Mark Clifton

“ There was a certain stiff formality in the way McCabe, flanked by his own two selected subordinates, approached the ship—until I turned around at the foot of the steps and he recognized me.
"Hap!" he yelled, then. "Happy Graves, you old son of a gun!" He broke into a run, dignity forgotten, and when he got to me he grabbed both my shoulders in his powerful hands to shake me as if he were some sort of terrier—and I a rat. ”

“ But Aunt Mattie was equal to it.
"Very well," she said crisply. "We shall not ask them to come to us. We shall go to them. It is our duty to carry enlightenment to the ignorant, wherever they may be, so that they can be taught to care. In the performance of our duty, we have no room for pride. We shall go to them, humbly, happily."
We did, too.
By the time we'd got into space suits and through the bubble lock out into the ordinary landscape of Capella IV, Capella, the sun, was sinking rapidly. ”

“ Johnny looked at me desperately when Aunt Mattie told him to have one of the natives come in so she could fit a pattern on it, to see if any gussets would be needed for fullness—whatever gussets might be.
"One of them came inside before," I said in answer to Johnny's pleading look. "Ask him again. If he refuses, Mohammed will go to the mountain. I'm sure you have extra space suits. I'm sure the ladies won't mind going out to the natives if the natives won't come to them." ”

“ A few billions spent around the house can make things quite comfortable.
She had need of her billions to carry out her hobbies, or, as she called it, her "life's work." Aunt Mattie always spoke in clichés because people could understand what you meant. One of these hobbies was her collection of flora of the universe. It was begun by her maternal grandfather, one of the wealthier Plots, and increased as the family fortunes were increased by her father, one of the more ruthless Tombs, but it was under Aunt Mattie's supervision that it came, so to speak, into full flower. ”

“ Then with her scissors, careful not to gouge his hide, she cut off the corners so that the eight tentacles barely peeped out from underneath the cloth.
Somehow, it reminded me of a huge red flower with a black pistil laying there on the white salt.
"There, sir," my aunt said with satisfaction to the monster. "This will hide your nakedness, instill in you a sense of true modesty." She turned to Johnny. "They must not only know what," she instructed. "They must also know why." She turned back and faced the monster again. ”

“ Perhaps this was the reason Aunt Mattie had insisted on this particular school, the hope that some of the ambition would rub off on me.
Capella IV wasn't much of a post, not even for the early stages in a young man's career, although, socially, it was perhaps the best beginning Johnny's family could have expected. It was a small planet, entirely covered by salt. Even inside the port bubble with its duplication of Earth atmosphere, the salt lay like a permanent snow scene. ”

“ Who would know it better?"
"But you...."
"The human race," I said, "is very young. It's only in the last few thousand years that it has discovered sex as a concept. So like little kids in kindergarten it goes around being embarrassed and snickering. But we'll grow up. Give us time."
"But you...." he said again. "But they.... That's the kind of organization that keeps us from growing up, Hap. Don't you see that? They've kept us mentally retarded for generations, centuries. How can we make progress when...."
"What's the hurry, Johnny? We've got millions of years, billions, eternity." ”

“ He says that, like the rest of them, I have inherited the family compulsion to make the universe over to my own liking so I can pass it on to posterity with a clear conscience, and my negative attitude toward this is simply a defense mechanism because I haven't had a chance to do it. He says I really hate my aunt's flora collection because I see it as a rival for her affection. ”

“ The planet furnished man nothing but water pumped from deep in the rock strata beneath the salt, and even that had to be treated to remove enough of the saline content to make it usable. At the time, I didn't know what the natives, outside our bubble, lived on. The decision to come had been a sudden one, and I hadn't had more than enough time to call the State Department to find out who the planet administrator might be. ”

“ I went to see Aunt Mattie when she came back from the convention, of course. She had the west wing where her sitting room looked out upon her flora collection—and the gardeners who were supposed to keep busy. Our greeting was fond, but brief. She did look at me rather quizzically, rather shrewdly, but she made no comment. She did not return my visit.
This was not unusual. She never visited my suite. When I was twenty-one she took me into the south wing and said, "Choose your own suite, Hapland. You are a man now, and I understand about young men." ”

“ On Earth, where I come from, we have a code which must be followed. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I'm sure that if I lived in a state of ignorant sin, I would humbly appreciate the kindness of someone letting me know. I'm sure that, in time, you will also come to appreciate it."
It was quite a noble speech, and her two companions bowed their space suit helmets in acknowledgement. Johnny's mouth and eyes were wide, and desperate. She stepped back then and we all stood there looking at the monster.
The dome of its head began to tilt until the eye was fastened upon us. ”

“ Somebody reported to the Daughters of Terra that you let the natives run around out here stark naked, and if Aunt Mattie says she's going to put mother hubbards on them, then that's exactly what she's going to do. You can depend on that, old man. ”

“ Bare ground, teeming with life, billions of life forms in every cubic foot of ground beneath our feet. Above the ground, too. Raw, growing life all around us, towering over us.
"If they were doomed to live in such a world, they would want it covered in salt, to kill all the life, make it antiseptic. ”

“ Just swing with the punch, man. Don't stand up and let 'em knock your block off. Surely you have some influence with the natives. I don't hear any war drums, any tom-toms. I don't see them trying to tear holes in the sides of your bubble to let the air out. You must be at peace with them. You must have some kind of mutual cooperation. So just get a tribe or so to go along with the idea for a while."
He looked at me and shook his head sadly. Sort of the way Aunt Mattie shook her head after a conference with my psychiatrist. But Johnny didn't seem somehow happier. ”

“ I suppose it's all those billions that act as shock insulation for you. You never had to plan, and scheme, and stand alert indefinitely like a terrier at a rat hole waiting for opportunity to stick out its nose so you could pounce on it. ”

“ Instead he knocked two sharp raps, and opened the door without invitation.
"Come quickly, Master Hapland," he chittered urgently. "There are creatures on our private landing field."
There were, too.
When I got there in my garden scooter, and pushed my way through the crowd of gardeners who were clustered on the path and around the gate to the landing field, I saw them. At least a dozen of the Capella IV octopoids were spread eagled, their tentacles out flat on the hot cement of the runway. Their eye stared unblinking into the sun. ”

“ The other hobby, which she combines with the first, is equally expensive. She and her club members, the Daughters of Terra (D.T.s for short) , often find it necessary to take junkets on the family space yacht out to some distant planet—to straighten out reprehensible conditions which have come to her attention. I usually went along to take care of—symbolically, at least—the bags and (their) baggage.
My psychiatrist would say that expressing it in this way shows I have never outgrown my juvenile attitudes. ”

“ Could one say that water running down hill is good, and water being pumped up hill is bad? Both are operating within known physical laws. With millions of years to go, wasn't it likely we would go on discovering the laws governing how things worked? ”

“ Such things as how mental manipulation of force fields can provide each of them with a cigarette lighter that burns without any fluid in it and any oxygen around its wick, or such things as mother hubbards which had caught their fancy, or perhaps gave them some kind of sensual kick caused by heat filtering through red cloth. ”

“ Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.... And the natives of Capella IV, philosophers at heart, were not ones to ignore the Golden Rule....
y Aunt Mattie, Matthewa H. Tombs, is President of the Daughters of Terra. I am her nephew, the one who didn't turn out well. Christened Hapland Graves, after Earth President Hapland, a cousin by marriage, the fellows at school naturally called me Happy Graves. ”

“ Johnny said, a little anxiously, I thought. It was hardly the formal speech of welcome he, as planet administrator, must have prepared.
"I have no doubt of it," Aunt Mattie said, and her tone told them what she thought of the State Department under the present administration. "You would hardly have met ladies in such—ah—otherwise." I could see that she was making a mental note to speak to the State Department about it.
"Make a note," she said and turned to Miss Point. "I will speak to the State Department. How can one expect natives to ... if our own representatives don't ... ”