Half Past Human (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by T. J. Bass

  His eyes narrowed. Any mother who would plead for her unborn child was always suspect. That kind of base animal instinct was bad for hive cohesion.

  ‘Five-toeds just cannot live in the hive,’ he explained. ‘The gene carries Immunoglobulin A. Inappropriate Activity is always a danger. We just can’t risk it.’

  Dee Pen swallowed dry and snapped to attention. ‘Of course, you are absolutely right. We’ll chuck it down the chute immediately after it is born.’

  Val waited for her to leave. Then he called Watcher.

  ‘Better see that Security closes all the shaft caps in those cities with the buckeye rape pregnancies. We don’t want those heterozygotes going flower and crushing crops.’

  ‘Right,’ said Watcher. ‘Doors will ask for authorization prior to allowing anyone Outside.’

  With a smug grin Val returned to his cot. He had eliminated the last buckeye Outside, now he’d see that none of the offspring survived . . . inside.

  Labor for Dee Pen began in the meld. The family-5 felt the first pains together. Loosening the meldasm, they continued to soul-share – Dee Pen, Walter, Arthur, Bitter and Venus – while the infant, little Kaia, came into the light. The bright, new eyes blinked around at a circle of five pasty white faces. The infant’s own face was hairy with lanugo. Ten hands lifted and wrapped him. Ten arms hugged him.

  After the heat of the meld had subsided, Bitter suggested that they dispose of little Kaia.

  Dee Pen felt weak and hypotensive. Her flaccid uterus leaked blood. The generous vascular network which had nourished the placenta continued to pour maternal erythrocytes into the endometrial cavity – and now there was no syncytium to return the red cells to her. The fetal syncytium was gone. The myometrial smooth muscle fibers which surrounded the vascular spaces had been stretched by the pregnancy and fatigued by labor. They could not contract and close down the leak. They only twitched ineffectually against the escaping red flood.

  The primordial fear of exsanguination triggered her ancient mammalian reflex – the reflex that had protected mothers up through the evolutionary tree. She put the infant to her breast. Sucking initiated her nipple-midbrain-uterine reflex arc. As the large collecting ducts were emptied of milk, sacral synapses jumped and the uterine fundus clamped down tight. Smooth muscle fibers closed off the vessels of the placental site. Her blood stream bypassed the endometrium. It was no longer needed there.

  Dee Pen glanced suspiciously at her circle of Nebish friends. Her arm held little Kaia protectively. There was no rush in disposing of him. The circle of faces gave her no support – they were Good Citizens.

  ‘We can’t divide calorie-basic,’ reminded Bitter.

  ‘Don’t take him yet,’ pleaded Dee Pen. ‘My fundus will go lax and I’ll bleed again.’

  Walter squeezed her uterus and nodded: ‘She’s right. Needs the infant to contract her fundus. We’ll keep it for a while. I’ll apply for piece work. Perhaps I can earn a few extra calories.’

  Walter sat by the cot after the others left. Dee Pen smiled up at him in the pleasant delirium of postpartum fatigue.

  ‘You know, Walter,’ she said dreamily, ‘in my next life I’d like to come back as a bird. A talking bird. I’d just sit on your shoulder and talk – and talk.’

  He put a protective hand on the sleeping form – a pale, slight female with a pink nose. Just like a philosopher to talk about coming back – and choosing an extinct animal – female logic.

  Walter’s request for a part-time job went up through the hive hierarchy. He waited nervously – calorie-basic eroding his body stores of metalloproteins – iron, copper, cadmium and zinc enzyme complexes. He accepted the first assignment eagerly – companion/monitor for the Pathomeck dissecting Kaia’s remains. After two days of dissection he was again able to order the expensive flavored calories with higher MDRs of proteins containing the transition elements between atomic numbers 23 and 30 – building up his catalase, myoglobin, hepatocuprein, leukocyte-Zn-protein, and metallothionein stores.

  The job was interesting too. Walter had always been curious about the buckeye’s anatomic differences. He knew they carried more proteins and minerals in their bodies – less fat and water. The Pathomeck was programmed to accept the Good Citizen’s body as normal – and so the buckeye’s findings were listed as diseases. Walter smiled to himself at the designation of Pituitary Gigantism for the buckeye frame – a full foot and a half taller than the Nebish. Hemosiderosis – for the iron-rich tissues. Polycythemia – for a hemoglobin of 16 grams per cent – four times that of the Nebish. Dehydration – for the absence of edema fluids and the high plasma proteins. Six grams per cent of plasma protein seemed high to Walter, who knew he only carried half that himself. Osteopetrosis – or ‘iron bone disease’ – for the buckeye bone – ten times stronger than ‘the Nebish disease’ – reading 1.0 on the Grube-Hill densogram.

  Walter accepted the massive muscles as a reflection of the physical existence outside the hive. The buckeye’s elevated neurohumoral axis resulted in hypertrophy of the vestigial endocrine organs – ten times larger than the Nebish. Kaia’s pituitary was so large that Walter could see it with his naked eye. Citizen pituitaries were microscopic. Adipose tissue was almost absent – Cachexia. A Nebish body had a specific gravity of less than 0.85. It always floated. Kaia’s body read 1.005. It sank in fresh water.

  Dissection went smoothly until the prostate was found. At first the Pathomeck was puzzled. Nebish anatomy made no mention of this primitive organ related to territorial integrity. Kaia’s prostate was a definite organ weighing over fifty grams. Again Walter smiled at the significance – the five-toeds would never fit into the hive as long as they carried a prostate this size – fifty grams of glands and fibromuscular stroma at the neck of the bladder made committee work impossible.

  At the end of his assignment, fat Walter saw to it that Kaia’s melanin-rich hide was mounted on his iron bones in a dignified pose behind vacuum glass. Biolabs indexed Kaia’s specimen cubes and cared for the display case – labelled ‘The Last Buckeye.’ It saddened old Walter.

  Val took pleasure in the display, especially the Big ES labels utilizing disease states to enumerate buckeye differences.

  10

  Olga

  During the months that followed, Val did his chores with the suicides – bird jumpers, and the flower and mushroom catatonics. He worried about the buckeye heterozygotes. Few had been turned into patties so far. The mothers delayed. Well, they could keep them until they began to walk and talk.

  Watcher wasn’t concerned. Doors had been admonished to allow only authorized personnel exit. Calorie rewards were offered to any citizen reporting attempts to go Outside.

  Val strolled absently through his old office at Hunter Control. More junk had accumulated. Many corridors were impassable. Thick spongy dust covered everything. He saw footprints in the dust and followed them down to Garage. He found fat Walter hunched over the workbench putting a vacuum into rebuilt meck eyes. Walter glanced up and greeted Val.

  ‘They work better at ten-to-the-minus-six torr. More stable too,’ said Walter.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here. What about your heart?’

  ‘I’m lots stronger. Got a job doing piecework on optics. Using some of the gear Tinker left. The vacuum pump he rebuilt certainly is an improvement over the leaky vacuum lines.’

  Val glanced around. One of the bays was empty.

  ‘Who moved the chassis?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s Doberman’s bay,’ said Walter. ‘The crazy guitar took him.’

  Val strolled over to the empty bay. Nothing was damaged. Servomecks rested in their recessed sleeves. Odd. The Huntercraft’s power cell also sat in its recess – the core being replated.

  ‘Impossible!’ grumbled Val. ‘The craft is dead without its power cell. It can’t go anywhere.’

  Walter shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps that crazy guitar can make a dead Huntercraft fly just as easily as it makes a dead buckeye walk
—’ he suggested.

  Val ran over to the rewired buckeye detector cables. Putting the wall map on delayed and latent images he tried to project sightings. Nothing. The map showed crops and Agromecks.

  ‘That damned guitar is beginning to irritate me. I bet it is the brains behind the RUDEE too,’ spat Val.

  Dee Pen struggled up from shaft base with her load of calorie-basic – staple foodstuffs. She had grown thin and weak while little Kaia thrived. He crawled at six months – a year earlier than Nebish children. She knew the chucker team was accustomed to sluggish hive children. They shouldn’t be coming for him yet. She entered the living room and glanced around.

  ‘Where’s little Kaia?’ she asked, apprehensively.

  Female Bitter sat at the table munching a dry tube sandwich. The outer door had been left carelessly ajar.

  ‘Crawled out to the spiral,’ said Bitter. ‘The chuck wagon picked him up.’

  ‘Not the chuck wagon!’ screamed Dee Pen, dropping her groceries and dashing for the door. She ran, fell and ran again. The dreaded chuck wagon was the Big ES solution to the anxiety of the chucker team. Instead of throwing a net over the unwanted kids and dragging them off to the pattie press – kicking and screaming – they had one brightly-clad Nebish show up with a little wagon full of toys. The unauthorized child would be lured into the wagon and hauled off gooing and cooing quietly. Dee Pen fell again. Skin peeled down on her right knee. She rounded a corner and knocked down three fat, docile citizens.

  She saw the wagon.

  Little Kaia was still in it, hugging a fuzzy round doll with one big eye and one small eye. The chucker pulling on the wagon wore a bright apron with colored drawings. He stopped when he saw Dee Pen approaching. She was bleeding from the knee and appeared agitated enough to attack him. He wasn’t being paid to use force.

  ‘My baby. My baby,’ she sobbed, picking him up. His little hands clutched the fuzzy toy.

  ‘I’m afraid that I will have to report—’ began the apron-clad Nebish.

  Her glare silenced him.

  Bitter was surprised to see Dee Pen and the child.

  ‘We’re going Outside,’ said Dee Pen. ‘Can we have some of your credits for rations?’

  Bitter shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid to cooperate – the Big ES has rules, you know. It is foolish for you to try it. You’ll just wither and die out there. So will the child.’

  ‘I’ve got to try it. Either way – it makes little difference to my baby. At least this way I’m giving him a chance.’

  As she left, Bitter shouted: ‘You are throwing your life away for nothing – he’s just a little heterozygote.’

  Bitter called Security to claim the reward.

  ‘Unauthorized,’ said Door.

  Dee Pen hurried around the top spiral trying door after door. Below on the spiral she heard the ominous marching of the Security Squad. She trembled. Little Kaia cried.

  Far across the spiral the baby’s voice activated a latent memory circuit. ‘Ward of Gitar – this way out,’ called open Door.

  Walter and Val picked up the diaper. A wet spot remained on the Harvester’s fender.

  ‘Not too panicky,’ commented Val. ‘She paused long enough to change a diaper and pick up items from the garage dispenser. The buckeye must have had a class six with him – to give all those latent orders to Door and Dispenser.’

  Walter nodded. A class six. Rank higher than Watcher. The mecks were just following orders.

  ‘She can’t get far,’ said Val. ‘What did the dispenser give to her?’

  Walter read the flimsy – protective clothing, diapers, medipacks. Very carefully planned.

  Door gave them four inches to peek out. Sunlight glared.

  ‘Well, we can’t follow them without our own protective gear. Say! What is this item she took?’ said Val, studying the list.

  ‘Jodphurs,’ said Walter. ‘Baggy riding breeches.’ He glanced uncomfortably at one of the empty bays.

  ‘Riding?’ exclaimed Val. ‘What is there to ride—? Oh. Tiller is missing.’

  He stepped to the wall console and opened a channel to Tiller. The missing meck promptly answered.

  ‘Where are you?’ demanded Val.

  ‘Working in the fields – doing my chores.’

  ‘Did you give anyone transport this morning?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the meck. ‘A mother with child. My itinerary is on file.’

  Val projected the map.

  ‘He dropped them off in the plankton towers. Come on.’

  They put in an order for Cl-En suits and helmets. Walter balked at the archery gear.

  ‘This is a Hunt,’ reminded Val.

  ‘But that is my Dee Pen – little Jolly body,’ objected Walter.

  ‘You are a Sagittarius,’ Val retorted. ‘Remember your duty to the hive. Dee Pen has broken the law by going Outside. Now she crushes crops. If you can talk her back inside – fine. The psych team can handle her. If not—’ Val made a wicked gesture with his trophy knife.

  Walter nodded and lowered his old head. ‘I’ll – come – along.’

  Their search of the plankton towers proved fruitless. In the weeks that followed, Val doggedly reviewed optic records from hundreds of Agromecks – charting the sightings of Dee Pen. He hunted on foot in his spare time.

  Almost three years after the Big Hunt at 50:00, the Big ES awarded class five birth permits to all the squadron leaders.

  ‘Class five,’ commented Josephson. ‘Human uterus, mate of choice – a hybrid!’

  Val stood beside him at the ceremony. He leaned over and whispered to Josephson.

  ‘After all, we did rid the planet of a very undesirable life form – the dreaded buckeye. For such service the hive should allow us to mate with whomever we choose. Being such loyal citizens, our judgment on genes would be very pro-hive. We’re the best.’ He smiled.

  After the awards Val and Josephson retired to a Rec Center to enjoy a fifteen-layer pousse-café. Val strawed off the top layer of Kirsch and then dove for number eleven – the maraschino.

  Watcher interrupted.

  ‘Sighting in Garage – sector nine-oh-three – city forty-five-Vee-seven.’

  Val turned to the screen to adjust the incoming optic records. ‘Probably that crazy guitar, again. It has been luring citizens Outside with some primitive Pied Piper songs.’

  As the screen focused they saw a group of swaying citizens crowded around the wheels of a recharging Tiller. The bay also contained Gitar. But the dull-witted citizens had formed a circle around a naked female – long-haired and polarized. She danced the same hip-rocking dance Val had seen Dee Pen do before her rape. The pelvic gyrations reminded him of Dee Pen, but the image was not clear enough for positive identification. There was no sign of the infant.

  Val tossed his head back – downing his tall, layered drink. Choking and spitting, he explained that he had to leave.

  ‘Check out the sighting. I’ve been tracking a fugitive female for a long time now. Looks like she has linked up with that renegade guitar. I’ll tube over and try to catch them in the garage.’

  Josephson looked concerned. He had heard of Gitar’s exploits. Val was unarmed.

  ‘The archery gear?’ asked Josephson.

  ‘No time to pick it up,’ said Val. ‘Besides, they are inside. I can use the manual Door controls and get a platoon of Security guards to assist me. But there should be no problem. Dee Pen is a frail, weak little thing. I can handle her.’

  Josephson put a restraining hand on Val’s arm.

  ‘Just the same,’ he began, ‘I’d feel a lot safer if you wore an autonomic depolarizing collar. We can pick one up at the Watcher Clinic on the way over.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ said Josephson. ‘I can monitor your autonomic response if the Pied Piper tune is focused on you. You’ll be safer – I can depolarize by remote. I’ll stay out of sight in one of the lower cubicles so my own autonomies will be safe
.’

  ‘Come along,’ scoffed Val. ‘But you don’t have to be so serious. I’m not going up against a bewitching siren, you know – just a meck and a Howell-Jolly body.’

  The collar was heavy and irregular – with all the pickups. Val was satisfied with his biolectricals as they danced across Josephson’s screen. The depolarizing current wasn’t painful; however, it did cause the discomfort of extra systole when it tugged on his heart beat. Val stalked upspiral and through an open door into the garage. The crowd of Nebishes had grown. The music was pleasant – but not particularly hypnotic. He was disappointed; but, then, he didn’t think he would be susceptible anyway.

  Garage’s outer doors were closed. Lights had been turned low. The dancing form moved among the shadowy Agromecks – movements which seemed to be too vigorous for a Nebish. Val edged forward through the dull crowd. An occasional citizen tapped his toe. The dancer was not Dee Pen – she was a coweye.

  Val recoiled at the sight of the stained and pigmented body. Calloused feet clicked across the composition floor as she kept time with the music. Val felt no magic. She was just an average coweye – ugly to him – with the nostrils and high cheek bones of an animal. She clapped her hands and shook her head. The tempo edged upward as Gitar sought a frequency that would resonate Val’s thoracic autonomies. Val felt a 200-hertz drumbeat tug on his diaphragm.

  Her hard soles scuffed as her iliopsoas muscle tightened – the fist-sized muscle that ran through her pelvis like a female filet mignon from lumbar vertibrae to femurs – entraining her pelvic motion to the rhythm of the music. Val’s eyes followed her hip gyrations, adding visual stimulation to auditory. His cortex struggled to remain free from entrainment.

  She showed her gleaming teeth, eyes wide, and tossed her head about – long hair lashed like shocks of wheat being threshed. Sweat. The salty eccrine beaded up on her forehead and upper lip – then began to trickle – streaking the gyrating muscular form. Myotonia enhanced sternocleidomastoid and rectus.

  Gitar added a pounding surf to match Val’s respirations, drums matched his pulse, and guitar strings matched his cephalic waves. Val’s cortex saw the coweye through responding sacral autonomies – she became a female – no longer alien. Her chants of love and freedom made sense to him. He relaxed and smiled – clapping his hands.