Youth

IX

It was different, looking at them as though they were “people.” As animals, they had been interesting; as “people,” horrible. Their eyes, which were neutral little objects before, now seemed to watch them with active malevolence.

“They’re making noises,” said Slim, in a whisper which was barely audible.

“I guess they’re talking or something,” said Red. Funny that those noises which they had heard before had not had significance earlier. He was making no move toward them. Neither was Slim.

The canvas was off but they were just watching. The ground meat, Slim noticed, hadn’t been touched.

Slim said, “Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Aren’t you?”

“You found them.”

“It’s your turn, now.”

“No, it isn’t. You found them. It’s your fault, the whole thing. I was watching.”

“You joined in, Slim. You know you did.”

“I don’t care. You found them and that’s what I’ll say when they come here looking for us.”

Red said, “All right for you.” But the thought of the consequences inspired him anyway, and he reached for the cage door.

Slim said, “Wait!”

Red was glad to. He said, “Now what’s biting you?”

“One of them’s got something on him that looks like it might be iron or something.”

“Where?”

“Right there. I saw it before but I thought it was just part of him. But if he’s ‘people,’ maybe it’s a disintegrator gun.”

“What’s that?”

“I read about it in the books from Beforethewars. Mostly people with space-ships have disintegrator guns. They point them at you and you get disintegratored.”

“They didn’t point it at us till now,” pointed out Red with his heart not quite in it.

“I don’t care. I’m not hanging around here and getting disintegratored. I’m getting my father.”

“Cowardy-cat. Yellow cowardy-cat.”

“I don’t care. You can call all the names you want, but if you bother them now you’ll get disintegratored. You wait and see, and it’ll be all your fault.”

He made for the narrow spiral stairs that led to the main floor of the barn, stopped at its head, then backed away.

Red’s mother was moving up, panting a little with the exertion and smiling a tight smile for the benefit of Slim in his capacity as guest.

“Red! You, Red! Are you up there? Now don’t try to hide. I know this is where you’re keeping them. Cook saw where you ran with the meat.”

Red quavered, “Hello, ma!”

“Now show me those nasty animals? I’m going to see to it that you get rid of them right away.”

It was over! And despite the imminent corporal punishment, Red felt something like a load fall from him. At least the decision was out of his hands.

“Right there, ma. I didn’t do anything to them, ma. I didn’t know. They just looked like little animals and I thought you’d let me keep them, ma. I wouldn’t have taken the meat only they wouldn’t eat grass or leaves and we couldn’t find good nuts or berries and cook never lets me have anything or I would have asked her and I didn’t know it was for lunch and—”

He was speaking on the sheer momentum of terror and did not realize that his mother did not hear him but, with eyes frozen and popping at the cage, was screaming in thin, piercing tones.