I know it was done very delicately, and the wound was trivial. A small furred finger cleaned and searched it, so that it began to bleed freshly. “I am going to tear a little skin from its sides, because it is so unclean. Do you mind?” she asked. Of course, I assented. It felt to me that it was more than a little. I think the vitality that her hand gave made the pain greater.
“If you slept,” she suggested, “and I kept my hand here, I think it would be well in a short time, and your body would be fit for use. It is no good to us now.”
I have noticed among my kind, that there is nothing that draws us together so intimately as the common sharing of any physical danger; perhaps it was from this cause in part, perhaps in part that the method of our communication established an intimacy of a kind of which—however commonplace to her—I had no previous experience, perhaps, also, that the very difference of our minds attracted me, but, from whatever cause, I was aware of an attachment to this creature, who, I told myself, was less like a man than a seal, and had no sex as we understand it, such as I had never felt for any earthly woman.
As I lay there, at the gate of sleep, the slim webbed hand that pressed my foot was the dearest thing that any world contained, and half-a-million years had no power to divide us.
And then—for one incautious instant—she let me see her mind, and I knew how she regarded me.
I remember once, at a call of urgency, I volunteered to assist a shepherd who was ministering to some neglected sheep, which had been bitten by blowflies. The grubs had hatched in the wounds, and had burrowed inward. The sores had festered, and some had become cavities several inches deep, laying bare bone and flesh, or going down to the vital organs themselves, and in them were a mass of grubs that burrowed and fed.
Some of the sheep lay dying, others might be saved if prompt attention were paid to the wounds.
I still remember acutely the repulsion with which I touched and cleansed, and dressed them. Others might have felt it less, but from such things I am constitutionally averse.
But the feeling was mild to the repulsion with which she regarded the foot on which her fingers rested. It was different in quality, because she had a mind which saw clearly what should be done, and a body that did not dream of rebellion; but it remained that she regarded the foot she touched as something more grotesque and repulsive than her familiar fishes, which swam in the clean flood, and that she felt as I might have done, had duty called me to minister to one of the Killers—to touch the worm-pink sliminess of the loathsome body while it waved its sucker in a whistling gratitude for my attentions.
She knew her error instantly. “I should not have shown you. All is well. Sleep. I will think of it thoroughly. Besides, I must communicate with our Leader.”
Then her mind closed entirely; and after a time I slept.
XXI
The Bat-Wings
When I waked, the long night was far spent, and the moonlight had left the window. My companion’s hand was still laid closely upon the injured foot, and as I stirred, her thought met me.
“I have much to tell. Lie still, and listen.
“First, of ourselves. It is true that your body is, to me, a thing both absurd and repulsive. But should this divide us? My own body does not wear out, and, if injured, in most cases can be repaired, though not easily. I know that I exist independently of it, and that I am separate from it, even though I am in it, perhaps, forever.
“Your body is of little use, and you control it imperfectly. It needs constant repair, and it is of a kind that wears out very rapidly. What you do afterward, or whether you continue at all, is doubtful even to yourself, though in that, I suppose, you are misled by your body’s impermanence. Whether you could be provided with such a body as mine, or whether you could use it, I do not know. My Leaders might, but in such matters we have little knowledge. The Dwellers know much of these things, as you will understand from what I am about to tell you. If you have the courage to ask them, they can tell you much, if they will; but they may destroy you at once, if they think it needful.
“Still, you have little to lose, for such a body cannot be of much account, even to its owner, and it may be worth attempting. If you should succeed, we could be companions for always, for it seems to me that there are ways in which you are greater than I. If I dislike the body in which you live, it should have no power to divide us. I may dislike the killing-pens, but do I therefore dislike my Leader because she is in them? I know that you dislike my
