The Metallic Muse

by Lloyd Biggle Jr

  Allen exclaimed, “Where did you get it?”

  In the bottle lay a jagged fragment, splotched red an yellow and black, that twisted and curled and uncurled.

  “Didn’t you hear about the great leather battle?” Hilks asked.

  “I heard,” Allen said.

  “Great fight while it lasted. One small infantry patrol managed to convert two Cloaks into about a hundred cloaks, and this thing—” He nodded at the bottle. “This thing got left behind. It was only an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, and it was too small to fly. I think one of the men must have stepped on the edge of a Cloak and pinched it off. Anyway, it was found afterward, so we’ve been studying it. I started feeding it insects, then I gave it a baby mouse, and the thing literally grows while you watch it. Now it’s grown big enough to fly, I’ve stopped feeding it.”

  “But this is just what you needed!” Allen exclaimed. “Now you can find a way to wipe the things out!”

  “Yeah? How? We’ve tried every poison we could think of, not to mention a nitric acid solution that Ferguson dreamed up. It seems to like the stuff. We’ve tried poison gases, including some hush-hush things the military flew in. You can see how healthy it looks. Now I have my entire staff trying to think up experiments, and I’m just sitting here hating the thing.”

  “Anything new from Venus?”

  “Yeah. They found a cousin of Elmer the snail, so they kindly let us know that we could keep ours. Good joke, eh? I sent them my congratulations and told them the Night Cloaks have already eaten Elmer. Since the Cloaks absorb bones, they probably can absorb snail shells, too. Elmer’s kind may be one of their favorite foods.”

  “What does Venus have to say about the Night Cloaks?”

  “Well, they’re very interested in what we’ve been able to tell them, and they thank us for the information. They’re going to keep their research teams out of the Great Doleman Swamp until we can tell them how to cope with the things. Other than that, nothing.”

  “Too bad. I’d hoped they might know something.”

  “It’s a lot worse than you realize. Venus has been so damned smug about the whole catastrophe that some of our politicians have decided to resent that. There’s a movement afoot to ban travel to Venus and close down all the Venusian scientific stations. The other planets may be next, and then perhaps even the moon. After triumphantly moving out across the Solar System and hopefully taking aim at the stars, man crawls ignominiously back into his shell. Some of the pessimists think it may take us generations to handle the Cloaks, and in the meantime the Mississippi basin will become uninhabitable as far north as Minnesota and perhaps above the Canadian border in summer. Whatever happens, I’m betting that the well-dressed man will be wearing a lot of leather. The well-dressed woman, too. Do you have any bright ideas for us to work on?”

  “I ran out of bright ideas on the third day,” Allen said. “If your mind isn’t occupied with anything else, you might work on this one: Where are all the Night Cloaks?”

  “The military seems to be keeping good track of them. That’s one thing it does well.”

  “We have a rough tabulation of the minimum number that should be around, and we have records of all the sightings. As far as we can tell, about ninety per cent have disappeared.”

  “We figured they had periods of dormancy.”

  “Sure. But if they’re going dormant on us, why hasn’t someone found a dormant Night Cloak somewhere? We’re worried because we have no notion of what their range is. If they ever get established in the Central and South American jungles, it will take us generations to root them out.”

  “Do you mind if I hang around?” Allen asked. “The last friend I had on the general staff just ordered me out of the Contaminated Zone, but I don’t think he’ll come here looking for me.”

  Hilks grinned. “What have you been up to?”

  “I keep giving advice even when I’m not supposed to. I raised a ruckus because I didn’t see much sense in picking Night Cloaks apart just to make more smaller Night Cloaks. And then they were designing a new leather uniform to be used in Cloak hunting, and I suggested that instead of wearing such ghastly uncomfortable armor they just give everyone a bath in tannic acid, or whatever the stuff is they use to make leather, and soak their clothing in it at the same time. That was when he threw me out. He said he had ten million scientists telling him what to do, and he had to put up with them, but he didn’t have to put up with me. So—what’s the matter?”

  “Tannic acid?” Hilks said.

  “Isn’t that the stuff? Probably it’d dry up or evaporate or something and not work anyway, but I thought—”

  Hilks was already on his way to the door. “Meyers!” he shouted. “Get your crew in here. We have work to do.”

  By coincidence Allen entered the room first. The general, looking up sharply from his desk, flushed an unhealthy crimson and leaped to his feet. “You! I told you—”

  Hilks stepped around Allen. “Meet my assistant,” he said. “Name of Allen.”

  The general sat down again. “All right I have my orders. Hilks and three assistants. I have the protective clothing ready for you, and I have a place picked out for you and a patrol to take you there.”

  “Good,” Hilks said. “Let’s get going.”

  “My orders also say that I’m to satisfy myself as to the soundness of whatever it is you propose to do.”

  “We’ve developed a spray we’d like to try out on the Cloaks,” Hilks said.

  “What’ll it do to them?”

  “You know we have a specimen to work on? The spray seems to anesthetize it. Of course there’s a difference between spraying a Cloak sliver in a bottle and spraying a full-sized Cloak in open air.”

  “You really don’t know, then.”

  “Of course not. That’s why we’re making the experiment”

  “You’re asking me to risk the lives of my men—” “Nope. All we want them to do is show us where the Night Cloaks are and get out of the way. I’m not even risking the lives of my own men. Allen and I will do the testing.”

  The general stood up. “Tell me. I’m not asking for a prediction, damn it. Do you think this stuff might work?”

  “We’ve had a lot of disappointments, General,” Hilks said. “We’re fresh out of predictions. But yes, we think it just might work.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “The scientific staff will have a couple of openings. That’s not much of a risk for a general to take, is it?”

  The general grinned. “You’re brave men. Anything you want, take it. And—good luck!”

  As Allen dropped the plane into the small clearing, the pine forest took on an unexpectedly gloomy aspect. “Cover us while we’re dressing,” Allen said. He and Hilks climbed out and quickly slipped into the leather suits.

  Meyers and another young scientist named Wilcox watched them anxiously. “Wasn’t there a better place than this?” Meyers asked.

  Allen shook his head. “All the other locations are swampy. Night Cloaks seem to be attracted to swamps, but I’m not. Also, they only saw two of them in this area. Two are enough for beginners like Hilks and me.”

  “Sure you don’t want us to come along?” Meyers asked, as they donned their spray tanks.

  Hilks shook his head. “One of the problems has been the total absence of witnesses. If we’d known exactly what happened with each victim, maybe we’d have solved this long ago. You’re our witnesses. You’re to record everything we say, and we’ll try to describe it so you can understand what’s happening. If we don’t come back, you’ll know what went wrong.”

  Meyers nodded unhappily. They fastened their plastic face guards, picked up the spray guns, and waved a cheerful farewell.

  “No undergrowth,” Allen observed as they entered the trees.

  “It’s a Co-op Forest,” Hilks said. “That means we’re trespassing.” “So are the Night Cloaks.”

  They walked briskly for a couple of miles, t
urned, and started to circle back. “Better check in with Meyers,” Allen said. “He’ll be turning somersaults.”

  Hilks switched on his radio. “Haven’t seen a thing,” he announced.

  “Man, you must be blind!” Meyers blurted at them. “There was one right overhead when you started out. It followed you.”

  They turned quickly and stared upward. For a moment they saw only the cloudless sky through the treetops, and then a blur of color flashed past.

  “Okay,” Hilks said. “It’s flying above the trees—waiting for reinforcements, maybe. We’ll keep moving toward the plane. When they attack we’ll put a couple of nice big trees at our backs so they won’t be able to get at us from behind. If I can find a tree as big around as I am, that is.”

  “Keep your radios on,” Meyers said.

  “Right.”

  They moved at a steady pace, keeping close together and taking turns looking upward.

  “Two of them, now,” Hilks announced. “They’re circling. They look like small ones.”

  Two minutes later it was Allen’s turn. “I just counted three,” he said. “No, four. They’re coming down—get ready?’

  The Cloaks dropped through the trees with amazing speed. They plummeted, and Allen, backing up to a tree, had no time for more than the split-second observation that they were unusually small, one being no more than a yard across. All four of them curved toward him. He gave the first one the spray at ten feet and then cut it off. The Cloaks were gone.

  Hilks was chuckling as he talked with Meyers. “They got one whiff of the stuff and beat it.”

  “Now we won’t know what’ll happen to the one I sprayed,” Allen said.

  Hilks swore. “I didn’t think about that. The most we can claim is that they don’t particularly like the stuff.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Allen said. “Here they come again.”

  They were wary. They dipped down slowly, circled, sailed in and out among the trees. Only the small one ventured close, and it shot upward when Allen gave it a blast of spray.

  “For what it’s worth,” Allen said, “the small ones are hungrier than the big ones.” “It figures,” Hilks said.

  Meyers, sitting far away in the plane, made unintelligible noises.

  The Cloaks did not return immediately. Allen and Hilks peered upward searchingly, and finally Allen asked, “What do we do now?”

  “Add the score and go home, I suppose. The stuff doesn’t have the punch we hoped for, none of them dropped unconscious at our feet, but at the same time we can claim a limited success. It drives them off, which is more than anything else was able to accomplish. We can develop pressurized containers for self-defense and put the chemists to work making the stuff more potent. Shall we go back?”

  “Not yet,” Allen said. “Here they come again.”

  They came, and they continued to come. They seemed not to have noticed Hilks in their first rushes, but now they divided their attention and swooped down in pairs again and again. They were coming closer before they turned upward, flying through the clouds of spray. Once the small one brushed against Allen.

  “They can’t be that hungry,” Hilks said.

  “No. They’re angry. That’s what the spray does to them. It maddens them. Are you listening, Meyers?”

  “We’d better get moving,” Hilks said. “The spray won’t last forever. Let’s leapfrog. I’ll cover you, and then you cover me.”

  Meyers cut in. “If you can find a clearing, I’ll pick you up.”

  “We’ll let you know,” Hilks said. “In the meantime, keep a close watch on the forest. With them on our backs we might miss your clearing.”

  “Right,” Meyers said.

  Allen made a short dash, placed a tree at his back, and turned to cover Hilks. The sudden movement seemed to infuriate the Cloaks. All four shot after Allen. Three of them turned away as he pointed the spray upward. The small Cloak hovered over him for a moment, taking the full, drenching blast. Then the pressure faded, the spray gun sputtered and cut off, and the Cloak fell upon Allen.

  Allen thrust at it, but it encircled and clung to his arm. Hilks raced toward him, drenching both Allen and the Cloak with spray. Pain seared and stabbed at Allen’s arm, and he staggered backward and fell. He must have blacked out, for he had no memory of the moment when the Cloak released him. He regained consciousness with Hilks standing over him and turning aside the Cloaks with blasts of spray. He pushed himself to a sitting position and stared down at the throbbing numbness that had been his arm.

  “Are you all right?” Hilks asked anxiously. “Can you walk?”

  “I—think so.” Allen got up unsteadily. “My spray is gone.”

  “I know. You started before I did, but I can’t have much left.”

  Allen was examining his arm. “Bad?” Hilks asked.

  “Clear to the bone in one place,” Allen said. “Fortunately it’s not bleeding.”

  “So we’ve learned another thing,” Hilks said. “Even leather won’t stop them when they’re riled up or really hungry.”

  “Can we do anything?” Meyers asked.

  “Just watch for us. We’ll have to make a run for it. We’ll start after their next rush. Ready?”

  “Ready,” Allen said.

  They darted off through the trees.

  But the Cloaks were after them in a fluttering rush. Hilks turned, warded them off, and they ran again.

  “It’s no good,” Hilks panted. “My spray is almost finished. Not much pressure left. Any ideas?”

  Allen did not answer. Hilks sprayed again, turned for another dash, and fell headlong over the protruding edge of a large rock. He scrambled to his feet and both of them stood staring, not at the Circling Cloaks, but at the rock, which inexplicably humped up out of the ground and seemed to float away. After a dozen feet it bumped to the ground. Encrusted dirt fell away from it.

  “The devil!” Allen breathed. “It’s Bronsky’s snail. And look at the size of it!”

  “Here comes the Cloaks,” Hilks said. He aimed the spray gun.

  But he did not use it. As the Cloaks dropped down through the trees, a tongue-like ribbon of flesh shot out from the enormous shell, broadened, folded back, and dropped to the ground with a convulsive shudder of satisfaction. And the Cloaks were gone.

  They watched in fascination as the flesh heaved and twisted and finally subsided and began slowly to withdraw.

  Meyers, screaming wildly into the radio, finally aroused them. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

  “Sure,” Hilks said. “Everything is all right now.”

  “What about the Cloaks?”

  “They’ve just been eaten.”

  “What did you say? Beaten?”

  “Eaten,” Hilks said. “I have the picture now. All of it. How about you?”

  Allen nodded. “The snail is the Cloak’s natural enemy. Or the Cloak is its favorite food. This one was more or less happy with Bronsky until one day it smelled or otherwise sensed a Night Cloak in the vicinity. If we hadn’t put an army to beating the woods and shooting at it, it probably would have eliminated the menace at once. As soon as we

  stopped bothering it, it started eating Cloaks, and it’s been eating them ever since. That’s where the missing Cloaks went. They aren’t hibernating, or migrating, they’re in the snail. Look how it’s grown! How big did Bronsky say it was?”

  “About six feet.”

  “It’s ten feet now. At least. There’s the answer to our Cloak problem. Forget the spray and the leather clothing. Clear everyone out and leave it to Elmer. Have Venus ship us the snail they have and as many more as they can find. Are you recording, Meyers?”

  “Recording,” Meyers said happily. “I got the whole thing. Just as the Cloaks were about to finish you off, that snail came galloping up and ate them.”

  “Not exactly,” Allen said. “But close enough. What’s Elmer doing now?”

  “It sees us,” Hilks said.

  They watched. Th
e pinkish flesh flowed out slowly, thickened, stood upright. Then, before their disbelieving eyes, it suddenly took shape and color and became the snaky caricature of a once-lovely Venus.

  “Allen!” Hilks hissed. “That thing has a memory! It has the proportions wrong, but the image is still recognizable.”

  “It thinks we’re an audience,” Allen said. “So it’s performing. Bronsky said it was just a big ham.” He walked toward it.

  “Watch yourself!” Hilks said sharply.

  Allen ignored him. He approached the snail, stood close to it, looked up at the wreathing head of Venus.

  The Venus collapsed abruptly. The flesh quivered, thrust up again, and became a hazy, misshapen caricature of John Allen, complete with face mask, wounded arm, and dangling spray gun. Somewhere behind him he heard Hilks choking with laughter. Allen ignored him. He extended his sound arm and solemnly shook hands with himself.

  THE END

  *** Book information below not current after 1974!!! ***

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