Quofum

by Alan Dean Foster

  Speaking from the seat in the bow, N’kosi proceeded to contribute his unsolicited opinion. On such a small craft it was clearly impossible to have a private conversation, Tellenberg concluded.

  “Interesting notion, Val. Maybe one worth exploring further,” the forward-seated xenologist commented.

  Leaning to her right, Haviti looked toward him and past Tellenberg. “You’re not suggesting that the local sentients did not evolve here, but were imported from elsewhere?”

  Spinning in the seat, N’kosi brought his legs around so that they were once again inside the boat. In the dim light, he was almost a silhouette against the moonless night. “Why not? It makes as much sense as anything else. If initial, rational explanations for an illogical phenomena prove unsatisfactory, one has to consider contemplating secondary, irrational ones.”

  “Could what we are seeing represent some kind of experiment? One whose causes and rationale we cannot yet begin to fathom?” Valnadireb’s jewel-like eyes glistened. Twin sensory metronomes, his feathery antennae bobbed slowly back and forth as he spoke. “Four primitive sentient species are brought here from other locations and allowed to develop on their own, even to the point of engaging in serious combat. To what purpose? Some kind of experiment? For research?”

  “We can’t simply disregard such possibilities out of hand just because they strain credulity.” N’kosi was warming to his hypothesis. “Especially in light of a better explanation.” Reaching up, he swatted at something that blushed maroon. His palm struck it squarely, sending it fluttering broken-winged into the water. Within seconds it had been gobbled up by what looked like a triangle of linked-together transparent spheres lined with diamonds. The brief glimpse it allowed was insufficient to identify the predator as protein, glass, or gas-based. N’kosi shook his head. Formal classification of Quofum’s fauna demanded the interpretative skills not of a von Humboldt, a Darwin, or a Russell, but of Lewis Carroll working in concert with Salvador Dalí.

  Straightening, Haviti rested both hands on the edge of the gunwale and stared at the alien forest sliding past. Organically generated lights of all colors and patterns blinked madly on and off, dancing among trees and growths that were deserving of other names, some that the visitors would be forced to invent. The sight put her in mind of a city whose nighttime energy sources and society had been completely fractured. Though her tone was naturally and unavoidably sultry, her speech was fortified with confidence that bespoke a scientist who had been awarded several degrees from multiple sources.

  “For the moment and for the purposes of discussion only, suppose we grant N’kosi’s hyperfictional hypothesis a modicum of credibility. Where does it take us if we dare to carry it to its logical extreme?”

  Valnadireb’s bare feet made scraping sounds on the deck as he shifted his stance, rising up on all four trulegs. During the preceding days he had gained enough confidence to occasionally let go of the deck with his foothands.

  “In that case, the inescapable conclusion is both striking and appalling. If the four sentient types we have encountered are presumed to be introduced species, then it follows that they may not be alone.” Truhands and foothands joined in gesturing at the passing shore. “There may be others, floral as well as faunal.”

  “Which means,” Haviti went on, “that a great many of the life-forms we have observed and recorded, and not just the sentients, may not be native to this world.”

  “Or,” N’kosi murmured as he took the premise to its inexorable end, “none of them are.” He waved a hand at the water. “As I suggested, we may be recording the results of an experiment.”

  “The inhabitants of a zoo,” Valnadireb put in.

  “More like a circus,” Tellenberg finished.

  Once again silence descended on the boat as each of the scientists sank back into his or her own thoughts. Around them, the object of their intense meditation sang and swam, flew and squawked, crawled and clashed, and sought cover from their fellow inhabitants.

  If the biota of Quofum was not natural but introduced, Tellenberg found himself thinking furiously, had it been done casually? Or, as N’kosi proposed, with some purpose in mind? And if purpose, what? The latter implied a higher intelligence that was a master not only of biology but of improvisation. But if there was a purpose to species introduction on such a massive and inexplicable scale, why allow so many and such divergent life-forms to evolve and mature? Why not pursue a single chosen line, to some unknown, unimaginable end? The whole approach, exceedingly theoretical as it was, struck him as scattershot and futile, a waste of time and considerable resources. It was as if God were having a mental breakdown while making the world.

  Perhaps more than one originating intellect was involved. Maybe N’kosi’s imagined experiment was more of a contest. He thought of the games he had played as a child and still engaged in, albeit rarely. Had he and his companions inadvertently stepped into some kind of bio-evolutionary game being played by unknown intelligences? If so, assuming they were monitoring their experiment or game or ongoing work or whatever it might be, how would they react to the presence of uninvited eyewitnesses? Peering up at the night sky and the alien stars, he was suddenly even more uncomfortable than usual.

  Of course, he reminded himself firmly, all this was still nothing more than outrageous speculation. Like any thoughtful scientist, N’kosi had proffered a radical explanation in the absence of a more sensible one. The latter, based on the drastic but not untenable notion of radical evolution occurring under extraordinary and as yet undefined circumstances, was still the best extant explanation for everything they had seen. They had only been on Quofum for a few days. Wild tangents such as direct offworld intervention by an unknown intelligence might be proposed and discussed, but it was far too early in the game to accept them as anything more than impulsive conjecture.

  Evidence. It was time to amass some hard, cold evidence. To date they had spent nearly all their time out in the field. Now it was time to sit down in the lab, to dissect a serious number of specimens in the search for links between species and types, and to let the camp’s AI engage in some fundamental extrapolation and sequence-crunching. In short, it was time to buckle down to the kind of time-intensive, repetitive, methodical, frequently boring work that constituted the greater preponderance of real science.

  His line of thought changed to something else entirely when Haviti moved closer to him. It changed again, and not for the better this time, when she pointed to the west.

  “Is that cloud moving?”

  He squinted. His night vision had never been the best. Flipping down his visor, he joined her in studying the expanding phenomenon.

  “It’s moving, but I’m not so sure it’s a cloud.”

  “It is not.” Valnadireb’s huge compound eyes needed no artificial assistance to discern the true nature of the star-muting shadow. “It’s alive, and it is coming this way.”

  More than the mood was broken as for the second time that day the four scientists unlimbered their sidearms. There was nothing to indicate that the dark mass would prove to be hostile, but its sheer size dictated caution. Better to be prepared than to be caught off guard and forced into making life-or-death decisions at the last moment.

  As it turned out, the decision to take up arms proved prudent.

  The sound of the onrushing shadow was surprising. A whispery hum, it was anything but threatening. That did not prevent N’kosi, ever the enthusiastic researcher, from letting out a yelp of surprise when the first of the gently parachuting larvae spiraled down to land on his arm. Half again as long as the scientist’s extended limb and nearly as wide, the larva was almost paper-thin. On contact with his forearm it lay there light as a leaf, allowing him to examine it closely. The pale, translucent form weighed next to nothing. A single black dot at one end hinted at the location of a very primitive eyespot.

  “It’s like tissue.” As he addressed his colleagues, N’kosi raised his arm slowly up and down. “I don’t see any
indication of…”

  He grunted in pain as the larva contracted sharply around his forearm. Shrinking and tightening with frightening speed, it was transformed from a ten-centimeter-wide strip of pale protein into a swiftly shrinking tourniquet. Setting aside his pistol, N’kosi used his free hand to try and pull it off. Not only did the “flimsy” material fail to break, it burned his clutching fingers on contact.

  “Get it off!” he yelled to his companions. Already the now wirelike strip was cutting off the flow of blood to his forearm and hand and threatening to slice right through his protective shirtsleeve into his flesh.

  Haviti and Tellenberg fumbled for the knives contained in their field multitools. By the time either of them could get a blade out, an alert Valnadireb had clipped the shrunken larva in half. Using both foothands and truhands, he pulled it apart. The caustic fluid the migrating alien maggot secreted might sear human skin, but it barely left a mark on the thranx’s much tougher chitinous exoskeleton.

  “Thanks, Val.” A grimacing N’kosi was rubbing his arm, stimulating the flow of blood to his throbbing hand.

  They had no time to commiserate or study the dead creature now lying on the deck, because as the dozen or so enormous soaring night fliers continued passing overhead, blotting out the sky, their teeming progeny drifted downward like slow rain. Each of the nearly silent gliders released dozens, hundreds of the deceptively innocuous larvae from a line of multiple ventral cloaca. These floated downward or were carried off by gentle breezes like so much shredded tissue paper. The quartet of edgy scientists could only look on and admire the highly efficient means the creatures employed for spreading their spawn.

  The larvae’s translucence allowed them to blend in with their surroundings, making it hard for potential hosts to separate them from forest and river surroundings. During the day, bright sunlight would have reflected off the ghostly protoplasm. At night the larvae were nearly invisible. They made no revealing noises, emitted no identifying sounds as they drifted downward. Their slow, gradual descent, disturbed only by the occasional draft, enhanced the stealth of the mass seeding. Outspread in parachute mode, their insubstantiality assured that their landing on a potential host would usually go unnoticed. Until they began to contract, by which time it would be too late for the hapless host to do anything about it.

  Soaring noiselessly off to the east the adults continued on their migratory way, having sown the night behind them with silent horror. The horde of twisting, fluttering parasites descending in their wake landed everywhere: in the forest, on the water, on the glistening river-cast beaches. The researchers counted their good fortune as they clustered together in the center of the boat. The folding roof that was designed to protect them from the weather was a hundred percent effective in keeping the down-drifting larvae off their heads. Whenever the wind threatened to blow one of the creatures underneath, it was quickly knocked down with whatever heavy object was at hand.

  At first they tried crushing the writhing, crinkling brood underfoot. One such attempt by Tellenberg was sufficient to show the inefficacy of that approach. The larva in question dodged his descending boot and curled around his ankle with horrid speed. For a second time, Valnadireb’s dexterous fingers were called upon to remove a constricting larva from one of his human associate’s more vulnerable limbs. Thereafter they took no more chances. Standing back-to-back and utilizing a pair of beamers taken from stores and set on low, they fried each successive gossamer intruder.

  They did not relax or let down their guard even when it seemed that they had cruised clear of the last of the parasitic cloud. Tellenberg found that he was swallowing repeatedly and unnecessarily. He kept imagining what it would feel like to have one of the constricting creatures land softly on the back of his neck. This was one species where dead specimens would have to suffice for study not out of necessity but by choice and mutual agreement. Even with Valnadireb’s assistance, the live larvae were too treacherous to handle.

  In the wake of the gliders’ passing, horrifying sounds began to resound from the forest. At first there were only one or two. As more and more of the larvae touched down and found hosts, the cries and shrieks of those organisms who had been successfully parasitized rose shockingly above the familiar din of otherwise healthy forest-dwellers. After a while this too died out. For a quarter of an hour or so the alien woods were unnervingly silent. Then, gradually, customary night sounds returned, until both sides of the river once more echoed to the bleat and wail of the thousands of unknown creatures who had managed to survive the ghastly seeding.

  N’kosi was sitting on a bench studying the first larva that had landed on the boat. Or rather, on him. Ripped in half by the helpful Valnadireb, it lay stretched out immobile between his hands, a pair of thin strands of dully glistening protoplasmic thread.

  “What do you suppose the next stage is?” Reaching down, Haviti ran an inquisitive forefinger along the middle part of the lifeless young. Dead, it no longer secreted its protective caustic liquid.

  A nonscientist would have turned away or eyed the slender corpse uneasily. Despite having been attacked, N’kosi was all curiosity. “Maybe once it has secured a purchase on the prospective host, it burrows in and feeds.”

  “Not too deeply, or too much,” Tellenberg commented astutely. “A smart parasite doesn’t kill its host right away. The successful ones are always good stewards of their food supply.”

  “You saw how quickly and powerfully it contracts.” Haviti straightened. “Maybe the whole animal burrows in, the way an assassin uses piano wire.”

  Tellenberg gaped at her. “What do you know about assassins and piano wire?”

  She smiled back at him. “When I’m relaxing in my off-time, I watch a lot of cheap tridee productions. One does not live by assimilating scientific papers alone, you know.”

  He wanted to add something witty, but not in general company. Instead, he rose. “Well, we may not have any live specimens, but we’ve got plenty of fried ones.” He busied himself helping Valnadireb gather dead larvae from the deck. Those too badly burned by the beamers were dumped over the side, to the great delight of a trailing swarm of aquatic scavengers.

  One of the latter, he noted almost absently, was some kind of floating plant with multiple orifices. He shook his head. The variety of life-forms thriving on this world was exceeded only by the mystery of their origins.

  Despite everyone’s pretense at scientific detachment, the rain of parasitic larvae had unsettled all of them to the point where it was decided that the boat’s automatic defense mechanisms notwithstanding, a watch would be mounted for the rest of the night. A lucky Tellenberg took the first. Settling himself behind the control console, he watched while his companions bedded down for the night; the humans on their traveling inflatable cots, Valnadireb on his simple raised pad. A flash of jealousy shot through Tellenberg as he noted the proximity of N’kosi’s bed to Haviti’s.

  He was being silly, he chided himself. No matter what he felt toward Tiare he had never expressed those feelings. Such desire remained wholly private, and likely would continue to do so until they neared the expedition’s end. Articulating his feelings here and now, while they were thrown together out in the field with no way of really avoiding one another, could impact the quality of her work as well as his. Worse, she might respond negatively. He shuddered inwardly. She might even laugh.

  Upon further consideration of the alternatives, he decided he would rather endure the attentions of one of the parasitic larvae.

  6

  The wretched condenser was acting up again. It had to be the condenser, Boylan figured. Not only because the system that delivered water to the different segments of the camp had already failed once, but because the supply was gravity-fed and there was little else that could go wrong with it. Spun like spider silk from a central silicate core, the simple and straightforward network of pipes had no seams, joints, or connectors. All the components were brand-new. Since the pipe material hardened on
contact with air, it was unlikely there were any leaks.

  It did not matter whether he activated dispensers in the living area, the lab, or outside. They all came up dry. Every time he said “cold water” or “hot water” to a spigot, it responded with an apology instead of the requested liquid. A part designed and manufactured to be as trouble-free as a water spigot could not be self-analytical. It could not provide a breakdown of the trouble. In the final analysis, it appeared, there were still some problems that required the attention of humans.

  There was also the fact that the condenser had already failed once before, right after the science team had departed on their expedition upriver. The brief reports Boylan had received suggested that this had gone even better than expected, though in ways none had foreseen. While curious to learn the details of the outing, it was not his priority. As captain of the ship and nominal commander of the expedition, his job was to expedite the work of the researchers without coddling them. That meant ensuring suitable working conditions. The lack of a reliable water supply could hardly be counted among these.

  The first time the condenser had broken down Araza had fixed it immediately. Precedent suggested that the latest problem, if it involved a similar failure, would be simple to fix. This time Boylan would supervise the repair work himself. Araza was a good workman and a solid technician, but he was not perfect. Even with the help of automatons and integrated construction servors, whipping the newly erected camp into working order and maintaining it was a full-time job for two men. In his haste to move on to the next project it was possible that Araza had overlooked something, had not quite finished the repair work properly, or had simply left it incomplete and had forgotten to return to complete the job.

  Whatever the cause, this time the condenser would be fixed permanently. Boylan would see to that. Araza was like a lot of workmen the captain had known. Wholly competent but easily distracted. You had to keep on top of such people. For their own good. Every once in a while they needed to be chewed out. It inspired them to better work. The trick was to admonish without generating resentment. This was something at which Boylan had had plenty of practice. He was very good at it.