A Sequel to MOTHER
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories Winter 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CQ! CQ!
This is Mother Hardhead pulsing.
Keep quiet, all you virgins and Mothers, while I communicate. Listen,listen, all you who are hooked into this broadcast. Listen, and Iwill tell you how I left my Mother, how my two sisters and I grewour shells, how I dealt with the olfway, and why I have become theMother with the most prestige, the strongest shell, the most powerfulbroadcaster and beamer, and the pulser of a new language.
First, before I tell my story, I will reveal to all you who do not knowit that my father was a mobile.
Yes, do not be nervequivered. That is a so-story. It is not anot-so-story.
Father was a mobile.
Mother pulsed, "Get out!"
Then, to show she meant business, she opened her exit-iris.
That sobered us up and made us realize how serious she was. Before,when she snapped open her iris, she did it so we could practise pulsingat the other young crouched in the doorway to their Mother's wombs,or else send a respectful message to the Mothers themselves, or evena quick one to Grandmother, far away on a mountainside. Not that shereceived, I think, because we young were too weak to transmit that far.Anyway, Grandmother never acknowledged receipt.
At times, when Mother was annoyed because we would all broadcast atonce instead of asking her permission to speak one at a time or becausewe would crawl up the sides of her womb and then drop off the ceilingonto the floor with a thud, she would pulse at us to get out and buildour own shells. She meant it, she said.
Then, according to our mood, we would either settle down or else getmore boisterous. Mother would reach out with her tentacles and hold usdown and spank us. If that did no good, she would threaten us with theolfway. That did the trick. That is until she used him too many times.After a while, we got so we didn't believe there was an olfway. Mother,we thought, was creating a not-so-story. We should have known better,however, for Mother loathed not-so-stories.
Another thing that quivered her nerves was our conversation with Fatherin Orsemay. Although he had taught her his language, he refused toteach her Orsemay. When he wanted to send messages to us that he knewshe wouldn't approve, he would pulse at us in our private language.That was another thing, I think, that finally made Mother so angry shecast us out despite Father's pleadings that we be allowed to remainfour more seasons.
You must understand that we virgins had remained in the womb far longerthan we should have. The cause for our overstay was Father.
He was the mobile.
Yes, I know what you're going to reply. All fathers, you will repeat,are mobiles.
But he was father. He was the pulsing mobile.
Yes, he could, too. He could pulse with the best of us. Or maybe hehimself couldn't. Not directly. We pulse with organs in ourbody. But Father, if I understand him correctly, used a creature ofsome kind which was separate from his body. Or maybe it was an organthat wasn't attached to him.
Anyway, he had no internal organs or pulse-stalks growing from him topulse with. He used this creature, this r-a-d-i-o, as he called it. Andit worked just fine.
When he conversed with Mother, he did so in Motherpulse or in hisown language, mobile-pulse. With us he used Orsemay. That's likemobile-pulse, only a little different