Margaret St. Clair

“ Scott hurried on, "you'll tell us why the Vardians don't die."
Thor-na'thor pulled his hand back. "I beg your pardon," he said quietly. "I had thought it was a gift."
Scott's cheeks began to burn. "Oh, heck," he said bruskly, "take the th—"
"Shut up, Scott," Frost broke in. And then, to Thor-na'thor, "We'll give it to you, and gladly—and a lot of other stuff, too—if you'll do what Scott said. How can it hurt you to tell us? Why don't you want us to know?"
"You are joking. You terrestrials are always joking. There are things of which one does not speak." ”

“ Well, then she'd think about Robert. She was a lucky woman to have a nephew like him. She'd worked out several menus, all the things he liked best, but she wished she could think of something a little different. There were so few kinds of meat, when everything was said and done. Lamb and beef and musk ox and bollo and pork. And she always thought bollo was stringy and tough.
Gradually Amy's nerves began to quiet. The cats had grown quiet too, except for an occasional outburst that sounded like lightning made audible. Her thoughts drifted lazily from Robert to her soap carving. ”

“ It wasn't quite as bad as murder, because the Talipygians say that when their personal electrical charge is released, it reshapes itself into a higher form; all the same, Farquarson had wiped out twenty or thirty relatives and friends of the beings who were bumping around outside the life craft in their sacrificial dance. When the electrical charge is dissipated, the bodies wither away. No wonder the Talipygians were sore. ”

“ Kauss was looking at the debris on the floor. A peculiar expression, half satisfaction, half private insight, hovered around the corners of his lips.
"It was a Mocker, I think," he answered.
"A Mocker? What—?"
"Um-hum. You still find a few of them in the wilder parts of Venus. They're parasitic—ah—entities, that feed on the life force, as well as the flesh, of human beings. No doubt this one came aboard the ship at Aphrodition, in that consignment of Fyella corymbs. They're invisible most of the time, so of course we didn't suspect it."
"But how did it get here?" George demanded. ”

“ There was a young man who wore a bracelet on one wrist, a woman with a dry, scaly skin who slapped constantly at an imaginary fly on the bridge of her nose, and a child who brought decomposed starfish and bits of rotting seaweed into the dining room. And there was Madame Zilfa.
Jamieson noticed her particularly because she had the room next to his, and all day long people knocked at her door. She came down to breakfast the first morning of Jamieson's stay wearing an ankle-length frock of magenta-colored chiffon with sequins sewed all around the edge of the wide, wide skirt. ”

“ Scott shrugged and did not answer for a moment. "I might believe," he went on after a pause, "that they'd worked out therapeutic techniques which are more successful than ours in prolonging life, if the Vardians weren't obviously at a low level of scientific progress. Their vehicles are steam-powered, and they light their buildings with carbon-filament electric lights. Their young men and women dabble in science, yes, but for exactly the same reason that they take an interest in music and painting and the dramatic arts—because it's cultural."
"Got you there!" Frost said in some triumph. ”

“ He could see his actions and his movements with absolute clarity, but he had nothing to do with them.
"You like see Dridihad," Mnathl said.
"All sorts of things for eth—ethnog—for man like you to look at. Come on. You like good." She started along a shadowy, green-roofed trail.
While Ericson watched with resentful detachment, his body began obediently to follow her. Speech as well as volition had deserted him, and all he could do was to move silently in her steps.
As mile succeeded silent mile, memory and common sense came to his aid. ”

“ Marta said. "Goodness!"
"It feeds, like the Mocker, on both the flesh and the life force of human beings. Fortunately"—Kauss smiled—"it's very, very rare. There are probably only a few Strollers in the entire solar system, and they reproduce only at widely separated intervals." ”

“ Mrs. Dinsmore sniffed, "I don't know what you're driving at," she said coldly, "or why you're so prejudiced against my poor little Rambler. You know perfectly well that Robert would never send me anything the least bit dangerous."
Captain Bjornson paused with another cookie half-way to his lips and looked at her. "Wouldn't send you anything dangerous!" he exclaimed. "Why, Amy, have you forgotten how your face was swelled up for two weeks from that tree cutting he sent you? The doctor said it was a contact poison worse than sumach, and he tried to get you to go to the hospital. ”

“ Just before I zoomed, Zinck said something in a stern voice about expecting me to return with Farquarson alive and in good condition, or he'd consider it a breach of discipline. He knew I didn't like him.
"I had a real devil of a time finding Denis. We get in the habit of talking as if a planet were about the size of California, and a satellite no bigger than an amusement park. Take it from me, that's nothing but pure woola wash. A satellite the size of Iapetus seems as big as Terra itself when you're hunting a small object on it, and that life craft was only about five meters long. ”

“ Ericson had been able to get his fever-racked body back to civilization alive. But it had been at the cost of slavish addiction to the drug.
And now Mnathl—bless her greenish skin and queer flat eyes—was offering him a journey to the mysterious heart of the minor polar continent. Offering it to him on a silver platter. A piece of original ethnographic research. He had been ungrateful and a fool. "You like good," she had said. Well, she ought to know.
The effects of the drug she had pricked his arm with must be wearing off. Ericson found he could smile. "Why are we going to Dridihad, Mnathl?" ”

“ Man knew the diameter of the earth before he was aware of the circulation of the blood, and it was more than two hundred years after the laws of moving bodies were formulated before the science of psychology was born. First the physical sciences, then biology, and at last sociology and the psychology of the depths.
"What reason is there to think that Thor-na'thor's people haven't reversed the progression and developed the life sciences first?"
"The order of development on earth wasn't accidental, but dictated by the nature of things; physics is an easier science than psychology. ”

“ Dinsmore pulled the lucite platter so far over to her own side of the table that Bjornson couldn't get another cookie from it without getting up and stretching out along the table cloth. "I don't agree with you," she said distantly. "Robert is a splendid fellow, so thoughtful and considerate. He takes a real interest in my soap carvings, and how many young men with an important position like his, third mate on a space freighter with a regularly scheduled run, would remember to send back plants from every port of call to an aunt on earth? ”

“ For one thing, Farquarson might just have turned his ankle and considered it a catastrophe which warranted sending a call for help, and for another, the Talipygians are protected by interplanetary law. They've been classified as a 'non-humanoid species of limited intelligence,' and that means that if you bother one of them all hell pops loose. Quite right, too." Joseph's manner was solemn. "The non-human species of the system are one of our greatest natural resources.
"But as I was saying, I decided to land. I came down easy on quarter-jet, got out, and started toward the yellow life craft. ”

“ One of the first signs that a Mocker is taking hold is a spell of amnesia, and of course that's what happened to you, Saunders, when we were taking on cargo at Aphrodition, though I didn't realize it at the time.
"A Mocker doesn't usually kill its host directly, but it does draw on his life force to keep itself going, and he usually complains of feeling worn out and tired."
Kauss halted. Marta looked down at her husband's brown suit and the ice cream slowly melting across it.
"Please, George, pick up that stuff before it ruins your suit completely," she said automatically. ”

“ Ericson, at the thought, felt sweat break out on his upper lip. What he had endured had been just at the edge of what a man could stand and still live. (His ordeal, had he known it, had been very much less than it would have been had he taken the drug cure in the hospital in Penhairn. Mnathl, though she had not disdained the help of terrestrial science, knew things about the Fyhonese flora and its properties that no terrestrial even suspected. Still, the ordeal had been bad enough.) Ericson shifted his position and sighed. ”

“ Scott whispered to Frost, "Funny sort of library. People go in and people come out, but none of them is carrying anything. Of course, it could be the books don't circulate."
"It could be Thor-na'thor was lying, you mean." Frost whispered back. "It's not a library, it's the place where the Vardians go for their shots or what. Thor-na'thor must think we're awful fools." ”

“ McBream snorted. "Who's sore? Only petty, small-souled individuals get sore at things. Me, I'm suffering from an attack of righteous wrath. I'm not vindictive, but I hope Farquarson chokes over one of his own recipes." ”