, that's what I'll do!"
Max counted ten, then just to be sure, recalled the first dozen 7-place natural logarithms. "That's your privilege, ma'am," he said with studied calmness, "but first, what's your name and what is your business here? I'm in charge of these compartments and responsible for these animals--as the Captain's representative." This he knew to be good space law, although the concatenation was long.
She looked startled. "Why, I'm Eldreth Coburn," she blurted as if anyone should know.
"And your business?"
"I came to see Mr. Chips--of course!"
"Very well, ma'am. You may visit your pet for a reasonable period," he added, quoting verbatim from his station instruction sheet. "Then he goes back in his cage. Don't disturb the other animals and don't feed them. That's orders."
She started to speak, decided not to and bit her lip. The spider puppy had been looking from face to face and listening to a conversation far beyond its powers, although it may have sensed the emotions involved. Now it reached out and plucked Max's sleeve. "Max," Mr. Chips announced brightly. "Max!"
Miss Coburn again looked startled. "Is that your name?"
"Yes, ma'am. Max Jones. I guess he was trying to introduce me. Is that it, old fellow?"
"Max," Mr. Chips repeated firmly. "Ellie."
Eldreth Coburn looked down, then looked up at Max with a sheepish smile. "You two seem to be friends. I guess I spoke out of turn. Me and my mouth."
"No offense meant I'm sure, ma'am."
Max had continued to speak stiffly; she answered quickly, "Oh, but I was rude! I'm sorry--I'm always sorry afterwards. But I got panicky when I saw the cage open and empty and I thought I had lost Chipsie."
Max grinned grudgingly. "Sure. Don't blame you a bit. You were scared."
"That's it--I was scared." She glanced at him. "Chipsie calls you Max. May I call you Max?"
"Why not? Everybody does--and it's my name."
"And you call me Eldreth, Max. Or Ellie."
She stayed on, playing with the spider puppy, until Max had finished with the cattle. She then said reluctantly, "I guess I had better go, or they'll be missing me."
"Are you coming back?"
"Oh, of course!"
"Ummm ... Miss Eldreth ..."
"Ellie."
"--May I ask a question?" He hurried on, "Maybe it's none of my business, but what took you so long? That little fellow has been awful lonesome. He thought you had deserted him."
"Not 'he'--'she'."
"Huh?"
"Mr. Chips is a girl," she said apologetically. "It was a mistake anyone could make. Then it was too late, because it would confuse her to change her name."
The spider puppy looked up brightly and repeated, "'Mr. Chips is a girl.' Candy, Ellie?"
"Next time, honey bun."
Max doubted if the name was important, with the nearest other spider puppy light-years away. "You didn't answer my question?"
"Oh. I was so mad about that I wanted to bite. They wouldn't let me."
"Who's 'they'? Your folks?"
"Oh, no! The Captain and Mrs. Dumont." Max decided that it was almost as hard to extract information from her as it was from Mr. Chips. "You see, I came aboard in a stretcher--some silly fever, food poisoning probably. It couldn't be much because I'm tough. But they kept me in bed and when the Surgeon did let me get up, Mrs. Dumont said I mustn't go below 'C' deck. She had some insipid notion that it wasn't proper."