Suddenly there was a lunar landscape on the screen, looking just as
it's always been pictured. A mechanical voice cut in.
"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Hello, Earth,' from my position in
Mare Serenitatis. First I will pan the Menelaus Mountains for fifteen
seconds. Then I will focus my camera on Earth for five seconds."
The camera began to move and the mountains marched by, stark and
awesomely wild. Toward the end of the movement, the shadow of the
upright third stage appeared in the foreground.
Abruptly the camera made a giddy swing, focused a moment, and we were
looking at Earth. At that time, there was no Moon over California. It
was Africa and Europe we were looking at.
"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Good-by, Earth.'"
Well, when that screen went dead, there was pandemonium around our
terrace. Big old Guy was so happy, he was wiping tears from his eyes.
The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at
once.
* * * * *
I used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to
one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month.
I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early
infants were females, which sped things up considerably.
By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut
down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own
way.
I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model,
and during the months while every female was busy in the metabolic
accelerator, I taught the language to the males. They spoke it softly
in high voices and the eight hundred words didn't seem to tax their
little skulls a bit.
My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took
the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out
of the lab.
I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley
about a mile back in the ranch.
They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously.
They kept me busy relating their words for "tree," "rock," "sky" to the
objects. They had a little trouble with "sky."
Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to
appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended
perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised
their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes.
Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His
playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he
was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught
and stopped abruptly at the bottom of a little knoll.
He probably meant to dive for her. But when he spread his arms, the
spars snapped out and those golden planes sheared into the air. He
sailed over her in a stunning sweep. Then he rose up and up until he
hung in the breeze for a long moment, thirty feet above the ground.
He turned a plaintive face back to me, dipped worriedly and skimmed
straight for a thorn bush. He banked instinctively, whirled toward us
in a golden flash and crashed with a bounce to the grass.
The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him
so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little
whoop. After that, it was a carnival.
* * * * *
They learned quickly and brilliantly. They were not fliers; they were
gliders and soarers. Before long, they took agilely to the trees and
launched themselves in beautiful glides for hundreds of feet, banking,
turning and spiraling to a gentle halt.
I laughed out loud with anticipation. Wait till the first pair of these
was brought before a sheriff! Wait till reporters from the _Chronicle_
motored out into the hills to witness this!
Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a
tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool.
They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed
each other. Then they got out and lay on their backs with the planes
stretched to dry.
I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of
leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I
could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little
actual surviving. I called the male over to me.
He came and squatted, conference fashion, the elbows resting on the
ground, the wrists crossed at his chest. He spoke first.
"Before the red men came, did we live here?"
"You lived in places like this all along these mountains. Now there
are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you
naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors."
"We can learn again. We want to stay here." His little face was so
solemn and thoughtful that I reached out and stroked the fur on his
head reassuringly.
We both heard the whir of wings overhead. Two mourning doves flew
across the stream and landed in an oak on the opposite hillside.