What energy! I wonder what his real mother would have done with him? Of course she’d have been much stronger.
Frankly, I think he knows a lot more than even I can guess. I don’t need to tell him not to show his smarts. I think he’s hiding them even from me. On the other hand, we’re supposed to show off his athletic prowess. He’s still awkward. What can you expect from somebody growing so fast?
He has so much spark and sparkle. Sometimes I call him Bright Eyes. Brains like beans! I don’t believe it.
But I worry. His future can’t possibly be good. I think he will die a bad death well before his time. One never wants that for a creature one has raised from birth.
I wonder if we should run away. Pretend we got lost in the hills. But he’s too little for that now.
Could I take him back to where he came from? There must be some sort of a mother somewhere. Unless he was made some odd scientific way.
I’m wondering more and more why I was picked for this job? I volunteered, but so did lots of others. There must be something special about me, but special in a good way or a bad way? Probably something inept. A stupid side. What is it I don’t see? It’s most likely the most important thing of all. By the time I find out, it’ll probably be too late.
But I wonder if my looks had anything to do with it? Is that why we look alike? And what about my own teeth? They stick out, like his do. I always look as if I’m getting ready to bite somebody. Anyway, I don’t care why they picked me. Look at us, how we get along. He’d sacrifice himself for me, and I’d do the same for him. I would have the minute he was put in my arms, squeeking and so tiny and vulnerable.
I had to promise to keep him a secret, and I had to sign that I was aware my own life was in danger, but, I wonder, from him or from them?
What does a weapon need to know? I don’t suppose much. Certainly not the names of flowers. Probably how to obey simple commands. A few words of everyday life might come in handy. How to snarl.
Anyway, somebody has to care for creatures when they’re juveniles don’t they?—no matter what they are to become.
They never told me what he’d end up being. I see hardly any signs. Perhaps that’s where my stupidity lies. As far as I’m concerned he’s exactly the baby I always wished I’d been able to have. I think we even look alike. I see myself in the way he smiles. The words he knows are my words. But I suppose, when I’ve given him over and he’s all grown up, I won’t recognize him at all.
So far he’s only a little bit scaly, his toenails only a little bit too horny. You hardly notice. I wonder when his teeth will be growing? Now he’s just losing them. We put them under his pillow. (He does have a pillow. He carries it with him all the time. He’d take it outside if I let him.) And he gets a treat in the morning. Not money. What would we do with money way out here?
I see the eyeteeth peeking out. Maybe they’ll all be eyeteeth pretty soon.
They said they question his ability ever to follow more directions than three in a row, but already he remembers more than I do. He counts to a hundred with no trouble. He loves to yell it out, but I tell him to whisper. I have a hard time holding him back. He has a loud, echoing voice and loves to use it. I suppose he won’t need a trumpet, he already sounds like one.
Sometimes I tell him his name should be, “Let’s Go.” And he tells me mine should be, “Wait a Minute.” But I think I’ve been too much: Wait a Minute. I think we should run away now. At first I thought we should wait until he’s larger and stronger, but that might be a mistake. I think we should run away while he’s still easy to handle.
“Come on, Let’s Get Going,” I say. “Get your pillow. We’re going on a trip. You’ll like it.”
He likes it already and we haven’t even started. He’s running round and round the kitchen table, leaping up on it every now and then. He couldn’t do that last year. He’ll be leaping wider streams than I can. I hope he waits for me. I’ll give him the heavy backpack to hold him down.
I don’t say, “Save your energy.” He has plenty for anything.
He’s singing. Dumb things like, “Here we go loop-de-looping-loo.
I say, “Come kiss me before we get going. A big fat wet one. Give me a big fat hug.”
I have a funny feeling. Worried. I’m not exactly a knowledgeable person—about anything, even the wilderness we’re on the edge of right here. They probably picked me for that ignorance.
So we get going, him skipping and trumpeting as usual. Every now and then he shouts and jumps up down out of sheer joy. He’s as if on springs, back pack and all. I don’t know how he does it.
Pretty soon I’m going to tell him we’re on a secret trip and he should to keep quiet.
We go up into the treeless places and over the cliffs. It’s his turn to be helping me. He leaps me over streams. We have to hurry. We have to get down into the trees before they come to check on us.
As soon as we get well into them. I stop to give him a lesson (I need a rest anyway): I say that, if we get found out, he should leave me there to face them alone and go hide by himself. I say, “Those rolls of paper they hold on to all the time could be weapons.” I explain weapons. I explain how he’s tough, but not that tough. Besides, they’re discovering new weapons all the time. No matter how strong and scaly he gets, they’ll have found something to destroy him with. “Leap a lot,” I say. “Side to side. And their weapons might be silent. They might look like pieces of paper. They have all those jewels. Those might be weapons, too.”
I see in his eyes that he understands. (Are his eyes getting smaller or is he getting larger all around them?) How could they say his brain was the size of two beans? He sparkles with intelligence. And love. As I’m telling him all these things (that I’d not thought I’d have to do till later) he holds my hand with his sandpapery one. I raise it to my lips and then he does the same to mine, clunk against his teeth. “Balladeer,” I say, “but don’t sing now.”
“Ho dee ho dee ho dee ho,” he says, but softly. It’s a joke.
We sleep that night curled around each other. We always sleep that way. He doesn’t keep me warm. He never has. I’ve suspected for a long time that he’s cold blooded. He’s so sluggish in the morning, but of course I was, too, at that age. I just couldn’t wake up. My mother always had to come in and shake me. Yelling and knocking at my door just didn’t do it. All that growing takes energy.
It happened just as I was afraid it would. We got caught. He was getting too big to hide even here in the trees.
Of course they picked morning, and an especially cold one. It’ll take him a while to realize anything. It’ll prove to them all the more his brains are beans.
We ran—started to. He pulled me along with him, but there was no direction to go in. They were all over. Then he let go of me and did as I’d told him, jumped a great leap. Over all of them. I’d no idea he could do that and he wasn’t even warmed up yet. He trumpeted. He was over the cliff, down and going.
One of them stayed to keep me prisoner but the rest went after him. I saw he was all right at the bottom of the cliff, leaping and leaping. Trumpeting and skipping. For him it was still as much fun as the first part of the trip. As if this was what he was born for and maybe he was. Or at least it’s sort of what he was born for. Certainly for leaping about the forest knocking down trees, pulling up bushes and tossing them into the air. I’m wondering if I was born for this, the other side of it, to stand here handcuffed while he cavorts away, down the cliffs? I wish he’d carried me off with him, but I told him to go. I waved him away. “You’re on your own.” I kept yelling it and, “Love you,” until I couldn’t see him anymore.
He knocked down three of those keepers as he leaped away. One got stepped on. None got killed which is more than I can say about what they want to do to him, what with all these weapons. Or what might be weapons. He doesn’t know the difference between them and the enemy—whoever that is. I wish I had thought to tell him about the downtrodden. I know who’s side he�
��d be on if he knew about us, but there’s no rage in him towards anybody and never has been. There’s only joy.
“Dead!” they said, but they’ve never brought any pieces of him back. Not even a claw nor a greenish scale to prove it. You’d think they would have.
I knew, though, whether he was dead or not, they’d say he was. They won’t want anybody but themselves out there looking for him, but I think he may be roaming yet. On a rampage. On a love rampage. Because he loves me.
I’ll never know. I don’t want to. Yes, I do. I’ll go hallooing off myself. They won’t bother stopping me. Maybe I won’t find him, but, if he’s out there, he’ll find me.
They tore him from my arms. (Or, more like it, they tore me from his arms. He was bigger than me by then and stronger. Some of my skin came off on his claws.) Of course all this might be what was supposed to happen from the start: That he should love me and that he should lose me and that they should say he’s dead. I only just figured it out right now, which shows how slow I am.
But this is not the end. He might be out there. And he has a right to be. Trumpeting. Rearing up. I know exactly what’s he’s doing. It’s what we always did. Peering at flowers and bugs and such. Watching snakes. Eating berries. Maybe finding a bee tree and getting honey. Sitting quietly until some animal or other comes to see what he is. And still sitting, letting the animal, whatever it be… (once we sat like that for a fox and three kits) letting it be, come close and then letting it walk away, safe.
If you come upon him don’t be frightened. Of course by now he’ll be much bigger, but just sit down calmly and sing something. He likes music. Smile.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 2001
Creature
THIS CREATURE looks more scared than I am. Come knocking… pawing… scratching at my door. Come, maybe in search of me (I’m easy prey for the weak and scared and hungry), or maybe in search of help and shelter…. (I’m peering out my window, hoping it won’t see me.) It’s been snowing—seems like three or four days now. The first really bad weather of the year so far.
It looks so draggled and cold…. I open the door. I welcome it. I say, “Hello new and dangerous friend.” My door’s a normal size, but too small for it. It pushes and groans and squeezes itself in. Then collapses on the floor in my one and only room, its big green head facing the stove. It take up all the space and makes puddles.
There’s a tag stapled in its ear—rather tattered (both ear and tag), green (both ear and tag), with a number so faded I can hardly make it out. It might be zero seven. Strange that it has ears at all considering what it (mostly) looks like. But they’re small—tiny vestigial… no, the opposite, evolving ears. They look as if made purely as place to put a tag.
It’s wearing a large handmade camouflage vest with lots of pockets. Now, while it’s still out of breath and collapsed, I check for weapons, though with those claws, why would it need any? What it has is old dried crumbs of pennyroyal, left over from some warmer season and some higher mountain, a few interesting stones, one streaked green with copper and one that glitters with fool’s gold, two books, one of poetry (100 Best Loved Poems) and one on plants of the area. Both well worn. A creature of my own heart. Perhaps.
It looks half starved—more than half. I have broth. I help it raise its heavy head. It sips, nods as if in thanks, but then shows its teeth, blinks its glittery eyes. I jump back. Try to, that is, but I bump into my table. There’s no room with it in here. It shakes its head, no, no, no. Seems to say it. “Mmmnno.”
But how can such a creature talk at all with such a mouth? But then come words, or parts of words. “Thang… kh… mmmyou… kind. Kindly. Thang you.” Then it seems to faint, or collapses, or sleeps—instantly—snow melting from its eyelashes (it has eyelashes) and rolling off its back, icy mud drying between its claws. The tiny arms look as if made for nothing but hugging.
While it seems in such an exhausted sleep, or maybe passed out, I take pliers and carefully remove the staple that holds the zero seven ear tag. I notice several claw marks along its back and it’s lost a large chunk off the end of its tail.
Now where in the world did this thing come from?
I’ve heard tales. I thought they were the usual nonsense… like sasquatch, yeti, and so forth, abominable this or that. (And here, for sure, the most abominable of all.) But I’ve heard tales of secret weapons, too. I’ve heard there are creatures made specifically to patrol this empty border land. Supposed to be indestructible in so far as a living breathing creature can ever be. Supposed to attack everything that moves in this no-man’s-land where nothing is supposed to be but another of its own kind.
I’d probably help even a suffering weapon, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep myself from it, but this one seems odd for a weapon, too polite, and with vest pockets full of dried bits of flowers, that book of poetry….
I drink the rest of the broth myself and stare at the creature for a while. No sense in trying to mop up with this thing in the way and still dripping. I can’t even get across the room without leaning against a wall or climbing over my chair or cot. I step over its legs. I squinch over to my front door. I take my jacket. I’m not worried about leaving the thing alone. It doesn’t seem the sort to do any harm—unless by mistake.
I whisper, “Sleep, my poor wet friend. I’ll be back soon,” in case it hears me leave. It doesn’t move. I might as well be talking to myself. I do that all the time anyway. I used to talk to my dog, Rosie, but since she died I haven’t stopped. I jabber on. No need for a dog for talking. They used to say we men were the silent sex, at least compared to women, but not me. Rosie just made it worse. She would look up at me, trying hard to get every word. Seemed to smile. I’d talk all the more. And now, as if she was still here, I talk. I talk to anything that moves.
As I go out, right outside the door there’s some juniper branches threaded together as though it had made itself a wind shield of some sort and dropped it before it came in. Farther along I see broken branches around my biggest limber pine. It must have sheltered there—leaned against the leeward side. Hard to think of such a creature giving out.
I lean against the leeward side, too. You’d think it would have smelled my fire and me. Perhaps it was already weak and sick. I don’t dare leave it by itself for long but I need space. That was like being in a squeeze gate. Still, I like company. Watch the fire together. Come better weather we could make the shack bigger. It was polite, even.
I say, “Rosie, Rosie.” The wind blows my words off into the hills before I hardly get them said. That name has already bounced off these cliffs sunrise to sunset. Not a creature here that hasn’t heard it. I’ve called her, sometimes by mistake, sometimes on purpose. Sometimes knowing she was dead, sometimes forgetting.
After she died I ran out in a snowstorm naked—and not just once or twice—hoping for… what? Death by freezing? I yelled, answering the coyotes, until I was so hoarse I couldn’t have spoken if there’d been somebody to speak to. After that I whispered. Then I sat, brooding over the knots in the logs as I had when I first came out here. Rosie needed me. She kept me human. Or should I say, and better yet, she kept me animal. I don’t know what I’ve become. I need this creature as much as it needs me. I’d make it a good meal. Maybe that’s what I want to be.
I squat down, my back against the tree. I shouldn’t go far. I should listen. Even just waking up and stretching, it could mess things up.
I chose this no-man’s land. I came here ten years ago. There’s a war been going on for a long time, but never any action here—not since I’ve been around. Missiles fly overhead, satellites float in the night sky, but nothing ever happens here. The war goes on, back and forth above me. Sometimes I can see great bursts of light. I wonder if there’s anything left on either side. No man’s land is the safest place to be. Had I had the sense to bring my wife and child here, they’d still be alive. Of course I didn’t think to come here myself until they were gone and my life was o
ver.
I don’t know how long I sit, the sun is hidden, but I’ve had no need for time since I came. I don’t even keep track of my age, let alone the time of day.
I’ve never seen a single one of these thick-skinned things until now. I wasn’t sure they existed. I didn’t want them to. I felt sorry for them even when I didn’t believe in them. How can they have any sort of life at all? Seeing this one, I think perhaps they can. (Or this one can.) But here they are in the world in spite of themselves. No fault of theirs. And in all kinds of weather. If they get sick, I suppose they pine and die on their own.
The creature seemed… rather sweet, I thought. Fine fingered hands. Womanly arms. Perhaps it really is female.
Then I hear the scraping and thumping of something who hasn’t hardly room enough to turn around. My poor friend, Zero Seven. I hurry back as best I can, clumping through snow a foot deep in spots. I open my door and go from a wall of softly falling flakes (softly now) to a wall of shiny green.
I push my fist into its side as one does to move a horse. I hope it feels my push. I hope it’s as sensitive as a horse. “Let me in, friend.”
It moves. I hear something falling over on its far side.
“Do gum in. I’mmmm afraid I…. Mmmmm… as you ksee.”
I slide myself in—scrape myself in, that is, it’s the wrong direction for the scales.
It turns toward me as best it can and seems to almost bow, or perhaps it’s a nod, one elegant little hand at its mouth as if embarrassed. I do believe I’m right about the sex. It must be female.
“Kh kvery, kvery, sssssorry. I’ll leave mmmm-nnnow.”
With me in the way it can’t turn around to go. Perhaps not even with me not in the way. It’ll have to back out.
The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1 Page 81
