The Only Neat Thing to Do

as you have. What techniques we have are of the mind. I am filled with amazement at all you do. Your race has achieved marvels! I saw a distant world when I looked through your device — a world! And you speak of visiting it as casually as we would go to a lake or a tree farm. A wonder!'

'Yes, we have a lot of technology. So do some other races, like the Swain and the Moom. But I want yours, Syliobene! To start with, what's this business of Eea and Eeadron?'

'Ah. Yes, of course. Well, I personally, just myself, am an Eea. But when I am in my proper host, which is a Dron, I am an Eeadron. An Eea by itself is almost nothing. It can do nothing but wait, depending on its primitive tropisms, until a host comes by. It is very rare for Eea to become detached as you found me — except when we are visiting another Eeadron for news or instruction. And then we leave much of ourselves in place, in our personal Dron, to which we return. I, being young, was able to detach myself almost completely to go with the Humans as one of their visitors.'

'Oh — were there other Eea inside Boney and Ko when they took off?'

'Yes — one each, at least.'

'What would you call that — Eeahumans?' Coati laughs.

But her companion does not seem to join in. 'They were very old,' she hears herself mutter softly. And then something that sounds like, 'no idea of the length of the trip…' 'So you came away when they messaged. Whew — wild act! Oh, Syliobene, I'm so glad I intercepted it and saved you.'

'I too, dear Coati Cass.'

'But now we've got to get serious about this crazy system of yours. Are you the only people on your planet that have their brains in separate bodies? — Oh, wait. I just realized we should record all this; we'll never be able to go over it twice. Hold while I put in a new cassette.'

She gets set up, and bethinks herself to make it sound professional with an introduction.

'This is Coati Cass recording, on board the CC-One, approaching unnamed planet at—'' She gives all the coordinates, the standard date and time, and the fact that Boney and Ko were last reported to be headed toward this planet.

'Before that they landed on a planet at thirty-twenty north and reported a First Contact with life-forms there. Their report is in a message forwarded to Base before I came here. Now it seems that when they left the planet, some of the life-forms came with them; specifically, two at least of the almost invisible Eea, in their heads. And some seeds, and another Eea, a very young one, who came along, she says, for the adventure. This young Eea moved to the message pipe, not realizing how long the trip would be, and was almost dead when I opened the pipe. She — I call it 'she' because we haven't got sexes, if any, straightened out yet — she moved over to me when I opened the pipe, and is right now residing in my head, where she can see and hear through my senses, and speak with my voice. I am interviewing her about her planet, Nolian. Now remember, all the voice you hear will be mine — but I myself am the one asking the questions. I think you will soon be able to tell when Syllobene — that's her name — is speaking with my voice; it's higher and sort of constricted, and she uses words I didn't know I knew. She learned all that while I was in cold-sleep coming here. Now, Syllobene, would you please repeat what you've told me so far, about the Eea and the Eeadron?'

Coati has learned to relax a little while her own voice goes on, and she hears Syllobene start with a nice little preface: 'Greetings to my Human hearers!' and go on to recite the Eea-Eeadron system.

'Now,' says Coati, 'I was just asking her whether the Eea are the only life-forms on their planet to have their brains in separate animals, so to speak?'

'Oh, no,' says her Syllobene voice, 'it is general in our, ah, animal world. In fact, we are still amazed that there is another way. But always in other animals, the two are very closely attached. For instance, in the Enquaalons the En is born with the Quaalon, mates when it mates, gives birth when it does, and dies when it dies. The same for all the En — that is what we call the brain animal— except for ourselves, the Eea. Only the Eea are so separate from the Dron, and do not die when their Dron dies. …But we have seen aged Endalamines — that is the nearest animal to the Eeadron-holding their heads against newborn Dalamines, as though the En were striving to pass to a new body, while the seed-Ens proper to that newborn hovered about in frustration. We think in some cases they succeed.'

'So you Eea can pass to a new body when yours is old! Does that make you immortal?'

'Ah, no; Eea, too, age and die. But very slowly. They may use many Dron in a lifetime.'

'I see. But tell about your society, your government, and how you get whatever you eat, and so on. Are there rich or poor, or servants and master Eeadron?'

'No, if I understand those words. But we have farms—'

And so, by random stages and probings, Coati pieces together a picture of the green and golden planet Syllobene calls Nolian, with its sun Anella. All ruled over by the big white Eeadron, who have no wars, and only the most rudimentary monetary system. The climate is so benign that housing is largely decorative, except for shelter from the nightly mists and drizzles. It seems a paradise. Their ferocious teeth, which had so alarmed Boney and Ko, derive from a forgotten, presumably carnivorous past; they now eat plant products and fruits. (Here Coati recollects that certain herbivorous primates of antique Earth also had fierce-looking canines.)

As to material technology, the Eeadron have the wheel, which they use for transporting farm crops and what few building materials they employ. And long ago they learned to control fire, which they regard almost as a toy except for some use in cooking. Their big interest now appears to be the development of a written code for their language; they picked up the idea from Ponz and Leslie. It's a source of great pleasure and excitement, although some of the older Eea, who serve as the racial memory, grumble a bit at this innovation.

Midway through this account, Coati has an idea, and when Syllobene runs down, she bursts out, 'Listen! Oh— this is Coati speaking — you said you cleaned out my arteries, my blood tubes. And you cure other hosts. Would you — I mean, your race — be interested in being healers to other races like mine, who can't heal themselves? We call such healers doctors. But our doctors can't get inside and really fix what's wrong, without cutting the sick person up. Why, you could travel all over the Federation, visiting sick people and curing them — or, wait, you could set up a big clinic, and people, Humans and others, would come from everywhere to have the Eea go into them and fix their blood vessels, or their kidneys, or whatever was wrong. Oh, hey, they'd pay you — you're going to need Federation credits — and everybody would love you! You'd be the most famous, valuable race in the Federation!'

'Oh, oh—' replies the Syllobene voice, sounding breathless, 'I don't know your exclamations! We would say—' She gives an untranslatable trill of excitement, 'How amazing, if I understand you—'

'Well, we can talk about that later. Now, you learned about Humans from what you call visiting, in the brains of Boney or Ko, is that right?'

'Yes. But if I had not had the experience of visiting my mentor and a few other Eeadron, I would not have known how to enter and live there without causing damage. You see, the brains of the Dron are just unformed matter; one can go anywhere and eat anything without ill effect on the host's brain. In fact, it is up to the Eea to form them…And, I almost forgot, my mentor was old; and was one of those who had known the living Humans Ponz and Leslie. The two who landed violently and died. They were beyond our powers to cure then, but we could abolish their pain. I believe they mated before they died, but no seeds came. My mentor told me how your brains are developed and functioning. We are still amazed.'

'Why do you visit other Eeadron?'

'To learn many facts about some subject in a short time. We send out tendrils — I think you have a word, for your fungus plants — mycelia. Very frail threads and knots, permeating the other brain — I believe that is what I look like in your brain now — and by making a shadow pattern in a certain way, we acquire all sorts of information, like history, or the form of landscapes, and keep it intact when we withdraw.'

'Look, couldn't you learn all about Humans and the Federation by doing that in my head?'

'Oh, I would not dare. Your speech centers alone frightened me with their complexity. I proceeded with infinite care. It was lucky I had so much time while you slept. I wouldn't dare try anything more delicate and extensive and emotion-connected.'

'Well, thanks for your consideration. ' Coati doesn't want to stall the interview there, so she asks at random, 'Do you have any social problems? Troubles or dilemmas that concern your whole race?'

This seems to puzzle the Eea. 'Well. If I understand you, I don't think so. Oh, there is a heated disagreement among two groups of Eeadron as to how much interest we should take in aliens, but that has been going on ever since Ponz. A panel of senior councillors — is that the word for old wise ones? — is judging it.'