E. S. P. Worm

by Piers Anthony

  But we were being hustled into an inner chamber. An elevator, in fact, for as the doors ground closed behind us, isolating us, the descent began.

  There was hardly room for Nancy’s baggie and me. I felt like grabbing the thing and ripping it apart. Who knew—she might be nude thereunder.

  She looked about nervously, as though divining my concupiscent imaginings. “Mr. Minister, this isn’t—”

  “Harold,” I hinted.

  She collapsed against me with a little sigh. The ribs of the baggie dug into my natural ones. I stumbled back against the wall, my hands searching for some place to catch hold of her under the tent before she fell to the floor. My fingers punched through the taunt material and groped across mind-expanding surfaces.

  Nancy was not being affectionate, unfortunately. She was unconscious.

  H-i-s-s-s-s-t! I felt something sting my left shoulder and knew it immediately for an invisible splinter of frozen Jupegas, that allpurpose anesthetic. Of all the times to be hit! I thought with despairing frustration.

  And passed out myself.

  Chapter 2

  My head was itching. It was as though a monstrous mosquito had lodged its iron proboscis within my skull and sucked out twenty cc of my gray matter, depositing a similar quantity of irritant.

  I woke up in a foul temper, unable to scratch at the agony, because my cranium got in the way. My eyes moved, left to right, up and down. Wherever they turned green blanketing appeared. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor—all padded. Light filtered through from a recessed ventilator.

  It looked as though I had finally come to the end my relatives had direly predicted. I was wearing gray prison coveralls and soft slippers, and my brain hurt. I couldn’t care less what the doctors said about the brain having no pain receptors; it hurt. Probably courtesy of the Jupegas dose, though I had always understood that the anesthetic from our giant brother planet was completely free of aftereffects. Some things have to be learned the hard way.

  But why? Why was I here in this cell? I was no criminal. I was Earth’s Minister of Inner-Galactic World Affairs, and I had come to inspect a loathsome captive alien creature. Along with a luscious lady Ph.D. And what had they done with Nancy?

  I tried to work up a righteous fury, but the incessant itch in my head dissipated the necessary concentration. I refused, at any rate, to throw a tantrum. I was sure I was being watched.

  A padded section pushed open and I recognized a door. Behind it was a cubicle, and within that space was a soft plastic tray loaded with food. Coffee, fried eggs, nicely browned ham, a stack of golden wheatcakes and a thimble of bright maple syrup.

  I realized I was ravenous. I grabbed the tiny rubber spoon and fell to. In a moment I discarded the utensil, since it tended to bend rather than cut, and crammed the morsels into my mouth with my fingers. I ate everything. I licked the last drop of coffee from the cup, ran my tongue over the hotcake plate, inspected my sleeves for suckable syrup stains.

  After everything was more than gone, I realized that I had never been that kind of a pig before. And I was still hungry.

  There was a tiny toilet in one corner, really no more than a padded hole in the floor, and a low-pressure rubber faucet. No mirror, no towel, no soap and certainly no razor. I cleaned up as well as I could, glad that the awful itch had finally subsided.

  After about an hour—my watch was gone, naturally—another door cranked open, and two of the slab-faced guards took me away. We passed through interminable tunnels and alleys and up ramps and by cloisters and finally debouched into a plush office.

  Nancy was there.

  Her honey-blonde hair now hung to shoulder-length, and her shoulders . . . showed. Her baggie was gone, replaced by coveralls similar to mine, except for the bulges. I had not observed rondure like that since my last furtive look at a porno photograph: Woman In Street Clothes, Circa 1990. I tried to keep my eyes from bulging lasciviously, not to mention certain other anatomy.

  “Much better than baggies, aren’t they,” a harsh male voice said. I jumped guiltily. It was—I recognized his porcine pro-file—the infamous warden of Lucifernia. Something-or-other Nitti. I did not like him.

  Nancy turned her blue eyes on me, but did not speak. I saw with a shock that her hands, all the way up to the wrists, were naked. Some of her forearm even showed where the sleeve hung loosely.

  “I thought you two would like to watch a trebcast,” Nitti said, burbling with some obnoxious humor. One wall illuminated as he spoke: a ten-by-ten foot receiving screen. The guards shoved me into a chair facing it. What was going on?

  The dateline flashed, and I had another shock. A full day had passed! No wonder I had been hungry. I had been knocked out by the Jupegas, or whatever else they might have given me later, for a good twenty hours.

  In the screen appeared a view that was three dimensional, for a trebvee receiver had depth as well as area. It was the broadcasting studio of one of Earth’s most distinguished newsmen: Alvin Swept. He glanced at the worldwide audience with that penetrating demeanor that compelled instant attention, whether he was breaking a major news scoop or telling a joke. He had always impressed me as an intelligent, sincere man.

  “Tonight,” said Alvin Swept, “I am honored to act as moderator at a very special interview with Earth’s Minister of Inner-Galactic World Affairs, the honorable Harold W. Prodkins. With him is the noted Extraterrestrialogist Dr. Nancy Dilsmore. Participating with me on this panel will be—”

  I didn’t hear the rest of the build-up. This thing was impossible! I wasn’t on any trebcast, and neither was Nancy. Unless—

  Unless there was a trebvee pickup on us now, and we were about to be interviewed by remote control.

  Awful! I ran my hand over my stubbled chin and touched my disheveled hair. I looked at the lingering syrup stain on my sleeve. And what would I say! I knew almost nothing of the situation. And Nancy—it would wipe her out, socially, if she were exhibited before the world in that calamitously exposive prison outfit. Her neck down to the very collarbone, her hands, her ankles all showing brazenly, and the sensual contours of her torso burgeoning under the scant cloth . . .

  In the screen appeared a shot of the Capitol House while the World Anthem blasted dismally. Then—

  Minister Harold Prodkins and scientist Nancy Dilsmore. Both apparently garbed—the one in a conservative but handsome suit, the other in an ornate but fully decorous baggie.

  Doubles! I should have remembered Freddy’s threat to use them. Of course! I had proved to be obstreperous, so my modelof-integrity cousin had expediently had me incarcerated while he made other arrangements. And Nancy too, since she had been so shortsighted as to agree with my position, and to stand up for the dignity of Earth. We were out of it.

  All my posturing had been for nothing. Freddy had shut up and used his brain. If I had used my brain, feeble as it was compared to his, I would have known this would happen. Smart, smart Harold Prodkins, who should have stuck to Solar Pool and not attempted to interfere with his cousin’s politics.

  “Minister Prodkins,” Alvin Swept inquired with just the proper tinge of respect, “is it true that Earth has at last made contact with an Inner-Galactic species?”

  My double didn’t bat his phony eye. “Perfectly true, Alvin. As you newsmen have been very much aware, contact was accomplished secretly soon after the alien landed—crash-landed, actually—in Florida, in the old region of America.”

  Now the real questioning began, and I had to admit my double was sharp. He had my mannerisms down almost perfectly, and he hesitated in just the right places. “The names would mean nothing,” he was saying in reply to a query about the exact identity of the alien creature. “The word sounds like Jamborango (a slight stumble over the pronunciation, just as I would have stumbled) so that’s what we’re calling it. Jamborango (more confidence)—somewhere near the center of the galaxy. Well out of our present technological reach.”

  And, cleverly, in reply to preplanned questions (
probably the entire interview had been rehearsed and taped and edited hours ago), the whole story came out. All except the real truth: that I had asserted Earth’s right to an apology from an insufferable Swarm Tyrant, and had intended to demand it, regardless of Freddy’s caution. And Dr. Dilsmore had agreed with me.

  Freddy was pulling it off, though. Those doubles, properly bolstered by rigged interviews, could pacify world curiosity until the alien worm Qumax was safely offplanet. Then—I looked at Nancy and tried to smile reassuringly. She smiled back, despite her dishabille. But both efforts were weak.

  For how could Freddy ever allow us to go free to spread the truth? That would destroy his career. It was quite possible that we both faced unofficial life sentences in Lucifernia.

  Or worse.

  “There,” said Warden Nitti as the program concluded, “you have it. So—”

  Then an odd look came over him. He made as if to scratch his head, stopped, started to stand up, began to sweat, and finally plumped down again. He seemed to be suffering a siege of the most intense internal strife. Hate and doubt and fear all warred upon his features. Then the face and body calmed, and he turned to the nearest guard. “Your gun, please—hand it over.”

  Suddenly I was all-the-way scared. Nitti was about to take the initiative and liquidate us on the spot!

  The guard drew his Jupegas gun and handed it to Nitti, who put his fat finger on the trigger and raised the pinched nozzle. I watched the coil-barrel rotate.

  “Harold!” Nancy cried.

  That got me moving. I lurched to my feet and dived for the warden. There was a sinister hiss as the gun fired, and a blast of icy air struck my ear. But the sliver of Jupeice had missed. I barreled into Nitti, grabbing for his gun-hand. He was far heavier and stronger than I, but I had to make the attempt before he put me away.

  His other hand came up heavily and caught my uniform. As I wrestled for the gun, I felt the fabric tearing. Of course prison clothing tore readily, so that it could not be used for strangulations or hand-over-hand descents from cell windows—but this was embarrassing. He had hooked his fingers into the collar of the prison unionsuit—all that I wore beneath the coveralls— and as his meaty arm jerked down all of it ripped away.

  I got the gun by grabbing it with both hands and twisting hard. Then I wrestled my way clear of Nitti, leaving my clothing with him. I aimed at his ample torso and fired. The gun cooled in my hand. Frost formed on the snout, and the warden passed out. I shucked out of the sleeves and pantlegs, since they were attached to nothing now.

  Nancy was struggling with the armed guard. Suddenly he leaped into the air, did a flipflop, and came down heavily beside the warden. The other guard was already unconscious: the first Jupegas sliver Nitti had fired had struck him.

  We ran. There was no chance to escape Lucifernia and we both knew it, but we had to try. I held the gun and led the way.

  Suddenly the itch was back in my skull, ferociously. But I didn’t—couldn’t—stop. “The keys!” I shouted. And dashed back into the warden’s office.

  The one guard who hadn’t been Juped was climbing to his feet. I put him away without even considering the matter. I hauled at Nitti’s body, searching for his set of master keys. My hands seemed to know what they were doing better than I did. In a moment I had them: a dozen colored bars mounted on a large ring.

  The itch was tearing my head apart. I charged out again, past Nancy, and ran down the hall. At the end was an elevator. I rammed a key into the key-slot, and the door opened. Phenomenal luck, that I should hit the right one without even looking! I pulled Nancy in with me and punched for the basement.

  As the unit slid smoothly downward the itch abated and I remembered that I was naked except for my slippers and a forgotten shred of sleeve.

  I tried to hide behind the keys, but Nancy didn’t say anything.

  Then I saw that she had suffered some battle-erosion herself. There was a long tear down the side of her coveralls, exposing her flesh from bra to panty. (I didn’t like using such filthy words, even in my mind, in connection with a decent woman—but I knew no other terms to describe her underclothing.) I felt sorry for her. Probably no man had seen that flesh before except the doctor who delivered her as a baby. Now it was open to the vulgar gaze of a comparative stranger.

  That reminded me just how insidiously New Victorianism had developed. Twenty years ago the ankle-length skirts and wrist-length sleeves had seemed like a transitory fashion—but somehow it had transited into even greater repression, not into physical enlightenment. If only someone had cried “foul!” while there was still time, before an entire generation had been brainwashed. Now we had Freddy and the baggie.

  Well, the damage was done, I thought as I took another look in Nancy’s suit. I had compromised her; I would have to marry her. If I survived this misadventure, and if she did.

  The elevator stopped, unfortunately. The itch struck again. I shoved open the door.

  It opened to a solid rock. Undaunted, I touched the stone, my fingers pressing nimbly at certain points in precise combination.

  CLICK! Pause. I touched another section. “To deprime the bomb,” I explained. CLICK! And the stone slid aside.

  I hauled Nancy after me as I ran down the dank passage that was revealed, lurched around a corner, fingered another section of the wall, and stepped into the new passage that yawned open. Warm air blasted out and struck my body. We charged down the unlit hallway, and behind us the stone slammed back into place. My head was splitting.

  Yet another turn—and yet another door—and then we stood at the brink of a large pit. Its floor was flat, and covered by a rug. There was a large trebvee set and elegant furniture.

  My head suddenly clear, I peered down at the biggest, ghastliest cabbage worm I had ever seen photographed. Writhing octopus clusters, lipless green mouth, convex eyelids closing like windowshades, breath smelling of licorice.

  “Hi ya, Rubes!” Qumax said.

  Chapter 3

  Nancy exercised her female prerogative to get the first word in. Her voice only a little strained, she said, “Happy Jack Bumperty, I presume?”

  The green monster blinked. “Happy Jack is a trebvee clown.”

  “So he is. Your impression was perfect.”

  Qumax’s head twisted to one side. Green skin rippled from his neckless head (or maybe his headless neck) to his blunt tail— about twelve linear feet of twitch. His frog-mouth opened and produced a sound like live steam escaping through dead peanut husks.

  Nancy shuddered. “Qumax, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the way you laugh.”

  “You don’t need to,” Qumax said. “Humans never need to. Hearing me laugh is a rare privilege.”

  “Qumax, you’re still trying to get inside my brain. That’s a gross violation of privacy.”

  I had been waiting for an opportunity to break in, but this made me pause. Was Qumax a mind reader?

  My head itched again. “More than that, Rube,” Qumax said. “Hey, Nancy—you know what this creep thought when he saw into your coveralls? He felt real masculine all of a sudden, and— ”

  “Qumax!” she snapped severely.

  The reprimand set the worm back only momentarily. “But I’d really like to know what you thought, when he shucked his suit and dragged you away—”

  “I knew you were in control, Qumax. You took over the warden and made him shoot one guard—”

  “Would have been both guards, if hotshot here hadn’t interfered,” the worm said sullenly. “So I had to take him over, before he messed things up any more. Would have been easier if I could have worked through you, though, sweetheart. You really shouldn’t have taken that Yoga training to gain complete mind and body control.”

  “Mental privacy is even more important than physical, Qumax. When you learn that, you won’t be such a child.”

  The worm’s body had slithered forward during this interchange, and the process fascinated me. Well, slither isn’t the proper word. Rum
ple, maybe. His torso touched the floor in two or three places, and those places stayed firm while the vertical loops somehow traveled forward. I had seen something like that in films of a sidewinder rattlesnake once, but never did understand how it worked.

  The creature was close under us now, head about level with our feet. A tentacle reached up toward Nancy. “A Jam child is far more mature than a human adult,” Qumax said.

  Suddenly the itch exploded in my head. My right hand swung out and clapped Nancy hard across the resilient buttocks.

  “Oh!” she cried—and tumbled into the pit.

  Qumax made a gleeful frying sound, twisting his gross loops about in a paroxysm of mirth. Adult, hell! I thought. A brat in any shape was still a brat.

  Nancy landed lithely—the fall had only been about five feet— and back away from the alien. But the exertion had ripped her uniform further. I gasped at the sight of more female flesh than I had, literally, ever dreamed about. (How can you dream when you have no model to work from?) Even married couples were supposed to use a tall bundling board and keep the lights out when going about the sordid necessities leading to propagation of the species.

  Then the itch had hold of me once more, and I jumped down after her. I tried to fight it, realizing that Qumax was con-trolling my body—as he had been doing every time my head hurt, except maybe at the beginning—but was unable to help myself. I ran forward and grabbed for her.

  Nancy turned, put up her arms (and dazzled me through the gaping clothing) and caught hold of mine. I found myself flying through the air and then falling flat on the carpeting.

  “That hurt!” Qumax cried, and I realized that while he controlled my body, he also absorbed my sensations. It had to be that way, or he would be operating blindly. I felt the abrasion of elbows and knees only dimly through the itch; the worm had taken the brunt of pain.

  “You knew I was trained for this,” Nancy shot back. “Why don’t you just admit you can’t control me and—”

  “HISSSS,” said Qumax, sounding like a flattening truck tire. Impelled by the itch I got up and attempted a football tackle on Nancy. This time I landed on my nose, and knew that I would have done better if I’d had control of my own muscles.