Speaker 1: Part one of Exile from Space. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
Speaker 1: by Jen Broda. Exile from Space by Judith Merrill, Part one.
Speaker 1: Who was this strange girl who had been born in
Speaker 1: this place? And still it wasn't her home? I don't
Speaker 1: know where they got the car. We made three or
Speaker 1: four stops before the last one, and they must have
Speaker 1: picked it up one of those times. Anyhow, they got it,
Speaker 1: but they had to make a license plate because it
Speaker 1: had the wrong kind on it. They made me some
Speaker 1: clothes too, a skirt and blouse and shoes that looked
Speaker 1: just like the ones we saw on television. They couldn't
Speaker 1: make me a lipstick or any of those things, but
Speaker 1: because there was no way to figure out just what
Speaker 1: the chemical composition was, and they decided I'd be as
Speaker 1: well off without any driver's license or automobile registration as
Speaker 1: I would be with papers that weren't exactly perfect, so
Speaker 1: they didn't bother about making those either. They were worried
Speaker 1: about what to do with my hair, and even thought
Speaker 1: about cutting it short, so it would look more like
Speaker 1: the women on television. But that was one time I
Speaker 1: was way ahead of them. I'd seen more shows than
Speaker 1: anyone else. Of course, I watched them almost every minute
Speaker 1: from the time they told me I was going. And
Speaker 1: there was one where I'd seen a way to make
Speaker 1: braids and put them around the top of your head.
Speaker 1: It wasn't very comfortable, but I practiced at it until
Speaker 1: it looked pretty good. They made me a purse too.
Speaker 1: It didn't have anything in it except the diamonds, but
Speaker 1: the women we saw always seemed to carry them, and
Speaker 1: they thought it might be a sort of superstition or
Speaker 1: rerual necessity, and that we'd better not take a chance
Speaker 1: on violating anything like that. They made me spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time practicing with the car, because without a
Speaker 1: license I couldn't take a chance on getting into any trouble.
Speaker 1: I must have put in the better part of an
Speaker 1: hour starting and stopping and backing that thing and turning
Speaker 1: it around and weaving through trees and rocks before they
Speaker 1: were satisfied. Then all of a sudden, there was nothing
Speaker 1: left to do except go. They made me repeat everything
Speaker 1: one more time about selling the diamonds and how to
Speaker 1: register at the hotel, and what to do if I
Speaker 1: got into trouble, and how to get in touch with
Speaker 1: them when I wanted to come back. Then they said
Speaker 1: good bye and made me promise not to stay too long,
Speaker 1: and said they'd keep in touch the best they could.
Speaker 1: And then I got in the car and drove down
Speaker 1: the hill into town. I knew they didn't want to
Speaker 1: let me go. They were worried, maybe even a little
Speaker 1: afraid I wouldn't want to come back, but mostly worried
Speaker 1: that I might say something I shouldn't or run into
Speaker 1: some difficulties they hadn't anticipated. And outside of that, they
Speaker 1: knew they were going to miss me. Yet they'd made
Speaker 1: up their minds to it. They'd planned it this way,
Speaker 1: and they felt it was the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: and certainly they'd put an awful lot of thought and
Speaker 1: effort and preparation into it. If it hadn't been for that,
Speaker 1: I might have turned back at the last minute. Maybe
Speaker 1: they were worried, but I was petrified only of course
Speaker 1: I wanted to go. Really, I couldn't help being curious,
Speaker 1: and it never occurred to me then that I might
Speaker 1: miss them. It was the first time i'd ever been
Speaker 1: out on my own, and they'd promised me for years
Speaker 1: and years, as far back as I could remember, that
Speaker 1: some day i'd go back like this by myself. But
Speaker 1: going back when you've been away long enough is not
Speaker 1: so much a home coming as a dream dejavus, And
Speaker 1: for me, at least, the dream was not entirely a
Speaker 1: happy one. Everything I saw, or heard or touched had
Speaker 1: a sense of haunting familiarity, and yet of wrongness too,
Speaker 1: almost a nightmare feeling, of the oppressively inevitable sequence of events,
Speaker 1: of faces and features and events just not quite remembered,
Speaker 1: had not quite known. I was born in this place,
Speaker 1: but it was not my home. Its people were not mine,
Speaker 1: its ways were not mine. All I knew of it
Speaker 1: was what I had been told and what I had
Speaker 1: seen for myself these last weeks of preparation on the
Speaker 1: television screen, and the dream feeling was intensified at first
Speaker 1: by the fact that I did not know why I
Speaker 1: was there. I knew it had been planned this way,
Speaker 1: and I had been told it was necessary to complete
Speaker 1: my education. Certainly I was aware of the great effort
Speaker 1: that had been made to make the trip possible, but
Speaker 1: I did not yet understand just why. Perhaps it was
Speaker 1: just that I had heard and watched and thought and
Speaker 1: dreamed too much about this place, and now I was
Speaker 1: actually there. The reality was not so much a disappointment
Speaker 1: as just sort of unreal, different from what I knew
Speaker 1: when I didn't know. The road unwound in a spreading
Speaker 1: spiral down the mountain side. Each time I came round,
Speaker 1: I could see the city below closer and larger and
Speaker 1: less distinct. From the top. With the sunlight sparkling on it,
Speaker 1: it had been a clean and gleaming pattern of human civilization.
Speaker 1: Half way down, the symmetry was lost, and the smudge
Speaker 1: and smoke began to show. Half way down too, I
Speaker 1: began to pass places of business, restaurants and gas stations
Speaker 1: and handicraft shops. I wanted to stop. For half an
Speaker 1: hour now I had been out on my own, and
Speaker 1: I still hadn't seen any of the people except the
Speaker 1: three who had passed me behind the wheels of their
Speaker 1: cars going up the road. One of the shops had
Speaker 1: a big sign on it come in and look around,
Speaker 1: but I kept going. One thing I understood was that
Speaker 1: it was absolutely necessary to have money, and that I
Speaker 1: must stop nowhere and attempt nothing. Till after I had
Speaker 1: gotten some farther down, the houses began coming closer together,
Speaker 1: and then the roads stopped winding around and became almost straight.
Speaker 1: By that time, I was used to the car, and
Speaker 1: I didn't have to think much about it, and for
Speaker 1: a little while I really enjoyed myself. I could see
Speaker 1: into the houses, sometimes through the window, and at one
Speaker 1: a woman was opening the door, coming out with a
Speaker 1: broom in her hand. There were children playing in the yards.
Speaker 1: There were cars of all kinds parked around the houses,
Speaker 1: and I saw dogs and a couple of horses, and
Speaker 1: once a whole flock of chickens. But just where it
Speaker 1: was beginning to get really interesting, when I was coming
Speaker 1: into the little town before the city, I had to
Speaker 1: stop watching it all because there were too many other
Speaker 1: people driving. That was when I began to understand all
Speaker 1: the fuss about licenses and tests and traffic regulations. Watching
Speaker 1: it on television, it wasn't anything like being in the
Speaker 1: middle of it. Of course, what I ran into there
Speaker 1: was really nothing. I found that out when I got
Speaker 1: into the city itself, but just at first it seemed
Speaker 1: pretty bad, and I still don't understand it. These people
Speaker 1: are pretty bright mechanically. You'd think anybody who could build
Speaker 1: an automobile, let alone an atom bomb, could drive one
Speaker 1: easily enough, especially with the lifetime to learn in Maybe
Speaker 1: they just liked to live dangerously. It was a good thing, though,
Speaker 1: that I'd already started watching out for what the other
Speaker 1: drivers were doing when I hit my first red light.
Speaker 1: That was something I'd overlooked entirely watching street scenes on
Speaker 1: the screen, and I guess they'd never noticed either. They
Speaker 1: must have taken it for granted the way I did
Speaker 1: that people stopped their cars out of courtesy from time
Speaker 1: to time to let the others go by. As it was,
Speaker 1: I stopped because the others did, and just happened to
Speaker 1: notice that they began again when the light changed to green.
Speaker 1: It's really a very good system. I don't see why
Speaker 1: they don't have them at all, the intersections. From the
Speaker 1: first light, it was eight miles into the center of
Speaker 1: Colorado Springs. A sign on the road said so, and
Speaker 1: I was irrestionally pleased when the speedometer on the car
Speaker 1: confirmed it. Proud I suppose that these natives from my
Speaker 1: own birthplace were such good gadgeteers. The road was better
Speaker 1: after that too, and the cars didn't dart in and
Speaker 1: out off the side streets the way they had before.
Speaker 1: There was more traffic on the highway, but most of
Speaker 1: them behaved fairly intelligently until we got into town. That is.
Speaker 1: After that it was everybody for himself, but by then
Speaker 1: I was prepared for it. I found a place to
Speaker 1: park the car near a drug store. That was the
Speaker 1: first thing I was supposed to do. Find a drug
Speaker 1: store where there would likely be a telephone directory, and
Speaker 1: go in and look up the address of a hawk shop.
Speaker 1: I had a little trouble parking the car in the
Speaker 1: space they had marked off, but I could see from
Speaker 1: the way the others were stationed that you were supposed
Speaker 1: to get in between the white lines with the front
Speaker 1: of the car next to the post on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what the post was for until I
Speaker 1: got out and read what it said, and then I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do because I didn't have any money,
Speaker 1: not yet, and I didn't dare get into any trouble
Speaker 1: that might end up with a policeman asking to see
Speaker 1: my license, which always seemed to be the first thing
Speaker 1: they did on television when they talked to anybody who
Speaker 1: was driving a car. I got back in the car
Speaker 1: and wriggled my way out of the hole between the
Speaker 1: other cars and tried to think what to do. Then
Speaker 1: I remembered seeing a sign that said free parking somewhere
Speaker 1: not too far away, and went back the way i'd come.
Speaker 1: There was a sort of park with a fountain spraying
Speaker 1: water all over the grass, and a big building opposite.
Speaker 1: And the white lines here were much more sensible. They
Speaker 1: were painted in diagonal strips, so you could get in
Speaker 1: and out quite easily without all that backing and twisting
Speaker 1: and turning. I left the car there and remembered to
Speaker 1: take the keys with me and started walking back to
Speaker 1: the drug store. That was when it hit me up
Speaker 1: to then beginning. I guess when I drove that little
Speaker 1: stretch coming into Manitou, with the houses on the hills
Speaker 1: and the children and yards and dogs and chickens, I'd
Speaker 1: begun to feel almost as if I belonged here. The
Speaker 1: people seemed so much like me, As long as I
Speaker 1: wasn't right up against them. From a little distance, you'd
Speaker 1: think there was no difference at all. Then, I guess
Speaker 1: when I was close enough to notice driving through town.
Speaker 1: I'd been too much preoccupied with the car. It didn't
Speaker 1: really get to me till I got out and started walking.
Speaker 1: They were all so big. They were big, and their
Speaker 1: faces and noses and even the pores of their skin
Speaker 1: were too big, and their voices were too loud, and
Speaker 1: they smelled. I didn't notice that last much till I
Speaker 1: got into the drug store. Then I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to suffocate. And I had a kind of squeezing,
Speaker 1: upside down feeling in my stomach and diaphragm and throat,
Speaker 1: which I didn't realize till later was what they meant
Speaker 1: by being sick. I stood over the directory rack, pretending
Speaker 1: to read but really just struggling with my insides, and
Speaker 1: a man came along and shouted in my ear something
Speaker 1: that sounded like vomdruby. I didn't get that sorted out
Speaker 1: for hours afterwards, but I don't think i'll ever forget
Speaker 1: just the way it sounded at the time. Of course,
Speaker 1: he meant having trouble, little lady, But all I knew
Speaker 1: at the time was he was too big and smelled
Speaker 1: of all kinds of things that were unfamiliar and slightly sickening.
Speaker 1: I couldn't answer him. All I could do was turn away,
Speaker 1: was not to breathe him, and try to pretend I
Speaker 1: knew what I was doing with the directory. Then he
Speaker 1: hissed at me, Sorry, no offense, I figured out later
Speaker 1: and said clearly enough so I could understand even then,
Speaker 1: just trying to help, and walked away. As soon as
Speaker 1: he was gone, I walked out myself. Directory or no directory,
Speaker 1: I had to get out of that store. I went
Speaker 1: back to where I'd left the car, but instead of
Speaker 1: getting in it, I sat down on a bench in
Speaker 1: the park and waited till the turmoil inside me began
Speaker 1: to quiet down. I went back into that drug store
Speaker 1: once before I left, purposely just to see if I
Speaker 1: could pin down what it was that had bothered me
Speaker 1: so much, because I never reacted that strongly afterwards, and
Speaker 1: I wondered if maybe it was just that it was
Speaker 1: the first time I was inside one of their buildings.
Speaker 1: But it was more than that. That place was a
Speaker 1: regular snow pit of a treatment for a stranger. Believe me,
Speaker 1: they had a tobacco counter and a lunch counter, and
Speaker 1: a perfume and toiletry section, and a nut roasting machine,
Speaker 1: and just to top it off, in the back of
Speaker 1: the store, in open to look at and smell pharmaceutical center,
Speaker 1: everything all mixed together and compounded with stale human sweat,
Speaker 1: which was also new to me at the time, and
Speaker 1: no air conditioning. Most of the air conditioning they have
Speaker 1: is bad enough on its own with chemical smells, but
Speaker 1: those are comparatively easy to get used to, and I'll
Speaker 1: take them anytime over what I got in that first
Speaker 1: dose of odor to Earth. End of part one, Part
Speaker 1: two of Exile from Space by Judith Merrill. This LibriVox
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by Jen Brooda
Speaker 1: Part two. Anyhow, I sat on the park bench about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, I guess, letting the sun and fresh air
Speaker 1: seep in, and trying to tabulate and memorize as many
Speaker 1: of the components of that drug store smell as I
Speaker 1: could for future reference. I was simply going to have
Speaker 1: to adjust to them, and next time I wanted to
Speaker 1: be prepared all the same. I didn't feel prepared to
Speaker 1: go back into the same place. Maybe another store wouldn't
Speaker 1: be quite as bad. I started walking in the opposite direction,
Speaker 1: staying on the wide main street where all the big
Speaker 1: stores seemed to be, and two blocks down I ran
Speaker 1: into luck because there was a big bracket sticking out
Speaker 1: over the sidewalk from the front of a store halfway
Speaker 1: down a side street, and it had the three gold
Speaker 1: balls hanging from it that I knew from television meant
Speaker 1: the kind of place I wanted. When I walked down
Speaker 1: to it, I saw too that they had a sign
Speaker 1: painted over the window, we buy old gold and diamonds.
Speaker 1: Just how lucky that was I didn't realize till quite
Speaker 1: some time later I was going to look in the
Speaker 1: classified directory for hawk shops. I didn't know any other
Speaker 1: name for them. Then inside it looked exactly like what
Speaker 1: I expected, and even the smell was nothing to complain about.
Speaker 1: Camphor and dust and mustiness were strong enough to cover
Speaker 1: most of the sweaty smell, and those were smells of
Speaker 1: a kind I'd experienced before in other places. The whole
Speaker 1: procedure was reassuring because it all went just the way
Speaker 1: it was supposed to, and I knew how to behave
Speaker 1: I'd seen it in a show, and the man behind
Speaker 1: the grilled window even looked like the man on the
Speaker 1: screen and talked the same way, what can we do
Speaker 1: for you? Girlie, I'd like to sell a diamond, I
Speaker 1: told him. He didn't say anything at first, then he
Speaker 1: looked impatient. You got it with you? Oh? Yes. I
Speaker 1: opened my purse and took out one of the little
Speaker 1: packages and unwrapped it and handed it to him. He
Speaker 1: screwed the lens into his eye and walked back from
Speaker 1: the window and put it on a little scale and
Speaker 1: turned back and unscrewed the lens and looked at me.
Speaker 1: Where'd you get this, lady, he asked me, it's mine.
Speaker 1: I said, I knew just how to do it. We'd
Speaker 1: gone over this half a dozen times before I left,
Speaker 1: and he was behaving exactly the way we'd expect it.
Speaker 1: I don't know, he said, can't do much with an
Speaker 1: unset stone like this. He pursed his lips, tossed the
Speaker 1: diamond carelessly in his hand, and then pushed it back
Speaker 1: at me across the counter. I had to keep myself
Speaker 1: from smiling. It was just the they'd said it would be.
Speaker 1: The people here were still in the mech age, of course,
Speaker 1: and not nearly conscious enough to communicate anything at all
Speaker 1: complex or abstract any way, except verbally. But there is
Speaker 1: nothing abstract about avarice, and between what I'd been told
Speaker 1: to expect and what I could feel pouring out of him,
Speaker 1: I knew precisely what was going on in his mind.
Speaker 1: You mean you don't want it, I said. I thought
Speaker 1: it was worth quite a lot, might have been once
Speaker 1: he shrugged. You can't do much with a stone like
Speaker 1: that anymore. Where'd you get it, girly? My mother gave
Speaker 1: it to me a long time ago. I wouldn't sell
Speaker 1: it except, look, I said, and didn't have to work
Speaker 1: hard to sound desperate, because in a way I was. Look,
Speaker 1: it must be worth something. He picked it up again,
Speaker 1: Well what do you want for it? That went on
Speaker 1: for quite a while. I knew what it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be worth, of course, but I didn't hope to
Speaker 1: get even half of that. He offered seventy dollars, and
Speaker 1: I asked for five hundred, and after a while he
Speaker 1: gave me three fifty, and I felt I'd done pretty
Speaker 1: well for a green horn. I put the money in
Speaker 1: my purse and went back to the car, and on
Speaker 1: the way I saw a policeman, so I stopped and
Speaker 1: asked him about a hotel. He looked me up and
Speaker 1: down and started asking questions about how old I was
Speaker 1: and what was my name and where did I live?
Speaker 1: And I began to realize that being so much smaller
Speaker 1: than the other people was going to make life complicated.
Speaker 1: I told him i'd come to visit my brother in
Speaker 1: the academy, and he smiled and said, your brother is it.
Speaker 1: Then he told me the name of a place just
Speaker 1: outside of town, near the academy. It wasn't a hotel,
Speaker 1: it was a motel, which I didn't know about it
Speaker 1: that time, but he said I'd be better off there.
Speaker 1: A lot of what he said went right over my
Speaker 1: head at the time. Later I realized what he meant
Speaker 1: about a nice, respectable couple running the place. I found
Speaker 1: out later on, too, that he called them up to
Speaker 1: ask them to keep an eye on me. He thought
Speaker 1: I was a nice girl, but he was worried about
Speaker 1: my being alone there. By this time, I was getting hungry,
Speaker 1: but I thought i'd better go and arrange about a
Speaker 1: place to stay first. I found the motel without much
Speaker 1: trouble and went in and registered. I knew how to
Speaker 1: do that, at least I'd seen it plenty of times.
Speaker 1: They gave me a key, and the man who ran
Speaker 1: the place asked me, Did I want any help with
Speaker 1: my bags? Oh no, I said, no, thanks, I haven't
Speaker 1: got much. I'd forgotten all about that, and they'd never
Speaker 1: thought about it either. These people always have a lot
Speaker 1: of different clothes, not just one set, and you're supposed
Speaker 1: to have a suitcase full of things when you go
Speaker 1: to stay any place. I said, I was hungry anyway,
Speaker 1: and wanted to go get something to eat and do
Speaker 1: a couple of other things. I didn't say what before
Speaker 1: I got settled. So the woman walked over with me
Speaker 1: and showed me which cabin it was, and asked, was
Speaker 1: everything all right? It looked all right to me. The
Speaker 1: room had a big bed in it with sheets and
Speaker 1: a blanket and pillows and a bedspread, just like the
Speaker 1: ones I'd seen on television. And there was a chest
Speaker 1: of drawers and a table with more small drawers in it,
Speaker 1: and two chairs, and a mirror, and one door that
Speaker 1: went into a closet and one that led to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: The fixtures in there were a little different from the
Speaker 1: ones they'd made for me to practice in, but functionally
Speaker 1: they seemed about the same. I didn't look for any
Speaker 1: difficulty with anything there except the bed, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: her fault if I assured her everything was just fine
Speaker 1: and let her show me how to operate the gas
Speaker 1: burner that was set in the wall for heat. Then
Speaker 1: we went out, and she very carefully locked the door
Speaker 1: and handed me the key. You better keep that door locked,
Speaker 1: she said, just a little sharply. You never know. I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask her what you never know, but had
Speaker 1: the impression that it was something everybody was supposed to know,
Speaker 1: so I just nodded and agreed. Instead, you want to
Speaker 1: get some lunch, she said, Then there's a place down
Speaker 1: the road isn't too bad clean anyhow, and they don't
Speaker 1: cater too much to those. Well, it's clean, she pointed
Speaker 1: the way. You could see the sign from where we
Speaker 1: were standing. I thanked her and started the car and
Speaker 1: decided I might as well go there as any place,
Speaker 1: especially since I could see she was watching to find
Speaker 1: out whether I did or not. These people are all
Speaker 1: too too big, or almost all of them. But the
Speaker 1: man behind the counter at the diner was enormous. He
Speaker 1: was tall and fat, with a beefy red face and
Speaker 1: large open pores and a fleshy mound of a nose.
Speaker 1: I didn't like to look at him, and when he
Speaker 1: talked he boomed so loud I could hardly understand him.
Speaker 1: On top of all that, the smell in that place
Speaker 1: was awful, not quite as bad as the drug store,
Speaker 1: but some ways similar to it. I kept my eyes
Speaker 1: on the menu, which was full of unfamiliar words, and
Speaker 1: tried to remember that I was hungry. The man was
Speaker 1: shouting at me, or it was more like growling, I guess,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't make out the words at first. He
Speaker 1: said it again, and I sorted out syllables and matched
Speaker 1: them with the words on the card, and then I
Speaker 1: got it. Goulash is nice today, miss I didn't know
Speaker 1: what gulash was, and the st my stomach was in
Speaker 1: with the smells, I decided i'd better play safe and
Speaker 1: ordered a glass of milk and some vegetable soup. The
Speaker 1: milk had a strange taste to it, not bad, just different.
Speaker 1: But of course this came from cows, that was all right.
Speaker 1: But the vegetable soup it was quite literally putrid, made,
Speaker 1: as near as I could figure out, from dead animal
Speaker 1: juices in which vegetables had been soaked and cooked till
Speaker 1: any trace of flavor or nourishment was entirely removed. I
Speaker 1: took one taste of that, and then I realized what
Speaker 1: the really nauseating part of the odor was. In the
Speaker 1: diner and drug store both it was rotten meat, dead
Speaker 1: for some time and then heated in preparation for eating.
Speaker 1: The crackers that came with the soup were good. They
Speaker 1: had a nice salty tang. I ordered more of those
Speaker 1: with another glass of milk and sat back, sipping slowly,
Speaker 1: trying to adjust to that smell now that I realized
Speaker 1: I'd probably find it anywhere I could find food. After
Speaker 1: a while, I got my insides enough in order so
Speaker 1: I could look around a little and see the place
Speaker 1: and the other people in it. And that was when
Speaker 1: I turned around and saw Larry sitting next to me.
Speaker 1: He was beautiful. He is beautiful. I know that's not
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to say about a man, and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't like it. But I can only say what I see,
Speaker 1: And of course that's partly a matter of my own
Speaker 1: training and my own feelings about myself. At home on
Speaker 1: the ship, I always wanted to cut off my hair
Speaker 1: because it was so black and my skin was so white,
Speaker 1: and they didn't go together, but they wouldn't let me.
Speaker 1: They liked it that way, I guess, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: No child wants to feel like a freak, and nobody
Speaker 1: else had hair like that or dead white, colorless skin either.
Speaker 1: Then when I went down there and saw all the humans,
Speaker 1: I was still a freak because I was so small.
Speaker 1: Larry's small, too, almost as small as I am, and
Speaker 1: he's all one color. He has hair, of course, but
Speaker 1: it's so light, and his skin is so dark, both
Speaker 1: from the sun. I found out that he looks just
Speaker 1: about the same lovely golden color all over, or at
Speaker 1: least as much of him as showed when I saw
Speaker 1: him that time in the diner. He was beautiful, and
Speaker 1: he was my size, and he didn't have ugly rough
Speaker 1: skin or big heavy hands. I stared at him and
Speaker 1: I felt like grabbing on to him to make sure
Speaker 1: he didn't get away. After a while, I realized my
Speaker 1: mouth was half open and I was still holding a cracker,
Speaker 1: and I remembered that this was very bad manners. I
Speaker 1: put the cracker down and closed my mouth. He smiled.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if he was laughing at the odd
Speaker 1: way I was acting, or just being friendly, but I
Speaker 1: smiled back anyhow, I'm sorry, he said, I mean, hello,
Speaker 1: how do you do? And I'm sorry if I startled you.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been staring you, I said, and meant
Speaker 1: to finish you were staring, but he went right on
Speaker 1: talking so that I couldn't finish. I don't know what
Speaker 1: else you can expect if you go around looking like that,
Speaker 1: he said. I'm sorry I started again, and you should be,
Speaker 1: he said sternly. Anybody who walks into a place like
Speaker 1: this in the middle of a day like this, looking
Speaker 1: the way you do, has got to expect to get
Speaker 1: stared at a little. The thing is, I wasn't used
Speaker 1: to the language, not used enough. I could communicate all right,
Speaker 1: and even understand and some jokes, and I knew the
Speaker 1: spoken language, not some formal, unusable version, because I learned
Speaker 1: it mostly watching those shows on the television screen. But
Speaker 1: I got confused this time because looking means two different things,
Speaker 1: active and passive, and I was thinking about how I'd
Speaker 1: been looking at him, and that was my lucky day.
Speaker 1: I didn't want him to be angry at me, and
Speaker 1: the way I saw it, he was perfectly justified in
Speaker 1: scolding me, which is what I thought he was doing.
Speaker 1: But I knew he wasn't really angry. I'd have felt
Speaker 1: it if he was, so I said, you're right, it
Speaker 1: was very rude of me, and I don't blame you
Speaker 1: for being annoyed. I won't do it anymore. He started laughing,
Speaker 1: and this time I knew it was friendly. Like I said,
Speaker 1: that was my lucky day. He thought I was being witty,
Speaker 1: and from what he's told me since, I guess he
Speaker 1: realized then that I felt friendly too, because before that
Speaker 1: he'd just been bluffing it out, not knowing how to
Speaker 1: get to know me, and afraid I'd be sore at
Speaker 1: him just for talking to me, which goes to show
Speaker 1: that sometimes you're better off not being too familiar with
Speaker 1: the local customs. End of Part two, Part three of
Speaker 1: Exile from Space by Judith Merrill. This LibriVox recording is
Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Jen Brooda, Part three.
Speaker 1: The trouble was there were too many things I didn't know,
Speaker 1: too many small ways to trip myself up, things they
Speaker 1: couldn't have foreseen, or if they did, couldn't have done
Speaker 1: much about. All it took was a little and a
Speaker 1: lot of alertness plus one big important item, staying in
Speaker 1: the background, not getting to know any one person too well,
Speaker 1: not giving any single individual a chance to observe too
Speaker 1: much about me. But Larry didn't mean to let me
Speaker 1: do that, and I didn't want him to. He asked questions.
Speaker 1: I tried to answer them. I did know enough, at
Speaker 1: least of the conventions, to realize that I didn't have
Speaker 1: to give detailed answers, or could at any point act
Speaker 1: offended at being questioned so much. I didn't know enough
Speaker 1: to realize that reluctance or irritation on my part wouldn't
Speaker 1: have made him go away. We sat on those stools
Speaker 1: at the diner for most of an hour talking, and
Speaker 1: after a little while I found I could keep the
Speaker 1: conversation on safer ground by asking him about himself and
Speaker 1: about the country thereabouts. He seemed to enjoy talking. Eventually
Speaker 1: he had to go back to work. As near as
Speaker 1: I could make out, he was a test pilot or
Speaker 1: something like it, for a small experimental aircraft plant near
Speaker 1: the city. He lived not too far from where I
Speaker 1: was staying, and he wanted to see me that evening.
Speaker 1: I hadn't told him where the motel was, and I
Speaker 1: had at least enough caution left not to tell him.
Speaker 1: Even then, I did agree to meet him at the diner,
Speaker 1: but for lunch the next day again instead of that evening.
Speaker 1: For one thing, I had a lot to do, and
Speaker 1: for another, I'd seen enough on television shows to know
Speaker 1: that an evening date was likely to be pretty long
Speaker 1: drawn out, and I wasn't sure I could stand up
Speaker 1: under that much close scrutiny. I had some studying up
Speaker 1: to do first, but the lunch date was fine. The
Speaker 1: thought of not seeing him all was terrifying, as if
Speaker 1: he were an old friend in a world full of strangers.
Speaker 1: That was how I felt that first time, Maybe just
Speaker 1: because he was almost as small as I, but I
Speaker 1: think it was more than that really. I drove down
Speaker 1: town again and found a store that seemed to sell
Speaker 1: all kinds of clothing for women. Then when I got inside,
Speaker 1: I didn't know where to start or what to get.
Speaker 1: I thought of just buying one of everything so as
Speaker 1: to fill up a suitcase. The things I had on
Speaker 1: seemed to be perfectly satisfactory for actual wearing purposes. They
Speaker 1: were quite remarkably, when you stopped to think of it,
Speaker 1: similar to what most of the women I'd seen that
Speaker 1: day were wearing, and of course they weren't subject to
Speaker 1: the same problems of dirtying and wrinkling and such as
Speaker 1: the clothes in the store were. I walked around for
Speaker 1: a while, trying to figure out what all the different items, shaped, sizes,
Speaker 1: and colors were. Four Some racks and counters had signs,
Speaker 1: but most of them were unfamiliar words like brunchies or
Speaker 1: bermudas or scuffs or else. They seemed to be mislabeled,
Speaker 1: like dusters for a sort of button down dress and
Speaker 1: postage stamp girdles at one section of a long counter
Speaker 1: devoted to foundation garments. For half an hour or so,
Speaker 1: I wandered around and there, shaking my head every time
Speaker 1: a saleswoman came up to me because I didn't know
Speaker 1: and couldn't figure out what to ask for or how
Speaker 1: to ask for it. The thing was, I didn't dare
Speaker 1: draw too much attention to myself by doing or saying
Speaker 1: the wrong things. I'd have to find out more about
Speaker 1: clothes somehow. Before I could do much buying. I went out,
Speaker 1: and on the same block I found a show window
Speaker 1: full of suitcases. That was easy. I went in and
Speaker 1: pointed to one I liked and paid for it, and
Speaker 1: walked out with it, feeling a little braver. After all,
Speaker 1: nobody had to know there was nothing in it. On
Speaker 1: the corner I saw some books displayed in the window
Speaker 1: of a drug store. It took all the courage I
Speaker 1: had to go in there after my first trip into
Speaker 1: one that looked very much like it. But I wanted
Speaker 1: a dictionary. This place didn't smell quite so strong. I
Speaker 1: suppose the pharmacy was enclosed in back, and I don't
Speaker 1: believe it had a lunch counter. Anyhow, I got in
Speaker 1: and out quickly, and walked back to the car and
Speaker 1: sat down with the dictionary. It turned out to be
Speaker 1: utterly useless, at least as far as brunchies and bermudas
Speaker 1: were concerned. It had scuff V with a definition V
Speaker 1: I found out meant verb, so that wasn't the word
Speaker 1: I wanted. But when I remembered the slippers on the
Speaker 1: counter with the sign, it made sense in a way,
Speaker 1: not enough sense, though, I decided to forget about the
Speaker 1: clothes for a while. The next problem was a driver's license.
Speaker 1: The policeman that morning had been helpful, if over interested,
Speaker 1: and since policemen directed traffic, they ought to have the
Speaker 1: information I wanted. I found one of them standing on
Speaker 1: a street corner looking not too busy, and asked him,
Speaker 1: and if his hair hadn't been brown instead of reddish
Speaker 1: and only half there, i'd have thought it was the
Speaker 1: same one I talked to before. He wanted to know
Speaker 1: how old I was, and where I was from, and
Speaker 1: what I was doing there, and did I have a car?
Speaker 1: And was I sure I was nineteen? Well, of course
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure, but they told me that by the
Speaker 1: local reckoning that was my approximate aid and I almost
Speaker 1: slipped and said I had a car, until I realized
Speaker 1: that I didn't have a right to drive one till
Speaker 1: I had a license. After he asked me that one question,
Speaker 1: I began to feel suspicious about everything else he asked
Speaker 1: and the interest he expressed. He was helpful, but I
Speaker 1: had to remember too that it was the police who
Speaker 1: were charged with watching for suspicious characters, and well, it
Speaker 1: was the last time I asked a policeman for information.
Speaker 1: He did tell me where I could rent a car
Speaker 1: to take my road test, though, and where to apply
Speaker 1: for the test. The courthouse turned out to be the
Speaker 1: big building behind the square where I'd parked the car
Speaker 1: that morning, and arranging for the test turned out to
Speaker 1: be much simpler than by then I expected it to be.
Speaker 1: In a way, I suppose all the questions I had
Speaker 1: to answer when I talked to the policeman had prepared
Speaker 1: me for the official session, though they didn't seem nearly
Speaker 1: so inquisitive there By this time, I'd come to expect
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't believe my age when I told them.
Speaker 1: The woman at the window behind the counter wanted to
Speaker 1: see a birth certificate, and I produced the one piece
Speaker 1: of identification I had, an ancient and yellow document they
Speaker 1: had kept for me all these years. From the information
Speaker 1: it contained, I suspected it might even be a birth certificate.
Speaker 1: Whether or not. It apparently satisfied her, and after that
Speaker 1: all she wanted was things like my address and height
Speaker 1: and weight. Fortunately they had taken the trouble back on
Speaker 1: the ship to determine these statistics for me, because things
Speaker 1: like that were always coming up on television shows, especially
Speaker 1: when people were being questioned by the police for the address.
Speaker 1: Of course, I used the motel the rest I knew,
Speaker 1: and I guess we had the figures close enough to
Speaker 1: so that at least the woman didn't question any of it.
Speaker 1: I had my road test about half an hour later
Speaker 1: in a rented car, and the examiner said I did
Speaker 1: very well. He seemed surprised, and I don't wonder, considering
Speaker 1: the way most of those people contrive to mismanage a
Speaker 1: simple mechanism like an automobile. I guess when they say
Speaker 1: Earth is still in the mechanical age, what they mean
Speaker 1: is that humans are just learning about machines. The biggest
Speaker 1: single stroke of luck I had at any time came
Speaker 1: during that road test. We passed a public looking building
Speaker 1: with a sign in front of it that I didn't understand.
Speaker 1: What's that place? I asked the examiner, and he said,
Speaker 1: as if anyone would know what he meant, that oh,
Speaker 1: the library. I looked it up in my dictionary as
Speaker 1: soon as I was done at the license bureau, and
Speaker 1: when I found out what it was, everything became a
Speaker 1: great deal simpler. There was a woman who worked there
Speaker 1: who showed me, without any surprise at my ignorance, just
Speaker 1: how the card catalog worked and what the numbering system meant.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask me how old I was, or any
Speaker 1: other questions, or demand any proof of any kind to
Speaker 1: convince her I had a right to use the place.
Speaker 1: She didn't even bother me much with questions about what
Speaker 1: I was looking for. I told her there were a
Speaker 1: lot of things I wanted to know, and she seemed
Speaker 1: to think that was a good answer, and said, if
Speaker 1: she could help me any way, not to hesitate to ask.
Speaker 1: And then she left me alone with those drawers and
Speaker 1: drawers full of letter and number keys to all the
Speaker 1: mysteries of an alien world. I found a book on
Speaker 1: how to outfit your daughter for college that started with
Speaker 1: underwear and worked its way through to jewelry and cosmetics.
Speaker 1: I also found a whole shelf full of law books,
Speaker 1: and in one of them pacific information about the motor
Speaker 1: vehicle regulations in different states. There was a wonderful book
Speaker 1: about diamonds and other precious stones, particularly fascinating because it
Speaker 1: went into the chemistry of the different stones and gave
Speaker 1: me the best measuring stick I found at any time
Speaker 1: to judge the general level of technology of that so
Speaker 1: called mechanical age. That was all I had time for.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it was so late when the librarian
Speaker 1: came and told me they were closing up, and I
Speaker 1: guess my disappointment must have showed all over me, because
Speaker 1: she asked if I wouldn't like to have a card
Speaker 1: so I could take the books home. I found out
Speaker 1: all I needed to get a card was identification I
Speaker 1: was supposed to have a reference to, but the woman
Speaker 1: said she thought perhaps it would be all right without
Speaker 1: one in my case. And then when I wanted to
Speaker 1: take a volume of the Encyclopedia Americana, she said, they
Speaker 1: didn't use your circulate that, but if I thought I
Speaker 1: could bring it back within a day or two, I
Speaker 1: promised to and I never did, And out of everything
Speaker 1: that happened, that's the one thing I feel badly about.
Speaker 1: I think she must have been a very unusual and
Speaker 1: good sort of woman, and I wish I had kept
Speaker 1: my promise to her. Some of the stores downtown were
Speaker 1: still open. I bought the things i'd be expected to have,
Speaker 1: as near as I could make out from the book
Speaker 1: on college girls, panties and a garter belt, and a
Speaker 1: brazier and stockings, a slip and another blouse and a coat,
Speaker 1: because even in the early evening it was beginning to
Speaker 1: get chilly. Then the salesgirl talked me into gloves and
Speaker 1: a scarf and some earrings. I was halfway back to
Speaker 1: the car when I remembered about night clothes and went
Speaker 1: back for a gown and robe and slippers. That didn't
Speaker 1: begin to complete the college girl Garl's list, but it
Speaker 1: seemed like a good start. I'd need a dress, too,
Speaker 1: I thought, if I ever did go out with Larry
Speaker 1: in the evening. But that could wait. I put everything
Speaker 1: into the suitcase and drove back to the motel. On
Speaker 1: the way, I stopped at a food store and bought
Speaker 1: a large container of milk and some crackers and some fruit,
Speaker 1: oranges and bananas and apples. Back in my room, I
Speaker 1: put everything away in the drawers and then sat down
Speaker 1: with my book and my food and had a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: I was hungry, and everything tasted good away from the
Speaker 1: dead meat smells, and what with clothes in the drawers
Speaker 1: and everything, I was beginning to feel like a real
Speaker 1: earth girl. I even took a bath in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: a good long one next to the library. That's the
Speaker 1: thing I'll miss most. It would be even better if
Speaker 1: they made the tubs bigger so you could swim around some.
Speaker 1: But just getting wet all over like that and splashing
Speaker 1: in the water is fun. Of course, we could never
Speaker 1: spare enough water for that on the ship. Altogether, it
Speaker 1: was a good evening. Everything was fine until I tried
Speaker 1: to sleep in that bed. I felt as if I
Speaker 1: was being suffocated all over. The floor was almost as bad,
Speaker 1: but in a different way. And once I got to sleep,
Speaker 1: I guess I slept well enough because I felt fine
Speaker 1: in the morning. But then I think I must have
Speaker 1: been on a mild oxygen jag. All the time I
Speaker 1: was down there, nothing seemed to bother me too much.
Speaker 1: That morning, I felt so good. I worked up my
Speaker 1: courage to go into a restaurant again, a different one.
Speaker 1: The smell was beginning to be familiar and I could
Speaker 1: manage better. I experimented with a cereal called oatmeal, which
Speaker 1: was delicious. Then I went back to the motel, packed
Speaker 1: up all my belongings, left the key on the desk
Speaker 1: as instructed by the sign on the door, and started
Speaker 1: out for Denver. End of Part three, Part four of
Speaker 1: Exile from Space by Judith Merrill. This LibriVox recording is
Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Jen Broda, Part four Denver.
Speaker 1: According to the Encyclopedia Americana is more of a true
Speaker 1: metropolitan area than Colorado Springs. That means, on earth that
Speaker 1: it is dirtier, more crowded, far less pleasant to look
Speaker 1: at or live in, and a great deal more convenient
Speaker 1: and efficient to do business in. In Denver, and with
Speaker 1: the aid of a Colorado driver's license for casual identification,
Speaker 1: I was able to sell two of my larger diamonds
Speaker 1: fairly quickly at two different places for something approximating half
Speaker 1: of their full value. Then I parked the car they
Speaker 1: had given me on a side street, took my suitcase,
Speaker 1: coat and book with me, and walked to the nearest
Speaker 1: car sales lot. I left the keys in the old
Speaker 1: car for the convenience of anyone who might want it.
Speaker 1: Everything went extraordinarily smoothly, with just one exception. I had
Speaker 1: found out everything I needed to know in that library,
Speaker 1: except that when dealing with humans, one must always allow
Speaker 1: for waste time. If I had realized that at the
Speaker 1: time I left Colorado Springs that morning, everything might have
Speaker 1: turned out differently. Indeed, although when I try to think
Speaker 1: just what other way it could have turned out, I
Speaker 1: don't quite know, and I wonder too how much they
Speaker 1: knew or planned before they sent me down there. This
Speaker 1: much is sure. If I hadn't assumed that a seventy
Speaker 1: mile trip with a sixty mile average speed limit would
Speaker 1: take approximately an hour and a half, and if I
Speaker 1: had realized that buying an automobile was not the same
Speaker 1: simple process as buying a nightgown, I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: late for my luncheon appointment. And if I'd been there
Speaker 1: on time, I'd never have made the date for that night.
Speaker 1: As it was, I started out at seven o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning, and only by exceeding the speed limit on
Speaker 1: the last twenty miles of the return trip did I
Speaker 1: manage to pull into that diner parking space at five
Speaker 1: minutes before two. His car was still there. It is
Speaker 1: so easy to look back and spot the instant of
Speaker 1: recognition or of error. My relief when I saw his car,
Speaker 1: my delight when I walked in and saw and felt
Speaker 1: his mixture of surprise and joy that I had come,
Speaker 1: with disappointment and frustration because it was so late and
Speaker 1: he had to leave almost immediately, And my complete failure
Speaker 1: in the midst of the complexities of these inner reactions
Speaker 1: to think logically or to recognize that his ordinary perceptions
Speaker 1: were certainly the equivalent of my own. At that moment,
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about any of these things. I spent
Speaker 1: a delirious, sort of five minute period absorbing his feelings
Speaker 1: about me and releasing my own at him. I hadn't
Speaker 1: planned to do it, not so soon, not till I
Speaker 1: knew much more than I did, perhaps after another week's
Speaker 1: reading and going about. But when he said that since
Speaker 1: I'd got there so late for lunch, i'd have to
Speaker 1: meet him for dinner, I found I agreed with him perfectly.
Speaker 1: That afternoon I bought a dress. This too, took a
Speaker 1: great deal of time, even more than the car, because
Speaker 1: in the one case, I simply had to look at
Speaker 1: a number of component parts and listen to the operation
Speaker 1: of the motor and feel for the total response of
Speaker 1: the mechanism to determine whether it was suitable or not.
Speaker 1: But in the other I had nothing to guide me
Speaker 1: but my own untrained taste and the dubious preferences of
Speaker 1: the sales girl, plus what I thought Larry's reaction might be. Also,
Speaker 1: I had to determine, without seeming too ignorant, just what
Speaker 1: sort of dress might be suitable for a dinner date,
Speaker 1: and without knowing for sure just how elaborate Larry's plans
Speaker 1: for the evening might be. I learned a lot and
Speaker 1: was startled to find that I enjoyed myself tremendously, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't make up my mind and bought three dresses
Speaker 1: instead of one. It was after that, emboldened by pleasure
Speaker 1: and success, that I went back to that first drug store.
Speaker 1: The encyclopedia volume I had taken from the library, besides
Speaker 1: containing the information I want it on Colorado, had an
Speaker 1: article on cosmetics. I decided powder was unnecessary, though I
Speaker 1: could understand easily enough how important it must be to
Speaker 1: the Native women, with their thick skin and large pores
Speaker 1: and patchy coloring. That accounted for the fact that the
Speaker 1: men were mostly so much uglier, And I wondered if
Speaker 1: Larry used it, and if that was why his skin
Speaker 1: looked so much better than the others. Most of the
Speaker 1: perfumes made me literally ill. A few were inoffensive or
Speaker 1: mildly pleasant, if you thought of them as just smells
Speaker 1: and not as something to be mistaken for one's own smell. Apparently,
Speaker 1: though from the amount of space given over to them
Speaker 1: on the counter and the number of advertisements I had
Speaker 1: seen or heard for one brand or another. They were
Speaker 1: an essential item. I picked out a faint lavender scent,
Speaker 1: and then bought some lipstick, mascara, and an eyebrow pencil.
Speaker 1: On these last purchases, it was a relief to find
Speaker 1: that I had no opportunity to display my ignorance about
Speaker 1: nuances of coloring or the merits of one brand over another.
Speaker 1: The woman behind the counter knew exactly what I should
Speaker 1: have and was not interested in hearing any of my opinions.
Speaker 1: She even told me how to apply the mascara, which
Speaker 1: was helpful since the other two were obvious and anyhow
Speaker 1: I'd seen them used on television, and the lipstick, especially
Speaker 1: I had seen women use since I'd been here. It
Speaker 1: turned out to be a little more difficult than it
Speaker 1: looked when I tried. Cosmetics apparently take a good deal
Speaker 1: more experience than clothing if you want to have it
Speaker 1: look right right by their standards, I mean so that
Speaker 1: your face becomes a formal design and will register only
Speaker 1: a minimum of actual emotion or response. I was supposed
Speaker 1: to meet Larry in the cocktail lounge of a hotel
Speaker 1: in Manitucin Springs, the smaller town i'd passed through the
Speaker 1: day before on my way down from the mountain. I
Speaker 1: drove back that way now with all my possessions in
Speaker 1: my new car, including the purse that held not only
Speaker 1: my remaining diamonds and birth certificate, but also a car registration,
Speaker 1: driver's license, wallet, money, and make up. A little more
Speaker 1: than halfway there, I saw a motel with a vacancy
Speaker 1: sign out and an attractive, clean look about it. I
Speaker 1: pulled in and got myself a room with no more
Speaker 1: concern than if I'd been doing that sort of thing
Speaker 1: all my life. This time there was no question about
Speaker 1: my age, nor was there later on that evening in
Speaker 1: the cocktail lounge or anywhere else. I suppose it was
Speaker 1: the lipstick that made the difference, plus a certain increase
Speaker 1: in self confidence. Apparently I wasn't too small to be
Speaker 1: an adult, provided I looked and acted like one. The
Speaker 1: new room did not have a bath tub. There was
Speaker 1: a shower, which was fun, but not as much as
Speaker 1: the tub had been. Dressing was not fun, and when
Speaker 1: I finished, the whole effect still didn't look right in
Speaker 1: terms of my own mental image of an earth woman
Speaker 1: dressed for a date. It was the shoes. Of course,
Speaker 1: this kind of dress wanted high heels. I had tried
Speaker 1: a pair in the store and promptly rejected the whole notion.
Speaker 1: Now I wondered if I had been too hasty, but
Speaker 1: I realized I could not conceivably have added that discomfort
Speaker 1: to the already pressing difficulties of stockings and garter belt.
Speaker 1: This last problem got so acute when I sat down
Speaker 1: and tried to drive the car that I did some
Speaker 1: thinking about it and decided to take them off. It
Speaker 1: seemed to me that I'd seen a lot of bare
Speaker 1: legs with flat heels. It was only with high heels
Speaker 1: that stockings were a real necessity. Anyhow, I pulled the
Speaker 1: car over to the side on an empty stretch of
Speaker 1: road and wriggled out of things with a great deal
Speaker 1: of difficulty. I don't believe it made much difference in
Speaker 1: my appearance. No one seemed to notice, and I do
Speaker 1: think the lack of heels was more important. End of
Speaker 1: Part four, Part five of Exile from Space by Judith Merrill.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Speaker 1: Jen Broda. Part five. All of this has been easy
Speaker 1: to put down. The next part is harder, partly because
Speaker 1: it's so important, partly because it's personal, partly because I
Speaker 1: just don't remember it all as clearly. Larry was waiting
Speaker 1: for me when I got to the hotel. He stood
Speaker 1: up and walked over to me, looking at me as
Speaker 1: if I were the only person in the world room
Speaker 1: besides himself, or as if he'd been waiting all his
Speaker 1: life and only just that moment saw what it was
Speaker 1: he'd been waiting for. I don't know how I looked
Speaker 1: at him, but I know how I felt all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, and I don't think I can express it
Speaker 1: very well. It was odd because of the barriers to communication.
Speaker 1: The way he felt and the way I did are
Speaker 1: not things to put into words, And although I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but feel the impact of his emotion, I had
Speaker 1: to remember that he was deaf and blind to mine.
Speaker 1: All I could get from him for that matter was
Speaker 1: a sort of generalized noise, loud but confused, without any
Speaker 1: features or details. He smiled, and I smiled, and he
Speaker 1: said I didn't know if you'd really come, And I said,
Speaker 1: am I late? And he said not much? What do
Speaker 1: you want to drink? I knew he meant something with
Speaker 1: alcohol in it, and I didn't dare not till i'd
Speaker 1: experimented all alone. First, Could I get some orange juice?
Speaker 1: I asked? He smiled again, you can get anything you want.
Speaker 1: You don't drink. He took my arm and walked me
Speaker 1: over to a booth in the back corner and went
Speaker 1: on without giving me a chance to answer. No, of
Speaker 1: course you don't, just orange juice and milk. Listen, Tina.
Speaker 1: I've been scared to ask you, but we might as
Speaker 1: well get it over with. How old are you? Anyhow?
Speaker 1: We sat down, but he still didn't give me a
Speaker 1: chance to answer. No, that's not the right question. Who
Speaker 1: are you? What are you? What makes a girl like
Speaker 1: you exist at all? How come they let you run
Speaker 1: around on your own like this? Does your mother? Never
Speaker 1: mind me, honey, I've got no business asking anything. Sufficient
Speaker 1: done to the moment and all that. I'm just talking
Speaker 1: so much because I'm so nervous. I haven't felt like
Speaker 1: this since since I went up for a solo in
Speaker 1: a piper cub. I didn't think you'd come, and you did,
Speaker 1: and you're still here in spite of me and my
Speaker 1: dumb yap orange juice for the lady, please, he told
Speaker 1: the waiter, and a beer for me draft. I just
Speaker 1: sat there as long as he kept talking. I didn't
Speaker 1: have to. He looked just as beautiful as he had
Speaker 1: in the diner, only maybe more so. His skin was smoother.
Speaker 1: I suppose he'd just shaved, and he was wearing a
Speaker 1: tan suit, just a shade darker than his skin, which
Speaker 1: was just a shade darker than his hair. And there
Speaker 1: was absolutely nothing I could say out loud in his
Speaker 1: language that would mean anything at all, so I waited
Speaker 1: to see if he'd start talking again. You're not mad
Speaker 1: at me, Tina, I smiled and sh my head. Well,
Speaker 1: say something, then, it's more fun listening to you. You
Speaker 1: say that just like you mean it, or do you
Speaker 1: mean funny? No? I mean that. It's hard for me
Speaker 1: to talk much. I don't know how to say a
Speaker 1: lot of the things I want to say, and most
Speaker 1: people don't say anything when they talk, and I don't
Speaker 1: like listening to their voices. But I do like yours,
Speaker 1: and I can't help liking what you say. It's always
Speaker 1: so nice about me, I mean complimentary, flattering. You were
Speaker 1: right the first time, and you seem to be able
Speaker 1: to say what you mean very clearly, which was just
Speaker 1: the trouble not only able to but unable not to.
Speaker 1: It didn't take any special planning or remembering to say
Speaker 1: or act the necessary lies to other humans, but Larry
Speaker 1: was the least alien person I'd ever known. Dishonesty to
Speaker 1: him was like lying to myself. Playing a role for
Speaker 1: him was pure schizophrenia. Right then I knew it was
Speaker 1: a mistake. I should never have made that date, or
Speaker 1: at least not nearly so soon. But even as I
Speaker 1: thought that, I had no more intention of cutting it
Speaker 1: short or backing out than I did of going back
Speaker 1: to the ship the next day. I just tried not
Speaker 1: to talk too much and trusted to a certain knowledge
Speaker 1: that I was as important to him as he was
Speaker 1: to me. So perhaps whatever mistakes I made, whatever I
Speaker 1: said that sounded wrong, he would either accept or ignore
Speaker 1: or forgive. But of course you can't just sit all
Speaker 1: night and say nothing, and the simplest things could trip
Speaker 1: me up, Like when he asked if I'd like to dance,
Speaker 1: all I had to say was no, thanks, and instead,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to try it, I said I don't
Speaker 1: know how, Or when he said something about going to
Speaker 1: a movie, and I agreed enthusiastically, and he gave me
Speaker 1: a choice of three different ones that he wanted to see. Oh, anyone,
Speaker 1: I told him, You're easy to please, he said, but
Speaker 1: he insisted on my making a choice. There was something
Speaker 1: he called an old Astaire Rogers, and something else that
Speaker 1: was made in England, and one current American one with
Speaker 1: stars I'd seen on television. I wanted to see either
Speaker 1: of the others. I could have said so, or I
Speaker 1: could have named one anyone. Instead, I heard myself blurting
Speaker 1: out that I'd never been to a movie. At that point,
Speaker 1: of course, he began to ask questions in earnest and
Speaker 1: at that point, schizoid or not, I had to lie.
Speaker 1: It was easier, though, because I'd been thoroughly briefed in
Speaker 1: my story for just such emergencies as this, and because
Speaker 1: I could talk more or less uninterruptedly with only pertinent
Speaker 1: questions thrown in, and without having to react so much
Speaker 1: to the emotional tensions between us. I told him how
Speaker 1: my parents had died in an automobile accident when I
Speaker 1: was a baby, how my two uncles had claimed me
Speaker 1: at the hospital, about the old house up on the
Speaker 1: mountain side and the convent school, and the two old
Speaker 1: men who hated the evils of the world, about the
Speaker 1: death of the first uncle, and at long last the
Speaker 1: death of the second and the lawyers and the will,
Speaker 1: and everything, the whole story as we'd worked it out
Speaker 1: back on the ship. It answered everything, explained everything, even
Speaker 1: the unexpected item of not being able to eat meat.
Speaker 1: My uncles were vegetarians, which was certainly a harmless eccentricity
Speaker 1: compared to most of the others I credited them with.
Speaker 1: As a story, it was pretty far fetched, but it
Speaker 1: hung together, and in certain ways it wasn't even too
Speaker 1: far removed from the truth. It was, anyhow, the closest
Speaker 1: thing to the truth that I could tell, and I
Speaker 1: therefore delivered it with a fair degree of conviction. Of course,
Speaker 1: it wasn't designed to stand up to the close and
Speaker 1: personal inspection Larry gave it. But then he wanted to
Speaker 1: believe me. He seemed to swallow it. What he did,
Speaker 1: of course, was something any man who relies as he
Speaker 1: did on his reflexes and responses to stay alive, learns
Speaker 1: to do very early. He filed all questions and apparent
Speaker 1: discrepancies for reference or for thinking over when there was time,
Speaker 1: and proceeded to make the most of the current situation.
Speaker 1: We made the most of it. It was a wonderful
Speaker 1: evening from that point on. We went to the Austere
Speaker 1: Roger's picture, and although I missed a lot of the
Speaker 1: humor since it was contemporary stuff from a time before
Speaker 1: I had any chance to learn about Earth, the music
Speaker 1: and dancing were fun. Later on I found that dancing
Speaker 1: was not nearly as difficult or intricate as it looked,
Speaker 1: at least not with Larry. All I had to do
Speaker 1: was give in to a natural impulse to let my
Speaker 1: body follow his. It felt wonderful from the feet on up. Finally,
Speaker 1: we went back to the hotel where we'd left my car,
Speaker 1: and I started to get out of his, but he
Speaker 1: reached out an arm and stopped me. There's something else
Speaker 1: I guess you never did, he said. His voice sounded
Speaker 1: different from before. He put both his hands on my
Speaker 1: shoulders and pulled me toward him and leaned over and
Speaker 1: kissed me. I'd seen it, of course, on television. I'd
Speaker 1: seen it, but I had no idea that first time.
Speaker 1: It was something I felt on my lips and felt
Speaker 1: so sweetly and so strongly that the rest of me
Speaker 1: seemed to melt away entirely. I had no other sensations
Speaker 1: except in that one place where his mouth touched mine.
Speaker 1: That was the first time. When it stopped. The world stopped,
Speaker 1: and I began again. But I had to sort out
Speaker 1: the parts and pieces and put them all together to
Speaker 1: find out who I was. While I did this, his
Speaker 1: hands were still on my shoulders, where they'd been all along,
Speaker 1: only he was holding me at arms distance away from
Speaker 1: him and looking at me curiously. It really was, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: He said what I tried to say, but the sound
Speaker 1: didn't come out. I took a breath, and was what
Speaker 1: I croaked. The first time, he smiled suddenly, and it
Speaker 1: was like the sun coming up in the morning. And
Speaker 1: then his arms went all the way around me. I
Speaker 1: don't know whether he moved over on the seat or
Speaker 1: I did, or both of us. Oh, baby, baby, he
Speaker 1: whispered in my ear. And then there was the second time.
Speaker 1: The second time was like the first, and also like
Speaker 1: dancing in some ways, like the bath tub. This time
Speaker 1: none of me melted away, and it was all there
Speaker 1: and all close to him, and all warm and all
Speaker 1: tingling with sensations. I was more completely alive right then
Speaker 1: than I had ever been before in my life. After
Speaker 1: we stopped kissing each other, we stayed very still, holding
Speaker 1: on to each other for a while, and then he
Speaker 1: moved away, just a little enough to breathe better. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get
Speaker 1: out of the car. I didn't even want to be
Speaker 1: separated from him by the two or three inches between
Speaker 1: us on the seat. But he was sitting next to
Speaker 1: me now, staring straight ahead, not saying anything, and I
Speaker 1: just didn't know what came next. On television, the kiss
Speaker 1: was always the end of the scene. He started the
Speaker 1: car again. I said, I have to my car. I
Speaker 1: will come back. He said, don't worry about it, we'll
Speaker 1: come back. Let's just drive a little. He pulled out
Speaker 1: past my car and turned and looked at me for
Speaker 1: a minute. You don't want to go now, do you?
Speaker 1: Right away? I shook my head, but he wasn't looking
Speaker 1: at me any more, so I took a breath and
Speaker 1: said out loud, No. We came off a twisty street
Speaker 1: on to the highway, So that's how it hits you.
Speaker 1: He said, He wasn't exactly talking to me more like
Speaker 1: thinking out loud. Twenty seven years a cool cat, and
Speaker 1: now it has to be a crazy little midget that
Speaker 1: gets to you. He had to stop then for a
Speaker 1: red light, the same light I'd stopped at the first
Speaker 1: time on the way in. That seemed a long long
Speaker 1: time before Larry turned around and took my hand. He
Speaker 1: looked hard at my face. I'm sorry, hon, I didn't
Speaker 1: mean that the way it sounded. What I said, What
Speaker 1: do you mean? I hadn't even tried to make sense
Speaker 1: out of what he was saying before. He wasn't talking
Speaker 1: to me anyhow, kid, He said, maybe that was the
Speaker 1: first time for you, but in a different way, it
Speaker 1: was the first time for me too. His hand opened
Speaker 1: and closed around mine, and his mouth opened and closed too,
Speaker 1: but nothing came out. The light was green, he noticed,
Speaker 1: and started moving, but it turned red again this time
Speaker 1: he kept watching it. I don't suppose anybody ever told
Speaker 1: you about the birds and the bees and the butterflies,
Speaker 1: he said, told me what about them? He didn't answer
Speaker 1: right away, so I thought about it. All I can
Speaker 1: think of is they all have wings. They all fly,
Speaker 1: So do I? So does a fly? What I mean
Speaker 1: is the hell with it. He turned off the highway
Speaker 1: and we went up a short hill and through a
Speaker 1: sort of gateway between two enormous rocks. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been here, he asked, I don't think so. They call
Speaker 1: it the Garden of the Gods. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I like it here. It's a good place to drive
Speaker 1: and think. There was a lot of moonlight, and the
Speaker 1: garden was all hills and drops and winding roads between
Speaker 1: low growing brush, and everywhere as if the creatures of
Speaker 1: some giant planet had dropped them. Were those towering rocks,
Speaker 1: their shapes scooped out and chiseled and hollowed and twisted
Speaker 1: by wind, water and sand. Yes, it was lovely and
Speaker 1: it was non intrusive, Just what he said, a good
Speaker 1: place to drive and think. Once he came to the
Speaker 1: top of a hill and stopped the car, we looked
Speaker 1: out over the garden, spreading out in every direction, with
Speaker 1: the moonlight shadowed in the sage brush and gleaming off
Speaker 1: the great rocks. Then we turned and looked at each other,
Speaker 1: and he reached out for me and kissed me again,
Speaker 1: after which he pulled away as if the touch of
Speaker 1: me hurt him, and grabbed hold of the wheel with
Speaker 1: a savage look on his face, and raced the motor
Speaker 1: and raised a cloud of dust on the road behind us.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand, and I felt hurt. I wanted to
Speaker 1: stop again. I wanted to be kissed again. I didn't
Speaker 1: like sitting alone on my side of the seat, with
Speaker 1: that growl in his throat not quite coming out. I
Speaker 1: asked him to stop again. He shook his head and
Speaker 1: made believe to smile. I'll buy you a book, he said,
Speaker 1: all about the birds and the bees and a little
Speaker 1: thing we have around here we call sex. I'll buy
Speaker 1: it tomorrow and you can read it. You do know
Speaker 1: how to read, don't you. And then we'll take another
Speaker 1: ride and we can park if you want to. Not tonight, baby,
Speaker 1: But I know, I started, and then had sense enough
Speaker 1: to stop. I knew about sex, but what I knew
Speaker 1: about it didn't connect with kissing, or parking the car
Speaker 1: or sitting close. And it occurred to me that maybe
Speaker 1: it did, and maybe there was a lot I didn't
Speaker 1: know that wasn't on television and wasn't on the ship's
Speaker 1: reference tapes either, morals and mores and nuances of behavior.
Speaker 1: So I shut up and let him take me back
Speaker 1: to the hotel again to my own car. He leaned
Speaker 1: past me to open the door on my side, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't quite make it, and I had my fourth kiss.
Speaker 1: Then he let go again and almost pushed me out
Speaker 1: of the car. But when I started to close the
Speaker 1: door behind me, he called out, tomorrow night. I all right,
Speaker 1: I said, yes, tomorrow night, can I pick you up?
Speaker 1: There was no reason not to this time. The first time,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't tell him where I lived, because I knew
Speaker 1: I'd have to change places and I didn't know where yet.
Speaker 1: I told him the name of the motel and where
Speaker 1: it was six o'clock. He said, right, good night, good night.
Speaker 1: End of part five, Part six of Exile from Space
Speaker 1: by Judith Merrill. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Speaker 1: Read by Jen Broda, Part six. I don't remember driving
Speaker 1: back to my room. I think I slept on the
Speaker 1: bed that night without ever stopping to determine whether it
Speaker 1: was comfortable or not. And when I woke up in
Speaker 1: the morning and looked out the window at a white
Speaker 1: coated landscape, the miracle of snow, which I had never
Speaker 1: seen before. Not many planets have as much water vapor
Speaker 1: in their atmospheres, as Earth does in summer. Weather seemed
Speaker 1: trivial in comparison to what had happened to me. Trivial
Speaker 1: but beautiful. I was afraid it would be very cold,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. I had gathered from the weather talk
Speaker 1: in the place where I ate breakfast that in this
Speaker 1: mountain country it was considered to be very high altitude. There,
Speaker 1: snow at night and hot sun in the afternoon was
Speaker 1: not infrequent in the month of April, though it was
Speaker 1: unusual for May. It was beautiful to look at and
Speaker 1: nice to walk on, but it began melting as soon
Speaker 1: as the sun was properly up, and then it looked awful.
Speaker 1: The red dirt there is pretty, and so is the snow,
Speaker 1: but when they began merging into each other in patches
Speaker 1: and muddy spots, it was downright ugly, not that I cared.
Speaker 1: I ate oatmeal and drank milk and nibbled at a
Speaker 1: piece of toast and tried to plan my activities for
Speaker 1: the day. To the library first and take back the
Speaker 1: book they'd lent me book, all right, Then get a
Speaker 1: book on sex. But that was foolish. I knew all
Speaker 1: about sex at least I knew, well, what did I know?
Speaker 1: I knew their manner of reproduction, and just why at
Speaker 1: that time and place I should have let it come
Speaker 1: through to me. I don't know. I'd managed to stay
Speaker 1: in a golden daze from the time in the garden
Speaker 1: till that moment, refusing to think through the implications of
Speaker 1: what Larry said. Sex. Sex is mating and reproduction. Dating
Speaker 1: and dancing and kissing are parts of the courtship procedure,
Speaker 1: and the television shows all stop with kissing because the
Speaker 1: mating itself is taboo, very simple, also very taboo. Of course,
Speaker 1: they didn't say I couldn't. They never said anything about
Speaker 1: it at all. It was just obvious it wouldn't even work.
Speaker 1: We were different, after all. Oh technically biologically, of course,
Speaker 1: we were probably cross fertile, but the whole thing was
Speaker 1: so obviously impossible. They should have warned me. I'd never
Speaker 1: have let it go this far if I'd known sex, mating, marriage,
Speaker 1: tribal rights, rituals and rigamaroles, and stay here forever, never
Speaker 1: go back, never go back. There was an instant's sheer terror,
Speaker 1: and then the comforting knowledge that they wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: do that. I had to go back. Baby on a spaceship. Well,
Speaker 1: I was a baby on a spaceship, but that was different.
Speaker 1: How different I was older. I wasn't born there. Getting
Speaker 1: born is complicated oxygen, gravity, things like that. You can't
Speaker 1: raise a human baby on a spaceship. Human what's human?
Speaker 1: What am? I never mind the labels? It would be
Speaker 1: my baby. I didn't want a baby. I just wanted
Speaker 1: Larry to hold me close to him and kiss me.
Speaker 1: I drove down town and on the way to the library,
Speaker 1: I passed a book store, so I stopped and went
Speaker 1: in there instead. That was better. I could buy what
Speaker 1: I wanted and not have to ask permission to take
Speaker 1: it out. And if there was more than one, I
Speaker 1: could have all I wanted. I asked the man for
Speaker 1: books about sex. He looked so startled. I realized the
Speaker 1: taboo must apply on the verbal level too. I didn't care.
Speaker 1: He showed me where the books were, and that's all
Speaker 1: that mattered. Nonfiction here. He said that what you wanted
Speaker 1: miss nonfiction, definitely. I thanked him and picked out half
Speaker 1: a dozen different books. One was a survey of sexual
Speaker 1: behavior and morals. Another was a manual of techniques one
Speaker 1: was on the psychology of sex, and there was another
Speaker 1: about abnormal sex, and one on physiology, and just to
Speaker 1: play safe, considering the state of my own ignorance, one
Speaker 1: that announced itself as giving a clear, simple explanation of
Speaker 1: the facts of life for adolescence. I took them all
Speaker 1: to the counter and paid for them, and the man
Speaker 1: still looked startled, but he took the money. He insisted
Speaker 1: on wrapping them up, though before I could leave. The
Speaker 1: next part of this is really Larry's story, but unable
Speaker 1: as I am even now to be certain about his
Speaker 1: unspoken thoughts, I can only tell it as I experienced it.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything all that day except wade through
Speaker 1: the book side bought piecemeal, reading a few pages here
Speaker 1: and a chapter there. The more I read, the more
Speaker 1: confused I got. Each writer contradicted all the others, except
Speaker 1: in the regard to the few basic biological facts that
Speaker 1: I already knew. The only real addition to my factual
Speaker 1: knowledge was the information in the Manual of Technique about contraception,
Speaker 1: and that was rather shocking, even while it was tempting.
Speaker 1: The mechanical contrivances these people made use of were foolish
Speaker 1: of course, and typical of the stage of culture they
Speaker 1: were going through. If I wanted to prevent conception while
Speaker 1: engaging in an act of sexual intercourse, I could do so,
Speaker 1: of course, but the shock to the glandular system wouldn't
Speaker 1: be too severe. It was the psychological repercussions. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the idea of pursuing a course of action
Speaker 1: whose sole motivation was the procreative urge, and simultaneously to decide,
Speaker 1: by an act of war will to refuse to procreate.
Speaker 1: I could do it theoretically, but in practice I knew
Speaker 1: I never would. I put the book down and went
Speaker 1: outside in the afternoon sunshine. The motel was run by
Speaker 1: a young, married couple, and I watched the woman come
Speaker 1: out and put her baby in the playpen. She was
Speaker 1: laughing and talking to it. She looked happy, so did
Speaker 1: the baby. But I wouldn't be, not even if they
Speaker 1: let me. I couldn't live here and bring up a
Speaker 1: child children on this primitive, almost barbaric world, never ever
Speaker 1: be able fully to communicate with anyone, never ever be
Speaker 1: entirely honest with anyone. Then I remembered what it was
Speaker 1: like to be in Larry's arms, and wondered what kind
Speaker 1: of communication I could want that might surpass that. I
Speaker 1: went inside and took a shower and began to dress
Speaker 1: for the evening. It was too early to get dressed.
Speaker 1: I was ready too soon. I went out and got
Speaker 1: in the car and pulled out onto the highway and
Speaker 1: started driving. I was half way up the mountain before
Speaker 1: I knew where I was going, and then I doubled
Speaker 1: my speed. I was scared. I ran away. End of
Speaker 1: part six, Part seven of Exile from Space by Judith Merril.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Speaker 1: Jen Brooda. Part seven. There was still some snow on
Speaker 1: the mountain top. Down below it would be warm yet,
Speaker 1: but up there it was cold. The big empty house
Speaker 1: was full of dust and chill, and I brought fear
Speaker 1: in with me. I wished I had known where I
Speaker 1: was going when I left my room. I wanted my coat.
Speaker 1: I wanted something to read while I waited. I remembered
Speaker 1: the library book and almost went back. Instead. I went
Speaker 1: to the dark room and back that had once been
Speaker 1: somebody's kitchen, and opened the cupboard and found the projector
Speaker 1: and yelled for help. I didn't know where they were,
Speaker 1: how far away, whether cruising or landed somewhere, or how
Speaker 1: long it would take. All I could be sure of
Speaker 1: was that they couldn't come till after dark, full dark,
Speaker 1: and that would be on the mountain top at least
Speaker 1: another four hours. There was a big, round, black stove
Speaker 1: in a front room that looked as if it could
Speaker 1: burn wood safely. I went out and gathered up everything
Speaker 1: I could find near by that looked to be combustible,
Speaker 1: and started a fire and began to feel better. I
Speaker 1: beat the dust off a big soft chair and pulled
Speaker 1: it over close to the stove and curled up in it,
Speaker 1: warm and drowsy, and knowing that help was on the way,
Speaker 1: I fell asleep, and I was in the car with
Speaker 1: Larry again, in front of that hotel, every cell of
Speaker 1: my body tingling awake, and I woke up and moved
Speaker 1: the chair farther back away from the fire, and watched
Speaker 1: the sunset through the window till I fell asleep again
Speaker 1: and dreamed again, And when I woke the sun was gone,
Speaker 1: but the mountain top was brightly lit. I had forgotten
Speaker 1: about the moon. I tried to remember what time it
Speaker 1: rose and when it set, but all I knew was
Speaker 1: it had shone as bright last night in the garden
Speaker 1: of the Gods. I walked around and went outside and
Speaker 1: got more wood, And when it was hot in the
Speaker 1: room again, I fell asleep and Larry's hands were on
Speaker 1: my shoulders, but he wasn't kissing me. He was shouting
Speaker 1: at me. He sounded furious, but I couldn't feel any anger.
Speaker 1: You goddamn little idiot, He shouted, what in the name
Speaker 1: of all that's holy put you over my knee? And
Speaker 1: for God's sake, baby, he stopped shouting, What did you
Speaker 1: pull a dumb trick like this for? I was scared.
Speaker 1: I didn't even plan to do it. I just did. Scared,
Speaker 1: my God, I should think you would be. Now, listen, babe,
Speaker 1: I don't know yet what's going on, and I don't
Speaker 1: think I'm going to like it when I find out.
Speaker 1: I don't like it already that you told me a
Speaker 1: pack of lies last night, just the same, God help me.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's what it sounds like, but I'm
Speaker 1: the only one who doesn't. Now, you better give it
Speaker 1: to me straight, because they've got half the security personnel
Speaker 1: of this entire area out hunting for you and nobody
Speaker 1: else is going to care much. What the truth is
Speaker 1: my God, on top of everything else, you had to
Speaker 1: run away. Now give out kid and make it good.
Speaker 1: This one has got to stick. I didn't understand a
Speaker 1: lot of what he said. I started trying to explain,
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't listen. He wanted something else, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know what. Finally he made me understand he'd almost
Speaker 1: believed my story the night before, almost, but there was
Speaker 1: a detail somewhere that bothered him. He couldn't remember it
Speaker 1: at first. It kept nudging around the edge of his mind,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know what it was. He forgot about
Speaker 1: it for a while. Then in the garden, I made
Speaker 1: my second big mistake. He didn't explain all of this.
Speaker 1: Then he just accused, and I didn't understand this part
Speaker 1: completely until later. I wanted him to park the car.
Speaker 1: Any girl honor, no matter how sheltered, how inexperienced, would
Speaker 1: have known better than that. As he saw it, he
Speaker 1: had to decide whether I was just so carried away
Speaker 1: by the night and the mood and the moment that
Speaker 1: I didn't care, or whether my apparent innocence was a
Speaker 1: pose all along. When we separated in front of the
Speaker 1: hotel that night. We both had to take the same
Speaker 1: road for a while. Larry was driving right behind me
Speaker 1: for a good three miles before I turned off at
Speaker 1: the motel, and that was when he realized what the
Speaker 1: detail was that had been bothering him. My car the
Speaker 1: first time he saw me, I was driving a different
Speaker 1: make and model with Massachusetts plates on it. He was
Speaker 1: sure of that because he had copied it down when
Speaker 1: he left the luncheonette the first time we met. Larry
Speaker 1: had never told me very clearly about the kind of
Speaker 1: work he did. I knew it was something more or
Speaker 1: less classified, having to do with aircraft, jet planes, or
Speaker 1: experimental rockets or something like that. And I knew without
Speaker 1: his telling me that the work, not just the job,
Speaker 1: but the work he did at it was more important
Speaker 1: to him than anything else ever had been more important,
Speaker 1: certainly than he had ever expected any woman to be so. Naturally,
Speaker 1: when he met me that day and knew he wanted
Speaker 1: to see me again, but couldn't get my address or
Speaker 1: any other identifying information out of me. He had copied
Speaker 1: down the license number of my car and turned it
Speaker 1: in with my name to the security officer on the
Speaker 1: project a man who has spent almost every waking moment
Speaker 1: from the age of nine planning and preparing to fit
Speaker 1: himself for a role in humanity's first big fling into
Speaker 1: space doesn't endanger his security status by risking involve and
Speaker 1: arry contamination from an attractive girl. The little aircraft plant
Speaker 1: on the fringes of town was actually a top secret
Speaker 1: key division in the satellite project, and if you worked there,
Speaker 1: you took precautions. The second time I met him at
Speaker 1: the luncheonette, he had been waiting so long and had
Speaker 1: so nearly given up any hope of my coming, that
Speaker 1: he was no longer watching the road or the door
Speaker 1: when I finally got there, And when he left, he
Speaker 1: was so pleased at having gotten a dinner date with
Speaker 1: me that he didn't notice much of anything at all,
Speaker 1: not except out of the corner of one eye, and
Speaker 1: with only the slightest edge of subconscious recognition, just enough
Speaker 1: so that some niggling detail that was out of place
Speaker 1: kept bothering him thereafter, and just enough so that he
Speaker 1: made a point of stopping in the security office again
Speaker 1: that afternoon to add my new motel address to the
Speaker 1: infra he'd given them the day before the three mile
Speaker 1: drive and back of my Colorado plates was just about
Speaker 1: long enough finally to make the discrepancy register. Consciously, Larry
Speaker 1: went home and spent a bad night. His feelings toward me,
Speaker 1: as I could hardly understand at the time, were a
Speaker 1: great deal stronger or at least more clearly defined than
Speaker 1: mine about him. But since he was more certain just
Speaker 1: what it was he wanted and less certain what I did,
Speaker 1: every time he tried to fit my attitude in the
Speaker 1: car into the rest of what he knew, he'd come
Speaker 1: up with a different answer, and nine answers out of
Speaker 1: ten were angry and suspicious and agonizing. Now, look, babe,
Speaker 1: he said, You've got to see this. I trusted you,
Speaker 1: really all the time. I did trust you, but I
Speaker 1: didn't trust me. By the time I went to work
Speaker 1: this morning, I was half nuts. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to think, that's all. And I finally sold myself on
Speaker 1: the idea that if you were what you said you were,
Speaker 1: nobody would get hurt, and well, if you weren't on
Speaker 1: the level, I'd better find out quick. You see that, Yes,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, So I told them about the license
Speaker 1: plates and about the other stuff. What other stuff. What
Speaker 1: else was there? How stupid could I be? I mean,
Speaker 1: the in the car the way you listen, kid, he said,
Speaker 1: his face grim and demanding. Again, It's still just as
Speaker 1: true as it was then. I still don't know. They
Speaker 1: called me this evening and said when they got around
Speaker 1: to the motel to question you, you'd skipped out. They
Speaker 1: also said that the Massachusetts car was stolen, and there
Speaker 1: were a couple of other things they'd picked up that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't tell me. But they've got half the National
Speaker 1: Guard and all the boy scouts out after you by now.
Speaker 1: They wanted me to tell them anything I could think
Speaker 1: of that might help them find this place. I couldn't
Speaker 1: think of anything while I was talking to them. Right afterwards,
Speaker 1: I remembered plenty of things, which roads you were familiar with,
Speaker 1: and what you'd seen before, and what you hadn't stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So so you, So I came out myself.
Speaker 1: I wanted to find you first. Listen, Babe, I love you.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm a sucker, and maybe I'm nuts, and maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know what, but I figured maybe I could
Speaker 1: find out more and easier on you than they could.
Speaker 1: And honey, it better be good, because I don't think
Speaker 1: I've got what it would take to turn you in,
Speaker 1: and now I've found you. He let it go there,
Speaker 1: but that was plenty. He was willing to listen. He
Speaker 1: wanted to believe in me because he wanted me, and
Speaker 1: finding me in the house i'd described where I'd said
Speaker 1: it was had him half convinced. But I still had
Speaker 1: to explain those Massachusetts plates, and I couldn't. I was
Speaker 1: psychologically incapable of telling him another lie. Now, and when
Speaker 1: I knew I would never see him again, that this
Speaker 1: was the last time I could ever possibly be close
Speaker 1: to him in any way. I couldn't estrange myself by lying,
Speaker 1: and I was also psychologically incapable. I found out of
Speaker 1: telling the truth they'd seen to that it was the
Speaker 1: first time I'd ever hated them, the first time I
Speaker 1: suppose that I fully realized my position with them. I
Speaker 1: could not tell the truth, and I would not tell
Speaker 1: a lie. All I could do was explain this and
Speaker 1: hope he would believe me. I could explain too, that
Speaker 1: I was no spy, no enemy, and those who had
Speaker 1: prevented me from telling what I wanted to tell were
Speaker 1: no menace to his government or his people. He believed me.
Speaker 1: It was just that simple. He believed me because I
Speaker 1: suppose he knew without knowing how he knew it, that
Speaker 1: it was the truth. Humans are not incapable of communication.
Speaker 1: They are simply unaware of it. I told him also
Speaker 1: that they were coming for me, that I had called them,
Speaker 1: and regretfully that he had better leave before they came.
Speaker 1: You said they weren't enemies or criminals. You were telling
Speaker 1: the truth, weren't you. Yes, I was. They won't harm you,
Speaker 1: but they might. I couldn't say it. I didn't know
Speaker 1: the words when I tried to say, it might take
Speaker 1: you away with them with us. Might what might? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Now he was suspicious again. All right,
Speaker 1: he said, I'll leave you come with me. It was
Speaker 1: just that simple. Go back with him. Let them come
Speaker 1: and not find me. What could they do? Their own
Speaker 1: rules would keep them from hunting for me. They couldn't
Speaker 1: come down among the people on earth. Go back, stop running.
Speaker 1: We got into his car, and he turned around and
Speaker 1: smiled at me again like the other time. I smiled back,
Speaker 1: seeing him through a shiny kind of mist which must
Speaker 1: have been tears. I reached for him, and he reached
Speaker 1: for me at the same time. When we let go,
Speaker 1: he tried to start the car, but it wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'd forgotten till then I started laughing and
Speaker 1: crying at the same time in a sort of crazy way,
Speaker 1: and took him back inside and showed him the Projector
Speaker 1: they'd forgotten to give me any commands about not doing that,
Speaker 1: I guess, or they thought it wouldn't matter. It did matter.
Speaker 1: Larry looked it over and puzzled over it a little,
Speaker 1: and fooled around and asked me some questions. I didn't
Speaker 1: have much technical knowledge, but I knew what it did,
Speaker 1: and he figured out the way it did it. Nothing
Speaker 1: with an electromagnetic motor was going to work while that
Speaker 1: thing was turned on, not within a mile or so
Speaker 1: in any direction, and there wasn't any way to turn
Speaker 1: it off. It was a homing beam and it was
Speaker 1: on to stay fool proof. That was when he looked
Speaker 1: at me and said, slowly, you got here three days ago,
Speaker 1: didn't you, Babe. I nodded, there was God damn it,
Speaker 1: it's too foolish. There was a flying saucer story in
Speaker 1: the paper that day. Somebody saw land on a hilltop
Speaker 1: somewhere some crackpot some how about it. Kid. I couldn't
Speaker 1: say yes, and I couldn't say no, and I did
Speaker 1: the only thing that was left, which was to get
Speaker 1: hysterical in a big way. He had to call me down,
Speaker 1: of course, and I found out why the television shows
Speaker 1: stop with the kiss. The rest is very private and personal.
Speaker 1: End of Part seven, Part eight of Exile from Space
Speaker 1: by Judith Merrill. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
Speaker 1: Read by Jen Brooda Part eight Author's note. This story
Speaker 1: was dictated to me by a five year old boy,
Speaker 1: word for word, except for a very few editorial changes
Speaker 1: of my own. He was a very charming and bright
Speaker 1: youngster who plays with my own five year old daughter.
Speaker 1: One day, he wandered into my office and watched me
Speaker 1: typing for a while, then asked what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I answered, somewhat irritably, because the children are supposed to
Speaker 1: stay out of the room when I'm working that I
Speaker 1: was trying to write a story. What kind of story?
Speaker 1: A grown up story, but what kind a science fiction story.
Speaker 1: The next thing I was going to do was to
Speaker 1: call my daughter and ask her to take her company
Speaker 1: back to the play room. I had my mouth open,
Speaker 1: but I never got a syllable out. Teddy was talking.
Speaker 1: I don't know where they got the car, he said.
Speaker 1: They made three or four stops before the last. He
Speaker 1: had a funny look on his face and his eyes
Speaker 1: were glazed looking. I had seen some experimental work with
Speaker 1: hypnosis and post hypnotic performance. After the first couple of sentences,
Speaker 1: I led Teddy into the living room and switched on
Speaker 1: the tape recorder. I left it on as long as
Speaker 1: he kept talking. I had to change tapes once and
Speaker 1: missed a few more sentences. When he was done, I
Speaker 1: asked him, with the tape still running, where he had
Speaker 1: heard that story. What story? He asked. He looked perfectly normal.
Speaker 1: Again the story you just told me, He was obviously puzzled.
Speaker 1: The science fiction story, I said, I don't know where
Speaker 1: they got the car. He began. His face was set
Speaker 1: and his eyes were blank. I kept the tape running
Speaker 1: and picked up the parts I'd missed before. Then I
Speaker 1: sent Teddy off to the playroom and played back the
Speaker 1: tape and thought for a while. There was a little
Speaker 1: more besides what you've read. Parts of it were confused
Speaker 1: with some strange words mixed in and with sentences half completed,
Speaker 1: and a feeling of ambivalence or censorship or inhibition of
Speaker 1: some kind preventing much clarity. Other parts were quite clear.
Speaker 1: Of these. The only section I have omitted so far
Speaker 1: that seems to me to belong in the story is
Speaker 1: this one. That baby will have to be born on earth.
Speaker 1: They have decided that themselves, and for the first time,
Speaker 1: I am glad that they cannot communicate with me as
Speaker 1: perfectly as they do among themselves. I can think some
Speaker 1: things that they do not know about. We are not
Speaker 1: coming back. I do not think that I will like
Speaker 1: it on earth for very long, and I do not know,
Speaker 1: neither does Larry. What will happen to us when the
Speaker 1: security people find us and we cannot answer their questions.
Speaker 1: But I am a woman now, and I love like
Speaker 1: a woman. Larry will not be their pet, so I
Speaker 1: cannot be. I am not sure that I am fit
Speaker 1: to be what Larry thinks of as a human being.
Speaker 1: He says, I must learn to be my own master.
Speaker 1: I am not at all sure I could do this
Speaker 1: if it were necessary. But fortunately this is one of
Speaker 1: Larry's areas of semantic confusion. The feminine of master is mistress.
Speaker 1: Which has various meanings. Also, there is the distinct possibility
Speaker 1: from what Larry says, that we will not either of
Speaker 1: us be allowed even as much liberty as we have here.
Speaker 1: There is also the matter of gratitude. They brought me up,
Speaker 1: took care of me, taught me, loved me, gave me
Speaker 1: a way of life and a knowledge of myself infinitely
Speaker 1: richer than I could ever have had on earth. Perhaps
Speaker 1: they even saved my life, healing me when I was
Speaker 1: quite possibly beyond the power of earthly medical science to save.
Speaker 1: But against all this, they caused the damage to start with.
Speaker 1: It was there force field that wrecked the car and
Speaker 1: killed my parents. They have paid for it, They are
Speaker 1: paying for it. Yet they will continue to pay for
Speaker 1: more years than make sense in terms of a human lifetime.
Speaker 1: They will continue to wander from planet to planet and
Speaker 1: system to system because they have broken their own law,
Speaker 1: and now may never go home. But I chaon. I
Speaker 1: am a woman and Mary is a man. We will
Speaker 1: go home and have our baby, and perhaps the baby
Speaker 1: will be the means of our freedom. Someday, if we
Speaker 1: cannot speak to save ourselves, he may someday be able
Speaker 1: to speak for us. I do not think the blocks
Speaker 1: they have said in us will penetrate my womb as
Speaker 1: my own thoughts. I hope already have author's note. Before
Speaker 1: writing this story as a story, I talked with Johnny's parents.
Speaker 1: I approached them cautiously. His mother is a big woman
Speaker 1: and a brunette. His father is a friendly, fat redhead.
Speaker 1: I already knew that neither of them reads science fiction.
Speaker 1: The word is not likely to be mentioned in their household.
Speaker 1: They moved to town about three years ago. Nobody here
Speaker 1: knew them before that, and there are rumors that Johnny
Speaker 1: is adopted. They did not volunteer any confirmation of that
Speaker 1: information when I talked to them, and they did not
Speaker 1: pick up on any of the leads I offered about
Speaker 1: his recitation. Johnny himself is small and fair haired. He
Speaker 1: takes after his paternal grandmother, his mother says. End of
Speaker 1: Part eight, end of Exile from Space by Judith Merril