in spite of all difficulties, I_liked_ Tweel, and I have a queer certainty that he liked me."
"Nuts!" repeated the captain. "Just daffy!"
"Yeah? Wait and see. A couple of times I've thought that perhaps we--"He paused, and then resumed his narrative. "Anyway, I finally gave itup, and got into my thermo-skin to sleep. The fire hadn't kept me anytoo warm, but that damned sleeping bag did. Got stuffy five minutesafter I closed myself in. I opened it a little and bingo! Someeighty-below-zero air hit my nose, and that's when I got this pleasantlittle frostbite to add to the bump I acquired during the crash of myrocket.
"I don't know what Tweel made of my sleeping. He sat around, but when Iwoke up, he was gone. I'd just crawled out of my bag, though, when Iheard some twittering, and there he came, sailing down from thatthree-story Thyle cliff to alight on his beak beside me. I pointed tomyself and toward the north, and he pointed at himself and toward thesouth, but when I loaded up and started away, he came along.
"Man, how he traveled! A hundred and fifty feet at a jump, sailingthrough the air stretched out like a spear, and landing on his beak. Heseemed surprised at my plodding, but after a few moments he fell inbeside me, only every few minutes he'd go into one of his leaps, andstick his nose into the sand a block ahead of me. Then he'd comeshooting back at me; it made me nervous at first to see that beak of hiscoming at me like a spear, but he always ended in the sand at my side.
"So the two of us plugged along across the Mare Chronium. Same sort ofplace as this--same crazy plants and same little green biopods growingin the sand, or crawling out of your way. We talked--not that weunderstood each other, you know, but just for company. I sang songs, andI suspect Tweel did too; at least, some of his trillings and twitteringshad a subtle sort of rhythm.
"Then, for variety, Tweel would display his smattering of English words.He'd point to an outcropping and say 'rock,' and point to a pebble andsay it again; or he'd touch my arm and say 'Tick,' and then repeat it.He seemed terrifically amused that the same word meant the same thingtwice in succession, or that the same word could apply to two differentobjects. It set me wondering if perhaps his language wasn't like theprimitive speech of some earth people--you know, Captain, like theNegritoes, for instance, who haven't any generic words. No word for foodor water or man--words for good food and bad food, or rain water and seawater, or strong man and weak man--but no names for general classes.They're too primitive to understand that rain water and sea water arejust different aspects of the same thing. But that wasn't the case withTweel; it was just that we were somehow mysteriously different--ourminds were alien to each other. And yet--we _liked_ each other!"
"Looney, that's all," remarked Harrison. "That's why you two were sofond of each other."
"Well, I like _you_!" countered Jarvis wickedly. "Anyway," he resumed,"don't get the idea that there was anything screwy about Tweel. In fact,I'm not so sure but that he couldn't teach our highly praised humanintelligence a trick or two. Oh, he wasn't an intellectual superman, Iguess; but don't overlook the point that he managed to understand alittle of my mental workings, and I never even got a glimmering of his."
"Because he didn't have any!" suggested the captain, while Putz andLeroy blinked attentively.
"You can judge of that when I'm through," said Jarvis. "Well, we pluggedalong across the Mare Chronium all that day, and all the next. MareChronium--Sea of Time! Say, I was willing to agree with Schiaparelli'sname by the end of that march! Just that grey, endless plain of weirdplants, and never a sign of any other life. It was so monotonous that Iwas even glad to see the desert of Xanthus toward the evening of thesecond day.
"I was fair worn out, but Tweel seemed as fresh as ever, for all I neversaw him drink or eat. I think he could have crossed the Mare Chronium ina couple of hours with those block-long nose dives of his, but he stuckalong with me. I offered him some water once or twice; he took the cupfrom me and sucked the liquid into his beak, and then carefully squirtedit all back into the cup and gravely returned it.
"Just as we sighted Xanthus, or the cliffs that bounded it, one of thosenasty sand clouds blew along, not as bad as the one we had here, butmean to travel against. I pulled the transparent flap of my thermo-skinbag across my face and managed pretty well, and I noticed that Tweelused some feathery appendages growing like a mustache at the base of hisbeak to cover his nostrils, and some similar fuzz to shield his eyes."
"He is a desert creature!" ejaculated the little biologist, Leroy.
"Huh? Why?"
"He drink no water--he is adapt' for sand storm--"
"Proves nothing! There's not enough water to waste any where on thisdesiccated pill called Mars. We'd call all of it desert on earth, youknow." He paused. "Anyway, after the sand storm blew over, a little windkept blowing in our faces, not strong enough to stir the sand. Butsuddenly things came drifting along from the Xanthus cliffs--small,transparent spheres, for all the world like glass tennis balls! Butlight--they were almost light enough to float even in this thinair--empty, too; at least, I cracked open a couple and nothing came outbut a bad smell. I asked Tweel about them, but all he said was 'No, no,no,' which I took to mean that he knew nothing about them. So they wentbouncing by like tumbleweeds, or like soap bubbles, and we plugged ontoward Xanthus. Tweel pointed at one of the crystal balls once and said'rock,' but I was too tired to argue with him. Later I discovered whathe meant.
"We came to the bottom of the Xanthus cliffs finally, when there wasn'tmuch daylight left. I decided to sleep on the plateau if possible;anything dangerous, I reasoned, would be more likely to prowl throughthe vegetation of the Mare Chronium than the sand of Xanthus. Not thatI'd seen a single sign of menace, except the rope-armed black thing thathad trapped Tweel, and apparently that didn't prowl at all, but luredits victims within reach. It couldn't lure me while I slept, especiallyas Tweel didn't seem to sleep at all, but simply sat patiently aroundall night. I wondered how the creature had managed to trap Tweel, butthere wasn't any way of asking him. I found that out too, later; it'sdevilish!
"However, we were ambling around the base of the Xanthus barrier lookingfor an easy spot to climb. At least, I was. Tweel could have leaped iteasily, for the cliffs were lower than Thyle--perhaps sixty feet. Ifound a place and started up, swearing at the water tank strapped to myback--it didn't bother me except when climbing--and suddenly I heard asound that I thought I recognized!
"You know how deceptive sounds are in this thin air. A shot sounds likethe pop of a cork. But this sound was the drone of a rocket, and sureenough, there went our second auxiliary about ten miles to westward,between me and the sunset!"
"Vas me!" said Putz. "I hunt for you."
"Yeah; I knew that, but what good did it do me? I hung on to the cliffand yelled and waved with one hand. Tweel saw it too, and set up atrilling and twittering, leaping to the top of the barrier and then highinto the air. And while I watched, the machine droned on into theshadows to the south.
"I scrambled to the top of the cliff. Tweel was still pointing andtrilling excitedly, shooting up toward the sky and coming down head-onto stick upside down on his beak in the sand. I pointed toward the southand at myself, and he said, 'Yes--Yes--Yes'; but somehow I gathered thathe thought the flying thing was a relative of mine, probably a parent.Perhaps I did his intellect an injustice; I think now that I did.
"I was bitterly disappointed by the failure to attract attention. Ipulled out my thermo-skin bag and crawled into it, as the night chillwas already apparent. Tweel stuck his beak into the sand and drew up hislegs and arms and looked for all the world like one of those leaflessshrubs out there. I think he stayed that way all night."
"Protective mimicry!" ejaculated Leroy. "See? He is desert creature!"
"In the morning," resumed Jarvis, "we started off again. We hadn't gonea hundred yards into Xanthus when I saw something queer! This is onething Putz didn't photograph, I'll wager!
"There was a line of little pyramids--tiny ones, not more than sixinches high, stretching across Xan
thus as far as I could see! Littlebuildings made of pygmy bricks, they were, hollow inside and truncated,or at least broken at the top and empty. I pointed at them and said'What?' to Tweel, but he gave some negative twitters to indicate, Isuppose, that he didn't know. So off we went, following the row ofpyramids because they ran north, and I was going north.
"Man, we trailed that line for hours! After a while, I noticed anotherqueer thing: they were getting larger. Same number of bricks in eachone, but the bricks were larger.
"By noon they were shoulder high. I