The Creatures of Man

by Howard L. Myers

  She nodded vaguely, said goodbye, and left the shop. How could a man who could repair something as marvelously intricate as a damn-TV set be unimportant? she wondered.

  That was just one more unsolvable puzzle of the Earth people, she concluded. They made big importances out of little things, and no importance out of great dangers and fearful problems.

  For instance, they did nothing about the horrors of the jungle lowlands.

  And she had to go down to the jungle now. She had to go there to gather the natsacher shoots to sell to the Earth people, to get money to pay the damn-TV repairman, and to buy some chocolate . . . if the new people were still selling chocolate.

  In any event, she had to gather natsacher shoots, and the thought intimidated her, almost to the point of making her whimper.

  For a while she wandered around inside the compound of the Cultural Exchange Center, peering in shop and office windows at the men and women and chimos and chimees. She realized she was merely killing time, postponing the inevitable. But maybe she would gain courage by looking at other humans, particularly the men and women.

  Maybe they looked strange, with their hair concentrated on the tops of their heads, and needlessly long there, and their peculiar stance with legs straight instead of flexed, which made them look taller than they really were. And the males almost as breastless as herself, since the Earth-women not only bore the young but also nursed them . . . an arrangement that struck Romee as so odd that she sometimes wondered if that physical absurdity might account for all the other ridiculous traits of these people.

  But the humans from Earth, for all their foibles, had courage. They were brave beyond understanding. Why, she had heard that a loud noise wouldn't even make some of them jump!

  She wished she had some of that courage right now.

  Slowly she headed for the compound's gate, then turned aside to examine the bulletin board.

  A woman was feeding in a new notice as she approached.

  "Good morning," Romee said politely. "Is that something new?"

  The woman turned and studied her. "Yes. Would you like to hear it?"

  "If you please."

  Romee hoped the new bulletin would not be another lecture on the evils of chocolate. Those lectures frightened her, and they were constantly popping up on damn-TV these days. Romee knew she was hooked on the stuff, and couldn't give it up. So, to be told over and over that it was taking years off her life was sheer torture. She had made up her mind not to believe the lectures, but she couldn't stay sure they weren't right, no matter how hard she tried.

  But it turned out that the new bulletin wasn't a lecture. The woman pressed the button and the board said: "The services of several chimos and chimees are desired for a series of tests on response to environmental stimuli. A modest stipend will be paid to participants. Apply at Exotic Psychology Office, Brown Building."

  "Thank you," Romee said to the woman, and headed once more toward the gate. Then she halted and turned. She had never heard of the Exotic Psychology Office before, which suggested it might be very new on Notcid—even newer than the replacers of the exploiters. And being new, it might have a lot of prestige and money, since Earth humans thought highly of new things.

  "How much money is a 'modest stipend'?" she asked.

  The woman frowned. "We prefer applicants who are motivated by a desire for increased understanding and cultural progress, rather than monetary rewards," she said stiffly.

  Romee thought about that, and nodded. If this was something to increase her understanding of Earth people's peculiarities, or help these people progress toward more rational behavior, she was all for it.

  "I have those motivations," she said, "but I have newly hatched young and a husband whose breasts are heavy with milk. For their sakes I must inquire about the stipend."

  This seemed to please the woman. She nodded. "The pay will be fifty cashers."

  * * *

  That was more than Romee could expect from two gatherings of natsacher shoots!

  "O.K. When do I start?" she said.

  The woman blinked. "Why . . . immediately, I suppose. Yes. Come with me, please. I'm Miss Dallas McGuire, assistant director of Exotic Psychology."

  "I'm Romee Westbrook."

  Miss McGuire led the way to the Brown Building and into a sparsely furnished office suite near the rear. She motioned Romee into a chair beside a desk, and seated herself behind it. Without complaint, Romee perched on the chair instead of squatting comfortably on her haunches.

  "We'll have to wait for Dr. Radley Truit, the director," said Miss McGuire, "but in the meantime we can fill out your application form." In a business-like manner she scribbled some words on a sheet of paper. "What is your age, Mrs. Westbrook?"

  "Twenty-two years."

  "The hatching you mentioned, was that your first?"

  "No, my second."

  "How many young?"

  "Three each time."

  "Are they all living?"

  "Yes."

  "What about your parents? Are they living?"

  Romee repressed a whimper. "No. The jungle got them."

  Miss McGuire made a clicking noise with her mouth and looked annoyed.

  "Were they on chocolate?"

  "Yes."

  "And are you?"

  "Yes."

  Miss McGuire put down her pen and gazed at Romee. "Don't you know that's bad for you, Mrs. Westbrook?" she asked solemnly. "Can't you give it up for the sake of your young, if not for yourself?"

  This was so absurd, to talk about giving up chocolate. "I've tried, but I can't," she replied, hoping to satisfy the woman. But she couldn't help adding, "I can't tell that it does me any harm, and it makes being alive much nicer."

  "Any harm?" demanded the woman sharply. "Surely, Mrs. Westbrook, you know of the tests made on the dakcha and gobhow meat animals? Chocolate is utterly alien to Notcidese life forms! It has to be harmful! Look at the evidence, Mrs. Westbrook. Before the exploiters arrived, less than a hundred years ago, the high plains of Notcid were filled with your people. Now most of them are gone. Of the bowers still standing, at least half are empty and falling into ruin. And you don't see any harm in chocolate! Really, Mrs. Westbrook!"

  Romee was so totally intimidated that she could hardly reply to any of this. She would have liked to say that no chimo or chimee ever ate enough chocolate at one time to coat their entire insides with an indigestible brown layer, which was what had killed the overfed experimental subjects, the dakcha and gobhow meat animals. Besides, she knew Miss McGuire would have an answer to that: that the pounds of chocolate fed the animals in one day was less than the hooked chimo or chimee would eat in ten years, and since Notcidese life could not assimilate chocolate, the cumulative effects could be similar. Not the coating inside the guts, of course, but harmful buildups of deposits elsewhere within the body.

  Also, Romee would have argued, if she could, that chocolate was no more alien to Notcidese life than natsach was to Earth people. And tons of natsach were exported to Earth every year, where people used it to sweeten their food. They used it because it wasn't assimilable, and thus would not make them fat as Earth sugar would. Also, natsach left no unpleasant aftertaste and did not cause disease, the way artificial sweeteners did. If natsach was so good for Earth humans, why was chocolate so bad for Notcid humans?

  And as for the rapid decline of the population . . .

  "The jungle got them," she managed to say.

  "Hah!" snorted the woman. "The jungle got them because their reflexes were debilitated, or because fear of the jungle was too much for chocolate-weakened hearts!"

  Romee had reasons to wonder if this was true, but she did not have the nerve to argue the matter with this forceful Earth human, who was going to pay her fifty cashers. So she nodded and said, "I'll try harder to kick the habit."

  "Good!" approved Miss McGuire. "Please understand, Mrs. Westbrook, nobody's blaming you or your people for this chocolate addiction. It was those
damned exploiters."

  Romee nodded again, as a short man with white hair on the bottom of his face came into the office.

  "Dr. Truit, this is our first applicant, Mrs. Romee Westbrook," said Miss McGuire.

  "Ah, fine, fine," the little man said rapidly. "I just completed setting up the test site. We can get started right away if you're ready, Mrs. Westbrook."

  "I'm ready," Romee gulped.

  "Then come along, come along."

  * * *

  He led the way out of the building with Miss McGuire bringing up the rear. Outside he cramped Romee in the back of a hovercar and got into the front seat with Miss McGuire. Much too fast for Romee's fragile peace of mind, the car whizzed out of the compound and across the rolling grassland. Romee cowered with hands over her eyes and ears till the motion stopped and the car's engine fell silent.

  "Here we are. Everybody out," said Dr. Truit.

  Romee climbed from the car and looked around. She was beginning to have doubts about this business. Of course, these new Earth humans had made it clear that they felt the best of goodwill toward the Notcidese, and wanted nothing more than to repair the harm done by the exploiters. But just the same, one never knew what to expect from Earth people. And fifty cashers was a lot of money . . . surely more than she could expect if no danger was involved.

  Still, she could see nothing that looked like a threat. They were standing on a flat hill, a few miles from the compound with nothing around them but grass, close-cropped by wandering herds of meat animals.

  Dr. Truit kicked at the stubble and muttered something about unbalanced ecology. Then he and Miss McGuire stationed themselves somewhat to one side and stood watching Romee.

  She squirmed with fright and self-consciousness.

  KRO-O-OMM!

  The sudden tremendous roar behind her sent Romee in a flying leap, completely over the hovercar. She hit the ground on all fours, skittered around and lay flat.

  "Beautiful response!" approved Truit. "Beautiful!"

  Slowly Romee recovered her wits, and peered about. Still nothing in sight except the two Earth people and the hovercar.

  "See?" said Miss McGuire. "There isn't any danger. Just a loud noise."

  "What made it?" she whimpered.

  "A piece of equipment, buried underground," said Truit, "No danger at all, Mrs. Westbrook. Stand up, please."

  Romee rose, and saw they were watching her the same as before. Well, she was going to keep facing that place where the noisemaker was hidden, so it couldn't

  KRO-O-OMM!

  Again the blast of sound came from behind her, and sent her sailing over the hovercar.

  This time she lost consciousness briefly. When she opened her eyes the two Earth people were bending over her.

  "See? It was only a noise again," Truit assured her. "You don't need to be frightened by it, or respond to it. Nothing's going to hurt you."

  "Let me help you up, Mrs. Westbrook," offered Miss McGuire.

  "No, no!" she begged, hugging the ground and sobbing. "If I stand he'll do it again!"

  "I'm not attempting to terrorize you," Truit replied frostily. "You can take a break until you settle down, and while I explain. What we wish to do is test your ability to modify, under controlled conditions, an over-response to stimuli that seems a universal flaw . . . characteristic, I mean . . . in the Notcidese psycho-physiological pattern. After you've rested a bit, we'll try it again, and this time I want you to try to modify your reaction. That is, keep rational control of yourself when the noise stimulus comes, and refrain from jumping."

  Romee felt too weak and shaky to get up and run away. She lay there wondering how Truit had captured a jungle noise in his equipment, because that was what it was. He must have set up a recorder at the edge of the jungle to get the sound, and then made it loud and close the same way one turned up the volume of a damn-TV set.

  So really, Truit was right. It was just a noise, and this wasn't the jungle. So why should she jump when she heard it?

  For that matter, why did her people jump . . . at least a little bit . . . at any loud noise? Why not ignore noise like the Earth people usually did?

  She stopped sobbing as the surprising thought struck her: maybe, in this one way, her people rather than the Earth people behaved absurdly.

  In any case, it was better to be scared and alive, with fifty cashers, than to be scared and perhaps dead in the jungle. And she just had to get her damn-TV fixed, or lose status as a bowerkeeper with her chimo. And how good it would be to have some chocolate right now!

  She had to go along with this experiment.

  Still quivering, she rose to her feet and gazed questioningly at Truit.

  "Good girl!" he approved, "I mean, very good, Mrs. Westbrook. Now remember, this time try not to jump."

  She nodded and tensed, waiting for the noise.

  When it came, her leap was half again longer than the two previous times.

  "Don't tighten up so!" snapped Truit impatiently. "Dallas, can't you get this silly aborigine to settle down?"

  "Watch it, Doc," the woman snapped back, then said softly to Romee, "Just try to relax, Mrs. Westbrook. Decide you don't care about the loud noise, that it isn't going to frighten you."

  After a while, Romee stood up again, by now too exhausted to be anything other than relaxed. When the sound came, she jerked, and fell forward flat on her face.

  "Excellent!" applauded Truit. "We modified the response! Next time, try to modify it still more, and not fall down."

  But when Romee stood and the sound came, she jerked and fell again. Three more trials produced the same results, and Truit was getting extremely cross. This had tensed Romee up again, and it was all she could do to limit her response to merely falling down.

  As she lay on the ground after the latest trial, she heard a different Earth human yell, "Are you idiots trying to scare the natives out of their limited wits? What's going on here?"

  She lifted her head to see a second hovercar settle to the ground nearby, and Hector Grandolph, Director-in-Charge of the Cultural Exchange Center, come waddling out of it. When he saw her, he stopped in his tracks and pointed at her. "Who's that, and what's going on here?"

  "Why, ah, yes, Mr. Grandolph," stammered Truit. "Yes. Yes, indeed. How are you today, sir? Well, yes, we have been running a little experi—a little examination, with the cooperation of Mrs. Eastwood here—"

  "Westbrook," corrected Miss McGuire numbly.

  "Yes, that is to say, Mrs. Westbrook agreed to cooperate with us, for the advancement of cultural understanding—"

  Grandolph growled. "Don't cover it with crap, Truit! This was illegal experimentation, as you know damned well! What were you trying to find out . . . how much it would take to scare this poor creature to death?"

  "On the contrary, sir," retorted Truit, stiffening. "We were seeking only to ameliorate her fright response by . . ."

  "Nuts! Both of you can start packing when you get to the compound! You're going back to Earth on the next ship!" Grandolph waddled over to Romee and hunkered down beside her. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm tired is all," she said. Very slowly she rose to her feet. "When do I get the fifty cashers?" she asked.

  Grandolph's face looked as if it might explode. "Did they offer you fifty cashers to cooperate in this experiment?"

  "Yes."

  The big man turned to glare at the culprits. "Your names are mud from now on," he growled. "Count on it."

  "What about my fifty?" Romee persisted.

  "You'll be awarded damages, chimee," said Grandolph, "and I would guess that'll come to several hundred cashers."

  Romee did not dare risk a reply to such astonishingly good news as that. She stood waiting in silence for the money. Was it supposed to come from Truit or from Grandolph? she wondered.

  Truit presumably had nothing to lose by talking, because he was doing a great deal of it. "We were doing her no harm at all," he was protesting. "At one time the Notcidese were
obviously jungle creatures, for whom the fright response and nervousness in general were a necessary survival pattern. They escaped the predator that emits the pre-attack roar by leaping.

  "When they left the jungle for the plains, after developing rudimentary herding and agricultural skills, they no longer needed the fright response," Truit continued, "but so far they haven't lost it. This may be taken to indicate their sojourn on the plains has been relatively brief. However, the fright response is now a handicap to their cultural creativity. They cannot undertake innovative activities that require extensive forward cerebration, such as plains-cultivation of natsacher shoots, or supra-bower social organization, because too much of their energies are absorbed by fright activities. Thus, the test being conducted by Miss McGuire and myself was—"