What was it, this thing that came and went, and rammed and fondled and stabbed and caressed, so swiftly, so differently—and all the time kept filling its increasing brain with new concepts?
The Twerlik narrowed its field of concentration, starting at the outermost “circle,” moving inward to the next, and drawing closer and closer to the “men,” seeking the source of this strange alternating pressure. And then it found it.
It came from the “mouths” of the men. They were “talking.” The Twerlik was receiving “sound.”
Its brain began to hurt terribly, and once again it made use of its newly absorbed energies and grew more brain-part for the me. Then it “listened” (“More! More!”) to the “talking,” and began to “learn.”
These men were only the first. There would be others, now that they knew that the “air” and “gravitation” and “climate” were “okay.” There would be “houses” and “streets” and “children” and “colonization” and “expansion.” And—the Twerlik almost shuddered with joy—light!
These men-things needed light constantly. They could not “see” without light. There would be more heaters, more lamps, campfires, chandeliers, matches, flares, movies, candles, sparklers, flashlights— (“Grow! Grow! GROW!”)
Right here! On this spot they would begin! And all that spilled over from their wanton use of energy would belong to the me!
“Gratitude” was a poor word to express the intensity of the Twerlik’s emotions toward these men-things now. It had to help them, had to repay them, had to show them how much their coming meant.
But how? The greatest thing in creation, so far as the Twerlik was concerned, was energy. And they had energy to spare, energy aplenty. It could not give them that as a gift. It had to find out what they valued most, and then somehow give this valued thing to them, if it could.
Desperately, it “listened,” drawing in concept upon concept, seeking and prying and gleaning and wondering. . ..
It took all that they said, and filed it, cross-indexed it, sorted it, seeking the thing which meant more than anything to these men-things. And slowly, by winnowing away the oddments that cluttered the mainstream of the men-things’ ambitions and hopes, the Twerlik learned the answer.
And it was within its power to grant!
But it involved motion, and the Twerlik was not certain it knew how motion might be accomplished. In all the eons of adding to its feathery perimeter, it had never had occasion to shift any of its limbs from where they lay upon the sand. It was not quite certain it could do such a thing. Still, it told the me, if there were a way, then it was obligated to use this way, no matter what the difficulties thus entailed. Repayment of the men-things was a legitimate debt of honor. It had to be done no matter what the cost.
So it attempted various methods of locomotion.
It tried, first, to flex and wriggle its filaments as the men-things did, but nothing happened. Bewildered, it checked through its file of new concepts and discovered “leverage.” On this principle did the men-things move. They had “muscle” which “contracted” and caused a “tendon” to shift the angle of a “bone.” The Twerlik had none of these necessary things.
So it tried “propulsion,” the force which had moved the spaceship, and discovered that it lacked “combustible fuel” and hollow channels for the energy called “firing tubes” and some built-in condition of these tubes called the “Venturi principle.”
It pondered for a long time then, not even bothering with things the men knew as “pistons” and “cylinders” and “wheels”—since the use of these involved a free moving segment and the Twerlik could not operate save as a whole.
Finally, after thousands of those intervals which it had come to think of as “moments,” it came upon the concept of “magnetism.” The forces involved came well within its scope.
By subtle control of the electron flow along the underside of one of its five-mile limbs, and the creation of an electronic “differential” flow along the top, it found that the consequent repulsion-attempts of its upper and lower surfaces resulted in the tip of the limb describing a “curl.” Once this basic motion had been achieved, the rest was simple, for the Twerlik learned swiftly. In a few short moments, it had evolved a thing called “coordination” and found to its delight that it could raise, lower or otherwise manipulate limbs, filaments and cilia with ease, in a pleasant, rippling whip-motion.
This new power being tested swiftly and found quite enough for its purposes, it set to work repaying the men for their great kindness to it.
The men, it noted as it worked, were undergoing a strange somnolence called “sleep,” inside the spaceship. The Twerlik realized with joy that it could indulge in what men-things called a “surprise” if it worked with sufficient rapidity.
Draining its energies with uncaring profligacy, it coiled and swirled and contracted itself until its cilia and filaments and limbs lay all about the spaceship and everywhere within it save upon the men-things. The Twerlik found that it was greatly weakened by this unwonted output, but it was a dedicated Twerlik now, and did not stop its continuation to the task at hand. It worked, and molded, and rearranged. It grew dizzy with the effort, until a stray groping strand of cilium found the energy-crammed metal housed in the tank near the firing-tubes of the spaceship. Into this metal the cilium burrowed, and then began drawing upon the energies therein like an electronic siphon, feeding out the particles of raw power to the rest of the Twerlik, that the entirety of the creature might perform this labor of love.
It took many thousands of moments for its task to be done, but it was a contented—if desperately weary— Twerlik which finally uncoiled its incredible barely-greater-than-a-pound enormous size from the spaceship.
Once again it retreated in all directions, to lie weakly in the dim light of the distant star and await the awakening of the men-things.
It noted, disinterestedly, that the shape of the spaceship was slightly altered. It was widening slowly near the base, and bulging about the middle, and losing height. The Twerlik did not care. It had shown its gratitude, and that was all that mattered.
Abruptly, men-things were leaping from the doorway of the ship, shouting empty sounds which the Twerlik could only interpret as songs of “fear,” though no “words” were used. They were—ah, that was the term—”screaming.”
It could make no sense of it. Were the men-things mad? Had it not given them what they desired most? Had it not even worked upon the “food” and “water” for them, so that every item they possessed would be vastly improved?
The Twerlik could not understand why the men were acting so strangely. It waited peacefully for them to use the now-improved heaters and lamps, that it might restore some of its deeply sapped strengths. But they made no move to do so. They were using words, now, having gotten over their “screaming.” Words like “trapped” and “impossible” and “doomed.”
They were, sensed the Twerlik, terribly unhappy, but it could not comprehend why.
It seemed to have to do with its gesture of repayment. But along this line of reasoning the Twerlik could not proceed without bafflement. It thought momentarily of removing the gift, and restoring things to what they had been, but then realized that it no longer possessed the necessary energies.