("What do you want me to say?") the larger sphere sang in Vegan.

That was my last session with Prof Joe.

Despite unstinting help, despite the Mother Thing's ability to make herself understood, I was like the Army mule at West Point: an honorary member of the student body but not prepared for the curriculum. I never did understand their government. Oh, they had government, but it wasn't any system I've heard of. Joe knew about democracies and representation and voting and courts of law; he could fish up examples from many planets. He felt that democracy was "a very good system, for beginners." It would have sounded patronizing, except that is not one of their faults.

I never met one of their young. Joe explained that children should not see "strange creatures" until they had learned to feel understanding sympathy. That would have offended me if I hadn't been learning some "understanding sympathy" myself. Matter of fact, if a human ten-year-old saw a Vegan, he would either run, or poke it with a stick.

I tried to learn about their government from the Mother Thing, in particular how they kept the peace-laws, crimes, punishments, traffic regulations, etc.

It was as near to flat failure as I ever had with her. She pondered a long time, then answered: ("How could one possibly act against one's own nature?")

I guess their worst vice was that they didn't have any. This can be tiresome.

The medical staff were interested in the drugs in Oscar's helmet-like our interest in a witch doctor's herbs, but that is not idle interest; remember digitalis and curare.

I told them what each drug did and in most cases I knew the Geneva name as well as the commercial one. I knew that codeine was derived from opium, and opium from poppies. I knew that dexedrine was a sulphate but that was all. Organic chemistry and biochemistry are not easy even with no language trouble. We got together on what a benzene ring was, Peewee drawing it and sticking in her two dollars' worth, and we managed to agree on "element," "isotope," "half life," and the periodic table. I should have drawn structural formulas, using Peewee's hands- but neither of us had the slightest idea of the structural formula for codeine and couldn't do it even when supplied with kindergarten toys which stuck together only in the valences of the elements they represented.

Peewee had fun, though. They may not have learned much from her; she learned a lot from them.

I don't know when I became aware that the Mother Thing was not, or wasn't quite, a female. But it didn't matter; being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.

If Noah launched his ark on Vega Five, the animals would come in by twelves. That makes things complicated. But a "mother thing" is one who takes care of others. I am not sure that all mother things were the same gender; it may have been a matter of temperament.

I met one "father thing." You might call him "governor" or "mayor," but "parish priest" or "scoutmaster" is closer, except that his prestige dominated a continent. He breezed in during a session with Joe, stayed five minutes, urged Joe to do a good job, told me to be a good boy and get well, and left, all without hurrying. He filled me with the warm self-reliance that Dad does-I didn't need to be told that he was a "father thing." His visit had a flavor of "royalty visiting the wounded" without being condescending-no doubt it was hard to work me into a busy schedule.

Joe neither mothered nor fathered me; he taught me and studied me- "a professor thing."

Peewee showed up one day full of bubbles. She posed like a mannequin. "Do you like my new spring outfit?"

She was wearing silvery tights, plus a little hump like a knapsack. She looked cute but not glamorous, for she was built like two sticks and this get-up emphasized it.

"Very fancy," I said. "Are you learning to be an acrobat?"

"Don't be silly, Kip; it's my new space suit-a real one."

I glanced at Oscar, big and bulky and filling the closet and said privately, "Hear that, chum?"

("It takes all kinds to make a world.")

"Your helmet won't fit it, will it?"

She giggled. "I'm wearing it."

"You are? ‘The Emperor's New Clothes'?"

"Pretty close. Kip, disconnect your prejudices and listen. This is like the Mother Thing's suit except that it's tailored for me. My old suit wasn't much good-and that cold cold about finished it. But you'll be amazed at this one. Take the helmet. It's there, only you can't see it. It's a field. Gas can't go in or out." She came close. "Slap me."

"With what?"

"Oh. I forgot. Kip, you've got to get well and up off that bed. I want to take you for a walk."

"I'm in favor. They tell me it won't be long now."

"It had better not be. Here, I'll show you." She hauled off and slapped herself. Her hand smacked into something inches from her face.

"Now watch," she went on. She moved her hand very slowly; it sank through the barrier, she thumbed her nose at me and giggled.

This impressed me-a space suit you could reach into! Why, I would have been able to give Peewee water and dexedrine and sugar pills when she needed them. "I'll be darned! What does it?"

"A power pack on my back, under the air tank. The tank is good for a week, too, and hoses can't give trouble because there aren't any."

"Uh, suppose you blow a fuse. There you are, with a lungful of vacuum."

"The Mother Thing says that can't happen."

Hmm-I had never known the Mother Thing to be wrong when she made a flat statement.

"That's not all," Peewee went on. "It feels like skin, the joints aren't clumsy, and you're never hot or cold. It's like street clothes."

"Uh, you risk a bad sunburn, don't you? Unhealthy, you tell me. Unhealthy even on the Moon."

"Oh, no! The field polarizes. That's what the field is, sort of. Kip, get them to make you one-we'll go places!"

I glanced at Oscar. ("Please yourself, pal," he said distantly. "I'm not the jealous type.")

"Uh, Peewee, I'll stick to one I understand. But I'd like to examine that monkey suit of yours."

"Monkey suit indeed!"

I woke up one morning, turned over, and realized that I was hungry.

Then I sat up with a jerk. I had turned over in bed.

I had been warned to expect it. The "bed" was a bed and my body was back under my control. Furthermore, I was hungry and I hadn't been hungry the whole time I had been on Vega Five. Whatever that machinery was, it included a way to nourish me without eating.

But I didn't stop to enjoy the luxury of hunger; it was too wonderful to be a body again, not just a head. I got out of bed, was suddenly dizzy, recovered and grinned. Hands! Feet!

I examined those wonderful things. They were unchanged and unhurt.

Then I looked more closely. No, not quite unchanged.

I had had a scar on my left shin where I had been spiked in a close play at second; it was gone. I once had "Mother" tattooed on my left forearm at a carnival. Mother had been distressed and Dad disgusted, but he had said to leave it as a reminder not to be a witling. It was gone. There was not a callus on hand or foot.

I used to bite my nails. My nails were a bit long but perfect. I had lost the nail from my right little toe years ago through a slip with a hatchet. It was back.

I looked hastily for my appendectomy scar-found it and felt relieved. If it had been missing, I would have wondered if I was me.

There was a mirror over the chest of drawers. It showed me with enough hair to warrant a guitar (I wear a crew cut) but somebody had shaved me.

On the chest was a dollar and sixty-seven cents, a mechanical pencil, a sheet of paper, my watch, and a handkerchief. The watch was running. The dollar bill, the paper, and the handkerchief had been laundered.

My clothes, spandy clean and invisibly repaired, were on the desk. The socks weren't mine; the material was more like felt, if you will imagine felted material no thicker than Kleenex which stretches instead of tearing. On the floor were tennis shoes, like Peewee's even to a "U.S. Rubber" trademark, but in my size. The uppers were heavier felted material. I got dressed.