them, reclined and loosely restrained in a hammock-like affair of soft webbing. And even if they were aware, the fact that they were conversing in a non-terrestrial language doubtless provided them with a feeling of insulation. At some earlier time I had slowly realized that the thing that would most have surprised them probably surprised me even more. This was the discovery that, when I gave it a piece of my divided attention, I could understand what they were saying.
A difficult phenomenon to describe better, but I'll try: If I listened intently to their words, they swam away from me, as elusive as individual fish in a school of thousands. If I simply regarded the waters, however, I could follow the changing outline, the drift, pick out the splashes and sparklings. Similarly, I could tell what they were saying. Why this should be I had no idea.
And I had ceased to care after a time, for their dialogue was quite repetitious. It was considerably more rewarding to consider the curtate cycloid described by Mount Chimborazo if one were positioned somewhere above the South Pole, to see this portion of the surface as moving backward with respect to the orbital progression of the body.
My thoughts suddenly troubled me. Where had that last one really come from? It felt beautiful, but was it mine? Had some valve given way in my unconscious, releasing a river of libido that cut big chunks of miscellanea from the banks it rushed between, to deposit them in shiny layers of silt up front here where I normally take my ease? Or could it be a telepathic phenomenon-me in a psychically defenseless position, two aliens the only other minds for thousands and thousands of miles about? Was one of them a logophile?
But it did not seem that way. I was certain that my apprehension of the language, for example, was not a telepathic thing. Their speech kept coming into better and better focus-individual words and phrases now, not just abstractions of their sense. I knew that language somehow, the sounds' meanings. I was not simply reading their minds.
What then?
Feeling more than a little sacrilegious, I forced the sense of peace and pleasure transcendent out to arms' length, then shoved as hard as I could. Think, damn it! I ordered my cortex. You are on overtime. Double time for holidays of the spirit. Move!
Turning and returning, back to the thirst, the chill, the aches, the morning ... Yes. Australia. There I was ...
The wombat had convinced the kangaroo, whose name I later learned was Charv, that water would benefit me more at that moment than a peanut-butter sandwich. Charv acknowledged the wombat's superior wisdom in matters of human physiology and located a flask in his pouch. The wombat, whose name I then learned to be Ragma, yanked off his paws-or, rather, pawlike mittens-displaying tiny, six-digited hands, thumb opposing, and he administered the liquid in slow doses. While this was being done, I gathered that they were alien plainclothesmen passing as local fauna. The reason was not clear.
'You are very fortunate-' Ragma told me.
After I finished choking, 'I begin to appreciate the term ‘alien viewpoint,'' I said, 'I take it you are a member of a race of masochists.'
'Some beings thank another who saves their life,' he replied. 'And I was about to complete the statement, ‘You are very fortunate that we happened along this way.''
'I'll give you the first,' I said. 'Thanks. But coincidence is like a rubber band. Stretch it too far and it snaps. Forgive me if I suspect some design in our meeting as we did.'
'I am distressed that you focus suspicions upon us,' he said, 'when all that we have done is render assistance. Your cynicism index may be even higher than was indicated.'
'Indicated by whom?' I asked.
'I am not permitted to say,' he replied.
He cut short a snappy rejoinder by pouring more water down my throat. Choking and considering, I modified it to 'This is ridiculous!'
'I agree,' he said. 'But now that we are here, everything should soon be in order.'
I rose, stretched hard, pulled some of the kinks out of my muscles, seated myself on a nearby rock to defeat a small dizziness.
'All right,' I said, reaching for a cigarette and finding all of them crushed. 'How about your considering whatever you are permitted to say and then saying it?'
Charv withdrew a package of cigarettes-my brand-from his pouch and passed it to me.
'If you must,' he said.
I nodded, opened it, lit one.
'Thank you,' I said, returning them.
'Keep the pack,' he said. 'I am a pipe smoker of sorts. You, by the way, are more in need of rest and nourishment than nicotine. I am monitoring your heartbeat, blood pressure and basal metabolism rate on a small device I have with me-'
'Don't let it worry you, though,' said Ragma, helping himself to a cigarette and producing a light from somewhere. 'Charv is a hypochondriac. But I do think we ought to get back to our vessel before we talk. You are still not out of danger.'
'Vessel? What sort? Where is it?'
'About a quarter of a mile from here,' Charv offered, 'and Ragma is correct. It will be safer if we depart this place immediately.'
'I'll have to take your word for it,' I said. 'But you were looking for me-me specifically-weren't you? You knew my name. You seem to know something about me ... '
'Then you have answered your own question,' Ragma replied. 'We had reason to believe you were in danger and we were correct.'
'How? How did you know?'
They glanced at each other.
'Sorry,' Ragma said. 'That's another.'
'Another what?'
'Thing we are not permitted to say.'
'Who does your permitting and forbidding?'
'That's another.'
I sighed. 'Okay. I guess I'm up to walking that far. If I'm not, you'll know in a hurry.'
'Very good,' said Charv as I got to my feet.
I felt steadier this time up, and it must have been apparent. He nodded, turned and began moving away with a very unkangaroolike gait. I followed, and Ragma remained at my side. He maintained a bipedal posture this time.
The terrain was fairly level, so the going was not too bad. After a couple of minutes' movement, I was even able to work up some enthusiasm at the thought of the peanut-butter sandwich. Before I could comment on my improved condition, however, Ragma shouted something in Alienese.
Charv responded and took off at an accelerated pace, almost tripping over the lower extremities of his disguise.
Ragma turned to me. 'He is going ahead to warm things up,' he said, 'for a quick liftoff. If you are capable of moving faster, please do so.'
I complied as best I could, and 'Why the rush?' I inquired.
'My hearing is quite sensitive,' he said, 'and I have just detected the fact that Zeemeister and Buckler are now airborne. This would seem to indicate that they are either looking for you or departing. It is always best to plan for the worst.'
'I take it that they are my uninvited guests and that their names are something you are permitted to say. What do they represent?'
'They are doodlehums.'
'Doodlehums?'
'Antisocial individuals, intentional circumventors of statutes.'
'Oh, hoodlums. Yes, I guessed that much on my own. What can you tell me about them?'
'Morton Zeemeister,' he said, 'indulges in many such activities. He is the heavy one with the pale fur.
