Collected Short Fiction, page 795
“I traced his wandering tracks through the blades for maybe two hours, until I came out into a wide circular clearing that I think is a cultivated field. A small building roofed with a low, black dome stands at tire center. It’s surrounded by curving rows of low-growing black-leafed plants. Plants like nothing in our botany books. The triangular leaves lie flat on the ground. They make star-shaped patterns centered with bright red, apple-sized fruits.
“The field looked empty, but I felt uneasy enough to want a weapon. With my pocket knife, I cut a spear longer than my body and smoothed tire barbs from the base of it to make a haft. Carrying that, I followed DeFort’s footprints out across the field. Halfway to the building, I came to the end of tire trail.
“He must have struggled. The black leaves were tom and splashed with something red. Perhaps the red was only juice from those red fruits crushed in the struggle, but I think it was his blood. I was kneeling there, trying to interpret the evidence, when I heard a strange bellow and stood up to see something coming fast from the building.
“A thing unearthly as the plants, it was perhaps the size of our old lions and tigers but not much like them. It came hopping high on two thick, long-taloned legs and glided down again on long leathery red bat wings. Its body was covered with slick, black scales that glinted crimson when the high sun struck them. It had two heads.
“The larger head had long slit eyes and a great jaw filled with a double row of long fangs that shone like black glass when it yawned to bellow. The smaller, set far back on its shoulders, looked slick and black as the fangs. It had nearly the shape of a human skull, with huge white eyes that caught the sun like mirrors.
“I stared for a moment and turned to run, but it came at me too fast. On the last long glide, it dived around me and dropped ahead to cut me off from the jungle. The armored eyes had yellow-rimmed pupils that glared at me with a force that paralyzed me. It roared again, with a gust of hot breath that stank like rotten meat. A tlun, red tongue stabbed at me like a striking snake.
“I crouched and drove my spear into its yawning throat. The tongue coiled around my ankle and jerked me off my feet, but the spear had found something vital. The bellow became a shriek that choked and faded. The creature crumpled down on its side, the black-scaled legs kicking convulsively. The tongue dragged me toward it, squeezing till it almost crushed my ankle, but then relaxed enough to let me jerk loose.
“Scrambling back to my feet, I thought I was free till I saw that skull-shaped second head come off the creature. Riding the thing, it had held on with four long hooks, sharp red spikes that dripped dark blood when it pulled them out of the creature’s back. It rolled to the ground and lay there staring up at me with those huge white eyes. It had a tiny, toothless mouth that mewed at me like a hungry kitten. Unnerved, I just stood there till I saw those spikes gathering under it.
“It was about to jump. I hauled at my spear, but the barbs had stuck it fast in the creature’s throat. The spikes were legs, tipped like claws but muscular toward the base. The thing flexed them and sprang at me. I caught it with both hands, like a basketball. It felt slick and colder than anything alive ought to be.
“The spikes were slashing at my arms, trying to grab and hang on to me. I threw it like a ball, staggered back, and limped for the jungle. It came hopping after me, mewing louder. My ankle was throbbing, sprained from the grasp of that that slimy tongue, but I got to the jungle far enough ahead. Glancing back, I saw it hopping back toward that black dome.
“Back among the thorns, I dropped flat in a little open space and lay there gasping for breath. I felt sick when I thought what must have happened to Cal. That thing’s a parasite. A vampire. It drives those spikes into its victims, rides them, sucks life out of them.”
He sat silent for a moment, moodily shaking Iris blood-spattered head.
“They brought their own biocosm. Nothing in it ever evolved from what we planted in Asia. They’re intelligent. And nothing that ought to be here.” He stopped to stare at me, his eyes dark-lined and hollow. “I wonder how they got here. And if they didn’t kill the planet to make space for themselves.”
“Getting back to what happened—” With a rueful shrug, he stopped to finger a long, red scar across his forehead. “That black vampire had nearly done me in. My arms were bleeding from the slashes. I got lost. Cal had carried the only compass we had. I couldn’t see the sun except for glimpses when it was straight overhead. I remember wandering on forever, till I must have I passed out.
“This morning I woke lying under one of those thorn trees, aching all over, nearly too cold and stiff to move and still with no sense of where the plane might be. I stumbled on when I could walk and finally came to a rocky point where I could climb out of the jungle and look back to see the plane.
“I struck back toward it and got lost again. Somehow, I blundered back into that cleared circle where I’d met the monsters. I saw crawling things far across it. Machines or creatures harvesting those red fruits, I imagine. They stopped whatever they were doing and started toward me.
“Afraid I was done for, I ran along the edge of the field till I found our footprints, Cal’s and mine, where I had followed him into the clearing. Night was close by then, and I felt all but dead, but I was able to follow them back.” He grinned at me wanly. “Thanks for waiting.”
HIS VOICE HAD GROWN HUSKY AND FAINT BY THEN. HE SANK BACK IN the seat, shivering again, stricken perhaps by poison from the thorns, perhaps by some alien virus. I had no idea what had hit him or what to do about it, but I found a blanket and spread it over him.
“Don’t you fret,” he whispered. “I’m okay. I’ll get us down.”
Certainly not okay, he snuggled into the blanket and lay there breathing heavily, his eyes closed. With the plane on autopilot, he seemed to sleep. Now and then he muttered words I didn’t get, moaned as if in pain, struck out convulsively, dreaming perhaps of his battle with the parasite.
The plane droned on through the high stratosphere. We had taken off in the dark, but we overtook the sun. A flat infinity of slate-gray ocean lay beneath us till at last a tlun dark line of land emerged across the horizon ahead. When I looked at Casey, he still lay huddled in the pilot seat. His threshing movements had tossed the blanket off. I called his name to wake him.
“I think we’re coming over America. Can you land us?”
He jerked bolt upright, caught a hissing breath and cowered back, staring at me with blind red eyes, his blood-smeared face contorted with terror.
“Casey? Don’t you know me?”
He swayed away from me, his mouth open as if he tried to cry out, but I heard nothing.
“Wake up,” I shouted at him. “You’ve got to take us down.”
He flinched farther away, hands lifting as if to fend me off.
“You damn—damn thing!” he gasped. “What did you do to Cal?”
I reached to catch his shoulder. He shuddered and twisted away. When I grasped again, he struck wildly back with doubled fists and then sank limply back and lay breathing hard.
“Casey, please!”
He flinched weakly away when I reached to touch his face. His skin was wet with sweat, still hot with fever, yet I saw him shivering.
“Casey,” I begged again. “Don’t you know me?”
He pulled himself a little straighter, gaping at me blankly.
“Please! We’re close to America. You know I’m no pilot. You’ve got to get us down.”
“Cal?” He shook his head, blinking in confusion. “Who the hell—”
His swollen eyes went wide in recognition. “Sorry, Dunk. I’m not myself.” He nodded feebly, and groped for the edge of the blanket to wipe at his face. “I thought—I guess it was a nightmare. I’ll try to take us down. I hope to something better than we found in Africa.”
5.
HALF HIMSELF AGAIN, SWAYING UNSTEADILY OVER THE controls, Casey took us on toward North America. I brewed him a mug of the bitter tea we grew at the station. He sipped it absently, but still he couldn’t eat. His dark jaw set hard, he kept his mind on his tasks, scanning the unknown world crawling back through the haze below, plotting our route on the maps we had redrawn from what we saw from orbit, estimating how far we could go on the fuel left in the tanks.
It must have taken desperate effort. I saw the sweat that filmed his tight, blood-flecked face, saw the tremor of his thorn-scarred hands. But he got us to the continent—one far different from anything on our ancient maps. Seas had shrunk as water froze. Glacial ice now covered ancient Canada and spread east from the Rockies, far across the upper Mississippi valley.
We reached the ice sheet in the latitude of old New England and flew south and west along its edge. With binoculars, I studied the uncovered land until the beige-brown flatness of the springtime tundra gave way to another vegetation. The lowlands looked green, a lighter, bluer green than we had found in Asia. Higher elevations were spotted and patched with a puzzling array of vivid color: red and gold, amber and emerald green, all in varied shades. I offered the glasses to Casey and tried to ask him what he thought. Sitting hunched and grim-faced at the controls, he shrugged and said nothing.
The ice retreated into the mountains as we went on south, but snow still capped the westward summit when he began a long descent. Watching those flecks and splashes of color as we came down, I began to make out trees. With no familiar shape of oak or elm or pine, they grew in small groves and vast forests. Most of them stood straight and tall, spaced well apart, with no undergrowth around them. They were brick red and cherry red, orange and pink, gleaming gold, yellow and bright as flame.
Casey spent the last of our fuel for the landing, gliding low over that exotic landscape until a forest wall loomed close ahead, pulling the nose up to break our descent, dropping at last against the rocket cushion to blue-green velvet and sudden silence. The plane swayed and settled. He sagged weakly back, wiped his sleeve across his face and waved his map at me.
“Mexico . . .” He rasped words and phrases one by one as if each took a separate effort. “Old Chihuahua . . . Sierra Madre west of us . . . Tanks empty . . . We’re here to stay.” The map fluttered out of his quivering hand. “I’m done for, Dunk . . . Leave the rest to you . . . Watch out . . . for anything . . .”
Eyes closed, he sank back in the seat, his breath a slow, wheezy snore. I reclined the seat, took off his boots, and spread the blanket over him before I turned to the windows. The flat blue plain spread far east and south. The forest wall stood a mile or so west of us, a towering wall of magnificent trees that seemed to reflect the crimson and gold of the sunset. Strange as it looked, I caught a comforting sense of quiet and peace.
Flying west, we had kept ahead of night, but it was overtaking us now, purple dusk climbing out of the east. Uneasy about the gathering darkness, I found the binoculars and scanned our surroundings. The level plain stretched east without a break to meet the falling dark. I saw no motion in the forest, felt no danger. With Casey seeming sound asleep, I opened the door and climbed down to the ground. The air was still and cool, sweet with a faint, flower scent. I bent to look at the turf and found a yielding carpet of blue-green fibers that felt warm and soft as fur.
The world was silent at first, as if hushed by alarm at our landing, but soon I heard a faint and far-off sound, a high pure tone that rose and trilled and finally died away. It seemed to come from the trees. I walked around the plane to look. Thickening shadow was already clotting the forest, but sunset crimson still brushed the treetops and outlined the dark peaks far beyond.
I listened till that note came again, higher, sweeter, quavering, throbbing with a melodic beat I had never heard, till it crested and sank and died away. A bird? I wondered for a moment. My father had played bird holos for us when we were small. We had bird cells in the cryostat. Tanya had begged her mother to clone a canary for her till Arne laughed and said Dian’s cat would eat it.
Of course all those ancient birds were gone. Was this the voice of some new species as strange to Earth as the black vampires? Something perhaps alarmed by our landing and anxious to know what we were? I thought it had seemed somehow like a voice, though no human voice, that was calling to me. An insistent voice, almost urgent, that gave me a sense of some intended meaning, yet no meaning I could grasp.
It came again. I started toward it without thinking why. It rose louder when I moved. The timber of it changed. It became a chorus of many voices, singing to. a rhythm I had never heard, moving me with emotions I had never felt. A greeting? A welcome? A question about who or what we were?
I heard no menace in it. My haunting dread of the black vampires fell away. Africa was far behind us, and I felt sure they had no aircraft to carry them off the continent. Something hurried me faster till the strangeness of it checked me, and the thought of Casey left in the plane behind me, lying sick of something stranger. I turned back toward the plane, relieved to see the familiar beauty of it, a leanly tapered silver shard that shone against the purple night.
That eerie euphony followed me, rising with an urgency that drew me to a halt halfway to the plane. I stood rapt, utterly perplexed, searching to understand. Except in holos I had never heard a hurricane, never heard ocean surf, never heard thunder boom, but that great harmony held me with the power I had always imagined in such natural forces.
Turning back to the forest, I searched for the source of that awed emotion. The huge tree trunks were lost in darkness now, but the high treetops still glowed dully red against a redder sunset. I saw no movement anywhere, but something eased my concern for Casey. It erased the pain of my awareness that we were here to live our lives and die, never to see the station and our friends again. It filled me, somehow, with new hope for the mission and the clone generations to come.
I stood there in the thickening dark, listening in vain for any familiar chord or cadence in the rise and fall of that mighty tide of sound, yet transfixed with a joy I couldn’t understand. I forgot our quarrels with Arne, forgot the vampires in Africa, forgot myself and even my care for the future of Earth. I felt lifted into pure elation, beyond the need for thought or action.
Time ceased until that music, if I can call it music, peaked and died slowly into silence. It left me with an ache of longing for it to go on.
The darkness turned to loneliness, and worry for Casey hit me again.
I plodded heavily on to the plane. Glancing back when I reached the ladder, I saw something lifting out of the forest.
A balloon!
A flash of gold when it rose into the sunlight, it was a real balloon, a gondola swinging under it. Though I felt no wind, it drifted slowly toward me. I stood craning until it passed high above me mid vanished at last in the falling night. It meant another breed of alien beings here, I thought, intelligent beings with an advanced technology. Yet I felt no alarm. Still intoxicated with that music, I was eager to know them.
BACK ON THE PLANE, I FOUND CASEY SITTING UP AND LOOKING better. He let me heat a bowl of soup and open a packet of the squash-and-tofu wafers the robots made, stuff Arne called “manna of the Moon.” While he ate, I tried to tell him about that that music and how it had changed my mood.
“I heard it, or something like it,” he said, “in a crazy dream.” He stopped with his spoon in the air to shake his head in wonder. “It made me feel—I can’t say how—made me feel the mission has a chance in spite of those things in Africa. A dream that kept getting crazier.”
He paused again to eye me as if I might be wondering if he was crazy.
“I thought I saw a golden balloon rising out of the forest. Mona was in it. She had come down from the Moon to look for me. She was pregnant, I guess you didn’t know, when we got on the escape plane. Six months along, though she hardly showed it. With a boy we were going to name Leonardo. She miscarried after we got to the stat ion. In the dream, I thought little Leo might have another chance.
“I remember—” Eyes half closed, he fell silent, remembering.
Or seeming to. Growing up, we had all known our clone parents through their holos in the tank and all the letters and diaries and journals and relics they had left for us. Waiting for me in my own lockers, I had found my fathers pipe and the brittle leather pouch that had held his tobacco, his pocket knife, his wallet with my mother’s faded photo.
His life and his world had become more vivid and exciting to me than our tiny den on the crater rim, the stories of our clone parents as real as actual memories. And we shared the same flesh. My father spoke of racial memories, handed down through the unconscious to shape myth and habit. I flunk there were moments we really did recall from more than hearsay, though Arne never agreed.
“And you know, Dunk—” Dark eyes wide, Casey was smiling. “I remember how I found her. It happened in a night spot in an old South American city called Medellin. I was there as a pilot and bodyguard, employed by a man named Hugo Carrasco, a dealer in outlawed narcotics. Mona—”
He paused and shook his head as if the dream had been a miracle. While Pepe and Arne and I had always loved Tanya and Dian, who were live and with us at the station, Casey worshiped his vision of Mona. Once long ago he had showed me the picture of her he had found in the wallet El Chino brought to the Moon. A tiny photo, brittle and faded through the ages, it was holy to him, so precious that he had Dian put it back in the cold vault.
