"Huh? But I thought you had meant to take care of him... the way you promised Dad...and I would have seen him on week ends."
"Keep your father out of this! I might as well tell you right now that I made up my mind long ago that the day you went away to school this household would cease to be a zoo. This present mix-up has simply moved up the date a few days."
He stared at her, unable to answer.
Presently she came over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Johnnie? Johnnie dear..."
"Huh?"
"Look at me, darling. We've had some bitter words and I'm sorry they were ever spoken... I'm sure you did not mean them. But Mum has only been thinking of your welfare, you know that? Don't you?"
"Uh, I suppose so."
"That's all Mum ever thinks about... what's best for her big boy. You're young, and when a person is young, things seem important that aren't. But as you grow older, you will find that Mum knew best. Don't you see that?"
"Well... Mum, about that job. If I could only..."
"Please, dear. Mother has a splitting headache. We'll say no more about it now. Get a good night's sleep and tomorrow you'll see things differently." She patted his cheek, bent down and kissed him. "Good night, dear."
"G'night."
He sat there long after she had gone up, trying to figure things out. He knew that he should feel good... he'd saved Lummie; hadn't he?
But he did not feel good; he felt like an animal that has chewed a leg off to escape a trap... shock and misery, not relief.
At last he got up and went outside to see Lummox.
VIII The Sensible Thing To Do
John Thomas stayed with Lummox a short time only, as he could not bear to tell him the truth and there was nothing else to talk about. Lummox sensed his distress and asked questions; at last John Thomas pulled himself together and said, "There's nothing wrong I tell you! Shut up and go to sleep. And be darn sure you stay in the yard, or I'll beat you bow-legged."
"Yes, Johnnie. I don't like it outside anyway. People did funny things."
"Just remember that and don't do it again."
"I won't Johnnie. Cross my heart."
John Thomas went in and up to bed. But he did not go to sleep. After a while he got up, dressed in part, and went up to the attic. The house was very old and. had a real garret, reached by a ladder and scuttle hole in an upper hallway closet. Once there had been a proper staircase but it had been squeezed out when the landing flat was built on the roof, as the space had been needed for the lazy lift.
But the attic was still there and it was John Thomas's only private place. His room his mother "tidied" sometimes, even though it was has duty (and wish) to do it himself. Anything might happen when Mum tidied. Papers might be lost, destroyed, or even read, for Mum believed that there should be no secrets between parents and children.
So anything he wanted to keep to himself he kept in the attic; Mum never went there-ladders made her dizzy. He had a small, almost airless and very dirty room there which he was supposed to use only for "storage." Its actual uses were varied: he had raised snakes there some years before; there he kept the small collection of books which every boy comes by but does not discuss with parents; he even had a telephone there, an audio extension run from the usual sound & sight instrument in his bedroom. This last was a practical result of his high-school course in physics and it had been real work to wire it, as it not only had to be rigged when Mum was out of the house and in such a way that she would not notice it but also it had to be done so as not to advertise its presence to the phone company's technicians.
But it worked, jury-rigged though it was, and he had added a "servant" circuit which flashed a warning light if anyone was listening from any other instrument in the house.
Tonight he had no wish to call anyone and it was past the hour when direct messages were permitted at the dormitory where Betty lived. He simply wanted to be alone ... and to look over some papers he had not looked at in a long time. He fumbled under his work table, flipped a toggle; a panel opened in what appeared to be blank wall. In the cupboard thus exposed were books and papers. He took them out.
One item was a thin-paper notebook, his great grandfather's diary of the Trail Blazer's second voyage of exploration. It was more than a hundred years old and showed the wear of many hands. John Thomas had read it a dozen times; he supposed that his father and his grandfather had done the same. All the pages were fragile, many had been repaired.
He thumbed through it, turned the pages carefully, but browsing rather than reading. His eye lit on one remembered item:
"... some of the lads are panicky, especially the married men. But they should of thought of it before they signed up. Everybody knows the score now; we burst through and came out somewhere not close to home. Who cares? We meant to travel, didn't we?"
John Thomas turned a few more pages. He had always known the story of the Trail Blazer; it produced in him neither awe nor wonder. One of the first interstellar ships, her crew had plied the profession of discovery with the same acceptance of the unknown that bad marked the golden days of the fifteenth century, when men had braved uncharted seas in wooden vessels. The Trail Blazer and her sisters had gone out the same way, burst through. the Einstein barrier, taken their chances on getting back. John Thomas Stuart VIII had been aboard her that second voyage, had come home in one piece, married, begat a male child, and settled down... it was he who had built the landing flat on the roof.
Then one night he had heard the call of the wild goose, signed up again. He had not come back.
John Thomas located the first mention of Lummox:
"This planet is a fair imitation of good old Terra, which is a relief after the last three, since we can hit dirt without suiting up. But evolution must have been playing double-or-nothing here, instead of the four-limbed arrangement considered stylish at home practically everything here has at least eight legs... 'mice' that look like centipedes, rabbitlike creatures with six short legs and one pair of tremendous jumping legs, all sorts up to things as big as giraffes. I caught one little fellow (if you can call it that... fact is, he came up and crawled into my lap) and I was so taken with him that I am going to try to keep him as a mascot. He puts me in mind of a dachshund puppy, only better engineered. Cristy had the airlock watch, so I was able to get him aboard without turning him over to Biology."
The next day's entry did not mention Lummox, being concerned with a more serious matter:
"We hit the jackpot this time ... Civilization. The officers are, so excited they are almost off their heads. I've seen one of the dominant race at a distance. The same multi-legged pattern, but otherwise making you wonder what would have happened to Earth if the dinosaurs had made good."
Still further on...
"I've been wondering what to feed Cuddle pup. I needn't have worried. He likes everything I've sneaked out of the mess for him... but he will eat anything that is not riveted down. Today he ate my Everlasting stylus and it has me worried. I don't suppose the ink cartridge will poison him but how about the metal and plastic? He's just like a baby; everything he can reach goes in his mouth.
"Cuddlepuppy gets cuter every day. The little tyke seems to be trying to talk; he whines at me and I whine back at him. Then he crawls into my lap and tells me that he loves me, plain as anything. I'll be switched if I'll let Biology have him, even if they catch me. Those birds would likely as not cut him up just to see what makes him tick. He trusts me and i'm not going to let him down."
The diary skipped a couple of days; the Trail Blazer had made an emergency raise-ship and Assistant Power man J. T. Stuart had been too busy to write. John Thomas knew why ... the negotiations opened so hopefully with the dominant race had failed... no one knew why.