The Only Neat Thing to Do

and slows to resting state when the field is static. So, whenever the pilot wishes to retrace his route, he has only to take out the appropriate cassette and put it up front in his guidance computer. The computer will hunt until it duplicates the starfield sequences of the outward path, thus bringing the ship infallibly, if somewhat slowly, back along the course it came.

She wakes and jumps out to see a really new star scene — a great sprawl of radiant golden suns against a very dark arm of Rift. The closest star of the group, she finds, is eighteen-ten north, just as she's calculated! The drive has cut off at the margin of its near gravity field; it will be a long thrust drive in.

Excitement like a sunrise is flooding her. She's made it! Her first solo jump!

And with the mental joy is still that physical glow, so strong it puzzles her for a minim. Physical, definitely; it's kind of like the buzz of self-stimulation, but without the sticky-sickly feeling that self-stimulation usually gives her. Their phys ed teacher, who'd showed them how to relieve sex tension, said that the negative quality would go away, but Coati hasn't bothered with it all that very much. Now she thinks that this shows that sheer excitement can activate sex, as the teacher said. 'Ah, go away,' she mutters impatiently. She's got to start thrust drive and run on in to where the planets could be.

As soon as she's started, she turns to the scope to check. Planets — yes! One — two — four — and there it is! Blue-green and white even at this distance! Boney and Ko had said it tested highly terraform. It looks it, all right, thinks Coati, who has seen only holos of antique Earth. She wonders briefly what the missing nonterraform part could be: irregularities of climate, absence of some major life-forms? It doesn't matter — anything over 75 percent means livable without protective gear, air and water present and good. She'll be able to get out and explore in the greatest comfort— on a new world! But are Boney and Ko already there?

When she gets into orbital distance from the planet, she must run a standard search pattern around it. All Federation ships have radar-responsive gear to help locate them.

But her little ship doesn't have a real Federation search-scope. She'll have to use her eyes, and fly much too narrow a course. This could be tedious; she sighs.

She finds herself crossing her legs and wriggling and scratching herself idly. Really, this sex overflow is too much! The mental part is fairly calm, though, almost like real happiness. Nice. Only distracting. …And, as she leans back to start waiting out the run in, she feels again that sense of presence in the ship. Company, companionship. Is she going a little nutters? 'Calm down,' she tells herself firmly.

A minim of dead silence …into which a tiny, tiny voice says distinctly, 'Hello …hello? Please don't be frightened. Hello?'

It's coming from somewhere behind and above her.

Coati whirls, peers up and around everywhere, seeing nothing new.

'Wh-where are you?' she demands. 'Who are you, in here?'

'I am a very small being. You saved my life. Please don't be frightened of me. Hello?'

'Hello,' Coati replies slowly, peering around hard. Still she sees nothing. And the voice is still behind her when she turns. She doesn't feel frightened at all, just intensely excited and curious.

'What do you mean, I saved your life?'

'I was clinging to the outside of that artifact you call a message. I would have died soon.'

'Well, good.' But now Coati is a bit frightened. When the voice spoke, she definitely detected movement in her own larynx and tongue — as if she were speaking the words herself. Gods — she is going nutters, she's hallucinating! 'I'm talking to myself!'

'No, no,' the voice — her voice — reassures her. 'You are correct — I am using your speech apparatus. Please forgive me; I have none of my own that you could hear.'

Coati digests this dubiously. If this is a hallucination, it's really complex. She's never done anything like this before. Could it be real, some kind of alien telekinesis?

'But where are you? Why don't you come out and show yourself?'

'I can't. I will explain. Please promise me you won't be frightened. I have damaged nothing, and I will leave anytime you desire.'

Coati suddenly gets an idea, and eyes the computer sharply. In fantasy shows she's seen holos about alien minds taking over computers. So far as she knows, it's never happened in reality. But maybe—

'Are you in my computer?'

'Your computer?' Incredibly, the voice gives what might almost be a giggle. 'In a way, yes. I told you I am very, very small. I am in empty places, in your head.' Quickly it adds, 'You aren't frightened, please? I can go out anytime, but then we can't speak.'

'In my head!' Coati exclaims. For some reason she, too, feels like laughing. She knows she should be making some serious response, but all she can think of is, this is why her sinuses feel stuffy. 'How did you get in my head?'

'When you rescued me I was incapable of thought. We have a primitive tropism to enter a body and make our way to the head. When I came to myself, I was here. You see, on my home we live in the brains of our host animals. In fact, we are their brains.'

'You went through my body? Oh — from that place on my arm?'

'Yes, I must have done. I have only vague, primitive memories. You see, we are really so small. We live in what I think you call intermolecular, maybe interatomic spaces. Our passage doesn't injure anything. To me, your body is as open and porous as your landscape is to you. I didn't realize there was so much large-scale solidity around until I saw it through your eyes! Then, when you went cold, I came to myself and learned my way around, and deciphered the speech centers. I had a long, long time. It was …lonely. I didn't know if you would ever awaken…'

'Yeah….' Coati thinks this over. She's pretty sure she couldn't imagine all this. It must be real! But all she can think of to say is, 'You're using my eyes, too?'

'I've tapped into the optic nerve, at the second juncture. Very delicately, I assure you. And to your auditory channels. It's one of the first things we do, a primitive program. And we make the host feel happy, to keep from frightening it. You do feel happy, don't you?'

'Happy? — Hey, are you doing that? Listen, if that's you, you're overdoing it! I don't want to feel quite so 'happy,' as you call it. Can you turn it down?'

'You don't? Oh, I am sorry. Please wait — my movements are slow.'

Coati waits, thinking so furiously about everything at once that her mind is a chaos. Presently there comes a marked decrease in the distracting physical glow. More than all the rest, this serves to convince her of the reality of her new inhabitant.

'Can you read my mind?' she asks slowly.

'Only when you form words,' her own voice replies. 'Subvocalizing, I think you call it. I used all that long cold time tracing out your vocabulary and language. We have a primitive drive to communication; perhaps all life-forms have.'

'Acquiring a whole language from a static, sleeping brain is quite a feat,' says Coati thoughtfully. She is beginning to feel a distinct difference in her voice when the alien is using it; it seems higher, tighter — and she hears herself using words that she knows only from reading, not habitual use.

'Yes. Luckily I had so much time. But I was so dismayed and depressed when it seemed you'd never awaken. All that work would be for nothing. I am so happy to find you alive! Not just for the work, but for — for life. …Oh, and I have had one chance to practice with your species before. But your brain is quite different.'

However flustered and overwhelmed by the novelty of all this, Coati isn't stupid. The words about 'home' and 'hosts' are making a connection with Boney and Ko's report.

'Did the two men who sent that message you were riding on visit your home planet? They were two Humans— that's what I am — in a ship bigger than this.'

'Oh, yes! I was one of those who took turns being with them! And I was visiting one of them when they left.' …The voice seems to check itself. 'Your brain is really very different.'

'Thanks,' says Coati inanely. 'I've heard that those two men — those two Humans — weren't regarded as exactly bright.'

'Bright?' Ah, yes. …We performed some repairs, but we couldn't do much.'

Coati's chaotic thoughts coalesce. What she's sitting here chatting with is an alien — an alien who is possibly deadly, very likely dangerous, who has invaded her head.