The last picture in the slate was a group portrait of himself, the
Fulls, Summersby, Watkins, and Porfirio Villa.
When was that taken? They were sitting in a circle on the straw, eating
something. Peering closely, he thought it must be the vegetables, for
there was a small heap of round things next to Calvin Full which were
probably buckeyes. Sunday night, then.
"They must have taken it through the food panel," he said. "Are there
any more pictures?"
"That's all. I don't know what's in the other ones yet."
Calvin came in. She handed him the first "book" and showed him how to
operate it. He flipped through it and when he came to the monstrosity in
the web his eyes widened. "What is it?" he asked, in the hard twang of
his region.
"A guinea pig, like all the others including us," his wife said.
"The tree trunks are explained now," said Adam, half to himself. "The
sand box, too. That isn't a very scientific-looking treatise, but I
guess it's more of a memento, a record of us all." He raised his brows
in a facial shrug. "Us and the monkeys," he said. "Gosh!"
* * * * *
She took the next big slate on her lap. It was lavender. The first few
pages to appear were covered with the curious writing, very large and
only a few words to a page. Then came pictures of many things, not
photographs but drawings and paintings in vivid color, and the things
could in no way be linked to science. There were portraits of the tall
creatures themselves, in various settings, some in labs like this one,
some outdoors in a landscape that was predominantly scarlet and green;
there were group scenes in which they ate odd-looking foods and walked
down blue pathways and examined strange pets and familiar animals. Under
each picture was a short grouping of squiggles, marks, scribbles, etc.
"Can that be a science book?" asked Cal, leaning over his wife's
shoulder. The beings were pictured as simply as possible, in no minute
detail whatever, and their activities were of the dullest and most
prosaic sort.
This pattern was followed through page after page--a picture (some of
them were of things so alien they could not be placed by either the
Fulls or himself), a single character, then a short word and another,
long or short as the case might be. After a dozen of them had flashed on
and off Adam noticed that the large character was always repeated at the
beginning of the last word.
When he realized what it meant, the whole business clicked into focus.
The whole damned deal, the lab and the scientists and the experiments
and the meaning of the four magic slates, and everything. There was no
particular reason why this last slate should have done it, for it was no
more suggestive than many other things that he had seen; it was simply
the last piece of evidence, the final push that sent him headlong into
terrible knowledge.
Carefully, desperately, he went over it all in his mind, while the Fulls
spoke in low tones.
_God_, he thought, _oh, God!_ He was shivering now. He was more
terrified than he had ever been before. His tongue felt thick.
The punishments, the high stool and the arbitrary cuffs and swats; the
gadgets, the mazes, the puzzles; were they all a part of the
conditioning to neurosis of a scientific experiment? They were not.
* * * * *
Adam had found an answer, the only possible answer. The fourth slate had
given it to him, although a hundred hints of it had shown up every day.
His psych teacher would be ashamed of him for muddling along so many
days, believing in a theory that was so plainly impossible.
He addressed Mrs. Full. She was a little sharper than her husband, and
this was more in her line, too. He had to make her discover the same
answer. He had to _know_ it was right. And then he had to get out of
that place in a hell of a hurry.
"Ma'am, you know what this is?"
"No, Adam."
"Look here. See this big letter, repeated at the first of this word?"
"Yes."
He flipped a few "pages" past. "It's the same with all of them, you see?
And the middle word is always the same--four curly letters. You know
what that middle word is?"
"No, Adam."
"It's 'stands for' or 'means.'" He stared at her. "Get it?"
She thought an instant. "Of course. Adam, that's very clever of you."
She wasn't scared yet. She hadn't seen the implication.
"'Stands for'?" Calvin repeated.
"A stands for Apple," explained Mrs. Full. "Or A stands for Airship, or
whatever it might be. It's an alphabet book, dear."
She still hadn't caught it. "Remember when Mr. Full built the cubbyhole
here," Adam said, "and the giant knocked it down? Why was he angry?"
"I suppose they want to observe us without any hindrance."
"No, ma'am," he said with conviction. "That was simple frustration. They
want to see everything, whether it's interesting to them or not. They
aren't scientifically disappointed if they can't, they're just
frustrated. Think of the punishment we get, slaps, the dunce stool."
"As though we were children," she said.
"Exactly. Now, here are these books. An alphabet book, and these others.
What age would you figure them for? You taught kindergarten, you said.
This is something I wouldn't know."
"I'd say they're for fairly bright children about five or six years
old."
"Or for us," said her husband, "when they start to teach us their
language."
"They are children's books, though, with short sentences and the gaudy
pictures our own children love." Mrs. Full stared at Adam. Her brown
eyes widened. "Adam," she said, "you've guessed something."
"You guess it too," he pleaded. She had to corroborate his own idea.
"Think of all the things about them we haven't been able to make out."
"Nursery books...." she said slowly. "Instability to the point of
insanity, if you found it in adult humans. Sloppiness and inefficiency,
when these machines point to a high degree of neatness of mind.
Wandering attention, inability to concentrate for long periods. Positive
tantrums over nothing. Cruelty and affection mixed without rhyme or
reason." She took him by the arm, her fingers strong with fear and
urgency. "Tell me, Adam."
* * * * *
His breath hissed. He was filled with panic. Where there had been only
anxiety for his own life and his world, there was now a fearful
knowledge that he could scarcely bear without shrieking. She had it too,
but she didn't dare say it. It was a horrible thing.
"These machines," he said, "aren't scientific testers at all."
"Yes?"
"They're toys."
"Yes?"
"We aren't guinea pigs. We're--we're pets. They've had other animals,
from Earth and from God knows where, and now they have people."
"Yes. Go on, say it." She thrust her face fiercely up to his.
"Those twelve-foot 'scientists' are kids," he said. Then he stopped and
deliberately got his cracking voice under control. She was just as
frightened as he was but she wasn't yelling. "It's the only answer.
Everything fits it. They're about five years old."