“Saber is grateful for your approval, my lady. He has been quite anxious about the incident. Human sexual practices are very confusing to asexual beings.”
“They’re pretty confusing to humans, too,” Patricia said.
“Is this what’s been bothering you today?” Mona asked. “I mean, you’ve been in the dumps about something closer to home than the refugees.”
“Uh, it’s something like that, Mona. What would you do if you were going insane?”
“Something crazy, I suppose. But you’re not showing any of the usual symptoms of psychosis.”
“But I am! I mean, when things change around you, when something looks different from one moment to the next… Oh! I don’t know.” Patricia began to cry.
“Easy, girl, easy. What things are changing?”
“Martin.”
“You mean sometimes he acts like a different person?”
“No. I mean sometimes he looks like a different person. Like, sometimes when he just comes into the room, and I catch him in the corner of my eye, he looks so different, so ugly. Or when we’re making love, he changes sometimes, just for an instant. And then he’s back to normal.”
“I never heard of anything like it,” Mona said. “But I don’t think it’s psychosis.”
“My lady, isn’t it written that ‘love is blind’?” Dirk said.
“Stay out of this, Dirk,” Mona whispered.
“Well, it’s something,” Patricia said.
“Tell me,” Mona said, “what does Uncle Martin look like when he looks different? I mean, describe him.”
“Uh, he’s short, very short. And incredibly fat. And he looks maybe a hundred years old.”
“Go on,” Mona said.
“He’s got a wart on the left side of his nose and a triple chin. His hair, what there is of it, is all white and he has a ridiculous mustache.”
“I see,” Mona said. This was, of course, a fairly accurate description of Martin Guibedo. “Now describe what Uncle Martin looks like normally.”
“Well, you know what he looks like!”
“Humor me,” Mona said.
“Oh, okay. Well, he’s got black hair graying at the temples, a neat mustache, and clear blue eyes. He’s about six one. Rather wide shouldered with a wiry body. Sort of a swimmer’s build, you know.”
“Of course.” Mona was beginning to think that Dirk was right. Perhaps love was blind. “There’ve probably been other cases like it, Patty. I’ll talk it over with the CCU when we get home. In the meantime, buck up. It can’t be too serious, and you’re among friends.”
‘Thanks, Mona.” Patricia put her hand on Mona’s as an arrow lodged itself halfway through Winnie’s body, with the flint arrowhead stopping directly between their faces.
“OOWW!” Winnie yelled.
Dirk was out the door in an instant. Liebchen woke up and stuck her grinning head out the window, eager not to miss anything.
“Down, girl,” Mona said, pulling Liebchen to the floor beside herself and Patricia. “Dirk can take care of it without you.”
A Gamma unit in Utah took an interest in the affair. Six of them, Dirk. But take it easy. They’re all adolescents.
Thanks! Dirk adjusted his eyes to infrared and his skin to flat black. He swung out and came silently behind them, catching each boy alone and swiftly, carefully knocking each senseless.
Groping with his huge arms in the dark, Winnie managed to catch the last of the intruders. He was vigorously bouncing this screaming unfortunate on the sand, occasionally switching hands to demonstrate his versatility, when Dirk told him to stop.
“Aw, gee, Dirk. I was only spanking him a little,” Winnie said.
“From here it looks like you’ve broken both of his arms and at least one leg. Next time leave this sort of thing to me! Now put him—gently—on the bed inside.” Dirk dropped two unconscious boys on the sand. “And get me some rope to tie these guys up.”
Mona efficiently bound the unconscious boys as Dirk brought them in. In twenty minutes there were casts on all four limbs of the one Winnie had gotten hold of, and Winnie’s side had been bandaged.
“Ridiculous, my ladies,” Dirk said. “According to my brother Tomahawk, who’s up on Indian lore, this group is the most incredible hodge-podge imaginable. The one on the end, for example. His moccasins are maybe Crow, the leggings are Shawnee, his bow Cree, and the arrows are Seminole. The war bonnet is Sioux, his scalp lock is Iroquois, and the war paint looks more Zulu than anything else. Yet judging from their facial features, this bunch are Zuni.”
“They’ve just been watching too many movies, Dirk,” Mona said. The boys were starting to come around.
“Perhaps, my lady. A more important question is what to do with them. We can’t have them running around shooting people, but I would prefer not to kill them,” Dirk said.
“Neither would I.” Mona turned to the boy on the end. “Why did you shoot at us?”
The boy was silent. Liebchen slipped back into Winnie.
Dirk prodded the boy. “Come, come, now. The lady is speaking to you.”
“I’ll never talk, paleface,” the boy said in perfect English.
“Lacking, among other things, a face, I hardly qualify as a paleface. Winnie, bring out the first one from inside, the one who wouldn’t talk.”
The boys’ eyes widened as the huge hand placed the bandaged boy in front of them.
“Gee, Dirk, can I spank another one?”
“Perhaps. Now then, son. Why did you shot at us?”
“Well, for one thing, we didn’t know your house—trailer was alive.”
“That’s hardly an excuse for shooting at people,” Mona said.
“You’re on our land!” the boy in the middle said.
“Gee, the map said this was a state park.” Winnie hoped he hadn’t made a mistake.
“No! I mean this whole country is our land. You stole it from us and now we’re taking it back.”
“You’re welcome to all the land you can use,” Mona said, “but you’re not entitled to kill people.”
“We have a right to take what’s ours.”
“It’s not yours. The land belongs to everyone. There’s plenty enough to share. The time of stealing and killing is over. Soon, for the first time in history, there will be enough of everything for everyone. Why be stuck on the past when you can be part of the future?”
“Paleface.”
Liebchen came out of Winnie with a glassful of something that looked like a mixture of milk and pink grapefruit juice. “This will fix everything, my lady.”
“What’s that?” Mona asked.
“Something I had Winnie’s synthesizer make. It’ll make these guys go home and be happy,” the faun said proudly.
“You haven’t quite answered my question, Liebchen.”
“It is a behavorial modification compound that will change their perceptions and programming, my lady. It’ll make it so everybody’s happy.”
“What does it do?”
“It makes people see things the way they want to see them, and act the way they’re supposed to act, and be happy about it.”
“Give me that.” Mona spilled the stuff on the sand, trying to control her emotions. The source of Patricia’s problem was now obvious. “Liebchen, I don’t want you to make anything like this again.”
“Never, my lady? But it makes everybody happy.”
“Never! Well, not unless Uncle Martin tells you to.