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really. Nothing real about
that character. But from all indications, he’ll be O.K. Responded very
strongly. What does he eat?”
     
    “Pretty much the same as we do, I
think.”
     
    “You think. You don’t seem to
know much about him.”
     
    “I don’t. He only just got here.
No—don’t ask me where from,” said Jack. “You’ll have to ask him.”
     
    The doctor scratched his head. “He’s
out of this world. I can tell you that. Obviously adult, but every fracture but
one is a greenstick break; kind of thing you see on a three-year-old. Transparent
membranes over his . . . what are you laughing at?” he asked suddenly.
     
    Jack had started easily, with a
chuckle, but it got out of control. He roared.
     
    Zinsser said, “Jack! Cut it out.
This is a hosp—”
     
    Jack shoved his hand away. “I ...
I got to,” he said helplessly and went off on another peal.
     
    “You’ve got to what?”
     
    “Laugh,” said Jack, gasping. He
sobered—he more than sobered. “It has to be funny, Harry. I won’t let it be
anything else.”
     
    “What the devil do you—”
     
    “Look, Harry. We assumed a lot
about Mewhu, his culture, his technology, his origin . . . we’ll never know
anything about it!”
     
    “Why? You mean he won’t tell us—”
     
    “He won’t tell us. I’m wrong. He’ll
tell us plenty. But it won’t do any good. Here’s what I mean. Because he’s our
size, because he obviously arrived in a spaceship, because he brought a gadget
or two that’s obviously the product of a highly advanced civilization, we
believe that he produced the civilization; that he’s a superior
individual in his own place.”
     
    “Well, he must be.”
     
    “He must be? Harry, did Molly
invent the automobile?”
     
    “No, but—”
     
    “But she drove one through the
back of the garage.”
     
    Light began to dawn on Zinsser’s
moon face. “You mean—”
     
    “It all fits! Remember when Mewhu
figured out how to carry that heavy trapdoor of mine on the jet stick, and then
left the problem half-finished? Remember his fascination with Molly’s yo-yo?
What about that peculiar rapport he has with Molly that he has with no one
else? Doesn’t that begin to look reasonable? Look at Iris’ reaction to
him—almost maternal, though she didn’t know why.”
     
    “The poor little fellow,”
breathed Zinsser. “ I wonder if he thought he was home when he landed?”
     
    “Poor little fellow—sure,” said
Jack, and began to laugh again. “Can Molly tell you how an internal combustion
engine works? Can she explain laminar flow on an airfoil?” He shook his head. “You
wait and see. Mewhu will be able to tell us the equivalent of Molly’s ‘I rode
in the car with Daddy and we went sixty miles an hour.’”
     
    “But how did he get here?”
     
    “How did Molly get through the
back of my garage?”
     
    The doctor shrugged his shoulders
helplessly, “About that I don’t know. But his biological reactions do look like
those of a child—and if he is a child, then his rate of tissue restoration will
be high, and I’ll guarantee he’ll live.”
     
    Zinsser groaned. “Much good will
it do us—and him, poor kid. With a kid’s inherent faith in any intelligent
adult anywhere, he’s probably been feeling happily sure we’d get him home
somehow. Well—we haven’t got what it takes, and won’t have for a long, long
time. We don’t know enough to start duplicating that jet of his—and that was
just a little kid’s toy on his world.”
     
    ~ * ~
     
    “Daddy—”
     
    “Molly! I thought Mother was—”
     
    “Daddy, I jus’ wannit you to take
this to Mewhu.” She held out her old, scuff-rimmed yo-yo. “Tellum I’m waiting.
Tellum I’ll play with him soon’s he’s better.”
     
    Jack Garry took the toy. “I’ll
tell him, honey.”
     
    <>
     
    ~ * ~
     
    NOBODY SAW THE SHIP
     
    by Murray Leinster
     
     
    THE
landing of the Qul-En ship, a tiny craft no more