Alien from Arcturus Read online

  “Of course. Having you around all the time, Peep, I forgot how advanced you Aliens are over a primitive race like our own. Forgetting this, I often must have imposed—”

  “Oh, Mal, don’t be stupid!” cried Margie.

  “If you’ll let me get a word in edgewise—imposed upon your natural kindness and good nature.”

  “Young friend,” said Peep precisely, “you baffle me.”

  “It’s President Waring,” explained Dirk. “He’s been explaining what you were really like.”

  “And what am I like?”

  Margie told him.

  “Ah,” said Peep.

  He glanced a little slyly at Mal, who was still standing sternly, almost at attention, his face showing his disapproval of Dirk and Margie. Something about the situation seemed to amuse Peep.

  “I,” said Peep, “belong to a race that has a known history of sixty-eight thousand years.”

  “Oh?” said Mal, seeing the remark was directed at him.

  “We have played a part in the Federation for fifty thousand years,” continued Peep. “I translate, of course, into terms of your earthly calendar. Generation has succeeded generation, sons rising in knowledge above their fathers, until—in culmination you might say—roughly two hundred and thirty of your Earth years ago, I was born.”

  Mal looked at him suspiciously. Peep moved closer.

  “From my earliest years,” he murmured, “I showed great promise. Compared to my schoolmates on Jusileminopratipup, I showed startling brilliance—and of course you realize how the least of these would compare to a primitive human like yourself.”

  Mal was openly scowling now. If the idea had not been completely ridiculous—in a class with lashing out at a brick wall—those watching might have thought that he was on the verge of taking a punch at Peep.

  “I put in fifty years of study in the field of the general sciences,” Peep was continuing. “Following this, I elected to specialize in the emotional sciences. After a hundred and twelve more years, I found myself a researcher and an accepted authority in my field.”

  Mal snorted slightly. Just why was not clear. “And then,” went on Peep, “I went in for field studies. I left my confreres far behind as I plunged into new and unexplored areas of research. For thirty years I blazed a trail in the development of a method of emotional investigation. Following this, I scouted far afield over the galaxy. I made countless studies. And finally—” Peep had drawn right up to Mal’s ear and was barely whispering now— “I was ready to come forth with my conclusion—my complete and substantiated Theory of Emotion, which would explain the common end toward which all races, all beings, were striving. I concluded, I checked. I double-checked. And finally I was sure. I had found it.”

  They were all listening intently now. Peep’s tense whisper and his dramatic recital were hypnotizing them.

  “I leaped to my feet with joy and hurried outside my tree house—I was on Jusileminopratipup at the time, my home world. I whipped around to its other entrance and caught the Atakit who lived there just coming out. He was Lajikoromatitupiyot, a great friend of mine, and like myself, an earnest researcher in the field of emotion. Joyfully, I poured forth my theory to him—” Abruptly, Peep stopped. The three humans waited tensely for him to continue, but when he merely went on sitting there, combing his whiskers with the fingers of one hand, it became clear that someone was going to have to prompt him.

  “Well?” demanded Mal ungraciously. “What happened them?”

  “Oh, I told you that,” said Peep in his normal voice. “Remember?”

  “Remember?” echoed Mal, astonished. And the three humans stared at the little Atakit in bewilderment.

  “Why, certainly,” replied Peep. “I remember telling you all about it shortly after we met for the first time. Poor Lajikoromatitupiyot was slightly skeptical of my process of reasoning in arriving at my theory. In a shameful rage at his purblindness, I picked him up and beat him against the tree trunk. Not—” put in Peep in parentheses—“that I make a habit of such reactions. As I told you, it is an unfortunate racial characteristic of us Atakits. Even Laj himself—who has a very calm and analytical mind ordinarily—has so forgotten himself as to break a table or some such over my head in the heat of discussion on several occasions. However—as I told you, the same thing happened with another of my fellow workers, with whom I attempted to discuss my theory shortly afterward. I ended by throwing him over a waterfall. Eventually I was forced to recognize the futility of such violent methods of discussing a Theory of Non-Violence. It was at that time I heard of your Earth and the Neo-Taylorites and fled to them as to a refuge.”

  He looked at them all. For a moment they stared back dumfounded.

  “Non-Violence—?” breathed Mal.

  “Exactly,” said Peep. “All emotional beings uniformly tend toward a future in which all possible violence to their emotions will be eliminated. Since my return to Arcturus, I have discovered that my theory, after all, has met with a great deal of approval after being checked by other workers in the field. This is very satisfactory, since it partially answers the long-standing question of what the eventual goal of civilization must be. I feel fairly safe in predicting that our professional group may jointly announce Non-Violence as a goal to be striven for. Of course—” and here he repeated his sly look at Mal—“I couldn’t possibly expect a primitive like you to do any striving for about sixty thousand years or so—even though Neo-Taylorism and the practical application of your own work tie in so nicely with my theory.”

  “What?” said Mal and became conscious that all the rest were smiling at him. “But—but now, look, Peep. Waring had a point. The disparity between us—”

  “Ah, yes,” said Peep. “The anthropologist and the native. Now, assuming that that is a valid interpretation of our respective roles, tell me, Mal—after a primitive society becomes exposed to an advanced civilization, how long does it take to produce a member of that primitive society who fits into the civilization?”

  “Why—” said Mal, “you could take a child of the next generation and if you brought it up in civilization—”

  “Exactly,” replied Peep. “And there is the solution to your problem. If a human is willing to grow up in the Federation as a full citizen of it, he can participate as well as any other member of it.”

  “That’s all right for the next generation, then,” said Mal sadly, seeing the beautiful stores of knowledge tucked away in the Federation dwindling into the distance. “But not for me.”

  “I can’t agree,” answered Peep. “Correct me if I err, but I have just finished telling you that I myself am somewhat over two hundred and thirty of your Earth years in age, and only at the beginning of a long and useful lifetime, we in the Federation having in some sense found a solution to the problem of aging. This solution will, of course, be available now to your people; and since you, I believe, are only in your twenties—mere children yet with your growing up still before you—” He let the sentence trail off slyly.

  He beamed at them.

  “And in fact,” he said, “that is what you are, you know, in spirit and in knowledge and experience—all of you—children. And you will forgive me, I know, if I am therefore tempted to steal a phrase.”

  Peep’s eyes were sparkling and whiskers fairly curled upward at the ends in satisfaction as he gazed at them.

  “I would say,” he said, raising one hand in the air, “in memory of our past companionship and in expectation of our companionship to come—I speak not merely of you three and myself, but of your kind and mine, and in the name of Non-Violence and true affection—”

  Once more he paused, and his beam included them all.

  “I would say—bless you all, my children.” And a tear of pure, shy happiness ran down from one eye and sparkled on the end of his black and shining nose.

 

 
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