_Illustrated by Ed Emsh_
[Illustration:]
_Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.... And
the natives of Capella IV, philosophers at heart, were not
ones to ignore the Golden Rule...._
* * * * *
My Aunt Mattie, Matthewa H. Tombs, is President of the Daughters of
Terra. I am her nephew, the one who didn't turn out well. Christened
Hapland Graves, after Earth President Hapland, a cousin by marriage,
the fellows at school naturally called me Happy Graves.
"Haphazard Graves, it should be," Aunt Mattie commented acidly the
first time she heard it. It was her not very subtle way of reminding
me of the way I lived my life and did things, or didn't do them. She
shuddered at anything disorderly, which of course included me, and it
was her beholden duty to right anything which to her appeared wrong.
"There won't be any evil to march on after you get through, Aunt
Mattie," I once said when I was a child. I like now to think that even
at the age of six I must have mastered the straight face, but I'm
afraid I was so awed by her that I was sincere.
"That will do, Hapland!" she said sternly. But I think she knew I
meant it--then--and I think that was the day I became her favorite
nephew. For some reason, never quite clear to me, she was my favorite
aunt. I think she liked me most because I was the cross she had to
bear. I liked her most, I'm sure, because it was such a comfortable
ride.
A few billions spent around the house can make things quite
comfortable.
She had need of her billions to carry out her hobbies, or, as she
called it, her "life's work." Aunt Mattie always spoke in cliches
because people could understand what you meant. One of these hobbies
was her collection of flora of the universe. It was begun by her
maternal grandfather, one of the wealthier Plots, and increased as the
family fortunes were increased by her father, one of the more ruthless
Tombs, but it was under Aunt Mattie's supervision that it came, so to
speak, into full flower.
"Love," she would say, "means more to a flower than all the
scientific knowledge in the world." Apparently she felt that the small
army of gardeners, each a graduate specialist in duplicating the right
planetary conditions, hardly mattered.
The collection covered some two hundred acres in our grounds at the
west side of the house. Small, perhaps, as some of the more vulgar
displays by others go, but very, very choice.
The other hobby, which she combines with the first, is equally
expensive. She and her club members, the Daughters of Terra (D.T.s for
short), often find it necessary to take junkets on the family space
yacht out to some distant planet--to straighten out reprehensible
conditions which have come to her attention. I usually went along to
take care of--symbolically, at least--the bags and (their) baggage.
My psychiatrist would say that expressing it in this way shows I have
never outgrown my juvenile attitudes. He says I am simply a case of
arrested development, mental, caused through too much over-shadowing
by the rest of the family. He says that, like the rest of them, I have
inherited the family compulsion to make the universe over to my own
liking so I can pass it on to posterity with a clear conscience, and
my negative attitude toward this is simply a defense mechanism because
I haven't had a chance to do it. He says I really hate my aunt's flora
collection because I see it as a rival for her affection. I tell him
if I have any resentments toward it at all it is for the long hours
spent in getting the latinized names of things drilled into me. I ask
him why gardeners always insist on forcing long meaningless names upon
non-gardeners who simply don't care. He ignores that, and says that
subconsciously I hate my Aunt Mattie because I secretly recognize that
she is a challenge too great for me to overcome. I ask him why, if I
subconsciously hate Aunt Mattie, why I would care about how much
affection she gives to her flora collection. He says, ahah! We are
making progress.
He says he can't cure me--of what, I'm never clear--until I find the
means to cut down and destroy my Aunt Mattie.
This is all patent nonsense because Aunt Mattie is the rock, the firm
foundation in a universe of shifting values. Even her cliches are
precious to me because they are unchanging. On her, I can depend.
He tells Aunt Mattie his diagnoses and conclusions, too. Unethical?
Well now! Between a mere psychiatrist and my Aunt Mattie is there any
doubt about who shall say what is ethical?
After one of their long conferences about me she calls me into her
study, looks at me wordlessly, sadly, shakes her head, sighs--then
squares her shoulders until the shelf of her broad, although maiden,
bosom becomes huge enough to carry any burden, even the burden of my
alleged hate. This she bears bravely, even gratefully. I might resent
this needless pain the psychiatrist gives her, except that it really
seems to make her happier in some obscure way.
Perhaps she has some kind of guilt complex, and I am her deserved
punishment? Aunt Mattie with a guilt complex? Never! Aunt Mattie knows
she is right, and goes ahead.
So all his nonsense is completely ridiculous. I love my Aunt Mattie. I
adore my Aunt Mattie. I would never do anything to hurt my Aunt
Mattie.
Or, well, I didn't mean to hurt her, anyway. All I did was wink. I
only meant....
* * * * *
We were met at the space port of Capella IV by the planet
administrator, himself, one John J. McCabe.
It was no particular coincidence that I knew him. My school was
progressive. It admitted not only the scions of the established
families but those of the ambitious families as well. Its graduates,
naturally, went into the significant careers. Johnny McCabe was one of
the ambitious ones. We hadn't been anything like bosom pals at school;
but he'd been tolerant of me, and I'd admired him, and fitfully told
myself I should be more like him. Perhaps this was the reason Aunt
Mattie had insisted on this particular school, the hope that some of
the ambition would rub off on me.
Capella IV wasn't much of a post, not even for the early stages in a
young man's career, although, socially, it was perhaps the best
beginning Johnny's family could have expected. It was a small planet,
entirely covered by salt. Even inside the port bubble with its
duplication of Earth atmosphere, the salt lay like a permanent snow
scene. Actually it was little more than a way station along the space
route out in that direction, and Johnny's problems were little more
than the problems of a professional host at some obscure resort. But
no doubt his dad spoke pridefully of "My son, a planet administrator,"
and when I called on the family to tell them I'd visited their son, I
wouldn't be one to snitch.
There was doubt in my mind that even Johnny's ambition could make the
planet into anything more than it was already. It had nothing we
wanted, or at least was worth the space freight it would cost to ship
it. The natives had never given us any trouble, and, up until now, we
hadn't given them any. So Earth's brand upon it was simply a small
bubble enclosing a landing field, a hangar for checkup and repair of
ships requiring an emergency landing, some barracks for the men and
women of the port personnel, a small hotel to house stranded space
passengers while repairs were made to their ship, or stray V.I.P.'s.
A small administration building flying Federated Earth flag, and a
warehouse to contain supplies, which had to be shipped in, completed
the installation. The planet furnished man nothing but water pumped
from deep in the rock strata beneath the salt, and even that had to be
treated to remove enough of the saline content to make it usable. At
the time, I didn't know what the natives, outside our bubble, lived
on. The decision to come had been a sudden one, and I hadn't had more
than enough time to call the State Department to find out who the
planet administrator might be.
I was first out of the yacht and down the landing steps to the salt
covered ground. Aunt Mattie was still busy giving her ship captain his
instructions, and possibly inspecting the crew's teeth to see if
they'd brushed them this morning. The two members of her special
committee of the D.T.'s who'd come along, a Miss Point and a Mrs.
Waddle, naturally would be standing at her sides, and a half pace to
the rear, to be of assistance should she need them in dealing with
males.
There was a certain stiff formality in the way McCabe, flanked by his
own two selected subordinates, approached the ship--until I turned
around at the foot of the steps and he recognized me.
"Hap!" he yelled, then. "Happy Graves, you old son of a gun!" He broke
into a run, dignity forgotten, and when he got to me he grabbed both
my shoulders in his powerful hands to shake me as if he were some sort
of terrier--and I a rat. His joy seemed all out of proportion until I
remembered he probably hadn't seen anybody from school for a long
time; and until I further remembered that he would have been alerted
by the State Department to Aunt Mattie's visit and would have been
looking forward to it with dread and misgivings.
To realize he had a friend at court must really have overjoyed him.
"Johnny," I said. "Long time." It had been. Five-six years anyway. I
held out my hand in the old school gesture. He let loose my shoulders
and grabbed it in the traditional manner. We went through the ritual,
which my psychiatrist would have called juvenile, and then he looked
at me pointedly.
"You remember what it means," he said, a little anxiously I thought,
and looked significantly at my hand. "That we will always stand by
each other, through thick and thin." His eyes were pulled upward to
the open door of the yacht.
"You can expect it to be both thick and thin," I said drily. "If you
know my Aunt Mattie."
"She's your aunt?" he asked, his eyes widening. "Matthewa H. Tombs is
_your_ aunt. I never knew. To think, all those years at school, and I
never knew. Why, Hap, Happy, old boy, this is wonderful. Man, have I
been worried!"
"Don't stop on my account," I said, maybe a little dolefully.
"Somebody reported to the Daughters of Terra that you let the natives
run around out here stark naked, and if Aunt Mattie says she's going
to put mother hubbards on them, then that's exactly what she's going
to do. You can depend on that, old man."
"Mother Hub...." he gasped. He looked at me strangely. "It's a joke,"
he said. "Somebody's pulled a practical joke on the D.T.'s. Have you
ever seen our natives? Pictures of them? Didn't anybody check up on
what they're like before you came out here? It's a joke. A practical
joke on the D.T.'s. It has to be."
"I wouldn't know," I said. "But if they're naked they won't be for
long, I can tell you that. Aunt Mattie...."
His eyes left my face and darted up to the door of the ship which was
no longer a black oval. The unexplained bewilderment of his expression
was not diminished as Aunt Mattie came through the door, out on the
loading platform, and started down the steps. He grew a little white
around the mouth, licked his lips, and forgot all his joy at meeting
an old school mate. His two subordinates who had remained standing
just out of earshot, as if recognizing a crisis now, stepped briskly
up to his sides.
Aunt Mattie's two committee women, as if to match phalanx with
phalanx, came through the door and started down the steps behind her.
I stepped to one side as the two forces met face to face on the
crunching salt that covered the ground. It might look like a Christmas
scene, but under Capella's rays it was blazing hot, and I found myself
in sympathy with the men's open necked shirts and brief shorts. Still,
they should have known better than to dress like that. Somebody in the
State Department had goofed.
Aunt Mattie and her two committee women were dressed conservatively in
something that might have resembled an English Colonel's wife's idea
of the correct tweeds to wear on a cold, foggy night. If they were
already sweltering beneath these coverings, as I was beginning to in
my lighter suit, they were too ladylike to show it. Their acid glance
at the men's attire showed what they thought of the informality of
dress in which they'd been received. But they were too ladylike to
comment. After that first pointed look at bare knees, they had no need
of it.
"This is the official attire prescribed for us by the State
Department," Johnny said, a little anxiously, I thought. It was hardly
the formal speech of welcome he, as planet administrator, must have
prepared.
"I have no doubt of it," Aunt Mattie said, and her tone told them what
she thought of the State Department under the present administration.
"You would hardly have met ladies in such--ah--otherwise." I could see
that she was making a mental note to speak to the State Department
about it.
"Make a note," she said and turned to Miss Point. "I will speak to the
State Department. How can one expect natives to ... if our own
representatives don't ... etc., etc."
"May I show you to your quarters, ma'am?" Johnny asked humbly. "No
doubt you will wish to freshen up, or...."
Miss Point blushed furiously.
"We are already quite fresh, young man," Aunt Mattie said firmly.
I happened to know that Aunt Mattie didn't like to browbeat people,
not at all. It would all have been so much more pleasant, gracious, if
they'd been brought up to know right from wrong. But what parents and
schools had failed to do, she must correct as her duty. I thought it
about time I tried to smooth things over. I stepped up into their
focus.
"Aunt Mattie," I said. "This is Johnny McCabe. We were at school
together."
Her eyebrows shot upward.
"You were?" she asked, and looked piercingly at Johnny. "Then, I
realize, young man, that your attire is not your fault. You must have
been acting under orders, and against your personal knowledge of what
would be correct. I understand." She turned again to Miss Point.
"Underscore that note to the State Department," she said. "Mark it
emergency." She turned back to Johnny. "Very well, Mr. McCabe, we
would appreciate it, after all, if you would show us to our quarters
so that we may--ah--freshen up a bit. It is rather a warm day, isn't
it?"
She was quite gracious now, reassured because Johnny was an old school
mate of mine, and would therefore know right from wrong. If I
sometimes didn't seem to, she knew me well enough to know it had not
been the fault of the school.
The three of us, Johnny on one side of Aunt Mattie and I on the other
side, started toward the frame building on the other side of the
bubble, which I assumed was the hotel. The four subordinates trailed
along behind, silent, wary of one another.
Behind them the baggage truck, which had been piled high by the ship's
crew, hissed into life and started moving along on its tractor treads.
Johnny caught a glimpse of it, without actually turning around, and
his eyes opened wide. He misinterpreted, of course. From the mountain
of baggage it looked like our intention to stay a long time.
But then he wouldn't have been particularly reassured, either, had he
realized that our own supplies were quite scant and these bags, boxes,
and crates contained sewing machines and many, many bolts of gaily
colored cloth.
* * * * *
I had hardly more than--ah--freshened up a bit myself in my hotel
room, when I heard a discreet knock on my door. I opened it and saw
Johnny McCabe.
"May I come in, Hap?" he asked. As if against his will, he glanced
quickly down the hall toward the suite where aunt and her committee
had been put.
"Sure, Johnny," I said, and opened the door wide. I pointed to an
aluminum tube torture rack, government issue's idea of a chair. "You
can have the chair," I said. "I'll sit on the edge of the bed."
"I'm sorry about the furnishings," he said apologetically as he sat
down and I closed the door. "It's the best government will issue us in
this hole."
"Aunt Mattie would be disappointed if it were better," I said as I sat
on the edge of the bed, which was little softer than the chair. "She
expects to rough it, and finds special virtue in doing her duty as
uncomfortably as possible."
He looked sharply at me, but I had merely stated an accepted fact, not
an opinion, and was therefore emotionless about it.
"I'm in trouble, Hap," he said desperately. He leaned forward with
his clasped hands held between his knees.
"Well, old man," I answered. "You know me."
"Yes," he said. "But there isn't anybody else I can turn to."
"Then we understand each other," I agreed. He looked both resentful
and puzzled.
"No, I never did understand you," he disagreed. "I suppose it's all
those billions that act as shock insulation for you. You never had to
plan, and scheme, and stand alert indefinitely like a terrier at a rat
hole waiting for opportunity to stick out its nose so you could pounce
on it. So I don't see how you can appreciate my problem now."
"I might try," I said humbly.
"This job," he said. "It's not much, and I know it. But it was a
start. The department doesn't expect anything from me but patience.
It's not so much ability, you know, just a matter of who can hang on
the longest without getting into trouble. I've been hanging on, and
keeping out of trouble."
"But you're in trouble now."
"I will be when your aunt fails to put mother hubbards on the
natives."
"She won't fail," I said confidently.
"And when she storms into the State Department with fire in her eye
and starts turning things upside down, it'll be my fault--somehow," he
said miserably.
"So let her put some clothes on some natives," I said. "She'll go away
happy and then, for all you care, they can take 'em off and burn 'em
if they insist on going around naked. Just swing with the punch, man.
Don't stand up and let 'em knock your block off. Surely you have some
influence with the natives. I don't hear any war drums, any tom-toms.
I don't see them trying to tear holes in the sides of your bubble to
let the air out. You must be at peace with them. You must have some
kind of mutual cooperation. So just get a tribe or so to go along with
the idea for a while."
He looked at me and shook his head sadly. Sort of the way Aunt Mattie
shook her head after a conference with my psychiatrist. But Johnny
didn't seem somehow happier. He had a pretty good chest, but it didn't
look enormous enough to carry any burden.
"I've been pretty proud of myself," he said. "After five years of
daily attempts, and after using everything I ever learned in school
courses on extraterrestrial psychology, plus some things I've made up
myself, I established a kind of communication with the natives--if you
could call it communication. I'd go out in my spacesuit into their
chlorinated atmosphere, I'd stand in front of one of them and talk a
blue streak, think a blue streak. After about five years of it, one of
them slowly closed his eye and then opened it again. I invited one of
them to come inside the bubble. I told him about the difference in
atmosphere, that it might be dangerous. I got one of them to come in.
It made no difference to him."
"Well, fine, then," I said. "Just get some of them to come in again,
let Aunt Mattie put some clothes on them, and everybody's happy."
He stood up suddenly.
"Take a walk with me, Hap," he said. It was more of a command than an
invitation. "Over to the edge of the bubble. I want to show you some
natives."