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Orbit 13 - [Anthology]

Page 24

by Edited by Damon Knight


  Burning air coursed in forceful gulps through Lofduns’ open wind-hole, as it held back an urge to go on to the second digestive stage. It had no idea what the juices would do to the morst-hide bag. But it couldn’t control itself, or else it wouldn’t control itself, and before it could reason out the foolishness of the act the secretions had surrounded the bag and filled its mouth with the tingling, tickling illusion of eating, of food, of hard, living matter giving way under its attack and joining the rhythm of its body, uniting itself to it in a union of strength and wonderful physical warmth.

  * * * *

  After it had carefully washed the bag and examined it for damage, Lofduns refilled it, rinsed out its mouth in the tub, and lay down on the mattress to quiet its tense muscles. Its first thought was to assess the damage to the bag’s surface and to try to find a reasonable excuse for it, should anybody ask. Then, as often happened at these times, its mind turned to self-recrimination.

  Now Lofduns was an enlightened and liberal person, and it knew there was nothing shameful or immoral in what it did. It had learned long ago that the morbid guilt it had once felt over sucking its fingers or holding back its second stage to make the pablum last was only a result of learned reactions from its childhood, and had no basis in science. Notwithstanding, it often felt depressed and uneasy after the act. This had not been the time for it. It would be night soon, and it must save its muscles for the new and alien adventure of this place. Wasn’t that, in fact, why Lofduns, considered a person of high moral character by its pablum-spined colleagues, had applied for transfer to a colony in the Terran sphere of influence? And now it was tiring itself a few hours before the first real attempt.

  And besides, though the damage to the bag was minimal, it had known it shouldn’t go on to second stage, but it had gone on anyway. If such a thing were to happen tonight, it would be unspeakably dangerous and cost Lofduns its pleasure, perhaps even its entire career or its life.

  But tonight would be different. Tonight would be more relaxed, more easy, more meaningful, and more joyous than all the bags, spices, steaks, and melons of the last ten circuits.

  The times were changing, but they were changing slowly. The most optimistic claimed limited legalization would come within five circuits. The most pessimistic said it would never come, and some even enjoyed the thought, finding the pleasure of the act heightened by its extreme danger. And then there were the millions who held back progress with their own fear of the body, who dreaded their bi-weekly trips to the pantry to fill themselves with tasteless pablum, who still spoke of the pablum-man as “the runner” and of eating as “going away.”

  Such a one had been Lofduns’ Teacher, and during the early years of its life in the Ansrals villa it had lived in constant dread and prayed to the God that some way could be found to keep it alive without ever having to go “down there” to fill its ugly belly.

  Lofduns whistled through its wind-hole in disgust, and stepped faster along the dark, pygmy street. It would never raise the young assigned to it that way. They would know from the start that the God had meant for them to enjoy eating as naturally as making sperm and ova or any other pleasure of life. The times were changing, but they were changing slowly.

  * * * *

  There had been only light foot traffic on the streets, most of it pygmy. But as soon as Lofduns reached the edge of the park it was aware of feverish activity, despite the complete silence of the night. Among the trees, for several meters ahead, it could see brief shadows, both large and small, moving slowly back and forth, in a hypnotic and monotonous dance. They were all out for a walk in the park at night, tracing random but determined paths among the trees. Some were natives of this colony, some had sought it out because of its reputation; some were new like Lofduns, frightened by the tired shades that strolled past them; others were performing an automatic nightly ritual. Some were shy, some bold, some cheerful, some detached, some ready to cry out in pain. Each of them walked alone.

  Lofduns knew the Terran language reasonably well, having worked with pygmies in its business, even having become quite close to some of them on a social level. It knew the two types, their faces, their moods, their movements. But as it stepped into the park and let itself be absorbed in the dark dance, it suddenly felt panic at being surrounded by totally alien and unfathomable creatures. Even those of its own race were strangers out of some sick poet’s bad dream. They glanced at it quickly, like Wolgons warning an intruder in their fields. It felt sick. It walked on.

  Ahead of it was a woman. It could tell she was a woman by the flared cut of her pants, the way her body moved and, when she came closer, by the features of her face. She saw it, stopped, and looked casually in another direction. Lofduns stopped and looked down at her, scarcely seven meters away, an attractive woman, but no real beauty (for Terran standards of physical beauty were not so different from its own). But the light was not good, it was not certain, and besides, she was a woman. Women, the ovum-producing sexual type, were more difficult for a novice, it had been told. And perhaps it had mistaken her intentions. Perhaps she was simply out for a walk and had happened to stop at this particular point and wasn’t even aware of its presence. Perhaps it should go on, look for another. Perhaps it should go home and forget this mad idea. Perhaps it should give up the whole business and rejoin the pablum-eating society of its Teacher. But it just stood there, watching her.

  She turned and raised her eyes to its, moved them down its face to its wind-hole, down its chest, rested them on the spot where its muzzle would be below its coat, and then looked it straight in the eye with a vague sort of smile on her lips, formed by moving them up at the corners. On her lips. On her mouth. A smile. The very thought of her mouth in the middle of her face, smiling, breathing, and talking, by the God, talking, filled Lofduns’ whole body with such a thrilling sense of discovery that it could not move for a number of seconds. Then it turned away from her, down a darker path, shaking and uncertain.

  It stopped and leaned against a tall tree, not knowing which way to walk now, or how to select, to approach, to suggest, not knowing the proper rituals of assent before this thing could be done. It stood for several minutes, watching a bright star quite close to being eclipsed by a rather small moon, before it noticed two things. The first was a man, a pygmy of the sperm-producing type, who was standing several meters off, watching it. The second was the fact that it had unconsciously folded its hands over its muzzle, in a rather suggestive and derisive gesture. It folded its arms, wondering if their position hadn’t been interpreted as a very obvious come-on.

  The man sauntered over to it, looked up and grinned. “Nice night.”

  He seemed not to expect a reply, but just stood there, looking up and chewing. Yes, chewing something lazily in his half-open mouth. He was a very attractive, dark-skinned man, with a look of confidence beyond his merits. And he liked Lofduns; that was evident. His eyes were busy admiring its slick golden skin and deep violet eyes. His face was busy saying the obvious, with a twist of the mouth, a cock of the head. And he was appetizing, quite appetizing.

  * * * *

  Discretion had become an automatic part of Lofduns’ life since it had first searched out the banquet crowd by the river. So it didn’t even think about secrecy when it led the man in through the garage entrance of the hotel and up the back lift to its room. Its mind was involved with half-remembered passages from cheap books it had read, images of fruits wiggling and squirming of their own accord, pictures of people self-consciously sliding their hands into others’ mouths, and questions, too many often-asked questions. Was this what it really wanted? Or was it just a crazy way to occupy its mind and body and shelter them from the demands of life? Would it be, after all, disappointing? Would it know what to do at the right moment? And what would it say?

  As it was, not a word was spoken. As soon as they entered the room, even before it had locked the door, the man began to strip. Lofduns followed him, stripping off its drab tunic and pantaloo
ns, and stood by the mattress dressed only in its muzzle, looking down at the man’s naked body. Small, yes, but remarkably like its own, narrower in the middle, but with two arms, two legs, a head with eyes and a windhole, not unattractive at all.

  Its mouth muscles began to relax in stages. The man had no mouth. Or rather, his wind-hole and mouth were the same thing. Between his legs, below where his mouth should be, below his flat stomach, was something else, a stiff rod which was, in fact, a sperm-hole. No ova, just sperm.

  Lofduns removed its muzzle and lay on the mattress. The man climbed on top and began to slide his legs into its mouth, which opened wide to receive a meal such as it had never had before. And gone were thoughts of fruits, of cherries, of melons, of spices. Gone was the frightening urge to go on to second stage. Relaxing, relaxing, exploring the curves and surfaces of this moving morsel, Lofduns began very slowly to salivate. New sensations, new shapes, new tastes all gave way in importance to the uniqueness of a shared experience. For it was shared. Only the man’s head and arms lay outside, and his eyes were wide, fastened on Lofduns’ own, empty of their brash cockiness, soundlessly crying against his loud eneven breathing for something, for something more, that Lofduns did not quite understand, as his body twisted and pushed, rolled and slid deep in its kneading mouth, building power to the moment, to the mad surge of giving, of giving, of feeding.

  He didn’t stay long afterward. He bathed, smoked a cigarette silently, dressed, and left. They said good-bye, goodbye only. And Lofduns lay, drained of energy, its muscles aching with pleasure, on the mattress, not disappointed, not ashamed, but sad. And it thought about tomorrow night, about a different one, maybe even a woman, who would stay perhaps a bit longer, who would be perhaps a bit warmer. Another night and another meal. For there is nothing like a good meal, but a meal, it seems, is always so very short.

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  * * * *

  Gardner R. Dozois

  FLASH POINT

  BEN JACOBS was on his way back to Skowhegan when he found the abandoned car. It was parked on a lonely stretch of secondary road between North Anson and Madison, skewed diagonally over the shoulder.

  Kids again, was Jacobs’ first thought—more of the road gypsies who plagued the state every summer until they were driven south by the icy whip of the first nor’easter. Probably from the big encampment down near Norridgewock, he decided, and he put his foot back on the accelerator. He’d already had more than his fill of outer-staters this season, and it wasn’t even the end of August. Then he looked more closely at the car, and eased up on the gas again. It was too big, too new to belong to kids. He shifted down into second, feeling the crotchety old pickup shudder. It was an expensive car, right enough; he doubted that it came from within twenty miles of here. You didn’t use a big-city car on most of the roads in this neck of the woods, and you couldn’t stay on the highways forever. He squinted to see more detail. What kind of plates did it have? You’re doing it again, he thought, suddenly and sourly. He was a man as aflame with curiosity as a magpie, and—having been brought up strictly to mind his own business—he considered it a vice. Maybe the car was stolen. It’s possible, a’n’t it? he insisted, arguing with himself. It could have been used in a robbery and then ditched, like that car from the bank job over to Farmington. It happened all the time.

  You don’t even fool yourself anymore he thought, and then he grinned and gave in. He wrestled the old truck into the breakdown lane, jolted over a pothole, and coasted to a bumpy stop a few yards behind the car. He switched the engine off.

  Silence swallowed him instantly.

  Thick and dusty, the silence poured into the morning, filling the world as hot wax fills a mold. It drowned him completely, it possessed every inch and ounce of him. Almost, it spooked him.

  Jacobs hesitated, shrugged, and then jumped down from the cab. Outside it was better—still quiet, but not preternaturally so. There was wind soughing through the spruce woods, a forlorn but welcome sound, one he had heard all his life. There was a wood thrush hammering at the morning, faint with distance but distinct. And a faraway buzzing drone overhead, like a giant sleepy bee or bluebottle, indicated that there was a Piper Cub up there somewhere, probably heading for the airport at Norridgewock. All this was familiar and reassuring. Getting nervy, is all, he told himself, long in the tooth and spooky.

  Nevertheless, he walked very carefully toward the car, flat-footed and slow, the way he used to walk on patrol in ‘Nam, more years ago than he cared to recall. His fingers itched for something, and after a few feet he realized that he was wishing he’d brought his old deer rifle along. He grimaced irritably at that, but the wish pattered through his mind again and again, until he was close enough to see inside the parked vehicle.

  The car was empty.

  “Old fool,” he said sourly.

  Snorting in derision at himself, he circled the car, peering in the windows. There were skid marks in the gravel of the breakdown lane, but they weren’t deep—the car hadn’t been going fast when it hit the shoulder; probably it had been already meandering out of control, with no foot on the accelerator. The hood and bumpers weren’t damaged; the car had rolled to a stop against the low embankment, rather than crashing into it. None of the tires were flat. In the woods taking a leak, Jacobs thought. Damn fool didn’t even leave his turn signals on. Or it could have been his battery, or a vapor lock or something, and he’d hiked on up the road looking for a gas station. “He still should have ma’ked it off someway,” Jacobs muttered. Tourists never knew enough to find their ass in a snowstorm. This one probably wasn’t even carrying any signal flags or flares.

  The driver’s door was wide open, and next to it was a child’s plastic doll, lying facedown in the gravel. Jacobs could not explain the chill that hit him then, the horror that seized him and shook him until he was almost physically ill. Bristling, he stooped and thrust his head into the car. There was a burnt, bitter smell inside, like onions, like hot metal. A layer of gray ash covered the front seat and the floor, a couple of inches deep; a thin stream of it was trickling over the door jamb to the ground and pooling around the plastic feet of the doll. Hesitantly he touched the ash—it was sticky and soapy to the touch. In spite of the sunlight that was slanting into the car and warming up the upholstery, the ash was cold, almost icy. The cloth ceiling directly over the front seat was lightly blackened with soot—he scraped some of it off with his thumbnail—but there was no other sign of fire. Scattered among the ashes on the front seat were piles of clothing. Jacobs could pick out a pair of men’s trousers, a sports coat, a bra, slacks, a bright child’s dress, all undamaged. More than one person. They’re all in the woods taking a leak, he thought inanely. Sta’k naked.

  Sitting on the dashboard were a 35-mm. Nikon SI with a telephoto lens and a new Leicaflex. In the hip pocket of the trousers was a wallet, containing more than fifty dollars in cash, and a bunch of credit cards. He put the wallet back. Not even a tourist was going to be fool enough to walk off and leave this stuff sitting here, in an open car.

  He straightened up, and felt the chill again, the deathly noonday cold. This time he was spooked. Without knowing why, he nudged the doll out of the puddle of ash with his foot, and then he shuddered. “Hello!” he shouted, at the top of his voice, and got back only a dull, flat echo from the woods. Where in hell had they gone?

  All at once, he was exhausted. He’d been out before dawn, on a trip up to Kingfield and Carrabassett, and it was catching up with him. Maybe that was why he was so jumpy over nothing. Getting old, c’n’t take this kind of shit anymore.

  How long since you’ve had a vacation? He opened his mouth to shout again, but uneasily decided not to. He stood for a moment, thinking it out, and then walked back to his truck, hunch-shouldered and limping. The old load of shrapnel in his leg and hip was beginning to bother him again.

  Jacobs drove a mile down the highway to a rest stop. He had been hoping he would find the people from the car here, waiting for a
tow truck, but the rest area was deserted. He stuck his head into the wood-and-fieldstone latrine, and found that it was inhabited only by buzzing clouds of bluebottles and blackflies. He shrugged. So much for that. There was a pay phone on a pole next to the picnic tables, and he used it to call the sheriff’s office in Skowhegan. Unfortunately, Abner Jackman answered the phone, and it took Jacobs ten exasperating minutes to argue him into showing any interest. “Well, if they did,” Jacobs said grudgingly, “they did it without any clothes.” Gobblegobblebuzz, said the phone. “With a kid?” Jacobs demanded. Buzzgobblefttzbuzz, the phone said, giving in. “Ayah,” Jacobs said grudgingly, ‘I’ll stay theah until you show up.” And he hung up.

 

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