Sarloo took him in the common vehicle of the Jockaira, a wheelless wain shaped much like a soup bowl, which moved quietly and rapidly over the ground, skimming the surface in apparent contact. Lazarus squatted on the floor of the vessel while Sarloo caused it to speed along at a rate that made Lazarus’ eyes water.
“Sasloo,” Lazarus asked, shouting to make himself heard against the wind, “how does this thing work? What moves it?’
“The gods breathe on the-” Sarloo used a word not in their common language. “-and cause it to need to change its place.”
Lazarus started to ask for a fuller explanation, then shut up. There had been something familiar about that answer and he now placed it; he had once given a very similar answer to one of the water people of Venus when he was asked to explain the diesel engine used in an early type of swamp tractor. Lazarus had not meant to be mysterious; he had simply been tongue-tied by inadequate common language. Well, there was a way to get around that- “Sarloo, I want to see pictures of what happens inside,” Lazarus persisted, pointing. “You have pictures?”
“Pictures are,” Sarloo acknowledged, “in the temple. You must not enter the temple.” His great eyes looked mournfully at Lazarus, giving him a strong feeling that the Jockaira chief grieved over his friend’s lack of grace. Lazarus hastily dropped the subject.
But the thought of Venerians brought another puzzler to mind. The water people, cut off from the outside world by the eternal clouds of Venus, simply did not believe in astronomy. The arrival of Earthmen had caused them to readjust their concept of the cosmos a little, but there was reason to believe that their revised explanation was no closer to the truth. Lazarus wondered what the Jackaira thought about visitors from space. They had shown no surprise—or had they? -
“Sarloo,” he asked, “do you know where my brothers and I come from?’
“I know,” Sarloo answered. “You come from a distant sun -so distant that many seasons would come and go while light traveled that long journey.” -
Lazarus felt mildly astonished. “Who told you that?’
“The gods tell us. Your brother Libby spoke on it.”
Lazarus was willing to lay odds that the gods had not got around to mentioning it until after Libby explained it to Kreel Sarloo. But he held his peace. He still wanted to ask Sarloo if he had been surprised to have visitors arrive from the skies but he could think of no Jockairan term for surprise or wonder. He was still trying to phrase the question when Sarloo spoke again:
“The fathers of my people flew through the skies as you did, but that was before the coming of the gods. The gods, in their wisdom, bade us stop.”
And that, thought Lazarus, is one damn big lie, from pure panic. There was not the slightest indication that the Jockaira had ever been off the surface of their planet.
At Sarloo’s home that evening Lazarus sat through a long session of what he assumed was entertainment for the guest of honor, himself. He squatted beside Sarloo on a raised portion of the floor of the vast common room of the clan Kreel and listened to two hours of howling that might have been intended as singing. Lazarus felt that better music would result from stepping on the tails of fifty assorted dogs but he tried to take it in the spirit in which it seemed to be offered.
Libby, Lazarus recalled, insisted that this mass howling which the Jockaira were wont to indulge in was, in fact,he had to sdmit that Llbby the ***$ork*** ***$ttsr*** than he did in some ways~ Libby had been delighted to discover that the Jockaira were excellent and subtle mathematicians. In particular they had a grasp of number that ***pi 1/4$Ileled j~ own w~d-‘ta1~,fl~r -arithmetics irene lnoredl~ pvved for ncnnal human***. A number, any number ***I*ip *** to them a unique entity, to be grasped in itself ***si net idIy as ft*** grouping of smaller numbers. In consequence they used any convenient positional or exponential notation with any base, rational irrational, or variable-~,***-~ st-a***. It was supreme luck, Lazarus mused, that Libby was available to act as mathematical interpreter between the Jockaira and the Families, else it would have been impossible to grasp a lot of the new technologies the Jockaira were showing them.
He wondered why the Jockaira showed no interest in learning human technologies they were offered in return?
The howling discord died away and Lazarus brought his thoughts back to the scene around him. Food was brought; the Kreel family tackled it with the same jostling enthusiasm with which Jockaira did everything. Dignity, thought Lazarus—lean idea which never caught on here. A large bowl, full two feet across and brimful of an amorpheous meal, was placed in front of Kreel Sarloo. A dozen Kreels crowded atound it and started grabbing~giving no precedence to their senior. But Sadoo casually slapped a few of them out of the way and plunged a hand into the dish, brought forth a gob of the ration and rapidly kneaded it into a ball in the palm of his double-thumbed hand. Done, he shoved it towards Lazarus’ mouth.
Lmarus war not squeamish-but he had to remind bimself first, that food for Jockaira was food for men, and second that he could not catch anything from them anyhow, before he could bring himself to try the proffered morsel.
He took a large bite. Mmmm… not too bad-bland and sticky, no particular flavor. Not good eithet~but could be swallowed. Grimly determined to uphold the hon of his race, he ate on, while promising himself a proper meal in the near future. When lie’ (cit that to swallow another mouthful would be to invite physical and social diaaster.
***$~ed Up sl.~Ze h**dM st~ha m~ uite$bmsndc~d IttoSssfoo ,kWasIn.pired dljdmflitey For Ike zest of the mast Lazarus fe4 Sexton, fed bun until bin anne were tired until he m~ at ha host’s ability o tuck it away**
After eating they slept and Lazarus slept with the famiy *** lIte**ly*** They slept where they had eaten, without beds, disposed as casually as leaves on a path or puppies. To his aurprise, Lazarus slept well and did not awoke until false suns in the cavern roof glowed in ***mysse,~as s~rmpath~c to-***new dawn. Sarloo was still asleep near him and giving out most humanlike snores. Lazarus found that one infant Jockaira was cuddled spoon fashion against his own stomach. He felt a movement behind his back~ a rustle at his thigh. He turned cautiously and found that another Jockaira-a six-year-old in human equivalence-had extracted his blaster from its holster and was now gazing curiously into its muzzle.
With hasty caution Lazarus removed the deadly toy from the child’s unwilling fingers, noted with relief that the safety was still on and reholstered it. Lazarus received a reproach for look; the kid seemed about to cry. “Hush,” whispered Lazarus, “you’ll wake your o1d man. Here—”- He gathered the child into his left arm, and cradled it against his side. The little Jockaira snuggled up to him, laid a soft moist mouth against his side, and promptly went to sleep.
Lazarus looked down at him. “You’re a cute little devil,” he said softly. “I-could grow right fond of you if 1 could ever get used to your smell.”
Some of the incidents between the two races would bave been funny bad they not been charged with potential trouble: for example, the case of Eleanor Johnson’s son Hubert This gangling adolescent was a confirmed sidewalk-superintendent. One day he was watching two technicians, one human and one Jockaira, adapt a Jockaira power source to the feed of Earth-type machinery. Tbe Jockaira was apparently amused by the boy and, in an obviously friendly spirit, picked him up.
Hubert began to scream.
His mother, never far from him, joined battle. She lacked strength and skill to do the utter destruction she was bent on; the big nonhuman was unhurt, but it created a nasty situation.