Of Man and Manta Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

  But it did not attack. He realized with relief that this was one of the watchers, a noncombatant. It would leave him alone - he hoped.

  Carefully he knelt at the basket and drew out the lamp. He found a match - still the surest route to fire! - and thumbed it to life. As it flared the distant manta veered, aware of the sound or the radiation of heat or light or some other ambient characteristic of fire. He touched it to the spout of the lamp, willing it to catch quickly. It did, and he moved to the center of the beach, nostrils close to the flame.

  The manta left the water and shot across the narrow beach, its eye bearing upon him with the typical flicker; he could see that much directly now. Subble readied a fistful of shells and pebbles, but it sheered away from the steady green flame. Did the hallucinogen affect it too? Or did it suspect some more subtle trap?

  Subble inhaled, knowing he was taking too much but urgent for the drug to take effect, while the manta circled warily. Cal had been right; this was the only reasonable avenue for comprehension, in the circumstances. And he had to understand the creature before he dared to kill it.

  * * *

  The old one was dying. Laboriously it made its way to the place of decease, climbing the narrow trail though hardly able to spread its brittle aerofoil. Periodically it rested, its massive body sagging with fatigue, the eye staring lethargically. The younger, vigorous ones passed it in salute and went on, sparing it further exhibition of its incompetency. The last trip had to be alone.

  The old one came at last to the highest plateau and collapsed ignominiously upon the level dust. It was the end but life remained behind the glazed eye, flickering into the final configuration. Blind, the old one rose on its flaccid foot, the globe of its body swelling tremendously. The extinguished eye bulged and exploded; the body split asunder. A cloud of smokelike particles puffed into the air, spreading slowly through the staid atmosphere.

  The body collapsed, an empty husk devoid at last of animation, awaiting only the periodic annihilation of the fire from the sky. No omnivore would defile the remains after that cremation. Life had not been destroyed; it had passed on, into myriad microscopic free-floating spores. The old one had contributed its genes to the world.

  The spores ascended, diffusing as they drifted over the face of the cliff and caught the circulating breezes there.

  They traveled, half an octillion strong: five times ten raised to the twenty-sixth power, or a numeral followed by twentysix zeroes. Their motions were random, within reasonable meaning of the term; they were governed by trace eddies and currents, and by the gentle static repulsion contributed by their common charge. They were male and female - that is, complementary half-chromosome arrangements - in even numbers, but the static prevented them from mating with each other. And so they spread and merged with the inanimate dust and wandered wherever fate decreed, almost indistinguishable from their environment.

  Time passed. Quintessentially decimated, the spores continued, settling on cliff and plain, on animate and vegetative, rising into the sky and sinking into the water. Fungi fed upon them, and grazing herbivores. Some died and rotted, while others achieved the pinnacle and were destroyed by the fierce radiation of the upper sunlight. Some were buried, encysted, and lay dormant interminably, waiting for the destiny that did not come. Quintillions remained, distributed across the planet. Then quadrillions and finally only trillions.

  Other spores from other ancients mixed with these: plants, molds, animates in countless species. The old one's spawn was long lost in the proliferation. Now there was no way to estimate their diminishing number, and seldom did any approach a sibling close enough to react to the repulsion. But some few did encounter similar spores released by other members of the species, and where sexually compatible they merged. Union had been completed, and the two spores became a single embryo.

  Perhaps no more than a million of the old one's seed achieved such matings in the course of the fertile years, and for almost all it meant destruction. Merged, they had to grow - and there was little opportunity for it. Where they landed they sprouted hyphae and formed cords of mycelium, seeking nourishment - but there was seldom anything they could use, since their diet was precise. Some seemingly similar embryos flourished in organic dust, and thousands competed for it vigorously, but the old one's minions perished there. Others fell upon carrion and reveled in the inert meat - but not these.

  Time ran out. The mated spores grew without intake and bled their energies into extinction. Some were preyed upon by omnivorous animalcules. Some found suitable lodging, but could not grow, inhibited by inherent defects or harmful radiation or rough treatment or environmental incompatibility. Some grew too slowly, and were eliminated by rivals for the food, and some were unsuccessful mutants.

  One endured all hazards and became established: a parasite upon the body of a tremendous beast. This one developed the characteristic symbol that would identify it as an individual for the rest of its lifetime: an intricate network representing a compromise between the symbols of its unknown parents. Cruder intellects would fashion it a geometric diamond with unimportant structural deviations.

  Diam had achieved incipient sentience.

  The host-beast charged and fought, and the unfelt parasites upon its skin were crushed and bruised and brushed away. Only Diam survived long enough, and at such time as to develop mobility before the host terminated its own violent existence in battle with another of its kind.

  Diam tore free and fled, a leaping midget the size of an insect, before the body of the omnivore dissolved beneath the digestive secretions of its conqueror. Hitherto only chance had dictated his survival; now he had control, and would live or die depending upon his fitness. He lived. He preyed upon the baby omnivores feeding on dust and corpses, and he grew.

  In tune he encountered an adult of his kind: a full-grown carnivore. The manta took Diam in charge and helped him find proper sustenance. Others were similarly salvaged, until there was a flock of diversely parented hoppers: Diam and Circe and Star and Pent and Hex and Lin and sibling symbols. Secure, for a time, they grew fat and clumsy as they learned to communicate with each other and to recognize individual patterns.

  Increasing size brought problems, for the aerodynamics of a creature weighing less than an ounce changed when it came to weigh more than a pound in a comparatively short segment of its life. Gravity became a significant and objectionable factor; a clumsy landing hurt. The tremendous growth rate kept Diam and his foster siblings continually off-balance, and the magnifying complexities of communication also strained their as yet diminutive faculties. So much was demanded!

  Then, just as they were coming in sight of mastery, they were given onerous instructions, taken to the place of decease, and there put into the charge of a blind alien omnivore. It was the beginnings of an exile that they knew meant a lifelong separation from their kind for most of them, and dishonorable death.

  The two-footed pseudo-omnivore stood over Pent's crushed body, its slick round-pebble orbs shifting whitely. The five-faceted symbol would speak no more; eye and brain had been crushed beneath the savage and abruptly knowledgeable force of the stranger.

  It was good: the omnivore had proven itself. It had risen above the terrible limitations of its physique to meet a civilized creature on even terms. Now at last it was permissible to converse with it without restraint, while Pent dissolved into smoky spore vapors. The other omnivores had been innocuous pets, unable ever to comprehend the code of the warrior, unworthy to share the information of the elite. This one - this one was contemporary.

  Diam took his stance before the clumsy artificial eye the omnivore had brought. It was uncomfortable, communicating via such a mechanism, but no more so than the concept of a sapient omnivore, or a world in which green plants retained their life to anchor on the ground and magnify grotesquely. If the stranger learned quickly, the machinery might soon be dispensed with.

  The ball-eyed one gestured crudely with its forelimb. A pictorial representat
ion took shape, so abbreviated that it was hard to follow. Surely there was some better way to do the job! Complete understanding would be extremely tedious if all communication had to be filtered through this obstruction.

  The omnivore seemed to realize this. It sucked in more of the primitive fumes emerging from the burning container and returned to try again.

  Then it began to learn. Ratios clarified, symbols danced through permutations, and the creature became more and more responsive to suggestion. A truly powerful intellect was beginning to emerge. But - an increasingly ill one.

  'Like the slime mold!' it projected, showing in summary the life history of the local example. A slimy, jellylike plasmodium crept under the moist vegetable leaves fallen on the floor of the monster-plant forest, surrounding the organic matter it discovered and digesting it comfortably. Then, emerging into the light, the yellow creature shifted into inanimate status and fruited: brownish balls ascended slim orange stems and opened to release the floating spores; these, falling on water, germinated and put out tiny flagella to enable them to swim. Two came together and mated, found land and grew into the original slime formation.

  'You actually evolved from the third kingdom - from fungi!' the omnivore stated, as though this were not obvious and reasonable. The parallel to the primitive slime mold was imperfect, but certainly such a creature could have been ancestral to all the sentients of Nacre. The astonishing thing was that it had not happened similarly on Earth. Here the fungal forms had failed to advance properly, while the plants overran the planet, and the animals - who neither created food from light and mineral nor broke down residues to complete the cycle - somehow had become dominant over it all. The notion of a life-form that served no useful purpose appearing and achieving sapience was appalling - but nevertheless a fact that had to be recognized.

  These things maintained two discrete sexes throughout Me, and generated their spores long before death. They omitted the atmospheric floating stage entirely, preferring to confine their embryos within their living flesh.

  What other monstrosities were to be found in the universe?

  Circe, symbol of the circle, was to claim this episode, though Diam read it first:

  'The mantas saw us as pets?' Aquilon demanded, amazed. 'After we raised them and brought them all the way to Earth?'

  'Not exactly. But it was hard for them to refrain from killing you as a matter of habit or instinct, without some innocuous designation.' Subble watched her move about the apartment, her body lovely under the translucent shift. 'They saw all three of you as omnivores from the start. They were soon aware of your diets - I mean, the mantas on Nacre were aware - not from any mysterious aura, but from simple observation. Veg had no flesh adhering to his teeth, and his breath reflected this, for example. They could see the microscopic particles in the air that we discern as smell. But the species Homo sapiens is omnivorous, and the attempted deviation of individual members is an oddity, apart from the oddity of the entire form of life. They could not imagine a Nacre omnivore settling down to graze peacefully among the herbivores. They marveled at this for a long time, wondering whether the inconsistency was a characteristic of the kingdom.'

  She came and sat in his lap and ran her hand over his cheek. Then why did that one manta stop Veg and me from getting together? If it knew we were all of the same kind-'

  Subble found the trigger-thread and pulled. Her shift fell open. 'Because it did not fully understand the rules of your game. Your nature was omnivorous, but your practice deviated, not just dietetically but in your evident concern for each other. True omnivores never cooperate. It wanted to study the three of you, and for all it knew, Veg might be along solely to serve your hunger when the time came. Apart from its natural aversion to cannibalism - another omnivore trait - it wanted to fathom you as a group, and had to play safe until it was sure.'

  'Before we make love,' she murmured, 'there is something you should know.'

  'I know you are beautiful,' he said.

  She smiled - and with that expression her lovely features became flaccid, grotesquely homely. The vibrant body seemed to cave in on itself, becoming a mushy mannequin; the shape was there, but not the glory. It was the death of rapture.

  Subble shoved her away. 'That ties it. You were cured of that. I saw you smile, before.'

  He stood up and marched toward the lamp he now spotted on the floor. 'I'm still under the hallucinogen. Damn overdose!' He reached to snuff it out, though it flared violently.

  Circe erased the rest

  The mangled bodies had long since been eaten, the alien structures that were bones scattered, but the old stockade still seemed to reflect the night of ravage that had wiped out the off-world colony. Fungus grew richly out of the crevices of the tumbled buildings; dust and debris covered the inert machinery. Measured plots of Earth plants remained only in outline; they rotted where they had died when the mechanics who ran the sunlamps vanished.

  Star moved on. Never before had his people slaughtered an entire population, and even traversing the scene in the eidetic memory provided by the elder who had been there was objectionable to him. He did not regret the action, for anything the group decided upon was proper, but he disliked the waste. These had been dangerous omnivores, yes, that insisted upon killing indiscriminately as was their nature, and so had set the precedent - but their flesh had proved to be of an entirely different order of construction and quite difficult to digest. Disposal of all eighteen bodies had been a terrible struggle - but the manta was bound to eat all it killed.

  The aliens had seemed monstrous, with their inability to communicate, but subsequent developments had thrown into question their need to be put entirely out of their misery. Perhaps it would have been better to study them more carefully.

  Then another party had descended from the blazing sky, and set up a more powerful base, preventing contact until a trio became isolated. The opportunity had come - if the individuals could be protected from the dangers of the world and their own quixotic nature. The first to spot them had lost them again as they fled in their machine; the second had died as they misunderstood his purpose. The third had made contact at night, and shepherded them to the place of dying, where the group could assemble. They were partly tame by then.

  Then the ugliest omnivore had become less frightening. Star had it all in the transferred images, and it helped them comprehend the astonishing and descending mind of the present omnivore. These creatures were not entirely savage.

  Diam:

  'Report!'

  Subble stood before the pickup of the Director's dais and spoke to the man or men who controlled him - men he had never seen. 'I interviewed the three names on the list and determined that the problem involved them only indirectly. Each person provided a segment of their joint experience on the planet Nacre, but the whole remained incomplete. The key actually lay with the representatives of the dominant species of the planet, imported by the trio as theoretic pets and approved by quarantine as sterile and distributed among the three at the ratio of one, one and six when they resettled on Earth. The humans feared for the eventual security of these alien carnivores, so hid them diversely; and there were personal problems encouraging a temporary separation. These circumstances-'

  'We are aware of the circumstances. Proceed.'

  Subble did not show surprise at this evidence of a parallel investigation. 'Full contact was not feasible until one of our own species earned the respect of the manta by meeting it in honorable battle. With them, as with us. physical appreciation must precede intellectual appreciation. I met their representative on an isolated beach and-'

  'We know the details. Proceed.'

  This time he hesitated visibly. 'It was an impasse. I finally took the hallucinogenic drug again in order to establish a close enough rapport with my opponent so that-'

  'Naturally! Proceed.'

  'After I killed it, I realized that their fungoid nature was an appalling danger to-'

  'Proceed!'
r />   'Because Earth itself is now largely dependent upon-'

  'Proceed!'

  'The moment one dies-'

  'Proceed!'

  Subble leaped upon the dais and knocked aside the screen. A single manta stood there, glaring into the translating mechanism.

  Subble grabbed the lamp and flung it against the wall. The oils poured out; the green flame expanded hungrily.

  Diam faded from view. So did the dais and the rest of the set. There was only the heaving, animate fire.

  'Next verse!' Subble cried.

  Five mantas:

  Subble stood on the sand watching Pent move. He had taken the drug before he killed the manta - which meant that everything since the moment of inhalation was suspect, even the killing itself. He could trust none of it - and he could not risk igniting the lamp again.

  Pent circled but did not charge. Why hadn't the creature killed him while he stood bemused by wish-fulfillments? What held it back now?

  Was it afraid of mycotic hallucinogen? Did the drug that induced spurious images in the mind of a man have a similar effect on the manta? Or was the result more severe, for it?