THE TROUBLE WITH YOU EARTH PEOPLE

The tape isn’t clear. When you said the two civilizations could economically exchange their byproducts, which words did you use to the nice human scientist?” Tima poised her pen over her notes, her doggy face earnest and studious. “Did you say, Interchange, exchange, trade, mutually-consume, mutually-eat or ingest or input? And did you say byproducts, reject products, surplus, waste, excretion, excrement or shit?”

Her husband, hanging upside down from the exercise bar, shrugged. “I don’t remember. Some word for harmonic mutual aid or intercourse. Scientists focus on concepts. It doesn’t matter what words I used.”

“It matters,” she kissed the air in his direction. “You did a perfect study of the culture, your diplomacy was wonderful. This report must be complete in every detail. I want you to get the credit you deserve.” She resumed her note taking, listening through earphones to their recordings of their strangely unsuccessful attempt to open an embassy on the planet Earth, in which they almost lost their lives.

This is what happened—

“I can’t wait to meet Sir Harrington face to face and tell him that we are brothers, one soul. All anthropologists are brothers. I wonder what they will tell him to ask me.” Working off nervous energy, Rem Sh’baar did a running somersault and landed back on his feet.

His favorite wife, Tima, lying on the padded floor, said nothing. She pushed a button that turned the page of the book projected on the ceiling.

“They might ask me to explain anything. I wish I could just tell them what they need.” Rem Sh’baar climbed on the relaxing bars, hooked his legs over a bar and hung upside down with his arms folded in a dignified manner. “‘Humans,’ I would say, ‘If you would just organize your pecking order so the old are given license to’…`Um—They don’t say things like that. Perhaps I’d say, ‘If you put the food out of reach of the children in puzzle boxes…”

“Rem, darling, you mustn’t hang upside down when interviewing the questioner. Humans don’t do it.”

He wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “Human astronauts hang upside down when they announce cartoons on their morning TV shows.”

“Astronauts only do that on the children’s TV shows, Rem. It is to amuse the children,” said the musical voice of his best beloved. She was an anthropology student and a grade higher in credits. She lay on the resilient floor with her arms folded behind her head while she studied the page projected on the ceiling. “You don’t want to speak from a posture that implies the listener is a child. He might be insulted.”

Rem turned rightside up and hung by his hands, looking sheepish. “I didn’t know those cartoons were for children. They seemed very cynical, full of cowardice and betrayal, much too depraved for children. But you’re right. In interview shows the grownups always sit still in those uncomfortable chair things and blow smoke.”

They glanced at the television set fastened to the wall. It was a handrigged imitation of an ordinary Earth-made television set, and for several months of study it had been providing Rem with a safe substitute for going down on the ground and studying the natives of Earth up close where they could reach him. At the moment they looked at it, a lithe young woman was pointing at a weather map, tracing its lines. Her mouth moved silently.

They looked away.

“Maybe I should learn to blow smoke,” said Rem Sh’baar. He swung upside down again, then spun himself upright, sitting on top of the bar. They were both tall, slender, and graceful, with rather doglike faces which could have won beauty prizes only at a pet show.

“They don’t all blow smoke,” said his slender wife. She pushed a button and the pictured page on the ceiling turned into a diagram.

“But they all sit on chairs,” Rem decided. “I’ll ask them to put two chair things inside the airlock for the interview. Look! There we are again!”

With great interest they both turned to watch the TV screen. The television showed a picture of their spaceship landing. For the thirtieth time in thirty hours it showed a gigantic black and silver beachball descending through clouds, with swarms of planes circling it like gnats. The early morning news commentator came on, babbling without sound and moving his hands in reassuring gestures.

Rem leaped foward and turned up the sound.

“—to keep the world informed of every new development of this startling story.”

The picture changed to a distant view of orderly crowds and people on a platform speaking, and swooped in for a closeup of a slender man in a silver spacesuit shaking hands with a stiff looking human in a dark business suit. The solemn voice of the news commentator explained: “Yesterday the visitor from outer space was officially greeted and welcomed by the Vice President of the United States and the Secretary General of the United Nations.”

The camera moved in on the scene, enlarging the head of the spacesuited figure. The spacesuit had a clear plastic helmet in a bubble shape, giving a partial view of Rem’s face as he turned and began descending the stairs. The film stopped and froze in a still photograph which showed his profile clearly, as obviously different from the humans.

“You look very handsome, surrounded by all those flatfaced monsters,” Tima said.

“I always photograph well,” Rem murmured.

A famous announcer suddenly appeared standing before a background picture of the giant spaceship parked on the ground in the middle of a great green park, with the capitol dome shining and the Spaceman’s Memorial Pylon showing its spike in the distance.

The announcer spoke in his well-known tones of fatherly reassurance. “Here we are in the second day of contact between civilizations. Today will be the big day for scientists. They have been requesting permission to interview the visitor from space since he first made contact. Yesterday, the alien being, whose name is Lord Rem Sh’baar, explained that he had been given permission for a short visit to Earth to collect anthropological data. He said he had a short time, but he was prepared to answer a limited number of questions on scientific subjects, if they were put on a short list. He said he had learned English from watching and listening to television science lectures, and he had admired the anthropology lectures of Sir Charles Harrington-Smith, and therefore would like to have the list of questions given to Sir Charles, so that Sir Charles would explain them to him if there were any difficulty with the language.

“The interview is scheduled for nine o’clock this morning.” The announcer turned and made a solemn gesture at the distant spaceship. “There may be the secrets of the ages locked within that silver sphere. There may be unguessable wonders of science. We can only wait and hope.”

A commercial began, showing a mound of dirty clothes flying into an oversized washing machine. Bending forward from the bars, Rem reached forward and turned off the sound. Six tiny humans climbed out of the washing machine and did a jig on the lid, then with great effort heaved up a big soap box, tilted it, and poured a stream of soap into the washing machine. The words biodegradable zoomed up from the interior of the machine, expanded, and vanished. The commercial was over, so a cowboy on a horse appeared, his horse ambling slowly up the slope of an Arizona desert. An unseen blow sent his hat flying ahead of him. He looked behind, registered alarm, and sent his horse into a gallop.

“Why do cowboys shoot at strangers? Their reasons seem to be excuses. And why do people in towns occasionally form groups to hang someone?”

“We’ve worked out reasons. We’ve watched a lot of television, and the rules of attack seem to be almost the same in each story.” Tima rolled over and began to draw a copy of the diagram from memory.

“But now I am not sure we are right. The little humans dancing on the and the magic shows ….There is much lying, much imagination in these television shows. What if it does not represent what they really do?” Rem dropped to the soft floor and sat watching his wife. “Tima, must you study? I am nervous about the interview.”

She turned off the book projector and sat up. “If I don’t study I might panic. I don’t understand them either. You’ve planned this well, Rem; you studied for it hard. You will get scholar’s credits for it.”

“If I’m alive,” he said.

On the television screen a grim group of humans on horseback galloped along a trail, carrying rifles and a rope.

“Sir Charles Harrington-Smith on BBC says that the anthropologists think that a ground ape was their ancestor. Ground apes are pack animals. They guard each other in packs and have an instinct for mass attack on animals they don’t recognize.”

She reached forward and stroked his hair. “You were safe yesterday, so you must be doing the right things, when you follow their rules. Just avoid the rules of attack.”

He thought. “Yesterday I did not insult anyone or make anyone step aside. I let everyone walk before me. I ceased to speak when they spoke. I told the important officials that I admired their city and their planet. I touched nothing without permission and handed back everything they gave me. I did not steal. I did not refuse to drink with them, for they did not offer me any liquids. I wore the right clothing they expect from a man from space.” He felt his muzzle ruefully. “I can’t help looking strange.”

On the television the horses were stretched in a wild gallop, the cowboys leaning forward shooting grimly at a fleeing figure far ahead.

They both averted their eyes from the television scene.

In a low voice she said, “Rem, yesterday you were an ambassador. What are the rules for attack on ambassadors?”

“Only to start a war,” he replied in a low voice, looking away from the television. “They must think and talk among themselves for a long time before deciding to start a war.” He put his head in her lap. “What is your thought now?”

She stroked his hair. “Today you will be answering science questions. That makes you a scientist. What are their rules for attacking scientists?”

He thought, and put an arm across his eyes to think better. “I’m sorry,” he confessed apologetically. “I like the lectures and the stories too much. The scientists seemed to be very important, treated with much support and trust and liking. I only learned language from those shows. I forgot to think about sociology.” He sat up suddenly.

She leaped to her feet and went to the television set, pulled a reel of tape from the file box and dropped it into the slot on top of the television. The cowboys on the screen were busy throwing a noose over a tree branch. They vanished as the recorded signal took hold. Coiled glass tubing and twisted bottles appeared. The slender female turned the sound loud, and mad cackling laughter rolled from the set. She held her ears and watched.

A giant hand holding a tiny test tube appeared on the screen. “Just a minute kiddies,” said a gleeful voice with giant echoes. “I’ll drink some of this secret liquid and shrink down to where you can see me.” Glugging sounds followed.

Rem crossed his legs and laughed. “Not Mad Scientists, Tima. Those must be wizard and magician myths for children. In adult stories the scientist usually appears in a plot about spying and scientific secrets. I put all the best stories on a reel labeled Scientific Secrets.”

A small man peered, leering, from the screen. He wore a scientist’s white smock. He pulled at a bushy black beard and waggled thick black eyebrows up and down as he talked. Tima dropped in another tape and the mad scientist vanished. “SCIENTIFIC SECRETS I” said the screen.

The two students far away from home sat together on the cushioned floor and held hands and watched while the television set of the strange civilization of Earth showed how scientists were treated.

On the television screen an inoffensive quiet man in a white laboratory coat worked, standing at a tall table with meters and moving graphs. He checked the figures on the meters against his calculations and made notes, and became excited and ran a test three times, checking the figures each time.

His audience of two excitable young persons watched while the scientist tried to call in other scientists to see, and found the lights out, the building dark and deserted, for he had worked long into the night. He called his home from the office phone and explained his discovery excitedly to his wife, while a spy who usually listened in on calls from the research building became excited and made other calls with his other hand while listening intently. The scientist went down to the street, accepted a lift from a too-convenient taxi and was kidnapped by agents in the taxi, taken to a lonely building, and beaten and tortured, while the torturers whispered demands that he reveal the details of his discovery.

An agent of his own country, sent by the scientist’s worried wife to check on his safety, located the place of torture by careful following of clues, killed a guard outside the building, climbed vines up a wall, slid through a narrowly opened window into a hall, and silently killed two men he encountered in the hall.

Tima shrank closer to Rem, and he put an arm around her.

On the screen the agent heard moans and went into the room where the scientist lay tied. He killed the torturer and two other men, all almost without noise, then imitated a voice on the intercom to the people in the rest of the building and warned that the police were coming, and commanded them to get into their cars and escape, but to leave one car idling and empty before the door. The agent waited until he heard motors leaving, carried the scientist down to the door, saw an idling empty car, looked around and saw no opposition, put the scientist in the front seat beside him and drove away.

Clutching each other’s hands the watching couple let out a sigh as the car reached safety, and the scientist was carried into a friendly and attentive hospital.

“It does not seem to be for children or for a joke,” Tima said. “Those agents and spies are dangerous to scientists from outside countries.”

“We are from an outside country.”

“Far outside.”

“They might substitute an agent for Sir Harrington.” “But we know what he looks like.”

The screen said “SCIENTIFIC SECRETS II.”

Another story began, clipped from another television show. On the screen another scientist, pot-bellied and older, and more hesitant in his manner, let himself into a pleasant apartment and shut the door with a relaxing sigh. Music came soothingly from the kitchen.

“Maria, I’m home. Good news!” he called. The scientist dropped his coat on a chair and walked into the kitchen. “Naval Research has accepted my—” The kitchen was empty. Still smiling he wandered on to a balcony and looked at the sky. The phone rang. He went in to answer it.

Rem and Tina reached for each other’s hands as ominous music began. Still smiling the scientist held the phone to his ear.

A cold voice with an accent said, “Doctor Obarth? We have your daughter. She will not be harmed if you obey our orders.”

He gripped the telephone in both hands as if about to throw it, but pressed it more tightly to his ear. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “She has only just gone out to the store. You are lying.”

“We will prove we have her,” said the cold voice on the phone. “Listen and you will hear her speak to you.”

The aging man breathed heavily into the phone for a moment of hesitation and fear. “I don’t believe you,” he whispered. No one was listening to him. The scene on the screen divided, and the other side showed a dark basement room with the windows covered. Two men held a girl by the arms, and a third man held a phone before her face. She shook her head. The man holding the phone spoke to the other two, and they did something to the girl’s arms.

The girl screamed.

With a bound Rem Sh’baar turned off the television set. The screams faded, and the picture went dark. Trembling he stood pounding his fist softly down on the top of the TV set, looking at Tima. They were both tall and slender, delicate by Earthly standards.

“I won’t let them have you,” he said, his teeth showing. “All their friendliness and crowding around might be just waiting for an opening. Tima, what have I said about you? Have I said anything that would let them know you are in the spaceship too?”

She thought. “They don’t know I exist.”

“Good. They will not kidnap you to force me. Or kidnap me to force you. I will tell them I am sick. They will be afraid to beat me.”

He stopped and pounded his fist silently on the top of the television box and then continued. “The role is wrong. It is not safe to have them think of me as a scientist. I said this would be a short visit, so I am not bound to them by any promise to stay. We’ll leave as soon as we see any move toward kidnapping.”

Rem contacted the human officials and asked for chairs in the airlock.

They turned the television back to the hourly shows to wait for the news and worked off energy in a bowling target game, occasionally glancing at the television.

The scene was a panel show, but the puzzle contestants had abandoned their game and were discussing the news.

“What secret of science would you ask our visitor from the stars, Miss Saint Clair?” asked the moderator.

The camera shifted to a closeup of a rather wattled and skinny ex-movie queen. She toyed with an earring and looked coy. “Well, I do hope the dear man will tell us something about wrinkles. I’m still in my teens of course—” The audience laughed politely. “But I do hope for the sake of all the other girls that he will give us one teensey cure for wrinkles.”

The mellow smile and raised hand of the MC interrupted the audience’s sympathetic laughter. “Now we’ll hear from Ralph Rock, currently starring in that musical hit, The Bluebells. What secret would you like the stranger from space to tell you, Ralph?”

A clanging and booming began in the outer airlock of the big spaceship as human TV technicians dragged in chairs, television equipment and camera, setting them up for the important interview.

“I will wear an airsuit and look like an astronaut again. Maybe they will not think of me so much as a scientist to squeeze for secrets.” Rem Sh’baar zipped his coverall on and pulled the bubble helmet over his head. “If they have no bad intentions it is only the language which can make trouble. But I think I can explain the science in their language without breaking taboos and angering them.”

The two chairs he had ordered were in the middle of the airlock. He entered and saw three television cameras along the walls, crowding the small metal room, pointing meancingly toward him like machine guns. Their heavy cables trailed away from them and out the door like thick-bodied snakes, and their presence held the door open so it could not be slammed shut for a quick takeoff.

Rem Sh’baar looked at the door wedged open, wondering if it were part of a plan, then he inspected the chairs, touching them suspiciously. He lowered himself into a chair. The arm rests surprised him by nudging against his elbows. He lowered his arms on to them and gripped them firmly, and sat very still, bringing everything-he knew of English into readiness.

His posture was stiff and very still. To the panel of viewing scientists viewing the tape as it was made, watching somewhere in a government building in Washington, he looked like an Egyptian stone statue of an animal-headed god seated on a throne to judge the dead.

There was a sound of a polite knock by one of the television technicians. “Are you ready for Sir Charles, Sir?”

Rem turned his head stiffly toward the half-open door. “You may enter, Sir Harrington. I will be glad to greet you.”

“Thank you, Lord Sh’baar. I am glad to greet you also.”

A tall lean Englishman with buck teeth and the expression of an amiable horse pushed the door a little wider and stepped in carefully. Every move was taken with the caution of an old man, aware that old bones are brittle. He sat down, crossed his legs, and arranged himself in the relaxed and reassuring pose of a practiced interviewer, a man capable of interviewing natives in strange jungles or shy artists in their studios.

He glanced at the camera and slightly changed the angle of his head. “Thank you, Lord Sh’baar, for asking for me to interview you. It is an honor.”

Rem Sh’baar glanced also at the cameras and spoke slowly with careful clarity. “It is an honor also to meet you, Lord Harrington. We—I have admired you on television. Stories you told of struggle to be understood by native tribes and misunderstandings, such adventures have happened to us also. We—I am a student of races and civilizations also. I enjoy differences and seek them, as you enjoy them and seek them. What will be the questions they gave you?”

The human world was waiting, hoping that their man would be able to extract important and wonderful information from the stranger.

The famous old anthropologist inclined his head. “Lord Sh’baar, if you will permit a preliminary question before the important and difficult ones—Are our races on the same evolutionary level?”

The person from another planet fidgeted, thinking. He unzipped his bubble helmet, rubbed his muzzle in puzzlement and stroked the four short bristles on his cheeks. Finally he asked, “What is Evolutionary Level?”

“Evolutionary Level means—” Sir Charles hesitated, and looked at the muzzle and pointed ears of the visitor. “Well, perhaps it means nothing. We will forget that one. Tell me, do you find humans as intelligent and sensitive as your own people?”

“Yes, you have much inner struggle between carnivore and herd instincts, very like my own people. It makes for divided dreams of kill and love, impossible in action.”

“If we are like you, then we are intelligent enough to learn all of your science, are we not?”

It was a loaded question, a crucial question. Sir Charles Harrington-Smith asked it casually, without emphasis, but Rem Sh’baar recognized it. The child’s answer to only three wishes. The first wish shall be for a hundred more wishes. If the monster gives three answers, ask for a way to find out everything else.

“Would you repeat the question please?” He hoped that would not be it. His answer might offend them. He wondered if they dueled when offended.

“Can we humans learn all of your science?” the old anthropologist repeated patiently. “Do we have the intelligence?”

“No. Yes. Yes, intelligence. No, for you must learn our language. Science is thought, thought in language. Our children learn basic science when they learn basic language. Children have great speed in blotting up touch, sound, sight. They need only the help of words to make true connections. Yours is taboo culture, taboos basic words.”

The lanky old Englishman shifted position, and crossed his legs again the opposite way carefully. “Thank you, Lord Sh’baar. Could you inform me a little more clearly perhaps. We need to know if our scientists could learn your science from your science books and records. We would like to ask permission to photograph your books.”

It was the question, again. This time he had said it openly.

The alien licked his lips nervously, feeling very alien. “Your people cannot learn science, not even from your own science books and records. Your civilization is a word-taboo culture. Taboos words, not actions. Children learn to not-say, by learning to not-think. Taboo-type cultures are very difficult to learn, take all learning power to learn not-think. Average person when grown has learned not-think and how to tell bad jokes to think a little. He cannot learn science.”

Sir Charles shifted his weight and recrossed his legs, and scratched his upper lip as though looking for a mustache to rub. “You have learned English wonderfully well from listening to my lectures, Lord Sh’baar. It is almost like listening to myself lecture on taboos of tribal cultures.” He cleared his throat as though caught in a lie. “Ah, barring a little more grammar of course. The question is not whether our children can learn our own science, but can our scientists, our intelligent people learn science from reading your books and records?”

Rem had given a good answer, and yet Sir Charles had not understood the answer. He moved to put a hand over his eyes to think. But no human in an interview on television had ever put his hands over his eyes. It could be a tabooed action. Rem dropped his hand before it reached his face, licked his lips and glanced around at the cameras, trying to find words that would reach even the most stupid members of the human audience, and yet not offend.

“Sir, I could teach you to read our books, but you could not read our books. You could not make science mind-models from our words. Suck, eat, digest, sleep, defecate, kill, love, procreate. Strong experiences make strong words, make strong thoughts. Our science words are strong words. Science is about reality. Reality is yours from skin experience, from pleasure of instinct. But you taboo skin and instinct words.”

“But we could learn your language, could we not?” Sir Charles leaned forward, urging gently as he had so many times on television. Rem had admired his technique and had learned from it. Yet now Sir Charles was wrong, was blind, was angling a hook before a log instead of a fish. “And then we could read your books. If you would allow us to photograph and read your books….”

“How can they learn our words if they will not allow the ideas the words mean?”

“They could learn like children I suppose,” said Sir Charles. “Every child starts by hearing the words without knowing the ideas. Every child learns the ideas somehow. If you could loan us an encyclopedia of your science with pictures, and some of the books you use to teach your children, and let us photograph them, I’m sure our bright young scientists could work out their meaning somehow.”

“It is too late for adults, they have passed their learning time!” Rem’s voice was shrill. He flung an arm out sideways in a desperate gesture.

“Well, perhaps some of our scientists’ children in their own homes, could see photographic copies of your books. If you merely let us photograph them….” Again no understanding. Again the impossible request.

“Your children have work learning your culture. Infants learn to digest, no words for triumph, no praise or notice of it. Learn to reject bad food, don’t do that, bad child. Learn to defecate and withhold. Good child, but never mention it, the words are taboo, unspeakable words. Everything important and alive in the life of the child is unspeakable. They love and see love. Shh, do not mention it. They learn to talk, do not shout, do not make funny noises, do not say taboo words, do not mention anything important. Shh. So they learn to not-talk by not-thinking. Very difficult to not-think. Adult has learned taboo pattern well, must learn to speak past taboo-pattern by jokes and hints, to act past taboo-pattern or die. Cannot learn more. No room left in head for learning more. Only children can learn.”

Sir Charles looked patient. He gestured a hand out sideways, a carefully neutral gesture of tossing something away which carried no menace in any animal or human gesture code. “If your books were around, our next generation of children could learn them then. I’m sure your books would be valuable.”

Rem moved again to put his hands over his eyes to think and remembered that this was not done on television. He dropped his hands and looked around at the three staring television cameras. They gave no clue as to how to phrase the answer to get through a taboo-blocked mind. “I would not want to interfere with a child learning his own parents’ don’ts. No parent would want that. A child who learns and speaks tabooed ideas is a tabooed child,” said the desperate alien. “An outcast. I use only your words, your words from your lectures. Children in a native culture meeting older wiser people from western European civilization learn new strong ideas from outside. They learn outsiders laugh at their taboos. They speak before their elders and are punished, and find that the ideas they have learned are called insane, evil, unclean, dirty, unspeakable, taboo by their elders. The children think their elders are enemies of knowledge and of growth. The children think the secret of all success to bring pain to elders, to break taboos and rules and bring crime and destruction and defiance against elders. They destroy their civilization, their race dies! Many tribes have died of culture shock! You have said it yourself!” His voice reached a high pitch of nervous emphasis and he finished in a squeal.

“Those were primitive tribes,” Sir Charles said reasonably. “This is a civilization. Surely the introduction of some new science ideas cannot be a moral crisis. Science is innately impersonal?”

“Science is innately impersonal? Science is innately impersonal?” The long slender non-human sagged in his posture. He looked at the floor and muttered to himself in his own tongue. “I cannot let you pour a pail of our civilization’s byproduct ideas over your children.” Yet he had promised to answer their questions. He looked around the empty airlock room, the TV cameras trained on him like guns, the trailing cables that led out the partially closed door into a strange world. “My English is not clear perhaps. Information cannot be neutral in my language. I cannot dare to be more clear.” He looked hopelessly up at the weatherbeaten face of the English anthropologist and saw that the man was sympathetic to his struggle to express himself. “Sir, when you entered a native village, did the natives ever try to kill you?”

The famous anthropologist hesitated and surprisingly, blushed, with a pinkening color through his neck and face. “Well, in a way, yes. Several times. I must have made some mistake, of course. Naturally a stranger walking into a village without knowing the taboos would have to be very careful. I was always careful, but sometimes one must break a taboo in a very innocent action.” He sounded apologetic.

The alien sat in his chair stiffly, like a statue. “I have had much time to study your taboos. I have watched much television. I am being very careful.”

The old English anthropologist fixed him with a searching gaze. “I believe you mean that today you are the anthropologist and I am the native.” He laughed in a suppressed snort. “That is a turnabout! Did you say you learned our taboos from watching television?”

“Yes. I have studied television from all the television programs taken on tapes. Six months on tapes from many, many stations,” the alien said, not smiling or relaxing. “I am careful. I make moves and say only what was said by the good person of the story, the one who won friendship.”

Sir Charles laughed openly. “Oh, television taboos. Yes, they are strict. Not much is allowed on television, since international broadcasting really took hold. There are so many little corners of the world with a religion that would be offended by one thing or another that it is hard to remember how to behave in front of a camera. But we needn’t worry too much about that. If we slip and say something to shock somebody it will be edited out of the tape before they release it. The public will never see it.”

“I do not understand.” The visitor looked from side to side at the cameras and tightened his grip on the chair.

“The world is not watching, Lord Rem Sh’baar. You can talk freely. All this is just going down on tape. The only persons watching are a panel of scientists and a panel of ministers from each country. They will play the whole interview over and over and cut anything which might offend any part of the world audience.” Sir Charles smiled, obviously enjoying reassuring the nervous visitor. “You can speak freely. No one will be offended. I am an anthropologist and nothing can shock me.”

The non-human stood up. He changed, became young, mobile, and excitable. “They are not watching! Let me embrace you, Sir. Oh, I watched your television lectures and felt much.” He tugged at Sir Charles’ arm. “Please stand up, Sir. We will begin again as if we had just met!” Rem Sh’baar put his hand over his own chest. “I was hurt in the middle parts because I could not greet you.”

Confused but smiling, Sir Charles hoisted himself from the chair and stood up on stiff old legs.

Rem Sh’baar wrapped arms around him and hugged. “We love and are alike, yet are not brothers. May my children marry your children and repopulate worlds with our kind.” He paused and chuckled. “The words are impossible of course, but the heart may wish.”

Sir Charles turned his head to the warm pressure of the head on his shoulder, the friendly voice that spoke in his ear. Love is a rare and fading light to the old. He kissed the near cheek of his admirer as he would have kissed a grandson, and the quick sentimental tears of the aged filled his eyes. Then he looked past and saw the eye of the TV camera trained upon them like an accusing stare.

Sir Charles stiffened and tried to draw away.

“We could be misunderstood,” he said in a low voice. “I appreciate your sentiments, my boy, but we are watched by that group, that small group who will judge the tapes. I do not know them personally. We must be formal.”

Rem Sh’baar released his shoulders with an additional last reassuring squeeze and drew back.

“The ritual then. We shall be formal. I ally with you, Charles of the sires Harrington and England, the highest fruit and flower of the tree, Earth. I will respect your sires and protect your seed.” He unzipped his coveralls from the neck to below the waist. “My chest is bare to your blow. I turn my neck to your teeth and know I shall live forever.” He touched his neck and waited two seconds, then abruptly leaned forward and kissed Sir Charles’ neck, and reached down and touched him below the waist.

“May your breed multiply and be fruitful in your image. May our children breed together in love and our images blend into something higher.”

Since the moment he had been embraced again Sir Charles stood with eyes shut, deeply moved, listening to the ritual words as he would have listened to great music. Tears trickled from beneath his closed lids.

Rem finished the ritual and looked at Sir Charles with concern. “Why do you sorrow, Father?”

“Memories, that is, memories of my children, my grandchildren, my friends. It is not sorrow exactly. Time can’t turn backwards.” He wiped his eyes with the back of a finger. “You are a good boy.”

“I could share your memories.”

Sir Charles opened reddened eyes and looked into the delicate half-animal face, and then looked down, and saw that the alien’s coverall was unzipped to below the waist and some anatomy showed which was not human, but which was aggressive rather than receptive, and therefore decidedly male.

Sir Charles took two steps backward and looked away. The red which had been around his eyes spread and suffused his cheeks and ears.

“Zip up your clothing,” he said in a stifled, embarrassed voice. “People will misunderstand. They will think your ritual is suggestive.” He dropped into a chair and crossed his legs tightly. “They will think your ritual is meant to mean….”

Rem interrupted, sparing him the struggle with the unspeakable and tabooed words. “I would not have you misunderstand or be insulted in your beautiful self, Father. The ritual is meant from the heart also. You are beautiful. I would fertilize you if I could.”

Excitedly he spun, fingers spread as if gripping all of life. “But souls may breed with souls, Sir. Send for copies of your books, Sir Harrington, that I may take them with me.”

Sir Charles leaned his face into his hand so that he could not see. “Zip up your coveralls,” he groaned. “Couldn’t we change the subject somehow?”

“No,” Rem said determinedly. He unzipped his coverall and stepped out of it. “We must work. We must not be formal and strangers to each other. If we wear nothing it is a gesture of truth. And it will not be put on television until we return to our concealments, until then we may plan freely together and think together to help the Earth People who need to know what I know. I need your advice, Sir. We must make our cultures symbiotes and consume each other’s excretions.”

“Put on your coverall,” groaned Sir Charles, not looking. “Don’t leave it on the floor.”

Rem absently picked the coverall off the floor and draped it around his neck. “Yes, we must work.” He paced up and down, becoming brisk and efficient. “Let us work together on the problem of the information-intercourse of our races. Our way of life must breed with your way of life. But what can be done if the female race will not admire the gestures of the male race? The semen of information must not spill upon the ground! We must find a courtship pattern acceptable to the species. What feathers can we dress this bird in? What courting dance can we teach him?”

Illustrating his words Rem danced a few bird steps, making one arm into a long bird neck with the hand a pecking head and the other arm a flapping wing. “How may the information be made to penetrate, by sugar or by oil? We must plan well, we must thrust strongly when the time comes.” He illustrated.

Sir Charles gave one more desperate apologetic glance into the eye lenses of the television cameras and pushed himself to his feet. “Pardon me, Lord Sh’barr. Excuse me, I must go and think this over.” Without awaiting a reply he tottered out the door.

Worried, Rem put on his coverall then went to the door and looked out to make sure the Earth scientist was all right. He saw that the old man was being helped down the ramp by a television technician and the famous announcer. Reassured, he returned to the empty room and looked around at the staring cameras, wondering what the committee of wise men would decide to do with the record of the first half of the interview. Some of them might like him, and wish to be his friend—Rem thought hopefully.

It seemed likely that his first Earth friend, the famous anthropologist, would have to rest or take medicine before returning. Rem ran to the interior door, waited while it spun him slowly through the air purification chamber, and then leaped out into the living quarters.

“Tima,” he called.

“In here.” He followed the voice into the shower stall. His favorite wife was nervously combing her wet hair, watching the outside of the spaceship and its action on the tiny bathroom viewer. “No hostile action yet, Rem.”

“Tima, he became sick for a moment and had to go out.”

“I was watching,” she said. She came dripping and shiny out of the shower room and danced and hopped to dry off.

“Is there anything they would expect me to do? What customs do Earth people do when someone is sick?”

“I don’t know,” she said, rubbing the water off her arms. “I’m worried. By their way of counting the years he is worn out. He might be very sick. He moves slowly and tries to look happy.”

“Yes, he might have been sick already when I asked the Earth Government to send for him,” Rem agreed in a low voice. “It would be a great way to go, dying in a moment of history. He would not refuse.”

Rem paced a few steps and then spun to her in doubt. “I would like him to lie down during the rest of the interview. He is from a different evolutionary line. Would combing his hair make him feel more secure and protected, or would it frighten him?”

“I would like to stroke him too,” she said thoughtfully. “Gestures do have different meanings on different evolutionary lines, but, oh Rem, all furry animals with four feet need their friends and family to clean the fur behind their ears. It is a symbol of love. His ancestors had fur. I’m sure they did. I have seen their animals on TV exchange care for each other by stroking each other’s neck and ears with their tongues. It must be a gesture of love on this planet too. The poor old thing will be happy if you stroke him, or lick him behind his ears.”

“I would like to teach him to be young,” Rem said excitedly. “But it might take weeks. Tima, do we have time to stay long enough to explain psycho-chemistry to him?”

“If you like him that much, it is worth the risk.” She touched his cheek with light smooth fingertips. “Do what you wish for your friends, Rem, and I will help. Love is more than life.”

They watched the panel which showed a small picture of the view from four directions around the ship. There was only the ring of armed guards facing away, two TV technicians guarding the cables that ran from the cameras in the ship to a distant parked truck, then the trees and a far-away wall of watching crowds and parked cars, and cameras on the back of large trucks. They did not see the tweed-clad, lanky figure of Sir Harrington.

They walked back into the main study and games room. Tima swung by her hands on the bars, did two loops and landed, teetering but upright on another bar. She had done better before, and Rem could do better, but he made encouraging sounds of applause.

The television set was flickering, showing a foggy view of a crowd milling. It had been hand built to match the signals from Earth, and needed adjustment often. Rem tuned it, turning the sound louder and clarifying the picture.

On the screen Sir Charles Harrington-Smith sat in an outdoor camp chair, a whitecoated doctor holding his wrist and counting the pulse by staring at a watch. Reporters crowded around the famous anthropologist and thrust microphones towards his face. Sir Charles turned his head fretfully from microphone to microphone, trying to answer a barrage of questions. “No, I was not hurt. He was a nice young man, but not serious. No, no great secrets, the interview was a joke. Perhaps he was drunk, or too young. No, I don’t think he is actually planning to tell us anything important. It might be his idea of a joke.”

Rem sank down crosslegged to the floor and put his face in his hands.

The reporters on television asked other questions in an excited gabble.

“No,” said Sir Charles, his thinning hair sticking dankly to his forehead. “I can’t tell you any scientific things he said. It was only anthropology, the same things he had heard on my lectures on BBC Educational. Nothing really new. He avoided a very simple question over and over. I don’t think he knows very much science. Does an adolescent know very much about the construction of the plane he rides in? He is young and not serious. He doesn’t have the scientific attitude. Most of the things he said were either off-color or funny. He treated it like a party. He isn’t serious.”

In answer to another question, “No, I will not go back and try again. I enjoyed meeting him, and we were friendly, but it was too much effort trying to get the subject onto science. I am ill. It upset me too much.”

With his head in his hands, Rem groaned, “I was sure he liked me.”

“He did,” Tima said, “but you shocked him, somehow. You told him what you said would shock him.” She shut her eyes, sitting and rocking on a crossbar. “Shh. I’m thinking.” She opened her eyes. “Once, Secret Agent had to rescue a scientist they had kidnapped by pretending he was sick. They had made him sick and then taken him to a private hospital and told everyone he was too sick to talk, and they were trying to cure him. People who are too young, or too silly or too sick are locked up too. They aren’t allowed to drive cars or fly air ships. If the agents are trying to get you without starting a war with our people, they would say you are too young, or sick or crazy to fly a spaceship, and they would come to take you away from it.”

Tima turned nervously to the viewer. It showed the outside situation calm and unchanged, but she grew more alarmed, thinking of what she had just said. “Rem, we have to get out of here. We can’t take off with those cameras stuck in our airlock.

They might be set to explode.” She leaped down from the bars and ran for the door.

“No!” Rem stopped her and held her shoulders. “If I were an agent I would plan it as you said. You might be right, but let me clean the airlock. Remember they might try to kidnap you if they find out you are here.”

He rushed out, and she locked the door after him. When she looked up into the viewer, motion had started outside. White trucks and brown trucks were driving across the grass of the park.

On the television the commentator was excitedly reading a bulletin.

“Medical Authorities suspect that he may have contracted a communicable disease from the alien being, a disease which is unknown on Earth. Sir Charles is being rushed to a hospital under strict quarantine. A quarantine has been declared around the strange spaceship and military authorities are clearing off all personnel and authorized visitors to a distance of a quarter mile. All persons who contacted Sir Charles as he left the spaceship are requested to report by phone to this number, 799-23540, or report in person to the ambulances stationed near the spaceship. Repeat. All reporters and other persons who touched or were physically close to Sir Charles Harrington-Smith immediately after he left the spaceship should call 799-23540 or report in person to one of the army ambulances stationed near the spaceship. Do not touch anyone, and bring with you any equipment you have handled, to be disinfected.”

“Another bulletin.” The announcer read the new one which was passed to him. “Dr. Frederick Wolfgang, psychiatrist and member of the panel of scientists who are viewing the tapes for the interview states that it is possible that the Ambasador from Space was delirious or intoxicated during the interview, and therefore not responsible for what he had said. The doctor stated that the alien was responding like a child rather than a sane controlled adult and possibly had contracted a disease and a high fever from some ordinary Earth germ such as the common cold. The doctor states that the man from another planet did not take reasonable precautions against germs by keeping his spacesuit on at all times.”

Tima had turned the television set loud so that it could be heard in the airlock. She put her head in to where Rem was trying to unfasten the locked resistant wheels of the TV cameras. “Do you hear that, Rem? Hurry! They are going to do it. They are going to kidnap you to a hospital, and keep you prisoner.”

“Lock the door between us,” he said between his teeth. He found the right catch and the wheels under the heavy TV camera began to roll.

She shut the door and turned back to the television screen.

On the television broadcast which went to all of Earth, the announcer turned to the view of the black and silver globe on the screen behind him. “I am informed that there seems to be some unusual activity at the door of the spacecraft….”

The telephoto lens zoomed in to a close-range view of the spaceship ramp and door. The tall slender figure of the alien appeared, wearing the silver spacesuit, backing through the door dragging a television camera after him. He paused, kicked trailing cables out of the way of the wheels, and then rolled the camera down the ramp, leaning backward to keep the mass from slipping away and hurtling downward. At ground level he brought it to a stop, cast a rapid glance around at the distant uniformed lines of men and brown trucks that circled the ship, looked suspiciously under the ramp and then dashed back up and inside. The second camera was rolled out and down to the grass with the same impression of hurry.

“He seems to be removing the television cameras from the ship,” commented the announcer. “His spacesuit is not air tight, notice that he does not have the transparent helmet on. Doctor Wolfgang of the committee of scientists inspecting the tapes of the interview said that it was possible that the man from another planet might have contracted a cold by leaving his spacesuit open. Our cold germs could be very devastating to anyone who is not used to them.” As he spoke, the third television camera was pulled through the doorway and rolled down the ramp.

The announcer glanced at a note in his hand. “All the television cameras are removed from the ship now.” The picture of the slender dogfaced being reappeared in the doorway yanking after him the two ordinary chairs which had been put inside for the interview. They tangled together and stuck in the door, but he yanked them free with violent motions, flung them over the side of the ramp and dashed back inside. The small door shut.

A pause, and then the long ramp lifted slowly and closed into the side of the spaceship, leaving it a seamless, shining, curved surface. Dust and bits of grass began to fly and fog the air.

Rem came in the study room where Tima watched the TV screen. She said rapidly, “I’ve already set the automatics for a four-gravity lift-off. Let’s go.”

They each slid aside a single panel in the floor, revealing two wells of isogravitic liquid covered by a soft folded blanket of waterproof foam. Each lay in his individual liquid bed, and sank slowly.

“Ready?”

“Ready.” They each twisted a small safety lock dial on the surface of the blanket. The automatics took over; takeoff started and acceleration pressed them down deeper into the liquid bed, until the folds of the soft floating blanket on the surface folded around them and became almost smooth on the surface as they submerged.

The human-styled TV set on the wall crackled and sputtered. After a few minutes the acceleration pressure diminished. The two passengers floated back up to the surface and sat up. The television set said gravely, in the English language of Earth, “Radio requests to the alien that he stop and explain his destination are not being answered. Air Force authorities say that they have received no orders to intercept or attempt to stop the spacecraft.”

They rolled out of the soft acceleration beds to the floor, and lay there gasping. Rem began to do pushups.

On the television screen they saw their spaceship as a wavering, shiny dot in the cloudy sky of Earth. A cloud passed across the dot and it was gone. The sound and picture wavered. The wavering voice said, “Radar reports indicate that the ship will be out of the Earth’s atmosphere in approximately two more minutes. As of present information it seems that the space visitor is leaving without answering any scientific questions or giving any of the important secrets he promised to Earth. Unofficial sources say that authorities are taking a most serious view of the entire episode and a protest is being considered.”

Lying on the soft floor of the spaceship the two began to laugh hysterically.

“We should have studied them more,” Tima gasped. She did a somersault to the TV set and changed the station.

A pair of tight blue jeans and two low-hung, antiquated six shooters filled the screen. “No stranger can come into our town and talk like that-all,” bellowed the voice of a TV cowboy. “Draw, stranger!”

“Draw,” muttered Rem, laughing, half in tears, and added a randy remark which would be censored on any TV screen.

“Draw,” Tima giggled, nudging him where it hurt. Laughing, they stripped and fell into each other’s arms for consolation.

The gunshots and shouts from the television set faded slowly to a musical hum as the giant ship sped onward, away from the odd signals from Earth.

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