Of Man and Manta Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

  Orn shook out his stubby, still-featherless wings and advanced on the piled meat before him. Flies swarmed up as his beak chopped down. He was hungry, and there was no one to feed him.

  II - AQUILON

  For two days they orbited: three humans and seven mantas. The shell was tiny for ten occupants, the sanitary facilities embarrassingly unsophisticated and, the food monotonous. But the mantas were siblings who could range leagues or freeze in place for hours without suffering, and the human beings were two men and a woman said to be beautiful. Because the mantas were of fungoid metabolism (though this description was about as precise as 'heated protoplasm' might be for the humans), their body processes complemented those of the humans, freshening the air to a certain extent. It was a tidy circumstance, though machine revitalization was still essential for oxygen.

  Nevertheless, it was crowded.

  By the time the shuttle came to grapple the capsule and haul it in entire for decontamination, the trio had talked out almost everything inconsequential.

  The mantas faced each other in a ring, or perhaps a seven-pointed star, or yet again a hemisphere, depending on how one viewed the topology of the shell's interior. Each gazed for a period of seconds into the eye of his opposite, three pairs engaged at all times, one individual sitting out. Then the pattern would shift for new combinations. What philosophies they contemplated so raptly Aquilon could not guess, but certainly something was being discussed at length. She cursed her female curiosity, but did not attempt to query a manta.

  There was a jolt as the capsule was caught by the shuttle and braked. The spin that had provided a kind of gravity stopped, and they all had to cling to handholds to keep from somersaulting in free-fall. The mantas had no hands, but each had a mass approaching fifty pounds in normal gravity; they bounced against the wall and each other like so many huge rubber balls. She almost laughed. 'Prepare for decontamination,' the speaker said. Veg braced himself before the exit port, automatically assuming the lead for what promised to be an unpleasant procedure. Aquilon had been through it before, of course, as had the two men - but familiarity did not bring composure. Decontamination covered a good deal more than the external physique.

  Watching Veg, Aquilon smiled, though not with her lips. She was tall for a woman, but Veg dwarfed her. He was as powerful a man as she had ever met, with one exception she preferred not to think about. She peered at his broad back through the mesh of blonde hair waving across her face in the free-fall. Who would normally suspect this two-fisted roughneck of compulsive passion for the well-being of all living creatures? Yet it was so. Only against men did Veg use his muscle, and then by way of demonstration, rather than coercion, except in rare instances.

  She removed her gaze, and it fell naturally on the other man. Cal was superficially the opposite of Veg. He was tiny - hardly up to her own shoulder, and thin and weak. But his mind was frighteningly sharp, capable of appalling concepts, and he had the courage of his strange convictions. Cal seemed to fear death not at all; indeed, he seemed almost to worship it.

  Aquilon loved both men. The physical side of her leaned toward Veg, the intellectual toward Cal. Yet it was Veg's intellectual example she followed now, for she had stopped eating meat, fish, and fowl. She needed something tangible that she had not been able to find or assess, except that it related to them. And both men believed they needed her - but the truth, it seemed to her, was that they needed each other, and she was only in the way. They had been good companions before she met them - better than they were now, though neither man spoke of the subtle, insidious change occurring. Could she abscond with Veg's body and Cal's mind? Was she selfish enough to interpose her femininity (more bluntly, her femaleness) between them, drawing to herself the life-preserving dialogue they had for each other?

  It would be better if she stepped out of their lives entirely. If only she had the ability to devise a clean exit, and the emotional stamina to follow through...

  Now, she thought sadly. Now, during the decontamination. They segregated the sexes for that, thank God, and she could simply request a transfer to some other planet, and she would never see them again, even for a fond farewell. It would break her heart, but she had to do it.

  'Cancel,' said the speaker, and she jumped guiltily. The port remained sealed. 'Your unit is to be transshipped entire. There will be no processing.'

  Veg looked about, perplexed. 'This isn't SOP,' he said.

  Cal frowned. 'That business below may have put us in a special category. One of their agents died -'

  'Subble,' she said tersely. 'Subble died.' She had only known the man, really, for four hours, and known him as an enemy. But it was as though a lover was gone.

  'And the problem the manta represents is critical. They may have decided not to expose any of the station personnel to -'

  'But what about the Earth germs?' Aquilon demanded.

  'Decon is both ways. We don't want to infect Nacre with -'

  The communications screen glowed. A face appeared, supported by the lapels and insignia of the Space Police. 'Your attention please. Your attention please.'

  'Does he mean us? Does he mean us?' Aquilon inquired mockingly in the same tone. She resented being treated impersonally.

  'If they had television, why did they use the speaker all this time?' Veg wanted to know.

  Cal smiled. 'That's still the speaker. The picture has merely been added. It means we've switched from voice to film.'

  'About time, after two days,' Veg said, missing the irony.

  The face on the screen frowned. 'This is a live transmission. I am addressing you three in the capsule. I can hear you.'

  Veg closed his mouth, embarrassed at having been overheard. Aquilon had to suppress her smile. She also envied him his essential simplicity.

  'Please respond as I call your names,' the man said. 'Vachel E. Smith.'

  There was a silence. Aquilon noted Cal struggling similarly to void a smile. Veg did not like his proper name, and seldom answered to it. After the tedious confinement here, he was even less likely than usual to be tractable in the face of authority.

  'Vachel E. Smith!' the official repeated impatiently.

  'What's your name, noodlebrain?' Veg demanded. This time Aquilon did let out a noisy breath, attracting a momentary glance from the interrogator. She felt giddy, as though she were a schoolgirl testing the grouchy teacher. Confinement and near-free-fall could do that, particularly after the horror they had so recently experienced on Earth. They were all acting like gradeschoolers - but she felt like enjoying it while she could. It took her mind off what she would have to do.

  The man in the screen brought up a clipboard and made a checkmark. 'Deborah D. Hunt?'

  Suddenly Aquilon appreciated Veg's ire. She had fallen out of the habit of using her own name since meeting Veg and Cal, and the derogatory nickname imposed on her during a childhood illness had become her badge of honor. She even signed her paintings with it. Now her real name sounded strange and obnoxious, an epithet rather than an identification.

  The officer made another check. 'Calvin B. Potter?'

  'Present,' Cal said, not acceding to foolish gestures. 'All present. What is your business with us?'

  'Wait a minute,' Aquilon cried mischievously. 'You haven't checked off the others.'

  'Others?' The officer peered at her.

  'The mantas. They're individuals too. As long as you're calling off names by remote control -'

  Veg broke into a grin. 'Yeah. Everyone gets on the roll. Call'em off.'

  'The animals hardly qualify for -'

  'I should advise you, Cal said to the screen, 'that the mantas do comprehend human speech to a certain extent, even though they may not choose to acknowledge it. Actually, they are somewhat more civilized than we are, but their definitions differ from ours.'

  'That's why they're more civilized,' Aquilon said. The officer maintained his composure, obviously comprehending the ridicule. 'I do not have names for the fungoids.'


  'It's very simple,' Aquilon said, hoping her twinkle didn't show. 'Each manta is represented by a characteristic symbol rather like a snowflake, no two alike. If you have an oscilloscope handy, they might feed in the patterns -' She hesitated, not wanting to confess how recently the trio had acquired this information. Cal had suspected it for some time, but it had taken Subble to break through and achieve complete communication - by whatever means would be forever a mystery. Now Subble and one manta were dead, but the other mantas demonstrated by their reactions that they understood a good deal of man's vocabulary and custom. The period in the capsule had brought out the eight names and a system for limited dialogue.

  'If you will provide the names, I will add them to my roster,' the officer said.

  'Well, first there's the symbol of the line,' she said brightly. 'Of course it isn't exactly a line, but to our crude human perception that's the closest -'

  'The name, please.'

  'Lin. Lin for Line.'

  One of the mantas bounced from one side of the capsule to the other, and ricocheted to the communication screen. Its single foot struck the oblong of light squarely. The officer flinched. 'Lin,' he said, marking it down.

  There was now a faint line across the screen, cut into the plastic by an unseen slash of the mania's whiplike tail. If Aquilon had had any doubt before about the ability of these creatures to understand human dialogue, this dispelled it. Intrigued, she strung out the game.

  'Next we have the symbol of the circle, Circe. She's the one who stayed with me, and fed off the rats in the cellar-farm. Of course the mantas are all neuter, technically; only their spores have sex. But since she stayed with me, and I'm female-'

  'Circe,' the officer said, not rising to that particular bait. 'The sorceress.'

  A second manta caromed off the screen. Behind it was left a neat circle. The juxtaposition of symbols made a bisected loop. 'Not the sorceress,' Aquilon said. 'The circle, as you see it there.' But she wondered whether the man's observation didn't have merit.

  'And the triangle, Tri,' she continued. The third manta added a triangle, its three points neatly touching the perimeter.

  The officer allowed his mouth to fall open momentarily. This was impressive sleight of hand. He was not ready to believe that the mantas themselves were responsible for the geometric markings so accurately inscribed. 'Tri,' he said.

  'And the diamond, Diam.' The parallelogram was added to the figure.

  Aquilon became serious. 'Unfortunately the pentagram, Pent, is not with us. He - died. We don't know exactly how or why, but we think it has something to do with your agent Subble, who is also dead. You dropped a missile on the island and killed some citizens -'

  Yes, she thought. The spores of the dead manta were in the atmosphere, threatening to contaminate all Earth and perhaps mutate its tame molds and fungi, harming its food-protein industry. So a Florida resort area had been bombed in the attempt to eradicate those spores. It had not been pretty.

  After that she didn't feel like playing the game any more, so Veg took over. 'Hex,' he said. 'He was my manta, in the forest. The forest you burned to the ground -'

  'I neither originate nor execute landside policy,' the officer said primly. 'Nor am I informed about it. I'm sure there was good reason for whatever action was taken.'

  'Omnivore reason,' Aquilon muttered. The omnivore she meant was man, the most brutal killer known, and the only one who rationalized the misdeeds of his brother by pretending not to be responsible.

  'And Star,' Veg continued. 'One of the six who stayed with Cal. And Oct, the last one.'

  The screen was now thickly crossed with lines, all geometric figures inscribed within the circle as though constructed by compass and straight edge. The officer's image came through as though he stood behind transparent stained glass.

  'I believe I have all the names now.' he said. 'It is my duty to inform you ten that computer headquarters has recommended that you be assigned to a new mission. You will not be returning to Nacre.'

  Aquilon exchanged glances with the two men, and the mantas looked at each other. The harried officer was having the last laugh after all!

  'In fact, you will not be visiting any of the listed planets, and it is unlikely that you will ever return to Earth. This is not to be considered an exile so much as -'

  The voice continued, but Aquilon tuned it out internally, horrified. Banishment, not only from Earth but from all known colonies! So that was their punishment for the trouble the mantas had caused by their presence on Earth. She should have known that the powers that governed the planet would not destroy several billion dollars worth of development and landscape and wipe out a number of innocent lives, and then merely reprimand those who were to be the scapegoats. The trio had broken the law by importing unauthorized alien creatures to Earth, as many travelers did. They had not intended any harm - but this time great harm had come.

  No, she could not protest lifetime exile. Worse things were possible. She had wanted desperately to leave Earth again, yet now that her wish was being granted, she felt perversely nostalgic. She did not like Earth or feel at ease upon it - but it still was harsh to be denied it for life.

  However, that did not really affect her decision to separate from the two men. That had made it impossible for her to go to Nacre anyway.

  '...first habitable alternate, as determined by soil, sea, and air samples,' the officer was saying. She had missed something important! 'But there are several problems. First, our connection is tenuous. We can ferry any amount of material over, but only when the phase is proper - and that's infrequent. Second, we can not alter the point of contact without risking complete severance, and it could take us a century to reestablish contact if we lost it now.'

  That didn't sound like ordinary space travel. But he had used the word 'alternate'. Could this mean - ?

  'And, unfortunately, this contact occurs under the ground. We have sent in borers to open passages to the surface, but another complication -'

  She tried to pay attention, but her mind refused. An alternate world! This was exploration of an entirely different order. But if it were another Earth, why was it the 'first habitable'? That implied that there were others unfit for human occupation. What true 'Earth' could be unfit, except a devastated one? And even for another Earth, there should be decontamination processing; a virus virulent on one world should thrive on the other, if introduced.

  No, she did not like the sound of this.

  Gal's silent touch on her thigh jogged her to attention. He was not looking at her, and she would have supposed the contact to be accidental had she not known that nothing Cal ever did was accidental. Particularly not a goose with the thumb. She followed his gaze.

  There was a map on the screen - a globe marked off with meridians of longitude and latitude, as though it were the Earth proper. But the continents and great islands were strange; it was obviously a different world.

  Cal touched her again. Then she understood. She unobtrusively brought out her pad and brush and quickly sketched the outlines of the map. As she worked, the geography was replaced by the face of the officer, but she held the prior image in her mind and continued to work on the picture, employing the trained short-term eidetic memory that helped make her the artist she was. Cal would have good reason for this subtle directive - reason he did not want the officer to know.

  She put the finishing touches on the map as the dialogue continued, then quietly put the pad away. What secrets had Cal read in this seemingly routine illustration? She was now alive with female curiosity. But how would she learn, if she were to part from the two men now? For that matter, how would she deliver the map to Cal? She could not pass it over now without giving away the show.

  'Your assignment is to enter this alternate and make casual survey of its flora, fauna, and, as far as practicable, its mineral resources. You'll be supplied from Earth, but there may be danger. You'll be expected to report -'

  'Yeah, we know the route,' Veg
said. We did it on Nacre, remember?'

  The officer bore with this insolence. 'Radio relay to the transfer point, where the recording will be brought back at such time as the phase permits, probably within two months. Analogous but not identical to your prior - ' He paused. 'I have just been informed that an excellent contact has developed in the past few minutes. Perfect phase, but it won't last long. We may have to wait a month for another, so we'll act Immediately.' He paused again, verifying instructions from an offscreen source. 'The port will open. Move at once to the transmission chamber. Good luck.'

  Once more they exchanged glances. This was too sudden, too convenient; even Veg realized that. They were not being told something. Ordinarily the wheels of Earthly bureaucracy preferred a month to a minute for even a minor decision. Why should -