The Klygha

By H. B. FYFE
Illustrated by SCHELLING
It is a considerable talent—to be able to use the minds of other beings to see for you, to talk for you. It is also a considerable risk.
It is hard ... to be made a server by a being from outside the herd. It is hard to remember who is who. Another is inside the head. The Klygha. He dreams to wake the cat. What is sleep?
Who is a ... why is a cat? It is not the herd-mind, the mover of the Terrans. Yet, it is not served by them nor does it serve.
The cat dreams—it fears. We fear with it. The mouth chasing us is filled with shining teeth. The cat dreams that it runs. What is it to run? We ache to flop into the sea and swim away. The cat makes growls and hisses.
Partly, it is served by the Terrans. With food, with tickles. It does not work or hunt. Yet it is not their herd-mind. They have not a ... no, they have many independent minds, many movers. The Klygha has one; but there is one of him and four Terrans. One in his travelling-shell, back ... there . Four in this shell balanced, pointing high, before us. And the cat. And we along the sea-edge, watching while feeding among the breakers.
The cat wakes. Its eyes open and it sees the inside of the Terran travelling-shell. The Klygha sees with it. Since he has entered our mind, we see with the Klygha; but neither of us can see the true colors because the cat sees no color.
One of the Terrans is there. He is a large being, three times as tall as the largest of us, almost twice as tall as the Klygha. Like the Klygha, he wears someone else's covering. The cat wears its own covering, as do we.
The Terran bends in a strange way, to rest himself on a place shaped for that. He has four limbs. So does the Klygha, but he looks and bends differently when he sees his reflection within his travelling-shell. The Terran is bigger and thicker, and his skin is tighter.
He works on a shining thing held in two of his grippers. The cat watches but does not know what the thing does. The Klygha sees it only by the mind of the cat, but he knows what it does. We know with him—the thing hears noises that cannot be heard, for the Terrans talk with noises and with noises that cannot be heard which are made by another shining thing. The Klygha knows what all the things in the Terran travelling-shell will do because he has made the cat watch for him as the Light rose many, many times.