New Writings in SF 21 - [Anthology] Read online

  I put the glass down, sat staring at the dural wall. IAB had had assurances of course, from Trade Control; but once assurances start arriving three times a year you know the end isn’t far off. The principle of the thing’s simple, as simple as all truly great ideas; while a single rumpled little Earthman with spiky yellow shoes can make a single rumpled little spiky yellow dollar, the killing goes on. Any killing. Next season they’d open-caste the islands; the Dragons had had their chance.

  The Pilot (First Class) kept his light on well into the night. Maybe he was reading. I wondered vaguely whether he masturbated. I wasn’t too concerned, one way or the other; but a Behaviourist gets into the way of collecting odd facts.

  I’d turned the playback volume down but left it running. The Dragon’s hearts thumped steadily through the thin metal wall. Towards the middle of the night the rhythm altered. I got up, pulled a jacket on and went outside.

  There’s no moon on Epsilon; but there is a massive aurora belt. The green sky flashed and flickered; it was like the brewing of a perpetual storm. The Dragon’s whips vibrated faintly; the golden eye-clusters watched without interest. I used the stethoscope. The second and fourth heart pairs were dead. I applied a second and third set of pacemakers. Pair two picked up; pair four wouldn’t kick over. I decided a stimulant couldn’t do any harm. I went back to the lab, checked the chart, filled a syringe. I shot enough strychnine into the heart walls to kill a terrestrial horse. I saw the trace pick up and steady. Interesting. I thought vaguely I should have taken encephalographs as well.

  The idea of stimulants was a good one. I went back, drank some more whisky. Then I dozed.

  The mourners began to arrive at first light.

  I heard the rustling and clattering and got up. I pulled on slacks and a shirt, stared through the lab port. The dawn was as green as the rest of the day; smoky emerald, fading to clear high lemon where Epsilon Cygnus struggled with the mist. A Dragon passed a yard or so away, jerking and lumbering like a thing at the bottom of an ocean. It was a big one, I judged a potential male. Dragons are parthenogenetic most of the time; over the years they sometimes develop sexual characteristics and mate conventionally. The analysis people had an idea it was to do with sunspot activity; but if there’s a correlation we didn’t give the computers enough hard facts to pinpoint it. The whole thing just made phylum classification a bit more entertaining.

  The newcomer stopped a yard or more from the immobilised Dragon, and waved its whips. They were ten or twelve feet long, banded in green, orange and black. Ball and socket joints several inches across joined them to the body armour; round the base of each were tufts or stiff, iridescent hair.

  The yellow eyes watched; the whips moved and stroked, touching the body of the dying creature from end to end. The head of the Dragon rotated, the jawparts clicked; then the thing reared its forepart into the air, lapsed into immobility. I’d seen the stance before. So had a lot of folk.

  I opened the lab door, stepped outside. The morning air was cool and sweet. I walked up to the new arrival. The eye-clusters stared, like blank jewels. I wondered if it was seeing me.

  I heard footsteps behind me. The Pilot (First Class) looked concerned. He said, ‘Jupiter, is this the first?’

  I nodded. I said, ‘Good one, isn’t he?’

  He rubbed his face. He was wearing a white shirt, open to the waist. On his chest hung a heavy silver cross. Very fashionable.

  There was a crackling, in the jungle. Number two advanced slowly, through the moving coils of mist. It looked like a brilliant little armoured vehicle. The flowing of the clasper legs was invisible; you could have imagined readily enough that it was running on tracks.

  It moved to the bunch of cables I’d stretched from the patient, and checked. The whips shook, stooped; rose again vertically above its back. It didn’t seem to object to the cables overmuch; neither did it cross them. It turned, followed their line to the dying Dragon. The same ritual was observed. The whips rustled; then the creature arched itself, lapsed like its fellow into stillness.

  The Pilot (First Class) had his hand on the butt of the automatic. I shook my head. Dragons are harmless. Their mouthparts could take your arm off; but if you put your fingers between the mandibles they just stop working. I’d told him often enough but it seemed he wasn’t convinced.

  He trailed after me back to the lab. He said, ‘How many of these things do you expect to arrive?’

  I said, ‘Ten. Or a dozen.’

  ‘What’ll they do?’

  I said, ‘Like I told you. Stand around.’

  He said. They’re waiting for it to die.’

  I set water on to boil. I said, ‘Could be.’

  He frowned. He said, ‘They’re obviously waiting.’

  I laid out plates and cups. I said, ‘It’s by no means obvious. “Wait” as a concept depends on human-based time awareness. They may lack that awareness. In which case, they are not waiting.’

  He said, ‘It’s a bit of a quibble though.’

  I shook my head. ‘Certainly not,’ I said. ‘Consider a proposition. ‘The rocks of the valley waited.” That’s more than a quibble. It’s a howling pathetic fallacy.’

  He glared at me. He said, ‘If they’re living, they have time awareness.’

  I shrugged. I said, ‘Try telling a tree.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Then trees aren’t living. Interesting.’

  He said, ‘You are the most argumentative bastard I ever met.’

  I said, ‘Hard words, Captain. In any case it’s not true. For argumentative read definitive.’

  He swallowed his temper, like a good skipper. My word, these boys have self-control. They’re pretty fine male specimens of course, all the way round.

  By midmorning nine of the creatures had arrived. I set up the encephalogram, fixed the probes. A Dragon has a massive brain, situated behind and below the eyes. Capacity betters the human cranium by an average of twenty-five per cent. Nearly the same was once true of terrestrial dolphins. But they never learned to talk.

  I watched the pens record. Something like an alpha rhythm was emerging. By thirteen hundred Planetary Time the wave forms were altering, developing greater valleys and peaks. The crisis was approaching; but it was nothing new. I lit a pipe, walked outside. The heartbeats thundered, from the open lab door. At thirteen-forty the first pair shut down. The pairs two and three. I counted the beats on pair four. Then the glade was silent. I said, ‘That’s it then.’ I logged the time; Earth Standard and Planetary, hours and minutes from sunup. I pulled the probes out, disconnected them, started coiling the cables.

  He stood staring. He said, ‘Aren’t you going to do anything?’

  I said, ‘Like what?’

  He said, ‘Try it with a shot. Something like that.’

  I said, ‘You can if you like. Speaking from my human-based awareness, I’d say it was a waste of time.’

  Dead, the thing looked just as it had when living; but the gold was fading slowly from the eyes.

  He sat on the metal step of the lab and lit a cigarette. He looked shaken up.

  The jade-green ring of Dragons made no move. They stood poised through the afternoon, like so many cumbersome statues. Occasionally one or other of the pairs of whips would rise, tremble, sink again; but that was all. I cut tissue specimens for autopsy, stripped the pacemakers, autoclaved the probes. Then I scrubbed up and went through to the living quarters. He was sitting reading a glossy somebody had left about. It had a full frontal stereograph on the cover. She looked pretty good. I walked back to the lab, ran the tapes and started up. The heartbeat of the dead Dragon filled the air.

  I heard him fling the book down. He stood in the doorway, staring. He said, ‘Do we have to have that again?’

  I said, ‘We do. There might be a clue.’

  ‘A what?’

  I said, ‘Think of it as a sort of Cosmic Code. It may help.’

  We ate. The Dragons stayed in their circle.
Afterwards he walked out. He didn’t say where he was going, which is against the rules if you’re going strictly by the book. There was a little vertol flier in one of the hangar sheds. I heard it start up, drone away towards the west.

  I turned the replay volume up. The heartbeats thudded in the clearing. I got a heavy speaker housing from the lab, set it out on the grass, blasted the noise at the Dragons. It had been tried before of course. They hadn’t reacted then. They didn’t react now. I dismantled the rig, put the gear away and shut down. The glade was very still, the veiled sun dropping towards the west.

  I got my jacket, and a pair of prismatics. I walked due south, away from the lab. About a mile off, a rocky bluff thrust up through a mustard-green tide of trees. The front of the cliff, golden now in the slanting light, was riddled with holes. I used the glasses. A dozen were occupied; I could see the yellow masks staring down. The rest were empty and blank.

  At the foot of the cliff was a roughly circular clearing. In it stood a dozen or more massive structures. The quartz chunks of which they were mainly composed flashed and glittered, throwing back the brilliant light. They formed columns, arcades, porticoes. At intervals openwork platforms pierced the towers; it made them look a little like gigantic rose trellises. Sprays of viridian creeper twined from level to level, enhancing the illusion. It was presumed the Dragons built them; though the proposition had never been proved. IAB had been interested in them for years, off and on. A docket went round whenever somebody had a bright idea. I’d seen nests, temples and freeform sculpture all put up as propositions. You paid your money and you took your choice.

  The city was the main reason for the siting of the lab. We’d put it a mile away initially in case the Dragons reacted to our presence. The hope had been wild and wilful; nobody had yet seen them react to anything.

  I walked back to the lab. There was no sign of the Pilot (First Class). I set the coffee on again, picked up the girlie book, skimmed the pages. I was pleased to see they were letting a few white strippers back in on the act. Emancipation, like everything else, can go too far.

  Towards nightfall I checked the port. The ring of Dragons had closed in; one of them was stretching its neck segments, nuzzling forward and back along the corpse like a cat skimming cream from a saucer. After a time the mouthparts settled to a steady motion. I logged the event.

  The flier landed. A wait; and I heard the Pilot’s footsteps in the clearing. He barged in through the lab door. He said, ‘They’re eating it. It’s bloody horrible.’

  I put the mag down. I said, ‘The fact has been noted.’

  He said, ‘It’s bloody horrible. And you reckoned those things were intelligent.’

  ‘I can’t remember reckoning anything. In any case it doesn’t preclude the possibility.’

  ‘You must be joking!’

  I said, ‘Perhaps it’s a religious observance. Which would make it highly sophisticated.’

  ‘A what?’

  I remembered the cross round his neck. He was a neo-Catholic of course. He had to be. I said, ‘It has all the distinguishing characteristics.’

  He sat down heavily and lit a cigarette. He said, ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I wish I was. I’d get more fun out of life. Remember the Dream of the Rood?’

  ‘No.’

  I clucked at him. ‘Dear me. And part of your course was the Humanities.’

  He glowered. I smiled at him. I said. ‘Teatime, skipper. Your turn to undo the cans.’

  He said, ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not hungry.’

  I said, ‘Pity. I am. Force of habit of course. But powerful. Rule One of the Behaviourist.’ I got up, started banging pots and pans round in the galley. I said, ‘Blood sacrifice. Eat, for this is my flesh. Also see Tennessee Williams. Mid twentieth century. American.’

  He stood. He said, ‘I’m going to get cleaned up.’

  I said, ‘They probably have. It’s a very old sofa.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Daddy has some timeslip trouble. Bear with an old man.’

  He walked out. He’d started slamming doors.

  I kicked the girlie stereo under the side table. Not so much from frustration as pique. One dislikes being constantly offered what isn’t for sale.

  He started singing in the shower. He always sang in the shower. His voice was very good. Light tenor. I expected he used a good aftershave too. I wondered just what the hell a Dragon would make of him anyway, Pink for skin, brown for hair, white for teeth. You could analyse the picture till it fragmented. Then you had a monster of your own.

  The bath put him into a better humour. He emerged from his labours at seventeen hundred, Planetary. He was wearing a white uniform jacket, with the braids and brassard of his Order. He capered up to me, spun me round, slapped me on the back. Then he sat in a chair, legs asprawl, grinned and lit a cigarette. He said, ‘Judy’s coming through. On the Link.’

  I said, ‘I bet she’s your fiancée.’

  He looked hurt. He said, ‘You know she is. You met her before lift off. She’s a model.’

  I said, ‘Ah, yes.’ It was the Little Girl Look this year, Earthside. Which meant candid blue eyes, golden curls, tits like stoplights. I said, ‘Thoughtless of me. I remember her well. A charming person, I thought.’

  He looked at the chronometer on the lab bulkhead. He said, ‘We’re getting married. Straight after this tour.’

  I said, ‘I expect you are.’

  He gave me a dirty look. He said, ‘I suppose that fits a behaviour pattern too.’

  I said, ‘It very well might.’

  He said viciously, ‘Why don’t you run a programme on it? You might come up with some new facts.’

  I yawned. I said, ‘Fortunately, I don’t have to. I read tealeaves. Saves a lot of computer time.’

  The buzzer sounded. He started the Richardsons. Earth Control exchanged the time of day; then Judy came on. She was as I remembered her. Love through the Loop; she had the sort of voice that can squeeze sex out of duralumin. He said, ‘Hello, darling,’ and she said, ‘Hello, Drew.’ Drew, yet ... I tried the full effect. Drew Scott-Middleton. I got up, went looking for the whisky. I needed something to take the taste away.

  She said, ‘How are you?’ He said, ‘Fine, love, just fine.’ I poured three fingers.

  She said, ‘How’s the project?’

  He said, ‘Fine.’

  I walked out to the lab, started labelling and packing the heart tapes. She said, ‘Who’s that with you? I can’t see, he’s not in camera.’

  He said, ‘Researcher Fredericks. You met him at lift off.’

  She said, ‘Are you looking after him ?’

  He said, ‘He’s fine.’

  The speaker said, ‘Give him my love.’

  Drew said, ‘She sends you her love.’

  I said, ‘That’s fine.’

  The Richardson operator said, ‘Epsilon, you are in overtime.’

  Judy said, ‘Gosh, your poor bank balance. Darling, I must go. See you soon.’

  He said,’ ‘Bye, bunny. Take care now’. I heard the crackle as the link broke. The generators cut, whined down to silence.

  He walked to the lab door. He said, ‘That was bloody uncivil.’

  ‘What was uncivil?’

  He said, ‘Walking out like that.’

  I said, ‘It was your call, not mine.’

  ‘As if that mattered!’

  ‘It mattered to me. Anyway I had some work to do.’

  His face darkened. He said, ‘You might as well know, I don’t like your attitude.’

  I said, ‘The fact is noted.’

  He took a step into the lab. He said, ‘I’m also very well aware you don’t like me.’

  I said, ‘On the contrary. I don’t give a damn. Now, if you please. You do your thing. I’ll do mine. OK?’ I pushed past him, got myself another drink.

  He stood and stared for a bit, breathing down his nose. He said, ‘What would you do if I belted you between
the eyes?’

  I said, ‘Lose consciousness. Later in all probability, sue you.’ I turned with a whisky in my hand. I said, ‘For Christ’s sake have a drink, man. And let it go.’

  He took the glass, shakily. His moods were starting to switch about a bit. Too much for my taste. Anyway he cooled down in time. Sat and told me about the place they were buying in the Rockies, his old man having weighed in with a few thousand dollars to help the mortgage; and the Chrysler automat he’d picked up on his last Earth furlough and all the rest. He didn’t quite get round to how many kids they were planning for but he sailed pretty close. He even gave me a standing invite to view the establishment after they got settled in; which would have been great if I could have afforded the fare. It was all great, life was great. I rejoiced for him. I couldn’t help though having a momentary picture of the wedding night. You lie this way and I lie that, on sterilised polar sheets; while we devour, ritually, each other’s bodies.