"Watch." Paul tossed a bit of meat. The visitor's chatter changed to a
whistling whine; it elongated itself, grabbed, sat back on stubby hind
legs to eat in clever paws; it washed itself with a squirrel's
pertness. Arek chuckled, examining the idea, and went on with her
work; she had become a hypercritical cook, under Dorothy's guidance.
"Jocko, biologist, stand by: I propose to name an animile. Genus
_Kink_, species _quasikinkajou_." Genus Kink did not retreat at Sears'
quiet approach, but wriggled a black nose.
Rak asked in solemn curiosity, "For what is it good?"
"To make us laugh," Paul said, "so long as we're kind to it."
"Ah?" Rak moved his fingers to aid the patient mill of his mind.
"Dance-Nose," said Muson, who already understood. She shook all over.
"Come, Funny-Nose." It would not--yet, but Muson could be patient too.
Sears whispered in his beard, "Less homesick?"
"Yes...."
After the meal Arek wanted Paul to come out on the cliffs. Though
there seemed no danger from the omasha, she carried a long stick and
Paul took his pistol. The slope leveled out to the bare rock of the
headland; the ocean voice was the humming of a thousand giants. The
way was easy, with no crevasses, no peril while the wind was mild.
Arek had often been out here alone. Yesterday Paul had seen her
standing for an hour, watching the west where unbroken water met a
sun-reddened horizon. In her earlier years there might have been dim
mention of the sea by her almost wordless people, but no true
knowledge: the mainland coast was steaming vine-choked jungle, or
tidal marsh, and shut away by the kaksma hills. Paul wondered what
member of his race could stand for an hour in contemplation like a
thinking tree, not shifting a foot nor raising an arm...?
"Paul, why did you leave Earth?" Arek patted the rock beside her.
Below the troubled water laughed, endlessly defeated and returning.
Cloud fantasies gathered below a lucid green, and the wind was a
friend. "I have doubted sometimes whether we ought to have done so."
"That wasn't my meaning. We love you. Didn't you know? But I've
wondered what sent you away from such a place. Ann says it was
beautiful."
"A--drive of restlessness. We took boundaries as a challenge. I used
to think that a great virtue. Now I call it neither good nor evil."
"I think it is good."
"Everywhere, we carry good _and_ evil."
"What you do here is good. You teach us. You do kind things."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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