The Galactic Gourmet

by James White

  "Friend O'Mara radiates many and complex feelings," it said finally. "Whenever you have been mentioned I have detected feel­ings of approval mixed with irritation, and a desire to help you. But I am not a telepath, so the feelings were clear but the thoughts were not. If friend O'Mara intended you to join the medical team..."

  "...It must have been really desperate," said Naydrad sud­denly, its fur rippling with excitement. "Look, they're coming out!"

  The Wem were pouring out of the mine opening as if some­one had turned on a faucet, running and tail-bouncing and mak­ing loud, untranslatable noises as they charged towards Rhabwar. Apart from the three adults who were standing to one side of the tunnel mouth, and who had presumably been responsible for holding the others back, they were all young Wem. Some of them were so small and awkward that often they fell over sideways while try­ing to jump with their tails. But the falls did little to impede their progress and soon they had joined their friends who were shout­ing, running and tail-jumping in a continuous circle just beyond the meteor shield.

  Murchison laughed suddenly. "I have the feeling," it said, "that they should be waving bows and tomahawks at us."

  "My own feeling," said Prilicla, "is that they are all curious and excited, and noisy as are most children in that emotional condition, and they are not a threat."

  "I'm sorry," said Murchison. "That was a non-serious Earth historical reference, and not funny enough to be worth explaining. But the adults are moving closer now, two of them, anyway."

  They were moving slowly and more carefully than the young Wem, and except for one who was carrying a wooden staff, their hands were empty of weapons. Two of them were approaching in a slow succession of tail-jumps with short pauses between. The third one was moving even more slowly, on its hind limbs only and using the staff to help support its weight. Murchison spoke the thoughts that were already going through Gurronsevas's mind.

  "Physically they appear to be very weak," said the pathologist, "and display extreme caution in their limb and tail movements. But I have the feeling this may be due to the frailty of age rather than illness. All three are females in a state of serious debilitation and...The one with the staff is heading for the communicator!"

  "Your feeling is accurate, friend Murchison," said Prilicla, "but your unspoken concern regarding, I suspect, the possibility of the staff being used to damage the communicator is unwarranted. The aged Wem female is radiating curiosity and minor irritation rather than anger and an urge to destroy."

  "It would take more than a walking-stick," the Captain's voice broke in, "to damage that unit."

  "True, friend Fletcher," said the empath. "But as soon as the Wem reaches it, cancel the broadcast and switch to two-way com­munication mode. I have a feeling that it wants to talk."

  "And how long has it been," said Danalta, speaking for the first time, "since one of your feelings was wrong?"

  Outside the ship the crowd of young Wem were growing tired but not quiet. Instead of running and tail-jumping they had stopped to collect in small groups around the meteor screen, pushing at the resilient, near-invisible barrier or leaning against it at forty-five de­gree angles and shouting excitedly to each other when they did not fall over. A few of the more daring ones ran and jumped against the shield, shouting in excitement when they were bounced back. The two adults had joined them and were talking quietly together, but there were too many louder conversations going on at once for the ship's translator to separate them, and the third adult had stopped beside the communicator which immediately ceased broadcasting.

  "The silence, at least, is welcome," said the Wem without any sign of hesitation. It went on, "Do you think we are all deaf? Or of retarded intelligence since the same message was repeated over and over? Don't you people know that shouting reassurances at us, loudly and continually, angers more than it reassures? From beings who must have come from the stars, I expected more intelligence. Can this stupid machine listen as well as shout? What do you want of us?"

  "Sound level reduced by two-thirds," said the Captain quietly. "Go ahead, Doctor."

  "Thank you," said Prilicla. It drifted closer to the communi­cator and tapped the transmit stud before going on, "We are sorry that the device was too noisy and that it angered you. The offense was not intended and neither was there any implication that your hearing or intelligence is defective. It was simply that we wished to be heard over a wide area.

  "We want to talk with you and your friends," Prilicla contin­ued, "and to learn from you and to help you in whatever way is pos­sible. You are as strange to us as we will be to you when you see us. We will answer questions about ourselves and we would like to ask questions of you. Provided there are no personal or cultural rea­sons for not giving the information and you are willing to give the answer to a stranger, the first question is what is your name. My name is Prilicla and I am a healer."

  "That's a ridiculous name," said the Wem. "It sounds like a handful of pebbles being rattled together. I am Tawsar, the First Teacher. I leave healing and preservation to others. What is your second question?"

  "Are the young Wem safe where they are," asked Prilicla, "so far from the shelter of your mine? They are in no danger from us but, now that it will soon be dark, is there a risk to them from night predators?"

  Gurronsevas's first thought was that there were more impor­tant questions that Prilicla could have asked, but his second thought was that expressing an early concern for the safety of the young dis­played consideration and friendliness that would reinforce its words of reassurance more than anything else it could have said.

  "It is our practice," Tawsar replied, "to allow the children to escape from the mine for a few hours every day when the sun will not blight their young skins or work changes in the offspring they may one day bear. It also releases the energy that would otherwise make them unruly and noisy in class and keep them and their teachers from going to sleep. In the mine they cannot run freely or tail-jump, which is an unnatural situation for the very young. But they are in no danger from predators because all such creatures, be they large and dangerous or tiny rodents, have long since been hunted to extinction in this area. Your ship has provided a new ex­perience for them as well as an outlet for their surplus energy. How long will your ship remain here?"

  A school, thought Gurronsevas, was the ideal place to find cu­rious and flexible minds. He could sense the medical team's grow­ing excitement.

  "As long as you allow us to stay," said Prilicla quickly. "But we would like to meet you and your friends in person instead of speak­ing through this device. Is that possible?"

  Tawsar was silent for a long moment, then it said, "We should not waste time talking to you. Our behavior will be publicly criti­cized. No matter, we are curious and too old to care. But you must leave before the return of our hunters. This you must promise me."

  "We promise it," said Prilicla simply, and there was no doubt in the minds of the medical team that the promise would be kept. "But there may be a problem when we show ourselves to you. Phys­ically we differ greatly from the Wem. The young, perhaps you yourself, might find us visually horrendous and repulsive."

  Tawsar made a sound that did not translate, then said, "We have not seen the creatures from the other starship, but they have given us word-pictures of themselves. They are strange, upright creatures without a balancing tail, some of them covered in fur and others with fur only on their heads. But they wanted to change our ways, so our hunters smashed their speaking devices before leav­ing. As for frightening the children, I doubt that you could appear more horrendous than the creatures with which their imaginations have already populated your ship.

  "Upon consideration," it went on before Prilicla could reply, "it would be better if you didn't show yourselves now. The young are excited enough as it is, and if they were to see you we would have difficulty making them return to the dormitories, much less getting them to sleep. If you are to stay with us for a time, it would be more conve
nient for us and safer for you if we introduced you during class."

  "You do not understand, Tawsar," said Prilicla carefully. "The beings who described themselves were Orligians and Earth-humans. We have five Earth-humans, they are the ones with head fur, on board, and four others who will appear even stranger to you. One is a Tralthan, a being with six legs and with a body mass at least three times greater than an adult Wem. Another is a Kelgian, who is half your size and weight, has twenty sets of walking limbs and is covered by silver, mobile fur. There is a shape-changer who can make itself appear as ferocious or friendly as the situation requires. And lastly there is a large, flying insect, myself. If the thought of meeting one of these beings distresses you, then that person will re­main out of sight on the ship."

  "Your shape-changer is, is..." began Tawsar, then went on firmly, "It is a creature out of a story told to children, to very young children. Adults are not gullible enough to believe in such things."

  The empath, plainly hoping to minimize Tawsar's future em­barrassment, did not reply. And on the deck below the hovering Prilicla, Danalta writhed and flowed briefly into the shape of a scaled-down, aged Wem female and said quietly, "No comment."

  Chapter 20

  Early on the following morning, when only the east-facing upper slopes of the valley were lit by the rising sun and the mine entrance was still in twilight, Tawsar presented itself beyond the shimmering curtain of the meteor shield. Several groups of twenty to thirty young Wem, each with an adult in charge, had al­ready left the mine and were dispersing to their various places of work or learning on the valley floor and lower slopes.

  It had been decided that the function of the Wem settlement fell somewhere between a teaching establishment and a safe refuge for children whose hunter parents were either absent for long pe­riods or dead. The decision was provisional and, following the com­ing meeting with Tawsar, would no doubt be subject to major mod­ification.

  Remembering Tawsar's slow and obviously painful progress down to the meteor shield, it came as no surprise to Gurronsevas when Prilicla ordered out the anti-gravity litter. The equipment carried by the medical team was light and portable enough to make the vehicle redundant, but it was obvious that it was hoping that Tawsar could be persuaded to ride in comfort in­stead of subjecting itself to the self-inflicted pain of walking, a suffering which the empath would not be anxious to share.

  Prilicla was first to exit the lock, and hovered above them as Murchison, Naydrad, Danalta and Gurronsevas followed it down the telescoping ramp to the ground and through the meteor shield, which offered no resistance to objects moving away from the ship. Gurronsevas had not been invited to accompany the medical team, but neither had he been forbidden, and he needed exercise more vigorous than was possible within the confines of the casualty deck.

  Tawsar stared at them one by one without speaking as they ap­proached and gathered around it in a semicircle which, according to Prilicla's reading of the Wem's emotional radiation, was wide enough not to cause unease and reassuring in that it left open the other's line of retreat to the mine. Prilicla's iridescent wings beat slowly in a stable hover, Naydrad's fur rippled like waves on a sil­ver sea, Murchison smiled and Gurronsevas stood motionless. Danalta changed its shape in turn from that of a furless Kelgian to a not very complimentary copy of Pathologist Murchison before re­turning to a shapeless green lump topped by a single eye, ear and mouth. Finally Tawsar broke the silence.

  "I see you and I still do not believe you exist," it said, its eyes on Danalta. Then it looked up at Prilicla and went on, "I do not like insects, whether they crawl or fly, but, but you are beautiful!"

  "Why thank you, friend Tawsar," said Prilicla with a gentle shiver of pleasure. "You have reacted well to your first sight of off-worlders, and I have the feeling that you yourself are not afraid of us. But what of the other adults and the children?"

  Tawsar made a short, untranslatable sound and said, "They were told about your strange and horrendous or puny and ridicu­lous appearance. They already know that your friends wanted to in­terfere with our customs and beliefs, and tried to tell us what we should eat, and what we should do about the Light That Rots All Things. They even asked to look inside our living bodies and do things that only a life-mate is allowed to do. Prilicla you, perhaps not you personally but your people who have come uninvited to our world, do not frighten us. They shock and repel and infuriate us. More than anything else we want them to go away quickly, but we know that it is not your wish deliberately to harm us.

  "Having told you how we feel," it added, "do you still wish to call me friend?"

  "Yes," said Prilicla. "But you need not call me friend until you yourself wish it."

  Tawsar made a wheezing sound and said, "I do not expect to live that long. But we have much to see and many questions and answers for each other. Would you like to begin with the valley or the mine?"

  "The mine is closer," said Prilicla, "and will involve less walk­ing for you. And if you were to mount this litter, there would be no effort required at all."

  "It, it doesn't rest on the ground," said Tawsar in an uncer­tain voice. Plainly there was a battle going on in the Wem's mind between the submission to a totally new and perhaps dangerous ac­tivity and the pain of its age-stiffened limbs. "Yet it feels solid enough and strongly supported..."

  They had to wait for a few minutes while Tawsar talked itself into boarding the litter, then Naydrad angled the repulsion units to set the vehicle moving towards the mine entrance at the medical team's walking pace.

  "I—I'm flying!" said Tawsar.

  At an altitude, Gurronsevas estimated, of a few inches.

  On their headsets Fletcher was reporting continuously on its observations of the widely-scattered groups of young Wem in the valley. Under the direction of a single adult, several parties were till­ing the soil and gathering what seemed to be wild-growing vegeta­tion from the lower slopes. But there were three groups of the larger children whose activities gave cause for concern because there could be no doubt that they were practicing with slingshots, crossbows and weighted nets used in conjunction with spears. The spears were blunt, crudely formed from wood, with roughened hand-grips at the middle and blunt end so that they could be used either for throwing or as two-handed stabbing weapons, and they were slightly large for the hands and muscles of the users.

  "They are not playing with wooden swords and spears as many children do," the Captain insisted, "because neither they nor their instructor are treating the exercise as a game. It is much too seri­ous. They are the oldest of the children and they might have real, metal-tipped weapons among the farming implements out there. At this range my sensors can't tell the difference. But if anything goes sour with the Tawsar contact your retreat to the ship could be cut off."

  Prilicla did not reply until they were within a few minutes of reaching the mine entrance, and when it spoke Gurronsevas had the feeling that its words were aimed at reassuring the medical team as well as the Captain. It said, "The emotional radiation of the adults and children who surrounded us yesterday bore no trace of hostil­ity, especially the concealed hostility of beings who are pretending to be friendly. Although they are decidedly not our friends, their feelings towards us are not antagonistic enough to make them want to commit acts of physical violence. Tawsar is controlling or at least trying to ignore its dislike for us, but it is feeling much more than a simple curiosity regarding strangers. I cannot be more pre­cise, but I have the feeling that it wants something from us and, until we discover what it is, we are quite safe here.

  "Besides," the empath went on, "we have friends Danalta and Gurronsevas with us. Our shape-changer can take many forms that would discourage an attack by unruly children, and the Chief Di­etitian has a near-impervious skin and the body mass and muscles to do the same."

  "Doctor Prilicla," said Fletcher, "this is a first contact situation so far as the medical team is concerned. One of you could do or say something that could ch
ange Tawsar's feelings about you, suddenly and drastically. So why not talk in the open where I can keep you under observation and pull you out with tractors if there is any trou­ble? I am worried about you going inside their mine."

  At that moment the party came to a halt outside the dark mouth of the entrance tunnel and the litter drifted gently to the ground. Tawsar looked up suddenly at Prilicla and said, "I am wor­ried about you going into our mine."

  Danalta's body twitched and it said, "In a steep valley like this one, echoes are not uncommon."

  Prilicla ignored it and asked, "Why, friend Tawsar?"

  The Wem looked at each one of team in turn before return­ing its attention to the empath. It said, "I know nothing about you people, your life habits, your feelings about strange places or peo­ple, the food you eat, nothing. Suddenly I have realized that you might not want to visit our home. The connecting tunnels are nar­row and low-ceilinged, and only our places of gathering are ade­quately lit, and then only for a limited period each day. Even among the Wem there are those who become distressed in enclosed spaces, or at the thought of the great weight of rock that is pressing down on them.

  "But you in particular," Tawsar went on, "are a free-flying creature of the air. I fear that your fragile body and wide-spreading wings are unsuited to crawling about inside a mountain."

  "I am grateful for your feeling of concern, friend Tawsar," said Prilicla, "but it is unnecessary. All of us are used to working in a structure that is like a metal mountain, filled with tunnels of dif­ferent sizes connecting its rooms. All are well-lit but, if yours are too dark for us, we carry our own sources of illumination. If any­one should feel distressed, it will be free to return to the outside. But I do not think that anyone will have such feelings..."