Of Man and Manta Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

  But in the morning she woke, and he was gone, inexplicably. Alarmed, she searched the entire cave as far back as the heat permitted but found no sign. It was as though he had never been.

  She took her courage in both hands, dressed, and edged out into the dawn beyond Tyrann's nose. It was cold here, and light snow powdered the dinosaur's back. Tyrann was asleep, and surely he would die, for the chill would inevitably seep into his body and keep him moribund until the end. She had won, after all; in fact, she could probably have left long ago.

  There were no human prints. If Cal had come this way, it must have been hours ago, before it grew cool enough for the snow to stay. Yet she had thought he was with her until recently.

  She moved on down the little canyon toward the warmth of the valley, following the trail they had left as well as she could: mainly the scuff marks and claw indentations of the carnosaur's feet that showed because they had in their fashion changed the lay of the land.

  She came to the place where she had thought Cal died. There she found one of his shoes, with the foot and part of the leg protruding. Flesh and bone and tendon, jaggedly severed by the crunch of the huge teeth of Tyrann.

  There was no question of authenticity. Cal had indeed died here two days ago: the ants were hard at work.

  Yet she had made love to Cal a day and night. Had it been a phantom, born of her grief, her futile longing? She touched her body here and there, feeling the abrasions of violent lovemaking. Could she have done all that to herself in an orgy of compensation for what she had never done during Cal's life? Her mind must have been temporarily deranged, for here was reality: a worn shoe with the stump of the leg.

  She buried the foot and saved the shoe.

  Now the mantas came: Circe and Star. Veg was all right, they reported; he had tried to come to help her when the mantas informed him but had been shaken up by the second quake and stranded on a rock in the bay. The birds had lost their eggs in that same quake and had to flee their nest, but both Orn and Ornette survived. The third quake had sundered their island and stirred up the water predators again.

  "They lost their eggs..." Aquilon repeated, feeling a pang akin to that of her loss of Cal, one grief merging with the other.

  Guided and protected by the mantas, she rejoined Veg and the Orn-birds. A month passed, an instant and an eternity for both people, sharing their awful grief. The phantom Cal did not reappear -- but Aquilon had continuing cause to wonder, for she had no period. Veg had not touched her -- not that way. Only in futile comfort had he put his arm about her.

  In three months she knew she was pregnant. Yet there was no way -- except that day and night in the cave. On occasion, she returned to it, past the frozen hulk of Tyrann at the entrance, but she never found anything. She had made love to a phantom -- and she carried the phantom's child.

  Veg shouldered more of the burden of survival as her condition progressed. The two sapient birds also helped, guarding her as she slept, bringing her delicacies such as small freshly slaughtered reptiles. She learned to eat them, and Veg understood: to survive in nature, one had to live nature's way. She was a vegetarian no longer.

  "Also," she explained with a certain difficulty, "it's Cal's baby. I have to live this way." She was not certain he would see the logic of that, or if there were any logic in it, but it was the way she felt. Her intake nourished Cal's baby; Cal's standards governed. Had it been Veg's baby...

  "I loved him, too," Veg said, and that sufficed. He was not jealous of his friend -- only glad that even this much remained of Cal. She had never told him the details of the conception, letting him assume it was before the dinosaur chase began. There had, after all, been opportunity.

  "After this one is born, the next must be yours," she said. "I love you, too, -- and this would be necessary for survival of our species even if I did not."

  "Yeah," he said a bit wryly. "I'm glad you had the sense to go with him first. If he had to die, that was the way to do it."

  In civilization, among normal people, this would have been unreal. Here, with Veg, it was only common sense. Veg had always wanted what was best for his friend Cal, and it was a compliment to her that he felt she had been worthy.

  "We argued about whether man should colonize," she said. "We were wrong, both sides. We assumed it had to be all Earth or nothing. Now we know that there was a middle ground. This ground: just a few people, blending into the Cretaceous enclave, cutting our little niche without destroying any other creature's niche. If we had realized that before, Cal might not have felt compelled to match Tyrann, and they both would be alive today."

  "Yeah," he said, and turned away.

  The baby was birthed without difficulty, as though nature had compensated her by making natural birth easy. There was pain, but she hardly cared. Veg helped, and so did the birds: They made a fine soft nest for the infant. She named him Cave.

  If her relation with the birds had been close, it was closer now. They nested, for their season had come 'round again. Aquilon would leave baby Cave in the nest with the eggs, and Ornette would sit on them all protectively. Aquilon took her turns guarding the eggs while the birds hunted. They were an extended family.

  When Cave was three months old, and Aquilon was just considering inviting Veg to father a sibling, disaster struck. Agents from Earth appeared. Concerned by the nonreport from the advance party -- Cal, Veg, and Aquilon -- the authorities had followed up with a more reliable mission.

  The mantas spotted them first: a prefabricated ship coming in past the islands of Silly and Cherybdis. Three agents, one of whom was female.

  Veg made a wheeled cart with a loose harness that either bird could draw, and set a nest in it. This made the family mobile -- for there was no stationary place safe from agents. One manta was designated for each adult entity: Hex went with Veg, Circe with Aquilon, Diam with Orn, and Star with Ornette. Their function was to give advance warning when any agent was near any of the others, so that person could flee. There was to be no direct contact with any agent unless the nest was in danger. With luck, they would be able to stay clear until the agents left.

  It was not to be. The agents were not merely surveying the land, they were after the people, too. The agents quickly ascertained the presence of a baby, and this seemed to surprise them. Hex, in hiding as two of them examined the deserted nest site, picked up some of their dialogue and reported on it: "Cooperation with tame birds I can understand, though they've really gone primitive," the male said. "But a human baby? There wasn't time!"

  "She must have been pregnant before leaving Earth," the female said. "Then birthed it prematurely."

  Aquilon was in turn amazed. "How long do they think human gestation is? Two years? Cave was full-term!"

  But the riddle of the agents' confusion had to wait. There was no question that the agents intended to take the trio and the baby captive for return to Earth -- they apparently did not know that Cal was gone -- and this could not be permitted.

  One would have thought the home team had the advantage: two human beings toughened by a year among the dinosaurs, two fighting birds, and four mantas -- the most efficient predators known to man. But there were three eggs and a baby to protect -- and the three agents were equipped with Earth's technology. In one sense, the contest of champions Cal had visualized was to be joined again -- but this time the weapons were different. One agent could wipe out one tyrannosaurus with one shot. Cal could have directed an efficient program of opposition -- but Cal was gone. The agents were stronger, faster, and better armed than Veg and Aquilon.

  "We've got to get out of here," Veg said. "They're canvassing this whole valley and the neighboring ones. They know we're here, somewhere, and they're drawing in the net. They'd probably have picked us up by now if they'd located Cal; they must figure he's hiding."

  "Even now, he's helping us, then," she said, nodding. "And if we leave, what happens to the dinosaurs?"

  "Earth will wipe them out, or put them in zoos, same thing," he s
aid glumly. "We've had our problems with the reps, but it's their world, and they have a right to live, too. But we've been over this; we can't kill the agents. Even if we had the weapons, we couldn't do it. We'd be murderers."

  "If we could stop the agents from returning to their base..."

  "You think they'd go native like us?"

  "It wouldn't matter, would it? Earth would have no report..."

  He smiled. "Yeah."

  "And if they were stranded here, maybe they'd come to see it our way. Maybe they'd settle, turn human. That female -- she could bear children."

  "Yeah," he repeated, mulling it over.

  "Three men, two women -- that might be a viable nucleus." There were aspects to it that disturbed her, but it was a far more positive approach than murder.

  It was a daring plan. They set it in motion when one agent was on land, tracking down the moving nest.

  Veg set sail with Hex on the old raft, the Nacre. He was a decoy, to draw off one of the two agents on the ship. "And Veg," Aquilon said as he left. "If it is the female who comes after you, smile at her."

  "Yeah, I know," he muttered. "Use my delicate masculine wiles to subvert her superior feminine force." He spat eloquently downwind. "The day I ever cater to the likes of her..."

  "You're a handsome man. You don't want to have to kill her..." But he was already on his way, and she felt like a procuress. Was she prepared to follow the same advice when she encountered a male agent?

  She took one more look at Cave, sleeping in the nest-cart, guarded by the three other mantas and two birds. Yes -- to save him, to save the eggs, to save the enclave, she was prepared. If they succeeded in stranding the agents here, it would eventually come to that, anyway: crossbreeding. Better that reality than the loss of everything she had fought to preserve.

  Then Aquilon raided the ship. She stripped and swam, hoping that in the night her motion would be mistaken for that of an aquatic reptile. If not -- that was the risk she had to take. The agent aboard would not kill her out of hand; he would let her board, then subdue her -- and the test of her commitment would be at hand. She was a buxom woman now because of nursing her baby. If she could seduce him, or at least lull him into carelessness so that she had a chance to scuttle the ship, then it would be done. The vessel was anchored in deep water and would not be recoverable.

  Of course, then the water predators would close in... but she was ready to die. Perhaps the agent, realizing that he could no longer report to Earth, would be pragmatic and join her, and together with the mantas they could make it to shore.

  She had smeared the juices of a vile-smelling root over her body to repel the water reptiles, and it seemed to work. She reached the ship without event and climbed nimbly to the deck.

  To be met by the alert agent there. "Welcome aboard, Miss Hunt. I am Tama, your host. Kind of you to surrender voluntarily."

  The female -- the worst one to meet! "I've come to sink your ship," Aquilon said, knowing the agent was well aware of her intent.

  Tama ignored this. "Come below decks." It was an order, not a request.

  Aquilon thought of diving back into the bay. Once she went into the hold, captive, she would never have a chance.

  Tama moved so quickly she seemed a blur. "Do not attempt to jump," she said from the rail behind Aquilon. Whatever had made her think she had a chance against an agent? Sheer delusion!

  "Yes," Tama agreed. "But you amaze me. too. You have indeed borne a child."

  "Nothing amazing about it," Aquilon said. "You could do the same if you chose to."

  "Yet you have been on Paleo only three months -- and your Earth physical showed no pregnancy."

  Aquilon stiffened. She had been on Paleo a year and three months. Surely the agents knew that!

  "We shall have to plumb this mystery," Tama said. "You are not trying to deceive me, yet we can not explain -- "

  She was interrupted by the sound of a bell. She brought out a tiny radio unit. "Tama."

  "Tanu," a male voice returned immediately. "Male acquired, one fungoid destroyed."

  "Talo," another voice said. "Attacked by one sapient flightless bird. Bird destroyed, mission as yet incomplete."

  Aquilon felt an awful shudder run through her. Hex dead, Veg captured, one of the great birds killed, she herself nullified -- and the effort had hardly started. What a terrible price had already been paid!

  "There is no need for further violence," Tama said. She held out the communicator. "Speak to your fungoids; tell them to land here. We shall treat you fairly."

  Aquilon faced about and walked toward the cabin, her lips tight. There was no way she could mask her antipathy to the agents. Subble she might have heeded, but these were ruthless strangers who could read her every response and anticipate many of her acts.

  Suddenly a gun was in Tama's hand. "Very clever!" she snapped. "You did not know you were being supported by a fungoid."

  A manta! Aquilon suddenly recognized Veg's unsubtle hand in this. He had suggested that the mantas be confined to the defensive perimeter, and she, preoccupied with her own preparations, had agreed. Veg had sent a manta after her -- and because she hadn't known it, she had been unable to give that fact away.

  Tama fired. Aquilon, galvanized into action, made a dive for the weapon. But the agent's left hand struck her on the neck, knocking her down half stunned.

  Then three mantas attacked simultaneously. They were fast, and they knew how to dodge projectiles and beams. But the agents, forewarned, had armed themselves with scatter-shot shells, almost impossible to avoid.

  Aquilon watched helplessly from the deck as the first manta went down, a pellet through the great eye. "Star!" Aquilon cried in horror.

  The second manta came closer but was riddled by pellets through the torso. It sheered off and fell into the water. "Diam!"

  The third manta caught the agent across the neck, severing windpipe, jugular vein, and carotid arteries. Even so, Tama got off one more shot, and the fungoid crashed into the deck.

  Aquilon stood up unsteadily. "Oh, Circe!" she cried. "We didn't want bloodshed..."

  Tama grinned with ghastly humor, unable to speak. She clasped her throat with both hands, containing the blood -- but the damage was too extensive, and she slumped to the deck, dying.

  The mission had been a disaster; now there were no mantas, and there would be no other woman on Paleo to share the burden of bearing children.

  But she had a job to do: Scuttle the ship. At least she could save Paleo. She went below decks to locate the necessary tools to do the job. A projectile cannon, or even a sledgehammer, to make a hole in the bottom, to let in the sea...

  Instead she found -- a projector. She had never seen one before, but somehow she recognized its nature. The agents intended to establish a return aperture to Earth from right here!

  She picked it up, intending to destroy it by smashing it into the deck. But her finger touched a switch inadvertently.

  A cone of light came out from it, bathing her.

  And she stood in a completely different scheme.

  She was in a room about twenty feet long and fifteen wide. Walls, floor, and ceiling were plastered, and there was a fantastic variety of what were, to her artistic eye, highly authentic primitive art objects and paintings.

  There were only two small, high windows and no door.

  A homemade ladder made of poles and thong-bound crosspieces ascended to a small hole in the ceiling: the only exit.

  Had she projected herself back to Earth, the very thing she had tried so hard to stop -- or was she in a new alternate world, inhabited by primitive man? If she had joggled the setting on the device, she could have traveled randomly.

  Without that projector, she had no chance to return -- and who but the agents would ever use it to seek her out? Her choices were to submit to recapture -- or escape into this world.

  She was hardly conscious of making the decision. Veg, Orn, and her baby were on Paleo -- but if any of them survived th
e onslaught of the two remaining agents, it would not be as free entities. And the projector must have fallen to the deck as she phased through, either breaking or fouling up its setting.

  Better for her to accept the inevitable. She could not return and would not want to, and no one would fetch her. She would have to make a new life for herself here, wherever this was. Even if it should be Earth.

  But her eyes were full of tears. Consciously she was desperate to return to her baby, to retreat into the warm jungle valley with Veg. Perhaps Circe had survived; she had crashed into the deck but might not be dead. At any rate, there would soon be new mantas, as the freed spores drifted and mated and grew. Maybe Orn managed to haul eggs and baby to safety. Oh, yes, she longed to go there... but surely Orn would not escape, the eggs would be lost, and her baby Cave...

  Her baby -- conceived in the cave. Suddenly, a year after the fact, the truth struck her: Cal, from an alternate world, had been projected to hers. For one day and a night. Her Cal had died; it was the alternate who had fathered her child. He had been summoned, somehow, in the hour of her greatest need.