Short Fiction Complete, page 30
PRIMITIVE animals in hollowed-out logs, had surrounded his floating form and thrown a net over him while he had rested. They appeared to be bipedal with two arms, two eyes, two ears and coverings of purple, silky, hairlike growth. Their mouths were rounded and, as they made what seemed to be talking noises to one another, he could see vicious-looking, needle-sharp teeth.
One jabbed at him with a wide stick probably used to propel a log through the water. One-Girk-Two let his membrane stretch to absorb the blow.
His appendages were busy below the waterline, testing and searching every strand in the net for some access route or weak link. He found none.
The net was drawn together more tightly and, without further blows from the floating animals, he was hauled into one of their hollowed logs. Here their inspection became more detailed and more painful to One-Girk-Two. Two of the animals, using sharpened sticks, prodded and poked him in every possible spot.
Again and again he adjusted his membrane to absorb the blows but even his remarkable stretching capacity was finally not enough. One animal turned noisily to another, then prodded the stick almost through him.
His outer membrane punctured now, his fluids leaked out. Excruciating pain overcame him.
He shut off the aching parts of his body, placing them to sleep, then continued to dodge other prods from the short sticks.
Soon almost every part of his brain-tissue anatomy was compartmented and One-Girk-Two fell unconscious.
FROM One-Girk-Two’s cage various tribal members could be seen in various positions of sitting, squatting or walking around the community fire. Twisted fibers from a tough tree root formed the bars of the cage. He had already learned that his weak body acids would not burn the bars. Most of his body tissues were closed off, preventing the continuous pain from searing through his consciousness.
Water was never offered to him and he had to absorb what liquids he could from the humidity of the atmosphere—a pitiful quantity, barely allowing his normal biological functions to proceed. Food consisted of scraps of garbage thrown by amused bystanders and only through trial and error had he learned which scraps were sufficiently fine-grained to be absorbed by his external membrane.
Some food had to be washed by exudations of his body fluids, breaking down their cellular structure further so that he could absorb some of the nutrients. Other particles had to be left to rot until microorganisms had sufficiently broken up the materials. All these ways to provide himself with life-giving nourishment were new, invented by himself out of necessity.
Though all these primitive conditions for survival were painful and burdensome, nothing hurt One-Girk-Two so much as the loss of his signal generator. Without that precious device, life itself was unimportant—for without the opportunity to become a member of a Unit he was nothing.
A spark of hope continued to linger within him. He could see the signal generator hanging on the chiefs neck. It was a rugged mechanism and might still be operating in spite of the daily abuse it received.
One-Girk-Two often directed the total mass of his tissues into search for a solution to his present plight. A slight suggestion of escape—a bare, tenuous possibility—offered itself. To that possibility, he devoted every bit of conscious neural tissue.
Evening was the time for peaceful tribal social gatherings. At that time, fishermen, hunters and their trainees, the children, relaxed. Sleep was not far away. Daylight was nearly gone and few daily activities remained to be performed.
Females of the tribe usually enclosed the very young in brilliant red skinfolds to protect them from the cold. The older children, more self-sufficient, followed the footsteps of their assigned teacher or formed into larger groups for games.
Frequently a group of youngsters would assemble outside One-Girk-Two’s cage to prod him with sticks, throw pebbles, sand or garbage or simply to stand quietly and stare from large unblinking eyes.
One of the primitive alien children in particular had sustained a curiosity unusual for the group. He had never teased or thrown objects. He had come night after night to stare and seemingly to study One-Girk-Two.
One-Girk-Two always looked forward to this event—for in that small alien’s behavior lay the tiny, almost insignificant possibility of his survival. He had determined to learn the tribe’s language and to develop facility in it. The small, unblinking male child who was such a frequent visitor was his major key to the effort.
There were always children surrounding the cage who prodded or teased; the opportunity to contact this particular male child was not easy to come by. The strategy finally developed was simple. Whenever the thoughtful male child appeared, One-Girk-Two would immediately sidle over to him, placing his body as close to the child as possible. There was. nothing more he could do until he learned the language.
Meanwhile he absorbed noises and patterns of behavior associated with his captors’ speaking modes. Had his body not been so totally injured and compartmented he might have learned far more rapidly than he did. But he did learn.
The day finally arrived when persistent use of his remaining integrative functions brought the language to his abnormally small conscious portion and, with the exception of some ambiguities here and there, he knew that he was ready for his initial speech attempts. He tried them on his prospective friend when other children were not around.
THE noises were not too easily recognizable as speech, for One-Girk-Two’s membrane was not capable of imitating sounds struck from needlesharp dentures. At first the child to whom they were directed was delighted with the new phenomenon and invited everyone to hear the sounds. Prodding by sticks increased until he and the others learned that One-Girk-Two immediately shut off the sounds under such circumstances. Then, for many weeks, all prodding ceased and One-Girk-Two rewarded their behavior by attempting his peculiar speech patterns at every opportunity.
Visiting tribesmen from other geographical regions were fascinated with One-Girk-Two and soon great status was associated with the tribe that possessed him. His speech improved slowly. He rewarded Sutic, the young male he had chosen for a friend, by reserving for him a true description of his origins.
“I am One-Girk-Two from another world beyond your sun. I am here to complete my apprenticeship before becoming a One-Girk-One when, should I pass the final test, I become a member of a Unit.”
Such concepts as Unit and One-Girk-Two were exceedingly difficult to communicate to the primitive alien and were perhaps never made clear. The idea of a “world beyond your sun” was not quite so difficult to convey, for Sutic was familiar with worlds beyond the desert, beyond the mountain, beyond the trees, beyond life and so on. And soon Sutic’s special knowledge of the captive raised him in the esteem of his elders.
In as short a time as possible-One-Girk-Two made his request.
“I must have the box hanging around your chiefs neck. Without it I will not continue to live,” he pleaded.
“My grandfather places much sebble on the box. He would never part with it.”
One-Girk-Two was unable to translate the word sebble. He inferred that it represented prestige or magic.
Cold weather set in, causing One-Girk-Two to place his major efforts on maintaining his body temperature. He assumed the shape of a sphere in order to conserve the maximum amount of heat. He explained to Sutic, who acquired for him a place nearer the ever-present campfire and caused animal hides to be placed inside his cage. But One-Girk-Two continued to be unable to shake Sutic’s reluctance to approach his grandfather on the subject of the box.
His watchers, high above, surely knew where he was and what was happening to him for they had broad and mysterious powers belonging only to the Unit level. But the rules for trial were clear and specific. He must maintain signal contact with them and be ready to respond to their signal at any time they initiated the contact. Soon, he knew, he would be stranded among these aliens should he fail to maintain his proper signal in the generator.
He might already be stranded. There was no way to tell. During the period of time that his signal generator had been worn by the chief, signals may already have come and passed him by. If this were the case, all his efforts to retrieve the box were already too late. He did not know.
Slowly One-Girk-Two became part of the tradition of Sutic’s tribe, the Corogers. The cold season passed; the windy season passed and was followed by the hot season. The sun blazed mercilessly. One-Girk-Two was given his physical freedom as a pet of the tribe.
He found many excuses to remain by the chiefs side and near the signal generator. One was that pail of his mission might prove to be to acquire a thorough knowledge of the tribe—and what better observation post? Another was that an opportunity to use the signal generator might come.
He learned that the tribe’s life was stable in both births and deaths. Food was easy to reach in the streams or in the foothills and deserts. The climate was not too immoderate for the Corogers’ genetic heritage and their tempers, though savage, were for the most part even. The tribe lived an unassuming life—and within this pastoral but primitive framework the more civilized but incomplete One-Girk-Two watched and waited.
He reflected on the lessons he must learn on this venture, their possible content, their significance with respect to Girk life, evolution and development, and his particular future role in his culture’s matrix.
IV
LIFE to any Girk is simple though it may not appear so to an outsider. Each Girk is born of the apparently undifferentiated parent mass of cellular tissue that once covered the floor of his planet’s single ocean.
Variations in temperature and nutrients surrounding the parent tissue cause a differing in the type and kind of budding which, when pulled out from the parent, becomes a particular kind of Girk. Usually the One-Girks stem from the hotter, equatorial regions. The Two-Girks—the bodies—usually come from the slightly cooler regions. The Three-Girks—the mobiles of various sizes and shapes—come from even cooler regions.
The Twelve-Girks—tiny reproductive cellular clusters which might eventually return to the parent body at some point distant in geography and time—usually come from the coldest regions of all.
One-Girk-Two quite often reflected on the early beginnings of his race—the complexities and simplicities, the beauty and rightness. He contrasted his race’s evolutionary path against that of his captors, the Corogers, noting their strange incompleteness and nonunified nature—they were almost like single Girks for life. Yet he often marveled that they had brains, body, legs and arms and other characteristics which operated with singleness of purpose much like a Unit.
Thousands of years earlier One-Girks, Two-Girks and all other Girk components, separated from parent, were tossed and moved by the winds and the sea currents more or less at random across the planet’s single ocean. They intermingled, one kind of component with another until, by chance alone, a complete Unit was created and civilization evolved. The early Units, though defective in philosophy and behavior, managed to create a more advanced developmental stage, opening to their more mature senses and thinking capacity many secrets of the physical world.
Eventually the application of science to the formation Units brought about the design of a selection process whereby only those components—One-Girk-Ones, Two – Girk – Ones and so forth—which were most fit, became part of the completed Units.
One-Girk-Two reflected on the precision and desirability of the tests. The Girk culture had become immensely improved in the period of only one generation. Subsequent refinements of the tests had brought it to greater heights. One-Girk-Two had been subjected to hundreds of tests which measured his ability to utilize both inductive and deductive reasoning as well as his ability to solve intuitional and associational insight-action problems.
What was the exact extent of his powers?
He reflected on his latest change in knowledge and behavior. He had killed. He had suffered great pain, indignities and humiliations at the hands of primitive, backward, alien beings. Yet, he had striven, in a sense, to join his tormentors. Did this mean that he had little by little realized that these beings, too, had a right to grow and to evolve in their own manner?
He examined the principle of cooperation between alien species—himself and the Corogers.
One-Girk-Two was able to teach his captors some simple things. One of these was the idea and use of the wheel. Another was simpler in technique but resulted in more praise—how to make fire. This second benefit freed the primitives from constant flame-guarding.
Such was the value placed on this bestowal that Sutic’s grandfather, in great ceremony and in front of the whole tribe said, “You have made us a gift of much value. We no longer have the right to retain that which you desire so strongly. Take the box as a gift in return for your gift of firemaking to us.”
One-Girk-Two was overjoyed. He checked the box and found that his Girk monitor was still watching and observing his behavior. Strapping the signal generator once more to his form with animal thongs, he proudly made his way through the tribe, knowing a feeling of oneness and love for these strange beings. Somehow, in some way, this primitive group of aliens had to be componentized. That, he thought, should be his greatest and best gift to them.
He could work from several different levels. Already these primitives had a well-developed social structure which tended to specialize activities within a unitary whole. It could be improved upon. And biological unitization could be made to take place at another level—but what would be the end result? If he changed these creatures—would they still be his friends and he theirs?
One-Girk-Two contemplated in silence the mightiest task that had as yet occurred to him—if he could accomplish it. To change the biological nature of a life-form—was that not a kind of destruction, death, no matter what the reasoning behind it? Would he not be using on his friends a weapon deadlier than the heat-beam he had lost? After long, quiet evenings of thought he finally formed a conclusion.
Though minor help, like the wheel and the fire-making, could be given to less developed beings than himself, it was not his place to change their natural organic integrity.
AS THOUGH triggered by that very thought, One-Girk-Two’s signal came. Strangely, he was unexcited and ready for it, as could easily be determined by the deliberate manner in which he pushed the return signal in proper code sequence. Then he waited.
High in the sky, like a crystalline jewel sparkling brightly in strong sunshine, hung the energyballoon. It would be operated by a Unit from the ship overhead, just as it had been on his arrival upon the planet’s crust so many months before.
As the bright point of light became even bigger and brighter, the activities of the Corogers ceased.
The light became larger and expanded. The craft became visible.
Its outlines became clearer, representing nothing more or less than a bubble with nothing inside. It stopped near One-Girk-Two, controlled entirely by the signal generator, and it waited. He moved to, it pushing his small body against the outer wall, thus blending himself with the wall itself. To One-Girk-Two’s primitive friends it appeared as though he had walked through the bubble’s walls.
One-Girk-Two turned to watch the tribe from inside the hollow sphere. This was truly a parting, for he would have to wait for them to come to the Unit stage—or its equivalent—in their own time and in their own peculiar manner.
Sadly he removed his signal generator, pushed it through the bubble’s wall and dropped it at the feet of Sutic, the first friend he had known anywhere. A great noise rose from the mouths and throats of the tribe.
One-Girk-Two knew he had passed the physical survival portion of his test. Had he also passed the philosophical, unknown portion? He did not know more than that love in all its forms must represent great risks and he had just taken all of them. What did this mean?
The Unit guiding the bubble of forces upward would give him his answer.
Breathe! Breathe! Oh God, How I Would Breathe!
Since the mid-point of this century technological and social changes of great moment have been taking place, bringing new avenues of experience to us all – whether we like them or not. The most significant of all developments, surely, has been the beginning of marts real excursion into the realm of Outer Space. No longer confined to one tiny planet, already becoming rapidly exploited both physically and conceptually, we now look outward into a limitless expanse of space and time. What new horrors shall we find there? Only the wildest optimist would hold that as we travel across the voids between planets and, perhaps some day, between stars, we shall not be faced with some highly unpleasant surprises. The material of science fiction, quite naturally, has attempted to consider some of these, and in Mind At Bay I included a longish story by the computer scientist, Perry Chapdelaine, which dealt with one possible hazard concerning contact with a superior alien life form. Chapdelaine’s contribution proved to be one of the most popular in the last collection, and I am therefore including a new, and previously unpublished, story of his in this book. It is an elusive piece which can be read and interpreted in a number of different ways. But however each of us understands it, it remains a warning and a threat of the complications that space exploration will surely bring.
My feet tread gently on wave-imprinted sand, where horizon’s pencil-line joins red-water to the tan.
Nostalgic salt spray dashes through briny-weed leaving my security intact.
Turning I see huddled boxy houses, each flush to the ground, none more than two stories high, lined stucco-white, square of door and window, joined to one another in long rows of sentry caverns, broken only by yawning cross-streets.
I walk toward the nearest open street, arms swinging freely, close, warm in my feelings. Beyond the first home, turn left – teenagers – waiting for simple artlessness like me, to pass.
Will they tease?
