The Fourth Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Айн Рэнд
or you’ll turn yourself inside out. Why aren’t you married yet, chicken?”
“Why aren’t you?” Alistair countered.
Mrs. Forsythe stretched. “I’ve been married,” she said, and Alistair knew now her casualness was forced. “A married season with the likes of Dan Forsythe sticks with you.” Her voice softened. “Your daddy was all kinds of good people, baby.” She shook herself. “Let’s eat. I want to hear about Tiny. Your driblets and drablets of information about that dog are as tantalizing as Chapter Eleven of a movie serial. Who’s this Alec creature in St. Croix? Some kind of native—cannibal, or something? He sounds nice. I wonder if you know how nice you think he is? Good heavens, the girl’s blushing! I only know what I read in your letters, darling, and I never knew you to quote anyone by the paragraph before but that old scoundrel Nowland, and that was all about ductility and permeability and melting points. Metallurgy! A girl like you mucking about with molybs and durals instead of heartbeats and hope chests!”
“Mother, sweetheart, hasn’t it occurred to you at all that I don’t want to get married? Not yet, anyway.”
“Of course it has! That doesn’t alter the fact that a woman is only forty per cent a woman until someone loves her, and only eighty per cent a woman until she has children. As for you and your precious career I seem to remember something about a certain Marie Sklodowska who didn’t mind marrying a fellow called Curie, science or no science.”
“Darling,” said Alistair a little tiredly as they mounted the steps and went into the cool house, “once and for all, get this straight. The career, as such, doesn’t matter at all. The work does. I like it. I don’t see the sense in being married purely for the sake of being married.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, neither do I!” said Mrs. Forsythe quickly. Then, casting a critical eye over her daughter, she sighed, “But it’s such a waste!”
“What do you mean?”
Her mother shook her head. “If you don’t get it, it’s because there’s something wrong with your sense of values; in which case, there’s no point in arguing. I love your furniture. Now, for pity’s sake feed me and tell me about this canine Carnera of yours.”
Moving deftly about the kitchen while her mother perched like a bright-eyed bird on a utility ladder, Alistair told the story of her letters from Alec and Tiny’s arrival.
“At first he was just a dog. A very wonderful dog, of course, and extremely well trained. We got along beautifully. There was nothing remarkable about him but his history, as far as I could see, and certainly no indication of…of anything. I mean, he might have responded to my name the way he did because the syllabic content pleased him.”
“It should,” said her mother complacently. “Dan and I spent weeks at a sound laboratory graphing a suitable name for you. Alistair Forsythe. Has a beat, you know. Keep that in mind when you change it.”
“Mother!”
“All right, dear. Go on with the story.”
“For all I knew, the whole thing was a crazy coincidence. Tiny didn’t respond particularly to the sound of my name after he got here. He seemed to take a perfectly normal, doggy pleasure in sticking around, that was all.
“Then, one evening after he had been with me about a month, I found out he could read.”
“Read!” Mrs. Forsythe toppled, clutched the edge of the sink, and righted herself.
“Well, practically that. I used to study a lot in the evenings, and Tiny used to stretch out in front of the fire with his nose between his paws and watch me. I was tickled by that. I even got the habit of talking to him while I studied. I mean, about the work. He always seemed to be paying very close attention, which, of course, was silly. And maybe it was my imagination, but the times he’d get up and nuzzle me always seemed to be the times when my mind was wandering or when I would quit working and go on to something else.
“This particular evening I was working on the permeability mathematics of certain of the rare-earth group. I put down my pencil and reached for my Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and found nothing but a big hole in the bookcase. The book wasn’t on the desk, either. So I swung around to Tiny and said, just for something to say, ‘Tiny, what have you done with my handbook?’
“He went whuff! in the most startled tone of voice, leaped to his feet, and went over to his bed. He turned up the mattress with his paw and scooped out the book. He picked it up in his jaws—I wonder what he would have done if he were a Scotty? That’s a chunky piece of literature!—and brought it to me.
“I just didn’t know what to do. I took the book and riffled it. It was pretty well shoved around. Apparently he had been trying to leaf through it with those big splay feet of his. I put the book down and took him by the muzzle. I called him nine kinds of a rascal and asked him what he was looking for.” She paused, building a sandwich.
“Well?”
“Oh,” said Alistair, as if coming back from a far distance. “He didn’t say.”
There was a thoughtful silence. Finally, Mrs. Forsythe looked up with her odd birdlike glance and said, “You’re kidding. That dog isn’t shaggy enough.”
“You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question.
The older woman got up to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Honey-lamb, your daddy used to say that the only things worth believing were things you learned from people you trusted. Of course I believe you. Thing is—do you believe you?”
“I’m not—sick, Mum, if that’s what you mean. Let me tell you the rest of it.”
“You mean there’s more?”
“Plenty more.” She put the stack of sandwiches on the sideboard where her mother could reach it. Mrs. Forsythe fell to with a will. “Tiny has been goading me to do research. A particular kind of research.”
“Hut hine uffefa?”
“Mother! I didn’t give you those sandwiches only to feed you. The idea was to soundproof you a bit, too, while I talked.”
“Hohay!” said her mother cheerfully.
“Well, Tiny won’t let me work on any other project but the one he’s interested in. Mum, I can’t talk if you’re going to gape like that! No… I can’t say he won’t let me do any work. But there’s a certain line of endeavor that he approves. If I do anything else, he snuffles around, joggles my elbow, grunts, whimpers, and generally carries on until I lose my temper and tell him to go away. Then he’ll walk over to the fireplace and flop down and sulk. Never takes his eyes off me. So, of course, I get all softhearted and repentant and apologize to him and get on with what he wants done.”
Mrs. Forsythe swallowed, coughed, gulped some milk, and exploded, “Wait a minute! You’re away too fast for me! What is it that he wants done? How do you know he wants it? Can he read, or can’t he? Make some sense, child!”
Alistair laughed richly. “Poor Mum! I don’t blame you, darling. No, I don’t think he can really read. He shows no interest at all in books or pictures. The episode with the handbook seemed to be an experiment that didn’t bring any results. But—he knows the difference between my books, even books that are bound alike, even when I shift them around in the bookcase. Tiny!”
The Great Dane scrambled to his feet from the corner of the kitchen, his paws skidding on the waxed linoleum. “Get me Hoag’s Basic Radio, old feller, will you?”
Tiny turned and padded out. They heard him going up the stairs. “I was afraid he wouldn’t do it while you were here,” she said. “He generally warns me not to say anything about his powers. He growls. He did that when Dr. Nowland dropped out for lunch one Saturday. I started to talk about Tiny and just couldn’t. He acted disgracefully. First he growled and then he barked. It was the first time I’ve ever known him to bark in the house. Poor Dr. Nowland!