"Didn't the Old Race lose a ship out that way a few half-deaths of Thorium-230 ago? Could that account for the fact that the youngest sample failed to match?"
It answered firmly, "It is immaterial whether or not they may be descended from the Old Race. An examination is in progress; a decision must be made."
"The decision must be sure."
"It will be." The bodyless voice went on, to us: "Have either of you anything to add in your defense?"
I had been thinking of what had been said about the miserable state of our science. I wanted to point out that we had gone from muscle power to atomic power in only two centuries-but I was afraid that fact would be used against us. "Peewee, can you think of anything?"
She suddenly stepped forward and shrilled to the air, "Doesn't it count that Kip saved the Mother Thing?"
"No," the cold voice answered. "It is irrelevant."
"Well, it ought to count!" She was crying again. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! Bullies! Cowards! Oh, you're worse than wormfaces!"
I pulled her back. She hid her head against my shoulder and shook. Then she whispered, "I'm sorry, Kip. I didn't mean to. I guess I've ruined it."
"It was ruined anyhow, honey."
"Have you anything more to say?" old no-face went on relentlessly.
I looked around at the hall. -the cloud-capped towers... the great globe itself- "Just this!" I said savagely. "It's not a defense, you don't want a defense. All right, take away our star- You will if you can and I guess you can. Go ahead! We'll make a star! Then, someday, we'll come back and hunt you down-all of you!"
"That's telling ‘em. Kip! That's telling them!"
Nobody bawled me out. I suddenly felt like a kid who has made a horrible mistake at a party and doesn't know how to cover it up.
But I meant it. Oh, I didn't think we could do it. Not yet. But we'd try. "Die trying" is the proudest human thing.
"It is possible that you will," that infuriating voice went on. "Are you through?"
"I'm through." We all were through... every one of us.
"Does anyone speak for them? Humans, will any race speak for you?"
We didn't know any other races. Dogs- Maybe dogs would.
"I speak for them!"
Peewee raised her head with a jerk. "Mother Thing!"
Suddenly she was in front of us. Peewee tried to run to her, bounced off that invisible barrier. I grabbed her. "Easy, hon. She isn't there-it's some sort of television."
"My lord peers... you have the advantage of many minds and much knowledge-" It was odd to see her singing, hear her in English; the translation still held that singing quality.
"-but I know them. It is true that they are violent-especially the smaller one-but they are not more violent than is appropriate to their ages. Can we expect mature restraint in a race whose members all must die in early childhood? And are not we ourselves violent? Have we not this day killed our billions? Can any race survive without a willingness to fight? It is true that these creatures are often more violent than is necessary or wise. But, my peers, they all are so very young. Give them time to learn."
"That is exactly what there is to fear, that they may learn. Your race is overly sentimental; it distorts your judgment."
"Not true! We are compassionate, we are not foolish. I myself have been the proximate cause of how many, many adverse decisions? You know; it is in your records-I prefer not to remember. And I shall be again. When a branch is diseased beyond healing, it must be pruned. We are not sentimental; we are the best watchers you have ever found, for we do it without anger. Toward evil we have no mercy. But the mistakes of a child we treat with loving forbearance."
"Have you finished?"
"I say that this branch need not be pruned! I have finished."
The Mother Thing's image vanished. The voice went on, "Does any other race speak for them?"
"I do." Where she had been now stood a large green monkey. He stared at us and shook his head, then suddenly did a somersault and finished looking at us between his legs. "I'm no friend of theirs but I am a lover of ‘justice'-in which I differ from my colleagues in this Council." He twirled rapidly several times. "As our sister has said, this race is young. The infants of my own noble race bite and scratch each other-some even die from it. Even I behaved so, at one time." He jumped into the air, landed on his hands, did a flip from that position. "Yet does anyone here deny that I am civilized?" He stopped, looked at us thoughtfully while scratching. "These are brutal savages and I don't see how anyone could ever like them-but I say: give them their chance!"
His image disappeared.
The voice said, "Have you anything to add before a decision is reached?"
I started to say: No, get it over with-when Peewee grabbed my ear and whispered. I listened, nodded, and spoke. "Mr. Moderator-if the verdict is against us-can you hold off your hangmen long enough to let us go home? We know that you can send us home in only a few minutes."
The voice did not answer quickly. "Why do you wish this? As I have explained, you are not personally on trial. It has been arranged to let you live."
"We know. We'd rather be home, that's all-with our people."
Again a tiny hesitation. "It shall be done."
"Are the facts sufficient to permit a decision?"
"Yes."
"What is the decision?"
"This race will be re-examined in a dozen half-deaths of radium. Meanwhile there is danger to it from itself. Against this mischance it will be given assistance. During the probationary period it will be watched closely by Guardian Mother-" the machine trilled the true Vegan name of the Mother Thing "-the cop on that beat, who will report at once any ominous change. In the meantime we wish this race good progress in its long journey upward.
"Let them now be returned forthwith to the space-time whence they came."
Chapter 12
I didn't think it was safe to make our atmosphere descent in New Jersey without filing a flight plan. Princeton is near important targets; we might be homed-on by everything up to A-missiles. The Mother Thing got that indulgent chuckle in her song: ("I fancy we can avoid that.")
She did. She put us down in a side street, sang good-bye and was gone. It's not illegal to be out at night in space suits, even carrying a rag dolly. But it's unusual-cops hauled us in. They phoned Peewee's father and in twenty minutes we were in his study, drinking cocoa and talking and eating shredded wheat.
Peewee's mother almost had a fit. While we told our story she kept gasping, "I can't believe it!" until Professor Reisfeld said, "Stop it, Janice. Or go to bed." I don't blame her. Her daughter disappears on the Moon and is given up for dead-then miraculously reappears on Earth. But Professor Reisfeld believed us. The way the Mother Thing had "understanding" he had "acceptance." When a fact came along, he junked theories that failed to match.
He examined Peewee's suit, had her switch on the helmet, shined a light to turn it opaque, all with a little smile. Then he reached for the phone. "Dario must see this."
"At midnight. Curt?"
"Please, Janice. Armageddon won't wait for office hours."
"Professor Reisfeld?"
"Yes, Kip?"
"Uh, you may want to see other things first."
"That's possible."
I took things from Oscar's pockets-two beacons, one for each of us, some metal "paper" covered with equations, two "happy things," and two silvery spheres. We had stopped on Vega Five, spending most of the time under what I suppose was hypnosis while Prof Joe and another professor thing pumped us for what we knew of human mathematics. They hadn't been learning math from us-oh, no! They wanted the language we use in mathematics, from radicals and vectors to those weird symbols in higher physics, so that they could teach us; the results were on the metal paper. First I showed Professor Reisfeld the beacons. "The Mother Thing's beat now includes us. She says to use these if we need her. She'll usually be close by-a thousand light-years at most. But even if she is far away, she'll come."