The Magnificent Wilf

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “But that’s delightful!” said Lucy. “Thank you so much.”

  “Yes indeed,” said Tom. “I’m surprised you didn’t take us there directly.”

  “Oh, Xxxytl manners would not permit,” said Hmmm. “I wished to make the suggestion of the meeting to you on neutral ground, so to speak. But if the idea meets with your approval we will go right now.”

  “Let’s,” said Lucy.

  They had not gotten off the platform, and now it simply rose into the air, zipped off among the rooftops and landed on an open space that was the top of a building even larger than the one they had originally come down on. A number of Xxxytl were hovering like butterflies around the area where Hmmm set the platform down, their fins pleasantly agitated. Tom, Lucy and Hmmm got down from the platform; and the Xxxytl already there crowded in close to meet them.

  Chapter 17

  It was like being greeted by a polite flock of hummingbirds. Hmmm plunged into a welter of introductions— the Host of the Table of Regents—the First Regent— the Second Regent—the Suggestor of Social Mobilization—the Chief Empathic Counselor—

  Tom gave up trying to keep them straight, and was fairly sure that Lucy had also given up. The various Xxxytl, as they were introduced, spoke to them politely in their own language, which the humans now at least understood. Tom had coached Lucy in it, on the way here. It was an easy language, worn simple by thousands of years of use, at least as far as ordinary conversation was concerned. For example, the single word “Xxxytl” worked for any and all references to the Race, its home world, its individuals, or anything pertaining to them, or it.

  Tom and Lucy both answered in English, which tiny translingualphones worn by the Xxxytl present translated back into Xxxytl.

  “… And finally, may I have the honor of bringing forth to make you welcome,” said Hmmm in English, “our current Poet Laureate. She has been looking forward to meeting you both.”

  The crowd of Xxxytl moved back on either side, creating a lane, as if for royalty. Down this lane fanned a small, bowed Xxxytl, snow white in color and moving slowly. Partway to Tom and Lucy, she suddenly slipped and lost a little height. A couple of Xxxytl darted forward as if to help her up; but she testily waved them off with her fins. She continued on until she could confront Tom and Lucy from a distance of about half a foot.

  “Welcome to our ancient and honorable world!” Her chitter cracked a little, as if with age, but she held her position firmly enough, looking proudly into the eyes of Tom and Lucy with her own left eye, her head tilted a little to one side to get a good view of them both.

  “Indeed, Madam Poet,” said Lucy, graciously, “you do us great honor by meeting us.”

  Madam Poet brushed the compliment aside with a brusque movement of one of her fins.

  “Not at all, youngsters,” she said, “I understand you’re here somewhat in the interests of your own Race, but also out of some concern for our own problems with our local Sharks. It’s both my duty and joy to be of any assistance to you I can. We’ll talk. But first, it’s only good manners we should all eat together. I’ll stay by your side here—let the banquet commence!”

  There was a sudden flurry of the Xxxytl around them. As if from nowhere, there appeared what looked like little cube-shaped, topless tanks, each with a large colorless tube coming upward from it. The other Xxxytl flitted around sipping from the top of these tubes. Thick cushions about two feet square also appeared for Tom and Lucy to sit on, and a couple of large tanks were brought to them through the air, six Xxxytl earning each one.

  These were set down before Lucy and Tom, with their tubes arching up toward their lips. Tom sipped cautiously at his tube and a whitish brown liquid flowed up through it. His eyebrows lifted in pleasant surprise. It tasted exactly like a root beer float. He looked over at Lucy, and Lucy was looking happily surprised as well. Her drink, whatever it was, was a light green in color.

  Tom looked at Madam Poet, who had landed on a smaller cushion and was sitting there just at his right with her tail half-curved under her.

  “You are not banqueting yourself, Madam Poet?” he asked.

  “I never feed at this time of day,” she said. “However, don’t let my not eating spoil your meal; and meanwhile I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have about our Sharks.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me generally what they’re like, as far as the Sharks that trouble you are concerned?” said Tom.

  “Very well,” said Madam Poet. “Our Sharks are considerably evolved over any that I understand you have on your home world. Ours have developed a fairly high level of intelligence; but they’re still too barbaric in attitude to qualify for admission to Sector Civilization; and naturally, they have the basic instinctive reflexes and behaviors that are found in Sharkish Races everywhere. As you know all Sharks are ruled by instinct.”

  “Instinct?” Lucy said. “But isn’t that what drives everyone when they’re animal level or below?”

  “I’m not quite sure what you mean by animal level,” said Madam Poet. “The most civilized Races still possess instinct. But only the lesser Races are totally driven by it. The brains of Sharks on many worlds have never progressed beyond instinct for millions of years—their physical form was too efficient for them to feel the need to grow intellectually. But when they do grow intellectually, the worst part of their instinct seems to stay with them. So that even if they get to the point where they’re accepted on a fully civilized level—as you already may know, they’ve never been successful in getting one of their Race accredited as a Representative to the Sector Council; simply because, as I say, their instincts stay with them, though in more subtle ways.”

  “What instincts are these?” asked Lucy.

  “I’m sure you know them from your own Sharks,” said Madam Poet. “From your primitive forms. All Sharks still have them. But the main one is their feeding frenzy—you’ll be familiar with that?”

  “Yes,” said Tom, who had seen a shocking film of one such feeding frenzy of Earthly tiger sharks on a particular occasion. “This is where they seem to go wild and bite at anything. Even the uneatable parts, like the boat from which they’re being observed. Our scientists have concluded they can smell—or taste, whichever’s the right word—blood in the water from a great distance.”

  “Yes,” said Madam Poet, “no matter how civilized and intelligent a Shark has become, if one of them sees something it wants, it wants all of it, whether that makes sense or not. They will even turn on their own kind in such a situation. As I say, it’s instinct, and no amount of education or argument seems able to change it.”

  “Since you’re on land,” said Lucy, “and they’ve got all the oceans to themselves, why should they bother you?”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Madam Poet, “recently— in the last ten thousand years or so—their evolution has speeded up and they’ve become amphibious. They breathe air quite easily and can come up on land to get at us.”

  “But why do they want to get at you at all?” asked Lucy. “After all there must be all the food they want in the sea. Why should they bother you?”

  “We think,” said Madam Poet, “it’s because they hope to supplant us on this the home planet of our Race. If they could kill us off or supplant us, it would strengthen their claim to be the dominant intelligence on Xxxytl.”

  “Have you had an attack lately?” asked Tom.

  “Not for about a year here,” said Madam Poet. “This being our largest city, we have the largest number of loyal Xxxytl to help fight them off. But there’s always the fear that they’ll come in strength.” She hesitated. “And, to be completely honest with you, we think that perhaps some even more intelligent Sharks on other worlds may be masterminding their plans of attack. If so, word that you were coming here may have gotten out, and that could precipitate an attack at any time now.”

  “You really think so?” said Lucy.

  “Oh, it’s only a possibility.” Madam Poet waved it a
way with a fin. “Let us talk of more pleasant things. How do you like our fair city?”

  “I think it’s beautiful,” said Lucy. “I’ve never seen or even imagined anything like it.”

  “You please me intensely by saying so; and you will please all others when I tell them you said that—which I’ll do,” said Madam Poet. “Indeed, we’re the only city where all the central buildings are completely made of jewels—that being something that we Xxxytl reverence and love. As primitives, we considered them holy. Others of our cities may have a central area that may be constructed out of jeweled parts and building blocks; but they are considered much more humble.”

  “I can see why,” murmured Lucy.

  “Yes,” said Madam Poet. “It’s the jeweled part of our cities that the attacking Sharks particularly covet and try to take in their attacks. They not only destroy, they carry off the materials of our jewel buildings, so that we will have to find other individual jewels, and go through the intricate process of forming them into shapes to fit together for our architecture. We are famous for that, throughout this Sector; and even, I understand, to a certain extent throughout our galaxy.”

  “But how do they manage to take away the jewels?” said Lucy. “I mean, the jeweled parts of your buildings once they have been smashed or destroyed?”

  “In typical Shark fashion,” said Madam Poet, “they eat them. There is no nourishment in jewels, of course, but a Shark can swallow just about anything and by swallowing them and going back to the sea, where they possibly disgorge them again and cover them up with mud or stones, they hope to diminish the amount of jewels available to us for building. At least, that is the only reason we can imagine why they would want to take away our ruined buildings, once they have beaten them down, crushed, and destroyed them.”

  “How cruel can they be?” said Lucy. “That sort of a thing is—” she struggled for a word “—despicable!”

  “I agree with you,” said Madam Poet.

  “You Xxxytl have a Representative on the Sector Council,” said Tom. “Can’t you bring the matter up with them, somehow?”

  “No,” said Madam Poet. “I believe you already know the answer to that. The Council as a matter of principle does not interfere between Races native to the same planet.”

  “Well, is there some way you can talk to them yourselves?” asked Tom.

  “Oh, yes, they have a language,” said Madam Poet, “and many of us can speak it. We have tried to talk to them in their own tongue and reason with them; but there is too big a gap between us. We Xxxytl are an old, wise, non-violent Race nowadays; and they are complete barbarians still. We tell them that they are killing off the soul of our Race by robbing us of our jewel-buildings. Our arguments don’t register on them at all, however. We can talk Sharkish and they can talk Xxxytl, so the words may be mutually-known, but the understanding of them is completely different.”

  Tom and Lucy looked at each other, then they looked back at Madam Poet.

  “Perhaps,” said Tom, “we, as emerging barbarians ourselves, m§y be able to come up with something useful.”

  “It would be nice to think so,” said Madam Poet. She sighed.

  ..“However,” she went on, “we have wandered back to the unhappy subject of these predators, in spite of ourselves. But for now the buildings still stand. I know it is impossible for someone as large as yourselves to see them from inside, but perhaps I might describe to you how they are built.”

  “Please,” said Lucy, “I’d like to know.”

  “Well,” said Madam Poet, “we look for gems both in rock formations on land, and in the sea.”

  “In the sea?” said Tom. “Isn’t that dangerous? What about the Sharks?”

  “There is a certain amount of danger involved, of course,” said Madam Poet. “But a single Xxxytl, prospecting along the sea bottom, is usually too small and doesn’t give off the kind of signals that would attract the attention of a large cruising Shark. If, however, the Xxxytl is discovered and has to flee, the only safety for the prospector lies in reaching the surface of the water, since then they can take to the air; which the Sharks have not yet learned to do. At any rate, when jewels are found, they are mined; then of course they’ve got to be cut and shaped—”

  She broke off suddenly. Chimes were sounding all over the jeweled city and most of the Xxxytl at the banquet had already taken to the air, heading for other locations. Hmmm was already on his way toward Tom and Lucy, and right behind him were a couple of other Xxxytl who were aiming at Madame Poet.

  “Even while we talk about it!” said Madam Poet. “That’s a Shark attack warning now. You’ll have to get on your platform and be carried safely inland. I, too, must leave the city, with the little ones and those unable to help defend it—”

  The two Xxxytl right behind Hmmm had passed him up and were now on either side of Madam Poet. With their fins they gently assisted her into the air.

  “I’ll hope to talk to you later,” she called back to Tom and Lucy as she was hustled away. “There are other matters—”

  But she was already out of hearing and in fact out of sight, lost among the other Xxxytl who were now zipping about, back and forth.

  “Please,” chittered Hmmm to Tom and Lucy, “get on the platform. We’ll go safely over the hills back there. The Sharks never come very far inland.”

  “Not on your life!” said Tom. “I want to see this. But you can take the Consort Lucy—”

  “Absolutely not!” said Lucy. “The two of us work together, remember, Tom? I’m seeing this, too.”

  “Lucy,” Tom started to protest, then checked himself. She was right, of course. He reminded himself that he had all his Assassin weapons; and at least the briefing on how to use them. He gave Lucy a hand in climbing up onto the platform.

  “Take us to where we can get a good view of the Sharks as they come ashore,” he said.

  “If that is what you wish,” said Hmmm, unhappily. Then he brightened. “Of course, you’ll be completely safe as long as we’re in the air. The Sharks are restricted to the depths of the sea and the surface of the land—at least so far.”

  He lifted the platform into the air and sent it swooping up the coast from the city, so that they saw at once the whole expanse of ocean shore and the sea beyond it, plus the city itself; and having reached that position, he hovered the platform there.

  “What kind of weapons will they have?” Tom asked.

  “So far,” Hmmm said, “they have had no weapons but themselves. Their size makes them very powerful. Simply by Hading their tails about they can knock down skyscrapers, for example.”

  “Knock down skyscrapers?” said Lucy. “How large are they?”

  Hmmm had to think for a minute.

  “I think, in your Earthly terms,” he said at last, “you would say they are about twenty feet long and weigh something like a ton—or two tons? Measured on land, that is, out of the water.”

  “That’s big,” said Lucy, staring back at the tall, slender, jeweled structures that Hmmm had been referring to as skyscrapers.

  “And what sort of weapons,” persisted Tom, “do you Xxxytl have to defend yourselves against them?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Hmmm, “we are an old Race who long ago abandoned violence, and our only weapons nowadays are—” he hesitated, and then came up triumphantly with a equivalent to what he wanted in English “—tranquilizer guns. By that I mean weapons that shoot a pre-targeted missile that would put even one of the Sharks to sleep.—Is that the right name? Tranquilizer guns?”

  “Exactly right,” said Tom.

  “Ah, good. It is not an important weapon by any means. But our problem is that the Sharks attack in such tremendous numbers. Even with every Xxxytl available to fight, they often overwhelm us and reach the part of the city they want to knock down. We keep on tranquilizing them, of course; but more keep coming, and some are able to feed while others get knocked out. The bodies of those who’ve been tranquilized help to hide tho
se who are destroying the buildings and swallowing their jeweled parts. That part is like their feeding frenzy. They bite anything, even each other, then. When they’ve swallowed all the materials of our buildings, they go back to the sea and leave us with nothing but the space where our city once stood; and of course, thousands of tranquilized Sharks.”

  “What do you do with the tranquilized Sharks?” asked Lucy.

  “We load them gently onto platforms,” said Hmmm. “It is possible to link platforms like this together with others the same size until we have very large carrying surfaces and load the tranquilized Sharks very gently on to them, take the raiders out over the sea and return them to its deep waters, where they will come back to their senses in about twenty-four hours and be as good as ever.”

  Tom and Lucy both stared at him.

  “Don’t you ever think …” Lucy hesitated, “about … killing them?”

  “Oh, my no!” said Hmmm. “Our Xxxytl point of view is that only a Race with strong traces of barbarism still within them could consider killing another being. Better we die ourselves, than indulge in such uncivilized behavior!”

  The warning chimes from the city suddenly ceased, and a sad but noble sort of music took its place. Hmmm immediately inverted himself, so that he floated head-down in mid-air just above the surface of the platform, his fins barely moving.

  “You need not follow my example,” he said hastily to Tom and Lucy. “But we Xxxytl always stand at attention when our racial anthem is played. It is being played now, of course, because many of us may not survive this day.”

  The anthem ended and Hmmm turned back upright. A single, higher chime note rang out from the city.

  “The Sharks are now within instrument range,” he said. “Would you care to view them?”