Margaret St. Clair by The Best of Margaret St. Clair Page A

home.”
    “I know.” Henry swallowed. “But Hathor and the others look on us as —you might say —pets. Whether or not they brought us here deliberately —myself, I think it was an accident —“that’s how they feel about us. And nobody ever turned a pet loose when it was going to have young.”
    There was no use in telling Denis that Hathor was responsible for Vela’s child in the same way that a dog breeder i s responsible for the birth of pups. It would only offend Hardy’s dignity.
    “Pets!” Denis answered, staring. “What are you talking about? They’re nothing but lizards. They haven’t got stereo, stratoliners, A-bombs, anything. We’re their superiors in every way.”
    “They’re not lizards,” Henry replied. “They’re very highly evolved mammals. That crest down the back of their heads is just an accident.
    “The reason they don’t have those material things is that they don’t need them. Haven’t you ever seen Hathor materialize things for my laboratory? She does it by moving her hands. She could turn a rubber ball inside out without making a hole in it.
    “As far as that goes, if you think they’re nothing but lizards, why are you trying to get them to send you back t o your own time and space? No lizard I ever heard of could do that sort of thing.”
    -
    Hathor appeared. One moment the air was empty —the next it thickened and condensed, and there she was. As always when he first saw her Henry was divided between a wild desire to run for cover and an almost equally strong impulse to prostrate himself in awe at her feet.
    He glanced about to see how the others were taking it. Denis, for all his bravado, was turning slowly white. And Vela, trying hard to be supercilious, was arranging the folds of her mantilla with shaking hands.
    Not that there was anything especially horrible about Hathor to casual viewing. Though she was over fifteen feet tall, and so strong that she could have picked up any of the humans in the park w ith one hand, her body was slender and well-proportioned.
    She looked a good deal smaller than she actually was. The integument that covered her streamlined contours was pearly, pinkish, lustrous. And her tall vermillion crest could hardly be considered a deformity. It was something else that caused the reaction, something in the look of her eyes.
    Her impersonal gaze moved slowly over the little group. It slowed and came to rest on Henry. The skies of her mind fixed on him.
    “You’re Henry,” said the glassy, disembodied voice within his brain. “The one —” (not quite one —what Hathor was thinking was more like semipermeable membrane or assemblage of points) “the one with the laboratory. Yes.
    “I’m going to train you —” (a di ssolving kaleidoscope of images as thick as snowflakes. From the glittering throng of whirling, evanescent pictures, Henry caught up two which lasted longer than the rest —one of a hawk leaving the falconer’s wrist, the other of a slender key turning in a lock.) “Come along.” Hathor motioned with her two-thumbed hand.
    It was the first time she had ever come after him. Henry felt a premonitory shudder run through his limbs. Nonetheless he got obediently to his feet.
    It was nearly supper time when he got back. The smoke of Mrs. Pettit’s cooking fire drifted out into the still air and mingled pleasantly with the smell of frying meat.
    Henry sank down limply on the grass beside the blaze, shielding his eyes with his han d from the light. It was not until supper had been eaten and the necessary refuse from the meal burned that he could bring himself to speak.
    “Vela — Denis,” he said, trying to keep his voice from quivering, “Do you still want to get away from here? If yo u do I’ll do all I can to help you. I want to get away myself.”
    There was a cautious silence. Vela opened her lips and then closed them again. At last Denis spoke.
    “Why, yes, we still do. We thought you —Yes, we still want to get