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Updated: May 10, 2025
The Nipe squatted, brooding, in his underground nest, waiting for the special crystallization process to take place in the sodium-gold alloy that was forming in the reactor. How long? he wondered. He was not thinking of the crystallization reaction; he knew the timing of that to the fraction of a second. His dark thoughts were focused inwardly, upon himself.
A man can perform any action without fear if he knows that it will not hurt him or if he does not know that it will." He glanced at the screen. The Nipe had settled down into his "sleeping position" unmoving, although his baleful violet eyes were still open. "Cut that off, Meyer," the colonel said. "There's not much to learn from the rest of that tape."
If he suspected that the Nipe could have been killed easily at any time during the past six years? Would it be possible to explain that, in the long run, the knowledge possessed by the Nipe was tremendously more valuable to the Race of Man that the lives of a few individuals?
The mechanism was unfamiliar, but a glance at the muzzle told him that it was a projectile weapon of some sort. The twisted grooves in the barrel were obviously designed to impart a spin to the projectile, to give it gyroscopic stability while in flight. The dead thing must have thought he was a wild animal, the Nipe decided.
Some thought that the call had been from a deranged person. When the Nipe actually showed up at the appointed place, those minds changed rapidly. The Nipe's ability to use any human language was limited. He picked up vocabulary and grammatical rules very rapidly, but he seemed completely unable to use a language beyond discussion of concrete actions and objects.
Eight months later, a non-vision phone call had been received by the Regent's Board of the Khrushchev Memorial Psychiatric Hospital in Leningrad. The Nipe had managed to explain, in spite of the language handicap, that he did not want to be mistaken for a wild animal, as had happened with the forest ranger. The psychiatrists were divided in their opinions.
He could throw a mean hook, but he had to get in close to deliver it. On the other side of the coin was the fact that the Nipe knew plenty about human anatomy from the bones out. Stanton's knowledge of Nipe anatomy was almost totally superficial. He wished he knew if and where the Nipe had a solar plexus. He would like to punch something soft for a change. Instead, he tried for another eye.
One should not make the mistake of thinking it is a tiger or one will get badly hurt. Since the only way to tell the true tiger from the false is to hit it, and since that test may prove fatal to the Nipe who tries it, it follows that one is better off if one avoids all animals that look like tigers. You see?" "Yeah," said Stanton. "Some snarks are boojums." "Exactly! Thank you for that allusion.
"Puh! Longer! Much longer!" He smiled with satisfaction. "I estimate that the Nipe race first invented the steam engine not less than ten million years ago." He kept smiling into the dead silence that followed. After a long minute, Scanton said: "What about atomic energy?" "At least two million years ago. I do not think they have had the interstellar drive more than fifty thousand years."
He leaped to one side, and the Nipe got his first surprise in ten years when Stanton's fist slammed against the side of his snouted head, knocking him in the opposite direction from that in which Stanton had moved. The Nipe landed, turned, and charged back toward the man.
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