Alien Harvest (a)

by Robert Sheckley

  They were there. Gill raced up the landing platform and dumped Stan inside through the entry port. Then he turned, feet braced, firing a bazooka-style weapon that gave out great gouts of green flame. Julie ducked into the harvester under his arm.

  She saw Stan, lying on the floor, unconscious again. Something big and black and many-toothed was bending over him. It was an alien, damn it! The harvester was filled with the creatures — two, no three of them. She cut them down. “Gill!” she screamed. “Get inside so we can close the door!”

  Gill cut and slashed and backed through the door. Julie cut down an alien and now there was one left. It stood in the doorway, towering over her, and just at that instant her gun began to fail.

  She must have screamed, because Gill slung a handgun across the harvester to her. She caught it, aimed, and triggered it in one rapid moment. The alien was in her face, but she had no choice: at extreme close range she blasted him.

  The alien's throat exploded. One wildly waving claw came completely off. His forelimb, severed at the wrist, waved wildly in the air. The milky white acidic substance that was the blood of the alien spewed forth in a stream.

  Some of the acid hit Julie. She screamed and went down, and it seemed to her that she could hear Gill yelling something, too, and then she didn't know anything anymore.

  66

  Stan returned to consciousness angry that the dose of pure royal jelly hadn't done anything for him. Luckily he still had some of the older product left. He'd take some of that soon.

  He was not really surprised that the pure royal jelly hadn't helped him. He had always suspected that it was too good to be true, the idea that some other form of the jelly would cure him in some miraculous way. It just doesn't work like that, he told himself.

  His mind raced back to earlier days. He thought of all the work he had done, all his accomplishments. He'd had a lot of chances in the poker game that was his life. Could he have played his cards some other way? He didn't really think so. And it was strange, but he knew that for some strange reason there was no place he'd rather be than here, right here, at the end of a glorious venture, with Julie and Gill, his friends.

  Gill was at the other side of the harvester, looking after Julie. There really wasn't much he could do for her. Just see that she was comfortable. Most of the acid had missed her, but some drops had fallen along the side of her neck and penetrated deep under the skin. Her face was ashen, her breathing labored. Her vital signs were diminishing.

  Gill found himself struggling with new emotions, things he had never felt before. He realized that there was a comfort in being a synthetic man. The trouble with android status was that nothing ever felt very good. There was no joy, no exultation. But the advantage was that nothing ever felt very bad, either.

  Strange, though. Now he was filled with unaccustomed emotions: pity for Julie, and something else, some tender feeling that he couldn't quite identify, couldn't quite find a name for. He touched the vein on the side of her neck. It pulsed, but not strongly. He reached over to make Julie more comfortable and only became aware then that his left arm was missing a hand and half its forearm. He had been too busy to notice when the hand went off-line. It was that advantage, again, of being a synthetic: you felt no pain. Now, looking back, he could reconstruct how it happened. The harvester's hatch had been closing, and he had just managed to get inside. But not quite all of him had made it. One hand had still been outside as the alien's big claw closed over his wrist. Stan had pulled, and the alien had pulled back.

  There had been a deadly tug-of-war, with the alien pulling one way and Gill the other, sawing his arm back and forth along the door frame. None of the others had been in a position or condition to help. Stan had been out cold, and Julie, staggered by her acid bath, was out of action, too.

  Gill and the alien had fought their deadly game. Gill hadn't been exactly sure what happened next. Presumably the door edge had severed some of the cables that controlled his arm movements. Or the combined pulls of Stan and the alien had pulled the skin welds on his arm apart. Suddenly, and with an audible pop, his arm had let go several inches below the elbow. Cracks had appeared in the tough synthetic skin, and had immediately widened. Fine-control cables had come under tension, pulled taut until they sang, and then snapped.

  Cables and wires had coiled around Gill's wrist, then pulled free when Gill pulled what was left of his arm the rest of the way inside the ship and the hatch slammed shut. It had been a good sound, that sound of the hatch closing. After that, Gill had been too busy looking after Julie and ascertaining Stan's condition to pay much attention to his own condition. He looked to himself now.

  He could see that there was no way of fixing himself. He could have tried a jury-rig if he'd had spare cables with him. But in the close confines of the pod he hadn't brought along the repair and spare parts kit that every synthetic tried to keep with him at all times. And even if he'd had the cables, he was still lacking several transistors and capacitors. Reluctantly he took the arm off-line. He had no motion in it at all. From the shoulder down, it was as dead as a hundred-year-old Ford.

  “Gave you a little trouble, did they?” Stan's voice came from over his shoulder.

  Stan had revived, calling on reserves he never knew he had. He had even gotten to his feet. He was filled with a strange knowledge; that he was both a dead man and a living one. The two sides of himself were warring now, each trying to establish dominance. Stan thought he knew who was going to win.

  Somewhat unsteadily he crossed the harvester and gazed at Gill's wound.

  “Pulled it right off, did they?”

  “Yes, sir. Or perhaps I did.”

  “Comes to the same thing,” Stan said. “Doesn't give you any pain, does it?”

  “No, Doctor, none at all. I register the loss of my arm solely as an analogue of loss, not as the real thing.”

  “It's abstract for you, is that it?”

  “I suppose you could say that, sir.” And yet, Gill knew it wasn't quite true. No human could really imagine what it was like to be a synthetic. And to be a synthetic suffering loss — that was really beyond their scope. Except, he thought, maybe Julie could understand it.

  67

  “Well, Gill,” Stan said, “I think it'll be best if you look after Julie for the time being. I have some work to do on the radio.”

  “I don't think much can be done for her, sir. Not without regular medical facilities.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Stan said. “Maybe there's not much that can be done for any of us. Still, we must avail ourselves of every twist and turn. That's what it's like being a human, Gill. You avail yourself of every little opportunity. You assume you're not dead until you can no longer move. I hope you're taking note of all this.”

  “Indeed I am, Doctor,” Gill said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “I'm afraid not,” Stan said. “Unless you happened to bring along a replacement body. No? I didn't think so. But the royal jelly is finally starting to take effect I'm all washed up, Gill, but I'm feeling a lot better.”

  “Glad to hear it, sir.”

  “Thanks. We'll talk more later, Gill.”

  Stan turned to the radio. Gill watched him, and he was disturbed. It seemed to him that Dr. Myakovsky was in some sort of shock. He was hardly registering his grief at Julie's condition. Was it a callousness about him that Gill had missed? Gill thought it was something else. He had noticed that humans from time to time went into a condition they called shock. It was when something terrible happened, either to them or to someone close to them. It was how humans shut down when they experienced overload. But synthetics could never shut down.

  68

  As Stan turned to the radio it suddenly burst into life. An unfamiliar voice said, “Hello? Is there someone aboard the harvester?”

  Stan sat down at the instrument panel. “Yes, there is someone here.”

  “I thought as much. This is Potter, captain of the Bio-Pharm ship Lancet. Yo
u are trespassing on Neo-Pharm territory. Identify yourself at once!”

  “I am Dr. Stanley Myakovsky,” Stan said. There are only three of us here — myself, a woman, and an android. We are all that is left of a survey expedition sent to inspect the hive on AR-32.”

  “I knew you were here, Doctor,” Potter said. That says it all, I think.”

  “Maybe you don't know everything, Captain,” Stan said. “Our ship was damaged during the recent storm. We require help badly.”

  “I understand,” Potter said. “I am sending men to pick you up. Be prepared to leave the harvester. That is all for now.”

  Stan put down the microphone and turned to Gill. “He says he's sending help. I suppose you can guess what kind of help Potter is going to offer.” Gill didn't answer. He was watching through one of the view panels as the Lancet's primaries flared briefly and the great ship dropped slowly and majestically down through the sky in a shining glitter of landing jets. The big ship settled effortlessly on AR-32's plain. Soon after the landing, there was a sparkle of bright lines along the ground, and then something almost transparent that looked like the ghost of a wall erected itself around the Lancet.

  “I see you have your force field up,” Stan said. “A wise precaution, I can assure you.”

  “We're able to throw some protection around your ship, too,” Potter said. “My men are coming now.”

  A bay door in the Lancets side cracked open, then let down to the ground, forming a landing ramp. Stan watched a dozen men come running down the ramp. Carrying bulky weapons, they were masked and shielded, and wearing full space armor.

  “You waste no time, do you, Captain?” Stan said.

  “You're damned right,” Potter said. “The sooner I get you people out of the harvester the better.”

  “One way or another,” Stan said mildly.

  “What was that?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Stan muttered. “But it looks to me like your men are running into a little difficulty.”

  69

  The armed men were moving across the corridors between the force fields that lay between Potter's ship and the harvester. The force fields shimmered faintly in the pelting rain. Low, flat lighting, grim and without shadows, illuminated the scene, and this was aided by the search beam from the Lancet, which flooded different areas with its sulfurous, yellow light. The men moved at a brisk trot, helmet shields up so they could communicate better. Their troubles began slowly and built fast. The first man to scream was hardly noticed, so rapidly were the others moving. But then the squad leader became aware that something was amiss. His name was Blake and he was from Los Angeles. He was used to skulking around smoking ruins and walking down ruined streets. So he wasn't entirely surprised when he saw one of the men throw his arms in the air as something long and black snaked out from seemingly nowhere and grabbed him around the neck. But what had it been? Blake wasn't sure. He stared, gaped. Another man screamed, and was dragged away shrieking. Then Blake realized that somehow the aliens had gotten into the uninterdicted corridors between the force fields, and were grabbing soldiers as they crossed from one field to another. Seeing this, Blake shouted some orders. His little squadron was already cut in half. He ordered the remaining soldiers to fight back-to-back. They were closer to the harvester than to the Lancet, so he ordered them to continue.

  You could see that the men didn't want to go. What had begun as a nice little bug fight had turned into a slaughter of humans. It wasn't fair! But there was no one to complain to.

  They fought, their weapons flashing and flaming, and they caught a group of aliens as they were preparing to charge, caught them dead on and blew them to hell and back. The air rained black body parts. The acid from the aliens' wounds sprayed far and wide, and the ground sizzled beneath them. Luckily the soldiers were in acid-proof armor, or the acid would have made short work of them.

  The sun came out as the slaughter continued, and the men seemed to be holding their own. Then the aliens got around the other side of the force field, and the soldiers were caught between two attacking alien groups.

  They continued fighting, falling one after another. The lucky ones were dead when they hit the ground. Some of the others, wounded but not yet dead, weren't so lucky. Aliens draped them over their shoulders and retreated to the hive. These soldiers would make fine hosts, just what the queen needed.

  Seeing this, Blake fought hard to keep his composure. It was unnerving, seeing friend after friend pulled apart, torn to bits, or dragged away unconscious to be glued to the wall of the hive with something small and deadly growing inside him, after the facehugger had done its work.

  Blake turned back. It was all happening too fast. When he looked around, he saw the last of his men collapse, scream, and get dragged off. Blake saw his chance and sprinted to the harvester. He got there before the aliens, but just barely. He pounded at the door. “Let me in! Please, please, let me in!”

  Stan's mild-mannered face peered back at him through the viewport. His lips moved. Blake couldn't hear the words, but Stan was saying, “Sorry, I can't open the door. I don't have the strength to close it again.”

  Blake pounded again, and then the aliens were on him. A claw came around his shoulder and grabbed his face at the forehead. It pulled, tearing the skin right off. Blake felt his nose pull away, felt his lips leave his mouth, felt all this, and then another claw had seized him by the neck, it was pulling out the tendons of his neck! And then Blake felt no more.

  70

  Potter was shouting, his voice grating on the speaker. “Damn you! What have you done to my men?”

  “Not a thing, Captain,” Myakovsky said. “They brought it on themselves. Nothing I could do for them. Can you get us out of here, Captain?”

  “It seems scarcely worth my time,” Potter grumbled. “I ought to nuke all of you.”

  “But then you'd lose the contents of the harvester,” Stan said.

  “True enough. But I could always come back for it, after things have cooled down.”

  “I have a better plan,” Stan said. “Something that will be of use to us all.”

  “Hurry up and tell me what it is,” Potter said. “I don't like leaving my ship down here.”

  “It's too complicated to explain over radio,” Stan said. “But I think you will like it. Listen, I have an android here who has been damaged in recent fighting. I could send him over to you. He'd explain the whole thing.”

  “I don't know if I should even bother.” Potter was obviously thinking aloud.

  “I think you'll be interested in my scheme,” Stan continued. “And after all, it won't take very long.”

  “All right,” Potter said. “Send him over. This better be good.”

  “It'll be very good,” Stan affirmed.

  “How are you going to get him through the aliens? If my own men couldn't make it, how do you expect your android to get here?”

  “Modern technology is a wonderful thing,” Stan said evasively. “He'll be right over, Captain. Signing off.”

  71

  “Julie,” Gill said. “Can you hear me?”

  Julie's eyelids fluttered. Pain contorted her face. She gave a long shudder and then looked around. “Oh my God, is this where I am? I was having such a nice dream, Gill. There's this lake I know of. I went there just once when I was a little girl. I remember fields of spring flowers, a little lake. There was a rowboat. I was drifting in the rowboat, and there were willows hanging down over the boat. Oh, Gill, it was so pretty!”

  “I'm sure it was,” Gill said.

  “Have you ever had a dream like that?” Julie asked.

  “No, I have not,” Gill replied. “I do not dream.”

  “Well, you can have half of mine,” Julie said sleepily. “It wasn't really a little lake, I don't need it all….”

  “Where's Stan?”

  “He's right over there,” Gill said. “He's trying to save you.”

  Julie grimaced. “I'm afraid he's cut it a little too fine
this time. Poor Stan. He has such great ideas. But I'm glad I came, anyhow. He's not long for this world, you know.”

  “I know,” Gill said.

  “It's too bad. He's such a brilliant man. But they've done nothing but crowd him. He hasn't had a chance. Except this one. And I think this wasn't much of a chance.”

  “I suppose not,” Gill said. She looked at him. “Your arm! What happened?”

  “Ran into a little trouble,” Gill said.

  “You're using understatement, just like a human.”

  “I suppose it rubs off,” Gill said. “A lot of things do. I feel…”

  “Yes?”

  “I feel like I understand a lot more about humans now,” Gill said. “It's … interesting, isn't it?”

  “I suppose it is,” Julie said. “Are you all right, Gill? You've got a very strange expression on your face.”

  “I'm fine,” Gill muttered. “It's just that … well, even an android can run out of time.”

  Suddenly Stan's voice came from across the cabin. “Gill? What are you doing?”

  “Just looking after Julie, sir.”

  “That's good. But she needs to rest now. Come over here. I have some instructions for you.”

  “Yes, Dr. Myakovsky.” He turned to Julie. “Julie …”

  “What is it, Gill?”

  “Try not to forget me.” Gill stood up and crossed the room.

  Stan Myakovsky was huddled up in the control chair. He appeared to be experiencing no pain for the moment. But he had changed. Gill noticed that the doctor seemed to have shrunk inside his own skin, to be falling in on himself.