Have space suit-- will travel by Robert A. Heinlein Page A

arms. I started to come out of it-not like flipping a switch, as I still didn’t have energy enough to lick a stamp. I wanted to bash their heads but I stood as much chance as a butterfly has of hefting a bar bell.
    They carried me out. I started to protest. “Say, where are you guys taking me? What do you think you’re doing? I’ll have you arrested. I’ll—“
    “Shaddap,” said one. He was a skinny runt, fifty or older, and looked as if he never smiled. The other was fat and younger, with a petulant babyish mouth and a dimple in his chin; he looked as if he could laugh if he weren’t worried. He was worrying now.
    “Tim, this can get us in trouble. We ought to space him-we ought to space both of ‘em-and tell him it was an accident. We can say they got out and tried to escape through the lock. He won’t know the dif-“
    “Shaddap,” answered Tim with no inflection. He added, “You want trouble with him? You want to chew space?”
    “But-“
    “Shaddap.”
    They carried me around a curved corridor, into an inner room and dumped me on the floor.
    I was face up but it took time to realize this must be the control room. It didn’t look like anything any human would design as a control room, which wasn’t surprising as no human had. Then I saw him.
    Peewee needn’t have warned me; I didn’t want to antagonize him.
    The little guy was tough and dangerous, the fat guy was mean and murderous; they were cherubs compared with him. If I had had my strength I would have fought those two any way they liked; I don’t think I’m too afraid of any human as long as the odds aren’t impossible.
    But not him.
    He wasn’t human but that wasn’t what hurt. Elephants aren’t human but they are very nice people. He was built more like a human than an elephant is but that was no help-I mean he stood erect and had feet at one end and a head at the other. He was no more than five feet tall but that didn’t help either; he dominated us the way a man dominates a horse. The torso part was as long as mine; his shortness came from very squat legs, with feet (I guess you would call them feet) which bulged out, almost disc-like. They made squashy, sucking sounds when he moved. When he stood still a tail, or third leg, extruded and turned him into a tripod-he didn’t need to sit down and I doubt if he could.
    Short legs did not make him slow. His movements were blurringly fast, like a striking snake. Does this mean a better nervous system and more efficient muscles? Or a native planet with higher gravity?
    His arms looked like snakes-they had more joints than ours. He had two sets, one pair where his waist should have been and another set under his head. No shoulders. I couldn’t count his fingers, or digit tendrils; they never held still. He wasn’t dressed except for a belt below and above the middle arms which carried whatever such a thing carries in place of money and keys. His skin was purplish brown and looked oily.
    Whatever he was, he was not the same race as the Mother Thing.
    He had a faint sweetish musky odor. Any crowded room smells worse on a hot day, but if I ever whiff that odor again, my skin will crawl and I’ll be tongue-tied with fright.
    I didn’t take in these details instantly; at first all I could see was his face. A “face” is all I can call it. I haven’t described it yet because I’m afraid I’ll get the shakes. But I will, so that if you ever see one, you’ll shoot first, before your bones turn to jelly.
    No nose. He was an oxygen breather but where the air went in and out I couldn’t say-some of it through the mouth, for he could talk. The mouth was the second worst part of him; in place of jawbone and chin he had mandibles that opened sideways as well as down, gaping in three irregular sides. There were rows of tiny teeth but no tongue that I could see; instead the mouth was rimmed with cilia as long as angleworms. They never stopped squirming.
    I said the mouth was “second worst”;