A Different Flesh

by Harry Turtledove

  A couple of sims stepped away to take food, opening a gap in the crowd.

  "There, do you see?" Wingfield said triumphantly. No matter how dirty she was (quite, at the moment), smooth, pink Joanna could never be mistaken for a baby sim.

  As if to make that pikestaff-plain, one of the sim infants lay beside her on a bed of grass and leaves. Terror stabbed Wingfield as an adult ran its hand down his daughter's chest and bel y, but then it did the same to the hairy baby next to her. It stared at its palm, as if not believing what it had felt.

  The sim Wingfield had wounded held up one of Joanna's hands, then that of the infant of its own kind. Then it held up their feet in the same way. The other sims grunted. Some looked at their own hands and feet, then toward Joanna's. Except for size and hairiness, there was not much difference between their members and hers.

  But then the sim patted Joanna's smooth, rounded head, and that was nothing like what the tiny sim next to her had. Already its brow beetled bonily, and above it the skull quickly retreated. Noticing that, one of the adults rubbed her own receding brow. She scratched, for all the world as if lost in thought.

  "What are they playing at?" Henry Dale whispered harshly.

  Wingfield, at a loss, could only shrug.

  Caleb Lucas said, "If a tribe of devils set up housekeeping outside London and we wished to learn of what they were capable, were it not wise for us to seize on a small one, knowing ful well a grown devil would drag us straight to perdition?"

  "Why are you dragging in devils?" Dale did not have the type of mind that quickly grasped analogies.

  Allan Cooper did. "Youngster, meseems you've thrown your dart dead center," he said. "To the sodding sims, we must be devils or worse." He stopped, then went on, sounding surprised at where that line of thought was taking him, "Which would make them men of a sort, not so? I'd not've believed it."

  Wingfield paid more attention to Joanna than to the argument. She was still crying, but did not seem in dreadful distress. It was her hungry cry, not the sharper, shriller one she used when gas pained her or something external upset her.

  The female sim that had scratched its head might have been the mother of the infant with whom Joanna was being compared. It took Joanna away from the wounded sim and lifted her to a breast. The baby nursed as eagerly as if it had been Anne. Wingfield told himself that was something his wife never needed to know.

  He invented and discarded scheme before scheme for rescuing his daughter. The trouble was that the sims would not leave her alone.

  Even while she was feeding, they kept coming up to stare at her and touch her. She ate on, blissful y oblivious to everything but the nipple.

  "By God, I shal get her back," Wingfield said.

  He spoke loud enough to distract Allan Cooper. "What? How?" the guard said.

  And then Wingfield knew what he had to do. "Do you three cover me with your weapons," he said, "and should the sims harm Joanna or should I fall, do as you deem best. Otherwise, I conjure you not to shoot."

  Before his comrades' protests could more than begin, he got up from his concealment and walked into the light of the sims' fire.

  The first sim to see him let out a hoot of alarm that made the rest of the band whip their heads around. He walked slowly toward the fire, his hands empty and open; he had left his crossbow behind when he rose.

  Had the sims chosen to, they could have slain him at any instant He knew that. His feet hardly seemed to touch the ground; they were light with the liquid springiness fear gives. But the strange unreality of the moment gripped the sims no less than him. Never before had an Englishman come to them alone and unarmed (or so they must have thought, for the pistols in his boots did not show, in truth, he had forgotten them himself).

  But then, the sims had never stolen a baby before.

  Females snatched up youngsters and bundled them away in their arms as Wingfield passed. Lucas had it right, he thought wryly; it was as if Satan had appeared, all reeking of brimstone, among the Jamestown cabins.

  He stopped a few feetin front of the male he had fought. That one had stooped to grasp a sharp stone; many of them lay in the dirt round the fire. But the sim made no move to attack. It waited, to see what Wingfield would do.

  The Englishman was not sure if the sim knew him. He pointed to the plastered-over cut he had given; to the bruise and scab on his own forehead; to Joanna, who was still nursing at the female sims breast.

  He repeated the gestures, once, twice.

  The sims broad nostrils flared. Its mouth came open, revealing large, strong teeth. It pointed from Wingfield to Joanna, gave a questioning grunt.

  "Aye, that's my daughter," Wingfield said excitedly. The words could not have meant anything to the sim, but the animated tone did.

  It grunted again.

  Wingfield dug in his pouch, found a strip of smoked meat, and tossed it to the sim. The sim sniffed warily, then took a bite. Its massive jaw let it tear and chew at the leathery stuff where the Englishman had to nibble and gnaw, and made its smile afterward a fearsome thing.

  When Joanna finally relinquished the nipple, the sim holding her swung her up to its shoulder and began pounding her on the back. The treatment was rougher than Wingfield would have liked, but was soon rewarded with a hearty belch. The female sim began to rock Joanna, much as Anne would have.

  Wingfield pointed to his daughter, to himself, and then back in the direction of Jamestown. As best he could, he pantomimed taking Joanna home. When he was done, he folded his arms and waited expectantly, trying to convey the attitude that nothing but going along with his wishes was even conceivable.

  Had he hesitated, faltered for an instant, he would have lost everything. As it was, that aura of perfect confidence gave him his way. None of the sims moved to stop the female when it came forward and set Joanna in his arms.

  He bowed to it as he might have to a great lady of the court, to the sim he had fought as to an earl. Holding Joanna tightly to him, he backed slowly toward the brush where his companions waited. He expected the tableau to break up at any moment, but it held. The sims watched him go, the firelight reflecting red from their eyes.

  He was close to the place from which he had come when Caleb Lucas said from the bushes, "Splendidly done, oh, splendidly, Edwardi" His voice was a thread of whisper; none of the sims could have heard it.

  "Aye, you have the girl, and good for you." Henry Dale did not try to hold his voice down. Indeed, he rose from concealment. "Now to teach the vermin who stole her the price of their fol y." He aimed a pistol at the sims behind Wingfield.

  "No, you fool!" Lucas shouted. He lunged for Dale at the same moment the sims cried out in fear, fury, and betrayal.

  Too late, the pistol roared, belching flame and smoke. The lead ball struck home with a noise like a great slap. The sim it hit shrieked, briefly.

  With a lithe twist, Dale slipped away from Caleb Lucas.

  His hand darted into his boot-top for his other pistol. The second shot was less deliberately aimed, but not a miss. This time the screams of pain went on and on.

  By then Wingfield was among the bushes. Behind him, the sims were boiling like ants whose nest has been stirred with a stick. Some scrambled for cover; others, bolder, came rushing after the Englishman.

  A stone crashed against greenery mere inches from his head.

  "No help for it now," Henry Dale said cheerfully, bringing up his crossbow. The bolt smote a charging sim square in the chest. The sim staggered, hands clutching at the short shaft of death. It pitched forward on its face.

  More rocks flew. Wingfield turned to one side, to try to shield Joanna with his body.

  Allan Cooper got to his feet. "God damn you to hel for what you make me do," he snarled at Dale. He fired one pistol, then a second, then his crossbow.

  A sharpened stone tore Wingfield's breeches, cut his thigh. Had it hit squarely, it would have crippled him. The sims were howling like, lost souls, lost angry souls. Dale was right, no hel
p for it now, Wingfield saw. His pistol bucked when he fired one-handed. He did not know whether he hit or missed. In a way, he hoped he had missed. That did not stop him from drawing his other gun.

  "You purposed this all along, Henry," he shouted above the din.

  "Aye, and own it proudly." Dale dropped another sim with a second crossbow bolt. He turned to kick Caleb Lucas in the ribs. "Fight 'em, curse you! They'll have the meat from your bones now as happily as from mine."

  "No need for this, no need," Lucas gasped, swearing and sobbing by turns. But whether or not that was true, he realized, as Wingfield had, that there was no unbaking a bread. His pistols barked, one after the other.

  But the sims on their home ground were not the skulking creatures they were near Jamestown. Though half a dozen lay dead or wounded, the rest, male and female together, kept up the barrage of stones. Their missiles were not so deadly as the Englishmen's, but they loosed them far more of often.

  One landed with a meaty thud. Allan Cooper, his face a mask of gore, crumpled slowly to the ground.

  He turned to Wingfield, who was struggling to fit another bolt into his weapons groove. "Go on!" he shouted. "You have what you came for.

  I'll hold the sims. As you say, I am to blame here."

  "But, "

  Dale whipped out his rapier. Its point flickered in front of Wingfield's face. "Gal Aye, and you, Caleb. I promise, I shal give the brutes enough fight and chase to distract 'em from you."

  He sprang into the clearing, rushing the startled sims. One swung a stout branch at him. Graceful as a dancer, he ducked, then thrust out to impale his attacker. The sim gave a bubbling shriek; blood gushed from its mouth.

  "Gal" Dale yelled again.

  Without Joanna, Wingfield would have stood by the other Englishman no matter what he said. When she squalled at the rough treatment she was getting, though, he scrambled away into the woods. Lucas fol owed a few seconds later.

  For as long as they could, they looked back at Henry Dale. After that first one, no sim dared come within reach of his sword. He stayed in the clearing for what seemed an impossibly long time, stones flying al around him.

  At last he turned. "Catch me if you can!" he shouted, brandishing his rapier. Wingfield saw how he limped as he ran; not every stone had missed. Dale dashed through the undergrowth, going in a different direction from his comrades and making no effort to move quietly. His defiant cries rang through the night. So did the sims' bellows of rage as they pursued him.

  "You make for home," Caleb Lucas urged Wingfield. "I will give Henry such help as I may."

  "They will surely slay you," Wingfield said, but he knew he would not hold Lucas back. Had their positions been reversed, he would not have wanted the youngster to try to stop him.

  Just then, the sims' shouts rose in-a goblin chorus of triumph.

  Screams punctuated it, not al from an English throat. As Dale had promised, he did not die easily. Caleb Lucas sobbed.

  "Come," Wingfield said softly, his own voice breaking. "Now we have but to save ourselves, any way we may."

  And So to bed

  Sims made people

  look at themselves and their place in nature differently from the way they had before.

  They showed the link between humans and animals far more clearly than any creatures with which Euro peons had been familiar before.

  Had there been no sims, had the Americas been populated by native humans, say, or only by animals-the development of the transformational theory of life might have been long delayed. This would have slowed the growth of several sciences, biology being, of course, the most obvious of them. Speculating on might-have-beens, however, is not the proper domain of history. The transformational theory of life was first put forward in I66I. After that, humans' view of their place in the world would never be the same

  From The Story of the Federated Commonwealths May 4, I66I.

  A fine bright morning. Small beer and radishes for to break my fast, then into London for this day.

  The shambles on Newgaoe Street stinking unto

  heaven, as is usual, but close to it my destination, the sim marketplace. Our servant Jane with too much for one body to do, and whilst I may not afford the hire of another man or maid, two sims shall go far to ease her burden.

  Success also sure to gladden Elizabeth's heart, my wife being ever one to follow the dame Fashion, and sims all the go of late, though monstrous ugly. Them formerly not much seen here, but since the success of our Virginia and Plymouth colonies are much more often fetched to these shores from the wildernesses the said colonies front upon. They are also commenced to be bred on English soil, but no hope there for me, as I do require workers full-grown, not cubs or babes in arms or whatsoever the proper term may be.

  The sim-sel er a vicious lout, near unhandsome as his wares. No, the truth for the diary: such were a slander on any man, as I saw on his conveying me to the creatures.

  Have seen these sims before, surely, but briefly, and in their masters'

  livery, the which by concealing their nakedness conceals as well much of their brutishness. The males are most of them well made, though lean as rakes from the ocean passage and, I warrant, poor victualing after. But al are so hairy as more to resemble rugs than men, and the same true for the females, their fur hiding such dubious charms as they may possess nigh as well as a smock of linen: nought here, God knows, for Elizabeth's jealousy to light on.

  This so were the said females lovely of feature as so many Aphrodites.

  They are not, nor do the males recall to mind Adonis. In both sexes the brow projects with a shelf of bone, and above it, where men do enjoy a forehead proud in its erectitude, is but an apish slope.

  The nose broad and low, the mouth wide, the teeth nigh as big as a horse's (though shaped, it is not to be denied, like a man's, the jaw long, deep and devoid of chin. They stink.

  The sim-sel er full of compliments on my coming hard on the arrival of the Gloucester from Plymouth, him having thereby replenished his stock in trade.

  Then the price should also be not so dear, says I, and by God it did do my heart good to see the ferret-faced rogue discomfited.

  Rogue as he was, though, he dickered with the best, for I paid full a guinea more for the pair of sims than I had looked to, spending in all 6s.4d. The coin once passed over (and bitten, for to ensure its verity), the sim-seller signed to those of his chattels I had bought that they were to go with me.

  His gestures marvelous quick and clever, and those the sims answered with too. Again, I have seen somewhat of the like before.

  Whilst coming to understand in time the speech of men, sims are without language of their own, having but a great variety of howls, grunts, and moans. Yet this gesture-speech, the which I am told is come from the signs of the deaf, they do readily learn, and often their masters answer back so, to ensure commands being properly grasped.

  Am wild to learn it my own self, and shal . Meseems it is in its way a style of tachygraphy or short-hand such as I use to set down these pages. Having devised varying tachygraphic hands for friends and acquaintanoes, 'twill be amusing taking to a hand that is exactly what its name declares.

  As I was leaving with my new charges, the sim-seller did bid me lead them by the gibbets on Shooter's Hil , there to see the bodies and members of felons and of sims as have run off from their masters. It wondered me they should have the wit to take the meaning of such display, but he assured me they should. And so, reckoning it good advice if true and no harm if a lie, I chivied them thither.

  A filthy sight I found it, with the miscreants' flesh all shrunk to the bones. But boo! quoth my sims, and looked close upon the corpses of their own-kind, which by their hairiness and flat-skul ed heads do seem even more bestial dead than when animated with life.

  Home then, and Elizabeth as delighted in my success as am I. An excellent dinner of a calf's head boiled with dumplings, and an abundance of buttered ale with sugar and cinnamon, of which in celeb
ration we invited Jane to partake, and

  she grew right giddy. Bread and leeks for the sims, and water, it being reported they grow undocile on stronger drink.

  After much debate, though good-natured, it was decided to style the male Tom and the female Peg. Showed them to their pallets down cellar, and they took to them readily enough, as finer than what they were accustomed to.

  So to bed, right pleased with myself despite the expense.

  May .. An advantage of having sims present appears that I had not thought on. Both Tom and Peg quite excellent ratters, finer than any puss-cat. No need, either, to fling the rats on the dungheap, for they devour them with as much gusto as I should a neat's tongue. They having subsisted on such smal deer in the forests of America, I shall not try to break them of the habit, though training them not to bring in their prey when we are at table with guests. The Reverend Mr. Milles quite shocked, but recovering nicely on being plied with wine.

  May 8. Peg and Tom the both of them enthral ed with fire. When the work of them is done of the day, or at evening ere they take their rest, they may be found before the hearth observing the sport of the flames.

  Now and again one will to the other say boo!, this noise, I find, they utter on seeing that which does interest them, whatsoever it may be.

  Now as I thought on it, I minded me reading or hearing, I recall not which, that in their wild unpeopled haunts the sims know the use of fire as they find it set from lightning or other such mischance, but not the art of its making. No wonder then they are Vulcanolaters, reckoning name more precious than do we gold.

  Considering such reflections, I resolved this morning on an experimtnt, to see what they might do. Rising early for to void my bladder in the pot, I put out the hearthfire, which in any case was gone low through want of fuel. Reired then to put on my dressing gown and, once clad, returned to await developments.