Bug-Eyed Monsters

by Bill Pronzini

  “Now when the differences among the intelligences are closely investigated, it is found over and over again that it is you Earthmen, more than any of the others, who are unique. For instance, it is only on Earth that life depends upon metal enzymes for respiration. Your people are the only ones which find hydrogen cyanide poisonous. Yours is the only form of intelligent life which is carnivorous. Yours is the only form of life which has not developed from a grazing animal. And, most interesting of all, yours is the only form of intelligent life known which stops growing upon reaching maturity.”

  Drake grinned at him. Rose felt her heart suddenly race. It was the nicest thing about him, that grin, and he was using it perfectly naturally. It wasn’t forced or false. He was adjusting to the presence of this alien creature. He was being pleasant—and he must be doing it for her. She loved that thought and repeated it to herself. He was doing it for her; he was being nice to the Hawkinsite for her sake.

  Drake was saying with his grin, “You don’t look very large, Dr. Tholan, I should say that you are an inch taller than I am, which would make you six feet two inches tall. Is it that you are young, or is it that the others on your world are generally small?”

  “Neither,” said the Hawkinsite. “We grow at a diminishing rate with the years, so that at my age it would take fifteen years to grow an additional inch, but—and this is the important point—we never entirely stop. And, of course, as a consequence, we never entirely die.”

  Drake gasped and even Rose felt herself sitting stiffly upright. This was something new. This was something which, to her knowledge, the few expeditions to Hawkin’s Planet had never brought back. She was tom with excitement but held an exclamation back and let Drake speak for her.

  He said, “They don’t entirely die? You’re not trying to say, sir, that the people on Hawkin’s Planet are immortal?”

  “No people are truly immortal. If there were no other way to die, there would always be accident, and if that fails, there is boredom. Few of us live more than several centuries of your time. Still, it is unpleasant to think that death may come involuntarily. It is something which, to us, is extremely horrible. It bothers me even as I think of it now, this thought that against my will and despite all care, death may come.”

  “We,” said Drake, grimly, “are quite used to it.”

  “You Earthmen live with the thought; we do not. And this is why we are disturbed to find that the incidence of Inhibition Death has been increasing in recent years.”

  “You have not yet explained,” said Drake, “just what the Inhibition Death is, but let me guess. Is the Inhibition Death a pathological cessation of growth?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And how long after growth’s cessation does death follow?”

  “Within the year. It is a wasting disease, a tragic one, and absolutely incurable.”

  “What causes it?”

  The Hawkinsite paused a long time before answering, and even then there was something strained and uneasy about the way he spoke. “Mr. Smollett, we know nothing about the cause of the disease.”

  Drake nodded thoughtfully. Rose was following the conversation as though she were a spectator at a tennis match.

  Drake said, “And why do you come to Earth to study this disease?”

  “Because again Earthmen are unique. They are the only intelligent beings who are immune. The Inhibition Death affects all the other races. Do your biologists know that, Mrs. Smollett?”

  He had addressed her suddenly, so that she jumped slightly. She said, “No, they don’t.”

  “I am not surprised. That piece of information is the result of very recent research. The Inhibition Death is easily diagnosed incorrectly and the incidence is much lower on the other planets. In fact, it is a strange thing, something to philosophize over, that the incidence of the Death is highest on my world, which is closest to Earth, and lower on each more distant planet—so that it is lowest on the world of the star Tempora, which is farthest from Earth, while Earth itself is immune. Somewhere in the biochemistry of the Earthite, there is the secret of that immunity. How interesting it would be to find it.”

  Drake said, “But look here, you can’t say Earth is immune. From where I sit, it looks as if the incidence is a hundred percent. All Earthmen stop growing and all Earthmen die. We’ve all got the Inhibition Death.”

  “Not at all. Earthmen live up to seventy years after the cessation of growth. That is not the Death as we know it. Your equivalent disease is rather one of unrestrained growth. Cancer, you call it.—But come, I bore you.”

  Rose protested instantly. Drake did likewise with even more vehemence, but the Hawkinsite determinedly changed the subject. It was then that Rose had her first pang of suspicion, for Drake circled Harg Tholan warily with his words, worrying him, jabbing at him, attempting always to get the information back to the point where the Hawkinsite had left off. Not baldly, not unskillfully, but Rose knew him, and could tell what he was after. And what could he be after but that which was demanded by his profession? And, as though in response to her thoughts, the Hawkinsite took up the phrase which had begun careening in her mind like a broken record on a perpetual turntable.

  He asked, “Did you not say you were a policeman?”

  Drake said, curtly, “Yes.”

  “Then there is something I would like to request you to do for me. I have been wanting to all this evening, since I discovered your profession, and yet I hesitate. I do not wish to be troublesome to my host and hostess.”

  “We’ll do what we can.”

  “I have a profound curiosity as to how Earthmen live; a curiosity which is not perhaps shared by the generality of my countrymen. So I wonder, could you show me through one of the police departments on your planet?”

  “I do not belong to a police department in exactly the way you imagine,” said Drake, cautiously. “However, I am known to the New York police department. I can manage it without trouble. Tomorrow?”

  “That would be most convenient for me. Would I be able to visit the Missing Persons Bureau?”

  “The what?”

  The Hawkinsite drew his four standing legs closer together, as if he were becoming more intense. “It is a hobby of mine, a little queer corner of interest I have always had. I understand you have a group of police officers whose sole duty it is to search for men who are missing.”

  “And women and children,” added Drake. “But why should that interest you so particularly?”

  “Because there again you are unique. There is no such thing as a missing person on our planet. I can’t explain the mechanism to you, of course, but among the people of the other worlds, there is always an awareness of one another’s presence, especially if there is a strong, affectionate tie. We are always aware of each other’s exact location, no matter where on the planet we might be.”

  Rose grew excited again. The scientific expeditions to Hawkin’s Planet had always had the greatest difficulty in penetrating the internal emotional mechanisms of the natives, and here was one who talked freely, who would explain! She forgot to worry about Drake and intruded into the conversation. “Can you feel such awareness even now? On Earth?”

  The Hawkinsite said, “You mean across space? No, I’m afraid not. But you see the importance of the matter. All the uniquenesses of Earth should be linked. If the lack of this sense can be explained, perhaps the immunity to Inhibition Death can be, also. Besides, it strikes me as very curious that any form of intelligent community life can be built up among people who lack this community awareness. How can an Earthman tell, for instance, when he has formed a congenial sub-group, a family? How can you two, for instance, know that there is a true tie between you?” Rose found herself nodding. How strongly she missed such a sense!

  But Drake only smiled. “We have our ways. It is as difficult to explain what we call ‘love’ to you as it is for you to explain your sense to us.”

  “I suppose so. Yet tell me truthfully, Mr. Smollett—if Mrs. S
mollett were to leave this room and enter another without your having seen her do so, would you really not be aware of her location?”

  “I really would not.”

  The Hawkinsite said, “Amazing.” He hesitated, then added, “Please do not be offended at the fact that I find it revolting as well.”

  After the light in the bedroom had been put out, Rose went to the door three times, opening it a crack and peering out. She could feel Drake watching her. There was a hard kind of amusement in his voice as he asked, finally, “What’s the matter?”

  She said, “I want to talk to you.”

  “Are you afraid our friend can hear?”

  Rose was whispering. She got into bed and put her head on his pillow so that she could whisper better. She said, “Why were you talking about the Inhibition Death to Dr. Tholan?”

  “I am taking an interest in your work, Rose. You’ve always wanted me to take an interest.”

  “I’d rather you weren’t sarcastic.” She was almost violent, as nearly violent as she could be in a whisper. “I know that there’s something of your own interest in this—of police interest, probably. What is it?”

  He said, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “No, right now.”

  He put his hand under her head, lifting it. For a wild moment she thought he was going to kiss her—just kiss her on impulse the way husbands sometimes did, or as she imagined they sometimes did. Drake never did, and he didn’t now.

  He merely held her close and whispered, “Why are you so interested?”

  His hand was almost brutally hard upon the nape of her neck, so that she stiffened and tried to draw back. Her voice was more than a whisper now. “Stop it, Drake.”

  He said, “I want no questions from you and no interference. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

  “The nature of my job is open and known.”

  “The nature of my job,” he retorted, “isn’t, by definition. But I’ll tell you this. Our six-legged friend is here in this house for some definite reason. You weren’t picked as biologist in charge for any random reason. Do you know that two days ago, he’d been inquiring about me at the Commission?”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Don’t believe that for a minute. There are depths to this that you know nothing about. But that’s my job and I won’t discuss it with you any further. Do you understand?”

  “No, but I won’t question you if you don’t want me to.”

  “Then go to sleep.”

  She lay stiffly on her back and the minutes passed, and then the quarter-hours. She was trying to fit the pieces together. Even with what Drake had told her, the curves and colors refused to blend. She wondered what Drake would say if he knew she had a recording of that night’s conversation!

  One picture remained clear in her mind at that moment. It hovered over her mockingly. The Hawkinsite, at the end of the long evening, had turned to her and said gravely, “Good night, Mrs. Smollett. You are a most charming hostess.”

  She had desperately wanted to giggle at the time. How could he call her a charming hostess? To him, she could only be a horror, a monstrosity with too few limbs and a too-narrow face.

  And then, as the Hawkinsite delivered himself of this completely meaningless piece of politeness, Drake had turned white! For one instant, his eyes had burned with something that looked like terror.

  She had never before known Drake to show fear of anything, and the picture of that instant of pure panic remained with her until all her thoughts finally sagged into the oblivion of sleep.

  It was noon before Rose was at her desk the next day. She had deliberately waited until Drake and the Hawkinsite had left, since only then was she able to remove the small recorder that had been behind Drake’s armchair the previous evening. She had had no original intention of keeping its presence secret from him. It was just that he had come home so late, and she couldn’t say anything about it with the Hawkinsite present. Later on, of course, things had changed—

  The placing of the recorder had been only a routine maneuver. The Hawkinsite’s statements and intonations needed to be preserved for future intensive studies by various specialists at the Institute. It had been hidden in order to avoid the distortions of self-consciousness that the visibility of such a device would bring, and now it couldn’t be shown to the members of the Institute at all. It would have to serve a different function altogether. A rather nasty function.

  She was going to spy on Drake.

  She touched the little box with her fingers and wondered, irrelevantly, how Drake was going to manage, that day. Social intercourse between inhabited worlds was, even now, not so commonplace that the sight of a Hawkinsite on the city streets would not succeed in drawing crowds. But Drake would manage, she knew. Drake always managed.

  She listened once again to the sounds of last evening, repeating the interesting moments. She was dissatisfied with what Drake had told her. Why should the Hawkinsite have been interested in the two of them particularly? Yet Drake wouldn’t lie. She would have liked to check at the Security Commission, but she knew she could not do that. Besides, the thought made her feel disloyal; Drake would definitely not lie.

  But, then again, why should Harg Tholan not have investigated them? He might have inquired similarly about the families of all the biologists at the Institute. It would be no more than natural to attempt to choose the home he would find most pleasant by his own standards, whatever they were.

  And if he had—even if he had investigated only the Smolletts—why should that create the great change in Drake from intense hostility to intense interest? Drake undoubtedly had knowledge he was keeping to himself. Only heaven knew how much.

  Her thoughts churned slowly through the possibilities of interstellar intrigue. So far, to be sure, there were no signs of hostility or ill-feeling among any of the five intelligent races known to inhabit the Galaxy. As yet they were spaced at intervals too wide for enmity. Even the barest contact among them was all but impossible. Economic and political interests just had no points at which to conflict.

  But that was only her idea and she was not a member of the Security Commission. If there were conflict, if there were danger, if there were any reason to suspect that the mission of a Hawkinsite might be other than peaceful—Drake would know.

  Yet was Drake sufficiently high in the councils of the Security Commission to know, offhand, the dangers involved in the visit of a Hawkinsite physician? She had never thought of his position as more than that of a very minor functionary in the Commission; he had never presented himself as more. And yet—

  Might he be more?

  She shrugged at the thought. It was reminiscent of twentieth-century spy novels and of costume dramas of the days when there existed such things as atom bomb secrets.

  The thought of costume dramas decided her. Unlike Drake, she wasn’t a real policeman, and she didn’t know how a real policeman would go about it. But she knew how such things were done in the old dramas.

  She drew a piece of paper toward her and, with a quick motion, slashed a vertical pencil mark down its center. She headed one column “Harg Tholan,” the other “Drake.” Under “Harg Tholan” she wrote “bonafide” and thoughtfully put three question marks after it. After all, was he a doctor at all, or was he what could only be described as an interstellar agent? What proof had even the Institute of his profession except his own statements?-Was that why Drake had quizzed him so relentlessly concerning the Inhibition

  Death? Had he boned up in advance and tried to catch the Hawkinsite in an error?

  For a moment, she was irresolute; then, springing to her feet, she folded the paper, put it in the pocket of her short jacket, and swept out of her office. She said nothing to any of those she passed as she left the Institute. She left no word at the reception desk as to where she was going, or when she would be back.

  Once outside, she hurried into the third level tube and waited for an empty compartment to pass. The tw
o minutes that elapsed seemed unbearably long. It was all she could do to say, “New York Academy of Medicine,” into the mouthpiece just above the seat.

  The door of the little cubicle closed, and the sound of the air flowing past the compartment hissed upward in pitch.

  The New York Academy of Medicine had been enlarged both vertically and horizontally in the past two decades. The library, alone, occupied one entire wing of the third floor. Undoubtedly, if all the books, pamphlets and periodicals it contained were in their original printed form, rather than in microfilm, the entire building, huge though it was, would not have been sufficiently vast to hold them. As it was, Rose knew there was already talk of limiting printed works to the last five years, rather than to the last ten, as was now the case.

  Rose, as a member of the Academy, had free entry to the library. She hurried toward the alcoves devoted to extraterrestrial medicine and was relieved to find them unoccupied.

  It might have been wiser to have enlisted the aid of a librarian, but she chose not to. The thinner and smaller the trail she left, the less likely it was that Drake might pick it up.

  And so, without guidance, she was satisfied to travel along the shelves, following the titles anxiously with her fingers. The books were almost all in English, though some were in German or Russian. None, ironically enough, were in extraterrestrial symbolisms. There was a room somewhere for such originals, but they were available only to official translators.

  Her traveling eye and finger stopped. She had found what she was looking for.

  She dragged half a dozen volumes from the shelf and spread them out upon the small dark table. She fumbled for the light switch and opened the first of the volumes. It was entitled Studies on Inhibition. She leafed through it and then turned to the author index. The name of Harg Tholan was there.