“I’m really not,” Billy confessed. “What I really am is a human being.”
“A human being?”
“Just like you. Well, not exactly like you. You’re a girl and I’m a boy.”
“I was beginning to suspect that,” Malya said. “But why does Juju-Kuxtil travel around with humans?”
“Well,” said Billy. “About Juju-Kuxtil…”
In rapture, she said, “He saved us from the yellow rain.”
“Ahhhh, yes and no,” Billy said, scuffing his foot in the rocks.
She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course,” she lied.
Nerving himself up to blurt out the real story, Billy said, “Well the truth is—”
Bong; a good-sized rock landed on his head. He fell over, unconscious. Rocks suddenly started bouncing all over the place. Flinging herself onto Billy to protect him, Malya cried, “I think I know what you were trying to tell me, Billy!”
In the roofless temple, Achum led a community discussion, “Now that Juju-Kuxtil has come and stopped the yellow rain,” he said, “Heaven is ours. We can build, travel, everything.” He gestured with broadly spread hands, smiling. The worshipers smiled back. A small yellow rock landed on Achum’s right palm.
Five minutes later, when the rockfall had ended, Achum and the worshipers came crawling back out of their burrows and none of them were happy. Juju-Kuxtil lied!” several shouted.
“Yes!” Achum thundered.
“Achum is a false priest!” one shouted.
“Wait a minute,” Achum said. “Hold on there.”
“You’re a false priest.”
“Now, hold on. In the first place, I’m not a false priest, and I’ll knock you down if you say that again. And in the second place, that’s a false god!”
“A false god?”
“That isn’t Juju-Kuxtil,” Achum explained. “It’s a demon trying to lead us astray. A demon disguised as Juju-Kuxtil!”
“A demon disguised as a god,” mused a worshiper. “Hmm. That makes sense.”
The captain had decided to go out looking for Billy while the others waited on the command deck. He had barely left when rocks started bonging again. “That’s funny,” Pam said, bending over her slide rule.
Ensign Benson said, “What’s funny?”
The captain entered, looking ruffled, saying, “Gee, are they sore.”
“Pam? What’s funny?”
“There shouldn’t be another asteroid fall,” she said, “for two days.”
“That isn’t asteroids,” the captain told her. “They’re throwing rocks at the ship.”
“Rocks at the ship!” Luthguster was incensed. “That’s Galactic property!”
“Actually, it’s mine,” Ensign Benson said.
“They were hollering, ‘Demon! Demon!’ ” the captain explained. “They think you’re a false Juju-Kuxtil.”
Luthguster gaped. “Me?”
“Councilman,” Ensign Benson said, “you’ve set back superstition on this planet four hundred years.”
Hester and Keech entered, Hester saying, “Captain, I—”
Luthguster ran around behind a pod, crying, “Look out! There’s one of them!”
“What?” Hester shook her head. “Oh, Keech is all right. I told him the whole story.”
“I’m the soul of discretion,” Keech said.
Hester turned to the captain. “Which do you want first, the good news or the bad?”
“Hester, I hate making decisions.”
“Start with the bad,” Ensign Benson said. “Then we’ll have the good for dessert.”
“Fine. The bad news is, the rocks damaged our lateral rockets. ‘We can’t navigate.”
“Oh, my goodness,” said the captain. “Can it be fixed?”
“I’ll have to go outside on a ladder.”
“Wear a hat,” Ensign Benson advised. “The weather’s getting worse out there.”
Pam, looking at a view screen, said, “What’s this?”
So they all looked and saw several natives approaching, pulling a wooden-wheeled cart filled with cloth.
“They’re bringing back our laundry,” the captain said.
Ensign Benson said, “I don’t think they cleaned it.”
“I’ll go get it,” Pam said.
Ensign Benson, whose dream that someday Pam would discover she was a human female had not yet died, said, “I’ll go with you.
They left, and the captain said, “Hester? You had good news?”
“I would be more than happy,” Luthguster said, “to hear good news.”
“I did a mineral analysis on those rocks,” said Hester. “The reason they’re yellow, every one of them is at least part gold.”
The natives had dumped the laundry at the foot of the ladder and had gone away with the cart, expressing their contempt. Pam and Ensign Benson cautiously descended, and when they reached the bottom, a hand reached out of the laundry and grabbed Pam’s ankle. “Eek!” she said, naturally.
Malya’s lovely face appeared among the shirts and the shorts. “Shh! It’s me, Malya; I’m on your side! Sneak me in before anybody sees!”
“My laundry never came back with a girl in it before,” Ensign Benson said.
Out of a cave onto the blasted plain staggered Billy, rubbing his head. “Ooh, that hurts,” he mumbled. “What kind of Heaven is this?” Raising his face and his voice, he cried, “Malya! Malya?”
A dozen natives leaped on him from all sides, pummeled him and, carried him away.
“So I have him hidden,” Malya said. She was on the command deck with the five Earthpeople and Keech.
“We’ll have to move the ship at once,” Luthguster said, “to his hiding place. This young lady can direct us.”
“We can’t navigate,” Hester reminded him “till I fix the lateral rockets.”
“We have a saying here,” Keech commented. “‘Into each life a little rock must fall.’”
The captain said, “It was a mistake to pretend to be gods.”
“I agree, Captain,” Ensign Benson said. “My error. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But as long as we’ve made the mistake, we’ll have to live with it. Councilman, you’ll have to go out there and reconvince them that you’re Juju-Kuxtil.
“Me? They’ll stone me!”
“The hand that cradles the rock rules this world,” Hester said.
“That isn’t nice,” Pain said. “People shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Why not?” Keech asked, “We don’t live in glass houses.”
The captain said, “if we tell them about the gold, won’t—”
Ensign Benson said, “The what?”
Hester explained, “The yellow rain is mainly gold. If this colony went into the export business, it could become rich.”
Keech said, “What’s gold?”
“I know you’re primitive,” Luthguster told him, “but that’s ridiculous.”
“I may be primitive,” Keech answered, “but it’s you wiseacres that’re in trouble.”
Ensign Benson said, “Pam, the rockfall pattern repeats, doesn’t it? You could do a yearly calendar with the rockfalls.”
“It’s a very complex pattern, but yes, of course.”
“Could you do it in an hour?”
“Oh, my goodness,” Pam said. “I’ll try.”
The captain said, “You have a plan to help Billy, Ensign Benson?”
“If Malya and Keech will help.”
“I’ll help,” Malya said. “I don’t want anybody to hurt Billy.”