"Meg," he said, "is there some water hot? I'd like to clean her up. There's dirt in those scrapes."
Meg sniffed, and nodded.
The creature did not like being bathed, not in the least; and shivered and trembled all through the process of washing her injuries, shaking water all over Hannah Burns' downstairs floor, and all the dining tables. She resisted the more when Meg tried to wrap her in a sheet, indignant and frightened at once. Merritt saw the reaction and took it off her.
"Don't try," he advised Meg. "She doesn't understand what you're doing."
Meg stared at him and at the prisoner, clearly distressed for the creature's nakedness; and there had been a somewhat similar look among the men about the yard, a guilty look for their thoughts: Merritt recognized it finally. Hestians were not accustomed to such freedoms: in their cold climate, that was only natural. But this golden creature was provided by nature with a considerable body heat and a coating of down that was more apparent to the touch than to sight, save in sunlight. Quite probably it would find the room heat stifling, and the sheet more so.
"I wonder," said Jim, "what she must be thinking. She can't understand much of buildings and people."
"She's probably thinking," said Meg, "that she'd like to kill us all and she's going to be delighted to get the chance. I don't think she's afraid of punishment any more than a wild animal is. She just wants a chance at us."
Merritt ignored the warning, nodded to Jim. One on a side, they drew the creature up the stairs, holding tightly when she balked, letting her walk. He opened the storeroom and found it empty, a mere closet with a slit for a window: not even the creature's slim body could pass that.
And when it knew that they were going to force it into that dismal hole, it let out a moaning whimper and shrank back, pressed its face as far as it could against Merritt and shivered.
"Poor thing," said Jim, "she's not going to like this, not at all, but what else can we do with her?"
"Get her hands loose; I'll hold her. She may take the room apart, but we can't leave her tied up in there."
She stood still for that, so far as it went, but predictably she tried to bolt. Merritt had a strong grip on her this time, and her strength, near exhausted, was quickly spent. She quit fighting and stared at them, dark-eyed with hate or fright, or both. A tear traced its way down her cheek.
Once inside, she gave a sudden wrench and freed herself by surprise, drawing back into the niche formed by the empty shelves and the corner. Merritt stood back, not threatening her or offering to restrict her movement, and after a moment she relaxed and peered toward the window. Then her eyes darted back to him as if she expected a surprise attack.
"It's all right," he said gently.
She shivered, backed all the way to the corner and sank down in a little knot. The long-fingered hands covered her eyes, her shoulders giving once or twice as if to sobs, but there was no sound.
"You should have shot it," said Porter, in the conference that had gathered unbidden in the main hall. Merritt glared at him.
"I have leave to do what I want and ask what I want so long as it contributes to the work here," Merritt said, "and in my opinion, what we could learn from one of her kind is of value."
"And what she'll draw here is trouble," said Porter, to which no few of the others muttered agreement.
"The trouble is already here," said Merritt. "Better to understand it. She'll bother none of you where she is. Let be."
"I say we get rid of her now," said one of the Porter cousins. "Send her back like we got the dog back."
"I said no," said Merritt, "and that's the end of it."
"You don't understand," said Porter. "You don't know them. We do."
"No argument. Porter. So long as I'm doing my job and hurting none of you, I won't be argued with. I don't think I'm unreasonable."
There was an outcry at that, and Frank Bums put his considerable bulk at Merrill's side.
"Look here," Burns said, "I don't like sheltering one of them, but I don't think Sam Merrill's that much wrong. After a hundred years here, we still don't know what these creatures are; and if it's his craziness, it's not hurting any of us here so far. He's done a good job up to now and worked himself double-shifts often as not, and I don't see any reason to come to blows over this. We got too far to go to find us another engineer; and there's nothing wrong with the one we got. So you let him be while you're on my land; and think it over: you owe him better than this."
"You're right you do," said Amos Selby, from another side of the room. "I don't like the People none either, but Sam's asked blessed little of us til now. You're right he's an outsider and he don't understand much how we feel in some things, but he's not prone to try to push us into things. I figure he's due the same patience, even when he's wrong, like some of us have been when he's been right. What harm's that one little creature doing us locked away up there?"
"And what if she gets loose and kills one of us in our sleep?"
"I'll see she doesn't," said Merritt. "I'll take the responsibility for keeping her secure; no one else has to worry for that."
"We can manage," said Burns; and still complaining, but more softly, the men filtered out of the room, Porter with them. Merritt gave Amos Selby and the Burnses a grateful and inclusive look.
"It's all right for now," said Burns, "but I hope you know what's going to happen if something does go wrong, or if she gets loose and hurts somebody."
"It's certain," said Meg from her mother's side, "you can't keep her shut up in that little closet—just for practical reasons, which I'm sure you can think of, Sam. You'd do a lot better just to turn her out."
Merritt frowned, unhappy that Meg did not stand with him. "No. Maybe we can't manage without some rearranging of things up there, but—"
"We're not set up to play jailers," said Burns. "We haven't the facilities at all. You see what kind of problem this is."
"It's certain she'll slip any restraint," said Meg.
"Iron… she can't get free of," Merritt said. "I don't like to do that, but if it's that or shoot her—"
"She'll tear herself to pieces against a chain," said Amos. "It'd be kinder to shoot her, Sam."
The argument was over. The creature's staccato screams suddenly hushed as Merritt snapped the leather-cushioned iron about her ankle and finished the permanent closing. Jim was holding her, arms tight about her from behind, but she was no longer fighting. When Jim let her go she sat down in the floor and jerked and clawed at the metal ring, then seized the chain in her hands and tried to pull it out of Merrill's grip, rising as she did so. The great brown eyes were brown only around the rims now, the nostrils of her flat nose flared wide; and there was a sudden shift in her look, from panic to the wildness before attack. Merritt saw it coming, jerked hard on the chain and spilled her to the floor.
It needed both of them holding her even so to carry her down the hall and into her new quarters, a dilapidated guest-room with a wider window; and her shrieks of rage filled the house and must be audible all the way out in the yard. Only when she realized that she was in a wider, lighter room she calmed a little, and they let her go.
She walked about the floor and up to the window, while Merritt secured the other end of the chain permanently with bolts—took up on it so that she could not quite reach the window to touch it. And every time she stopped and the chain would drag she gave a little shake of her foot, and at last sat down disconsolately and pulled at it.
"I'm sorry," said Merritt gently, and pocketed his tools, stood up. From the plate on the table he offered her an apple: it was said the People liked that human import and stole fruit from orchards.