WHEN YOU GIFFLE...
BY L. J. STECHER, JR.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of Tomorrow December 1963
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They were like any other boys sporting in their
old swimming hole—in the depths of space!
I was a little bit worried when I saw Captain Hannah again. I thoughthe might have decided he wanted his elephants back, and I'd grown sortof attached to them. Although I couldn't break the baby of the habit ofnibbling on Gasha leaves, in spite of the fact that they're not goodfor him.
A few months earlier, Captain Hannah had conned me into taking theelephants off his hands and out of his tramp spaceship. He had sufferedfrom intellectual terrestrial zoological insufficiency—or in otherwords, he hadn't known whales are mammals, and had delivered themulti-ton Beulah instead, to the Prinkip of Penguin, as an adult sampleof Earth's largest mammal.
The Prinkip had quite properly refused delivery, and Hannah had stuckme with her and her incipient progeny.
I needn't have worried. Captain Hannah didn't want her back. He justwanted to relax and talk to someone. I bought him a drink, but Irefused one myself, remembering what had happened to me the timesbefore, when I had listened to Captain Hannah with a glass in my hand.
Captain Hannah ran a leathery hand over his leathery face. He lookedhaggard. "I came here because I've got to talk to somebody," he said,"and you make a good listener.
"Do you remember after I completed my contract with you for thedelivery of the gasha root, and after you had talked me into leavingBeulah with you for the sake of the little one, how we had a few drinkstogether to celebrate our mutual success, before I headed out?"
Well, my memory about who had talked whom into what about Beulah didn'tagree with his, but I told him I remembered our last get-together, andhe went on.
"Anyone who tries to set up an interstellar Jump with a hangover shouldbe permanently barred from the spaceways," he said with some feeling."I guess that the only reason they aren't, is that the ones who make amistake are never heard from again." He paused and sipped. "Except me."
"When I left you that last time, and pushed Delta Crucis up intoparking orbit, I was full of rhial and a grim determination to delivera whale to the Prinkip. I must have made some mistake or other insetting up the Jump coordinates, because when I popped out of Limbo,alarm bells went off in all directions. The main computer told me itdidn't have the faintest idea where we had arrived, and the auxiliarycomputer agreed noisily. I turned off the alarms and uncovered theviewports to check for myself, without much hope.
"The view from the ones on the starboard side didn't show me anything Irecognized, so I pushed myself across the room and slid off the coverson the port side.
"The stars there were unfamiliar, too, but I'm afraid that I didn'tnotice for awhile. The foreground was taking up all of my attention.There were two towheaded kids—about eight or nine years old, I shouldjudge—floating in empty space, with their noses flattened againstthe viewport glass. They were as brown as berries, and as naked asjaybirds, and as cute as chipmunks, and as alike as two peas, and asimprobable as virtue.
"The one on the left—my left, that is—backed off enough so that hisnose straightened out, smiled angelically and asked politely whet