Short Stories - Metrognome and other Stories

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  Nothing in the Inrem's expressions or movements be­trayed a hint of hostility, however. The senior warrior stepped forward. Like all of his kind, he walked on a pair of thick, stumpy legs. His squat body seemed to have been fashioned from gray putty. There was no neck, only a tapering of the torso that was called a head. His short tail twitched as he sniffed at her with his flexible trunk and its rosette, fringed tip. The teeth in his mouth were blunt, and something akin to a squashed derby dec­orated his bald pate.

  "Si mokle reerip ba boovle," he declaimed. "Norg gleeble gop."

  As always, Deering had to repress a smile. Not that the expression would have meant anything to the Inrem. "Look, I don't mean to intrude." The words were for her own benefit, since no native could understand a word of English. She turned both hands palm up in a universal gesture of conciliation. "I just want to watch." Now she did smile. "I'll leave if you insist."

  The Inrem had built‑in smiles, like porpoises. "Norg gleeble gop," the senior repeated.

  "Oh, okay, whatever. 'Norg gleeble gop.' "

  This appeared to please the warriors no end. Appar­ently she'd said exactly the right thing. Poor Toney and his paranoia. A pity he and the other old fogies weren't here to witness this minor triumph of improvised inter­species communication. You just have to go at it boldly and with the right spirit, she reflected.

  The senior uttered another delighted "Norg gleeble gop" and gently took her hand to lead her down to the village. No one objected as she picked up her still func­tioning recorder. She felt gratified and exhilarated. This was what science was all about, the rush that came from making a breakthrough discovery, the thrill of observing what none had seen before her.

  A few of the villagers paused in the middle of their clumsy but high‑spirited dances as she was led into the square. For the first time she sensed something akin to hostility, until the senior warrior escorting her raised a hand and declared loudly, "Norg gleeble gop! Sookle wa da fookie!" Then the performers were all smiles again.

  No one bothered her as she set up her instruments, angling them on a group of elder Inrem females. The species had three sexes: male, female, and neuter. Be­hind her the alien music rose to a deafening din as a cluster of musicians pounded, tootled, and plucked fu­riously at their instruments. It was by far the most im­pressive performance so far witnessed, and Deering concentrated on her recorder. There was a driving, aton­al beat to the music that was distracting and fascinating.

  With a cry, the performers and dancers scattered. Nor­mally this signified that she ceremony was at an end, but the Gop was different. Instead of the chief matriarch re­tiring to her longhouse, she gathered her favorite male and neuter around her and joined the rest of the popula­tion in forming small groups in front of the numerous cave openings. Deering adjusted her angle from narrow to wide, trying to include as many groups as possible.

  Then she gasped and looked up from the eyepiece of the recorder.

  Something was coming out of each of the holes in front of the longhouses. Slowly at first, tentatively searching, each pale pink worm was as thick as a man's arm. They tapered to points and were innocent of features: no eyes or ears, no mouths, no nostrils. The worms swayed back and forth as if in time to the now silent music that had called them forth.

  Occasionally a worm world touch one of the chanters, whereupon the individual so blessed would tumble onto its back and begin writhing in ecstasy. Deering worked her recorder frantically. Here was some kind of solemn symbiotic relationship no one on the expedition had so much as suspected. What the Inrem derived from the, worms was a matter for future speculation. Their mere existence, not to mention their special relationship to the natives, would cause pandemonium among her colleagues. She had slipped secretly out of camp seeking something unique and had been rewarded beyond her wildest dreams.

  The worms were now swaying low over the twisting, jerking bodies of the blessed, doing something‑it was difficult to see because the standing members of each group blocked her line of sight. She shoved another cube into the recorder.

  Something touched her lightly in the small of her back.

  Whirling, she found one of the worms not a meter from her face. Despite its lack of eyes, it seemed to be studying her curiously. Probably had a highly developed tactile sense, she told herself, breathing hard. It leaned forward. As she stood frozen to the spot, it brushed her right forearm. She held her ground. There were no teeth to defend against, no poison. Only a thin, pleasantly fra­grant secretion of some kind.

  Moving slowly so as not to alarm it, she adjusted her recorder for close‑up work. All around her the worms were lightly touching and swaying over fallen villagers. A truly wild thought came to her.

  What if the worms were not individual creatures but merely the tentacles, the limbs of something much bigger that pulsed and lived beneath the village? She envisioned it rising in response to the Gop musk, digging its way surfaceward from unimaginable subterranean depths to gently caress and commune with those who had sum­moned it forth.

  The worm touched her again, startling her this time. She felt herself quiver all over, almost as if she'd received some kind of injection. That was impossible. The worm­(tentacle?)‑had nothing to inject with. But it‑had left a glistening patch of that perfumed secretion on her arm. Suppose it could be absorbed through the skin? For the first time she felt uneasy. She was out there alone, sur­rounded by delirious aliens and giant pink worms. She'd learned enough to ensure herself a commendation. Better not push her luck.

  A warm sense of tranquillity and well‑being was spreading through her. She started to collapse the re­corder. "I‑I think I'd better be going now," she said to the Inrem nearest her. It smiled back up at her placidly.

  "Norg gleeble gop?"

  "Yeah. Norg gleeble gop."

  She hoisted the recorder and turned. She made it to the edge of the forest before she collapsed.

  She awoke in a bed in the camp infirmary. Chief Phy­sician Meachim was staring down at her. Disapprovingly, she thought.

  Since nothing was holding her back, she sat up.

  "They found you just outside the camp perimeter." Meachim was frowning to himself. "Your cubes have been played back. Everyone's arguing with everyone else. The biologists are going crazy."

  She touched her forehead, her temple. She felt fine. Better than fine; she felt terrific. "I must've passed out. It was pretty exciting. I'm okay?" '

  Meachim shrugged. "You look great to me, but that's nothing new. Funny thing, though. I tried to bring you around with Compol and Damrin. Your system rejected both. But your vital signs stayed perfectly normal, so I didn't press it. You started to wake up about five minutes ago. The monitor notified me. Now you sit up by your­self with no apparent ill effects. Trying to put me out of a job?"

  She slid off the bed, did a few experimental jumping jacks. "Sorry, but there's nothing wrong with me, Meachim. Know what? I'm going to be famous."

  "That's what everyone's saying. The captain would like to have you drawn and quartered, figuratively speaking, but the scientists won't hear of it. They're slavering over your recordings and can't wait for you to lead a full‑scale survey group back to the village. I imagine ‑they figure you've got a special in with the Inrem."

  "All it takes is guts, in science the same as everything else. I can go?"

  "This infirmary's for sick people, Cerice. You aren't sick." He turned and gestured. "Someone waiting to see you."

  A1 Toney entered. "You ought to be shot. Instead, I think they'll canonize you. You've made a discovery that's more important than everything we've learned about the Inrem to date."

  "I know."

  He shook his head. "I wonder if you have any idea how lucky you were."

  "Luck had nothing to do with it, Al. I just had the Inrem figured right. Cute, remember?"

  "I guess so. Oh, Dhurabaya's made some progress. Maybe when we go back to your village‑that's what ev­eryone's calling it now, your villa
ge‑we can ask the right questions."

  "You don't have to know how to ask the right ques­tions if you've got the right attitude. The Inrem know empathy when they feel it."

  Toney nodded, looked thoughtful. "Silly‑sounding speech they have, but logical once you work out the roots. That's what Dhurabaya's people say. Take 'Norg gleeble gop,' for instance. The Inrem have been using that phrase over and over for months." He started toward the door. She went with him, anxious to bask in the admiring stares of her envious colleagues.

  "I remember. They were using it quite a bit during the ceremony."

  "Really? Maybe that explains what kind of ceremony it was. 'Norg gleeble gop' means 'pregnant.' "

  BATRACHIAN

  Metamorphosis is a marvel of nature that's always intrigued me. Bid when I was a kid, and still does today. It takes many forms, not always that of caterpillar into a butterfly. The thought of beginning life in one body and ending it in something inconceivably different is hard for us humans to imagine, starting and ending as we do with essentially the same shell. I tried to deal with certain aspects of metamorphosis in a book called Nor Crystal Tears, which opens with the line "It's hard to be a larva."

  Arthur C. Clarke stretched the concept in the classic: Childhood's End. Eric‑Frank Russell took a different approach in his novella Metamorphosite. I wonder if the author of the book Cocoon ever read that story.

  You take a familiar concept and run it into something; common and everyday, and sometimes you get a story.

  "Forget it, man. You'll never get near her."

  Shelby moved a pawn two squares forward, trying to protect his king. "Every guy in the building's tried, and few of the chicks, too."

  Troy advanced his knight, and one of his friend's bishops was removed from the board. Shelby frowned at this development.

  "I can imagine they have. Immature jocks, most 'em. I'll bet you and I are the only two grad students in the whole complex. She's just waiting for someone with a little maturity to come along, that's all."

  Shelby reached toward his remaining bishop, thought better of it, and returned to studying the board. "Sure she is. Bet you can't get inside her door."

  "What'll you bet?"

  "Dinner for two at Willy's."

  "Done. The important thing is, is it worth getting in­side her dooR?"

  His friend nudged a castle sideways, looked satisfied. "I've seen her going out. It's worth it. Believe me, it's worth it."

  "What does she look like?"

  "Different. Exotic. Dresden china stained dark. She's a little bitty thing, but something about her intimidates the hell out of me, even at a distance. I'd go up to her and stammer till my teeth fell out. Wouldn't know the first thing to say."

  "That's one of the things I've always liked about you, Shelby. You know your limitations."

  "And you don't, Troy. Your successes are grander than mine, but so are your failures, and you have more of both."

  "That's called living."

  "Don't get philosophical with me, man. Save that for Gilead's class. Now, move something. I'm getting hungry."

  Troy's queen crossed nearly the entire board. "Check­mate."

  Shelby stared at the quilted pattern of squares and pieces. "Well, hell. Where'd you learn that one?"

  Troy rose from the couch. "Improvised it."

  His roommate sighed. "You'll have to do more than that to make it with Ms. Strange upstairs."

  Troy's gaze lifted ceilingward. "We'll see."

  The bell rang many times before the door was opened a crack.

  "Who's there, please?"

  Odd accent, for sure, he thought. "Excuse me. My name's Troy Brevard. I'm on the third floor. I understand you're a student at State."

  "That's right." He tried but could not see into the room beyond. The voice was smooth, soft, assured despite the fact that it was obviously utilizing a second lan­guage.

  "I'm a grad student. Poli Sci. I'm having a lot of trou­ble with a paper I'm doing on motivations in World War II, and I was wondering if maybe you could help me." Surely a foreign student would be interested in a world war, no matter what her actual major might be.

  Silence from the other side. Then, "You're a graduate student. I'm an undergraduate. Why come to me for help?"

  "Because there are stupid grads and brilliant under­grads."

  "What makes you think I'm one of the brilliant ones?"

  "Aren't you?"

  Laughter then, or something akin to laughter. The door swung inward, announcing his minor triumph.

  "All right, Mr. Brevard. Come on in and I'll see if I can help."

  He stepped over the threshold. The apartment was nearly identical to the one he shared with Shelby except for the view. They lived on the third floor. This apart­ment was on the sixth and topmost. Off to the left of the small den would be a bathroom and bedroom, to the right the compact kitchen. Through the tall picture window he could see the sunbathed campus of Arizona State Uni­versity.

  The door hid her, and so he didn't see her right away. His attention was caught instead by something else. The den was swamped with frogs.

  Stone frogs of Mexican onyx and soapstone lined the wall shelves, guarding endless rows of textbooks. A tur­quoise Zuni frog fetish sat in a position of honor atop the glass coffee table fronting the couch. Stuffed frogs stared bubble‑eyed from the back of the couch, on which lay several hand‑sewn frog pillows. There were ceramic frogs and jade frogs, stylized frogs of stainless steel and traditional frogs of wood and pewter, cardboard put‑together frog cutouts and paper frogs dangling from the ceiling. Portraits of frogs in oil and watercolor, pastel and pencil, and acrylic decorated the walls. Terraria bubbled and burped as spotted green things moved lazily about behind glass walls. He stepped inside and found himself standing on a thick frog rug.

  "You like frogs," he said dryly.

  "My collection," she replied.

  Then he turned to face her and forgot all about frogs.

  Placing her proved impossible. Her skin was coffee-­colored. That implied a home located anywhere from the Congo to the tanning salons of southern California. Her features were slight to the point of rendering petite an indication of grossness. Except for her eyes. They dom­inated that delicate face, huge, damp orbs in which a man could drown with little effort. They were a bright, elec­tric green, as pure as anything generated by a laser, as alive as the floor of a rain forest.

  Aware he was staring, he forced himself to look else­where.

  "Mind if I sit down?"

  "Oh, excuse me. I forget my manners sometimes. I don't have many visitors."

  He flopped down on the couch. Frogs eyed him from high shelves, inspected him from the top of the crowded coffee table. He readjusted a frog pillow behind him and arranged his notepad and books.

  "It's real neighborly of you to help me out like this."

  "Why didn't you use the library?"

  "Libraries can't give you every viewpoint, especially contemporary ones. Besides, I'm lazy. I'd rather ask someone. Especially a pretty someone."

  Good Lord, was she blushing? It was hard to tell with that skin. Could it be that no one had had any luck with her simply because no one had tried?

  "I'm not pretty. Actually, I'm still kind of ugly."

  Was she playing with him? The woman was gorgeous! Slight, almost boyish, but with features that would put many a professional model to shame. If it was a put‑on, though, she was playing it well. If it wasn't, maybe it explained something else.

  "Is that why you like frogs so much? Because you see yourself as unattractive and they're the same?"

  "Oh, no," she said intently. "They're beautiful. I try to see myself as them." As if she'd already revealed too much of her private self, she became suddenly business­like. A tiny hand indicated the study materials he'd brought with him. "Now, what's your hang‑up, and how can I help you?"

  He made a show of shuffling through his notes. "How about going out with me Friday
night? That would be a helluva help to me. Improve my mental state no end. I know a great place for Mexican. Willy's."

  She smiled apologetically, shook her head. "Sorry. I don't go out."

  "Someone as pretty as you? Come on!" He had a sudden inspiration. "I know what it is. You're from a foreign country, right? You're not sure how to act, how to react to our peculiar American customs. Don't let that, make you a shut‑in. Half the time us natives are just as confused about how to act. Just relax. You can't do anything to embarrass me. I don't embarrass. And I won't push you into anything that makes you nervous. I just think you'd enjoy my company. I know I'd enjoy yours. How about it?"

  "You're right, Mr. Brevard. I am from a foreign country."

  "Just Troy, please. What do I call you?"

  "My real name's a bit longer than you'd find comfortable. I use Eula for short."

  Eula. That was no help. "Ethiopia? Somewhere in the Caribbean, maybe? Jamaica?"

  She shook her head, showing a shy, reluctant smile

  "Too close."

  "India, then?"

  "I won't tell you, Troy. Let me hold on to some secrets."

  "You seem to be all secrets, Eula, but okay. See, I said I wouldn't push."

  "I don't think you will." Oh, those eyes.

  "I think I will go out with you Friday night. Yes, I think I will. It should be educational."

  "Real dedicated student, aren't you? Intense observer of local culture."

  "I have to be dedicated, Troy. I'm going to graduate this June."

  "Me, too. Going to grad school?"

  "Yes, but not here."

  "Whereabouts?"

  "Back home."

  "Which is where?"

  She wagged a warning finger at him, and it was his turn to grin.

  "Okay." He raised both hands. "Guilty. I won't do it again." Maybe she was a refugee from one of the several minor wars that always seemed to be going in the Third World. He could see where that might embarrass her. Time enough to find out.