Phylogenesis

by Alan Dean Foster

  Was this peculiar creature alive? Was it something good to eat? A thick pink tongue emerged to take a lick of Desvendapur’s hind left leg. Finding this foray inconclusive, the jaguar employed the only sampling means left at its disposal. Opening massive jaws, it placed them around the poet’s leg just above the middle joint and bit down.

  Desvendapur winced at the pain and lashed out with the cutting tool. It was not the resultant shallow incision that caused the jaguar to leap up and backward, however, but the reflex stridulation generated by the wing cases on the thranx’s back. Sharp, piercing, and unprecedented in the big cat’s experience, the reflexive distress cry hurt its sensitive ears. With the alien vibration ringing in its head, it landed on all fours, whirled, and disappeared into the forest.

  Breathing hard, Desvendapur hung onto the cutting tool with one truhand while he used the truhand and foothand on his other side to explore the injury. Though oozing blood and body fluids, the wound was not deep. Unpacking his improvised medical kit, he disinfected and then patched the hole, filling it with quick-drying synthetic chitin. Fortunately, the jaguar had not bit down with its full strength, or it might have cracked the limb. That would have posed serious problems indeed, though less so for a six-legged thranx than for a two-legged human. He could have rigged a splint, but it was just as well that the attack had not been more serious.

  He could not really call it an attack, he decided. The bite had been more in the nature of a tasting. But for purposes of dramatic composition, he would remember and render it otherwise. Exaggeration was as much a tool of the poet as accent and cadence. Like everything else he had experienced since escaping the hive, the encounter with the big cat would be turned to creative profit. Unlike nearly everything else, it was one experience he had no desire to repeat.

  The next large predator might decide to see if the eight-limbed alien was edible by taking a bite out of his head instead of a leg.

  13

  Increasingly confident of his ability to elude the attentions of whoever was probing this portion of the rain forest, Cheelo finished the last of his supper and prepared to retire for the night. The enormous branch that protruded from the lower portion of the trunk of the diderocarpus would not have been easy for a city dweller to reach, but in his time Cheelo had been forced to do more than his share of scrambling over, around, and through obstacles to avoid the attentions of security guards, alerted authorities, and violated merchants. The modest ascent caused him no difficulty.

  In minutes he had his pack snugged deep in a crook formed by two tributary branches and his thin emergency blanket spread out on a flattened portion of the largest. Safer than usual from those forest inhabitants who chose to do their marauding after dark, he settled down to a meal of fruit supplemented with vitamin pills and dehydrates. The latter responded gratifyingly to his experienced ministrations and the application of a little water.

  The sun did not so much set as silently evaporate behind the clouds and trees, so he could not watch it drop below a vaporous horizon. But seated silently in his temporary aerie he was able to observe the performance of parrots and macaws, of monkeys and lizards, and to hear the ever-present thrum of hyperactive insects. For company he had a brace of black-and-yellow frogs, each of which was no bigger than his thumb. The rain forest was an unending, round-the-clock carnival in which one never knew what act was going to present itself next.

  That did not mean he retained his composure when the meter-and-a-half tall bug wandered out of the woods in the direction of his tree.

  At first he thought he was hallucinating, a not-uncommon occurrence in the deep tropics. As opposed to the giant insect, however, everything else looked, smelled, felt, and sounded unceremoniously real. Hallucinations usually involved more than one element of perception. Excluding the outlandish apparition, nothing—not even the clouds, not even the explosion of green growth—appeared abnormal.

  As it came closer he saw that while it was insectlike, it was not an insect. It had eight limbs instead of the compulsory six, but neither did that make it a spider. Other details marked it as significantly different. Each of the upper four limbs terminated not in hooks or claws, but in four manipulative digits of equal length. Cheelo could not avoid thinking of them as fingers. Not while one delicately gripped a device of some kind and another casually held a stick.

  As he stared, the blue-green, hard-shelled specter halted. It looked down at the device it was carrying, up and around at its immediate surroundings, and again at the device before reaching back to place it in a pocket or slot in the sack slung across its body. The sack was fashioned from a synthetic material Cheelo did not recognize. Unable to reach the pouch with the smaller limb that had held the device up for inspection, the creature was forced to transfer the object to a second set of arms in order to complete the transfer.

  Raising itself up onto its four hind limbs, it looked around before resuming its approach. Unless it deviated from its present course, it would pass directly beneath the branch on which Cheelo had chosen to make his bed. Flattening himself out, he fumbled apprehensively for the pistol in his backpack. He could see nothing like a weapon hanging from or attached to the bug or its gear.

  That was when he recognized the creature from a hazy remembrance of an old media report. As he recalled, it was his mind that had been hazy at the time, not the report. He had been very, very drunk; he recalled the moment as one of the low points in his life, of which he had suffered many. If he remembered correctly, this creature was a representative of one of the several intelligent, space-traversing species mankind had encountered subsequent to the development of the posi-gravity, or KK-drive, that had made other-than-light travel possible. He tried to remember the species’ name: cranks or drinks or—thranx. That was it. Never one to care about or much keep up with planetary, much less extrasolar, news, he had overheard and filed the information in that corner of his mind where he stored data that was unlikely to immediately impact his personal social and financial standing.

  Explorers might contact and encounter a dozen new species or a hundred: It meant nothing to him if he was unable to somehow profit from it. Nor was he alone in his reaction. Convinced that all matter, existence, and the universe revolved around each of them individually, the bulk of humanity paid little attention to that which did not affect their lives directly. The far-reaching, far-ranging vision that the species possessed as a whole tended to dissolve into its billions of self-serving individual components when redacted to the petty concerns of one person at a time.

  Well, he was damn well concerned now. Tense and wary, he observed the alien’s approach, marveling at the fluid yet jerky motion of the four hind limbs that propelled it forward. What the hell was one of these buglike thranx things doing here, in the empty reaches of Earth’s largest rain forest preserve? Shouldn’t it be quarantined on an orbiting station, or at the very least confined to a well-established diplomatic site like Geneva or Lombok?

  Anxiously scanning the trees behind the creature revealed no other signs of movement. Though it would be premature to make the assumption, as far as his senses could tell him, the alien was alone. As he stared, it stopped again to take stock of its surroundings. The valentine-shaped head, about the size of his own, turned almost a hundred and eighty degrees to look back the way it had come. In striking contrast to the blue-green exoskeleton, the oversized compound eyes were a muted gold marked by latitudinal streaks of red. Like an extra pair of fingers, the two antennae would incline first one way, then another, and sometimes in opposite directions, as they investigated their immediate surroundings.

  Individuals of a different and more advanced intellectual bent would have reacted to the intrusion with curiosity and interest. A nervous, edgy Cheelo just wanted the stiff-legged monstrosity to go away. He had spent too much time in the company of cockroaches, had been stung too often by scorpions, had been bitten too many times in his life by spiders and ants and aggressive tropical beetles, to want this gigantic
if distant relation to tarry in his vicinity. Even though he knew it was intelligent and not an insect in the accepted terrestrial sense, he just wanted it to go away. If it did not, if it caused him the slightest bit of trouble, if it reacted in any way, shape, or form that might be construed as hostile—his fingers were firm and unyielding on the butt and trigger of the compact pistol.

  That killing the intruder might precipitate some kind of interstellar diplomatic incident never crossed his mind. Interstellar diplomacy and interspecies relations had no immediate impact on the lifestyle of one Cheelo Montoya and therefore did not concern him. If there was trouble of that kind it was up to the government to sort out. All that concerned him was his freedom of movement, his health, and the fluctuating status of his bank account. He did not see how the shooting of one overlarge, out-of-place, alien bug would adversely affect any of that.

  Hopefully, he would not have to deal with any such exotic ramifications. Preferably, the extraordinary creature would keep right on walking—through the forest, under his branch, and off in a westerly direction, intent on pursuits or destinations that would remain forever a blissful mystery to the uninterested Cheelo. As it drew nearer still he noted the size of the second, larger sack strapped to the alien’s back and wondered what it contained besides small lumpy devices of unknown purpose. It was preparing to pass beneath his bough now, and he edged a little farther back, the tough bark scraping against his legs, belly, and chest.

  Dislodged by his actions, one of the fruits he had scavenged tumbled backward, off the branch, and plunged to the ground directly in front of the extraterrestrial visitor. It halted immediately, gazing down at the green orb where it had landed among the leaf litter. Cheelo held his breath. There was no reason for the creature to look up. In the fecund rain forest, fruit fell from the canopy all the time.

  But it did look up—directly at him. Though it had no pupils on which he could focus, he could not escape the feeling that it was staring directly at him. It was an unnerving sensation, an unsettling feeling, as if all the bugs he had ever stomped, sprayed, squashed, or swatted had been rolled up together into one measureless, accusatory, all-encompassing insectoid stare. Even though he knew it was his own memories and guilt that were gazing back up at him, the realization did nothing to alleviate the unease in his mind or the pounding of his heart. Bringing up the hand that held the pistol, he started to point it at the silent specter standing beneath the branch. While he knew nothing about alien physiology or vulnerability, he was willing to chance that it could not take a burst to the skull at close range. He lowered the muzzle so that it was pointed right between the two bulging, reflective eyes. His finger started to tighten on the trigger.

  The accent was soft to the point of being incomprehensible, but slight and wispy as it was, there was no mistaking the conjoined syllables of Universal Terranglo.

  “Hello,” the big bug said. “I hope you will not expose me.”

  Expose me? Had he expected the outrageous apparition to say anything at all, that was not what Cheelo would have predicted. “Greetings, man,” perhaps, or maybe “Can you tell me how to contact the nearest authorities?” not “I hope you will not expose me.” It had also, he noted, not reacted either visibly or verbally to the presence of the lethal weapon that the nervous human was pointing directly at its head. Cheelo hesitated.

  Could the soft voice and gentle words be a ploy to relax him and put him off his guard before it attacked and sucked out his innards? Simply by looking at it he could not tell if it could climb. Was it trying to lure him down to the ground where it could set upon him with all eight limbs? It was shorter and looked like it weighed less, but knowing as he did nothing about the species he had no idea how strong it might be. Crabs were smaller than humans, too, but they had jointed chitinous limbs that could effortlessly amputate a man’s fingers.

  “Can you talk?” it inquired in a manner that could only be described as curiously polite. “I spent a great deal of time studying recordings of your language until I thought myself fluent. Of course, mimicry is not the same as competency.”

  “Yeah.” Cheelo found himself responding reflexively. “Yeah, I can talk.” As for competency, the thranx’s Terranglo was more cultivated than his own. Montoya’s speech reflected its origin in small villages and mean streets, not fancy recordings or educational programming. “You’re a thranx, aren’t you?”

  “I am thranx.” The creature gestured elaborately with its set of small upper limbs and their eight digits. “I am individually, in the sounding of your speech, called Desvenbapur.”

  Cheelo nodded absently. Was there any harm in telling this alien his name? Was there anything to be lost or gained by it? If they were going to continue this conversation—and the bug showed no signs of being in a hurry to move on—it would need to call him something. He gave a mental shrug. Whatever else the thranx might represent, he doubted it worked for the local police.

  “Cheelo Montoya.”

  He smiled at the thranx’s initial attempts to pronounce his name. Maybe its speech wasn’t all that cultivated after all. It was, however, sufficiently inquisitive to cause Cheelo to tense all over again.

  “What are you doing out here in this empty place?” Desvendapur inquired innocently. It took a step backward, away from the branch and the tree. “Are you a ranger on patrol?”

  At the mention of the word ranger Cheelo started to bring the pistol up again—only to relax, not a little confused, when he saw that the alien suddenly appeared to be more nervous than he was himself. It was looking around with rapid, twitchy movements and had drawn its forelimbs up against its—well, whatever passed for its chest. Being utterly ignorant of alien gesture and motivation, Cheelo could only interpret what he was seeing based on that which he knew, and it looked to him as if the creature was ready to bolt.

  “No,” he responded cautiously. “I’m not a ranger. I’m not an official of any kind. I’m…a tourist. An amateur naturalist, studying the forest.”

  Sure enough, the two withdrawn forelimbs resumed their previous relaxed position and the searching, rotating, head twisting ceased as the creature focused once more solely on the man in the tree. “You must be a confident one. This is supposed to be an exceptionally remote, uninhabited area.”

  “That’s right.” Cheelo nodded agreeably, then found himself frowning. He had drawn the pistol aside, but he did not put it down. “How do you know that? And what are you doing here, anyway?”

  Desvendapur hesitated. Unable to interpret human gesture or the extraordinary range of expression their flexible faces were capable of producing, he had no way of determining the biped’s true intent. As such, he had to rely entirely on his knowledge of their language. For a thranx, used to employing and translating gesture as organically as sound, the absence of interpretable gesticulation was akin to hearing only every other word of a conversation. He would have to fill in the gaps by inference, as best he could.

  As near as he could tell based on what he thought he knew, the human struck him as curious rather than hostile, though the poet could not help but wonder about the function of the small device it had previously been pointing at him. That it was no longer doing so was a relief. But how to respond to the coarse, guttural inquiry? Of course, if he had simply stumbled into the lair of a wandering naturalist, then there was nothing to fear. He doubted that the human counterpart to a thranx researcher would be much of a threat. Students of science, regardless of species, tended to be reflective rather than violent.

  That did not mean it would hesitate, if provoked, to give him away. He could do nothing, could not determine on a course of further action, until he knew what means of communication the human maintained with the outside world. At least, he decided, it had not immediately drawn forth a communicator of some kind to announce the encounter. As a naturalist, it might well be as curious about Desvendapur as the poet was about him.

  In any event, benefits from the confrontation were already manifesting th
emselves. A rush of suggestive stanzas raced through Desvendapur’s freshly stimulated brain. Reaching back with a foothand, he searched for his scri!ber.

  The sudden movement alarmed the suspicious biped. “Hey, what are you doing there?” Again, the small pointed device the mammal was holding made an appearance on the rim of the bough.

  Maybe it’s got a gun, Cheelo found himself thinking nervously. And if it did, would he be able to recognize an alien weapon if it was pointed in his direction? Maybe he should just shoot it, right now. But what if it was not alone? What if it was a member of some larger exploration party? What if it was working in concert with people, with human scientists? Painfully aware of his ignorance, he realized that until he knew more it would be prudent to react cautiously. He had not survived worse than the rain forest and come as close to realizing his lifelong dream as he had by acting impetuously. Observe, analyze, think, plan, then act: the ancient lessons of the street.

  Besides, the stiff-legged alien didn’t look particularly fast, and it gave no indication of wanting to run away. He could always shoot it later.

  Not wanting to upset the biped further, Desvendapur brought the scri!ber out very slowly. “This is a harmless recording device.”

  “I don’t give a shit what it is.” Cheelo gestured with the pistol. “Don’t point it at me.” He did not want his picture taken, either.

  “As you wish.” Exhilarated by the tension and the unexpectedness of the contact, Desvendapur proceeded to deliver a stream of clicks, whistles, and sibilant syllables to the scri!ber, together with breathless suggestions for appropriate accompanying gestures. Throughout the euphonious discursive, the human continued to gaze down at him from its perch up in the tree. Such a primitive stare! the poet thought. So straightforward and unvarying, heightened by the directness of a single lens. Human eyes were very vulnerable, Desvendapur knew. A thranx could lose part of an eye, dozens of individual lenses, and still be able to see, albeit with a reduced field of vision and focus. Should a human lose its lens, the ocular function of the entire orb would be largely lost. The realization transformed part of his discomfiture into sympathy.