They were interrupted by a smooth, faintly erotic voice that was totally unexpected right then.
“Sorry to break in on your recreation, fellows,” the computer announced contritely, “but it is time for Sergeant Pinback to feed the alien.”
“Awwww,” Pinback groaned, shuffling one foot and looking down at the floor, “I don’t wanna do that now.”
“May I remind you, Sergeant Pinback,” the computer continued inexorably, “that it was your idea in the first place, and no one else’s, to bring the alien on board. If I may quote you, you said, ‘the ship needs a mascot.’”
“Yeah, but—” Pinback tried to protest. The computer rode over any objections.
“It was your idea, so looking after it is your responsibility, Sergeant Pinback.”
Boiler gave him the sinister ha-ha.
“Rats,” grumbled Pinback. “I’ve gotta do everything around here. It’s everybody’s mascot—why can’t they help out?”
“It’s your pet, buddy. I don’t even like looking at it. Gives me the galloping quivers. Even Doolittle thinks you should toss it out the lock.”
“No feelings, any of you. So it isn’t the perfect pet, so what? We all have our faults.”
Boiler greeted that with another ha-ha and turned back to adjusting the laser.
Pinback walked off down the corridor muttering to himself. Lazy, care-for-nothings, insensitive—a good thing at least one person on this ship was interested in something besides destruction. Wait till they got back to Earth and everyone got a look at his alien. Not much question who would get the medals then! He had intended to share the glory with the others, but if they didn’t care enough to help look after it, well then, they could just go find their own mascots!
He muttered to himself in this manner all the way back to the compartment they had sealed off for the live alien specimens. On the way he stopped and picked up a dustpan and broom. A sanitary portable vacuum would have been more practical and more efficient, but some insane psychometrician back on Earth had decided that a dustpan and broom would be the better choice.
They’d feel less lonely with a few familiar tools around, and the extra exercise would be desirable. Pinback wished the psycher were there now, so he could exercise the dustpan and broom over his skull.
Over door was a crude stenciled sign that read WATCH IT! The admonition had firm foundation in previous happenings, and he opened the door carefully.
His particular pet alien had grown more and more adventurous as it had become acclimated to the ship. The last time he had gone to look after it, it had been waiting just inside the doorway to pounce on him.
Then there was the time the luminants had gotten loose. Brilliantly hued geometric shapes of pure light, the most alien life form they had ever encountered, the luminants had allowed themselves to be docilely convoyed on board and into a cage of lucite. Once in free space, they had proceeded to saunter out of their “cage” as though it were not there—which for them was quite true. There followed a hectic week of pursuing them all over the ship, with dark panels, flashlights, and anything they thought might induce or force the luminants back into their cage.
It was all frantic and impossible. How do you capture something made out of pure light? It was Powell who finally hit on the idea of using mirrors. A complex arrangement of hidden mirrors made their new cage into an honest one. They could still slip out any time they wanted—but the internal mirror arrangement insisted otherwise. So they stayed put, inside the glass prison.
Pinback stepped into the room and quickly looked around. No sign of the Beachball.
The room was empty except for the luminants’ big smoked-glass cage. Four of the luminants responded immediately to his presence. Pity they weren’t intelligent. They were peaceful, even friendly—and extremely stupid.
Now, as he hunted for the Beachball, the four light-creatures floated close to the glass wall of their cage. They might have made nice pets… but how could you pet a thing you couldn’t even be sure was there? It would have been like trying to be affectionate to the beam of a searchlight.
Pinback didn’t like them.
“All right, where are you?” He bent over and started peering under tilted crates and empty shelves. “Come on, ball, quit playing around.” Beachball was an accurate description, if not a particularly dignified name for the alien. Boiler, typically, had named it, and despite Pinback’s best efforts to the contrary, the label had stuck.
It was better than naming it after Pinback, which had been the corporal’s initial suggestion. At first Pinback was flattered. Then, as the nature of the alien became more obvious, he was considerably less so.
“Come on, quit hidin’.” The luminants swarmed over to the side of the cage nearest him, and he waved his arms irritably at them. “Go on, beat it.”
They scattered to the back of the cage. Even their total alienness could be tolerated if they would only make a sound of some sort—something to indicate a bare hint of the sentience that was probably there.
“Come on, come,” he muttered. He set the broom and pan down on a huge crate and started snapping his fingers. “I haven’t got time for this. Come on.”
There was a sudden flash of spotted red in front of him, followed by a loud thump. Startled, Pinback jumped back. Then he recognized the source of the sound. He put hands on hips and glared down at the alien angrily, covering his nervousness. “And to think when I brought you on the ship I thought you were cute.”
The alien twittered engimatically back at him.
Well, to a man who had been away from home and all other companionship save that of his crewmates for as many years as Pinback had, the alien might have seemed cute at one time.
It was about a third the size of a grown man, neatly spherical, and colored bright red. Large blotches of yellow, black, and green concentric circles mottled the pulsing body. It also sported a set of clawed, lightly webbed feet. That was all. It possessed nothing resembling hands, arms, a multipart torso, or even a face.
It could distinguish sounds and sight, though the organs carrying out these functions were well hidden beneath the bulbous body. Occasionally it made sounds like a querulous canary. These were matched by deeper moans which sounded suspiciously like Pinback sounded when he had a bad bellyache.
The sergeant had moved to a nearby cabinet and was rummaging inside it. After a bit he came out with a large, somewhat frayed head of alien-world cabbage. They had run out of food from the alien’s own home world a long time ago, its appetite proving to be far greater than even Pinback could have imagined.
“All right, soup’s on.” He held out the battered greenery. “Come on, this is no time to get picky. We don’t have any more of the other stuff.”
The alien made no move to come forward. “Here, eat it,” Pinback yelled. He tossed the vegetable toward the alien. He was about fed up with this “pet.”
The cabbage bounced a couple of times and came to a stop in front of the Beachball.
“Eat it, damn you. Take it or leave it. It’s all we’ve got.”
The alien seemed to pause, then leaned forward over the food as if inspecting it with invisible eyes. Both multiple claws tapped at the floor, an imitation of a gesture it had observed in Pinback. Whether or not the alien had any real intelligence was questionable, though at times it performed actions apparently unexplainable in any other way. But that it was imitative, like a parrot, was undeniable. Certainly it hadn’t displayed anything which could be interpreted as an effort toward communication.
Eventually the tapping stopped. The claws reached out, grabbed the cabbage, and shoved it back toward Pinback. It twittered noisily.