Big Book of Science Fiction by Groff Conklin Read Free Book Online Page B

he grinned and took
the cutter.
     
    He swiftly cut the lumber up with
it, sneering gayly at the ripsaw which hung on the wall. Then he put the whole
trap together with a Z-brace, trimmed off the few rough corners, and stood back
to admire it. He realized instantly that it was too heavy to carry by himself,
let alone lift to the roof. If Mewhu had two good hands, now, or if— He
scratched his head.
     
    “Carry it on the flyin’ belt,
Daddy.”
     
    “Molly! What made you think of
that?”
     
    “Mewhu tol’ ... I mean, I sort
of—”
     
    “Let’s get this straight once and
for all. How does Mewhu talk to you?”
     
    “I dunno, Daddy. It’s sort of
like I remembered something he said, but not the . . . the words he said. I jus’
. . . jus’—” she faltered, and then said vehemently, “I don’t know, Daddy. Truly I don’t!”
     
    “What’d he say this time?”
     
    She looked at Mewhu. Again Jack
noticed the peculiar swelling of Mewhu’s silver mustache. She said, “Put the
door you jus’ made on the flyin’ belt and lift it. The flyin’ belt’ll make it
fall slow, and you can push it along while…it’s…fallin’.”
     
    Jack looked at the door, at the
jet device, and got the idea. When he had slipped the jet-rod under the door,
Mewhu gave him a lift. Up it came; and then Mewhu, steadying it, towed it well
outside the garage before it finally sank to the ground. Another lift, another
easy tow, and they covered thirty more feet. In this manner they covered the
distance to the house, with Molly skipping and laughing behind, pleading for a
ride and handing the grinning Mewhu a terrific brag.
     
    At the house, Jack said, “Well,
Einstein Junior, how do we get it up on the roof?”
     
    Mewhu picked up Molly’s yo-yo and
began to operate it deftly. Doing so he walked around the corner of the house.
     
    “Hey!”
     

“He don’t know, Daddy. You’ll
have to figger it out.”
     
    “You mean he could dream up that
slick trick for carrying it out here and now his brains give out?”
     
    “I guess so, Daddy.”
     
    Jack Garry looked after the
retreating form of the silver man, and shook his head. He was already prepared
to expect better than human reasoning from Mewhu, even if it was a little
different. He couldn’t quite phase this with Mewhu’s shrugging off a problem in
basic logic. Certainly a man with his capabilities would not have reasoned out
such an ingenious method of bringing the door out here without realizing that
that was only half the problem.
     
    Shrugging, he went back to the
garage and got a small block and tackle. He had to put up a big screw hook on
the eave, and another on the new trapdoor; and once he had laboriously hauled
the door up until the tackle was two-blocked, it was a little more than arduous
to work it over the edge and drag it into position. Mewhu had apparently quite
lost interest. It was two hours later, just as he put the last screw in the
tower bolt on the trapdoor and was calling the job finished, that he heard
Mewhu begin to shriek again. He dropped his tools, shrugged into the jet stick,
and sailed off the roof.
     
    “Iris! Iris! What’s the matter?”
     
    “I don’t know, Jack. He’s . . .
he’s—”
     
    Jack pounded around the house to
the front. Mewhu was lying on the ground in the midst of some violent kind of
convulsion. He lay on his back, arching it high, digging his heels into the
turf; and his head was bent back at an impossible angle, so that his weight was
on his heels and his forehead. His good arm pounded the ground, though the
splinted one lay limp. His lips writhed and he uttered an edgy, gasping series
of ululations quite horrible to listen to. He seemed to be able to scream as
loudly when inhaling as when exhaling.
     
    Molly stood beside him, watching
him hypnotically. She was smiling. Jack knelt beside the writhing form and
tried to steady it. “Molly, stop grinning at the poor fellow!”
     
    “But—he’s happy,