Of Man and Manta Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

  Aquilon called herself a hypocrite, but still did not watch. Perhaps it was because she knew herself to be a member of an omnivorous species - evolved to eat anything, and to kill wantonly. Whatever brutality was involved in the manta's existence was redoubled for man's. What could she accomplish, deciding to stop eating flesh after indulging for a lifetime, and spawned from millions of years ancestry of flesh eaters? Years would be required to expel the tainted protoplasm from her body, and the memory would never be expunged. Yet how could she kill, now that she comprehended the inherent evil of the action?

  She felt sick again. Damn her subjectivity!

  In five days they spotted land.

  'There she blows!' Veg sang out happily.

  'That's land ho!' Aquilon corrected him. Fine lookout you'd make.'

  But she was immensely relieved, and knew the others were too. Diminished appetites had extended their stores of food, but the men were looking lean and the limit had been coming distressingly near. Their camaraderie had never been tested by real hunger. Certainly it would have been ugly - a compulsive meat-eater, a vegetarian, and a woman wavering unprettily between, and nothing but fish...

  But she was relieved because of the change in scenery, too. The sea, after the first day, had become monotonous; it had seemed as though they were sailing nowhere, accomplishing nothing.

  The Nacre tacked clumsily along the shoreline, seeking an appropriate landing. Aquilon could not be certain whether it was mainland or merely a large island, but it was obviously suitable for foraging and camping. No smog.

  'No really formidable land animals on Earth during die Paleocene epoch,' Cal remarked, as though to reassure them,

  'Good for Paleo,' Veg said.

  'Paleo?'

  'Here. You want to call this world Epoch instead?'

  Cal did not argue. Veg tended to identify things simply, and the names stuck. Henceforth this planet would be Paleo.

  Soon a calm inlet opened, and Veg guided the craft so neatly into the cove that she knew it was blind luck. She watched for a suitable beach, wondering whether this was San Francisco

  Bay. Probably not; everything could have changed. Palms were in view, and conifers, and populous deciduous trees. Birds flitted through the branches, uttering harsh notes. Insects swarmed. Flowers of many types waved in the breeze.

  'Look - fungus!' she exclaimed, spying a giant puffball. For a moment she thought of Nacre again, the planet of fungi. But Paleo, really, was better, for here the sun could shine. In fact, she was coming to realize that Nacre itself had represented little more than an escape from Earth for her; there was nothing inherently appealing about it otherwise, except for the manias. And it was not the planet Earth that soured her, but the human culture that infested it. Yes, yes - Paleo was better.

  The raft drifted close. The bottom of the bay was clear now, small fish hovering placidly. The smell of woods and earth came to her as the wind subsided, cut off by the land. The soil-loam-humus cleanness of it filled her with longing.

  Veg touched her arm, and she looked up with a start.

  Near the shore stood two hairy animals. They were four-footed, thickset and toothy, with long tails and blunt multiple-hoofed feet. Small tusks projected from their mouths, and their eyes were tiny. The overall aspect was like that of a hippopotamus - except that they were far too small. The highest point of the back was no more than a yard off the ground.

  'Amblypods,' Cal remarked without surprise. 'Corypkodon, probably. Typical Paleocene fauna.'

  'Yeah, typical,' Veg muttered. 'You never saw it before, but you know all about it.'

  Cal smiled. 'Merely a matter of a decent paleontological grounding. I don't really know very much, but I'm familiar with the general lines. The amblypods are distinctive. One of the later forms, Uintatherium, had the bulk of an elephant, with three pairs of horns on his -'

  'You figure any of those are around here?'

  'Of course not. Uintatherium was Eocene. He could no more show up in a Paleocene landscape than could a dinosaur.'

  Veg's eyes ranged over the forest. 'I sure would laugh if a dinosaur poked his head over the hill while you were saying that. You're so sure of yourself.'

  Cal smiled again, complacently. 'When that happens, you'll certainly be entitled to your mirth. The shellfish I studied on the island were decisive.'

  Veg shook his head and guided the raft to shore. Aquilon noticed irrelevantly that his face was filling out with blond beard. The amblypods, startled by the intrusion, trotted off, soon to be lost in the forest.

  Smoothly the Nacre glided in, cutting the gap to land to twenty feet, fifteen, ten -

  And jarred to a halt, dumping Veg and Aquilon into the water. 'Oops, struck bottom,' Veg said sheepishly. 'Wasn't thinking.'

  'Wasn't thinking,' she exclaimed, cupping a splash of water at him violently. But she was so glad to touch solid land that she didn't care. The sea was hip-deep on her here, and she waded ashore gleefully, pulling strings of seaweed from her torso.

  Veg, meanwhile, went back to fetch a rope and haul the craft about by hand. Cal, never careless about his footing, had held his place, and helped unwind the coil. Soon they had the raft hitched loosely to a mangrove trunk.

  Aquilon wandered inland, content for the moment merely to absorb the sights and smells of this richly primitive world. Ferns grew thickly on the ground, and she recognized several species of bush and tree: sycamore, holly, persimmon, willow, poplar, magnolia. Mosses sprouted profusely, and mushrooms were common; but she saw no grass, to her surprise. Still, there had been bamboo on the island, and that was a form of grass.

  Something launched itself from a shrub ahead, and she jumped in alarm. It was a brown streak that sailed through the air, away from her. She caught a glimpse of extended limbs, a web of skin, an oblong shape. Then it was gone; she heard the rustic of its ascent in other foliage. It was not a bird.

  'Planetetherium,' Cal said behind her. 'Primitive insectivore, one of the prime mammalian stocks. A glider.'

  'Yes ... ' she said, seeming to remember it from her studies. She really had no excuse to be ignorant of mammalian lines, but time and other considerations had let her knowledge fade. Cal, with his appalling intellect, seemed never to forget a thing.

  'Perhaps you should change,' Cal suggested, 'before you become uncomfortable.'

  She looked down at herself. Her clothing was plastered against her body, and she knew the salt would chafe as the moisture evaporated. Cal was right, as always.

  Yet the air was pleasant, and despite the shade of the trees there was no chill. She wished she could simply remove her clothes and glide nymphlike through glade and fem, free of all encumbrance.

  'Why not?' she said rhetorically. She began to strip, handing her wet garments to Cal stage by stage. He made no comment, and did not avert his gaze.

  So she ran, nymphlike, through glade and fern. It was every bit as glorious as she had imagined, except for a thorn that got in her foot. She had shed the restraints of civilization with her clothing, and was whole again.

  Veg's mouth dropped open appreciatively as she burst upon him, but he said no more than Cal had.

  The Nacre was tight against the shore: Veg's muscle had come into play. Her dry apparel was aboard, but she hesitated to seek it. Wouldn't it be better if they all were to -

  No. Sexual tensions existed among them already at a barely submerged level. It would be criminally foolish to do anything to heighten them needlessly. Subdued, she boarded the raft and dressed.

  They spent the night on the raft, anchored just offshore. There might be no dangerous species, but they preferred a little more time for acclimation.

  In the morning the insects and birds were clustered thickly on the shore. The first were familiar, the second strange. Several large gray sea fowl swam around the raft, diving for fish. Aquilon stood on the deck and painted them, intrigued by their fearlessness. Were there no significant predators on the water? Or was the raft so unusual as
to be taken for an artifact of nature? Or did they know instinctively who was a threat and who was not?

  Veg brought the Nacre to shore again and tied up. This time there was no premature jolt. She wondered whether he had scouted the bottom to locate a suitable channel for the keel, or whether he had excavated one himself.

  They ventured inland several miles, as a party. Here were oaks, beeches, walnuts, and squirrellike creatures sporting in them. Occasional tufts of grass sprouted in the hilly country, where the thickly growing trees permitted. So it was present, but not well established. Ratlike creatures skittered away as the human party approached.

  'Were there true rodents in the Paleocene?' Aquilon inquired.

  'Not to speak of,' Cal said. 'These are probably ancestral primates.'

  'Primates!' She was shocked.

  'Before the true rodents developed, the primitive primates occupied that niche. They descended from trees, like most mammals, and took to the opening fields. But there wasn't enough grass, as you can see; it occupies a minor ecological niche until the Miocene epoch, when widespread dry plains developed. And the primates weren't completely committed. So the true rodents eventually drove them back into the trees, this time to stay. The primates never were very successful.'

  'Except for man...'

  'A minor exception, paleontologically. Man happened to wobble back and forth between field and forest just enough to remain more generalized than most of his contemporaries. If he hadn't been lucky and clever, he would not have survived.'

  'I see.' She wasn't certain how serious he was.

  'Quite often it is the less specialized creature that pulls through,' he continued blithely. 'Conditions change, and the species fully adapted to a particular environment may have to change in a hurry or perish. Often it can't adapt. But the generalized species can jump either way. So although it seldom dominates, it may outlast those who do. Probably that explains the marginal success of the primitive nautilus, while the specialized and dominant ammonite vanished.'

  She had never thought of it quite that way. Man - as an unspecialized, lucky, but clever species, thrown into prominence by accident of circumstance...

  A large running bird with yellow tail feathers appeared and scooped up a careless mammal that resembled a kangaroo rat. The bird, a good two feet tall, passed quite close to them before passing out of sight. Aquilon wondered whether the rat could have been an ancestor of hers, then chided herself: dead, it could not have sired much. At any rate, it would be foolish to interfere. Suicidally foolish, possibly, for any change in the life patterns here might affect those of her own time.

  'The birds showed considerably more promise, initially,' Cal said. 'Actually, throughout the Cenozoic until the present, they have dominated Earth, reckoned in the normal manner.'

  'By number of species.' she said. 'So I understand. But diversity isn't everything, fortunately.'

  'Fortunately?'

  'You don't approve of man winning out?'

  'I believe the world would have endured more amicably without him. It is not good to have a single species run amuck.'

  She saw that he meant it. She thought of contemporary Earth, and understood his point. Paleo was clean, unspoiled. Better that it remain that way, paradox aside.

  The next few days they ranged more widely. They encountered more amblypods and both doglike and catlike carnivores. The pursuers, Cal explained, had long snouts for reaching out on the run; the hide-and-pouncers had sharp claws for holding and slashing, and short snouts. The ambushers buried their dung, to mute the giveaway odor; the chasers did not bother. The physical properties of what were later to be canines and felines and ursines were not random. Another line was the fairly substantial Dinocerata, ancestors to the monster Uintatherium of the later epoch. But all these mammals were stupid, compared to those that were to evolve; none would have survived readily on Earth of fifty million years later. She painted them all, and Cal made many notes on his voicetyper. She learned to ignore the monotonous murmur of his descriptions as he made his entries.

  This was a warm paradise - but she became restless. There was nothing, really, to do. It had been nice to dream of a life without responsibility or danger or discomfort, but the actuality palled rapidly. It was late summer, and a number of the trees bore small fruit, and there were berries and edible tubers. Food was not a serious problem. She talked with Veg and Cal, but knew them both too well already, and she did not care to get too personal lest it came down abruptly to the male-female problem. She had not decided between them, yet; that was what restrained her, she decided. 'Going to get cold,' Veg observed. 'Fall's coming.' Of course he was right. They didn't know their exact location, and it probably could not be matched precisely to a modern-Earth geography anyway, but the number of deciduous trees said things about the seasons. There might be no actual snow here in winter, or there might be several feet of it - but it would be cold enough to make leaves turn and drop. They would have to prepare for the worst, or - 'Let's go south!' she cried. 'To the tropics, where it is warm all year round. Explore. Travel. Survey.'

  'You sound as though we're staying here indefinitely,' Cal remarked, but there was something funny about the way he said it. He's afraid of something, she thought, and that made her uneasy. Was it that a long-term residence would force them to revert farther toward the natural state, mating and homemaking? Or that doing so would upset the existing balance of nature and imperil the status quo on Earth, because of the paradox effect? Her inclination was to ignore that; somehow she doubted that what they did here could affect Earth there, whatever the theory might be. And if it did - well, so be it.

  'Actually, there appears to be more than enough data on hand to render a report on Paleo,' Cal continued.

  She felt the skin along her forearms tightening - a nervous reaction once more common than now. She had forgotten, or tried to forget, their assigned mission. The truth was that she viewed the prospective return to Earth, or whatever other mission awaited next, with misgiving bordering on alarm. She liked Paleo, bored though she had been with it a moment ago. She liked its wildness - 'In wildness is the preservation of the world,' she remembered from somewhere - and she would far rather tackle its problems than those of Earth society.

  But they had little excuse to tarry longer. The onset of winter could be of little concern to them if they were to return to the station and report. Their radio equipment was in good order, and they could find the way by homing in on the master unit remaining in the tunnel.

  But she was sure, now, that Cal did not want to go back, though she also knew it would be useless to challenge him on that. He comprehended something she did not, something that worried him deeply, but that he chose to keep to himself. He might allow himself to be persuaded to travel south - or somewhere, anywhere but back - if she could provide a strong enough pretext.

  Yet she did not care to admit her true feelings yet. How did Veg stand?

  'Can't sail back against the wind,' Veg said. 'More likely sink, tacking the whole way, and it'd take us a month in clear weather. Going to get hungry on the way.'

  Bless him! She felt a surge of special affection for the big, simple man, so naive in manner but practical in action. They couldn't go back without enormous preparation.

  'Of course.' Cal said, unperturbed. 'I was thinking of a radio report. We can not make a physical return until the wind shifts with the season - though that may occur any day now.'

  That did not reassure her particularly, though she wasn't sure why. Cal seemed to be agreeing to some procrastination, and a radio report would keep them officially on duty.

  'I thought your report came at the end,' Veg said.

  'Not necessarily. We were to determine the status of the planet, then put the report on record for the next in-phase connection to Earth. It was presumed that these various delays would make the report wait a month or two, perhaps longer. But we've done the job. This is definitely Paleocene. All the fauna and flora check. We have exceeded
coincidence by a millionfold; this can not be a foreign planet.'

  'How about the geography?'

  'I explained about that. Their map seems accurate, and it is-'

  'We could follow the coast a little and find out, maybe,' Veg said. 'Make sure there isn't some out-of-place continent, or something.'

  Clumsy, clumsy, she thought. That tack would never work.

  Cal smiled ruefully. 'In other words, you're voting with Aquilon again.'

  Was he asking to be outvoted? What was on his mind?