"Against the side of the ship, too!" said Mason.
Hearing them, the native jerked his head up toward the hatch, then
backed off for a better view.
"Stinkers!" he yelled, shaking his fist. "Out here come and fight! Take
you both on I can!"
When they only gaped, he whirled and sped off to rejoin the chase.
"You see?" said Cassidy. "Now what do you think?"
"I think we'd better get that directional stabilizer working."
* * * * *
It took more than an hour to locate the trouble. "The rectifier
circuit's shot," Cassidy said finally. "But maybe we can patch
it up. Some of the amplifiers I suppose we can do without. But a
hyper-oscillator we've got to have."
"Say, you're doing it too," said Mason.
"What?"
"Talking like the natives."
Cassidy looked up. "Guess it's something that grows on you. Well, what
do we do now?"
"Maybe the natives can help us."
"If they don't even know where they're from, they probably left their
volts and amps behind too. But that's only an assumption."
"In that case," Mason said with a sigh, "there's only one thing left to
do--take Riva up on her invitation to, ah, play."
"Funny," Cassidy grunted, heading for the hatch.
"I was only joking."
"I'm not. If we can get in that house, we'll know for sure whether or
not they've developed electronic devices."
Halfway across the field, they were almost run down by the laughing
girl and her retinue of galloping suitors, if that's what they were.
She was a well-proportioned blonde whose wind-frothed tresses suggested
a nymph in flight.
At the fence, they were confronted by Riva, who smiled up at Cassidy
and said, "You I was just going to come and get. Ready to play yet you
are?"
He looked away and cleared his throat. "Not quite, Riva. We'd like to
visit your house."
"It's some interesting games I know. Enjoying them you'd surely be."
Her smile, revealing even teeth that contrasted ruddy cheeks, was as
persistent as her intent on playing.
Staring at the girl, Cassidy wrestled with a pang of wistful envy over
the Olympian life he had witnessed thus far on this world. Maybe they
were all irresponsible and childlike. But was that bad?
* * * * *
Mason pointed in alarm toward the meadow in front of the next estate.
An ominous-looking, furry thing, supported on six or eight spindly
legs, was racing across their field of vision.
"Hurt you he won't," the girl assured them, noticing their
apprehension. "Nothing to be afraid of there is."
"_What_ is it?" Cassidy was still trying to determine whether it was an
overgrown spider or a dry-land octopus.
"Look!" Mason exclaimed. "It's on a leash!"
And Cassidy noticed the thong that extended from the creature to the
human who was running along behind it.
"To Wolruf he belongs," the girl explained. "One of them I can get for
you too--if you want."
Her slender hand reached out through the fence and tugged at Cassidy's
sleeve. "To chase me wouldn't you like?" she asked, pouting.
Glancing behind her, Cassidy spotted the girl's father bearing down on
them in a sprint that was nothing short of phenomenal for his age. He
began shouting with the last few strides and was in full lung when he
hurled himself at the fence. "Git! Out! Away! I'll--"
Riva moved back and glanced overhead and Papa, seeing some hidden
significance in her gesture, lowered his voice.
"You I'll tear into and apart I'll rip!" he went on in a menacing
whisper. "Your limbs I'll scatter like--"
"Papa, it's not afraid of you they are."
"They're _not_?" He was disappointed.
"The house they want to come in and see."
He began working up a rage again, but caught himself and looked up into
his daughter's face. "Mean you--_my_ house they want to see?"
When she nodded Papa seized the lowest strand of wire and lifted the
fence high enough for Cassidy and Mason to crawl under. "Why, arranged
it can be, I think."
Its architectural prominences rendered shadowless in the tri-solar
light, the manor was even more imposing close at hand. Of stone
construction, it flaunted millwork and beams whose rich carvings would
have been welcome on any mansion in the known Galaxy.
Mounting the steps, Mason observed, "Nice little layout they've got
here."
Riva moved closer to Cassidy. "Inside is cozy," she said behind a coy
smile. "Play we can _really_ in there."
Papa had been at the door for some time, fumbling with the lock. In a
burst of impatience, he drew off and gave it a solid kick. Then he went
back and tried rattling the handle. After a while there was a click and
it swung open.
Cassidy followed him into a blaze of iridescent color and unfamiliar
form. The huge, circular room was like a vast diorama and it was
impossible to tell exactly where the solid objects blended in with the
jumbled geometric pattern of the wall.
He walked across a carpet of undulant fibers that reached well above
his ankles. And he tripped across a padded, Z-shaped slab that
protruded from the wall but slithered into a U and retracted as soon as
it received the burden of his weight.
Laughing, Riva helped him up and he paused for a closer visual
inspection of his outlandish surroundings. Objects of weird shapes and
unguessable purposes hung from the ceiling, some changing form and
size as he watched. Scattered about were articles of furniture (he
guessed) that resembled giant starfish supported at their centers and
extremities by coiled springs. Only, each arm was shaped like a trough
that ran into the bowl-like central depression of the piece.
* * * * *
A gleeful scream sounded behind them and Papa went tearing by. With
a running leap, he landed on an arm of one of the starfish. Its
supporting spring contracted under the weight, then catapulted him
ceilingward. When he came down again, it was on an arm of another
starfish, then another.
The fourth collapsed, depositing him on the floor, and its spring
went twanging across the room. Struggling to his feet, he staggered
into something resembling a clothes tree, knocked it over and sprawled
beside it.
He roared with delight as he snapped the stem of the thing across his
knee and hurled the pieces at the ceiling. They scored direct hits on
one of the bulky objects suspended overhead and it came crashing down
with a twinkling roar amid a shower of sparks.
"Yow-ee!" he exuberated. "So much fun I never had!"
Riva helped him up. "Papa, it's control yourself you must. The last
time--remember?"
But he only shook her off and went bounding through an archway. His
hectic progress through the house was punctuated by sounds of crashing
destruction.
"Honestly," Riva said, spreading her hands, "what to do with him I
don't know."
Cassidy continued staring in the direction the old man had gone. "He's
wrecking the place!"
"That he is," she admitted sighing. "And such a nice joint it be, too."
"He's just plain nuts!" said Mason.