Do Unto Others Part 4

This was not unusual. She never visited my suite. When I was twenty-one she took me into the south wing and said, "Choose your own suite, Hapland. You are a man now, and I understand about young men."

If she had in mind what I thought she had it was a mighty big concession to reality, although, of course, she was five years late in coming around to it.

This older generation--so wise, so naive. She probably resolutely refrained from imagining far worse things than really went on.

About two weeks after she'd come back from the convention, a month since we returned from Capella IV, there was an interruption, an excited one. For once in his life the butler forgot to touch my door with feather fingertips and cough discreetly. Instead he knocked two sharp raps, and opened the door without invitation.

"Come quickly, Master Hapland," he chittered urgently. "There are creatures on our private landing field."

There were, too.

When I got there in my garden scooter, and pushed my way through the crowd of gardeners who were cl.u.s.tered on the path and around the gate to the landing field, I saw them. At least a dozen of the Capella IV octopoids were spread eagled, their tentacles out flat on the hot cement of the runway. Their eye stared unblinking into the sun. Over their spread of tentacles, like inverted hibiscus blossoms, they wore their mother hubbards.

Behind them, over at the far edge of the field, was an exact duplicate of our own s.p.a.ce yacht. I wondered, rather hysterically perhaps, if each of them on Capella IV now had one. I suspected the yacht was simply there for show, that they hadn't needed it, not any more than they needed the mother hubbards.

There was the hiss of another scooter, and I turned around to see Aunt Mattie come to a stop. She stepped out and came over to me.

"Our social call on Capella IV is being returned," I said with a grin and twinkle at her.

She took in the sight with only one blink.

"Very well," she answered. "I shall receive them, of course." Somebody once said that the most sn.o.bbish thing about the whole tribe of Tombs was that they'd never learned the meaning of the word, or had to. But I did wonder what the servants would think when the creatures started slithering into our drawing room.

There was a gasp and a low rumble of protesting voices from the gardeners as Aunt Mattie opened the gate and walked through it. I followed, of course. We walked up to the nearest monster and came to stop at the edge of its skirt.

"I'm deeply honored," Aunt Mattie said with more cordiality than I'd seen her use on a Secretary of State. "What can I do to make your visit to Earth more comfortable?"

There was no reply, not even the flicker of a tentacle.

They were even more unusual than one might expect. Aunt Mattie resolutely went to each of the dozen and gave the same greeting. She felt her duty as a hostess required it, although I knew that a greeting to one was a greeting to all. Not one of them responded. It seemed rather ridiculous. They'd come all this way to see us, then didn't bother to acknowledge that we were there.

We spent more than an hour waiting for some kind of a response. None came. Aunt Mattie showed no sign of impatience, which I thought was rather praiseworthy, all things considered. But finally we left. She didn't show what she felt, perhaps felt only that one had to be patient with the lack of manners in the lower orders.

I was more interested in another kind of feeling, the one we left behind. What was it? I couldn't put my finger on it. Sadness? Regret?

Distaste? Pity? Magnanimity? Give a basket of goodies to the poor at Christmas? Give them some clothes to cover their nakedness? Teach them a sense of shame?

No, I couldn't put my finger on it.

Hilarity?

I found myself regretting that back there on Capella IV, when Aunt Mattie put clothes on him, and the monster had looked at me, I winked.

I wondered why I should regret that.

I didn't have long to wonder.

Nothing happened during the rest of the day. We went back, together and separately, several times during the daylight hours and during the early hours of the night. For a wonder, n.o.body had leaked anything to the newspapers, and for what it was worth, we had the show to ourselves.

"Perhaps tomorrow," Aunt Mattie said around midnight, as we left the field for the last time. "Perhaps they must rest."

"I could use some of that," I said with a yawn.

"Yes, Hapland," she agreed. "We must conserve our strength. Heaven knows what may be required of us on the morrow."

Did she feel something, too? It was so strong, how could she help it?

And yet, the monster had not looked into her eye.

I didn't expect to sleep well, but I fooled myself. I was quite sure I hadn't more than closed my eyes when I was roused by another excited rapping on my bedroom door and again the butler rushed in without ceremony.

"Look, Master Hapland," he shouted in a near falsetto.

He pulled so hard on my drapes they swept back from my windows like a stage curtain--and I looked.

To the very limit of our grounds in the distance, but not beyond, the trees, the shrubs, the drives and walkways, the lawns and ponds, all were covered with a two foot thick blanket of glistening salt.

"And the monsters are gone," the butler was saying. "And I must go to your aunt."

"So must I," I said, and grabbed up a robe.

As I ran, overtook him, pa.s.sed him, from all over the house I could hear excited outcries, wonder, amazement, anger, fear from the servants. I finished the length of my wing, sprinted through the main body of the house, and down the hallway of her wing to the door of her suite. I didn't need to knock, someone had left it open.

Her own personal maid, I saw, as I ran past the little alcove into the sitting room. The maid was standing beside Aunt Mattie, wringing her hands and crying. The drapes here, too, were swept full back, and through the windows I could see the collection, the highly prized, wondrous collection of flora, all covered in salt.

Aunt Mattie stood there, without support, looking at it. When I came up to her there were tears in her eyes and glistening streaks on her wrinkled cheeks.

"Why?" she asked. It was very quietly spoken.

By now the butler had made the trip, and came into the room. I turned to him.

"If we hurry," I said. "A good deal of the collection is enclosed under plastic domes. If we don't wet the salt, and if we hurry and have it sc.r.a.ped away from the buildings it won't poison the ground inside them. We can save most of the collection that way."

"No, Master Hapland," he said, and shook his head. "The salt is inside the buildings, just as much as here. A gardener shouted it at me as I pa.s.sed."

Aunt Mattie's closed fist came up to her lips, and then dropped again.

That was all.

"Why, Hapland?" she asked again. "Evil for good? Why?"

I motioned the maid and butler to leave--and take with them the cl.u.s.ter of servants around the door in the hall. I took Aunt Mattie over to her favorite chair, the one where she could sit and look out at her collection; no point in pretending the salt wasn't there. I sat down at her feet, the way I used to when I was ten years old. I looked out at the salt, too. It was everywhere. Every inch of our grounds was covered with it, to poison the earth so that nothing could grow in it.

It would take years to restore the grounds, and many more years to restore the collection.

"Try to understand, Aunt Mattie," I said. "Not only what I say, but all the implications of it. They didn't return evil for good. Let's see it from what might have been their point of view. They live on a world of salt, an antiseptic world. We went there, and you intended good. You told them that our code was to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

"They returned our visit, and what did they find? What kind of a pestilent horror did we live in? Bare ground, teeming with life, billions of life forms in every cubic foot of ground beneath our feet.

Above the ground, too. Raw, growing life all around us, towering over us.

"If they were doomed to live in such a world, they would want it covered in salt, to kill all the life, make it antiseptic. They owed nothing to the rest of Earth, but they owed this kindness to you. They did unto others, as they would have others do unto them."