Getting Along with Nate
The kitchen gave an after-dinner gargle as something was turned on. Nate put his hand-print on the last of the inch-high earth-mounds and began to imagine how his side would defend themselves. He glanced down the tunnel of azaleas along the pretend-warriors’ line of attack. Movement in the gloom caught his eye.
Along the side of the wall, a small bucket, about the size of the one he used at the beach, was proceeding slowly up the low, azalea arcade. The open top of the pail sprouted a short, woody and very twisty little shrub. Nate accepted the new arrival more or less as a mater of course and, with a motorizing noise, bull-dozed one of his ant-sized fortresses into an ant-breastwork across the way. Moving on a large ball set into the bottom of the pail, the whole creation, like an escaped houseplant, moved smoothly forward. The bucket twisted and turned continually to prop, push and untangle the limbs of its plant from the snagging azalea twigs. But as the metallic pail was featureless and nearly colorless in the gloom, the impression was that the little bush atop was moving itself, fighting its way through the overhead growth. It rolled steadily over the soft line of earth that formed Nate’s daydreamed defense and stopped near his foot, by the base of the lilac stems.
Nate gave the shiny bucket a poke with his sneaker. Nothing happened. It was heavy. This new arrival was novel and well polished, but Nate preferred it to move.
A short time passed in which the feeling steadily grew that he was being called. He hoped he was not and hunched down in silence. There had been dull company for dinner and he knew he would eventually have to put in an appearance, to be shown off.
"Hello." Nate had the clear impression that the bucket had said that. It did not look like the kind of thing that might talk, but he was too young to have confidence in his preconceptions.
"Hello," Nate responded.
The voice pushed on, almost eagerly, "It’s very pleasing to meet you here. My interests, and so on, very seldom bring me into contact with you people. What are you doing, if you don’t mind a curious foreigner?" the disembodied voice asked. In the light of this adult concern, Nate felt that his forts and armies were inadequate.
"Mixing in the food in the ground...for the lilac to eat," he answered. His father had troweled smelly fertilizer into the soil a few days ago. He had even said that it was good stuff, and the Keenan’s puppy liked to eat it. As soon as he finished speaking, a general sense of cheerfulness and enthusiasm came over him. "It’s good stuff," he added.
"Really! To be sure." The voice was very warm and companionable now. "What do you use? Might I try some?" Nate found he understood the conversation better than he usually did and was enjoying himself immensely. He put a pinch of the richest mud into the top of the pail.
"Oh, no! Not like that. Take it out." The voice was now excited and amused. Nate grabbed out the mud. "I’ll just...," the pail rolled about in a small arc through the dampest dirt, "pick up a bit this way. Ophff! Quite a tang. It’s strong stuff. Very complex and slow, but a bit high in nitrogen for me. I haven’t got much green, you know. Just the thing for the lilac, I dare say. You have to be brought up on it. It would give me the rot if I stuck with it."
"It’s natural," Nate said.
"Quite. Natural to you, not natural to me. Do you produce it?"
"Yes," Nate said, trying to be agreeable.
"Then you live more or less in harmony with the lilac? You might be called symbiotic on the basis of mutual gratification, more or less?"
At last Nate was getting lost, but he was still pleased with the attention. He giggled. "Where are you?"
"I?" said the voice, amazed. "I’m right in front of you."
"I can’t see you," Nate said, still giggling.
"But I thought you people could see. I’m directly before your basal dendron."
"Where?" Nate asked.
"Here." The word certainly and without doubt meant in the small metal container.
"In the bucket?" Nate asked. "Like in a T.V.?"
"Bucket? Well, yes, growing in it then."
"There’s nothing in the bucket but a little tree," Nate said. He laughed at the silliness of his new friend.
"Well, of course! That’s me."
Nate fell silent and grave for a while, to digest this new aspect of the world. He finally said, "Oh," as he had no great deal of readjusting to do. A moment later he asked, "Where do you live?’
"In my ship, of course. Plants aren’t made for the settled life, like you folk. Between one star and another, wherever the lights and streams and business carry me. I know you won’t be minded to appreciate the fact, but your sun is quite unspoiled, deserted...wild. No crowds like the fashionable rot-spots. Take it just as it is, without filters and spices! It’s just the thing for old wood. I may even have put on a bit of green, I think."
Nate began playing in the dirt again, while the shrub talked on.
"And where do you live?" it finally asked him.
"Here," Nate answered.
"Do you then? That’s a good choice. Have you lived here long?"
"Oh, yes. I always lived here," he told his new friend.
Hesitating, as if suddenly taken shy, the little shrub said, "I, myself...well, that is, I’ve been, ah,...that is, rather taken. I mean to say that, you know, the lilac...when I first saw her.... You know, we, or rather I (at first anyway),we you might say...we know each other very well, on intimate, that is famil...even equality! Respect, if you know what I mean. So I, er..." As the sun set the shrub seemed to lose its way among the things it wished to say.
"We love each other very much, you see."
"Oh," said Nate. He snaked a finger through the loose soil, from mound to mound. "If there was a army of ants..."
"Ants!"
Nate’s head snapped up, startled.
"Ants! Why, just let me burden a minute of your time with such a paltry consideration. As many of them as you like! Do they swarm or march in lines? No difference. Roll right over them!"
SNAP!
Nate jerked backwards. A crack, like nothing he had ever heard, and a flash of light in his face had momentarily scared him.
"Ants! Don’t give me ants. There are more ominous threats in the world for man of honor." The bucket did a tight circle. "Burn off their roots or whatever, I assure you. You don’t have to worry on that score. I can take care of her."
"WOW!" Nate said, in total admiration, instantly over his fright. "What was that?"
"Oh, that. Just the usual release. I’ve been forced to learn to take care of myself, traveling the routes that I have. Not that I do anymore," the little shrub hastened to add anxiously.
"In my younger days, to be sure. I used to be the...well, one of the Adjutants to the Carbon League. Possibly you aren’t even familiar. I was young at the time, as I said. Liberalism is bound to end in reaction, as I see it now. But at the time... They were one of the most disciplined and dedicated organizations. Their very opponents couldn’t but admit it. When they finally broke on their own rigidity, a good while after I’d gone on to other fields (I’m quite non-directive now, or try to be), it was the destruction of some of the best people of the age." Then the voice of the little pail seemed to take further consideration. "But you people aren’t really made for discipline. You seem to have lived a very affectionate kind of life without it. She has certainly never known anything but safety and good will."
Nate pondered. "You mean the lilac?" he asked, finally. Sitting in the sun on the steps one afternoon, his mother had explained to him why the lilac was important. When they first moved into the house, before he was even born, there were no bushes or flowers. He pictured the vague, early world all brown earth, flat, dry and empty. The lilac was the first bush they bought when they heard he was coming along. His mother said it was her Nate bush and it always made her think of him.
"Of course, the lilac." The shrub’s voice came out of its reverie. "None of these other weeds begin to approach civilized standards. What else could I be talking about?" There was something immediate about the way the little bush spoke, which allowed Nate to understand large words and disconnected references as he had never been able to before. In any case, he was pleased with the occasionally dashing atmosphere.
"I don’t know," said Nate.
"Well, then?"
"But the lilac isn’t a girl," Nate said, beginning to giggle. He had just caught on.
"You must understand," said the shrub reservedly, "she is not a girl, in the actual sense. But the closest term for my meaning is "girl" in your sensibility. For the purposes of our conversation here let us say that she is the most beautiful girl imaginable." The gnarled shrub seemed to bristle though it did not actually move. "You are a boy, and there are significant differences between you and myself. But I may be called he for want of a better word. Do you understand what I mean?’
"Yes," said Nate. He did not like the lecturing tone.
"I’ll take her away with me to enjoy the light and humor of suns and earths across the sky. I have been lonely among the stars." There was a sigh. "But now I have found someone who shares my very soul."
"Hey, you can’t take her." Nate was alarmed.
"Can’t? I must!" answered the rigid shrub in the pail. "I cannot live without her."
"Yeah, but you can’t," Nate insisted.
"Love knows no honor. She has consented and we will be off, by force or by stealth, if no more honorable method is accepted."
"But that’s our lilac. It’s not supposed to go anywhere. You’ll get in trouble if you take her." Nate was seriously lecturing the little shrub. He had a strong sense of property and an awareness of sure retribution. He did not want his new friend to get into trouble.
The shrub replied, "I can understand the bonds which tie the pair of you together. When I saw the early sun eagerly stretching from the horizon to be grasped by her gentle mantle, I thought I could never approach. But I should have realized her alertness. I couldn’t leave and she spied me out. But you must realize that, though you and she were once close and nothing else existed for you but each other, she is ready to leave and begin a mature life. We are committed to each other now and there is no going back. Oh, I’m old and filled with ego, but she has found some virtue even in me and I would not be able to turn myself away from that intimacy. Please understand."
"You can’t." Nate was mounding the dirt again. He did not like to see his friends do bad things. The gleaming bucket fell back an inch or two.
The bush in the bucket pressed it’s point. "I can understand your reluctance to be parted, surely. I can see in her every aspect how your concern and tenderness have nurtured what is best in her. I’m not blind enough to suppose that your relationship has been merely physical. I promise you that, if you give your blessing to our departure, the beautiful lilac will never know less love or freedom than she has had with you. My very growth will be dedicated to helping her along the clear and simple ways, in which you have given her root."
"Well," said Nate slowly, "I don’t think you better." He was moved by the small shrub’s pleas.
"Consider her good, not mine or yours." The voice took a new tack. "This world has not been thoroughly developed with the welfare of such creatures as she and I in mind. There are dangerous impurities in the air. There are destructive creatures moving about. Random death and maiming come easily and without warning. Surely you would not willingly expose her to these, if it were in your power to grant shelter."
"No," Nate said. He was not quite sure, but on the whole it sounded like something he would not allow.
"And consider the other side of the issue." The little shrub’s voice fairly quivered with intensity. "Though I may have an imperfect soul, you cannot deny that the space between the stars is as naturally ours as the worlds of gravity are the proper and delightful realm of creatures like yourself. The suns, the winds! The life that I can offer in all its fullness! It is only fair that you allow your charge to develop her consciousness to the full. You would not be kind if you denied it."
Nate gazed steadily down, smoothing the small plain between two mounds in silence. The quiet was ringing. Finally he broke it. "Well," he began slowly, "I’d let you, but my Mommy likes this lilac an awful lot. She’d be sad if you took it. My Dad bought it for her. She says it reminds her of me."
"Ah, then nothing could be simpler!" cried the shrub. "He could buy her another young slip to be her replacement. You have each other; I am alone. Surely I will remain a hollow reed if you deny me this companionship. I am not without means. What would you accept as payment and token of my gratitude for the long years of care and affection you have given her?"
"Well, they’re expensive." Nate saw a way out. If the little shrub in the bucket paid for the lilac, his mother could get a new one and the problem would be settled happily all around.
"Name your price."
"A hundred," Nate said. He unhesitatingly picked the top number.
"A hundred of what?" asked the voice, eagerly.
Nate was stopped. He could not think of anything.
"Chocolate kisses," he finally said into the tense silence.
"Ah, chocolate kisses... I don’t believe I am familiar... Can you give me a descriptive analysis or a sample?" The voice sounded really shaken.
Suddenly, it occurred to Nate that he would need money. "No. Pennies, that’s what." He remembered pennies from occasional visits to his grandmother and the extreme seriousness with which his parents treated the ones she had given him.
"Yes, pennies. Well, now, yes. Any amount you like. I want to assure you of my good will and honorable intentions. I am vaguely familiar with pennies. A unit of exchange, am I right? As in, The young man gave a penny for her thoughts."
"It’s money."
"Quite. The difficulty is that the local banking facilities would take rather long to exchange currencies. You understand that any delay costs me great pain. Would you be willing to consider a direct presentation of goods, rather than the less meaningful and rather symbolic payment of monetary notes? Say, just as suggestions, a serum to greatly extend your life span...with the directions for its preparation, naturally. Or a working model of the Trond Duplicator? Or this: I believe your world is short of manipulable power; would a power source, large enough to meet whatever demands you specify, be of value to you? Perhaps some largish carbon crystals or any other raw material within reach?"
"Pennies," Nate said positively.
The voice sounded hollow when it asked, "How many?"
"A hundred. No, three," said Nate. He was feeling sorry for the little, bright bucket and he did not want to be truly unrealistic.
"Three pennies. I don’t suppose you have a sample to show me?"
"I don’t have any," Nate answered. All his were locked in a church-shaped wooden box in his mother’s dresser. As far as Nate knew, there was no way to get them out of the box, even if he could get into the drawer.
"Ah, you are cruel. You test me too hard. I understand you motives, but search your heart and decide if you’re not being vindictive. Is there nothing else you would accept? Tell me what is valuable to you?"
"Well, gold, I guess," said Nate.
"Gold!" The bucket spun in excitement. "Gold! Yes, certainly. Gold! It’s everywhere, in the soil, the water....I’ll be only too glad to pick it out for you. How much do you want?"
"A ton," Nate replied. He was proud of knowing that gold was had by the ton.
"A ton, certainly. That’s two thousand...do you mean a long ton or a short ton?"
"Oh, a short one is all right," Nate told him casually. He was not going to be a stickler. The evening was darkening. "I have to go now. It’s time. I’ll see you later," he said.
"And I must, too," said the bucket. "As soon as I have the gold, I’ll return."
"Okay," said Nate. He crawled out between the lilac and the steps, while the bucket hurried away on its ball, down the tunnel of azaleas along the house wall.
As he wedged his way in through the screen door, voices from the front of the house reminded Nate that there had been company for supper. When Nate came into the living room, he was not surprised to be hailed.
"There’s my boy, Nate!" Uncle Al threw one hand up in the air and one out sideways, irrelevantly. His thin face broke into wrinkles and teeth as he smiled. Uncle Al was a friend of his parents, who had known both before either had known the other. He was famous and Nate’s father always took him very seriously, paying great attention to what he said. Uncle Al, on the other hand, never had to pay attention to what anyone else said because he was famous. But he made a point of listening intently to Nate, as if to prove he could. He was always trying to get Nate to explain things he did not understand; last time it had been how a top spins. And when Nate was half-way through, he would interrupt and explain it himself. He was very tedious. Besides, Uncle Al could not spin a top, though Nate’s father did it all the time. "Come on over here, boy, and let’s have a talk. It’s been ages since we talked seriously, hasn’t it?"
Nate shuffled over.
"My lands, Nate, what’s that on the seat of your pants? What’ve you been sitting in?" His mother made to grab him, but Uncle Al had Nate by the arm first. "Don’t get that on your clean clothes, Al," Nate’s mother said. She looked uncomfortable.
Uncle Al lifted Nate to his bony knee anyway. "It’s just natural compounds, nothing to worry about. Now, Nate, where have you been? You disappeared right after supper."
"Outside," Nate mumbled.
"Tell Uncle Al what you were doing," Nate’s father told him.
"Just playing. I wasn’t doing anything."
"Well, were you alone or with friends?" Uncle Al began.
"Alone," Nate said.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"You just sat quietly without doing anything?" Uncle Al asked.
Nate felt foolish. "No," he said. "We talked and..."
"So you were with someone!" Uncle Al pounced on the information. "You see, Carole, the child forms denominational groupings. One of my graduate students on the cognitive side is interested in delineating the world-divisions of a selected group of pre-schoolers, comparing class, ethnicity and WISC scores." To Nate, these asides on his conversation were a welcome relief from the interrogation itself.
"You were alone, but talking to someone, right Nate?" Uncle Al turned back to Nate’s mother. "You see how these groupings, extensions of ego, affect our conversation, making it apparently contradictory and unintelligible to others, who don’t share the structure. He turned his attention back to Nate, who slumped on his knee. "Who were you talking to, Nate?"
"A boy."
"A friend?"
"Yes." Nate admitted.
"Well, I thought you weren’t with friends," said Uncle Al.
"We just met."
Nate’s mother broke in, now that the talk had turned to something she felt she ought to know. "Where does he live?" she asked.
"In a ship, but he lives in a bucket, too." Nate felt foolish again as soon as Uncle Al drew an avid breath to speak. His mother sat back, bewildered.
"What is he living in now?" Uncle Al asked.
"The bucket," said Nate.
"Where did you meet him?"
"In the yard," Nate admitted, vaguely.
"Where’s the bucket now? I’ll have a look at this myself," Uncle Al said with a grin.
"It went away with him." Nate said.
"Oh, the bucket went away. Did somebody carry it?" said Uncle Al, half-laughing.
"On wheels like, sort of...on the bottom," said Nate. "It was a machine."
"Where did it go then?" Uncle Al continued.
"I don’t know."
"What did the boy in the bucket say to you? What did you talk about, Nate?"
"The lilac," Nate said. Uncle Al’s smile was as steady and encouraging as a drizzle. He had the habit of pushing on the small of Nate’s back and jogging his knee to make him talk. "He wanted to take her."
"Take the lilac?" Uncle Al said, showing great amazement.
"Yes."
"Why? Whose lilac is it?"
"I said he couldn’t because it was ours, but he wants to," Nate said, apologetically.
"What did he say to that?" In the interval that occurred, Uncle Al gave his knee a bounce to encourage.
"He said he’d pay for it."
"What would he pay?" asked Uncle Al.
"A ton," said Nate.
"A ton? A ton of what, Natey?" Uncle Al inquired.
"Gold. He didn’t want to pay pennies."
"Well, Brad, if this boy in a bucket on wheels brings a ton of gold, can he have the bush?" Uncle Al turned to Nate’s father.
"Sure thing. I guess so," Nate’s dad said. "Make sure it’s a ton, though."
"Okay," said Nate.
"What’s he want the lilac for?" asked Uncle Al, returning his attention to Nate.
"He says he can’t live without it," Nate said.
"Ho, ho! A case of puppy love! He loves it?"
"Yes."
"Did he say so?" asked Uncle Al, gleefully.
"I guess."
"What did he say, exactly? Uncle Al was radiating. Nate felt very uncomfortable, in part because his bottom was being hurt on Uncle Al’s un-padded knee.
"I don’t know," said Nate.
"Well, did he say when he’d be back with the gold?"
"No." said Nate.
"Where did he go?"
"I don’t know." Nate said.
"What was his name?" Uncle Al prodded him in the back.
"I don’t know."
"What did he look like, then?"
"I don’t know." Nate said.
"How about the bucket? What was it like?" asked Uncle Al.
"Don’t know."
"The boy’s ready for bed, Al. Let me take him. I’ll get your room ready at the same time." His mother gathered him out of Uncle Al’s clutches, and shortly Nate was in bed.
He wandered groggily out of sleep.
"Nate." That was what had awakened him. "Nate!" it came again. It was the voice of the little bush in the bucket.
Sleepily he got out of bed and climbed the chair by the partially open window. He raised it enough to put his head out. In the moon-lit yard a pile of dull yellow sand bulked.
"I brought the gold," said the voice. But Nate could not see the little bucket with its bush on the top anywhere. He was not even looking for it. Most of the yard was taken up by something large and shaped like an egg. A ramp led down from the egg to the pile of sand. "I have done as you asked, and now we will take our leave."
From the inside of the egg-shape, the small bush in its bucket appeared at the top of the ramp. Behind it was another, many times larger. Nate sleepily recognized the long stems and bushy top of the lilac. But none of this seemed important.
Above the two forms in the doorway, above the egg-thing itself, loomed the shifting, gleaming shape that had called him. Nate could never remember what he really saw, just some things about it, and he did no know how to describe them. One of the two was dazzling and thin, like a tree without branches. He could not tell if it was near or far, just in front of his nose or miles away, thought it came straight up from the little shrub in the bucket. The other was even harder to see. And he could say less about it. It did not seem to have any shape at all or any size. It was just a simpleness that clung to the other form, yet maintained itself apart. The lilac never came into full view, but for some reason Nate associated it with this calm.
"Goodbye. We wish you the best for all you’ve done and may you find another sweet lilac to keep you company." It was the tall presence speaking.
"That’s okay," said Nate. "Is it a ton?"
"Certainly."
"Okay," he said. Then he felt as if his mother had picked him up and hugged him really long and hard when he had been feeling lonely. He woke again on the chair by the window with the night breeze tickling over him. The yard was empty except for the heap of sand, so he crawled back into bed.
In the morning, he woke again. There were a lot of loud voices below the window. His mother was saying something he was still too sleepy to hear. But Uncle Al’s voice came up clear.
"Let me talk to him, Carole. It’s just a matter of following the sequence. I’ll get the straight sense out of him. You know how Nate and I get along."
Along the side of the wall, a small bucket, about the size of the one he used at the beach, was proceeding slowly up the low, azalea arcade. The open top of the pail sprouted a short, woody and very twisty little shrub. Nate accepted the new arrival more or less as a mater of course and, with a motorizing noise, bull-dozed one of his ant-sized fortresses into an ant-breastwork across the way. Moving on a large ball set into the bottom of the pail, the whole creation, like an escaped houseplant, moved smoothly forward. The bucket twisted and turned continually to prop, push and untangle the limbs of its plant from the snagging azalea twigs. But as the metallic pail was featureless and nearly colorless in the gloom, the impression was that the little bush atop was moving itself, fighting its way through the overhead growth. It rolled steadily over the soft line of earth that formed Nate’s daydreamed defense and stopped near his foot, by the base of the lilac stems.
Nate gave the shiny bucket a poke with his sneaker. Nothing happened. It was heavy. This new arrival was novel and well polished, but Nate preferred it to move.
A short time passed in which the feeling steadily grew that he was being called. He hoped he was not and hunched down in silence. There had been dull company for dinner and he knew he would eventually have to put in an appearance, to be shown off.
"Hello." Nate had the clear impression that the bucket had said that. It did not look like the kind of thing that might talk, but he was too young to have confidence in his preconceptions.
"Hello," Nate responded.
The voice pushed on, almost eagerly, "It’s very pleasing to meet you here. My interests, and so on, very seldom bring me into contact with you people. What are you doing, if you don’t mind a curious foreigner?" the disembodied voice asked. In the light of this adult concern, Nate felt that his forts and armies were inadequate.
"Mixing in the food in the ground...for the lilac to eat," he answered. His father had troweled smelly fertilizer into the soil a few days ago. He had even said that it was good stuff, and the Keenan’s puppy liked to eat it. As soon as he finished speaking, a general sense of cheerfulness and enthusiasm came over him. "It’s good stuff," he added.
"Really! To be sure." The voice was very warm and companionable now. "What do you use? Might I try some?" Nate found he understood the conversation better than he usually did and was enjoying himself immensely. He put a pinch of the richest mud into the top of the pail.
"Oh, no! Not like that. Take it out." The voice was now excited and amused. Nate grabbed out the mud. "I’ll just...," the pail rolled about in a small arc through the dampest dirt, "pick up a bit this way. Ophff! Quite a tang. It’s strong stuff. Very complex and slow, but a bit high in nitrogen for me. I haven’t got much green, you know. Just the thing for the lilac, I dare say. You have to be brought up on it. It would give me the rot if I stuck with it."
"It’s natural," Nate said.
"Quite. Natural to you, not natural to me. Do you produce it?"
"Yes," Nate said, trying to be agreeable.
"Then you live more or less in harmony with the lilac? You might be called symbiotic on the basis of mutual gratification, more or less?"
At last Nate was getting lost, but he was still pleased with the attention. He giggled. "Where are you?"
"I?" said the voice, amazed. "I’m right in front of you."
"I can’t see you," Nate said, still giggling.
"But I thought you people could see. I’m directly before your basal dendron."
"Where?" Nate asked.
"Here." The word certainly and without doubt meant in the small metal container.
"In the bucket?" Nate asked. "Like in a T.V.?"
"Bucket? Well, yes, growing in it then."
"There’s nothing in the bucket but a little tree," Nate said. He laughed at the silliness of his new friend.
"Well, of course! That’s me."
Nate fell silent and grave for a while, to digest this new aspect of the world. He finally said, "Oh," as he had no great deal of readjusting to do. A moment later he asked, "Where do you live?’
"In my ship, of course. Plants aren’t made for the settled life, like you folk. Between one star and another, wherever the lights and streams and business carry me. I know you won’t be minded to appreciate the fact, but your sun is quite unspoiled, deserted...wild. No crowds like the fashionable rot-spots. Take it just as it is, without filters and spices! It’s just the thing for old wood. I may even have put on a bit of green, I think."
Nate began playing in the dirt again, while the shrub talked on.
"And where do you live?" it finally asked him.
"Here," Nate answered.
"Do you then? That’s a good choice. Have you lived here long?"
"Oh, yes. I always lived here," he told his new friend.
Hesitating, as if suddenly taken shy, the little shrub said, "I, myself...well, that is, I’ve been, ah,...that is, rather taken. I mean to say that, you know, the lilac...when I first saw her.... You know, we, or rather I (at first anyway),we you might say...we know each other very well, on intimate, that is famil...even equality! Respect, if you know what I mean. So I, er..." As the sun set the shrub seemed to lose its way among the things it wished to say.
"We love each other very much, you see."
"Oh," said Nate. He snaked a finger through the loose soil, from mound to mound. "If there was a army of ants..."
"Ants!"
Nate’s head snapped up, startled.
"Ants! Why, just let me burden a minute of your time with such a paltry consideration. As many of them as you like! Do they swarm or march in lines? No difference. Roll right over them!"
SNAP!
Nate jerked backwards. A crack, like nothing he had ever heard, and a flash of light in his face had momentarily scared him.
"Ants! Don’t give me ants. There are more ominous threats in the world for man of honor." The bucket did a tight circle. "Burn off their roots or whatever, I assure you. You don’t have to worry on that score. I can take care of her."
"WOW!" Nate said, in total admiration, instantly over his fright. "What was that?"
"Oh, that. Just the usual release. I’ve been forced to learn to take care of myself, traveling the routes that I have. Not that I do anymore," the little shrub hastened to add anxiously.
"In my younger days, to be sure. I used to be the...well, one of the Adjutants to the Carbon League. Possibly you aren’t even familiar. I was young at the time, as I said. Liberalism is bound to end in reaction, as I see it now. But at the time... They were one of the most disciplined and dedicated organizations. Their very opponents couldn’t but admit it. When they finally broke on their own rigidity, a good while after I’d gone on to other fields (I’m quite non-directive now, or try to be), it was the destruction of some of the best people of the age." Then the voice of the little pail seemed to take further consideration. "But you people aren’t really made for discipline. You seem to have lived a very affectionate kind of life without it. She has certainly never known anything but safety and good will."
Nate pondered. "You mean the lilac?" he asked, finally. Sitting in the sun on the steps one afternoon, his mother had explained to him why the lilac was important. When they first moved into the house, before he was even born, there were no bushes or flowers. He pictured the vague, early world all brown earth, flat, dry and empty. The lilac was the first bush they bought when they heard he was coming along. His mother said it was her Nate bush and it always made her think of him.
"Of course, the lilac." The shrub’s voice came out of its reverie. "None of these other weeds begin to approach civilized standards. What else could I be talking about?" There was something immediate about the way the little bush spoke, which allowed Nate to understand large words and disconnected references as he had never been able to before. In any case, he was pleased with the occasionally dashing atmosphere.
"I don’t know," said Nate.
"Well, then?"
"But the lilac isn’t a girl," Nate said, beginning to giggle. He had just caught on.
"You must understand," said the shrub reservedly, "she is not a girl, in the actual sense. But the closest term for my meaning is "girl" in your sensibility. For the purposes of our conversation here let us say that she is the most beautiful girl imaginable." The gnarled shrub seemed to bristle though it did not actually move. "You are a boy, and there are significant differences between you and myself. But I may be called he for want of a better word. Do you understand what I mean?’
"Yes," said Nate. He did not like the lecturing tone.
"I’ll take her away with me to enjoy the light and humor of suns and earths across the sky. I have been lonely among the stars." There was a sigh. "But now I have found someone who shares my very soul."
"Hey, you can’t take her." Nate was alarmed.
"Can’t? I must!" answered the rigid shrub in the pail. "I cannot live without her."
"Yeah, but you can’t," Nate insisted.
"Love knows no honor. She has consented and we will be off, by force or by stealth, if no more honorable method is accepted."
"But that’s our lilac. It’s not supposed to go anywhere. You’ll get in trouble if you take her." Nate was seriously lecturing the little shrub. He had a strong sense of property and an awareness of sure retribution. He did not want his new friend to get into trouble.
The shrub replied, "I can understand the bonds which tie the pair of you together. When I saw the early sun eagerly stretching from the horizon to be grasped by her gentle mantle, I thought I could never approach. But I should have realized her alertness. I couldn’t leave and she spied me out. But you must realize that, though you and she were once close and nothing else existed for you but each other, she is ready to leave and begin a mature life. We are committed to each other now and there is no going back. Oh, I’m old and filled with ego, but she has found some virtue even in me and I would not be able to turn myself away from that intimacy. Please understand."
"You can’t." Nate was mounding the dirt again. He did not like to see his friends do bad things. The gleaming bucket fell back an inch or two.
The bush in the bucket pressed it’s point. "I can understand your reluctance to be parted, surely. I can see in her every aspect how your concern and tenderness have nurtured what is best in her. I’m not blind enough to suppose that your relationship has been merely physical. I promise you that, if you give your blessing to our departure, the beautiful lilac will never know less love or freedom than she has had with you. My very growth will be dedicated to helping her along the clear and simple ways, in which you have given her root."
"Well," said Nate slowly, "I don’t think you better." He was moved by the small shrub’s pleas.
"Consider her good, not mine or yours." The voice took a new tack. "This world has not been thoroughly developed with the welfare of such creatures as she and I in mind. There are dangerous impurities in the air. There are destructive creatures moving about. Random death and maiming come easily and without warning. Surely you would not willingly expose her to these, if it were in your power to grant shelter."
"No," Nate said. He was not quite sure, but on the whole it sounded like something he would not allow.
"And consider the other side of the issue." The little shrub’s voice fairly quivered with intensity. "Though I may have an imperfect soul, you cannot deny that the space between the stars is as naturally ours as the worlds of gravity are the proper and delightful realm of creatures like yourself. The suns, the winds! The life that I can offer in all its fullness! It is only fair that you allow your charge to develop her consciousness to the full. You would not be kind if you denied it."
Nate gazed steadily down, smoothing the small plain between two mounds in silence. The quiet was ringing. Finally he broke it. "Well," he began slowly, "I’d let you, but my Mommy likes this lilac an awful lot. She’d be sad if you took it. My Dad bought it for her. She says it reminds her of me."
"Ah, then nothing could be simpler!" cried the shrub. "He could buy her another young slip to be her replacement. You have each other; I am alone. Surely I will remain a hollow reed if you deny me this companionship. I am not without means. What would you accept as payment and token of my gratitude for the long years of care and affection you have given her?"
"Well, they’re expensive." Nate saw a way out. If the little shrub in the bucket paid for the lilac, his mother could get a new one and the problem would be settled happily all around.
"Name your price."
"A hundred," Nate said. He unhesitatingly picked the top number.
"A hundred of what?" asked the voice, eagerly.
Nate was stopped. He could not think of anything.
"Chocolate kisses," he finally said into the tense silence.
"Ah, chocolate kisses... I don’t believe I am familiar... Can you give me a descriptive analysis or a sample?" The voice sounded really shaken.
Suddenly, it occurred to Nate that he would need money. "No. Pennies, that’s what." He remembered pennies from occasional visits to his grandmother and the extreme seriousness with which his parents treated the ones she had given him.
"Yes, pennies. Well, now, yes. Any amount you like. I want to assure you of my good will and honorable intentions. I am vaguely familiar with pennies. A unit of exchange, am I right? As in, The young man gave a penny for her thoughts."
"It’s money."
"Quite. The difficulty is that the local banking facilities would take rather long to exchange currencies. You understand that any delay costs me great pain. Would you be willing to consider a direct presentation of goods, rather than the less meaningful and rather symbolic payment of monetary notes? Say, just as suggestions, a serum to greatly extend your life span...with the directions for its preparation, naturally. Or a working model of the Trond Duplicator? Or this: I believe your world is short of manipulable power; would a power source, large enough to meet whatever demands you specify, be of value to you? Perhaps some largish carbon crystals or any other raw material within reach?"
"Pennies," Nate said positively.
The voice sounded hollow when it asked, "How many?"
"A hundred. No, three," said Nate. He was feeling sorry for the little, bright bucket and he did not want to be truly unrealistic.
"Three pennies. I don’t suppose you have a sample to show me?"
"I don’t have any," Nate answered. All his were locked in a church-shaped wooden box in his mother’s dresser. As far as Nate knew, there was no way to get them out of the box, even if he could get into the drawer.
"Ah, you are cruel. You test me too hard. I understand you motives, but search your heart and decide if you’re not being vindictive. Is there nothing else you would accept? Tell me what is valuable to you?"
"Well, gold, I guess," said Nate.
"Gold!" The bucket spun in excitement. "Gold! Yes, certainly. Gold! It’s everywhere, in the soil, the water....I’ll be only too glad to pick it out for you. How much do you want?"
"A ton," Nate replied. He was proud of knowing that gold was had by the ton.
"A ton, certainly. That’s two thousand...do you mean a long ton or a short ton?"
"Oh, a short one is all right," Nate told him casually. He was not going to be a stickler. The evening was darkening. "I have to go now. It’s time. I’ll see you later," he said.
"And I must, too," said the bucket. "As soon as I have the gold, I’ll return."
"Okay," said Nate. He crawled out between the lilac and the steps, while the bucket hurried away on its ball, down the tunnel of azaleas along the house wall.
As he wedged his way in through the screen door, voices from the front of the house reminded Nate that there had been company for supper. When Nate came into the living room, he was not surprised to be hailed.
"There’s my boy, Nate!" Uncle Al threw one hand up in the air and one out sideways, irrelevantly. His thin face broke into wrinkles and teeth as he smiled. Uncle Al was a friend of his parents, who had known both before either had known the other. He was famous and Nate’s father always took him very seriously, paying great attention to what he said. Uncle Al, on the other hand, never had to pay attention to what anyone else said because he was famous. But he made a point of listening intently to Nate, as if to prove he could. He was always trying to get Nate to explain things he did not understand; last time it had been how a top spins. And when Nate was half-way through, he would interrupt and explain it himself. He was very tedious. Besides, Uncle Al could not spin a top, though Nate’s father did it all the time. "Come on over here, boy, and let’s have a talk. It’s been ages since we talked seriously, hasn’t it?"
Nate shuffled over.
"My lands, Nate, what’s that on the seat of your pants? What’ve you been sitting in?" His mother made to grab him, but Uncle Al had Nate by the arm first. "Don’t get that on your clean clothes, Al," Nate’s mother said. She looked uncomfortable.
Uncle Al lifted Nate to his bony knee anyway. "It’s just natural compounds, nothing to worry about. Now, Nate, where have you been? You disappeared right after supper."
"Outside," Nate mumbled.
"Tell Uncle Al what you were doing," Nate’s father told him.
"Just playing. I wasn’t doing anything."
"Well, were you alone or with friends?" Uncle Al began.
"Alone," Nate said.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"You just sat quietly without doing anything?" Uncle Al asked.
Nate felt foolish. "No," he said. "We talked and..."
"So you were with someone!" Uncle Al pounced on the information. "You see, Carole, the child forms denominational groupings. One of my graduate students on the cognitive side is interested in delineating the world-divisions of a selected group of pre-schoolers, comparing class, ethnicity and WISC scores." To Nate, these asides on his conversation were a welcome relief from the interrogation itself.
"You were alone, but talking to someone, right Nate?" Uncle Al turned back to Nate’s mother. "You see how these groupings, extensions of ego, affect our conversation, making it apparently contradictory and unintelligible to others, who don’t share the structure. He turned his attention back to Nate, who slumped on his knee. "Who were you talking to, Nate?"
"A boy."
"A friend?"
"Yes." Nate admitted.
"Well, I thought you weren’t with friends," said Uncle Al.
"We just met."
Nate’s mother broke in, now that the talk had turned to something she felt she ought to know. "Where does he live?" she asked.
"In a ship, but he lives in a bucket, too." Nate felt foolish again as soon as Uncle Al drew an avid breath to speak. His mother sat back, bewildered.
"What is he living in now?" Uncle Al asked.
"The bucket," said Nate.
"Where did you meet him?"
"In the yard," Nate admitted, vaguely.
"Where’s the bucket now? I’ll have a look at this myself," Uncle Al said with a grin.
"It went away with him." Nate said.
"Oh, the bucket went away. Did somebody carry it?" said Uncle Al, half-laughing.
"On wheels like, sort of...on the bottom," said Nate. "It was a machine."
"Where did it go then?" Uncle Al continued.
"I don’t know."
"What did the boy in the bucket say to you? What did you talk about, Nate?"
"The lilac," Nate said. Uncle Al’s smile was as steady and encouraging as a drizzle. He had the habit of pushing on the small of Nate’s back and jogging his knee to make him talk. "He wanted to take her."
"Take the lilac?" Uncle Al said, showing great amazement.
"Yes."
"Why? Whose lilac is it?"
"I said he couldn’t because it was ours, but he wants to," Nate said, apologetically.
"What did he say to that?" In the interval that occurred, Uncle Al gave his knee a bounce to encourage.
"He said he’d pay for it."
"What would he pay?" asked Uncle Al.
"A ton," said Nate.
"A ton? A ton of what, Natey?" Uncle Al inquired.
"Gold. He didn’t want to pay pennies."
"Well, Brad, if this boy in a bucket on wheels brings a ton of gold, can he have the bush?" Uncle Al turned to Nate’s father.
"Sure thing. I guess so," Nate’s dad said. "Make sure it’s a ton, though."
"Okay," said Nate.
"What’s he want the lilac for?" asked Uncle Al, returning his attention to Nate.
"He says he can’t live without it," Nate said.
"Ho, ho! A case of puppy love! He loves it?"
"Yes."
"Did he say so?" asked Uncle Al, gleefully.
"I guess."
"What did he say, exactly? Uncle Al was radiating. Nate felt very uncomfortable, in part because his bottom was being hurt on Uncle Al’s un-padded knee.
"I don’t know," said Nate.
"Well, did he say when he’d be back with the gold?"
"No." said Nate.
"Where did he go?"
"I don’t know." Nate said.
"What was his name?" Uncle Al prodded him in the back.
"I don’t know."
"What did he look like, then?"
"I don’t know." Nate said.
"How about the bucket? What was it like?" asked Uncle Al.
"Don’t know."
"The boy’s ready for bed, Al. Let me take him. I’ll get your room ready at the same time." His mother gathered him out of Uncle Al’s clutches, and shortly Nate was in bed.
He wandered groggily out of sleep.
"Nate." That was what had awakened him. "Nate!" it came again. It was the voice of the little bush in the bucket.
Sleepily he got out of bed and climbed the chair by the partially open window. He raised it enough to put his head out. In the moon-lit yard a pile of dull yellow sand bulked.
"I brought the gold," said the voice. But Nate could not see the little bucket with its bush on the top anywhere. He was not even looking for it. Most of the yard was taken up by something large and shaped like an egg. A ramp led down from the egg to the pile of sand. "I have done as you asked, and now we will take our leave."
From the inside of the egg-shape, the small bush in its bucket appeared at the top of the ramp. Behind it was another, many times larger. Nate sleepily recognized the long stems and bushy top of the lilac. But none of this seemed important.
Above the two forms in the doorway, above the egg-thing itself, loomed the shifting, gleaming shape that had called him. Nate could never remember what he really saw, just some things about it, and he did no know how to describe them. One of the two was dazzling and thin, like a tree without branches. He could not tell if it was near or far, just in front of his nose or miles away, thought it came straight up from the little shrub in the bucket. The other was even harder to see. And he could say less about it. It did not seem to have any shape at all or any size. It was just a simpleness that clung to the other form, yet maintained itself apart. The lilac never came into full view, but for some reason Nate associated it with this calm.
"Goodbye. We wish you the best for all you’ve done and may you find another sweet lilac to keep you company." It was the tall presence speaking.
"That’s okay," said Nate. "Is it a ton?"
"Certainly."
"Okay," he said. Then he felt as if his mother had picked him up and hugged him really long and hard when he had been feeling lonely. He woke again on the chair by the window with the night breeze tickling over him. The yard was empty except for the heap of sand, so he crawled back into bed.
In the morning, he woke again. There were a lot of loud voices below the window. His mother was saying something he was still too sleepy to hear. But Uncle Al’s voice came up clear.
"Let me talk to him, Carole. It’s just a matter of following the sequence. I’ll get the straight sense out of him. You know how Nate and I get along."