TUBEMONKEY By JEROME BIXBY Radiations had shorted his brilliant pilot's brain, left him an aimless, childish hulk. Yet Rhiannon had his moments--when he needed them. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Echoed by the sloping, sun-drenched concrete walls, booming above the high, bony clatter of monorail cranes, shaming the entire fuming, metallic hubbub of Boat Bed 52, the sound might have been the cavernous indignation of some giant beast being dragged zoo-ward from a Bio-Institute boat. It was, however, a voice, singing: Oh-h-h, the boats come in An' the boats go out An' we clean 'em an' screen 'em an' preen 'em. We fix their fins An' we polish their snouts With a five second breather between 'em. I-i-if she comes in smash From a steerocket lash Do we wait 'til they've counted the dead? Oh never, tut tut-- We just plate up her butt An' fix up the rest in the--the-- Mountainous Rhiannon couldn't remember the last word. The clouded crystal, that was Rhiannon. He killed his buffing-ray and aimed a bellow that not only shivered the eardrums of its target but woke up Sergeant Atoms a hundred feet below, bringing him to his feet with an adoring bark. "Hey, Stevie, what'sa last word?" Steve Podalski swung his legs into view and slid carelessly down the dull metal roundness of tube fourteen, like a boy on a barrel. His magnetic boots thunked onto tube thirteen and took hold. He gave Rhiannon a look compounded of acid and pity. "Go to hell with your noise." Off at the other end of Bed 52 a gong sounded its invitation to cease work and relax for a while. The twelve Navy spaceboats in 52, lined hip to hip like reclining madames on their slanting cradles, seemed suddenly to begin to shed their skins as a solid parasitica of out-ship workers melted in streams toward the upthrust frameworks of the lifts. "I comin gout." A small cabbagelike Asteroidal came out of the smudgy darkness of the tube, a scraping-ray in each flat tentacle. "I knockin goff." Without a break in its fluid motion it climbed onto Rhiannon's arm and couched itself in the angle of his elbow. "Yeah, me too. Coming, Stevie?" Podalski shook his head. He stood and watched Rhiannon and Tweety--Tieu-tuiey was its given name, but to pronounce it correctly always sounded a little gay--make their way toward the lift. He shook his head again. Once a pilot, he thought, not necessarily always a pilot. Space did rotten things to men who got careless with their radiation screens. It blotched their minds, tossed up fences around memory and intelligence. A most brilliant crystal--that's what Rhiannon had once been. * * * * *