The Creatures of Man (14 page)

Romee wished again that the exploiter Earthmen were still running things.
They
would have given the noise trees a real scorching. After which there would have been plenty of Notcidese on the plains once more, to go hunt natsacher shoots. Plenty of natsacher for Earth, and plenty of chocolate for Notcid.

But as things stood, whatever was done about the noise trees would have to be done by the Notcidese themselves . . .

She paused on the trail. If a noise tree was tricked into eating all three of its masses, would it die?

Perhaps. Certainly it would be harmless. Why not go back and finish off that one she had started on? She decided against it. That was something to try when she had no new hatchlings and a chimo heavy with milk . . . and when she was not herself heavy with eggs, of course.

The seasons passed at the bower on West Hill with the Flat Rock on the Brook. The new hatchlings grew rapidly. There was plentiful milk for them, because Romee and her chimo Pipak enjoyed the secondary sex act frequently, keeping Pipak's mammaries well stimulated.

And certainly there was no shortage of meat animals, although their flesh was tougher and less tasty than it had been when the animals were fewer and the grass taller. There was also enough redroot, even though it was almost impossible to keep the meat animals from raiding the garden and nibbling away the tops before the redroots could become mature.

And there was damn-television. And chocolate.

But the time came when Pipak's breasts were empty, and the hatchlings were weaned. And the chocolate was running out.

Romee had dreaded this moment, but knew it had to come. She had, of course, told Pipak about her experience with the noise tree, and how it could be outwitted. Also, she had told her neighbors, and they in turn had told theirs. Most everyone on the plains knew about it, but still natsach gatherers went into the jungle not to return when the noise sounded.

Telling them to fall flat rather than jump wasn't enough, Romee realized. They needed the Earthman Truit to train them, as she had been trained, to modify their reaction. But Truit and Miss McGuire were long gone.

Romee mentioned to Pipak once that she, not he, should go to the jungle, but he would not hear of it. He had his masculine pride, and it was his turn to go. She could not cross him.

One morning she set out for the Cultural Exchange Center, after promising him faithfully that she would not enter the jungle, that she merely wanted to find out about her damage money. She meant to keep her promise, but her trip had another purpose aside from the damage money.

As she neared the Center, she left the main path and angled off across the rolling grassland until she reached the flat hilltop where Truit had conducted his experiment. She had some trouble deciding exactly where the hovercar had landed, but finally figured it out. Then she picked a spot and began digging.

The device . . . the noisemaker . . . was still there, barely covered with a clump of loose sod. She put it in her sack and paced back past the place where the hovercar had sat. In a moment she found the second noisemaker.

She squatted and studied them for a while, but, as she had expected, she did not know how to make them work. She put both of them in her sack and headed for the Cultural Exchange Center.

The same man was still running the damn-TV repair shop. He grinned at her and called her "honey" because he didn't remember her name. It was strange, she reflected, that the exploiters had, like this man, always been friendly but hardly ever polite, while the new people were polite but hardly ever friendly.

Romee put the noisemakers on the counter. "I want to stand in one place, and make either of these work in two other places," she said to him.

He examined the devices. "No problem," he grunted.

She walked home through the dark that night, partly because she wanted to get the noisemakers in place while Pipak and the young ones were sleeping, and partly because she wanted to get back so quickly that Pipak would be sure she had not gone to the jungle. The Earthman Grandolph had surprised her by having her damage money ready for her, and she did not want Pipak to doubt her word when she told him how she had raised the price of a large sack of chocolate and a power knife as well.

She was squatting outside the bower, eating a redroot, when he woke at dawn and came outside. He smiled as soon as he saw her.

"You're back."

"Yes, I hurried."

Almost reluctantly she pressed the button on the little box concealed in her hand. In a way, this was a mean trick.

KRO-O-OMM!

Pipak went flying through the air, and there was a scurrying and scuffling inside the bower. In a moment six young furry faces were peering out the entry at her.

"Come outside, children," she ordered, "and stand facing that way."

When she had the young positioned so neither noisemaker would be behind them, she walked over to where Pipak lay shaking. "See? There isn't any danger," she said. "Just a loud noise. A piece of equipment made it. Stand up. I will test your ability to modify, under controlled conditions, an over-response to stimuli that seems a universal flaw . . . characteristic, I mean . . . in the Notcidese psycho-physiological pattern . . .

She hoped she was getting the words right.

Barbara Smith led the two small boys, one by each hand, into an ugly, sparsely furnished room in the Thorling School basement. There was an old couch, a table littered with gaudy children's books and magazines, and a couple of scarred chairs. On the floor was a toy fire truck. On the window sills, so high as to be well out of arm's reach of the boys, sat what appeared to be an assortment of bottles and dimestore vases. Actually, these were made of lightweight, easily shattered plastic, not of glass.

"Here we are, children!" said Miss Smith. She released them and backed away, leaving the tykes to stare at one another with uneasy curiosity. Miss Smith added, "Stevie, this is David; David, this is Stevie. Now, you two play, and I'll come back in a little while."

She left the room.

Left to their own devices, Stevie and David prowled their separate, self-conscious courses about the room, each aiming indirectly at the fire truck—the only toy in sight.

"Are you goin' to go to school here?" David asked.

"I guess so," said Stevie. "Are you?"

"Yeah."

"I'm five."

"I'm almost."

They arrived at the fire truck at the same time. Stevie squatted beside it and pressed his right hand firmly on its red top. Without closing his fingers he pushed it back and forth, while David watched silently. Then Stevie shoved it across the floor to bang against a wall, and David walked after it. He kneeled beside the truck, tried the back-and-forth routine, then scooted it back in Stevie's direction. Stevie sprawled sideways to intercept it and both boys laughed.

Soon they were both sitting on the floor, some distance apart, happily rolling the truck from one to the other. The routine of a game had been established.

Watching from behind a one-way mirror, Headmaster Judson Royster grunted dubiously, "This doesn't look like a psychokinetic duel to me. They've gotten on good terms almost immediately. Is there any point in continuing?"

Miss Smith was frowning in disappointment. "Let's watch a little longer," she urged. "This was such a fine opportunity—two new children, boys the same age, strangers to each other, with home reputations for 'throwing things' and, of course, both with behavior problems. I still think those young fellows ought to be tangling for possession of that fire truck!"

"Just how did you expect this battle of the century to develop?" Royster asked dryly.

Miss Smith's eyes snapped at him, but her words were matter-of-fact: "The fight for possession would be physical, a tugging match probably. As soon as one boy got possession, the other would vent his frustration by pelting the victor with the vases and bottles. This would scare and anger the victor into retaliating in kind. If this phase could end with only one piece of ammunition left unbroken, and both boys struggling for psi control of that piece . . ."

" . . . Then both boys would wind up with well-developed mental muscles, after just one easy lesson," Royster finished. He looked through the mirror at the boys, who were still playing peaceably. "Perhaps it could work even yet," he added, "but I've explained my lack of faith in shortcuts of this sort. And anyway, the problem is not so much to strengthen ESP talents as to bring them under conscious control. That has always been the problem, and I know only one way to solve it. No matter how many breakaway bottles David and Stevie pelt each other with while in fits of rage, I wouldn't expect the exercise to prepare them, when they're making a calm, rational effort, to roll one peanut."

He concluded with a grin, "Are you sure we're not staging this experiment simply to satisfy your feminine urge to see two masterful males locked in combat?"

Miss Smith gave the remark the sniff of dismissal which, Royster agreed to himself, was all it deserved. Why did his attempts at jokes with her always come out with more cutting edge than humor? Maybe the reason was that he . . . No! He broke away from the forbidden train of thought, as he always did. After all, he was in a building full of telepathic children!

"I'll get another pretty girl's opinion," he said lightly, turning to the serious-faced, twelve-year-old blonde who was standing a little apart from them in the observation cubicle. "Jilly," he asked, "how do you size up our gladiators?"

"They won't fight," Jilly replied assuredly. "David started to get mad when Stevie first touched the truck, but he just stood there. They're pretty sure they're being watched."

"How's that? Telepathy?"

"Just a little bit," the girl answered. "Not that they can read us or anything, but they can sense us looking at them. So they won't fight while they feel like that."

"Damn!" groaned Miss Smith. "Forgive the language, Jilly, but I'd have thought it if I hadn't said it. The whole idea of this experiment hangs on those two kids being isolated. Certainly it won't work with them aware of adult presences."

"Maybe if you let a movie camera do the watching it would work," Jilly suggested.

"There isn't a camera in the building," said Royster. "And besides . . ."

A boy of nine pushed through the door of the observation booth with an excited expression on his face. "Hostiles in the first floor halls, Mr. Royster!" he puffed breathlessly. Turning to Jilly he added an angry reproach, "Jilly, why wasn't you
listening
?" . . .

"I was busy listening to them," she answered, pointing to the boys playing with the truck.

"What kind of hostiles, Arthur?" Royster asked.

"Inspectors from the state! School credit inspectors!"

"Accreditation inspectors from the State Department of Public Instruction?" Royster asked sharply.

"Yeah! That's them! And they have it in for the school!"

Royster nodded grimly. "I'd better get up there," he said swiftly. "Miss Smith, take David and Stevie up to Miss Wembley's class, then go on to the office. Jilly, Arthur, spread the word that outsiders are here and that everything must look normal in the classrooms. And get back to your own classes."

"The dormitories are fragrant," commented Arthur.

Royster stared down at him in puzzlement for a second, then said, "The word is 'flagrant', Arthur. You're right. Jilly, get three of the older boys and two girls plus yourself up to the dorms right away. Put everything used in ESP out of sight—the pendulums, pith balls, decks, everything! Hurry! I'll try to keep the inspectors away from the dorms long enough for you to get through."

"O.K.," said the girl, dashing off. Miss Smith had already gone to retrieve her young duelers and take them to the kindergarten class. Royster left the observation booth and headed for the stairs with Arthur at his heels.

"Are you sure you won't need me or somebody with you, Mr. Royster?" the boy asked.

"Hm-m-m. Maybe so, Arthur. Stay with me, but get rid of that excited expression. Look sullen! Remember that you're a badly-behaved problem child who can't adjust to adults or to your peers."

"O.K.," the boy said. Royster glanced back at him. The boy looked satisfactorily rebellious and woebegone. Royster hoped he could play his own role as convincingly.

On two scores Royster had a head start. First, his appearance was prototypical of the dedicated, harassed, rather ineffectual schoolman. He was of medium height, a little underweight, bespectacled, and despite his thirty-five years a bit too youthful-looking to seem a capable adult.

Second, at this moment he felt as nervous and unsettled as anyone would expect the headmaster of a school full of young misfits and antisocials to be. This surprise visit by the state accreditation team could darken the school's future, and he knew it. If he could stay on the defensive with the inspectors, not get angry and tell them to go to hell, perhaps things would go off all right.

There was plenty to get angry about, though. The fact that this was a surprise inspection, for instance. Schools in the public system were never subjected to such upsetting visits. And even the private schools, traditionally viewed with suspicious dislike by state education officials, were hit by surprise inspections so seldom that the very act of an accreditation team, showing up unannounced at one of them, was tantamount to an accusation of educational hanky-panky.

All Royster could hope for would be grudging agreement that Thorling School's students would, in the event of their transferal to another school, continue to be accepted as bona fide graduates of the last grade they had completed at Thorling. Or, when Thorling reached the stage, in another five years, of graduating high-school students, these would be accepted by standard colleges and universities, subject only to the usual entrance examinations and placement tests.

There would be no pats on Royster's head from any state school officials, no praise for Thorling for a difficult job well done—for a very good reason: Thorling was succeeding in educating children with whom the public schools had failed. Such a success was hardly the sort to please the leaders of the state's educational and political power structures, even though it should have been plain to everyone that Thorling was specialized for a task that public schools, by their very nature, could not be expected to handle.