Having spent most of the day getting its body heat down, it was now in the process of getting it up again, against the comparative coolness of the night. In the morning, it would bask to get its heat up again, coming slowly from torpor to full activity, and then setting out on the day’s hunt. Like all cold-blooded creatures, the allosaur’s metabolism was closely linked with external conditions; it was little more than a thermometer with legs and teeth. To Dyak, the matter appeared more simply: the thing got restless toward sunset.
After a brief sprawl in the shade, the cruncher moved back onto its rock, into the heat. As it went, Dyak slid off his rock. He had seen what he wanted. The cruncher often grew kittenish and accidentally felled trees and branches with its tail. There was a good sturdy length of branch lying in the other side of the clearing. Using all cover, Dyak worked his way round toward it. He trimmed it with his knife. It was crude, but it was what he needed.
He tucked it into the plaited belt he wore about his middle.
Encumbered by his armory, he now climbed a tree and crept along a branch that left him suspended almost directly over the cruncher. The only drawback with this position was that the sun was almost in his eyes.
He had not reckoned for this factor. The sun was lower than he had thought, and he must hurry. Pulling out his knife, he looked down at the cruncher—to find it looking up at him.
The big animal had finally maneuvered itself into a position of comfort, and was huddled on the rock on its belly and its head resting on its forelegs. A sound in the tree had caught its attention, and it swiveled its gaze upwards, scanning the foliage with two baleful yellow eyes.
Though it was fast on the run, Dyak knew that its reflexes in other respects were slow. Before it could move, he jumped down at it.
He landed on the rock, on the balls of his feet, just by its neck. As it moved to get up, its head came forward and it opened its savage mouth. Dyak thrust forward with the broken branch, punching forward with all his weight, holding the branch out like a shield. He jammed it between the open jaws, hard.
Instantly he ducked. The talons were coming up for him. And with the same movement, the cruncher was rising to its feet. Dyak slithered a couple of paces and jumped. He grabbed the creature’s neck and swung himself onto it. It began at once to rear and plunge, growling savagely deep in its throat, so that he could feel the vibration under his clenched hands. The world spun about him, but he clung tight hoping only that the wicked tail would not sweep him from his perch.
For all the terror of those moments, when he knew that if he fell he was lost, Dyak had chance enough to see that his branch had done what it was intended to do. The cruncher’s jaws were wedged open; the branch was jammed behind its teeth, and half its efforts were devoted to removing the wedge. Its forelegs were clawing its face dreadfully, drawing blood.
Keeping his hands linked, Dyak wormed his way to a better position up the neck of his bucking mount. Roaring now with its fury, the cruncher reared up, lost its balance on the slippery rock and slipped sideways, falling on its haunches among bush.
Dyak was almost flung clear, but he used the moment to grasp the creature’s throat tightly with one arm and draw his knife. He struck just as it leaped up and plunged anew into the undergrowth. The blade burst down through one of those glaring yellow eyes.
He was at once thrown free, as all the muscles of the creature’s body were galvanized with pain. He lay half-stunned in the middle of a bush, all the wind knocked out of him. The cruncher screamed with agony and anger, and began thumping the wounded side of its head against a rock.
Feeling that if he did not move at this movement, he would never be able to move again in his life, Dyak tore himself from the bush, dodged in past that murderous flailing tail and once more hurled himself at the monster’s skull. He mistrusted his ability to pierce the armored flesh of the cruncher, but the eyes were a safe target.
With something like a dive, he hurled himself at the cruncher’s good eye. Using all the strength in his right arm, he brought down the weapon, down, down, deep into the squelching eye, pushing in deep through pulp and blood with all the fury of his life behind the blow. Then the great tail came around and knocked him flying.
When he regained consciousness, it was to find himself stuck head foremost in a rhododendron bush. It was a while before he could bring himself to move and drag himself out. He was scratched from head to foot, and soreness filled his left shoulder where the creature’s armored tail had struck him. It was growing dark, and he was alive.
The cruncher lay in the center of a wide area of broken vegetation and churned-up soil. Its tail still slapped the ground, but it was to all intents and purposes finished. He had pierced it to the brain.
Slowly, he climbed to the top of a nearby boulder. The sky was stained red with sunset, just as it was every night, and the red was reflected in the river, so that the water looked like blood. He put his right hand to his mouth and began to call Semary.
At first his call was quiet and directed to her. Then life began to return fully to his veins, and he looked down at the mighty creature that he—he, alone!—had destroyed. Triumph filled him. Ignoring the ache, he raised his left hand too to his open mouth, and began a series of whooping calls that spread out across the valley. Louder and louder they grew, and more piercing. His lungs were inspired.
Nor did he stop when Semary ran into the clearing and stood to marvel at the defeated beast.
The world should know his prowess! It was a mighty tabletop victory.
<
* * * *
The time to decide who is going to manufacture and market synthetic life is now. . . . The curse of most great scientific discoveries is man’s failure to plan ahead for their sensible application. There is no excuse for repeating that mistake in the matter of synthetic life. We have ample notice that science is trying to produce it, reasonable expectations that it will succeed, and plenty of precedents to suggest the problems that this success will create.
This sounds like the sort of thing that makes them keep saying science is catching up with science fiction. Actually, it is Russell Baker, keeping his usual jump ahead of both science and fiction from the vantage point of The Observer•.
What level of intelligence must the manufacturer maintain in a synthetic man? The Federal Communications Commission permits television to conform to the twelve-year-old mind, which the industry presumes to be the national norm. Should the government require the synthetic-man industry to maintain a twelve-year-old intelligence level in its product?
Among the probable problems he surveys (color, sex, obsolescence, governmental controls, etc.) he does not seem to anticipate any trouble with the churches, and perhaps—between the ecumenical trend in religion and the metaphysical direction of scientific philosophy – there need be none. Possibly the churches (especially the more puritanical sects?) will accept a new process for an old product —man-made man—as eagerly as they welcomed the archaeological work that uncovered the Dead Sea Scrolls?
In any case, I feel there is a sincere effort being made on both sides: as witness Dr. Tschirgi’s report, from the pages of a scientific journal whose fearless reopening of the evolution controversy a few years ago (discussed in the 9th Annual) should certainly establish it as a suitable medium for the consideration of religio-scientific matters.
Dr. Tschirgi appends the following note to his paper: Several years ago, on the flattering but faulty assumption that I possessed some sort of expertise in fluid and electrolyte physiology, I was invited to be a guest discussant by the UCLA Medical Society for a series of scholarly case histories on the “salt-saving syndrome.” This was a gracious attempt by the clinicians to recognize the unlikely chance that a physiologist might make a small but effective contribution to clinical pathology. At least it was felt that, what with Supreme Court concern over discriminatory practices and civil rights, such a comradely invitation might help to avert a menacing demonstration and boycot
t by the basic scientists. Having foolishly agreed to this exposure, I soon realized that I must either withdraw ignominiously or prepare some pseudo-erudite presentation with which to uphold the honor of Physiology.
* * * *
TITLE: A SINGULAR CASE OF EXTREME ELECTROLYTE BALANCE ASSOCIATED WITH FOLIE A DEUX
[Reproduced from Worm Runner’s Digest, 1965, VII, 2 (78-79).]
AUTHOR: ROBERT D. TSCHIRGI
University Dean of Academic Planning University of California, Berkeley, California
* * * *
The Case of L. W.
Chief Complaint (obtained from husband): Sudden collapse during cross-country hike.
Present Illness: This approximately forty-year-old, well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian female, a refugee housewife of Mediterranean extraction, was D.O.A., accompanied by her husband and two daughters aged twenty and twenty-one. The patient’s history was obtained from her husband, who was somewhat incoherent and appeared to be a latent schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur.
The family had been moderately successful sheepherders along the eastern Mediterranean seaboard, and no previous history of electrolyte balance could be elicited. However, descriptions of strange nocturnal behavior by the uncle-in-law of the deceased might represent a tendency toward mental instability in the husband’s family. During a sheep drive several weeks before the patient’s death, her husband and his uncle quarreled over the disposition of some of the sheep, and they separated with the husband apparently harboring paranoid delusions.
The acute onset of the patient’s terminal disease was inextricably woven into a bizarre hallucinatory episode of her husband, during which he described voices and visions warning him of impending disaster. His behavior during this episode was sufficiently irrational to arouse the neighbors, who attempted to calm the disturbed man by humoring him and offering to dispose of the visions by forcibly ejecting them from his house. Rather than allaying his fears, this served only to aggravate his paranoia, and he forced his wife and two daughters to leave their home and accompany him in a rigorous cross-country flight, during which the patient developed the acute and fatal episode of her disease.
The patient had delivered two normal pregnancies at home, with no history of edema or toxicity. She had at no time complained of excessive thirst, and was apparently free of symptoms until the fatal, fulminating attack. Very little family history was obtainable, but no similar condition was known on either her paternal or maternal side.
Psychologically, the patient appears to have been completely dominated by her husband and his uncle, and to have become so submerged in her husband’s mental aberrations that she began to share his hallucinations and delusions. This transference to her husband of an unresolved Electra complex may well have been the psychosomatic basis for the altered adrenocortical physiology which seems to have been responsible for her terminal disease. We cannot, of course, eliminate the possibility of a libidinous attraction towards her uncle-in-law, who, no doubt, represented the more masculine father figure. This multifaceted ambivalence and superego-id conflict resulted in schizoid withdrawal and an attachment to mysticism centered around her husband’s psychotic manifestations. Indeed, the subsequent history of her two daughters who were seen in their third trimester, having become pregnant incestuously, indicates the pervasive and malignant nature of this psychiatric problem.
At autopsy, the primary findings were those characteristic of right heart success, recently described by Assali as “tissue drought,” and attributed by him to vagus imbalance causing the heart to beat counter-clockwise. The tissues were dehydrated and friable, and the sodium and chloride content of the body fluids was extremely elevated. The adrenal glands were hypertrophied bilaterally, and histologic examination revealed marked hyperplasia of cortical cells.
Final Diagnosis: This is believed to be a unique case of acute, fulminating salt-saving syndrome resulting from a primary hypertrophy of the adrenal cortices. There can be little doubt that chronic psychosomatic forces interacted with a genetic predisposition to generate the constellation of pathologic factors involved in this remarkable case. The suddenness of onset of the final illness, the rapidly downward and fatal course, and the absence of previous symptoms lead one to suspect that the emotional shock to the patient of seeing her home destroyed minutes after her escape with her family produced an overwhelming hyper-adrenalcorticism.
* * * *
Then the Lord caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But Lot’s wife behind him looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.—Genesis XIX, 24-26.
* * * *
I am pleased to report, Dr. Tschirgi’s note concludes, that I was laughed off the podium.
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* * * *
I don’t know about science, but scientists are catching up with s-f—again. Last time around, we had physicists and engineers; this time, it looks to be the people from the “life sciences”—biology, medicine, biochemistry, psychology, zoology—who are turning to the medium. (Something new has distinctly been added when the Canadian Medical Association Journal runs a science-fiction serial, clearly so marked. “The Adventures and Times of Eosilred, Prince of Elfour: A Bloodtime Story,” by Ian Rose, is a pulse-quickening saga of vascular warfare through the main arterials of a universe known as “He.” And the odd thing is, it’s good.)
Meantime, poetry is catching up with science fiction (and/or vice-versa). In Britain, poetry-and-s-f has virtually a Movement of its own. Here in the states, the situation—as with fiction—is less focused, but the same trend is evident. It started in the “little magazines,” two or three years ago. Now you find Dick Allen in Antioch Review, Sonya Dorman in the Saturday Review, Gerald Jonas in F&SF, R. P. Lister in the Atlantic, Tuli Kupferberg in East Side Review—and how many others, I cannot begin to guess; I mention only those I have happened to notice—plus, of course, the original poetry-and-s-f man, John Ciardi. (Fifteen years ago, when Ciardi and I were both visiting members of the late Fletcher Pratt’s Chas. Addams household on the New Jersey shore, Ciardi was editing a series of science-fantasy books for Twayne, and it was from him that I had my first fiction assignment: a chance to write a story without regard to the magazine-market restrictions or demands.)
* * * *
A MAGUS
JOHN CIARDI
A missionary from the Mau Mau told me.
There are spores blowing from space.
He has himself seen an amazing botany
springing the jungle. Fruit with a bearded face
that howls at the picker. Mushrooms that bleed.
A tree of enormous roots that sends no trace
above ground; not a leaf. And he showed me the seed
of strange lettuces that induce
languages. The Jungle has come loose,
is changing purposes.
Nor are these vegetations
of the new continuum the only sign.
New eyes have observed the constellations.
And what does not change when looked at?—coastline?
sea? sky? The propaganda of the wind reaches.
Set watches on your gardens. What spring teaches
seed shall make new verbs. A root is a tongue.
I repeat it as he spoke it. I do not interpret
what I do not understand. He comes among
many who have come to us. He speaks and we forget
and are slow to be reminded. But he does come,
signs do appear.
There are poisoned islands far over:
fish from their reefs come to table, and some
glow in the dark not of candlelight. A windhover
chatters in the counters of our polar camps.
A lectern burns. Geese jam the radar. The red phone
rings. Is there an answer? Planes f
rom black ramps
howl to the edge of sound. The unknown
air breaks from them. They crash through.
What time is it in orbit? Israeli teams
report they have found the body, but Easter seems
symbolically secure. What more is true?
How many megatons of idea is a man? What island
lies beyond his saying? I have heard, and say
what I heard said, and believe. I do not understand.
But I have seen him change water to blood, and call away
the Lion from its Empire. He speaks that tongue.
I have seen white bird and black bird follow him, hung
like one cloud over his head. His hand,
when he wills it, bursts into flame. The white bird
and the black divide and circle it. At his word
they enter the fire and glow like metal. A ray
reaches from him to the top of the air,
and in it the figures of a vision play
these things I believe whose meaning I cannot say.
Then he closes his fist and there is nothing there.
* * * *
Ciardi’s column in the Saturday Review (where he also presides as poetry editor) is called “Manner of Speaking,” and in its flexible space he speaks in, and of, all sorts of manners. You never know as you find the page whether it will be prose or poetry, angry or tender, playful or professional: only that you will be marvelously well entertained, or deeply moved, or both, and probably learn something as well.
The Year's Best Science Fiction 11 - [Anthology] Page 23
