“Wait a minute,” said Dirk suddenly, after a few minutes of this confusion. “I’ve bumped into something.” Mal and Margie came up level with him and extended exploratory hands. A thick, soft substance that gave to the touch was barring their path—some sort of hanging drape, it seemed.
“What now?” whispered Margie.
“Just a minute,” said Mal. He was fumbling with the curtain where it touched the side wall of the tunnel. After a moment he got a grip on it and pulled the hanging aside. He stared for a second, let out a low whistle of surprise and let the curtain fall back into place, shutting off the weak gleam of light that had come momentarily through the opening.
“Guess what?” he said.
“Don’t ask silly questions!” snapped Margie. “Tell us!”
“Well, it looks—mind you, I never saw one myself—but it looks like a Neo-Taylorite temple. There’s a lot of them out there in their yellow robes, and some kind of altar. We’re behind the altar.”
Dirk grunted something uncomplimentary.
“This is no time for philosophical dislikes,” said Mal. “We either go through them, or we go back.”
“We go back,” said Margie decisively.
“That sounds like a good idea,” said Mal, “but what if the guards managed to find their way through that mirror? They may be behind us right now.”
“That’s right,” agreed Dirk. “But what else is there to do?”
“On the other hand,” said Mal, “Neo-Taylorites are supposed to be vowed to hurt no living thing. Let alone other humans.”
“Are you suggesting we walk right through them?” demanded Margie.
“I don’t see why not,” said Mal.
“Good idea,” seconded Dirk enthusiastically. There was an audible screech as he drew his rapier from its scabbard, followed by a groan from Margie.
“Look out for that damned thing,” growled Mal. “It’s sharp.”
“Lead on,” said Dirk, brushing Mal out of the way and taking the lead himself. They went out through the hanging.
A fat Neo-Taylorite in front of the altar was delivering an address on The Importance of Essential Kindness to Insects. Dirk prodded him impolitely from the rear. The Neo-Taylorite jumped and yelped. The assemblage, listening, gaped and gasped in awe.
“Coming through!” yelled Dirk, waving the rapier.
The yellow-robed group burst into a babble of sound and drew back, like the retreating surf from a beach.
“See,” said Dirk, over his shoulder to Margie.
“Nothing to it.” And he led the way down and into the crowd, which parted before them.
They marched grandly between the shrinking ranks, and were about to congratulate themselves on finding the road to freedom at last, when an ear-splitting roar from a loud-speaker broke on the air.
“Attention all!” it boomed. “Attention all! Three enemies of the new civilization are attempting to flee the premises. Halt them at any cost.”
Having issued its warning, the loud-speaker attempted to repeat itself. However, this time its thunder was drowned out in the chorus of yells that arose as two-thirds of the Neo-Taylorites present broke their ranks, scurrying for all corners of the temple while the remaining twenty or so flung themselves valiantly upon Mal, Dirk and Margie.
Overwhelmed by numbers, and with Dirk’s sword wrenched away from him, they were on the point of being swamped when a sudden bellow of rage drowned out all other sounds. Margie, pinioned and helpless, Dirk, with four or five Neo-Taylorites striving to bring his tall body to the ground, and Mal, flailing energetically against what seemed to be an endless round of faces, found their attackers magically plucked off them and tossed violently in all directions.
“Outrageous!” thundered a voice about three feet off the ground. “Disgusting! Utterly reprehensible! My most profound apologies!”
The last attacker went sailing off to land with a thud at the foot of the altar; and the three fugitives found themselves face to face with their deepvoiced rescuer.
He beamed up at them with the tip of his nose and long black whiskers elevated engagingly in the air. The yellow Neo-Taylorite robe, torn to shreds by his exertions, revealed the rest of his squat, furry body, which resembled nothing so much as that of an oversized squirrel, lacking the bushy tail.
“Hypocrites!” he puffed. “Apostates! How can I ever express my regrets, my young friends?”
Mal, Margie and Dirk stared down at him in amazement. Dumfounding as his appearance was, it was nothing compared to the exhibition he had just given of being able to toss full-grown men around like Indian clubs. He looked back at them; and his furry-faced expression changed immediately to one of embarrassment.
“I beg your pardon!” His little black hands, rather like the oversized paws of a raccoon, beat the air in chagrin, as his tone overflowed with contrition. “So impolite of me! Allow me to present myself. I am an Atakit from Jusileminop-ratipup, one of the planets of—but then, you wouldn’t know that. Never mind. Never mind. My home world is not important, really, except—” the little Atakit began suddenly to swell with rage “—for the people who live there, my so-called race, the thick-headed, half-witted jugars sar lino-trmpsik ve rupstiok gh cha up yii yi plmurke jhuhey—”
The Atakit checked himself suddenly. He had been fairly chittering with rage; but suddenly noticing his three new acquaintances draw back as Dirk’s sword, which the Alien had picked up with a view of handing it back, twisted itself into a lover’s knot in the grasp of those delicate-looking little hands, he stopped abruptly.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” he cried. “I beg your pardon—” And to the surprise of all three of them, a large tear rolled down his nose and splashed on the floor. “My temper! My cursed temper. When will I ever learn to control the jukelup ta mechi ve—but enough of that, my young friends. Enough that I am a poor, weak sort of person, still but a short way on the long road to perfection. Allow me to introduce myself. I am an Atakit, and my name is Panjarmeeeklotutmrp.”
The three stared at each other and at the Alien.
“What?” managed Mal after £ second.
“Oh, call me Peep. Call me Peep!” insisted the little Atakit exuberantly: “All humans do. My unfortunate name is impossible for them to pronounce. Excuse me. Excuse my temper. I did not mean to shock your sensibilities by a demonstration of violence, which is, alas, only too easy for one like myself on your light planet where gravity is much less than I am accustomed to. But conceive my astonishment and shame when I saw those whom I fancied sworn to Non-Violence— these Neo-Taylorites—actually attempting physical coercion on other living creatures. I—” He hung his head. “Are many of them fatally injured?”
Margie had been examining the bodies.
“No,” she said, “but there aren’t any conscious, either.”
“Thank the great spirit of Non-Violence that it was no worse,” said Peep fervently. “However, you are the sufferers, my young friends, victims of an unprovoked attack—not, dear me, that provocation is ever any excuse for an attack. How can I serve you?”
“Well,” answered Mal, “for one thing, you can show us the way out of here.”
“Willingly, willingly,” the little Atakit bowed to each of them in turn. “But surely I can do more to make amends. Are none of you fatigued? May I carry you?”
Mal, Dirk and Margie all hastily expressed their complete lack of fatigue and their positive affection for navigating on their own two feet; and Peep, satisfied, led the way toward the farther end of the temple.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE LITTLE ATAKIT chattered incessantly as they went. He told how he happened to be on Earth and in such a place as they had found him. Jusileminopratipup, it seemed, was a heavy gravity world some fifteen thousand light-years from the solar system. It was a planet about the size of Saturn and populated by a rich variety of native species, of which the dominating one was that of the Atakits, Peep’s people.
“Alas,” sighed Peep, d
escribing them, “the Unenlightened.”
It seemed that the Atakits had evolved from a primitive life form which had made up in ferocity for what it lacked in size; and still, after untold ages, the instinct of a hair trigger temper popped out in each new little Atakit shortly after birth. It followed that in spite of a high cultural level, relationships on Jusileminopratipup tended to be on the active side; and it was because of this that Peep had determined to come to Earth.
“I saw, you see,” he said, “the basic error of emotion just recently. I conceived of a happy universe, a universe which had Non-Violence as an aim. And I sallied forth to carry the message. Alas, alas—”
“What happened?” asked Mal, fascinated in spite of himself. He had never heard anyone actually say the word alas in his life.
“My horrible temper!” said Peep. “Logically, I knew better; but over two hundred years (I translate roughly into terms of your Earth Standard Calendar) of early training were too much for me. I told my belief first to the confrere that shared my tree house with me. He obstinately refused to see the light. Before I knew what I was doing, I had lost my temper, picked him up and beaten him unconscious against the tree trunk. I went out in search of a more reasonable individual and met another friend of mine on the catwalk above a near-by waterfall. I earnestly begged him to consider my discovery. He proved so purblind that I lost control of myself and threw him into the waterfall; it took him some while to make it to shore. And so it continued. After a few short weeks of this I was forced to the decision that I was not yet ready to carry forth the great message and hearing about your Neo-Taylorite movement, I came here to give myself a lesson in humility.” While Peep was talking, they had gone from the far end of the temple into a tunnel like the one that had led to the latter and through this to the surface of the ground in an open field.
“Hmf!” said Dirk in some surprise. “This was where my tunnel was supposed to come out.”
“Good!” said Mal enthusiastically. “Then you know your way from here?”
“Of course.” Dirk stared at him. “Why?”
“Because,” said Mal, “I’m leaving. I don’t know how I’ll go about completing my work, but there must be better ways than you dream up.”
“You’re leaving us?” cried Margie.
Mal hesitated. The one thing that was bothering his conscience was the thought of leaving Margie in the spot she was in—although that same conscience was relatively tranquil where Dirk was concerned.
“Can you figure any good reason for staying together?” he asked gruffly.
“Yes, I can,” replied Margie promptly. “There’s safety in numbers. United we stand, divided we—”
“My young friends,” interrupted Peep, “may I enter the conversation?”
They looked at him rather blankly.
“Go ahead,” said Mal at last.
“Young friends,” said Peep, “reasoning from known facts it seems logical to assume that you are pursued. The thought of such action alarms me; and the thought of such violence as might come to you tugs at my conscience. Consequently, I must insist that you stay in one group so that I may do a better job of protecting you all.”
They stared at him.
“Now, look—” Mal was beginning, when Peep stopped him with delicately upraised hand.
“No thanks, my young friend, no thanks,” he said. “No thanks are due me. I am merely doing my Non-Violent duty as I see it.”
“I wasn’t going to thank you,” snapped Mal. “Assuming what you say is true—don’t you see that we’ll stand out like a bright light if we all stay in one group with an Alien as a sort of nursemaid? The thing to do is split up.”
Peep sighed, picked up a near-by rock the size of a small grapefruit and thoughtfully crumbled it into tiny chunks as he closed his eyes and considered.
“No,” he said at last, opening his eyes again. “I have asked myself whether more violence would result from letting you go than from forcing you to stay with me. And the former is by far the more violent possibility. I must—I must indeed insist that we go together, even if I am forced to carry you against your wills.”
A bleak silence descended on the little group standing under the stars in the open field.
“Forgive me, young friends,” said Peep humbly.
“Excuse us a minute,” said Mal. He drew Dirk and Margie aside into a huddle and they talked it over. The general consensus of opinion seemed to be that they couldn’t do anything about it anyway, so they might as well accept Peep’s protection.
“I sort of like him, anyway,” added Margie unexpectedly. The two men scowled at her.
They went back to Peep and notified him of their agreement.
“Fine, fine!” Peep, who had been sitting on his haunches, bounced to his feet. “This way. I have a modest six-place atmosphere flyer over beyond the trees there; and we can go wherever we decide to go from here in comfort.”
The flyer proved to be all that Peep had said. It was a luxury model for tripping around a planet’s surface and probably, if pressed, could have made it to the moon, although no one in his right mind would think of trying it with so many good commercial shuttle services available.
They lifted from the ground.
“Where to?” asked Peep. The three humans looked at each other… .
“Some place in the north woods,” said Mal.
“No,” said Dirk. “There’s nothing for us in the north woods. On the other hand, I’ve got a cottage on the Pacific coast below Seattle; we can go there and make up our minds what to do then.”
The suggestion had a sound ring to it. At least, none of the others could think of a better one. Dirk gave Peep the proper directions and they headed west, arriving at their destination shortly after midnight.
The cottage turned out to be a low, rambling building perched on a high cliff in a deserted section of the coast line. A long porch overhung the cliff itself and looked directly down on the narrow strip of rocky beach and the pounding breakers. A moon was riding high in the sky above scattered clouds, and a cool on-shore wind was blowing. The three humans, who may well have been considered to have had a hard day, tottered out of the flyer into beds and collapsed. Peep, who needed little or no sleep, expressed a desire to go walking along the beach and meditate on the concept of Essential Goodness. He said good night to them all after having been talked out of sitting guard in front of the cottage’s front entrance; and trundled off into the moonlight, humming to himself.
The cottage was little less palatial than the mansion. The rooms were large and furnished with the most modern of comforts. Mal’s bedroom had automatic temperature control, automatic air pressure and odor control, so that a flick of the wrist would perfume the room with anything from the scent of pines to bananas. His bed was the most luxurious model of Leasing-Dillon Slumber Force Field. Nevertheless, he slept no more than four hours of uneasy, tossing slumber with his mind flitting fantastically from one odd dream to another. At the end of that time, his tired subconscious gave up and woke him completely. He lay there in the before-dawn darkness, facing his problem.
What were they going to do?
He got up, clipped his kilt about his waist and stepped across the room out onto a little porch whose balcony overhung the ocean. The late night air was cold and salty and sweet. The tide was in; and little flecks of foam floated up the long distance of the cliff from the crashing breakers pounding against its base below. The chilliness and the space around him seemed to clear his head; and floating in from somewhere in the night came an idea.
The drive was the answer. The drive was the only answer; and the drive would always be the answer. The problem was to construct the drive. Dirk had let Mal know that he was broke; but surely he must own property like this place, which obviously his uncle did not know about and which could be liquidated for a small fortune, easily enough to build the drive.
Surely Dirk could do this. Surely they could take the funds, buy the equipment and
build the drive. Then, with a working model in his hands, he could announce the fact to the solar system and no power of the Company that Vanderloon could control would be enough to prevent so large a piece of news from reaching Alien ears.
And then a new thought struck him suddenly. Peep was an Alien. Peep must know what kind of Alien contact was being kept with the solar system, and how to reach some responsible official of the Federation. Galvanized into action by the implications of this thought, Mal dodged back into his room just long enough to pick up his tunic and went off in a run down the cliff in the direction Peep had taken, slipping into the tunic as he ran.
He ran some distance before his wind began to give out. As he slowed to a panting halt, it occurred to him rather belatedly that Peep’s heavy gravity muscles could carry him over the. ground much more swiftly and easily than any human’s. Consequently, the little Atakit was probably some distance down the coast and it would be a long tramp to catch up with him.
Accordingly, Mal waited long enough to catch his breath; and then continued on at a more sedate pace, turning over his ideas in his head as he went. The more he thought of his plan the more excellent it appeared. Sell property. Buy equipment. Build drive. Get in touch with Aliens through Peep. Turning it over in his head, he was only one possible objection: the fact that Peep, being a member of the Federation, might be under some rules prohibiting him from helping in such a project. In point of sober fact, Mal was far from beginning to understand the little Alien. Peep did not talk or act like one of the Galactic overlords which the general consensus of human opinion pictured, members of the Federation to be.
It was about an hour and a half later, and the rising sun had already flooded sea and shoreline with dawn light before Mal finally caught up with Peep. At first he did not recognize the Atakit. What first appeared to his eyes was a small bedraggled object inching its way up the wooden steps that led from some ancient boat house to the strip of sandy beach below. So unlike Peep did it look that Mal’s first conclusion was that it was some small bear or large dog which had been swimming in the ocean. It was only when he came closer that he recognized it as Peep.