Fiction complete, p.42
Fiction Complete, page 42
Benson noticed it and called a meeting of the secret six. He said, “Our little program had better work this time or we are in for it. Apparently this koodi animal that Sam had the tussle with is the principal population control, and now the mothers are packing their kids around until they’re old enough to fight off the koodi.”
Donnegan shook his head. “Damned if I can find out where we slipped up. Frost and I just finished a series of tests with native ova and human sperm. They don’t mix. Of course, we didn’t expect them to, but what in hell is the answer?”
I hadn’t known of this project. I said, “You didn’t think that our male colonists—”
Benson scowled with exasperation. “We don’t know what to think, Sam! We sterilized 481 native males last fall, and the babies are just as thick as ever.”
I said, “Well, we got to 496 of them this time. That should do it for sure. Joe says he’ll keep a lookout for any males without the two stains on his shoulder.”
Benson narrowed his eyes. “You know, it strikes me that Joe is being awfully helpful. What reason did you give him for wanting this information?”
“He didn’t ask,” I said.
OUR 12-MONTH year was composed of 37-day months, except February which we shorted six days to make it come out even.
According to this calendar the “May-flies” came in July, just a month before our first anniversary. The little winged insects were a seasonal life-form, one more item that escaped the exploratory party, and for which we were unprepared.
They came out of the north, and they struck us before we could take shelter in the ship or our plastic-screened huts. They were a little smaller than flying ants, and even their long wings were jet-black. Their bites were infinitesimal, but each one smarted like a prick with a hot needle.
In the midst of the confusion of rescuing babies and herding everyone in doors, I noticed that all the natives had disappeared into the forest. Everyone had suffered a hundred bites or more, and we were sorry, swollen sights. Sue insisted that I cover myself and make a run for the clinic to see if Dr. Bailey had any remedies for the bites. Richard Joseph was crying loudly from the irritation, so I agreed.
It was only 75 yards to the clinic, and I made it without collecting many more stings. But the doctors had nothing to offer. They were dabbing various salves, astringents and pastes on test patches of their own skin, but nothing seemed to have any effect at all.
“All we hope,” said Sorenson, “is that the flies aren’t microbe-carriers.”
I started out the door to return then stepped back and peered through the screen. The forest was erupting with natives. They staggered into the clearing, headed for the center of it and sank down as if with great weariness. On and on they came until the ground among our buildings was literally paved with their prone bodies.
“Poor devils.” Bailey murmured as the clouds of flies continued to sweep through our village. “Nothing we can do, though. I wonder why they come out in the open? You’d think they had better protection in the trees.”
I had no answers, so I covered my head again and made a dash for my own hut. Inside I brushed off the clinging flies and stamped on them. “The medics don’t have any help for us,” I said. Then I saw him.
Sue was struggling to hold Joe on his feet. His arms were draped loosely over her shoulders, and for a second I couldn’t decided whether he was ill or making a pass at Sue.
I pulled him off her by one shoulder. He swung around and toppled into my arms. Remarkably few insect bites showed under the transparent haze of golden hair, but he reeked of tala.
“You’re drunk,” I yelled at him. “A lot of help you are at a time like this!”
“Tala,” he said from loose lips. “Much tala.”
“You’ve had much tala, all right!” I said disgusted.
Sue said, “We’ve got to let him stay in here, Sam. The flies will eat him alive out there.” She went to the window and knocked the flies from the outside of the screen. Then she screamed. I thought she had just discovered the massed natives, but she kept on screaming until I went to her and looked out.
In the late afternoon sun, fuzzy little brown animals were waddling out of the forest, closing in on the 900 or more natives lying senseless in the clearing. Koodi! Dozens of them.
I forgot my screaming wife, my crying infant, the drunken wife-stealer slumped on the floor. I forgot the torture of my own stings. All I remember is snatching my pistol from its holster that hung by the door and plunging out and pulling the trigger until fire ceased to come out of it. Then I was kicking and smashing with a tree limb, and every blow smashed one of the vile little ghouls into the grass. I thought I saw Benson firing and kicking, but I blacked out before I could be sure.
I regained consciousness with the flies still keening in my ears. Sue was calling my name and slapping me sharply in the face. Joe was trying to pull me to my feet, but the last thing I remember is the both of us collapsing to the ground.
I AWOKE days later with a burning fever and gloriously drunken sensation of floating. Joe brought a fruit to me when he saw I was stirring. I drank the thin, tangy juice in one breath and sank back into a deep sleep again.
My next drink came from the long, slender fingers of a pretty little female native. This time it was water, and I stayed awake. Joe came in, saw I was awake and came back in a few minutes with Benson and Dr. Bailey.
They both looked terrible, Benson especially. Bailey said, “Take it easy. Sue’s at the clinic. She and the baby are all right, but you damned near didn’t make it.”
Benson said, “Can you talk?”
I cleared my throat and decided I could. He waved Joe and the female out. Then he and Bailey sat down beside me. I asked, “Any casualties?”
“Two of our babies and thirty-six native babies. Some of the koodi came in after dark.”
It sounded strange, Benson’s listing native casualties with our own.
The memory of the koodi attack brought a wave of nausea over me. I said, “Benson, I’m sorry, but I’m all done trying to murder Joe’s race. I want no further part of it.”
Benson’s face was thin and drawn, and he stared at the floor. “If we haven’t murdered it already,” he said, “there will be no more attempts while I am in charge.” He covered his face with his hands. “Bailey. Tell him, Bailey.”
The doctor’s voice was gravelly and weak. “If it hadn’t been for the natives we’d all have died. The venom from the flies paralyzed everyone the second day after the swarm hit us. The flies were gone the next morning, but every soul in the colony passed out. Joe and his friends took care of us, poured tala down our throats and fed us.”
“But they were soused,” I said.
“Their only defense against the flies. The little black devils left the natives pretty well alone, and it appears that the tala was responsible. Could be that the stuff is what neutralized the toxin, too. They must have poured a gallon of it down me, judging from the empty skins by my bed. At any rate, they kept us alive until we could get up and feed ourselves.”
“Why did they come into the clearing when they drank the tala?” I asked.
Bailey said, “Joe told us that the day he saw Sue kill the koodi that was attacking you, he got the idea that he should do something about them himself. Through his efforts the natives no longer take the little devils as an inevitable evil. They kill them wherever they find them now. And when they had to get drunk to save themselves from the flies, Joe passed the word for them to head for the clearing. The koodi usually avoid the sunlight, but it was late in the afternoon. They came anyway.”
“Phil,” I said, “did I see you out there with me, killing the little bastards?”
He nodded silently.
“You had changed your mind about the natives at that time?”
“I—I suppose so. Don’t rub it in, Sam. It’s hard enough to live with the thought of how wrong I was. All I can do now is pray that whatever failed in our first try failed again. Joe’s people have made the human race look pretty dismal. They have every right to their planet, and if we are foolish enough to go native, well—at least we have a stronger survival instinct.”
At that point Susan came in carrying Richard. He had the hiccoughs. Sue kissed me. “Richard just drew his ration of sterile tala from the clinic. He still has a slight fever. But thanks to Joe and Harmony—”
“Harmony? Who’s that?”
“The native girl who helped Joe nurse us. Her name is really Hah-ah-arm-ig-hin-ih-hee, or something like that. She answers to Harmony, though.”
And she did. Hearing her name the little golden girl came through the door towing Joe by one hand.
I said, “One of your favorites, Joe?”
He ran a caressing, four-fingered hand over her shoulder. “I like her,” he admitted. “She wants to call me husband like Sue calls you.”
Bailey smiled. “It seems there is a new fad among the natives. Something like monogamy, I understand.”
I said, “What do you think of the idea, Joe?”
He thought it over. “I have not made up my mind.”
Sue pressed him, “Why not marry Harmony, Joe?”
In the blunt manner in which he so often made his curious revelations, Joe blurted out, “Because I am in much demand among all the females. It is—very pleasant.”
Bailey’s eyes widened. He ordered, “Bend over, Joe.”
Joe obliged so we could all examine his back. There were two brown stains on his shoulder blades as there should be, but Bailey was not satisfied. He poked a finger into them and examined the skin under the hair. “Mango pitch!” he announced. “Stained clean down to the skin. Did you do that, Joe?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I knew you would force me to go into the ship with the others if I didn’t have the stain.”
Benson looked up, shocked. “Then you—you knew what we were trying to do?”
“Yes. You and Samrogers spoke of it outside the hut one day. You thought I was asleep. Some of your words puzzled me, so I stayed away from the ship. Then I found out what they meant.”
“But you helped us get the others to go into the ship!”
“It was what you wanted,” Joe said simply. “Later, when we went south, the females saw that only Joe’s favorites continued to have babies. So Joe became very—popular.”
I said, “You mean they figured it out?”
Joe smiled. “Did you think we do not know about—” he paused to dredge among his amazing store of human idioms, “—the facts of life?”
Bailey shook his head. “What a man! What a race! Think what they would be if they had a human’s survival instinct!”
“And thumbs,” I added.
The Incredible Life-Form
A strange experiment was taking place on the third planet of an isolated solar system. In all the Universe there was no parallel to—
To: The Director
From: Tone Seng Froot, Investigator for galaxies of 9th Sector.
Subject: Unique characteristic of life-form suggesting urgent action to rescind life charter to Element 6.
SIR,
May I draw your attention to an explosive potential in your early experimental series? This exists in an obscure solar system in nine planets in a minor galaxy on the outer perimeter of my territory where I call only at extended intervals.
You will best recall the location in connection with the assignment of a Self-Awareness Charter to Element 6 in the chemical series—more specifically, the crystalline form of carbon, as it is called locally.
I have not troubled you with my earlier surveys, since nothing critical occurred in the first billion years, but I had better bring you up to date.
Of all 96 elements to which life has been separately assigned in various locations, carbon showed the greatest durability at the outset. The diamond, or crystalline form, in which self-awareness was vested in this particular solar system, could be predicted to make efficient use of light energy because of its index of refraction. Also, at lower temperatures, the diamond presents an extreme rigidity or hardness which resists abrasion.
Perhaps these factors account for the astonishing egotism which developed shortly after we activated self-awareness among them. Not that egotism, itself, is unique in the various elemental life-forms. You will recall, this inflated selfesteem has long proved to be a factor consistent with self-awareness in all matter.
In the diamond, egotism flared early in its intellectual growth and seemed to supply a creative drive unsurpassed in all galaxies under surveillance.
On the third planet, diamonds quickly learned psychokinetic manipulations and immediately began experimenting with chemical combinations of the other elements—all of which are, of course, inert and lifeless in this galaxy.
On one of my earliest visits to the third planet, which is locally referred to as Terra, or Earth, I was attracted to the especially active, intellectual radiations of a particular diamond which I shall designate as Prime, since he was the one who out-stripped all the others ultimately.
Prime had worked his way out of the blue clay, down to the edge of a salt-water ocean, and when I inquired into his furious activity he reported that he was attempting to synthesize a new life-form.
At that time I was amused. Prime had managed to construct a few rather prosaic molecules, but none of them could accomplish selfgrowth by the usual absorption of radiant energy. I asked his purpose in such experimentation.
He answered, “What was your purpose in creating life in me?”
To compare his own motives with those of my gracious director was so absurdly egotistical that I made a note to check back with this same individual on my next round. Amusement is rare in my occupation, as you can conceive, and I appreciated the humor of this supremely confident bit of carbon trash, thinking he could play creator!
His project seemed harmless, so I left without disturbing him further.
On my next call I did search out Prime again, and great was my surprise to discover that not only had he managed to invest automatic growth and reproduction into a few complex molecules, but that he had attacked the problem from ah entirely new concept, so far as I have yet determined.
ON the southern tip of the land continent where I discovered Prime, still near the ocean, I found him surrounded with a growth which he called vegetation. Then he bade me examine the content of the salt water, and I beheld tiny aquatic creatures of many varieties, some active, some vegetative, but all reproducing with lusty prolificity.
“What are these land growths?” I asked.
He proudly replied, “I call them lichens and mosses.”
“But how do they absorb energy from your sun?”
“I have invented a complex compound which can accomplish this,” he said. “I call it chlorophyll. But you have many more surprises in store for you,” he warned. “Wait until your next visit.”
I was entranced, but his work appeared still to be no more than an oddity, so I let it pass.
Prime was quite right. On my next visit he showed me his crowning achievement. He called it animal life, a division of his so-called organic creations.
Here he departed almost entirely from our known concept of life-forms. Prime’s animals maintained life, or at least a convincing simulation thereof, by ingesting other organic life-forms, both vegetative and animal, and through an awkward procedure of digestion and devious, chemical transformations, generated an interior source of energy.
What almost made me report the whole affair at that time was this innovation: Prime’s animal life-forms now existed entirely independent of direct radiant energy! Instead, they substituted, of all things, heat-energy, gained from simple oxidation of various so-called organic compounds.
At this point I asked a question to which Prime gave me a very revealing answer. I asked, “How do you define the term, ‘organic compound’ ?”
He lay there in the sun, flash his iridescence at me in brilliant sparkles from his random facets and announced in a haughty manner: “Organic pertains to any carbon-containing life-form, of which I am the originator, of course.”
Now I understood a part of the immensity of Prime’s egotism. In devising his own life-form he built it around his own element in which Terra abounds, largely in the gaseous dioxide compound.
I presumed that Prime had attempted to pass on the great Charter of Life to the non-crystalline forms of carbon about him, and, failing that, he enlisted the other elements in combination with carbon to produce his desired end.
Imagine such circuity, though! Substituting heat energy for light as the basic life-fuel!
I was no longer amused. Inflated by his success, his over-bearing self-esteem began to rankle a bit. “What,” I asked, “of self-awareness? Your life-forms are quite pointless if you fail to stimulate self-awareness in them.”
“I agree,” he said promptly. “It would be futile to create life without self-determination. You have returned a little too early to see the end of my experiment,” he said. “On your next visit I will reveal the purpose of my whole project.” Rather than file a premature estimate of the affair, I held my notes and accepted Prime’s challenge to wait and see. Had I insisted at that time on knowing his intentions, I might have had the wisdom to restrain him, but then again who could have anticipated what happened? Not even Prime, himself, realized that his life-form would get out of hand the way it did.
ON my final trip to Terra I had an extremely difficult time locating Prime. His emanations were so weak as to be almost indistinguishable in the screaming ruck of sensations that met my startled perceptions.
Part of my difficulty was the fact that the whole planet reeked with noxious nuclear-type radiation that made long-range communication with Prime virtually impossible. When I finally found him he was imprisoned in the grip of a gold setting on a ring-like artifact worn by a decomposing life-form.
“I am quite happy to see you,” Prime greeted me with the first note of welcome I had ever received from him.
