James E. Gunn

“ Joyce said sharply. "Earthmen don't make friends with aliens. And that's nothing but a—a blob!"
"Fweep?" queried the raspberry lips. "Fweep?"
"If it's Four's friend," Reba said firmly, "it can stay. If you don't like to be around it, Grammy, you can always go to your own room."
Joyce stood up indignantly. "Well! And don't call me 'Grammy!' It makes me sound as old as that old goat over there!" She glared malignantly at Grampa. "If you'd rather have that blob than me—well!" She swept grandly out of the central cabin and into one of the private rooms that opened out from it. ”

“ Reba went on, unheeding. "If we look at it the right way, it's quite a lot. A beautiful, fertile world. Earth gravity. The flivver—even if the polarizer won't work, there's the resynthesizer; it will keep us in food and clothes for years. By then, we should have a good-sized community built up, because out here we won't have to stop with one child. We can have all the babies we want."
"You know the law: one child per couple," Joyce reminded her frigidly. "You can condemn yourself to exile from civilization if you wish. ”

“ Four is strange enough without encouraging him to think like a martyr. It's out of the question. If that's the only way we can leave this planet, we'll stay here until Four has a beard as white as Grampa's! ”

“ The faces were still blank and unillumined.
"Gravity is similar to light," he pressed on. "In the absence of matter, gravity is non-polarized. Matter polarizes gravity in a circle around itself. That's how we've always known it until the invention of spaceships and later the polarizer. The polarizer polarizes gravity into a straight line. That makes the ship take off and continue accelerating until the polarizer is shut off or its angle is shifted."
The faces looked at him silently. Finally Joyce could endure it no longer. "That's just nonsense! You all know it. Grampa's no genius. ”

“ Fred said gravely, "that this multiplies our problem of what to do with Fweep over one hundred times."
"What problem?" asked Grampa. "The only problem we got is how we're gonna spend the cash. We're in business—the gravity business. We'll call it Gravity, Incorporated, and we can reclaim every little hunk of rock in the Solar System. Each one of those little fellows is worth a fortune! We'll give the satellites and the asteroids Earth-normal gravities and atmospheres and, by golly, we're rich!"
"Rich?" Joyce echoed. ”

“ Four stretched and stood up. He looked curiously into the corner by the computer where Grampa's chair stood. "You brought that pircuit from Earth, didn't you? What's the game?"
Grampa looked up, obviously relieved to drop his act of intense concentration. "I'll tell you, boy. You play against the pircuit, taking turns, and you can put out one, two or three lights. The player who makes the other one turn out the last light is the winner." ”

“ Four explained. "All he knew was he didn't like linear polarization and he neutralized it as soon as he could. That's when we dropped."
"Linear polarization is uncomfortable for him, is it?" Grampa said. "Makes you wonder how something like Fweep could ever develop."
"He's no more improbable than people," said Four.
"Less than some I've known," Grampa conceded.
"If he can eat anything," Reba said, "why does he keep sweeping the cabin for dust and lint?"
"He wants to be helpful," Four replied without hesitation, "and he's lonely. After all," he added wistfully, "he's never had any friends." ”

“ It's a pircuit problem, like the one about the cannibals and the missionaries. We can't leave Fweepland because Fweep won't let our polarizer work. He won't let our polarizer work because he doesn't like gravity that's polarized in a straight line, and he don't want Four to leave him.
"Now Fweep ain't the brightest creature in the Universe, so he can't understand why we're so gosh-fired eager to leave. And as long as he's got Four, he's happy. Why should he make himself unhappy? As a favor to Four, he'd let us leave—if we'd leave Four here with him, which we ain't gonna do. ”

“ Joyce said icily. "I want it stopped, and the sooner the better. If it won't turn the gravity off, we'll just have to do away with it."
"How?" asked Four. "Fweep's skin is pretty close to impervious and you can't shoot him, stab him or poison him. He doesn't breathe, so you can't drown or strangle him. You can't imprison him; he 'eats' everything. And violence might be more dangerous to us than to him. Right now, Fweep is friendly, but suppose he got mad! He could lower his radioactive shield or he might increase the gravity by a few times. Either way, you'd feel rather uncomfortable, Grammy." ”

“ Joyce said in a stiff, offended tone and sat back in her chair.
Grampa lowered the nippled bottle from his lips and chortled. "Junior, I apologize for all the mean things I ever said about you. Maybe you got the makings of a Peppergrass yet."
Junior turned back to the keyboard and studied it, his chin in his hand. "It's just a matter of stating the problem in terms the computer can work on."
"I take it all back," said Grampa. "That computer won't help you with this problem, Junior. This ain't a long, complicated calculation; it's a simple problem in logic. ”

“ When light is polarized by passing through crystals or by reflection or refraction at non-metallic surfaces, the paths of the vibrations are still perpendicular to the ray, but they're in straight lines, circles or ellipses. ”