Bug-Eyed Monsters

by Bill Pronzini

  “Television, though so common here on Earth and on Venus, has seemed an impossibility across the ethereal void,” I said, “but if it becomes a reality, I believe it will be the Venusians who will take the initiative, though of course they will be helpless without our friendly cooperation. In return for the mechanical instructions they have given us from time to time, I think it no more than right that we should try to give them all the help possible in freeing their world, as ours has been freed, of the insects that threaten their very existence. Personally, therefore, I hope it can be done through radio and television rather than by personal excursions.”

  “I believe you are right,” he admitted, “but I hope we can be of service to them soon. Ever since I have served in the capacity of official interplanetary broadcaster, I have liked the spirit of goodfellowship shown by the Venusians through their spokesman, Wanyana. The impression is favorable in contrast to the superciliousness of the inhabitants of Mars.”

  We conversed for some time, but at length he rose to take his leave. It was then I ventured to broach the subject that was uppermost in my thoughts.

  “I want to show you something, Stentor,” I said, going into an adjoining room for my precious box and returning shortly with it. “A relic from the days of an ancestor named Delfair, who lived at the time the last insect, a beetle, was kept in captivity. Judging from his personal account, Delfair was fully aware of the significance of the changing times in which he lived, and contrary to the majority of his contemporaries, possessed a sentimentality of soul that has proved an historical asset to future generations. Look, my friend, these he left to posterity!”

  I deposited the heavy casket on a table between us and lifted the lid, revealing to Stentor the mystifying particles.

  The face of Stentor was eloquent of astonishment. Not unnaturally his mind took somewhat the same route as mine had followed previously, though he added atomic-power units to the list of possibilities. He shook his head in perplexity.

  “Whatever they are, there must have been a real purpose behind their preservation,” he said at last. “You say this old Delfair witnessed the passing of the insects? What sort of a fellow was he? Likely to be up to any tricks?”

  “Not at all,” I asserted rather indignantly, “he seemed a very serious-minded chap; worked in an oxygen plant and took an active part in the last warfare between men and insects.”

  Suddenly Stentor stooped over and scooped up some of the minute particles into the palm of his hand—and then he uttered a maniacal shriek and flung them into the air.

  “Great God, man, do you know what they are?” he screamed, shaking violently.

  “No, I do not,” I replied quietly, with an attempt at dignity I did not feel.

  “Insect eggs!” he cried, and shuddering with terror, he made for the door.

  I caught him on the threshold and pulled him forcibly back into the room.

  “Now see here,” I said sternly, “not a word of this to anyone. Do you understand? I will test out your theory in every possible way but I want no public interference.”

  At first he was obstinate, but finally yielded to threats when supplications were impotent.

  “I will test them,” I said, “and will endeavor to keep hatchings under absolute control, should they prove to be what you suspect.”

  It was time for the evening broadcasting, so he left, promising to keep our secret and leaving me regretting that I had taken another into my confidence.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Miracle

  For days following my unfortunate experience with Stentor, I experimented upon the tiny objects that had so terrified him. I subjected them to various tests for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not they bore evidence of life, whether in egg, pupa or larva stages of development. And to all my experiments, there was but one answer. No life was manifest. Yet I was not satisfied, for chemical tests showed that they were composed of organic matter. Here was an inexplicable enigma! Many times I was on the verge of consigning the entire contents of the chest to the flames. I seemed to see in my mind’s eye the world again over-ridden with insects, and that calamity due to the indiscretions of one man! My next impulse was to turn over my problem to scientists, when a suspicion of the truth dawned upon me. These were seeds, the germs of plant life, and they might grow. But alas, where? Over all the earth man has spread his artificial dominion. The state-city has been succeeded by what could be termed the nation-city, for one great floor of concrete or rock covers the country.

  I resolved to try an experiment, the far-reaching influence of which I did not at that time suspect. Beneath the lowest level of the community edifice in which I dwell, I removed, by means of a small atomic excavator, a slab of concrete large enough to admit my body. I let myself down into the hole and felt my feet resting on a soft dark substance that I knew to be dirt. I hastily filled a box of this, and after replacing the concrete slab, returned to my room, where I proceeded to plant a variety of the seeds.

  Being a product of an age when practically to wish for a thing in a material sense is to have it, I experienced the greatest impatience, while waiting for any evidences of plant life to become manifest. Daily, yes hourly, I watched the soil for signs of a type of life long since departed from the earth, and was about convinced that the germ of life could not have survived the centuries, when a tiny blade of green proved to me that a miracle, more wonderful to me than the works of man through the ages, was taking place before my eyes. This was an enigma so complex and yet so simple, that one recognized in it a direct revelation of Nature.

  Daily and weekly I watched in secret the botanical miracle. It was my one obsession. I was amazed at the fascination it held for me—a man who viewed the marvels of the fortieth century with unemotional complacency. It showed me that Nature is manifest in the simple things which mankind has chosen to ignore.

  Then one morning, when I awoke, a white blossom displayed its immaculate beauty and sent forth its delicate fragrance into the air. The lily, a symbol of new life, resurrection! I felt within me the stirring of strange emotions I had long believed dead in the bosom of man. But the message must not be for me alone. As of old, the lily would be the symbol of life for all!

  With trembling hands, I carried my precious burden to a front window where it might be witnessed by all who passed by. The first day there were few who saw it, for only rarely do men and women walk; they usually ride in speeding vehicles of one kind or another, or employ electric skates, a delightful means of locomotion, which gives the body some exercise. The fourth city level, which is reserved for skaters and pedestrians, is kept in a smooth glasslike condition. And so it was only the occasional pedestrian, walking on the outer border of the fourth level, upon which my window faced, who first carried the news of the growing plant to the world, and it was not long before it was necessary for civic authorities to disperse the crowds that thronged to my window for a glimpse of a miracle in green and white.

  When I showed my beautiful plant to Stentor, he was most profuse in his apology and came to my rooms every day to watch it unfold and develop, but the majority of people, long used to businesslike efficiency, were intolerant of the sentimental emotions that swayed a small minority, and I was commanded to dispose of the lily. But a figurative seed had been planted in the human heart, a seed that could not be disposed of so readily, and this seed ripened and grew until it finally bore fruit.

  CHAPTER VII

  Ex Terreno

  It is a very different picture of humanity that I paint ten years after the last entry in my diary. My new vocation is farming, but it is farming on a far more intensive scale than had been done two thousand years ago. Our crops never fail, for temperature and rainfall are regulated artificially. But we attribute our success principally to the total absence of insect pests. Our small agricultural areas dot the country like the parks of ancient days and supply us with a type of food, no more nourishing but more appetizing than that produced in the laboratories.
Truly we are living in a marvelous age! If the earth is ours completely, why may we not turn our thoughts toward the other planets in our solar-system? For the past ten or eleven years the Venusians have repeatedly urged us to come and assist them in their battle for life. I believe it is our duty to help them.

  Tomorrow will be a great day for us and especially for Stentor, as the new interplanetary television is to be tested, and it is possible that for the first time in history, we shall see our neighbors in the infinity of space. Although the people of Venus were about a thousand years behind us in many respects, they have made wonderful progress with radio and television. We have been in radio communication with them for the last half century and they shared with us the joy of the establishment of our Eden. They have always been greatly interested in hearing Stentor tell the story of our subjugation of the insects that threatened to wipe us out of existence, for they have exactly that problem to solve now; judging from their reports, we fear that theirs is a losing battle. Tomorrow we shall converse face to face with the Venusians! It will be an event second in importance only to the first radio communications interchanged fifty years ago. Stentor’s excitement exceeds that displayed at the time of the discovery of the seeds.

  Well, it is over and the experiment was a success, but alas for the revelation!

  The great assembly halls all over the continent were packed with humanity eager to catch a first glimpse of the Venusians. Prior to the test, we sent our message of friendship and good will by radio, and received a reciprocal one from our interplanetary neighbors. Alas, we were ignorant at that time! Then the television receiving apparatus was put into operation, and we sat with breathless interest, our eyes intent upon the crystal screen before us. I sat near Stentor and noted the feverish ardor with which he watched for the first glimpse of Wanyana.

  At first hazy mist-like spectres seemed to glide across the screen. We knew these figures were not in correct perspective. Finally, one object gradually became more opaque, its outlines could be seen clearly. Then across that vast assemblage, as well as thousands of others throughout the world, there swept a wave of speechless horror, as its full significance burst upon mankind.

  The figure that stood facing us was a huge six-legged beetle, not identical in every detail with our earthly enemies of past years, but unmistakably an insect of gigantic proportions! Of course it could not see us, for our broadcaster was not to appear until afterward, but it spoke, and we had to close our eyes to convince ourselves that it was the familiar voice of Wanyana, the leading Venusian radio broadcaster. Stentor grabbed my arm, uttered an inarticulate cry and would have fallen but for my timely support.

  “Friends of Earth, as you call your world,” began the object of horror, “this is a momentous occasion in the annals of the twin planets, and we are looking forward to seeing one of you, and preferably Stentor, for the first time, as you are now viewing one of us. We have listened many times, with interest, to your story of the insect pests which threatened to follow you as lords of your planet. As you have often heard us tell, we are likewise molested with insects. Our fight is a losing one, unless we can soon exterminate them.”

  Suddenly, the Venusian was joined by another being, a colossal ant, who bore in his forelegs a tiny light-colored object which he handed to the beetle-announcer, who took it and held it forward for our closer inspection. It seemed to be a tiny ape, but was so small we could not ascertain for a certainty. We were convinced, however, that it was a mammalian creature, an “insect” pest of Venus. Yet in it we recognized rudimentary man as we know him on earth!

  There was no question as to the direction in which sympathies instinctively turned, yet reason told us that our pity should be given to the intelligent reigning race who had risen to its present mental attainment through eons of time. By some quirk or freak of nature, way back in the beginning, life had developed in the form of insects instead of mammals. Or (the thought was repellent) had insects in the past succeeded in displacing mammals, as they might have done here on earth?

  There was no more television that night. Stentor would not appear, so disturbed was he by the sight of the Venusians, but in the morning, he talked to them by radio and explained the very natural antipathy we experienced in seeing them or in having them see us.

  Now they no longer urge us to construct ether-ships and go to help them dispose of their “insects.” I think they are afraid of us, and their very fear has aroused in mankind an unholy desire to conquer them.

  I am against it. Have we not had enough of war in the past? We have subdued our own world and should be content with that, instead of seeking new worlds to conquer. But life is too easy here. I can plainly see that. Much as he may seem to dislike it, man is not happy unless he has some enemy to overcome, some difficulty to surmount.

  Alas, my greatest fears for man were groundless!

  A short time ago, when I went out into my field to see how my crops were faring, I found a six-pronged beetle voraciously eating. No—man will not need to go to Venus to fight “insects.”

  Nowhere is it written that BEMs cannot be cultured and therefore make important contributions to the arts. Quite the contrary. For it is written (in “The Galactic Almanack,” a splendidly funny series which ran intermittently in Galaxy for almost twenty years) that artistic contributions, among a host of others, were made by a large number of alien life forms. “The Bug-Eyed Musicians” tells of some of the more profound BEM accomplishments in the field of music.

  Laurence M. Janifer (b. 1933) has been a full-time free-lance writer for almost a quarter of a century. He has published over thirty novels and 300 magazine pieces in a variety of fields; in science fiction he is best known for his three collaborative “Mark Phillips” novels with Randall Garrett, Supermind, Brain Twister, and The Impossibles, and for his 1964 You Sane Men. Recently he has begun a series of novels and stories featuring a “professional survivor” named Gerald Knave. He has testified in print that he was forced by H. L. Gold, a tough and exacting editor, to rewrite “The Bug-Eyed Musicians” eight times before it was accepted—which may be one reason it was his only contribution to “The Galactic Almanack” (the major contributors were Edward Wellen and John Brunner), and in fact constituted his only appearance in Galaxy itself.

  The Bug-Eyed

  Musicians

  Laurence M. Janifer

  This first selection deals entirely with the Music Section of the Almanack. Passed over in this anthology, which is intended for general readership, are all references to the fourdimensional doubly extensive polyphony of Green III (interested parties are referred to “Time in Reverse, or the Musical Granny Knot,” by Alfid Carp, Papers of the Rigel Musicological Society) or, for reasons of local censorship, the notices regarding Shem VI, VII and IX and the racial-sex “music” which is common on those planets.

  All dates have been made conformable with the Terran Calendar (as in the standard Terran edition of the Almanack) by application of Winstock Benjamin’s Least Square Variable Time Scale.

  FEBRUARY 17: Today marks the birth date of Freem Freem, of Dubhe IV, perhaps the most celebrated child prodigy in musical history. Though it is, of course, true that he appeared in no concerts after the age of twelve, none who have seen the solidographs of his early performances can ever forget the intent face, the tense, accurate motions of the hands, the utter perfection of Freem’s entire performance.

  His first concert, given at the age of four, was an amazing spectacle. Respected critics refused to believe that Freem was as young as his manager (an octopoid from Fomalhaut) claimed, and were satisfied only by the sworn affidavit of Glerk, the well-known Sirian, who was present at the preliminary interviews.

  Being a Sirian, Glerk was naturally incapable of dissimulation, and his earnest supersonics soon persuaded the critics of the truth. Freem was, in actuality, only four years old.

  In the next eight years, Freem concertized throughout the Galaxy. His triumph on Deneb at the age of six, the stellar r
eception given him by a deputation of composers and critics from the Lesser Magellanic Cloud when he appeared in that sector, and the introduction (as an encore) of his single composition, the beloved Memories of Old Age, are still recalled.

  And then, at the age of eleven, Freem’s concerts ceased. Music-lovers throughout the Galaxy were stunned by the news that their famed prodigy would appear no longer. At the age of twelve, Freem Freem was dead.

  Terrans have never felt this loss as deeply as other Galactic races, and it is not difficult to see why. The standard “year” of Dubhe IV equals 300 Earth years; to the short-lived Terrans, Freem Freem had given his first concert at the age of 1200, and had died at the ripe old age of 3600 years.

  “Calling a 1200-year-old being a child prodigy,” states the Terran Dictionary of Music and Musicians, rather tartly, “is the kind of misstatement up with which we shall not put.”

  Particularly noteworthy is the parallel attitude expressed by the inhabitants of Terk I, whose “year” is approximately three Terran days, to the alleged “short” life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

  MAY 12: Wilrik Rotha Rotha Delk Shkulma Tik was born on this date in 8080. Although he/she is renowned both as the creator of symphonic music on Wolf XVI and as the progenitor of the sole Galactic Censorship Law which remains in effect in this enlightened age, very little is actually known about the history of that law.

  The full story is, very roughly, as follows:

  In 8257, a composition was published by the firm, of Scholer and Dichs (Sirius), the Concerto for Wood-Block and Orchestra by Tik. Since this was not only the first appearance of any composition by Tik, but was in fact the first composition of any kind to see publication from his planet of Wolf XVI, the musical world was astonished at the power, control and mastery the piece showed.