“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. I sent my mind into the ship, and there was the captain, stretched out upon a kind of bed, muttering. Very sick indeed. He cried out from time to time. He shut his eyes and warded off a kind of fevered vision. “Oh, God, God,” he kept saying, in his own tongue.
“Your captain is afraid of something?” I asked politely.
“No, no, oh, no,” said the aide, nervously. “Just sick. We’ve had to select a new captain who’ll come out later.” He edged off. “Well, I’ll see you.”
“Let me escort you about our city tomorrow,” I said. “All are welcome.”
As he stood there, all the time he stood there talking to me, this awful trembling moved in him. Trembling, trembling, trembling, trembling.
“You are sick, also?” I asked.
“No, no,” he said, turned, and ran into the ship.
Inside the ship, I felt him to be very sick.
I returned to our city in the heavens, among the trees, sorely perplexed. “How odd,” I said. “How nervous these visitors are.”
At twilight, as I continued work upon this plum and orange tapestry, I heard the one word drift up to me:
“Spider!”
But then I forgot this, for it was time to go up to the top of the city and wait for the first new wind off the sea, to sit there, among my friends, at peace, enjoying the smell and the goodness of it all, through the night.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, I said to the begetter of my fine children: “What is it? Why are they afraid? What is there to fear? Am I not a good creature of fine intelligence and friendly character?” And the answer was yes. “Then why the trembling, the sickness, the violent ailments?”
“Perhaps a suggestion of this is in their appearance to us,” said my wife. “I find them odd.”
“Admitted.”
“And strange.”
“Yes, of course.”
“And a little frightening in appearance. Looking at them, I am somewhat uncomfortable. They are so different.”
“Think it through, consider it intelligently, and such thoughts vanish,” I said. “It’s a matter of aesthetics. We’re simply accustomed to us. We have eight legs, they only four, two of which are not used as legs at all. Odd, strange, momentarily unsettling, yes, but I adjusted immediately, with reason. Our aesthetic is resilient.”
“Perhaps theirs is not. Perhaps they do not like the way we look.”
I laughed at this. “What, be frightened of just outward appearances? Nonsense!”
“You’re right, of course. It must be something else.”
“I wish I knew,” I said. “I wish I knew. I wish I could put them at ease.”
“Forget it,” said my wife. “A new wind has arisen. Listen. Listen.”
THE NEXT DAY I took the new captain on a tour of our city. We talked for hours. Our minds met. He was a doctor of the mind. He was an intelligent creature. Less intelligent than we, yes. But this is nothing to consider with prejudice. I found him a creature of wit, good humor, considerable knowledge, and few prejudices, actually. Yet, all through the afternoon, while touring our heaven-moored city, I felt the hidden trembling, trembling.
I was too polite to mention it again.
The new captain swallowed a number of tablets from time to time.
“What are those?” I asked.
“For my nerves,” he said, quickly. “That’s all.”