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how, honest; he just did, that’s all.”
     
    “I don’t get it,” muttered Jack. “Anyhow—what’s
this about that thing in the tree? I’m supposed to break my arm too?”
     
    “It isn’t dark.”
     
    “What do you mean by that?”
     
    Molly shrugged. “Ask him.”
     
    “Oh. I think I catch that. He
fell out of the tree because it was dark. He thinks I can get up there and get
the whatzit without hurting myself because I can see what I am doing. He also
flatters me. Or is it flattery? How close to the apes does he think we are?”
     
    “What are you talking about,
Daddy?”
     
    “Never mind . . . why am I
supposed to get that thing, anyway?”
     
    “Uh—so’s you can jump off the
roof.”
     
    “That is just silly. However, I
do want a look at that thing. Since his ship is gone, that object up there
seems to be the only artifact he brought with him except his clothes.”
     
    “What’s an artifact?”
     
    “Second cousin to an artichoke.
Here goes nothin’.” And he swung up into the tree. He had not climbed a tree
for years, and as he carefully chose his way, it occurred to him that there
were probably more efficient ways of gaining altitude. An escalator, for
example. Why didn’t escalators grow on trees?
     
    The tree began to shiver and sway
with his weight. He looked down once and decided instantly not to do it again.
He looked up and was gratified to see how close he was to the object he was
after. He pulled himself up another three feet and was horrified at how far
away it was, for the branches were very small up here. He squirmed upward,
reached, and his fingers just brushed against the shank of the thing. It had
two rings fastened to it, he noticed, one each side of the center, large enough
to get an arm through. It was one of these which was hung up on a branch. He
chinned himself, then, with his unpracticed muscles cracking, took one hand off
and reached.
     
    The one-hand chinning didn’t come
off so well. His arms began to sag. The ring broke off its branch as his weight
came on it. He was immediately surrounded by the enthusiastic crackling of
breaking shrubbery. He folded his tongue over and got his teeth on it. Since he
had a grip on Mewhu’s artifact, he held on . . . even when it came free. He
began to fall, tensed himself for the bone-breaking jolt he would get at the
bottom.
     
    He didn’t get it
     
    He fell quite fast at first, and
then the stick he was holding began to bear him up. He thought that it must
have caught on a branch, by some miracle—but it hadn’t! He was drifting down
like a thistle seed, hanging from the rod, which in some impossible fashion was
supporting itself in midair. There was a shrill, faint whooshing sound
from the two streamlined fixtures at the ends of the rod. He looked down,
blinked sweat out of his eyes, looked again. Mewhu was grinning a broad and
happy grin, and Molly was slack-jawed with astonishment.
     
    The closer he came to the ground
the slower he went. When, after what seemed an eternity, he felt the blessed
pressure of earth under his feet, he had to stand and pull the rod down.
It yielded slowly, like an eddy current brake. Dry leaves danced and whirled
under the end pieces.
     
    “Gee, Daddy, that was wonderful!”
     
    He swallowed twice to wet down
his dry esophagus, and pulled his eyes back in. “Yeah. Fun,” he said weakly.
     
    Mewhu came and took the rod out
of his hand, and dropped it. It stayed perfectly horizontal, and sank slowly
down to the ground, where it lay. Mewhu pointed at it, at the tree, and
grinned.
     
    “Just like a parachute. Oh, gee, Daddy!”
     
    “You keep away from it,” said
Jack, familiar with youthful intonation. “Heaven knows what it is. It might go
off, or something.”
     
    He looked fearfully at the
object. It lay quietly, the hissing of the end pieces stilled. Mewhu bent
suddenly and picked it up, held it over his head with one hand. Then he calmly
lifted his feet and hung from