THRELKELD'S DAUGHTER
BY JAMES BELL
She was only a space captain's daughter—and
all she wanted was a human to call her own!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Night was a diamond studded dream from where they sat. The moon was amaiden on wing suggesting amorous flight. Inside the stuffiness of thecelluloid-like vehicle there was absolutely no hint of discomfort orabsurd misfittings—despite the fact that Threlkeld and his daughterwere now shaped out of all proportions to the conveyor itself.
"You seem unusually drawn," Threlkeld suggested from his prone positionon the floor of the craft.
Gelerie took a deep, sensual sigh. "It is the pill, I am sure."
"Look at you," Threlkeld muttered, "and look at me—we're perhaps themost unique imitation of humans the galaxy has ever produced."
Again there was a maddening silence ... maddening to Threlkeld. "Mydaughter," he said at length, disturbed, "I must remind you of theimportance of this little mission. My entire career with the inter-starpatrol depends on how well we function."
Gelerie was bent in a heap near the tapering nose of the pod-shapedvehicle as it hurtled past the lovely moon, headlong toward a giantgreen and purple planet below them. Hurtled in a vessel with no manualcontrols, a vessel grown in a government garden on another world ...catapulted on a very special assignment to a planet that neither grewmissiles nor thought of launching them without myriads of mechanicalwires, dials and blinker lights.
Now Threlkeld was filled with indignation. "Gelerie, I command you—"
"Yes, Father. You command me," she drawled.
"Unless you remain attentive, my daughter, we may fail. Failing, I mustconcede that I have finally grown too old for spatial duty, and be sentto the Home. Do you want that?"
Gelerie had acquired all the attributes of a beautiful, buxom Earthgirl. She looked up in the soft light that glowed its phosphorousloveliness from the very walls of the seed pod they occupied. Threlkeldmuttered, "Such beauty—it is beyond all that the textbooks described."
Now Gelerie butted in, "The trouble, my father, is simple. Thetransition pills—"
"What about them?"
"They do more than convert us from a six-footed tree-hanging creatureof the Alpha Centauri group. They impose upon us the same emotionalstress of the human. You know, father, I have been changed intoleopards, rhinos and snoquallimie eels before; but always I retainedmy own natural traits—the love of trees, the desire to return to mynative form and habitat as quickly as possible. But this time, I feeldemure and attractive and extremely vain and—"
"I warn you, my daughter. I am old. I have seen these Earth types atwork. They are a useless breed. Their extra-curricular activities arebeyond all reason. Very few of them stick to what is really important.Very few of them understand that achievement of the goal is the onlything there is. Now, I suggest you fight off these emotions. Try not tosuccumb to human frailties, for we have an important job to do—lestyour poor father be put out to pasture."
The sound of empty space beside them was almost unnoticeable. Theswish, so familiar for such speeds near their own planetary chain farout in the universe, was now missing.
As they approached the Earth, a thin crescent of daylight appeared tothe