Exile from Space Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe November 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  [_"They" worried about the impression she'd make. Who_ could _imagine that she'd fall in love, passionately, the way others of her blood must have done?_]

  exile from space

  _by ... Judith Merril_

  Who _was_ this strange girl who had been born in this place--and still it wasn't her home?...

  * * * * *

  I don't know where they got the car. We made three or four stopsbefore the last one, and they must have picked it up one of thosetimes. Anyhow, they got it, but they had to make a license plate,because it had the wrong kind on it.

  They made me some clothes, too--a skirt and blouse and shoes thatlooked just like the ones we saw on television. They couldn't make mea lipstick or any of those things, because there was no way to figureout just what the chemical composition was. And they decided I'd be aswell off without any driver's license or automobile registration as Iwould be with papers that weren't exactly perfect, so they didn'tbother about making those either.

  They were worried about what to do with my hair, and even thoughtabout cutting it short, so it would look more like the women ontelevision, but that was one time I was way ahead of them. I'd seenmore shows than anyone else, of course--I watched them almost everyminute, from the time they told me I was going--and there was onewhere I'd seen a way to make braids and put them around the top ofyour head. It wasn't very comfortable, but I practiced at it until itlooked pretty good.

  They made me a purse, too. It didn't have anything in it except thediamonds, but the women we saw always seemed to carry them, and theythought it might be a sort of superstition or ritual necessity, andthat we'd better not take a chance on violating anything like that.

  They made me spend a lot of time practicing with the car, becausewithout a license, I couldn't take a chance on getting into anytrouble. I must have put in the better part of an hour starting andstopping and backing that thing, and turning it around, and weavingthrough trees and rocks, before they were satisfied.

  Then, all of a sudden, there was nothing left to do except _go_. Theymade me repeat everything one more time, about selling the diamonds,and how to register at the hotel, and what to do if I got intotrouble, and how to get in touch with them when I wanted to come back.Then they said good-bye, and made me promise not to stay _too_ long,and said they'd keep in touch the best they could. And then I got inthe car, and drove down the hill into town.

  I knew they didn't want to let me go. They were worried, maybe even alittle afraid I wouldn't want to come back, but mostly worried that Imight say something I shouldn't, or run into some difficulties theyhadn't anticipated. And outside of that, they knew they were going tomiss me. Yet they'd made up their minds to it; they planned it thisway, and they felt it was the right thing to do, and certainly they'dput an awful lot of thought and effort and preparation into it.

  If it hadn't been for that, I might have turned back at the lastminute. Maybe they were worried; but _I_ was petrified. Only ofcourse, I wanted to go, really. I couldn't help being curious, and itnever occurred to me then that I might miss them. It was the firsttime I'd ever been out on my own, and they'd promised me, for yearsand years, as far back as I could remember, that some day I'd go back,like this, by myself. But....

  Going back, when you've been away long enough, is not so much ahomecoming as a dream _deja vu_. And for me, at least, the dream wasnot entirely a happy one. Everything I saw or heard or touched had asense of haunting familiarity, and yet of _wrongness_, too--almost anightmare feeling of the oppressively inevitable sequence of events,of faces and features and events just not-quite-remembered andnot-quite-known.

  I was born in this place, but it was not my home. Its people were notmine; its ways were not mine. All I knew of it was what I had beentold, and what I had seen for myself these last weeks of preparation,on the television screen. And the dream-feeling was intensified, atfirst, by the fact that I did not know _why_ I was there. I knew ithad been planned this way, and I had been told it was necessary tocomplete my education. Certainly I was aware of the great effort thathad been made to make the trip possible. But I did not yet understandjust _why_.

  Perhaps it was just that I had heard and watched and thought anddreamed too much about this place, and now I was actually there, thereality was--not so much a disappointment as--just sort of _unreal_.Different from what I knew when I _didn't_ know.

  The road unwound in a spreading spiral down the mountainside. Eachtime I came round, I could see the city below, closer and larger, andless distinct. From the top, with the sunlight sparkling on it, it hadbeen a clean and gleaming pattern of human civilization. Halfway down,the symmetry was lost, and the smudge and smoke began to show.

  Halfway down, too, I began to pass places of business: restaurants andgas stations and handicraft shops. I wanted to stop. For half an hournow I had been out on my own, and I still hadn't seen any of thepeople, except the three who had passed me behind the wheels of theircars, going up the road. One of the shops had a big sign on it, "COMEIN AND LOOK AROUND." But I kept going. One thing I understood was thatit was absolutely necessary to have money, and that I must stopnowhere, and attempt nothing, till after I had gotten some.

  Farther down, the houses began coming closer together, and then theroad stopped winding around, and became almost straight. By that time,I was used to the car, and didn't have to think about it much, and fora little while I really enjoyed myself. I could see into the housessometimes, through the windows, and at one, a woman was opening thedoor, coming out with a broom in her hand. There were children playingin the yards. There were cars of all kinds parked around the houses,and I saw dogs and a couple of horses, and once a whole flock ofchickens.

  But just where it was beginning to get really interesting, when I wascoming into the little town before the city, I had to stop watching itall, because there were too many other people driving. That was when Ibegan to understand all the fuss about licenses and tests and trafficregulations. Watching it on television, it wasn't anything like beingin the middle of it!

  Of course, what I ran into there was really nothing; I found that outwhen I got into the city itself. But just at first, it seemed prettybad. And I still don't understand it. These people are pretty brightmechanically. You'd think anybody who could _build_ an automobile--letalone an atom bomb--could _drive_ one easily enough. Especially with alifetime to learn in. Maybe they just like to live dangerously....

  It was a good thing, though, that I'd already started watching out forwhat the other drivers were doing when I hit my first red light. Thatwas something I'd overlooked entirely, watching street scenes on thescreen, and I guess they'd never noticed either. They must have takenit for granted, the way I did, that people stopped their cars out ofcourtesy from time to time to let the others go by. As it was, Istopped because the others did, and just happened to notice that theybegan again when the light changed to green. It's really a very goodsystem; I don't see why they don't have them at all the intersections.

  * * * * *

  From the first light, it was eight miles into the center of ColoradoSprings. A sign on the road said so, and I was irrationally pleasedwhen the speedometer on the car confirmed it. Proud, I suppose, thatthese natives from my own birth-place were such good gadgeteers. Theroad was better after that, too, and the cars didn'
t dart in and outoff the sidestreets the way they had before. There was more traffic onthe highway, but most of them behaved fairly intelligently. Until wegot into town, that is. After that, it was everybody-for-himself, butby then I was prepared for it.

  I found a place to park the car near a drugstore. That was the firstthing I was supposed to do. Find a drugstore, where there would likelybe a telephone directory, and go in and look up the address of a hockshop. I had a little trouble parking the car in the space they hadmarked off, but I could see from the way the others were stationedthat you were supposed to get in between the white lines, with thefront of the car next to the post on the sidewalk. I didn't know whatthe post was for, until I got out and read what it said, and then Ididn't know what to do, because I didn't _have_ any money. Not yet.And I didn't dare get into any trouble that might end up with