Stress Pattern

by Barrett, Jr. , Neal

  They were gone.

  I had not grown attached to any of them. Phretci, in his own way, had taught me how to shop for food and water. We had broken the language barrier together. In a sense, we attracted the same type of female.

  We were not, by God, going to be worm-mates.

  I watched the creature move sluggishly away. A gigantic, smelly brush. Taken in again by the old bulb in the Groove trick.

  I wondered where it was going. Most likely, someplace exactly like this one.

  And Andrew Gavin. What about him? What do economists do in the wilderness? I already knew the chilling answer to that one. They eat bulb food and drink bulb water until they go out of their academic skulls. Which doesn't take overly long.

  I ran.

  I tried to remember the approximate silt where Phretci had disappeared. Slipped in a quarter-second before the thing slapped shut behind me.

  It was, I decided, a hell of a way to get to work in the morning.

  And then I threw up my entire cargo of bulb food.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Insanity of insanities.

  I had nothing else to give, but my stomach didn't know this. The smell was unbelievably worse inside. I gagged and retched until my supply of bile was exhausted. Then I hung on weakly to something fleshy and warm and tried to get my breath. The whole business nearly started again. Breathing through my mouth was helpful. But no solution.

  I knew I would eventually have to turn around and look at what I had already glimpsed during those delightful convulsive pauses. Well, I had yearned for color. Here, then, was where it had all been hiding. My piece of paper would not hold it all. Vivid, glistening pinks speckled with throbbing blues, grays, and purples. A whole array of moist reds, pulpy yellows, and—worst of all—wet greens.

  The scenery alone was bizarre enough. No players were needed to complete the picture. But players there were in plenty. Scattered in couples, parties, and singles as far as I could see in either direction. They were clearly experienced travelers and I watched them for helpful hints. Staying on your feet inside, while the worm undulated down the Great Groove, was a major problem. The regulars had solved this by squatting on their haunches and clinging to varicolored appendages. They looked like all commuters everywhere. Moving unconsciously with the motion of their particular mode of travel.

  I'm an economist, and not a painter of mental pictures. How could I adequately describe such a scene? Where would I find some good analogy? A fair comparison? So a listener could say, "Oh, it looks like that, does it?" Useless, I decided.. How many people have squatted in an endless, air-cooled gut with several dozen dun-colored commuters—clinging to little things that hang about in such places? Not many, surely.

  Eventually, I seemed to get my sea legs—if that's the word when you're in a full squat.

  There was another slight inconvenience. Though the gut was nearly three meters wide, it was occasionally necessary to shift about so bits of food could pass. These were mostly small items, usually unrecognizable—though I did see things that still resembled the bulbs we had rolled down the Groove. It seemed to me, all in all, meager nutrition for such a gigantic creature. Not that I was complaining. I reasoned, finally, that the lack of food was intentional. Whoever was in charge of this Alimentary Express would logically keep food intake to a minimum—both as an incentive for the worm to get wherever it was going, and for added passenger comfort.

  I promised myself to ask someone when the time was right.

  But like so many questions relating to this peculiar planet, the time was seldom right—and when it was, there was no one on hand who cared to answer.

  I had already spotted Phretci. He was a few meters forward, across the aisle. I thought I could make it there—I was getting used to the motion of the tract and the quick patterns of light and darkness caused by the expanding and shutting of the slits. It was still necessary, though, to have good timing. When the worm exhaled, quite a force of air came down the tunnel and out the slits. There was a danger, then, of getting blown out into the wilderness, or being deposited at the wrong station.

  I made it safely to Phretci's side and was pleased with myself. He didn't answer my greeting, but this was not surprising.

  There is really no substitute for camaraderie on a long trip.

  "Phretci," I asked, "where are we going?" Of course, I did it all wrong again.

  "There, Andrew."

  I considered another angle, then recalled the Great Water Debate. I wondered. Literal to the extreme. Sometimes, no answer at all. Perhaps some questions—and answers—were simply not relevant in Phretci's eyes. Maybe I had mistakenly attributed human qualities to him, and blamed him for alien reasoning processes. But if "Where are we going?" or "Where can I find water?" were not relevant, what was? And maybe "there" was as close as he could come to defining a destination. When we got "there" would we be "here"—with another "there" in the offing?

  Perhaps I was simply playing the inquiring professor to keep my hand in. Maybe all my wanderings of the mind could be summed up by stating Phretci and his friends were truly a sullen bunch of bastards.

  We moved along in an almost restful motion. One gets used to most anything. The unbelievable odor moved down my mental scale from "intolerable" to "awful."

  There were wet pink walls to study, interesting blue veins that throbbed and moved about. For a time, I cataloged the digested bits of garbage moving by and wondered why we, too, were not broken down into tidier packages. Of course, there would be little point in running the line if this sort of thing took place. Clearly, these processes were carried out farther forward, in gullets, crops, gizzards, or whatever.

  Most of my fellow passengers looked like Phretci, and the other two who had boarded with us. But there were variations. A short, obese creature that looked like a beige pig. Almost. Another, nearly a head taller than I was; a thin, sickly fellow with a pale olive skin. He sat with his gaunt back painfully hunched against the worm's sides, his spidery legs jammed against his chest.

  Peculiar, I thought. Different, yet all oddly alike. Simple-featured. Nothing wasted. So far, three intelligent species on one planet. And if I had seen three, there were probably more. And why hadn't one evolved as dominant, overpowering the others? Baffling, on any other world. Not so hard to answer, here. The aggression required to kill or maim your competitors is quite taxing. Apathy, I decided, was the key to survival. And the meek shall inherit the Earth. Sleep and ye shall find.

  I couldn't bear to ask Phretci how long the trip would take. If he couldn't imagine spatial distances, I did not want to get into the time scene. If it was a quarter till then, or half-past now, I didn't want to know about it. Such knowledge might well send me screaming down the intestinal halls until I was unceremoniously ejected from the aft exit. On this world, though, a fitting way to go.

  Hard to believe—but I closed my eyes and dozed. A hardened commuter. When the motion of the worm stopped I came up off the floor and barely made it through an open slit before the thing was off again. No dawdling about on this line.

  Phretci was just ahead of me. I blinked in the unfamiliar glare of daylight and decided it was midafternoon.

  From where I stood on the edge of the Groove, the land sloped slightly away. Not much. Ten degrees or so. Two hills—mounds six meters high—crowned both ends of a shallow valley. The valley was filled with small hummocks topped by Phretci-sized holes. All the world like a prairie dog town.

  The soil was a uniform powdery gray. Thirty or forty creatures moved lethargically about the area, further powdering the soil, and occasionally popping in and out of holes. They all looked like Phretci.

  Phretci!

  I glanced about in all directions. We were no longer companions. He had simply walked away while I gawked at the city sights. I might have been looking right at him, then. But as far as I knew, I never saw him again.

  No great loss, surely. But it is disquieting to lose friends as quickly as you make the
m.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I have never let the vagaries of chance guide my life.

  Set realistic goals, and work toward them. Decide what needs to be done, and do it. Suddenly, though, I was thrust into a situation where practical life-plans bordered on the ridiculous. What were my goals, now? Where was I to go? What was I to do with myself?

  Scheduling the day was no great problem. Decide where to dig for bulbs. Here. Or there. Decide whether to eat one, or two. Three, maybe, on holidays. Round out the process and choose a proper area in which to deposit the day's wastes.

  Stimulating, indeed.

  Tomorrow the stars. Or perhaps later in the week.

  To the left of the settlement the Great Groove formed a junction with another groove, which curved away from the main route and disappeared behind one of the low hills. With little else to do, I wandered to the rim of this spur line and peered down its length. Nothing. Not too surprising.

  Directly across the ditch, though, was a more interesting sight. Three short grooves cut into the spur at right angles. Two were empty, but one of the giant worms filled the other. Its sides heaved against the pit, and a crude tangle of fiber ropes kept the creature from backing into the main artery. Though I would have bet it could leave if it decided not to stay.

  As I watched, a dozen dun-colored beings appeared at the far end of the pit, near the thing's head. They dumped big fiber sacks into the hole and ambled back to wherever they'd come from.

  Food, then. Too far away, of course, to see what it was.

  Bulbs? They didn't appear to be. I wondered. If there was another delicacy on this world, and worms could eat it, maybe I could, too. I made, a mental note to ask someone, and as usual, never got the chance.

  A conclusion, then, from the keen-eyed economist: There was at least one organized effort on the planet. The worms were domesticated, fed, and run on some sort of schedule. If you cared to stretch a point, you could say I was not lost in the wilderness. I was at the hub of a great transportation center.

  The spur that disappeared beyond the hill intrigued me. I suppose because it offered another route out of the settlement. God knew where it went. Nowhere, most likely. But I had to take a look. Andrew Gavin, ever driven by the lure of strange new lands.

  I passed the hummocks and holes without stopping. There was little for me there. Though I did wonder just what all these creatures did for a living. Did they make things? Grow crops? Run taverns? Most likely, none of these.

  It was close to sunset when I reached the far side of the settlement near the base of one of the low hills. I angled up its side and followed the path of the spur line to the horizon. I could walk along its rim, and see where it led. I decided I probably would. I certainly couldn't stay here. But that would have to wait for tomorrow; shadows were crawling over the land and I didn't like the idea of hiking at night.

  There was a slight "V" directly below, where the base of the two hills came together. Well beyond the settlement, and out of the wind. As good a place as any, and I started for it. Then stopped. Something caught my eye and turned me around. A touch of color just below the top of the neighboring hill. Not much of a color, maybe—a square of brown a little lighter than the soil. More than a square, I decided. And it was too late in the day for mirages. A square with mud walls, by God, and a thatched roof!

  I raced down my hill. Bounded quickly up the side of the other. It was small, but a hut. A hut with a low door and a window. If it was empty, and it surely was, I would have fine accommodations for the night. If it wasn't, I'd simply—

  "Lissen—whajou want?"

  I stepped back a pace and a head materialized in the door. I stared and stepped back again. Great God, the thought came to me, no wonder it lives alone.

  "Well, wa'sit?" it demanded again. "Whaya! want?"

  "I'm"—I cleared my throat—"Andrew Gavin. How—how are you?"

  A sudden broad smile cut like a razor across its face. "Andrewgaffa." It appeared to like the taste of the words. "You c'monin, Andrewgaffa. 'M Thraxil. C'mon—you doin' that, OK?"

  And at that point it came fully out of its hut to greet me. And that wasn't necessary at all.

  Tall. In places. One arm short and powerful. One gaunt and bony. The left hand stubby and multi-fingered, the right long, slim, tapering to a single digit. Legs equally varied. His face was an egg crushed in the middle and hurriedly patched. A nose that began as a stub, angled off into the beginnings of a beak, then gave the whole thing up, and fell off into a snout. One eye grossly larger than the other. A mouth full-lipped on one side, a gap on the other. His head and body were covered with random patches of hair. He was dun, beige, khaki, brown, or umber—depending upon where you looked. He'd made a sorry mess of the sex problem. The less said about that the better.

  Poor bastard, I thought. He was stuck together as if he'd never quite decided what he wanted to be. Nonetheless, I followed him into the hut, thinking, ironically, that he had the friendliest smile on the planet.

  "Andrewgaffa, isit?" He eyed me curiously from a squat.

  "Yes," I told him. "It was nice of you to ask me in, Thraxil."

  The smile faded. He gave me a blank stare. "Wha'? Whasit?"

  "I said—"

  "Jusminit, Andrewgaffa. Lemme gesome light."

  Of course. I sat up at that. Another cultural milestone, nearly as significant as the hut itself.

  Reaching behind him with his longest arm, he grasped a small bowl and snaked it around between us. Flint sparks flew from his hand and a bright flame took hold. It was some kind of oil lamp, and it smelled to high heaven. But it bathed the hut in a friendly glow.

  Thraxil studied me. I could tell he wasn't sure of me yet. "Where yuocomin' from, Andrewgaffa? Huh? Wheresit?"

  "I came in on the—the—" I made a gesture.

  He grinned. "On the Dhoolh. Safternoon."

  "Yes."

  He smiled mischievously. "Thraxil's watchin'—seen you comin'" Another thought struck him. The smile faded to a brooding frown. "You're not like'm others," he said flatly. "You're li' me, Andrewgaffa."

  I didn't argue. "I guess I am," I agreed. "More like you than them, Thraxil."

  He glanced up at me sharply. Moods seemed to strike him quickly, then just as suddenly disappear. "Lissen, Andrewgaffa. They makin' you com'ere?"

  "Who?"

  "Them." He nodded glumly toward the settlement.

  "No. I was on the other hill—"

  He laughed, threw back his impossible head. "You're li' me—only you turnin' out some better!"

  I couldn't argue that, either.

  "Wheresit?" he asked again. "Where you comin' from?" He bit one corner of his lip. "You comin' ina Dhoolh. Saw that, Andrewgaffa. Howcome youridin' ina Dhoolh?" He was making himself angry, and I didn't know the answer he was looking for.

  "Thraxil," I explained, "I just—got on the Dhoolh. That's all."

  "Huh. Wheresat?"

  "Out there. There were two rocks—"

  Thraxil gestured impatiently. "'Fore that. Wheresit places y'beenin? Mhorit? Ahnsree?" His face clouded. "I wasto. Ahnsree onceit. Bad there, you seein' that?"

  "Thraxil"—I leaned forward—"I don't know any of those places. I don't come from near here."

  I didn't think it was the right time to go into the "me Earthman" business—"me professor of economics on the way to vacation on Merrivale."

  "It's a long way from here," I said. "Somewhere you probably haven't been."

  That seemed to satisfy him. He had already launched a new thought, anyway.

  "Listen, Andrewgaffa—why you gotten stuff all overyou selfit?"

  "What?" I looked down at myself, then realized what he meant. "Clothes? You mean clothes?"

  "Cloze." He tasted the word suspiciously. "Sure. Whyyou gotten cloze, Andrewgaffa?"

  "I wear clothes to keep warm."

  One hairy brow shot up. "Warm? I'm not colden, Andrewgaffa."

  "No. But it's colder where I come from
."

  "Oh." He nodded toward the settlement. "They don'gotten cloze."

  "No."

  "I thinkit I gotten cloze, though," he said thoughtfully. He reached behind him and came up with a dirty fiber mat. He drew it clumsily over his shoulders and grinned at me.

  "Zis cloze, Andrewgaffa?"

  "It looks fine. Listen, Thraxil—may I ask you something?"

  The furrowed brows again. "Whasit?"

  "Like you say, you and I are—not the same as they are. Down there. They don't say much and don't seem to do much, either. Why is that, do you know?"

  Thraxil grinned. "They bes stupids, Andrewgaffa." He laughed at, that. "Stupids. Don' liken do stuff, seeit?"

  As good an answer as any.

  "Is—everybody like that?"

  Thraxil shrugged. "Mos' ev'body." He grunted to himself, fell into some thought for a moment. Then something new hit him and he jerked up and glared at me. "Lissen—why you askit, huh?" His eyes glinted in the lamplight. "Why you askit, Andrewgaffa? You 'ready knowsat! They sendin' you to do somethin' tome? Satit?"

  "Thraxil. No one—"

  'Whathey wantin' me to do!" He moaned and rocked on his heels. "Whyn' they jus' leave melone!"

  "Thraxil. . . ."

  "Bein' tired," he snorted. "No more talkit, Andrewgaffa." He turned away abruptly and curled up against the far wall of the hut. I could hear his snores in less than a minute.

  For a while, I watched the lamp flicker. I thought about going out for bulbs and decided it wasn't worth the effort. They'd be there when I wanted them.

  Thraxil intrigued me—he was a whole new element in an already confused picture and I could think of about forty questions to ask him just for openers. Where did he come from, for instance? Why was he so extraordinarily different from the others? What was the rest of the world like? Where was there to go?