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The two men sat side by side on die sofa. "What can I do for you?"
"My name is Long." said the taller one. "And dlis is White."
"Pleased to meet you." Jim half-rose from his own chair to shake hands with both of mem.
They looked enough alike, he thought, to be brothers.
"Mr. Brewer," said Long, "you have a dog in the house."
"Why, yes," answered Jim. He looked at them, suddenly frowning, and then a slight
scraping noise, as of claws on a
218 Gordon R. Dickson
polished floor, caught his ear and he turned his head to see Pancho standing in the
entrance to the kitchen, head and tail up, staring at the strangers. The cocker spaniel was
perfectly still and rigid, leaning forward, nose extended, almost in point. Then, slowly, with
the delicate care with which he approached birds in cover, the dog began to advance. Step
by slow step he came up before the two men, who had not moved, but sat watching with
patient eyes. Before them he halted. Then, equally slowly, he began to back away from
them, step by step, until he came up hard against Jim's legs, pressing sideways against
them with hip and flank, his head still turned to the two on the couch. Through the thin
material of his slacks, Jim felt Pancho's whole body trembling.
"Easy, boy," said Jim, automatically, putting his hand on the furry head. "Easy." He stared at
the two; and then suddenly a coldness ran down the narrow line of his spine and he felt the
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fine hairs on his own neck begin to rise as his body tensed in the chair. He was watching the
two faces, so much alike, and he saw mem now as motionless and impersonal as masks.
"Yes," said the one called Long. "You see that we aren't human."
Jim said nothing- But he could hear the sound of Nancy Mid Joey's voices in the kitchen
and he was slowly, as slowly as Pancho had moved, shifting the weight of his body for- ward
in the chair, so that it would be over the bone and muscle springs of his knees.
"Please," said the one introduced as White. "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. We
won't harm you. And you can't harm us. We only want to talk to you."
Jim was poised now. He was thinking that he could leap forward and yeli at the same time.
But there was the danger that Nancy and Joey would only be bewildered by his shout and
come instead into me living room to see what was the matter.
"What about?" said Jim.
"You've been chosen," said Long, "at random. Not en- tirely at random, but mainly so, to
answer a question for us. That's all there is to it." He looked into Jim's eyes; and Jim had the
impression that he smiled suddenly and warmly,
GIFTS . , . 219
although Long's lips did not move. or any part of his face. "It's a question that concerns your
interests, only. not ours. Only you ought to get over being afraid of us. Here "
He extended his hand toward Pancho. He did not snap his fingers or beckon in any way, but
merely held out his fingers, waiting. And after a slow. still movement, the dog began to
move, step by step away from the comfort of Jim's legs and toward the stranger. He
approached the hand as he might approach a new dog in the neighborhood, stiffly and with
caution. For a long second, with neck outstretched, he sniffed at the fingers and then, with
a change as dramatically sud- den as the snapping of a violin string, his tail wagged and he
shoved his head forward onto the hand of Long.
Long brought forward his other hand and scratched Pancho between the ears. He looked
up at Jim.
"You see?" he said.
"That's a dog," said Jim; but he had relaxed, nonethe- less. Not completely, but relaxed.
"Well, what is it?"
"Did you ever think much about ethics, Mr. Brewer?" said Long, still petting Pancho.
"Ethics?" Jim looked from one to the other of them.
"Perhaps you might call it morality," said White. "The duty of morality. The duty to your
neighbor."
"We get a lot of that here," said Jim, thinking of the P.T.A. and the Community Fund and all
the many other drives and collections.
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"You have a lot," said White. "But did you ever mink much about it?"
"You don't think about things like that," said Jim, still watching them. "You just do them."
"But," said White, '^there are two sides to that coin. The coin called charity."
"What do you mean?" said Jim. He looked from White to Long. who was still holding
Pancho's head in one slim palm, and stroking between Pancho's ears now. with the other.
The dog's eyes were closed in an ecstasy of pleasure.
"We're talking," said Long, suddenly, "about the ethics of Charity. If your dog here were tost
far from your home, and trying to find his way back if he were obviously hun-
220 Gordon R. Dickson
gry, you'd think someone else was a good person, if he or she fed him?"
"Certainly," said Jim.
"And what if the dog were interested only in getting back to you? Would it still be a kindness
to tie him up untiLhe did eat? And perhaps force him to stay, in an effort to feed him up
again?"
"That's what we'd call a mistaken kindness," said Jim. "Look, what's the point of all this?"
"The point is the ethics of Charity," said Long, "and that we feel the same way about them
you do. Charity isn't a kindness when the one receiving it doesn't really want it. It's an instinct
among civilized people to give help but the instinct can be mistaken."
"I still don't get what you're driving at," said Jim.
Long let go of Pancho, who shoved a furry head forward onto his knee. He reached into his
right-hand suitcoat pocket and took out something small enough to be hidden in his hand.
"Mr. Brewer," he said, "when you were very young.'did you ever dream of having
something something magical that could grant all your wishes?"
Jim frowned at him.
"Doesn't everybody?"
"Everybody does," said Long. He turned his hand over and opened it out. Lying in his palm
was what looked like a child's marble, a glassy small globe of swirled color, green, and rust,
and white. He half-stood and passed it into Jim's automatically receiving hand. "There you
are."
"There I am, what?" demanded Jim, staring at it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]