Foster, Alan Dean - Humanx 03

by Alan Dean Foster

  He pretended to gaze admiringly at an infant near the end of the aisle. The emergency exit should be nearby. These were not simple holdovers from ancient times when every Humanx Nursery possessed them, but served as important escape routes in case of fire.

  The exit should lead to a ramp at the outskirts of the hive. One who used such a passageway for nonemergency purpose was subject to substantial penalties, but then, so was a kidnaper. The confluence of crimes and antisocial behavior in general among human and Humanx is one of our less obvious similarities, he mused.

  The larvae he chose were neither newborns nor those on the verge of metamorphosis. All were approximately at midlarval stage.

  His patience was rewarded when not one but two of the Nurses working up the aisle made their way out of the Nursery. When they did not return he quietly started work. Two, three, five of the saddles were linked by couplers. All could now be steered by a single Nurse. or anyone else. A glance up the aisle showed that the last attendant had disappeared. The cubicle partitions concealed him reasonably well and. would do so until he had to move his little train out into the open for the short dash to the emergency exitway. He would be quite satisfied if he could slip them through without being noticed. He did not have time to worry about how long he would have until they were missed.

  He was linking the sixth and final saddle to the others when a shockingly familiar scent reached his antennae. They jerked backward in reaction. The scent was followed by a querulous and equally familiar voice.

  "Ryo?" He turned. It was Fal.

  She wore her uniform vest and neck pouch and was staring at him. How much she'd observed he didn't know, not that it mattered now. She raised all four hands and gestured at the little line of linked saddles. Their motors whispered, their occupants slept on, oblivious.

  "Where did you come from and what do you think you're doing?" Ryo discovered that he was breathing in quick, short gasps. His gaze went past her to the Nursery entrance. The other two Nurses still hadn't returned but he daren't count on their absence much longer.

  "I haven't time to explain," he told her. "You must help me get these children out of the Nursery and up to the surface. Everything depends on speed now." She took a step away from him. "I don't understand you. You told me you were involved in some kind of government project. Then that same agency told us you'd turned criminal." She made a gesture of considerable confusion and uncertainty. "I don't know who or what to believe anymore." "Everything you were told is true, in its fashion," he said, unfailingly honest.

  "To a point. I was working on a government project and I am now something of a lawbreaker. Probably worse than that, according to some. In the opinion of others, I am doubtless regarded as a grand hero. Actually, I'm neither. I'm just me, doing what I think necessary. You can make your own decision, Fal. But I don't have time to explain things. Not now." He touched a control and the line of saddles moved toward the emergency corridor. She hurried around to block the lead saddle.

  "I don't know where you've been, Ryo, or why you haven't been in touch with me or what you've been doing. I don't much care. I do care to see you again. It's good, I think, in spite of what you did. We have many things to talk about. In the meantime and for whatever personal reasons of yours, these larvae are going nowhere. This is the Nursery. This is where they belong and this is where they remain. Unless you can explain what you're doing, which I sincerely doubt." "I doubt it myself," he told her, stepping close. "It's more complicated than you can imagine. I love you, Fal. You are a wonderful, intelligent, insightful, enjoyable female and my opinion of you will never change regardless of what you come to think of me and I hope you will excuse this," and he brought clown two fists with what he fervently hoped was carefully gauged strength between her antennae.

  She did not even have time to gasp. Her arms went out in a gesture of shock and she collapsed to the floor. He bent quickly over her. A glance up the aisle showed a still empty Nursery. His luck continued.

  Her thorax pulsed slowly but steadily as he lifted her onto an empty saddle and linked it to the other six. She would be unconscious for a long time while her body healed the cerebral bruise.

  The kidnaping would confront the Hive Council with a great mystery. It would be natural for them to concentrate on Fal's background in the hunt for motives.

  With luck they might never make the connection between a cluster of missing larvae and a longabsent mental defective named Ryozenzuzex. If the humans had done their part and thoroughly camouflaged their shuttle and the new structures, they might have a great deal of time before the alarm was raised and anyone thought to do some studious deduction.

  With less luck and preparation he might be very dead in a day or two, along with the six innocent larvae, Fal, and all his human friends. He preferred not to think about that. In any case, now was not the time.

  He met no one in the emergency corridor. No one challenged him when he emerged on the surface with his unlikely cargo. in tow.

  Getting the seven saddles and their occupants into the harvester was difficult work even with the aid of the machine's autoloading apparatus. Still he was not interrupted. When the last saddle had been positioned and locked in place inside the climatecontrolled hold he mounted the cab and gunned the engine. The harvester rumbled off down the nearest access path.

  He was careful to stay on the designated roads, even though it cost him some time. The last thing he wanted was to leave a clear track behind him. Soon he was in among the jungle trees, however, and he had to program the harvesting equipment to carefully replace the vegetation the machine bashed through. In a few hours the sun would be up and a preliminary search of Paszex and its immediate environs would be under way.

  Confusion would be his most effective shield. They would inspect the immediate belt of jungle surrounding the hive fields, but since there was no reason for the missing Nurse to take her charges farther afield he didn't think.a deep hunt would commence for several days. By that time he would be well beyond any sensible search pattern.

  He'd entered the missing harvester into the machineshop program as offline, on its way to Zirenba for extensive overhaul. Months would pass before anyone thought to check on its status.

  Fal presented a more substantial problem. He did not think she would remain calm at the sight of his horrific human companions. If she awoke it might be best to keep her sedated. He would worry about that later. If the project failed her opinion of him would not matter. If by some chance it succeededwell, he would worry about their relationship at that time only.

  When the sun rose, so would his young charges. Ryo had spent time in the Nursery only as an occupant. Very shortly he would have to deal with six confused, unhappy, and hungry youngsters. He didn't know exactly how he was going to cope with that, although the past month had taught him something of handling youngsters and their needs. If he could manage infants of another species, surely he could deal with those of his own kind.

  He managed to do so. The presence of the "sleeping" Nurse, whom they all recognized, helped to calm them. When she didn't wake up there might be new problems, but Ryo was grateful for the respite.

  The harvester continued to perform admirably, sloshing its way through the rain forest while automatically covering its own tracks. To assist it he tried to choose paths that were particularly watery, but he was positive he must be leaving a trail behind him wide enough for a dozen Servitors to scan.

  His only confrontation, however, came not from an angry cluster of Servitors or any of the jungle's omnipresent carnivores, but from several armed humans who materialized magically from among the trees and surrounded the harvester. It was interesting to note that they had shed the majority of their clothing.

  Greetings were exchanged and weapons lowered. A couple of the humans gazed dumbly back into the jungle along the path restored by the harvester. They could not believe Ryo had brought off the most difficult part of the experiment.

  "You're sure no one's followin
g you?" a beefy male asked. His body fur was black and full of tight curls.

  "It proceeded with admirable smoothness," Ryo said. He was glad no one challenged him. He was not ready to explain about Fal. That incident was still painful to recall.

  They escorted him to the glade. As the harvester emerged from the trees Ryo had to struggle before locating the exquisitely hidden shuttle. It seemed to have sprouted grass, bushes, and yellow flowers.

  Other hills marked the sites of the portable buildings the expedition had brought with them. There would be the section for housing his six immobile charges, there one for their human counterparts. Most of the adults would bivouac aboard the shuttle.

  Since shuttle and structures were nearly invisible from the ground, Ryo had no doubt that from the air the illusion would be complete. In addition to confusing any visual search, the humans also possessed sophisticated instruments for harmlessly dispersing heat and restricting sound. They would have privacy and time. That was more than he'd hoped for.

  A violent squalling in the form of a rising and falling whistle sounded from the rear of the harvester. Ryo brought it to a halt. Several other humans had joined the intercepting forest guards and were peering into the cargo hold.

  Ryo nearly broke a leg as he rushed to get there. In the excitement of the moment the humans had not considered the effect their appearance might have on his intelligent and impressionable passengers.

  He had not intended that the children confront their nightmares so soon.

  Matthew remembered the first times.

  He wasn't sure why he'd been chosen, but he was glad that he had been. The world they were visiting was a neat place, full of brightly colored bugs and flying things, and interesting creepycrawlies to poke sticks at through the clear surfaces of shallow ponds.

  He didn't have much time to do that, since they kept him and the others playing with the funnyshaped kids. They were nice, so he didn't mind not being allowed outside so much.

  Bonnie and the big bug, Ryo, had told him that his new friends were children just like him, only of Ryo's people. But they didn't look anything like little Ryos at all. In fact, when Matthew first saw them his initial reaction and that of his friends had been one of pity. They had no arms or legs. How could anyone play without arms or legs?

  They had huge wormlike bodies. That was kind of icky at first, but they also had pale colors running just under their skins that were awful pretty. It was funny to see these colors change from green to blue, from red to yellow and back again. Matthew wished he could change color like that.

  They smelled real nice, too. Like a field of cut grass, or the hem of his mother's dress, or the laundry when it was new. The grownups were afraid at first that he and his friends would be frightened of the larvae, as they called them. That was silly. How could anyone be afraid of some one who smelled so nice and didn't have arms to hit you with or legs to kick you with? The larvae, like his best friend Moul, were a lot more afraid of Matthew and the other human children than the human children were of them.

  On the ship he'd learned to recognize a lot of the funny whistlewords and clicktalk. That was good, because the Humanx kids didn't know any real speech at all. Matthew was the best of the bunch and he was proud when the other kids asked him to translate. As the weeks went by, however, both groups learned from their counterparts. Because the larvae had flexible mandibles, it turned out they could talk human even better than Ryo.

  This seemed to surprise the grownups as much as it pleased them. Matthew shook his head. Some grownups were just plain dumb. After all, a stick is a stick whether you call it a stick or a whistleword.

  It surprised him to learn that Moul and the other larvae felt sorry for him.

  Sure, Moul didn't have arms and legs, but he didn't run into things, either, or stick himself with thorns. That embarrassed Matthew and made him a little bit angry. Sometimes he thought of hitting Moul to show him what hands were good for.

  But no matter what he said or how he said it, neither Moul nor his companions ever seemed to get mad. Pouty sometimes, but never mad. You couldn't go around hitting someone like that. And when Moul explained things to him, Matthew lost a lot of his own mads, too. It was funny the things grownups got excited about.

  Matthew had lots of friends back in school on Earth. A couple of them had also qualified for the trip. One was a bigger boy named Werner, and Matthew couldn't understand how he'd made it. He'd beaten Matthew up a couple of times.

  Moul was sorry to hear that when Matthew told him about it.

  "I betcha Werner wouldn't try and beat you up," he told Moul one day as they were sitting in what the grownups called the Interaction Room. "You're too big." "For now," Moul agreed, "but as he matures he'll outgrow me, and after metamorphosis I'll be slightly smaller than I am now." "That's weird," Matthew said. "Getting smaller as you become a grownup. But getting a whole new body; that sounds neat. I wish I could metamorphose." He added another magnetic span to the building he and Moul were designing. It was a curved one this time. Moul might not have any hands, but his suggestions were swell.

  "Anyway," Moul wondered aloud, "if Werner is bigger and stronger than you, then why does he feel the need to beat you up? If he's bigger he ought to be smarter and realize how counterproductive such antisocial activity is." "Yeah, well," Matthew muttered, "just once I'd like to pop him back a good one." He brought one fist into an open palm to produce a smacking sound.

  "But why, would you want to do that?" the studious Moul asked.

  "To get even with him." Sometimes even Moul could say the dumbest things.

  "For what?" "For beating me up." Matthew put his hands on his hips and then made the Humanx sign for mild exasperation. "Boy, you're awfully smart most of the time, Moul; but now and then you're awful stupid, too." "I'm sorry," the larva replied. "I'm just ignorant of your ways. It all seems so silly to me. Wouldn't it be better for the two of you to be friends?" "Well, sure it would, I guess," Matthew reluctantly admitted, "but Werner is a bully. He likes to beat people up." "Larvae who are smarter than he?" "Well," the boy thought a moment, "yeah, I think so." "That's what a `bully' issomeone who beats up someone physically weaker than himself?" "That's right, I guess." Actually Matthew hadn't given the subject much consideration. To him, a bully was someone who beat Matthew Bonner up. The definition need extend no further than that.

  "Then he doesn't seem very big to me at all. It sounds to me like he has a very small mind." "Yeah, I guess he must. Yes, that's it." Matthew smiled hugely. "A small mind. A small mind." He burst into delighted laughter at having discovered a gratifying corollary. At the same time he picked up another span.

  "No, not a curved one this time," Moul advised him. "A doublestraight. It will give more support to the tower there." Matthew studied the growing monument only briefly. Moul was rarely wrong. "I thin k you're right." He set the span in place, watched as it annealed to the nearby side panels. The structure was over a meter high and still growing. The two youngsters had been working on it off and on for several days. The adults found it most interesting.

  He selected a ridge ellipsoid, moved to emplace it.

  "Also on the top, don't you think?" Moul asked.

  This time Matthew objected, holding it over the windowpanes twothirds of the way up the lefthand tower. "Don't you think it would look better here?" "Look better." Moul considered. He envied his friend's ability to see in colors more than he envied him his limbs. "Yes. Yes, I think you are right, Mattheeew.

  That is a most intriguing composition." "We can use two of them." The boy chose a second, matching ellipsoid. "One here and one up top, where you suggested." "An excellent suggestion, Mattheeew. Then I really think we'd better start working on the other side again or we'll overbalance the towers." "Yeah, that's right." Then he frowned and set the two units back in their box.

  "Is something wrong?" "I'm bored," Matthew announced, sighing deeply. "I wish they'd let us go outside by ourselves. I get tired of having grownu
ps around." "I don't," said Moul. "In any case, you know I couldn't go out with you." "Why not? Oh yeah, your skin would burn." "During the day it would," the larva admitted mournfully. "Anyway, I think the adults don't want us to go outside much." "They sure don't. I wonder why." "I'm not sure," Moul said thoughtfully. "I respect adults, of course, but sometimes it seems to me they are capable of mistakes as obvious as our own." "Yeah, they're not as smart as they think. I bet I could get you outside at night." His voice fell to a conspiratorial whisper. "We could fool 'em. Your skin wouldn't burn at night." "No, it wouldn't," Moul agreed. "I can't get around by myself very well, though." "Aw, we'd figure something out. I'd help you." "And I'd help you. I can see almost as well at night as I can during the day," the larva told him. "I was informed that you cannot." "You can see in the dark?" Matthew's eyes went wide.