Nodalictha, naturally, would not enter the minds of the male bipeds
on the inner planet. Modesty forbade such a thing--as, of course, the
conscientiousness of a brand-new husband limited Rhadampsicus to the
thoughts of the males among the bipeds. But Nodalictha was distressed
when Rhadampsicus told her of what was occurring among the bipeds. He
guided her thoughts to Cathy, in the beamphone exchange at Cetopolis.
"But it is terrible!" said Nodalictha in distress when she had absorbed
Cathy's maiden meditations. She did not actually speak in words and
soundwaves. There is no air worth mentioning at seven degrees Kelvin.
It's all frozen. A little helium hangs around, perhaps. Nothing else.
The word for communication is not exactly the word for speech, but it
will do. Nodalictha said, "They love each other! In a cute way, they
are like--like we were, Rhadampsicus!"
Rhadampsicus played a positron-beam on her in feigned indignation.
If that beam had hit a human, the human would have curled up in a
scorched, smoking heap. But Nodalictha bridled.
"Rhadampsicus!" she protested fondly. "Stop tickling me! But can't you
do something for them? They are so cute!"
And Rhadampsicus gallantly sent his thoughts back to the second planet,
where a biped grimly labored over a primitive device.
* * * * *
Lon Simpson, staring at the disassembled generator, suddenly blinked.
The grimness went out of his expression. He stared. An idea had
occurred to him. He went over it in his mind. He blew out his breath in
a long whistle. Then, very painstakingly, he did four or five things
that completely ruined the generator for the extremely modest trade-in
allowance he could have gotten for it at the Company store.
He worked absorbedly for perhaps twenty minutes, his eyes intent. At
the end of that time he had threads of unwound secondary wire stretched
back and forth across a forked stick of _dhil_ weed, and two small
pieces of sheet iron twisted together in an extremely improbable
manner. He connected the ends of the secondary wire to contacts in his
tractor. He climbed into the tractor seat. He threw over the drive
control.
The tractor lurched into motion. The Diesel wasn't running. But the
tractor rolled comfortably as Lon drove it, the individual motors in
the separate catawheels drawing power from a mere maze of wires across
a forked stick--plus two pieces of sheet iron. There was plenty of
power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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