"Yes," I agreed, "but perhaps the old ones wouldn't see it that way.
They might even stop the game. Adults have funny ideas, and there's no
use asking for trouble."
There was a chorus of assenting thought from the others. All of us had
our family troubles.
We got to work. Quickly we arranged the interiors of the shelters which
we had cleverly built out of materials borrowed from below when the old
ones' perceptions were directed elsewhere. The essential structure
of the materials had not been changed and could easily be replaced
when the time came, but there was no use having to give involved
explanations. The old ones never seemed to understand anything.
At first we had just built the shelters as play huts, but when the
first tourists had misunderstood, we had improved upon the original
misconception. Now we had a regular street full of rude dwellings.
Lucky for us the old ones never came topside.
As the little spaceship landed, Ppon and I and four of the others were
ready at its door to form a welcoming committee. The rest dispersed to
play villagers. The others took turns alternating the two roles, but I,
of course, was always leader. After all, I'd made up the game.
Two members of the crew dropped lightly out of the ship and slid a ramp
into place. Then the passengers--there was a sizable group this time, I
noted with satisfaction--came, followed by Sam, the guide, a grizzled
old human. He grinned at us. We were old friends, for he'd been leading
these tours for ten of their Earth years.
The passengers stopped at the foot of the ramp and Sam ran forward
to face them. By now we were used to the appearance of the human
beings--small, binocular, with smooth, pasty skins--although they had
really frightened us when we first laid eyes on them.
* * * * *
"Now, you see, folks," Sam bellowed through his megaphone, "the
scientists don't know everything. They said life could not exist out
here in the Asteroid Belt--and, behold, life! They said these little
planets were too small, had too little gravity to hold an atmosphere.
But you just breathe in that air, as pure and fresh and clean as the
atmosphere of our own Earth! Speaking of gravity, you'll notice that
we're walking, not floating. Matter of fact, you'll notice it's even a
little hard to walk; you seem a bit heavier than at home. And they said
there would be hardly any gravity. No, folks, those scientists know a
lot of things, I won't deny that, but they sure don't know everything."
"Amazing!" a small, bespectacled male passenger said. "I can hardly
believe my own senses!"
"Watch out for him," Ppon projected to me. "I think he's a scientist of
some kind."
"Don't teach your ancestor to levitate," I conceptualized back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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