The Alexii are long-lived, according to the Delfans—perhaps more than two hundred standards. (Delfa’s year comes to two point one six standards.)
While you have my holoscans in your viewer, notice the claws and fangs. They can extrude various nasty substances, some of which are merely painful, but some paralyze and some probably kill. I qualify that last because if an Alex kills you, there’s usually not much left to analyze.
Look at the rear view: those rear fighting limbs reach out almost three meters—front, back or sideways—and the barbed tips pull you in where the other limbs can work on you. The only way we found to stop them was to cook their guts with concentrated microbeams. As you know, that can take a while, so it didn’t always save our people. I expect you’ve had access to the real casualty reports before they were whittled down for the official announcements. I personally saw Caplan buy it—halfway up the ramp into the ship, but he wasn’t fast enough and neither was his projector. I still have nightmares.
You see the picture. Still, our four-sexed Delfans need the Alexii. Which is why I ignored the orders left by my predecessor. Here’s what I’ve done: I set up one (1) barricaded enclave of Alexii. I got them in there by playing a hunch. The first field reports hinted at an interesting Alexii susceptibility to alcohol. I never saw a ship on which the cooks didn’t have a stash of boozevines; so I went upship and ‘requisitioned’ a supply of the vine and had it planted to bait a stockade. Within a week, I had all two hundred and sixteen Alexii inside, and they’re still in—most of the time.
Here’s how it works: Delfans shack up four to a hut, one of each sex, and they only warple indoors. Excess population lives outside, unprotected. When sex imbalance gets out of hand—well, the Delfan Head Cheese has been indoctrinated on how to release temporarily one (only one!) Alex from the stockade. The liberated Alex eats the surplus Delfans before he sobers up all the way, at which point he heads back to the stockade for the continuous booze party.
Sounds rough, I know. So does Terran history. Don’t judge.
It’s a balance wheel of sorts.
We’re leaving behind one guard robot, Intelligence Grade L27, suitably programmed to aid the Delfans. If anybody objects to the cost, we can bury this guard robot in the previous reports. We lost one expensive lot of guard robots to Alexii before we got those leaping horrors safely behind the barricade.
The Delfans have tagged our robot Doctor Watson, and I wish that didn’t bother me. I don’t like it when people I don’t understand do things I can’t figure for reasons that escape me—especially when it smacks of trying to butter me up. For instance, why did the head honcho take my name? But what the hell, we’re pulling out as ordered and then it’ll be somebody else’s problem. Believe me, Charlie, I’m never coming back here even if I have to resign.
Register a pause, Charlie. We’re lifted, going into noncommunicative speed shortly. What with the backwarp, I hope to see you at last year’s Grunnion Club banquet. From what I’ve heard, it was a doozy.
Regards and all that,
Hugh Scott, Captain
Alex felt sleepy. That meant he’d already had dinner—if everything else inside him was working right. He couldn’t be sure. Where was the gradischmakus Party? He found an intertwined clump of trees big enough to support him, and climbed to a level where the soft leaf-pads protected him from thorns. There, he stretched out to doze and think.
Presently, he remembered something. The memory brought him out of his doze, all eyes extended, blinking. He had missed his birthday! He was five legs of legs years old—give or take the odd few—and today the Party was for him. Some of the elders had even discussed trying to break out through the thorn barriers, leave the Party for a time!, and eat a few Hoojies to celebrate.
I missed my own Party!
He’d been there—he knew that. But things had never reached a … reached a …
What went wrong?
Alex dug angry claw gouges in his trees.
What happened at the Party?
Presently, he settled back, chewing his tongues to get out the juicy grubs. As he did this, he noticed an odd flavor—odd, but familiar. All of this … being away and forgetting—this had happened before. He sat up, stirring the trees all the way to the ground. Alex couldn’t remember much about the other times, but this one … ayah! This was a different matter.
The gremp trees with their interlaced thorny vines enclosing the Party, the gremp were hard and bitter, not good to eat. Except when Hoojies came and sprayed something on the gremp. The tree vines then became soft and delicious. You could eat your way right through the vines to the outside, provided you did it fast before the vines returned to their usual bitter hardness.
Now, Alex began to remember other things—not just Hoojies and eating his way through the gremp, but long before that: eating Hoojies whenever he got hungry.
Why didn’t I remember that earlier?
Another thing: This time the gremp had not been as soft and flavorful. Alex had barely managed to chew his way out; but there’d been three Hoojies out there tripling and he’d eaten all three. Good Hoojies. Too bad there’d been one flavor missing.
While Alex dozed and thought, darkness came; then, later, it was morning. Alex clawed and slid his way down to the ground, his mind full of remembrance. He knew where the Party was.
That’s where I belong.
* * *
RECORDING, RECORDING, RECORDING. This is Artificial Intelligence Unit, Mobile, FX-248. Query: directed to the unknown ship relieving the one which stationed me here. The natives of this planet refer to me as Doctor Watson. Am I to consider this an official sobriquet? If not, must I suffice myself with FX-248; which is not particularly euphonious? Et tu, Captain Hugh Scott wherever you are. You could have briefed me more thoroughly, for which I refer you to Field Order DZR 00039!
* * *
Moving through the village, Today’s Speaker noted a hut not firmly anchored to the earth. Sloppy work. Disdainfully he brushed through a crowd of excess squish. They pandled their pompues and even dared to touch him. “I am Hugh Scott, Today’s Speaker!” he sounded. “Away! Get away!”
They drew back, but returned in a few moments. Disgusting! Instinct drew them; he knew that, but their behavior still repelled him. Right out here in the open!
Earlier, Hugh had been impatient with Doctor Watson. What difference did a name make? You were squish, ultra, female or male. Odor marks accented the distinction. Terrans had been poor at distinguishing odors; they couldn’t even weft. Even Doctor Watson, now approaching Hugh, shared this handicap.
Hugh stopped and waited for the shiny creature to work its way through the milling, importunate squish. The morning temperature had begun to shift across his deliquescing line and he could feel himself shrinking.
Doctor Watson stopped in front of him.
“I say; what horg?” Hugh asked.
“These,” said Doctor Watson.
With a clatter, Doctor Watson held out three white objects: one a tiny fang shape, one fat and with indentations around its middle, and the third—oh, the third!—a little hoop with prickle gristle still adhering to it.
“I found these outside the Alexii stockade. They are yours, are they not?”
Hugh grinked with despair. Telltale burbles emerged from his hearing organs and he knew with shame that all the village could see his grief. Even the squish drew back. He wanted to shout: “No!” But there was no denying it: Doctor Watson held the bones of Hugh’s hutmates: Elizabeth, Wheelchair and Jimcrack. The Alexii had eaten them.
Stifling his turmoil. Hugh accepted the three bones from Doctor Watson. Sorrow urged him to find an Alex and die as his hutmates had died; then there would be four bones to share the Odorless Dark. Duty sustained him. He glanced up at Heaven’s Lamps. Yes—it was time for Today’s Speaker to perform his First Duty. With a simultaneous inhalation, Hugh took five breaths (four clear and one whuffly), then trumpeted:
“Hoojie! Hoojie!”
Obediently, the hutless squish scattered into the surrounding foliage while the villagers dispersed to the latrines within their huts.
First Duty performed, Hugh entered his empty hut. He felt the depths of bereavement here. Who had ever heard of doing this alone … unless one were hutless?
* * *
RECORDING: I proceed expeditiously in the manner of Captain Hugh Scott, who deposited me here in Delfa before I was called Doctor Watson. That also was before the Delfan who titles himself Today’s Speaker assumed the name Hugh Scott, a fact which I append to avoid confusing the recipient of this RECORD, whoever he may be. Or she may be. Humans, lacking the ultra and squish sexes, programmed me to find ulself and squelf to be awkward pronouns. I rather find this to be awkward programming which should be corrected. Now, regarding the current status of the Delfan Population Plan:
After inspecting the sample village this morning (hour 8:21 Local Day 1332) I visited the Alexii stockade. The Alexii Party was proceeding with its usual noises. As per my directives, I fertilized and tended the mutated vines whose tendrils, growing profusely into the stockade, provide an alcohol laden balanced nutrition for the Alexii. The vines were healthy and required little attention. The thorn trunks which form the actual stockade barrier were all secure.
As required when the light level reaches Intensity 8/7, I took the census: there are still two hundred and sixteen Alexii, the same number originally trapped in the stockade. The stockade count was two hundred and fifteen, one Alex having been released by the natives to deal with an excess population of squish. Observing this, I retired to my hiding place. (Reference D-1 details the dangers of exposing oneself to an Alex.)
While departing the stockade, I came upon an abandoned cart. This cart supported the tank from which the natives spray the gremp wood barrier around the stockade, temporarily releasing an Alex—a procedure in which they have been thoroughly coached. I found the spray nozzle defective and approximately half the tank’s contents not expended. Near the cart, I found three bones, one each from a native female, an ultra and a squish.
Summation: the natives, obedient to their population duties, correctly sprayed the gremp and one Alex, the natives being well aware that their spray not only softens the gremp but that it also creates almost total amnesia in an Alex who is showered with the same liquid. Probability point nine four that the three deceased natives encountered another side effect of the softening agent: namely, that when they inhale the spray it acts as an aphrodisiac. (REMINDER: Instruct natives always to spray downwind.) Doubtless, the liberated Alex came upon the natives while they were tripling and helpless.
On my way to my Alexii-proof hiding place, I returned the bones to Today’s Speaker for proper ceremonial disposal. His grief leads me to deduce that the deceased were his hutmates, but it is noteworthy that he still performed his latrine-call duty. I am now secure in my hiding place where the far-sensors report the liberated Alex approaching the village. The squish problem will soon be eliminated. I prepare to operate the stockade’s trip gate by remote control, returning the Alex to his entrapment when his memory recovers sufficiently for him to find his way back and howl to be readmitted.
* * *
There’s something wrong with my memory, Alex told himself. That’s why I’m lost.
The memory lapses angered him, and when he found himself almost into Hoojie Town he was in a fine rage. Even so, Alex hesitated. He knew that instinct had brought him here. Did he want more Hoojies now? No … there was a more important question.
What happened to my birthday party?
He turned back, loping at top speed to clear his mind and burn away the rage. The ground rumbled beneath him. Leaves and small bushes were shredded by his passage. As he leaped into a clearing, one of the short soft Hoojies entered from the other side. It was too tempting. Alex left the uneaten half Hoojie high in a tree clump to ripen before he continued toward the party, even faster now after the delay.
At the forest edge where the plain began, Alex raced out of the green shadows, his fur rippling, and there was the Party. He heard the welcome sounds but now, rage of rages, he couldn’t get in! The gremp were hard, their thorns terrible, the barrier too high. And the vines didn’t smell the way they did when they’d been softened and made irresistible to eat.
Something smelled that way, though.
Alex followed his sense of smell and found the thing the Hoojies used when they sprayed the gremp. It was big and it rolled on round supports. Examining the thing, Alex produced a multiple snort. The apparatus was primitive in its simplicity. Alexii had once built things which rolled on round supports. But when life was so simple, why bother?
The way this apparatus worked wasn’t hard to understand. By the time he’d circled the machine twice, Alex had it all figured out. He stood on most of his hind legs, took the long pizzer and pointed it at the gremp while, with a free leg, he worked the pump handle.
Nothing happened.
Alex examined the place where the spray should come out and saw that it was dented and plugged. Those stupid Hoojies! It was laughable. It was only a moment’s work for the claws of his rearmost fighting limbs to put the thing in order. He tried the pump and now the spray came out in a superbly arching stream. Alex played the stream on the gremp. Where it struck it foamed. The smell made his anterior taste buds wriggle. The gremp was so superbly delicious when this stuff sauced it. So good! But Alex refused to eat. The spray had to be what made him forget; that was the only logical answer. And Alex now had an idea he didn’t want to forget.
Through the twining thorns, Alex saw the arching stream shower onto his fellow Alexii. They’d been howling at him to come in and join the Party, which was nice of them since it was his birthday.
Presently, the ones he’d sprayed began eating their way out through the gremp. The ones who’d not been caught by the spray kept yelling: “Come back! How can you eat that terrible stuff?”
Alex found this fascinating. It helped him resist the urge to join the eaters. So that was how the system worked! He put down the sprayer.
Soon, more than a legs-legs of Alexii were outside. They peered at him, hunger apparent in their extruded eyes. Alex realized they smelled the Hoojie gore that splattered the fur around his slicing mandibles; he’d never been a fussy eater. He sidled away. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.
The others moved closer.
Alex backed away.
Closer …
Back …
Necessity provided the inspiration. Alex shouted: “Hoojies!” Turning, he ran for his life.
Behind him, losing no ground, the pack bellowed.
Alex ran faster, leading the pack toward Hoojie Town.
* * *
RECORDING: Doctor Watson here (AKA FX-248). Many Alexii are loose. Remote sensors indicate that approximately one hundred Alexii are enroute to the native village. I must leave my hiding place and proceed in that direction, using all due caution, for Alexii can move much faster than a guard robot, Intelligence Grade L27. My directives produce confusion at this point. I am required to protect the natives wherever possible, but I also must safeguard my own functioning capabilities. It is not certain that I can assist the natives against Alexii; certainly this is not possible in a physical sense. Perhaps advice or distraction of Alexii will offer themselves as a means of meeting the demands of my directives. I do not know how far I may go in fulfilling the protection directive without placing myself in awkward jeopardy.
* * *
Finishing his solitary ritual, Hugh Scott emerged from his hut and scanned the village pathways. Sadness, he told himself, must be submerged in duty. Only a few others as prompt and zealous as Today’s Speaker were outside as yet to stroll the village perimeter and weft the fragrant bushes. Wefting offered a pleasant diversion to ease his bereavement. This was a pastime the Terrans had not been equipped to enjoy.
And there was the sleek ultra he’d admired earlier. He noted that ul wefted well
even while fending off an importunate squish. Well … the Alex would soon reduce that unfortunate excess.
The Alex, yes.
Hugh turned back toward his hut’s safety. Even the deepest sadness passed in time; there was no sense dying just yet. Best not to be out in the open for a while. He hesitated, glanced back at the ultra and the squish. What a shame if the Alex caught that exquisite ultra. He had another thought then:
An ultra and a squish … and I would make three.
This thought brought him a sharp sense of guilt. The Terrans had said … But there were no Terrans here now. His hutmates were dead. And he was Today’s Speaker.
Hugh hurried back to the ultra who looked down at him. Damn the afternoon heat which made him so much shorter! But what a magnificent ultra! And the importunate squish still stood there somewhat awed by such exalted presences, no doubt.
Well, face it, Hugh thought. A squish is a squish.
Making the traditional gestures, Hugh said:
“My hut or yours?”
The ultra glanced at the squish, who stood looking dazed as though not believing such good fortune. But it took three to warple.
“Your hut,” the ultra said and sauntered ahead, a motion which displayed the ulform at its finest. The squish imposlumed behind them at a moderate pace.
Risking censure or even rejection, Hugh tried to move them faster. Where was the Alex? The ultra would not be hurried. Anxiously, Hugh explained in a low voice that an Alex was loose. His words brought the desired speed.
* * *
As he dashed through the clearing where he’d left the half-eaten Hoojie. Alex could hear the pack gaining on him. Well, Hoojie Town was close and with a bit of exertion he knew he could get there first. Thought of the Hoojie ripening in the tree clump helped make all of this effort worthwhile. He couldn’t smell it—the wind was wrong—but he knew it was still there. After they’d celebrated his birthday at Hoojie Town, he’d return for dessert. Feelings of joy filled Alex. No one had ever had such a birthday!
The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert Page 87
