Collected Short Fiction, page 244
He’s gone berserk, Kilbourne thought with curious clarity in the midst of the beating. But there was a strange intensity in Dombey’s eyes—and to Kilbourne’s amazement, it struck him as a totally sane expression.
He backed away, but Dombey grabbed him with one hand. He managed to land a feeble blow above the deckhands heart, and then Dombey slapped him, just once, on the side of the face. Kilbourne’s head wobbled and his knees went out from under him. He felt a swinging sensation as Dombey hoisted him in the air and dumped him over his broad shoulder, and then he blanked out completely.
KILBOURNE woke, feeling as if he had been steamrollered. He stood up uneasily and glared at the two men. Leswick looked away guiltily; Dombey gazed placidly, without a hint of his former rage visible. But it was clear to Kilbourne that he was no longer in charge.
They had paused by the side of a stream, and had bathed Kilbourne’s face until he returned to consciousness.
“Where are we?”
“About a hundred yards off the path,” Leswick said.
“I feel like I’ve been out for days,” said Kilbourne.
“About five minutes,” the metaphysician told him. “You might want to take a look back through the underbrush. It’s very interesting out there on the path.”
Kilbourne turned and squinted through the tangle of vegetation in the direction in which Leswick pointed. As he looked, he felt his skin grow cold.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” Leswick asked.
They were quadrupeds, lean and low-slung, moving in what seemed an infinite procession along the path. There must have been a hundred of the vicious-looking things on parade, each grasping the tail of the one before, elephant-fashion, in his teeth.
The teeth: knife-blades, more appropriately. Each beast had four visible incisors, needle-pointed, and at the sides of their mouths projected shovel-shaped yellow-green tusks that probably came to a razor’s-edge sharpness. The beasts were dirty white in color, with staring blue-rimmed eyes. Their fur was filthy, matted, stinking. Even at this distance, Kilbourne could sense their overpowering musky odor.
They were killers—silent, moving on padded feet, demonstrating their massed might. He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened had the three Earthmen been on the path when the parade came by.
Dombey’s baby-faced expression reflected no pride of accomplishment. Another wild hunch? Could be, Kilbourne thought. Whatever the answer was, Dombey’s hunches about the forest had saved them twice from death. It was like giving responsibility to a child, but Kilbourne realized the sane thing to do would be to relinquish command without protest to the deckhand, and let Dombey lead them, the rest of the way. It made good common sense; after their experiences, Leswick was sure to support Dombey anyway.
Besides, Kilbourne rationalized, it couldn’t hurt. He still had the compass, and if Dombey got too far off course it would always be possible to club him down unawares and take over leadership again. Cold-blooded, perhaps, but Kilbourne felt no desire to spend the rest of his life wandering aimlessly about on the planet. For the time being, though, so long as Dombey proceeded toward the beacon, it didn’t much matter who actually led the party, Kilbourne thought.
Dombey got to his feet and grunted, “Animals are gone. Back to the path now.”
He led them in cautious single-file through the thicket and back to the main path. Kilbourne, now bringing up the rear, watched in open admiration the graceful way in which the deckhand maneuvered through the thick forest. The Tarzan nickname, Kilbourne realized suddenly, was appropriate. Dombey’s in his native habitat now.
They returned to the path, which still was heavy with the smell of the now-vanished quadrupeds. Kilbourne stared nervously after them, but there was no sign of the beasts. The path was clear again.
Two uneventful days and nights passed under Dombey’s leadership. Kilbourne did little talking; he knew he had suffered an incalculable loss of prestige in Leswick’s eyes through his demotion, and he contented himself with following along detachedly. Dombey was keeping on course, and that was all that mattered.
On the third day, they encountered intelligent native life for the first time.
CHAPTER V
THEY had emerged in a wide clearing, and a group of alien beings stood there, each one looking as much like the next as was conceivable. It wasn’t the first-glance indistinguishability of any unfamiliar species, but an almost total identity of appearance.
The aliens were squat, barrel-shaped creatures with round, staring eyes, heavy kangaroo-like hind legs, and fuzzy six-fingered forepaws with quite definitely opposable thumbs. They wore beaded sashes around their waists, but there was no evidence of any external sexuality, primary or secondary. Each of them clutched a barbed sword in one hand, and they were murmuring excitedly to each other. Their voices were dull, buzz-saw drones.
Kilbourne saw Dombey drop back from the lead and stare blankly at him, Dombey, having brought them safely through the jungle, was abdicating now that they had reached civilization.
Quickly, Kilbourne turned and unstrapped some of the gear from Dombey’s back. He burrowed through the packet of pots and pans and finally drew forth the slim length of the thought-converter.
“Say a few words, friends,” he told the aliens. Give us some palaver, so we can analyze your language.”
The aliens replied with a series of buzzes and clicks, and Kilbourne made rapid adjustments on the Thorson converter as they spoke, sliding the guide up and down the indicator until he struck the proper linguistic type. In mid-buzz, the alien language came clear.
“Buzzbuz mumbleclick danger hostile-animal stranger-type surround with many swords if hostile KILL.”
“We are not hostile,” Kilbourne told them. He ransacked his brains for some way to demonstrate this, and came up with no useful suggestions. “We are from up there,” he said, pointing toward the sky. “We have fallen. We want to go back to our homes.”
“Hostile. Threat. Danger. KILL.”
Kilbourne saw Dombey stirring dangerously, and hoped the deckhand would restrain himself until the situation was more stable. It would be certain slaughter if Dombey provoked them to make use of those shaggy-toothed swords.
The aliens were moving closer now. “We are heading east toward our friends,” Kilbourne said desperately. “When we find them, we will leave your world and never return. Do you understand? We’re not hostile. We want to leave as soon as we find our friends. We want to leave.”
The buzzing continued ominously, and the converter rendered it as: “We are not capable of deciding. We refer to higher authority who decides. Make no more words, but come with us to village-plane.”
“Very well,” Kilbourne said. “Take us there.”
He shut off the converter as the swarm of aliens converged on them, forming a tight, buzzing circle. Turning to Dombey he said, “Do everything they tell us to do, without complaining, or they’ll kill us. KILL. You understand, Dombey?”
The deckhand nodded slowly. “I don’t like them,” he rambled. “They’re no good.”
“I don’t like them much either, but there are too many of them to fight. They can kill us, Dombey. Go where they tell you.”
“Okay,” Dombey said agreeably. “I’ll go.”
Kilbourne looked at Leswick. The metaphysician had said nothing the past five minutes, and was permitting himself to be shoved along uncomplainingly. Leswick’s mild eyes were heavy with thought.
“What’s the matter with you, Professor?” Kilbourne asked harshly. “You synthesizing some new cultural phenomena?”
“Quiet, Kilbourne,” the metaphysician said with unusual force. “Let me think this out, will you?”
“Sorry!” Kilbourne said, in mock humility. “Exceedingly sorry!”
THE VILLAGE of the aliens began to draw near, and Kilbourne’s brows were pulled tight in painful concentration. There had to be some way out of this. There had to be some way he could prove peaceful intentions to these untrusting aliens and secure permission to move on toward the beacon. He wondered if a possible tack might be to allow the aliens to imprison them, and then break out during the night. It was simpler than trying to fathom the complexities of an alien way of thinking.
Dammit, there ought to be some logical solution! But none presented itself as they entered the village.
The scene before them was an almost terrifyingly industrious one. Hundreds more of the barrel-shaped aliens bustled around with awesome haste, preforming many tasks. Here, four of them were pounding grain; there, eight were erecting a new hut.
The village consisted of row on row of these identical huts, each about six feet high and five wide—big enough, that is, to hold just one alien. The round creatures built in a roughly rectangular pattern—not so rough, Kilbourne corrected, as he saw the precise way in which the rows of huts were aligned.
In the center of the rectangle was an enormous hut, of the same design but perhaps twenty feet high and about as wide, towering over the others like a domed skyscraper. The higher authority, Kilbourne thought. The big building was obviously a temple, or palace, or city hall, where the tribal rulers lived. Concluding from this that the interview which would decide their fate was near, Kilbourne snapped the thought-converter on again.
“You will go there,” the aliens told him. “We will take your case to the high one.”
Kilbourne nodded abstractedly and glanced around. No children were evident in the village—merely hosts of identical-looking aliens, all of the same height and general appearance. To his surprise, he saw a few loafers also, as the procession toward the temple continued. These aliens lay stretched on the ground in attitudes of utter laziness. Their skin-coloring was a slightly deeper brown, and their bodies were flabby and obese. The sight of these apparently privileged few struck Kilbourne as odd, in view of the frantic industry of the rest of the aliens.
Finally they reached the large building. Kilbourne turned to the nearest of his captors.
“Do we go in now?”
“Negative negative negative. Strange ones must not enter.
Stay here while we convey information.”
Kilbourne shrugged. “I guess we can wait,” he said to Leswick. Dombey, vacant-eyed, stood by idly.
Time passed—one minute, three, five. Kilbourne fidgeted uneasily. He had defied the odds by getting the life-ship free of the doomed ship and safely to the planet despite lack of practical aeronautical experience; somehow, they had gotten safely through the jungle as well. But now he was stumped. Their lives were the toys of these aliens, and he had no ready way out. Unarmed, outnumbered, they were totally at the mercy of these creatures.
After another five minutes, the three aliens who had entered the temple returned, and buzzed something to the ring that guarded the Earthmen. The converter failed to pick up the statement, but a moment later one of the aliens turned to Kilbourne.
“You threaten our safety.”
“No!” Kilbourne protested. “We’ll leave as soon as we reach our—our friend, to the east!”
“The Mother says you threaten our safety,” the alien said stolidly. “Therefore you must die.”
Swords lifted. Then, before anyone could move, before Kilbourne had even begun to evaluate that last statement, Leswick came to life.
“I demand to see the Mother!” he said loudly. “I claim the right to return to our hive!”
KILBOURNE did a double-take, blinking stupidly for an instant, then reacting. He looked at Leswick, who stood in sudden animation, weak eyes bright, hands quivering in nervous anticipation.
“What did you say?”
“Hush,” Leswick muttered. The aliens were strangely silent, turning to face each other, buzzing and humming beneath the converter’s range of audibility. Kilbourne realized in that moment what the world of Bill Dombey must be like, for now he shared the deckhand’s blank stupefaction. He heard Leswick’s tense, nervous breathing as the aliens continued to confer.
Finally one of them said, “We will talk to the Mother again. We will see if she will admit you.”
The alien re-entered the domed building, returning after some two or three minutes. When the creature spoke, the unemotional buzz seemed to have an undertone of surprise in it.
“You may enter,” the alien said. “The Mother will see you.”
Kilbourne moved forward instinctively, but Leswick put a hand on his arm.
“No—I’ll go in alone. You stay out here and keep Dombey company.” Leswick took the converter from him.
“But—” Kilbourne shrugged, realizing he was out of his depth, and let the metaphysician enter. The ring of guards closed tightly around Dombey and Kilbourne after Leswick disappeared.
Again time passed. Kilbourne watched the seconds drag interminably until the moment he finally heard Leswick’s voice call from within the building.
“Kilbourne, will you come in here now? Better bring Dombey, too.”
“Coming,” Kilbourne said. He nudged the deckhand. “Let’s go in, Tarzan—and remember, stand still and keep your hands to yourself.”
Dombey grinned appealingly. “Sure, boss.”
They went in. Leswick was standing in near-darkness, looking upward. Kilbourne paused, while his eyes adjusted themselves to the change in lighting.
“This is the Mother of this tribe, Kilbourne.”
“Welcome, strange one.” The engineer looked upward in the direction of the voice, and saw the Mother. She sat in the darkest recess of the tomblike building, staring down. The Mother was a strange sight.
She—somehow, the sex seemed apparent—was vast and bloated, nearly twice the height of the other aliens and grotesquely distended. Kilbourne gasped. He had been on alien worlds and seen alien life before, but there was something weird and frightening about the Mother.
“Tell the Mother about our Mother,” Leswick urged him, in a dry, staccato voice. “Go ahead, Kilbourne. Tell—her—about—our—Mother. Describe our Mother’s all-enfolding thirty-megacycle carrier beam.”
Kilbourne felt as if he were treading water for an instant, and then he caught on. Taking the hint, he said, “Our Mother stands to the east, several days journey. She is taller than we are, and does not move from where she stands. Set in her forehead is an eye of great beauty.” He went on to describe the signal beacon in as careful detail as he could, while underneath the description his mind protested against the sheer insanity of what was taking place.
Finally he ran out of details, and the huge alien said, “Yes, we know the place and we have seen your Mother. We know her and we have long wondered where her children might be.”
“We long to return to her,” Leswick said anxiously. “We did not mean to enter your hive, but it became necessary in the course of our journey toward the Mother.”
“We understand,” came the solemn reply.
“Then you will help us?”
“Yes,” the Mother said. “Yes, we will cause our people to guide you to your Mother. We know and take pity upon you, strange ones.”
Leswick knelt, and Kilbourne felt impelled to do the same. Only Dombey remained standing—and then even he, in superstitious awe, lowered himself ponderously to his knees.
“We thank you,” Leswick said with deep gravity.
“Yes, we thank you,” Kilbourne added.
Uncomprehendingly, Dombey echoed their thanks with a deep-voiced “Thanks” of his own.
CHAPTER VI
MUCH later Kilbourne began to understand.
They had left the village the following morning, after being fed lavishly on a jelly-like food with a pungent, likable taste. Twelve of the aliens, swords bared, escorted them into the forest, and, deploying themselves six before and six behind, led the three wanderers further toward the east—toward the signal beacon, toward their Mother.
Kilbourne was ill at ease and depressed. The sight of the bloated alien creature in the temple disturbed him, for one, and the fact that Leswick had handled the situation with such complete success upset him as well.
It was not until they were well out of sight of the village, though, and moving at a fast easterly pace, that Kilbourne voiced the question that had burned in his mind since the strange interview.
“How did you know they were what they were, Leswick? And how did you know they would react this way?”
The metaphysician smiled mildly. “How did I know? That’s a loaded word, Kilbourne. It means different things to you and to me. You, for instance, won’t accept the validity of intuitive judgment. So I can say I knew it would happen, but that’s meaningless to you.”
“And Dombey knew there would be carnivores parading down the path, I suppose,” Kilbourne said sourly. “Which is why he beat the blazes out of me while you stood by grinning.”
“It was the only way to get you to accept the evidence,” Leswick said. “There wasn’t time for further discussion—so Dombey had to use his fists. Similarly, I raised my voice when I thought I had the solution.”
Kilbourne nodded. “We’ve been through this discussion before, Leswick.”
“I know. And you still stick to empiricism. You’d be lying headless in the dirt right now if I shared that attitude.”
They reached a fork in the road, and the aliens turned left. Kilbourne realized he’d again been scored against; how would he have known which way to turn, if the aliens hadn’t come along to guide him to the beacon?
“So you guessed the aliens were bee-analogues,” Kilbourne said. “And it was damned clever of you to win the Queen Bee’s sympathy by claiming the beacon was our mother and we were returning to the hive. But how could you tell?” Kilbourne demanded exasperated. “How did you know what to do?”
“You haven’t studied Metaphysical Synthesis, have you?” Leswick asked suddenly.
“I know a little about it,” Kilbourne said. “But—”
“You know enough about it not to like it, but not enough to understand it, obviously—or you’d know how I arrived at my conclusions.”
