Demon princes 01 05 the.., p.103
Demon Princes 01-05 The Star Ki, page 103
Gersen went to the workshop. The portly man looked up and gave a peremptory jerk of the thumb. “Sir, no public allowed here.”
“I’m not the public,” said Gersen. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Cleadhoe.”
“You’ve missed her. She’s just taken feed out to the station, along with her nephew.”
“We’re in the same party. It seems we’ve arrived a bit too late. Is there another locomotive which could make the trip?”
Joseph pointed to a rusty old mechanism, dented and bent, supported on blocks and bereft of wheels. “There’s old Number Seventeen, down for repair. One of these days I’ll put on new drive wheels, when time and money come together.”
“How far is the outstation?”
“It’s a good seventy miles by the track. Shorter airwise, but there’s not a flier in town. Quite illegal, for reasons of ecology and frightening of the beasts.”
“Seventy miles. Ten hours at a steady run.”
“Ho ho!” chortled Joseph. “You’d run maybe a mile before an eye would push up from the mud, then a messenger arm sixty feet long, ending in grab-hooks, and away you’d go through the air, over to the mud and down; and then what happens, who knows? Devil a soul has come back to tell!”
Alice pointed across the shop. “What’s that thing?”
“That’s the track inspector’s go-cart. It won’t pull freight, but she’ll go lickety-split where the track is level.”
Gersen walked around the contraption: a platform on four wheels with a pair of cane seats under a hemispherical visor splotched with the juices of smashed insects. The controls were starkly simple: a pair of handles, two toggles, and a dial. “It’s not beautiful, but it rolls along fine,” said Joseph with modest pride. “I built it myself.”
Gersen produced a crisp certificate, which he handed to Joseph. “I would like to use the go-cart. Mr. Cleadhoe will be anxious to see us. Is it ready to go?”
Joseph inspected the certificate. “It’s not covered by regulation. In fact—”
“There’ll be another twenty for you tomorrow when we return. The Cleadhoes wouldn’t like to miss us, and that’s more important than regulation.”
“You don’t work for the Corporation! Nothing is more important than regulation.”
“Except life and money.”
“True. Well, I hereby forbid you to use the cart. The black handle is throttle, the red handle is brake. The toggle controls switches in the track. The first fork to the left goes north to the observation post at Salmi Swamp. The second fork goes right and down to the breeding wallows of the red apes. The third fork switches off through the feeding meadow and back around to the station: so it’s right, left, then either way. Now I’m going home, and I’m not looking back. Still, remember, you’ve been warned off the premises.”
Joseph turned and marched from the shop. Gersen climbed aboard the go-cart. He pushed the black lever; the can rolled forward. Alice quickly jumped up beside him. Gersen advanced the throttle; the cart rolled away from the station and into the jungle.
18
From Life, Volume II, by Unspiek, Baron Bodissey:
“Intelligence” demands the most strict of definitions, since the word is easily and often abused. Intelligence rates the quality of Gaean man’s competence at altering environment to suit his convenience, or, more generally, the solution or problems. The corollaries to the idea are several. Among them: In the absence of problems, intelligence cannot be measured. A creature with a large, complicated brain is not necessarily intelligent. Raw abstract intelligence is a meaningless concept. Secondly, intelligence is a quality peculiar to Gaean man. Certain alien races use different mechanisms and processes optimally to rearrange their environment. These attributes occasionally resemble human intelligence, and, on the basis of results achieved, the effective organs seem to serve analogous purposes. These similitudes almost always are deceptive and of superficial application. For the lack of a more precise and universal term the temptation to use the word “intelligence” incorrectly is well-nigh irresistible, but can be countenanced only when the word is set off by quotes, viz: my own monograph (which I include in the appendix to Volume Eight of this slight and by no means comprehensive series). Students seriously interested in these matters may well wish to consult the monograph: A Comparison of Mathematical Processes as Employed by Six “Intelligent” Alien Races.
The vehicle had been built of odds and ends, scraps and makeshifts. The right-hand stringer was a length of tungsten fiber pipe, while the left-hand stringer was hacked from jungle hardwood. A slab of magnesium hexafoam provided support for the seats, these originally a sofa with orange and blue cushions. The hemispheric windscreen was a reclaimed skylight; the wheels were a stock commissary item, for the repair of wheelbarrows, carts, and the like, with a flange welded around the inner circumference. Despite all, the vehicle ran smoothly and quietly, and Blue Forest Camp was left behind.
For the first few miles the track led through a floral tunnel of a hundred colors, permeated by shafts and sifts of afternoon light. Drooping fronds, dead black on top, transmitted ruby red light; other fronds showed gradations of blue, green, yellow. Stalks of black-and-white tubing moved back and forth, thrusting their round black fronds this way and that for maximum impingement of sunlight. In open places moths floated on many-layered wisps of gossamer, black and crimson and lemon yellow. Other flying things, golden blurs, darted past in a hiss of air.
The jungle became broken. The tracks led across clearings and meadows dappled with ponds, each with its resident water bull:
great mottled creatures with horns and shovel-snouts, which they used to enlarge their ponds. A trestle built of concrete posts and timber laterals took the track across a series of bogs crusted over with pale blue scum, or alternately a carpet of angry orange stalks supporting spherical spore pods.
Beyond the bogs the ground rose to become a savanna. Rodent-like creatures in carapaces armed with prongs and barbs grazed the turf in bands of twenty or thirty. Often these were attended by ten-foot bait-apes: white-skinned creatures splotched with black fur. Sinuous black printhenes skulked through the meadows on splayed legs. These were voracious, cunning, and capable of prodigious feats of savagery7; still, they avoided the vile-smelling bait-apes.
The track led up a slope and ran across a plain of coarse black and green grass clumped with thorn tree. Bands of spindly ruminants wandered the open areas, nervously alert for printhenes or packs of scalawags: ravening, pounding, yelping creatures half lizard, half dog. A dozen kinds of ruminants moved across the savanna, the largest an armored monster twenty feet tall supported on a dozen short legs. In the hazy northern distance a pair of apelike saurians thirty feet tall overlooked the landscape with an eerie semblance of brooding intelligence. A mile to the south a flock of birdlike bipeds fifteen feet tall, scarlet-crested, flaunting bright blue tails, ran after a bewildered myriapod and hacked it to pieces with beaks and spurs.
The tracks led directly across the plain, diving at half-mile intervals under animal pass-throughs. The electric guards were now paralleled by a second electric fence fifty feet to either side of the track.
The sun hung low in the sky, sweeping the landscape with a halcyon unreal illumination, and the creatures of the land, rather than horrid reality, seemed more the subjects of an imaginary, if macabre, bestiary.
The tracks stretched clear and empty; the feed train had passed from view. Gersen pulled the throttle open; the cart lurched forward at great velocity, jumping, bounding, and shivering to irregularities in the track. Gersen reluctantly reduced speed. “I don’t want to take this thing into a ditch. It’s too heavy to carry out and it’s too far to walk.”
Mile after mile, and still no sign of the feed train. To right and left spread the savanna. Four double-headed browsers watched from sensors at the ridge of their humps.
A mile ahead the track plunged into a dark forest; at the edge of the shade sunlight glinted for an instant on the housing of the locomotive.
“We’re gaining,” said Gersen.
“And what do we do when we catch up?” asked Alice.
“We won’t catch up.” Gersen estimated the distance ahead. “We’re only a few minutes behind. Still, I’d like to be a bit closer. Howard won’t be able to explain Schahar and Umps; there might be trouble right away, unless he’s a very smooth talker.”
At the edge of the forest, the tracks wound back and forth to avoid outcrops of rock. Gersen reduced speed, accelerating when the tracks stretched empty ahead.
A post beside the track supported a white triangle; almost at once the track switched, one fork leading to the north, the other continuing directly east—the direction the feed train had taken, by the evidence of the open points.
A mile along the track another fork led to the south; as before the feed train had proceeded east. Gersen became even more vigilant; the feed train could not be far ahead. As before he increased speed along straightaways, cautiously slowing and peering around curves.
Another white triangle appeared beside the track. “The third fork,” said Alice. “Station to the right, feed lot to the left.”
Gersen braked the cart to a halt. “The feed train has gone left. See the switch points? We’d better follow.”
For half a mile the tracks led north through a forest. Gaps in the foliage revealed yet another savanna stretching away to the east. The tracks curved east and slanted down upon the savanna.
Alice pointed. “There’s the feed train!”
Gersen braked the cart to a halt. The feed train passed over an unloading device, in an area unprotected by the electric fence. Tuty stopped the locomotive, uncoupled the vat-car, and proceeded. A valve in the bottom of the feed car opened, discharging the pulp into a trough.
On the back of the car Schahar and Umps rose to their feet, to stare in dismay after the departing locomotive: Then they turned to examine the creatures which from all directions converged on the feeding trough.
A twenty-foot halt-ape, with head half bear, half insect, lurched forward at a shambling trot. Schahar and Umps jumped down and ran toward a tree. The ape caught Umps and lifted him by the leg into the air. Umps kicked out in a frenzy and drove his heel into the creature’s proboscis. It threw Umps to the ground, jumped up and down on his torso, pounded the body with its fists. Then it turned away and looked toward Schahar, now perched in the lower branches of the tree, where he attracted the attention of a spider-like reptile which inhabited the upper branches. It dropped a long gray arm which it swung toward Schahar, who yelled in alarm, drew a knife, and hacked. When the spider-reptile descended by swift acrobatic swings, Schahar jumped to the ground, dodged to escape the bait-ape, which then pulled at the spider-reptile’s tentacle. The spider-reptile jumped from the tree, wrapped itself around the baitape’s head, flourished high its sting, and thrust it home. The baitape keened in pain, tore at the tentacles with monstrous arms. The tentacles clutched tighter; the sting struck again. The ape banged the spider-reptile into the tree trunk, again and again, reducing it to pulp, and finally tore it loose. The ape staggered away, save a convulsive bound, and fell into a heap. A band of scavengers, attracted by the outcries, loped forward. Noticing Schahar, they circled him, yelling, Jumping, biting, and Schahar presently was pulled down to disappear under a seethe of animals.
Gersen spoke in a rueful voice. “Do you think Tuty knew that those two were riding behind her?”
“I don’t care to guess.”
The train with Tuty and Howard Treesong had disappeared into the jungle at the far side of the meadow. The feed car now blocked the track. “We’ve got to go back to the fork,” said Gersen. He pulled on levers and toggles. “Where is reverse gear?”
He searched in vain. The throttle controlled forward motion; the brake brought the car to a stop. Gersen jumped to the ground and tried to lift one end of the cart, without success; it carried ballast to hold it to the tracks. He tried to push the can, but the slope defeated him.
“This is absurd,” said Gersen. “There must be a way to go backward .... If I had a length of timber I could pry the car off the tracks. But I’m afraid to go into the forest.”
“It’s getting dark,” said Alice. “The sun is going down.”
Gersen went to the edge of the track bed and looked into the forest—high, low, right and left. “I don’t see anything .... Here I go.”
“Wait,” said Alice. “What is this little gadget here?”
Gersen returned to the cart. At the center of the platform a handle turned a worm gear. “Alice, you are an intelligent girl. That is a jack, which lifts the cart high enough so that we can swivel it around, end for end.”
Alice said modestly, “I thought that perhaps I might be helpful, or even indispensable.”
Five minutes later they returned the way they had come, to the third switch, and now they turned east, and drove at full speed through the twilight.
A mile, two miles, five miles ... The forest abruptly became a soggy moor. Ahead the sunset glimmered on a wide loop of river. The track led across a bridge of metal bars, evidently electrified to inhibit the creatures of the bog.
Inside the compound the track led past a commissary store, a dispensary, and a row of six small cottages. A few yards farther stood the laboratory, which overlooked the swamp and, beyond, Gorgon River. The track branched into a siding. Gersen coasted up behind the locomotive and stopped. For a moment the two sat listening. Silence.
At Blue Forest Camp Howard Treesong said in a voice of jovial camaraderie: “The passenger compartment? Nonsense, I’ll ride up forward with you!”
“A pity, but it can’t be done,” said Tuty. “Suppose Superintendent Kennifer should happen by? You sit in the back and crouch till we’re in the jungle. Then relax and enjoy the ride. Watch for marshmallow moths and water flowers.”
Treesong climbed into the compartment behind the driver’s cupola and made himself inconspicuous. The train moved away from the terminal. If, from the corner of her wide-set eyes, Tuty had noticed Schahar and Umps as they clambered aboard the swill car, she gave no sign.
Through jungle, across savanna, in and out of the dark forest, rolled the feed train. At the third switch, Tuty swung north and out upon the feed meadow, which was rarely used except when biologists intended experiments. But tonight Tuty had decided to feed the animals. Almost without halting the train she detached the feed car. Howard Treesong jumped to his feet in the back compartment and stared out the rear window. Tuty Cleadhoe never so much as looked over her shoulder. Howard Treesong, shoulders sagging and ashen of face, sank once more into his seat.
The train trundled into the station, rolled across the compound, and halted beside the laboratory.
Tuty climbed to the ground, grunting and wheezing. Howard Treesong alighted from the passenger compartment and stood looking around the compound.
Tuty called out in a brassy voice: “So then, Howard! How did you find our lovely countryside?”
“It’s not at all like dear old Gladbetook. Still, it’s quite picturesque.”
“True. Well then, let’s find if Mr. Cleadhoe is expecting us with a nice supper. I do hope he’s put out his pets. He’s a wonder with animals, is Mr. Cleadhoe. Come along, Howard, the night bugs will be after us in another minute.”
Tuty led the way to the laboratory. She slid back the door.
“Otho, we’re here! Make sure Ditsy is out. Howard won’t care to be annoyed by any of your charmers. Otho? Are you about?”
A gruff voice said: “Tush, woman, of course I’m about. Come in .... So this is young Howard Hardoah.”
“Isn’t he changed? You’d never recognize him!”
“That’s a fact.” Otho Cleadhoe stepped forward on long thin legs, standing six inches taller than Howard Treesong. Cleadhoe’s great head was bald on top, harsh and craggy, with an untidy tonsure of gray hair, a stained gray beard, and eyes in deep lavender sockets. He fixed Howard Treesong with a long stare of impersonal appraisal. Howard ignored the inspection and looked around the room. “And this is your laboratory? I’m told that you’re now an important scientist.”
“Ha, not altogether. I’m still a practitioner of my old trade, but now both my subjects and my methods are different. Come along, I’ll show you some of my work while Mrs. Cleadhoe puts out our soup.”
Tuty called out in a voice of brassy jocularity: “Ten minutes, then, and no more! You’ve all evening to show off your trophies!”
“Ten minutes, my dear. Come, Howard ... Through here, and watch your head. These arches weren’t built for tall men. Let me take your hat.”
“I’ll wear it, if I may,” said Treesong. “I am very sensitive to drafts.”
“A pity ... Well then, along this route we take Tanaquil dignitaries who come to learn how we spend the public money. I might add that they never leave dissatisfied. This is the Chamber of Astinches.”
Howard Treesong inspected the room with his eyes heavy-lidded. Otho Cleadhoe, if he noticed Treesong’s unenthusiastic manner, paid no heed. “These are all varieties of astinche, the Bethune andromorphs, a local evolutionary development. The genus is especially rich on Shanar and in this particular neighborhood. They vary in size up to the thirty-foot giant you see there.” He indicated an alcove. “I processed the creature almost single-handed, with trifling help from my staff. I worked in an atmosphere of argon, under germicidal conditions. I skinned the beast, marmelized the soft tissues, reinforced the skeletal frame, and refitted the pelt.”
“Remarkable,” said Treesong. “A fine piece of work.”
“They are amazing creatures, agile for their size. We often see them capering across the distance .... These others over here are its cousins, or so we believe. Do you know, there are still mysteries regarding these creatures? How they breed, how they develop, how they order their body chemistry? All mysteries! But I won’t bore you with technical details. As you see, they come in every size, every color. ‘Intelligence’? Who knows? Some are clever, some—”
