The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert

by Frank Herbert

As she stood and peered out through the remnants of their bag, Tam stifled a gasp. A mob of globes—purple, red, green, yellow, blue … an iridescent rainbow play of them was drifting down on the nest. At the forefront was a giant globe almost as big as the floater. It played a symphony of red and purple across its shimmering surface.

  A light rain of sweet-smelling dust began to sift through the open hatch. Nikki pushed Root aside and clambered out onto the platform created by the inflated pontoon. Tam followed him. Root remained at the open hatch.

  The storm had passed out to sea leaving only a warm breeze and the air filled with disintegrating bits of globes which had been destroyed by lightning. Eddies of pastel dust swirled around the nest and a cloudy mist of them obscured the bay’s inner shoreline. More globes were rising from the water to replace the lost ones.

  Now, the onrushing mob swooped on the nest and circled until their dangling tentacles brushed Nikki’s upturned face. He held out his arms to them, his expression rapturous, but Tam cowered away. Root moved to join them on the pontoon but a brushing tentacle left a livid streak across his forehead. He screamed and jerked back into the nest.

  Nikki gave no sign that he had heard.

  The chittering globes continued to rhapsodize around Nikki, singing to him. Tam pressed herself against the nest, fascinated by the rainbow dance and the fluting songs.

  Presently, Nikki began to sing back to the globes in a language Tam could not understand. His voice echoed in her breast until she thought she would choke with longing for the beauty of it. A heightened state of excitement filled her. The gentle rock of the nest on the water, the balmy wind, the rhythmic lick of waves against the pontoon—everything blended with the dance and song of the globes.

  The circling mob opened a space around Nikki then and he leaped to the top of the nest where he began to dance while he sang: strange paddling motions, sweeping gestures with both hands, gentle interlacings of his palms …

  From within the nest, Root demanded: “What’s he doing up there?”

  “He’s dancing.”

  The globes moved closer, cradling their tentacles around Nikki while he danced. The play of colors was dazzling. Gently, the movement slowed, the colors shifted to a universal brilliant silver with soft veins of red.

  Nikki brought his hands to his sides, bowed his head, shuddered and stood still.

  Tam looked at his feet. They were stained with Argo red from the remnants of the floater bag on the nest’s roof. Bits of color washed from the bag trailed down the sides of the nest into the water.

  Nikki’s voice, so matter of fact, shocked her.

  “They don’t understand why the bag isn’t dissolving.”

  “Why aren’t they touching me?”

  “Because I told them you were afraid.”

  “You’re talking to them!”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “It’s in the no-place, the betweens and in the honesty of the songs.”

  “Why were you dancing?”

  “Talking, more talking. I was talking my ancestors to them: the weavers and gardeners, the samurai, the pottery makers, the canoe people, the commuters and keepers of offices, the warriors around the fires…”

  “They understood?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Why’re they keeping Root in the nest?”

  “I don’t know. That’s their idea.”

  “Do they know what Root is?”

  “Yes. Ship made him. He’s like a partial God who was made that Ship might understand some things better.”

  She didn’t understand this but put it aside.

  “Are you through talking to them?”

  “No—they’ve asked me to talk one more thing to them.”

  “What?”

  “The perfect biological principle.”

  A raucous laugh erupted within the nest.

  “I don’t understand,” Tam said.

  “They wish to exchange their information for ours—the perfect biological principle: replication.”

  She didn’t understand for a moment, then: “You don’t mean…”

  “Come up.” He held a hand out to her and a gentle golden stir wafted through the slowly circling globes. “You must help me talk to them. We will talk the making of a baby.”

  Not here! she thought.

  A globe dropped close to her and the first tentacle brushed against her shoulder and neck. It was a caress! She leaned into it.

  Tam didn’t remember taking off her clothes nor seeing Nikki disrobe, but there remained a memory of the globes helping her to the top of the nest and Nikki reclining there, long-limbed, dark and muscular, as though he lay on a grassy earthside meadow soaking up sun after a swim or a hard day in the fields.

  She saw their clothes scattered around the nest’s top. A shield of rainbow domes covered the sky.

  Slowly, she moved toward him. First, a hand touching hand, then, like the tentacles which brushed them both, they matched touch for touch in the nooks and crannies of their curious bodies. Chittering groans filled the air overhead.

  “I want you,” Tam whispered. “How can I do this here and say such a thing without feeling self-conscious?”

  Nikki kissed her, then: “Where have we put our selves?”

  He had never been with a woman. Ship urged couplings among adolescents. It helped in the selection of breeding pairs and relieved tensions. But Nikki’s creative energies had been focused into the feeling words of his poetry. And Ship had helped in some strange way he had never understood—perhaps something in his food.

  Now with tentacles reaching and searching across his body, with the sweetness of the air thick around them, with Tam’s silky white skin warm and glowing beside him, he knew there was nothing he’d rather do and no one he’d rather have as a companion in ecstasy. Fingers and tongues joined in the tangle of legs and tentacles, then she was on top of him, moving so very slowly, smiling down at him with tears in her eyes, and Nikki felt that he had been introduced to the most ancient language of humans, a true clear conversation which transcended all words, all dialects, all explanations.

  Once more, the globes were a dancing splendor of color and song above them. Tam lay quietly beside Nikki and watched his eyes. How beautiful they were! He traced soft designs on her breasts. She touched his cheek.

  “The globes say we have made a baby, we truly have,” Nikki said.

  “I love you,” she whispered. Then, eyes wide: “How do they know?”

  “They know. They say the moment of replication is also their greatest joy and they can measure it.”

  “But we weren’t selected as a breeding pair.”

  “Except by our Medean hosts.” He sat up. “We should get dressed. The ultraviolet … the globes won’t be able to shield us much longer.”

  Nikki slipped into his clothes. Presently, she followed his example, her gaze searching all around the bay as she moved.

  “We’re still trapped here, Nikki.”

  He stood atop the nest. “No. The globes will take us home to the colony. Five or six of the big ones…”

  She slipped down to the pontoon and peered through the hatch into the nest.

  “Nikki!”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s gone. Root’s gone. Where’d he go?”

  “Maybe he didn’t go; maybe he was protean and merely took another shape.”

  “Stop that! They’ve taken him, haven’t they?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see them. Did you?”

  She blushed, then: “How will we explain it?”

  “We’ll let the globes explain it after I’ve taught their language to others.”

  Nikki turned, lifted his arms and began to sing, swaying and gesturing toward the shore.

  Presently, eight of the largest globes moved down in concert and, as Nikki sang, they shifted their color to a uniform Argo red, affixed their tentacles to the nest and lifted it gently from the water. />
  FROGS AND SCIENTIST

  Two frogs were counting the minnows in a hydropronics trough one morning when a young maiden came down to the water to bathe. “What’s that?” one frog (who was called Lavu) asked the other. “That’s a human female,” said Lapat, for that was the other frog’s name.

  “What is she doing?” Lavu asked.

  “She is taking off her garments,” Lapat said.

  “What are garments?” Lavu asked.

  “An extra skin humans wear to conceal themselves from the gaze of strangers,” said Lapat.

  “Then why is she taking off her extra skin?” Lavu asked.

  “She wants to bathe her primary skin,” Lapat said. “See how she piles her garments beside the trough and steps daintily into the water.”

  “She is oddly shaped,” Lavu said.

  “Not for a human female,” Lapat said. “All of them are shaped that way.”

  “What are those two bumps on her front?” Lavu asked.

  “I have often pondered that question,” Lapat said. “As we both know, function follows form and vice versa. I have seen human males clasp their females in a crushing embrace. It is my observation that the two bumps are a protective cushion.”

  “Have you noticed,” Lavu asked, “that there is a young male human watching her from the concealment of the control station?”

  “That is a common occurrence,” Lapat said. “I have seen it many times.”

  “But can you explain it?” Lavu asked.

  “Oh, yes. The maiden seeks a mate; that is the real reason she comes here to display her primary skin. The male is a possible mate, but he watches from concealment because if he were to show himself, she would have to scream, and that would prevent the mating.”

  “How is it you know so many things about humans?” Lavu asked.

  “Because I pattern my life after the most admirable of all humans, the scientist.”

  “What’s a scientist?” Lavu asked.

  “A scientist is one who observes without interfering. By observation alone all things are made clear to the scientist. Come, let us continue counting the minnows.”

  FEATHERED PIGS

  When Bridik was four hundred and twenty-two years old and expecting to moult the next season, she decided to edit an old riddle for her companions. Bridik and her companions were long-lived and feathered pigs playing out an idyll among the oak groves of post-ancient Terra.

  “It is recorded in our history,” Bridik said, “that our ancestors served Man and, as reward, Man gave us these lovely black and beige feathers. Who can tell me why Man chose these colors?”

  “Aww, Mom! Nobody likes to play that old game anymore,” cried Kirid, her eleventh son. “We’d rather twang the lute and bamboozle.”

  “Come, come,” said Bridik. “I am about to moult and it is my right to edit the old riddle.”

  “Ohhh, all right,” said Kirid (who was really a dutiful son and not like some we could mention). “Who goes first?”

  “That is the place of Lobrok, your father,” she said, “but I don’t want to hear him say the colors represent the oak tree alive and the oak tree burned.”

  “The kid’s right,” said Lobrok. “It’s a bore.” Then, noting Bridik’s angry glare and her exposed tusks, he said: “But I’ll play because it pleases you.”

  “Okay, Pop,” Kirid said. “What’s the beedeebeedeep answer?”

  “Man chose the colors because they represent day and night, the grass of autumn and the ashes of the past.”

  “Verrry poetic, Pop!” said Kirid.

  “May I go next? Me next?” cried Inishbeby, a fair young thing of hardly one hundred who was making a big play for Kirid.

  “Very well,” said Bridik. “You may play in the guest spot.”

  “Now, don’t tell me,” said Inishbeby. “Let me guess.” She wangled a bamboozly glance at Kirid, then: “Black is for charcoal and beige is for the parchment upon which Man drew with his charcoal.”

  “That’s worse than stupid,” growled Lobrok. “A lot of us believe Man made parchment from pigskins!”

  “I didn’t know!” cried Inishbeby. “It doesn’t say that at the museum of Man.”

  “You’ve spoiled the riddle,” wailed Bridik. “Now I won’t be able to edit it before I moult.”

  “Come on, Beby,” said Kirid. “I think we better blow until things cool off here.”

  “Ohhh, where are you going to take me?” asked Inishbeby, nuzzling up against Kirid.

  “Well … let’s go snoot out some truffles and have a picnic.”

  THE DADDY BOX

  To understand what happened to Henry Alexander when his son, Billy, came home with the ferosslk, you’re going to be asked to make several mind-stretching mental adjustments. These mental gymnastics are certain to leave your mind permanently changed.

  You’ve been warned.

  In the first place, just to get a loose idea of a ferosslk’s original purpose, you must think of it as a toy designed primarily for educating the young. But your concept of toy should be modified to think of a device which, under special circumstances, will play with its owner.

  You’ll also have to modify your concept of education to include the idea of occasionally altering the universe to fit a new interesting idea; that is, fitting the universe to the concept, rather than fitting the concept to the universe.

  The ferosslk originates with seventh-order, multidimensional beings. You can think of them as Sevens. Their other labels would be more or less incomprehensible. The Sevens are not now aware and never have been aware the universe contains any such thing as a Henry Alexander or a human male offspring.

  This oversight was rather unfortunate for Henry. His mind had never been stretched to contain the concept of a ferosslk. He could conceive of fission bombs, nerve gas, napalm and germ warfare. But these things might be thought of as silly putty when compared with a ferosslk.

  Which is a rather neat analogy because the shape of a ferosslk is profoundly dependent upon external pressures. That is to say, although a ferosslk can be conceived of as an artifact, it is safer to think of it as alive.

  To begin at one of the beginnings, Billy Alexander, age eight, human male, found the ferosslk in tall weeds beside a path across an empty lot adjoining his urban home.

  Saying he found it described the circumstances from Billy’s superficial point of view. It would be just as accurate to say the ferosslk found Billy.

  As far as Billy was concerned, the ferosslk was a box. You may as well think of it that way, too. No sense stretching your mind completely out of shape. You wouldn’t be able to read the rest of this account.

  A box then. It appeared to be about nine inches long, three inches wide and four inches deep. It looked like dark green stone except for what was obviously the top, because that’s where the writing appeared.

  You can call it writing because Billy was just beginning to shift from print to cursive and that’s the way he saw it.

  Words flowed across the box top: THIS IS A DADDY BOX.

  Billy picked it up. The surface was cold under his hands. He thought perhaps this was some kind of toy television, its words projected from inside.

  (Some of the words actually were coming out of Billy’s own mind.)

  Daddy box? he wondered.

  Daddy was a symbol-identifier more than five years old for him. His daddy had been killed in a war. Now, Billy had a stepfather with the same name as his real father’s. The two had been cousins.

  New information flowed across the top: THIS BOX MAY BE OPENED ONLY BY THE YOUNG.

  (That was a game the ferosslk had played and enjoyed many times before. Don’t try to imagine how a ferosslk enjoys. The attempt could injure your frontal lobes.)

  Now, the box top provided Billy with precise instructions on how it could be opened.

  Billy went through the indicated steps, which included urinating on an ant hill, and the box dutifully opened.

  For almost an hour,
Billy sat in the empty lot enraptured by the educational/creative tableau thus unveiled. For his edification, human shapes in the box fought wars, manufactured artifacts, made love, wrote books, created paintings and sculpture … and changed the universe. The human shapes debated, formed governments, nurtured the earth and destroyed it.

  In that relative time of little less than an hour, Billy aged mentally some five hundred and sixteen human years. On the outside, Billy remained a male child about forty-nine inches tall, weight approximately fifty-six pounds, skin white but grimy from play, hair blond and mussed.

  His eyes were still blue, but they had acquired a hard and penetrating stare. The motor cells in his medulla and his spinal cord had begun increasing dramatically in number with an increased myelinization of the anterior roots and peripheral nerves.

  Every normal sense he possessed had been increased in potency and he was embarked on a growth pattern which would further heighten this effect.

  The whole thing made him sad, but he knew what he had to do, having come very close to understanding what a ferosslk was all about.

  It was now about 6:18 p.m. on a Friday evening. Billy took the box in both hands and trudged across the lot toward his back door.

  His mother, whose left arm still bore bruises from a blow struck by her husband, was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink. She was a small blonde woman, once doll-like, fast turning to mouse.

  At Billy’s entrance, she shook tears out of her eyes, smiled at him, glanced toward the living room and shook her head—all in one continuous movement. She appeared not to notice the box in Billy’s hands, but she did note the boy appeared very much like his real father tonight.

  This thought brought more tears to her eyes, and she turned away, thus failing to see Billy go on into the living room despite her silent warning that his stepfather was there and in a bad mood.

  The ferosslk, having shared Billy’s emotional reaction to this moment, created a new order of expletives which it introduced into another dimension.

  Henry Alexander sensed Billy’s presence in the room, lowered the evening newspaper and stared over it into the boy’s newly-aged eyes. Henry was a pale-skinned, flabby man, going to fat after a youth spent as a semi-professional athlete. He interpreted the look in Billy’s eyes as a reflection of their mutual hate.