Gooper scratched his head thoughtfully. "Psychologies differ," he said finally. "And we stand in utter terror of space travel. We would sooner go through the fantastic hells of our ancient religious ancestors than venture outside the atmosphere. Without a doubt this has cost us much in knowledge we might have gained—but some things are unaccountable, and this is one of them, I suppose. Do you understand?"
"No," said Gaynor bluntly. "But I don't suppose there's much need to understand. It's a fact, and it's there. Well, there's an end. When can we take off? "
"Right now, if you wish," said the Gaylen. He gestured at a control man high in a little box stuck to one of the transparent walls, and slowly the mighty vaulted roof of the place split and began to roll back. "Just turn on the power and you'll flit away from the planet," he said. "After that, you're on your own."
V. The Proteans
"It is bigger than I thought," said Clair absently, staring through the port of the. Ark.
"Mean the planet?" asked Gaynor.
"What else, ape? Do we land?"
"I suppose so." Gaynor peered down at the mighty world spinning slowly beneath them. "Then the question is—how?"
"Find a nice soft spot and let go," suggested Gaynor. "Anyway, you're the navigator. You dope it out."
In answer, his companion sent the ship into a vicious lurch that spilled Gaynor out of the hammock into which he had just crawled. "Necessary maneuver," he explained genially.
"Necessary like a boil behind the ear," grunted Gaynor. "Let me take over."
Lazily they drifted down for a short period, then came to a near halt, perhaps five thousand feet above the ground, settled, fell again, halted; settled again, fell, and landed with a shattering jolt.
"Very neat, pal," said Clair with disgust oozing from his tones. "Very neat."
"I could do better with the practice," said Gaynor diffidently. "Do you want I should go up again and come down again maybe?"
"Heaven forbid!" said Clair hastily. "Let's get out and case the joint."
They donned fur garments thoughtfully laid out by one of the nameless builders of the Ark and stepped through the port. Clair took one deep breath and choked inelegantly. "Smells like the back room of McGuire's Bar and Grill," he said, burying his nostrils in his furs.
"How does the gravity strike you, Art?" said Gaynor.
"Easy, Pavlik, easy. A little heavier than is conducive to comfort, but agreeable in many ways. It seems to be dragging yesterday's dinner right out of my stomach, but it's not too bad. How's for you?"
"I feel sort of light in the head and heavy everywhere else. But I can thrive on anything that doesn't knock you for a loop."
"See any animal life?"
"Not yet. The Gaylens didn't mention any, did they?"
"No. But they couldn't—all they know about any of their planetary brethren is what they can see at long range," said Clair.
"True for you, Art. Now, what would you call this?" As he spoke Gaynor pulled from the flint-hard soil a thing that seemed a cross between planet and animal. It looked at him glumly, squeaked once, and died.
"Possibly you've slain a member of the leading civilization of this globe," said Clair worriedly.
"I doubt that. You don't find advancement coupled with soil-feeding."
"There's another reason why this thing isn't the leading representative of the life of this planet," said Clair, staring weakly over Gaynor's shoulder. "Unless they built it, which I don't believe."
Gaynor spun around and stared wildly. It was a city, a full-fledged metropolis which had sprung up behind his back. It was—point for point and line for line—the skyline of New York.
Then the city got up and began to walk toward them with world-shaking strides.
"You mean the city with legs?" Gaynor cried, beginning to laugh hysterically.
"My error," said Clair elaborately, passing a hand before his eyes. "I mean the giraffe."
Gaynor looked again, and where the city had been was now a giraffe. It looked weird and a trifle pathetic ambling across the flinty plain. It seemed to be having more than a little trouble in coordinating its legs.
"Must be an inexperienced giraffe," muttered Gaynor. "No animal that knew what it was doing would walk like that."
"You're right," said Clair vaguely. "But you can't blame it. It hasn't been a giraffe very long, and it wants practice. What next, do you suppose?"
"Possibly a seventy-ton tank." And the moment the words left Gaynor's mouth he regretted them. For the giraffe dwindled into a tiny lump, and then the lump swelled strangely and took shape, becoming just that—a seventy-ton tank, half a mile away, bearing down on them with murder and sudden death in its every line and curve.
Within a couple of yards of the humans the tank dwindled again to a thing more like a whale than anything else in the travelers' pretty wide experience—but with some features all of its own.
"Hello," said Gaynor diffidently, for lack of something more promising to say or do.
And a mouth formed in the prow of the creature. "Hello," responded the mouth.
"I presume you're friendly," said Gaynor, drawn and mad. "At lease, I hope so."
"Quite friendly," said the mouth. "Are you?"
"Oh, quite," cried Gaynor enthusiastically, sweat breaking forth on his brow. "Is there anything I can do for you to prove it?"
"Yes," said the mouth. "Go away."
"Gladly," said Gaynor. "But there are reasons for us being here— "
"Do they really matter?" asked the mouth. "To a Protean, I mean."
"To a what?"
"To a Protean. That, I deduce from your rather disgusting language, is what you would eventually come to call me, from my protean powers of changing shape. That's what I am—a Protean, probably the highest form of life in this or any universe."
"You're a little flip for a very high form of life," muttered Clair sullenly.
"I learned it from you, after all, the whole language. And naturally I learned your little 'flip' tricks of talking. Would you like a demonstration of my practically infinite powers—something to convince you?"
"Not at all necessary," interrupted Gaynor hastily. "I—we believe you. We'll leave right away."
"No," said the Protean. "You can't, and you know you can't. Moreover, while it is certain that your presence here disturbs me and my people with your very sub-grade type of thought, we have so constituted ourselves that we are merciful to a fault. If we weren't we'd blast the planet to ashes first time we got angry. I want to do you both a favor. What shall it be?"
"Well," brooded Gaynor, "there's a woman at the bottom of it all."
"Females again!" groaned the Protean. "Thank God we reproduce by binary fission! But go on—sorry I interrupted."
"Her name is Jocelyn, and she's lost."
"Well?" demanded the mouth.
"Well what?"
"Shall I see that she stays lost or do you want her to be found?"
"Found, by all means found!" cried Gaynor.
"Thanks. Wait for me." Then the Protean vanished for a moment and became a perfect duplicate in size and scale of the Ark. Then it flashed up and out of sight.
VI. New Sun—and Old
Gaynor stared at Clair—stared at him hard. Then he coughed. With a start his partner came to. "Anything wrong, Paul?" he asked soberly.
"Anything wrong. Anything wrong," murmured Gaynor quietly, almost to himself. Then he exploded, "Art, you bloody idiot, don't you realize that we were in the presence of a Protean—the mightiest organism of any time or space? It even admits it—it must be so!"
"I'm sorry, Paul," said Clair gently. "But I was busy with a theory. I noticed something, yes, but it didn't seem terribly important at the time. What happened to the giraffe we were talking to?"