Robert Silverberg - Earthmen and Strangers

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INTRODUCTION
The first thing every child learns is that he is not the entire universe.
It comes as a shock, even though the discovery is gradual. As a baby's awareness grows, he realizes that
at least one other human creature exists—his mother, that large, warm, protective object that is always
nearby. Later comes the discovery of other relatives: father, sister, brother, uncle. The doctor,
grandparents, friends, all become part of the picture for the child, and he realizes that the universe beyond
his fingertips is quite a crowded place indeed.
Then he finds out about strangers.
Strangers are those who do not fit into the family circle, people who cannot be recognized, whose
existence is an uncomfortable mystery. Until he has met his first stranger, the child has known nothing but
love. Now comes a challenge; for the stranger, being a stranger, does not necessarily love the child. Ties
of family and friendship do not exist, and some other relationship must be developed.
Most children learn how to get along with strangers well enough. They find out that it is possible to make
friends with certain strangers, and that it is wise to keep away from others. And they make the discovery
that for the rest of their lives they are going to be encountering strangers every day. Their happiness and
success will depend on their skill at dealing With these strangers, who may be different from them in ways
of thinking, in color of skin, in outlook. Growing up, then, is a process of collisions with strangers, and a
test of maturity is the ability to handle such collisions.
Not only children but whole planets eventually discover that they are not the entire universe. At least, so
the science-fiction writers have been saying for many years. They look to the stars for the strangers,
people of other worlds, who one day will intrude on the so-far private existence of mankind. We have
never yet encountered people of other worlds, of course—not in any way that can be satisfactorily
documented, that is. But the sky is full of stars, and some of those stars must have planets, and it seems
likely that in an infinity of worlds there must be intelligent life besides that on Earth.
We are not alone, say the science-fiction writers. Making that assumption, they go on to examine it.
What will it be like when we encounter the people of other worlds, the alien life forms that await us in the
galaxy? Will we find ourselves trampled under the heels of conquerors? Or will we be the conquerors
ourselves, destroying other civilizations in space as we have done on our own planet? What strange
emotional experiences will befall the first men who confront alien creatures? What conflicts will there be,
what philosophical upheavals, what catastrophes and triumphs?
Science fiction attempts to answer these questions. The contact between man and alien has been one of
its central themes since its dawning, The title of a famous early novel by H. G. Wells indicates one
possible outcome of that contact: The War of the Worlds. Other writers have told of more peaceful
meetings, even love, between earthmen and strangers. Nine stories of contact with extraterrestrial beings
are assembled here, offering nine different approaches to that relationship.
But what if we are alone in the universe? What if it turns out that the other worlds of the galaxy are as
lifeless as the voyage of Mariner IV has indicated Mars to be? Are all the speculations of science fiction
worthless, then?
No. Because the science-fiction writer, in the final analysis, is never really writing of other worlds and
other times. Behind the futuristic trappings of his stories lies a more earthbound core. For the
science-fiction writer, no matter how vaulting his imagination may be, is still a man of twentieth-century
Earth. He has never visited another planet nor laid eyes on an alien being. What he writes about, then,
comes from within—what he himself has seen and thought. He translates his own experiences and
speculations into the soaring wonders of science fiction, but we can look behind the rockets and the
strange creatures to find the real world of today. Science fiction, at its best, illuminates our own time by
turning a mirror toward the future.
Even if we are unique in creation, then, we can find merit in stories of other forms of life. The tales of
conflict with beings of the far galaxies, on the most fundamental level, are really stories dealing with that
most basic of human challenges: how to get along with strangers. In the stories, the strangers have purple
skins and ropy tentacles; in real life, the differences are not so vivid, but the gulf is just as great.
We are born into a world full of strangers. Slowly we carve an island of familiarity for ourselves, learn to
overcome fears and suspicions, break down the barriers of strangerhood. So, too, our world may exist in
a galaxy of strangers. The stories in "this book attempt to show what may happen when and if we meet
those strangers. In any case, they tell on a deeper level the story of us all as we reach out to meet others
with uncertain hands.
R.S.
DEAR DEVIL
By Eric Frank Russell
Eric Frank Russell is a towering Englishman whose first science-fiction stories were published in
1937. In the decades since then he has written dozens of notable short stones and such classic
novels as Sinister Barrier and Three to Conquer. Cheerfully irreverent in person, Russell as a
writer is usually breezy and hard-boiled, a teller of tough, fast-paced tales. He has dealt often and
excellently with the theme of Earthman versus Alien, generally against a backdrop of an
intergalactic war, and his sly spies were performing slick tricks long before James Bond first saw
print.
But there is nothing breezy, hard-boiled, tough, military, or sly about Dear Devil. Seldom has a
being from another world been portrayed in science fiction with such warmth and compassion.
Readers are grateful to Eric Frank Russell for his lively stories of action and adventure, but they
will cherish him forever for the unique and wonderful Martian "devil" of this unforgettable story.
The first Martian vessel descended upon Earth with the slow, stately fall of a grounded balloon. It did
resemble a large balloon in that it was spherical and had a strange buoyance out of keeping with its
metallic construction. Beyond this superficial appearance all similarity to anything Terrestrial ceased.
There were no rockets, no crimson Venturis, no external projections other than several solaradiant
distorting grids which boosted the ship in any desired direction through the cosmic field. There were no
observation ports. All viewing was done through a transparent band running right around the fat belly of
the sphere. The bluish, nightmarish crew was assembled behind that band, surveying the world with great
multifaceted eyes.
They gazed through the band in utter silence as they examined this world which was Terra. Even if they
had been capable of speech they would have said nothing. But none among them had a talkative faculty
in any sonic sense. At this quiet moment none needed it.
The scene outside was one of untrammeled desolation. Scraggy blue-green grass clung to tired ground
right away to the horizon scarred by ragged mountains. Dismal bushes struggled for life here and there,
some with the pathetic air of striving to become trees as once their ancestors had been. To the right, a
long, straight scar through the grass betrayed the sterile lumpiness of rocks at odd places. Too rugged
and too narrow ever to have been a road, it suggested no more than the desiccating remnants of a
long-gone wall. And over all this loomed a ghastly sky.
Captain Skhiva eyed his crew, spoke to them with his sign-talking tentacle. The alternative was
contact-telepathy which required physical touch.
"It is obvious that we are out of luck. We could have done no worse had we landed on the empty
satellite. However, it is safe to go out. Anyone who wishes to explore a little while may do so."
One of them gesticulated back at him. "Captain, don't you wish to be the first to step upon this world?"
"It is of no consequence. If anyone deems it an honor, he is welcome to it." He pulled the lever opening
both air-lock doors. Thicker, heavier ah- crowded in and pressure went up a little. "Beware of
overexertion," he warned as they went out.
Poet Pander touched him, tentacles tip to tip as he sent his thoughts racing through their nerve ends. "This
confirms all that we saw as we approached. A stricken planet far gone in its death throes. What do you
suppose caused it?"
"I have not the remotest idea. I would like to know. If it has been smitten by natural forces, what might
they do to Mars?" His troubled mind sent its throb of worry up Pander's contacting tentacle. "A pity that
this planet had not been farther out instead of closer in; we might then have observed the preceding
phenomena from the surface of Mars. It is so difficult properly to view this one against the Sun."
"That applies still more to the next world, the misty one," observed Poet Pander.
"I know it. I am beginning to fear what we may find there. If it proves to be equally dead, then we are
stalled until we can make the big jump outward."
"Which won't be in our lifetimes."
"I doubt it," agreed Captain Skhiva. "We might move fast with the help of friends. We shall be
slow—alone." He turned to watch his crew writhing in various directions across the grim landscape.
"They find it good to be on firm ground. But what is a world without life and beauty? In a short time they
will grow tired of it."
Pander said thoughtfully, "Nevertheless, I would like to see more of it. May I take out the lifeboat?"
"You are a songbird, not a pilot," reproved Captain Skhiva. "Your function is to maintain morale by
entertaining us, not to roam around in a lifeboat."
"But I know how to handle it. Every one of us was trained to handle it. Let me take it that I may see
more."
"Haven't we seen enough, even before we landed? What else is there to see? Cracked and distorted
roads about to dissolve into nothingness. Ages-old cities, torn and broken, crumbling into dust. Shattered
mountains and charred forests and craters little smaller than those upon the Moon. No sign of any
superior lifeform still surviving. Only the grass, the shrubs, and various animals, two- or four-legged, that
flee at our approach. Why do you wish to see more?"
"There is poetry even in death," said Fander.
"Even so, it remains repulsive." Skhiva gave a little shiver. "All right. Take the lifeboat. Who am I to
question the weird workings of the nontechnical mind?"
"Thank you, Captain."
"It is nothing. See that you are back by dusk." Breaking contact, he went to the lock, curled snakishly on
its outer rim and brooded, still without bothering to touch the new world. So much attempted, so much
done—for so poor reward.
He was still pondering it when the lifeboat soared out of its lock. Expressionlessly, his multifaceted eyes
watched the energized grids change angle as the boat swung into a curve and floated away like a little
bubble. Skhiva was sensitive to futility.
The crew came back well before darkness. A few hours were enough. Just grass and shrubs and
child-trees straining to grow up. One had discovered a grassless oblong that once might have been the
site of a dwelling. He brought back a small piece of its foundation, a lump of perished concrete which
Skhiva put by for later analysis.
Another had found a small, brown, six-legged insect, but his nerve ends had heard it crying when he
picked it up, so hastily he had put it down and let it go free. Small, clumsily moving animals had been
seen hopping in the distance, but all had dived down holes in the ground before any Martian could get
near. All the crew were agreed upon one thing: the silence and solemnity of a people's passing was
unendurable.
Pander beat the sinking of the sun by half a time-unit. His bubble drifted under a great, black cloud, sank
to ship level, came in. The rain started a moment later, roaring down in frenzied torrents while they stood
behind the transparent band and marveled at so much water.
After a while, Captain Skhiva told them, "We must accept what we find. We have drawn a blank. The
cause of this world's condition is a mystery to be solved by others with more time and better equipment.
It is for us to abandon this graveyard and try the misty planet. We will take off early in the morning."
None commented, but Pander followed him to his room, made contact with a tentacle-touch.
"One could live here, Captain."
"I am not so sure of that." Skhiva coiled on his couch, suspending his tentacles on the various limb-rests.
The blue sheen of him was reflected by the back wall. "In some places are rocks emitting alpha sparks.
They are dangerous."
"Of course, Captain. But I can sense them and avoid them."
"You?" Skhiva stared up at him.
"Yes, Captain. I wish to be left here."
"What? In this place of appalling repulsiveness?"
"It has an all-pervading air of ugliness and despair," admitted Poet Pander. "All destruction is ugly. But by
accident I have found a little beauty. It heartens me. I would like to seek its source."
"To what beauty do you refer?" Skhiva demanded.
Pander tried to explain the alien in nonalien terms.
"Draw it for me," ordered Skhiva.
Pander drew it, gave him the picture, said, "There!"
Gazing at it for a long time, Skhiva handed it back, mused awhile, then spoke along the other's nerves.
"We are individuals with all the rights of individuals. As an individual, I don't think that picture sufficiently
beautiful to be worth the tail-tip of a domestic arlan. I will admit that it is not ugly, even that it is
pleasing."
"But, Captain—"
"As an individual," Skhiva went on, "you have an equal right to your opinions, strange though they may
be. If you really wish to stay I cannot refuse you. I am entitled only to think you a little crazy." He eyed
Pander again. "When do you hope to be picked up?"
"This year, next year, sometime, never."
"It may well be never," Skhiva reminded him. "Are you prepared to face that prospect?"
"One must always be prepared to face the consequences of his own actions," Pander pointed out.
"True." Skhiva was reluctant to surrender. "But have you given the matter serious thought?"
"I am a nontechnical component. I am not guided by thought."
"Then by what?"
"By my desires, emotions, instincts. By my inward feelings."
Skhiva said fervently, "The twin moons preserve us!"
"Captain, sing me a song of home and play me the tinkling harp."
"Don't be silly. I have not the ability."
"Captain, if it required no more than careful thought you would be able to do it?"
"Doubtlessly," agreed Skhiva, seeing the trap but unable to avoid it.
"There you are!" said Pander pointedly.
"I give up. I cannot argue with someone who casts aside the accepted rules of logic and invents his own.
You are governed by notions that defeat me."
"It is not a matter of logic or illogic," Pander told him. "It is merely a matter of viewpoint. You see certain
angles; I see others."
"For example?"
"You won't pin me down that way. I can find examples. For instance, do you remember the formula for
determining the phase of a series tuned circuit?"
"Most certainly."
"I felt sure you would. You are a technician. You have registered it for all tune as a matter of technical
utility." He paused, staring at Skhiva. "I know that formula, too. It was mentioned to me, casually, many
years ago. It is of no use to me—yet I have never forgotten it."
"Why?"
"Because it holds the beauty of rhythm. It is a poem," Pander explained.
Skhiva sighed and said, "I don't get it."
"One upon R into omega L minus one upon omega C," recited Pander. "A perfect hexameter." He
showed his amusement as the other rocked back.
After a while, Skhiva remarked, "It could be sung. One could dance to it."
"Same with this." Pander exhibited his rough sketch. "This holds beauty. Where there is beauty there
once was talent—may still be talent for all we know. Where talent abides is also greatness. In the realms
of greatness we may find powerful friends. We need such friends."
"You win." Skhiva made a gesture of defeat. "We leave you to your self-chosen fate in the morning."
"Thank you, Captain."
That same streak of stubbornness which made Skhiva a worthy commander induced him to take one final
crack at Pander shortly before departure. Summoning him to his room, he eyed the poet calculatingly.
"You are still of the same mind?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Then does it not occur to you as strange that I should be so content to abandon this planet if indeed it
does hold the remnants of greatness?"
"No."
"Why not?" Skhiva stiffened slightly.
"Captain, I think you are a little afraid because you suspect what I suspect—that there was no natural
disaster. They did it themselves, to themselves."
"We have no proof of it," said Skhiva uneasily.
"No, Captain." Pander paused there without desire to add more.
"If this is their- own sad handiwork," Skhiva commented at length, "what are our chances of finding
friends among people so much to be feared?"
"Poor," admitted Pander. "But that—being the product of cold thought—means little to me. I am
animated by warm hopes."
'There you go again, blatantly discarding reason in favor of an idle dream. Hoping, hoping, hoping—to
achieve the impossible."
Pander said, "The difficult can be done at once; the impossible takes a little longer."
"Your thoughts make my orderly mind feel lopsided. Every remark is a flat denial of something that
makes sense." Skhiva transmitted the sensation of a lugubrious chuckle. "Oh, well, we live and learn." He
came forward, moving closer to the other. "All your supplies are assembled outside. Nothing remains but
to bid you goodbye."
They embraced in the Martian manner. Leaving the lock, Poet Pander watched the big sphere shudder
and glide up. It soared without sound, shrinking steadily until it was a mere dot entering a cloud. A
moment later it had gone.
He remained there, looking at the cloud, for a long, long tune. Then he turned his attention to the
load-sled holding his supplies. Climbing onto its tiny, exposed front seat, he shifted the control which
energized the flotation-grids, let it rise a few feet. The higher the rise the greater the expenditure of
power. He wished to conserve power; there was no knowing how long he might need it. So at low
altitude and gentle pace he let the sled glide in the general direction of the thing of beauty.
Later, he found a dry cave in the hill on which his objective stood. It took him two days of careful,
cautious raying to square its walls, ceiling and floor, plus half a day with a powered fan driving out silicate
dust. After that, he stowed his supplies at the back, parked the sled near the front, set up a curtaining
force-screen across the entrance. The hole in the hill was now home.
Slumber did not come easily that first night. He lay within the cave, a ropy, knotted thing of glowing blue
with enormous, beelike eyes, and found himself listening for harps that played sixty million miles away.
His tentacle-ends twitched in involuntary search of the telepathic-contact songs that would go with the
harps, and twitched in vain. Darkness grew deep, and all the world a monstrous stillness held. His hearing
organs craved for the eventide flip-flop of sand-frogs, but there were no frogs. He wanted the homely
drone of night beetles, but none droned. Except for once when something faraway howled its heart at the
Moon, there was nothing, nothing.
In the morning he washed, ate, took out the sled and explored the site of a small town. He found little to
satisfy his curiosity, no more than mounds of shapeless rubble on ragged, faintly oblong foundations. It
was a graveyard of long-dead domiciles, rotting, weedy, near to complete oblivion. A view from five
hundred feet up gave him only one piece of information: the orderliness of outlines showed that these
people had been tidy, methodical.
But tidiness is not beauty in itself. He came back to the top of his hill and sought solace with the thing that
was beauty.
His explorations continued, not systematically as Skhiva would have performed them, but in accordance
with his own mercurial whims. At times he saw many animals, singly or in groups, none resembling
anything Martian. Some scattered at full gallop when his sled swooped over them. Some dived into
groundholes, showing a brief flash of white, absurd tails, Others, four-footed, long-faced, sharp-toothed,
hunted" in gangs and bayed at him in concert with harsh, defiant voices.
On the seventieth day, in a deep, shadowed glade to the north, he spotted a small group of new shapes
slinking along* in single file. He recognized them at a glance, knew them so well that his searching eyes
sent an immediate thrill of triumph into his mind. They were ragged, dirty, and no more than half grown,
but the thing of beauty had told him what they were.
Hugging the ground low, he swept around in a wide curve that brought him to the farther end of the
glade. His sled sloped slightly into the drop as it entered the glade. He could see them better now, even
the soiled pinkishness of their thin legs. They were moving away from him, with fearful caution, but the
silence of his swoop gave them no warning.
The rearmost one of the stealthy file fooled him at the last moment. He was hanging over the side of the
sled, tentacles outstretched in readiness to snatch the end one with the wild mop of yellow hair when,
responding to some sixth sense, his intended victim threw itself flat. His grasp shot past a couple of feet
short, and he got a glimpse of frightened gray eyes two seconds before a dexterous side-tilt of the sled
enabled him to make good his loss by grabbing the less wary next in line.
This one was dark haired, a bit bigger, and sturdier. It fought madly at his holding limbs while he gained
altitude. Then suddenly, realizing the queer nature of its bonds, it writhed around and looked straight at
him. The result was unexpected; it closed its eyes and went completely limp.
It was still limp when he bore it into the cave, but its heart continued to beat and its lungs to draw. Laying
it carefully on the softness of his bed, he moved to the cave's entrance and waited for it to recover.
Eventually it stirred, sat up, gazed confusedly at the facing wall. Its black eyes moved slowly around,
taking in the surroundings. Then they saw Pander. They widened tremendously, and their owner began to
make highpitched, unpleasant noises as it tried to back away through the solid wall. It screamed so much,
in one rising throb after another, that Pander slithered out of the cave, right out of sight, and sat in the
cold winds until the noises had died down.
A couple of hours later he made cautious reappearance to offer it food, but its reaction was so swift,
hysterical, and heartrending that he dropped his load and hid himself as though the fear was his own. The
food remained untouched for two full days. On the third, a little of it was eaten. Pander ventured within.
Although the Martian did not go near, the boy cowered away, murmuring, "Devil! Devil!" His eyes were
red, with dark discoloration beneath them.
"Devil!" thought Pander, totally unable to repeat the alien word, but wondering what it meant. He used his
sign-talking tentacle in valiant effort to convey something reassuring. The attempt was wasted. The other
watched its writhings half in fear, half with distaste, and showed complete lack of comprehension. He let
the tentacle gently slither forward across the floor, hoping to make thought-contact. The other recoiled
from it as from a striking snake.
"Patience," he reminded himself. "The impossible takes a little longer."
Periodically he showed himself with food and drink, and nighttimes he slept fitfully on the coarse, damp
grass beneath lowering skies—while the prisoner who was his guest enjoyed the softness of the bed, the
warmth of the cave, the security of the force-screen.
Time came when Pander betrayed an unpoetic shrewdness by using the other's belly to estimate the
ripeness of the moment. When, on the eighth day, he noted that his food-offerings were now being taken
regularly, he took a meal of his own at the edge of the cave, within plain sight, and observed that the
other's appetite was not spoiled. That night he slept just within the cave, close to the force-screen, and as
far from the boy as possible. The boy stayed awake late, watching him, always watching him, but gave
way to slumber in the small hours.
A fresh attempt at sign-talking brought no better results than before, and the boy still refused to touch his
offered tentacle. All the same, he was gaining ground slowly. His overtures still were rejected, but with
less revulsion. Gradually, ever so gradually, the Martian shape was becoming familiar, almost acceptable.
The sweet savor of success was Pander's in the middle of the next day. The boy had displayed several
spells of emotional sickness during which he lay on his front with shaking body and emitted low noises
while his eyes watered profusely. At such times the Martian felt strangely helpless and inadequate. On
this occasion, during another attack, he took advantage of the sufferer's lack of attention and slid near
enough to snatch away the box by the bed.
From the box he drew his tiny electroharp, plugged its connectors, switched it on, touched its strings with
delicate affection. Slowly he began to play, singing an accompaniment deep inside himself. For he had no
voice with which to sing out loud, but the harp sang it for him. The boy ceased his quiverings, sat up, all
his attention upon the dexterous play of the tentacles and the music they conjured forth. And when he
judged that at last the listener's mind was captured, Fonder ceased with easy, quietening strokes, gently
offered him the harp. The boy registered interest and reluctance. Careful not to move nearer, not an inch
nearer, Pander offered it at full tentacle length. The boy had to take four steps to get it. He took them.
That was the start. They played together, day after day and sometimes a little into the night, while almost
imperceptibly the distance between them was reduced. Finally they sat together, side by side, and the
boy had not yet learned to laugh but no longer did he show unease. He could now extract a simple tune
from the instrument and was pleased with his own aptitude in a solemn sort of way.
One evening as darkness grew, and the things that sometimes howled at the Moon were howling again,
Pander offered his tentacle-tip for the hundredth time. Always the gesture had been unmistakable even if
its motive was not clear, yet always it had been rebuffed. But now, now, five fingers curled around it in
shy desire to please.
With a fervent prayer that human nerves would function just like Martian ones, Pander poured his
thoughts through, swiftly, lest the warm grip be loosened too soon.
"Do not fear me. I cannot help my shape any more than you can help yours. I am your friend, your father,
your mother. I need you as much as you need me."
The boy let go of him, began quiet, half-stifled whimpering noises. Pander put a tentacle on his shoulder,
made little patting motions that he imagined were wholly Martian. For some inexplicable reason, this
made matters worse. At his wits' end what to do for the best, what action to take that might be
understandable in Terrestrial terms, he gave the problem up, surrendered to his instinct, put a long, ropy
limb around the boy and held him close until the noises ceased and slumber came. It was then he realized
the child he had taken was much younger than he had estimated. He nursed nun through the night.
Much practice was necessary to make conversation. The boy had to learn to put mental drive behind his
thoughts, for it was beyond Pander's power to suck them out of him.
"What is your name?"
Pander got a picture of thin legs running rapidly.
He returned it in question form. "Speedy?"
An affirmative.
"What name do you call me?"
An unflattering montage of monsters.
"Devil?"
The picture whirled around, became confused. There was a trace of embarrassment.
"Devil will do," assured Pander. He went on, "Where are your parents?"
More confusion.
"You must have had parents. Everyone has a father and mother, haven't they? Don't you remember
yours?"
Muddled ghost-pictures. Grown-ups leaving children. Grown-ups avoiding children, as if they feared
them.
"What is the first thing you remember?"
"Big man walking with me. Carried me a bit. Walked again."
"What happened to him?"
"Went away. Said he was sick. Might make me sick too."
"Long ago?"
Confusion.
Pander changed his aim. "What of those other children—have they no parents either?"
"All got nobody."
"But you've got somebody now, haven't you, Speedy?"
Doubtfully. "Yes."
Pander pushed it farther. "Would you rather have me, or those other children?" He let it rest a moment
before he added, "Or both?"
"Both," said Speedy with no hesitation. His fingers toyed with the harp.
"Would you like to help me look for them tomorrow and bring them here? And if they are scared of me
will you help them not to be afraid?"
"Sure!" said Speedy, licking his lips and sticking his chest out.
"Then," said Pander, "perhaps you would like to go for a walk today? You've been too long in this cave.
Will you come for a walk with me?"
"Y'betcha!"
Side by side they went a short walk, one trotting rapidly along, the other slithering. The child's spirits
perked up with this trip in the open; it was as if the sight of the sky and the feel of the grass made him
realize at last that he was not exactly a prisoner. His formerly solemn features became animated, he made
exclamations that Pander could not understand, and once he laughed at nothing for the sheer joy of it. On
two occasions he grabbed a tentacle-tip in order to tell Pander something, performing the action as if it
were in every way as natural as his own speech.
They got out the load-sled in the morning. Pander took the front seat and the controls; Speedy squatted
behind him with hands gripping his harness-belt. With a shallow soar, they headed for the glade. Many
small, white-tailed animals bolted down holes as they passed over.
"Good for dinner," remarked Speedy, touching him and speaking through the touch.
Pander felt sickened. Meat-eaters! It was not until a queer feeling of shame and apology came back at
him that he knew the other had felt his revulsion. He wished he'd been swift to blanket that reaction
before the boy could sense it, but he could not be blamed for the effect of so bald a statement taking him
so completely unaware. However, it had produced another step forward in their mutual
relationship—Speedy desired his good opinion.
摘要：

ScannedbyHighrollerandproofedmoreorlessbyHighroller.INTRODUCTIONThefirstthingeverychildlearnsisthatheisnottheentireuniverse.Itcomesasashock,eventhoughthediscoveryisgradual.Asababy'sawarenessgrows,herealizesthatatleastoneotherhumancreatureexists—hismother,thatlarge,warm,protectiveobjectthatisalwaysne...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：130 页 大小：330.38KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

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