The Worshippers | Page 2

of her former two hundred and ten pounds.
Once, she was there, Weaver could hardly escape visiting her. Harriet was a widow, with large resources, and Weaver was her only near relative. It was necessary, it was prudent, for him to keep on her good side. Moreover, he had his family feeling.
He did not like it, not a minute of it. Not the incredible trip, rising till the Earth lay below like a botched model of itself; not the silent mausoleum of the Moon. But he duly admired Harriet's spacious room in the sanatorium, the recreation rooms, the auditorium; space-suited, he walked with her in the cold Earthlight; he attended her on the excursion trip to Ley Field, the interstellar rocket base on the far side of the Moon.
The alien ship was there, all angles and planes--it came from Zeta Aurigae, they told him, and was the second foreign ship to visit Sol. Most of the crew had been ferried down to Earth, where they were inspecting the people (without approval, Weaver was sure). Meanwhile, the remaining crewman would be pleased to have the sanatorium party inspect him.
* * * * *
They went aboard, Harriet and two other women, and six men counting the guide and Weaver. The ship was a red-lit cavern. The "crewman" turned out to be a hairy horror, a three-foot headless lump shaped like an eggplant, supported by four splayed legs and with an indefinite number of tentacles wriggling below the stalked eyes.
"They're more like us than you'd think," said the guide. "They're mammals, they have a nervous organization very like ours, they're susceptible to some of our diseases--which is very rare--and they even share some of our minor vices." He opened his kit and offered the thing a plug of chewing tobacco, which was refused with much tentacle-waving, and a cigar, which was accepted. The creature stuck the cigar into the pointed tip of its body, just above the six beady black eyes, lit it with some sort of flameless lighter, and puffed clouds of smoke like a volcano.
"--And of course, as you see, they're oxygen breathers," the guide finished. "The atmosphere in the ship here is almost identical to our own--we could breathe it without any discomfort whatever."
Then why don't we? Weaver thought irritably. He had been forced to wear either a breathing mask or a pressure suit all the time he had been on the Moon, except when he had been in his own sealed room at the sanatorium. And his post-nasal drip was unmistakably maturing into a cold; he had been stifling sneezes for the last half hour.
He was roused by a commotion up ahead; someone was on the floor, and the others were crowding around. "Help me carry her," said the guide's voice sharply in his earphones. "We can't treat her here. What is she, a heart case?... Good Lord. Clear the way there, will you?"
Weaver hurried up, struck by a sharp suspicion. Indeed, it was Harriet who was being carried out--and a good thing, he thought, that they didn't have to support her full weight. He wondered vaguely if she would die before they got her to a doctor. He could not give the thought his full attention, or feel as much fraternal anxiety as he ought, because--
He had ... he had to sneeze.
* * * * *
The others had crowded out into the red-lit space of the control room, where the airlock was. Weaver stopped and frantically tugged his arm free of the rubberoid sleeve. The repressed spasm was an acute agony in his nose and throat. He fumbled the handkerchief out of his pocket, thrust his hand up under the helmet--and blissfully let go.
His eyes were watering. He wiped them hurriedly, put the handkerchief away, worked his arm back into the sleeve, and looked around to see what had become of the others.
The airlock door was closed, and there was no one in the room but the hairy eggplant shape of the Aurigean, still puffing its cigar.
"Hey!" said Weaver, forgetting his manners. The Aurigean did not turn--but then, which was its front, or back? The beady black eyes regarded him without expression.
Weaver started forward. He got nearly to the airlock before a cluster of hairy tentacles barred his way. He said indignantly, "Let me out, you monster. Let me out, do you hear?"
The creature stood stock-still in an infuriating attitude until a little light on the wall changed from orange to red-violet. Then it crossed to the control board, did something there, and the inner door of the lock swung open.
"Well, I should think so!" said Weaver. He stepped forward again--But his eyes were beginning to water. There was an intolerable tickling far back in his nostrils. He was going to--he was--
Eyes squeezed shut, his whole body contorted with