"Let's tear the joint apart!" I said. "No-show me that air lock, then you take it apart."

"All right."

She showed me the lock, a room much like the one we had been cooped in, but smaller and with an inner door built to take a pressure load. It was not locked. We opened it cautiously. It was empty, and its outer door was closed or we would never been able to open the inner. I said, "If Wormface had been a suspenders-and-belt man, he would have left the outer door open, even though he had us locked up. Then- Wait a second! Is there a way to latch the inner door open?"

"I don't know."

"We'll see." There was, a simple hook. But to make sure that it couldn't be unlatched by button-pushing from outside I wedged it with my knife. "You're sure this is the only air lock?"

"The other ship had only one and I'm pretty certain they are alike."

"We'll keep our eyes open. Nobody can get at us through this one. Even old Wormface has to use an air lock."

"But suppose he opens the outer door anyhow?" Peewee said nervously. "We'd pop like balloons."

I looked at her and grinned. "Who is a genius? Sure we would ... if he did. But he won't. Not with twenty, twenty-five tons of pressure holding it closed. As you reminded me, this is the Moon. No air outside, remember?"

"Oh." Peewee looked sheepish.

So we searched. I enjoyed wrecking doors; Wormface wasn't going to like me. One of the first things we found was a smelly little hole that Fatty and Skinny lived in. The door was not locked, which was a shame. That room told me a lot about that pair. It showed that they were pigs, with habits as unattractive as their morals. The room also told me that they were not casual prisoners; it had been refitted for humans. Their relationship with Wormface, whatever it was, had gone on for some time and was continuing. There were two empty racks for space suits, several dozen canned rations of the sort sold in military-surplus stores, and best of all, there was drinking water and a washroom of sorts-and something more precious than fine gold or frankincense if we found our suits: two charged bottles of oxy-helium.

I took a drink, opened a can of food for Peewee-it opened with a key; we weren't in the predicament of the Three Men in a Boat with their tin of pineapple-told her to grab a bite, then search that room. I went on with my giant toad sticker; those charged air bottles had given me an unbearable itch to find our suits-and get out!-before Wormface returned.

I smashed a dozen doors as fast as the Walrus and the Carpenter opened oysters and found all sorts of things, including what must have been living quarters for wormfaces. But I didn't stop to look-the Space Corps could do that, if and when-I simply made sure that there was not a space suit in any of them.

And found them!-in a compartment next to the one we had been prisoners in.

I was so glad to see Oscar that I could have kissed him. I shouted, "Hi, Pal! Mirabile visu!" and ran to get Peewee. My feet went out from under me again but I didn't care.

Peewee looked up as I rushed in. "I was just going to look for you."

"Got it! Got it!"

"You found the Mother Thing?" she said eagerly.

"Huh? No, no! The space suits-yours and mine! Let's go!"

"Oh." She looked disappointed and I felt hurt. "That's good ... but we have to find the Mother Thing first."

I felt tried beyond endurance. Here we had a chance, slim but real, to escape a fate-worse-than-death (I'm not using a figure of speech) and she wanted to hang around to search for a bug-eyed monster. For any human being, even a stranger with halitosis, I would have done it. For a dog or cat I would, although reluctantly.

But what was a bug-eyed monster to me? All this one had done was to get me into the worst jam I had ever been in.

I considered socking Peewee and stuffing her into her suit. But I said, "Are you crazy? We're leaving-right now!"

"We can't go till we find her."

"Now I know you're crazy. We don't even know she's here... and if we do find her, we can't take her with us."

"Oh, but we will!"

"How? This is the Moon, remember? No air. Got a space suit for her?"

"But-" That stonkered her. But not for long. She had been sitting on the floor, holding the ration can between her knees. She stood up suddenly, bouncing a little, and said, "Do as you like; I'm going to find her. Here." She shoved the can at me.

I should have used force. But I am handicapped by training from early childhood never to strike a female, no matter how richly she deserves it. So the opportunity and Peewee both slid past while I was torn between common sense and upbringing. I simply groaned helplessly.

Then I became aware of an unbearably attractive odor. I was holding that can. It contained boiled shoe leather and gray gravy and smelled ambrosial.

Peewee had eaten half; I ate the rest while looking at what she had found. There was a coil of nylon rope which I happily put with the air bottles; Oscar had fifty feet of clothesline clipped to his belt but that had been a penny-saving expedient. There was a prospector's hammer which I salvaged, and two batteries which would do for headlamps and things.

The only other items of interest were a Government Printing Office publication titled Preliminary Report on Selenology, a pamphlet on uranium prospecting, and an expired Utah driver's license for "Timothy Johnson"-I recognized the older man's mean face. The pamphlets interested me but this was no time for excess baggage.

The main furniture was two beds, curved like contour chairs and deeply padded; they told me that Skinny and Fatty had ridden this ship at high acceleration.

When I had mopped the last of the gravy with a finger, I took a big drink, washed my hands-using water lavishly because I didn't care if that pair died of thirst-grabbed my plunder and headed for the room where the space suits were.

As I got there I ran into Peewee. She was carrying the crowbar and looking overjoyed. "I found her!"

"Where?"

"Come on! I can't get it open, I'm not strong enough."

I put the stuff with our suits and followed her. She stopped at a door panel farther along the corridor than my vandalism had taken me. "In there!"

I looked and I listened. "What makes you think so?"

"I know! Open it!"

I shrugged and got to work with the nutpick. The panel went sprung! and that was that.

Curled up in the middle of the floor was a creature.

So far as I could tell, it might or might not have been the one I had seen in the pasture the night before. The light had been poor, the conditions very different, and my examination had ended abruptly. But Peewee was in no doubt. She launched herself through the air with a squeal of joy and the two rolled over and over like kittens play-fighting.

Peewee was making sounds of joy, more or less in English. So was the Mother Thing, but not in English. I would not have been surprised if she had spoken English, since Wormface did and since Peewee had mentioned things the Mother Thing had told her. But she didn't.

Did you ever listen to a mockingbird? Sometimes singing melodies, sometimes just sending up a joyous noise unto the Lord? The endlessly varied songs of a mockingbird are nearest to the speech of the Mother Thing.

At last they held still, more or less, and Peewee said, "Oh, Mother Thing, I'm so happy!"

The creature sang to her. Peewee answered, "Oh. I'm forgetting my manners. Mother Thing, this is my dear friend Kip."

The Mother Thing sang to me-and I understood.

What she said was: "I am very happy to know you, Kip." It didn't come out in words. But it might as well have been English. Nor was this half-kidding self-deception, such as my conversations with Oscar or Peewee's with Madame Pompadour-when I talk with Oscar I am both sides of the conversation; it's just my conscious talking to my subconscious, or some such. This was not that.