The Dancers of Noyo

by Margaret St. Clair

I said, "There are a good many indications that the Dancers have had a hand in some pretty dirty business."

  "Are there?" Binns answered. He sounded interested, and not just sarcastic. "It's certainly possible. The Dancers I've had contact with have impressed me rather unfavorably. But it's not my responsibility, after all." He made the lash of the whip snake smoothly on the floor.

  I said deliberately, "It would be a fine idea if the Dancers that are being grown in the tanks now were to be destroyed. The ones that are already in existence, the mature ones, are enough of a headache to us." This was something Franny and I had discussed over our meal. We had decided that, next to our own immediate survival, destroying the growing tanks and their contents had top priority.

  Binns raised his eyebrows. "Is that why you came here? To try to kill the embryonic Dancers? I imagine they'd take a good deal of killing, though they're at a vulnerable stage of their development just now."

  "Um."

  "The mature ones are said to be immortal, you know," he said, looking at us closely.

  "Um."

  "Well, it might be a good idea," he said. I felt a twinge of hope.

  "But of course my first loyalty is to the Foundation," he went on. "And I have my research project to think of."

  "You wouldn't consider—" Franny said.

  "No, I'm afraid I wouldn't. Besides, a sociological experiment can be socially valuable. I'm afraid I'll have to ask the two of you to get out."

  Neither Franny nor I moved. "Get out," he repeated in a louder voice. He flicked the whip, and its lash tip curled lightly and harmlessly around the wrist of the hand in which Franny was hold the teapot.

  I did a lot of thinking in the next few seconds. Of the Dancers and their whips as we thudded around in the dance circle, of the wicked lash Binns's whip had, of the scourgings I had received at the youth initiations. I even wondered why the Dancers' whips were resented so much, while the scourgings we got at the manhood rites never bothered us. Then I jumped Binns. He ought to have known better than to try to intimidate a tribesman with a whip.

  The only thing was really worried about was the integrity of my eyes. Binns was heavier than I, but a good deal slower. He did a good deal of whiplashing, and then tried to get me in the crotch with the butt of the whip. I tried one of the simple wrestling throws Pomo Joe had taught me, and got Binns to his knees. He turned out to be a vicious kicker. Finally Franny, who was circling around us with the teapot in her hand, managed to hit him over the head with it. The teapot broke, and Binns sagged and collapsed. He wasn't out, but he was considerably confused.

  I cut the lash off the whip and tied him up with it. His eyes came back into focus and he began to curse me. I didn't see why I should put up with it, and I gagged him with one of the towels from beside the little sink. We left him lying on the floor, tied up and gagged, his eyes furious.

  "It won't be easy to kill them," Fran said as we walked toward the part of the lab where the growing tanks were. "My father made the whole system closed. From the time the clones are put in the tanks and the nutrient solution starts circulating until the time, fourteen months later, when the Dancers are mature, it's never touched. There's no way of getting in to it."

  "But there must be some way of getting into it to make repairs."

  "It never needs repairs," Franny said.

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "Because both the lines and the tanks are alive. If anything went wrong, they'd heal themselves."

  Before I could investigate this statement, we came to the room where the growing tanks were. There were three of them, but only two seemed to be in use. They were big, clear-sided boxes, about seven feet long by five feet wide, and they were filled with some limpid, faintly glittering liquid. Lines, probably carrying the nutrient solution Franny had spoken of, were attached to both short axes of the tanks.

  Within the tanks, hanging suspended like fishes in an aquarium, were the embryonic Dancers, two to a tank. They lay side by side, rigid and straight, with their arms close by their sides, like infants in swaddling clothes. They were only about a foot and a half long, but there was nothing chubby or childlike about them; they looked exactly like mature Dancers, except that they were a slightly paler red. Their eyes were open, and the whites were a brilliant red.

  I looked at them in silence for a moment, feeling the old hostility toward them flare up in me. There was a faint smell like blood in the air.

  "What would happen if the tanks were opened?" I asked. "Would they die?"

  "If the air got in, you mean? I suppose so. But it would be awfully hard to get the tanks open. I don't know how it could be done."

  "... Well, but how are the Dancers taken out when they're mature? There must be some way of getting into the tanks then!"

  "The tanks open spontaneously when a certain hormone is secreted by the mature Dancers. There's a constant interplay between the developing Dancers, the nutrient solution, and the growing tanks. The solution changes as the Dancers grow. But until they mature, the system is closed."

  "What if the flow of nutrient were interrupted?" I asked.

  "I suppose the things in the tanks would die. But it would probably take quite a while."

  I found it hard to believe that Franny really knew what she was talking about when she said the tanks and lines were alive. On the other hand, O'Hare had certainly done some remarkable things. It was probably true that the tanks would be hard to get into. I hoped the nutrient lines might be more vulnerable.

  I had brought along a steel knife from a drawer in the laboratory kitchen. I eyed the nutrient lines speculatively—they looked like translucent plastic, about an inch and a half in diameter—and decided that up close to the tank would be a good place to begin. I knelt and began sawing at the line with the knife.

  Nothing happened. The line didn't give at all. My knife made no impression on it. The line was rubbery and felt faintly warm to my hand. I sawed again.

  "It won't do any good," Franny said.

  The comment annoyed me. I stabbed at the line with the point of my knife, and it seemed to me that it penetrated fractionally. Encouraged, I turned and ground with the point of the knife. After a moment, a drop of liquid came out.

  There was a cry from Franny. I raised my head and saw that the things in the tank had turned toward each other and were lying in a sort of embrace.

  While I watched, they rolled back into their original position side by side. Still, I felt something had been gained. I had affected them, isolated and closed off though they were. I stabbed and ground with the knife point with all the energy I possessed, but there was no further result. I couldn't squeeze out any more liquid. Indeed, the surface of the line seemed to have toughened up considerably. It was like a muscle being flexed. It made me wonder if Franny weren't right in saying that the whole system was alive.

  I set my foot against the line and pulled. The line seemed to elongate very slightly, but that was all. It was like pulling on a coil of the world serpent.

  I looked up at Francesca. "How about heat?" I asked. "Fire? If it's alive, fire ought to have some effect on it."

  "Uh-hunh. Well, you can try. I doubt you can get it hot enough to accomplish much."

  I wished she wouldn't be so negative. After all, her father had fabricated the pestilential thing. I fumbled for my fire-making equipment, and then decided it would be a lot easier with matches. I sent Franny to the lab kitchen for some, while I sat on my heels and stared at the tanks and their contents.; I occured to me that when the embryos had lain intertwined, a few minutes ago, their pink color had given them a curious resemblance to some baroque cupids I had seen once in an art book.

  Franny came back with matches, paper, and the box the cookies had been in. I constructed a neat little pyre with them just under one of the lines. I struck a match and lit it.

  The paper and box burned brightly for a while and then went out. There was a chemical smell, not at all like the smell of burned tissue, from the line.
Its surface was smudged with soot from the papers, but that was the only effect I had had on it.

  "I thought you said the lines were alive," I said to Francesca. "This one just acts like a plastic tube."

  "Oh, it's alive all right. The outside is a sort of network of big complicated molecules of plastic, with the holes in the net filled by macromolecules of protein. On the inside of the tube, there's almost nothing but live molecules. I don't see what difference it makes, anyhow. You can't get it hot enough to bother it."

  I wished she weren't always right. I hammered on the top of the tank with the handle of my knife for a few minutes, feeling like an ineffectual fool, and then sat down on the floor with my head leaning against the tank. The exhilaration of the coca leaf had worn off long ago, and I was sleepy and tired. I couldn't think what to try next.

  Franny settled herself beside me. There was a series of bumps and thumps coming from the kitchen where, I supposed, Binns was trying to free himself. I didn't think he could get loose, but I'd probably better go and reinforce his bonds.

  Franny said, "What a lot of noise he's making. It's too bad we can't give him a tranquilizing shot. I can't keep hitting him over the head with teapots."

  A shot ... Franny's words had given me an idea. I said, "Fran, would your father have had a hypodermic needle anywhere around? You said he took drugs."

  "Um. Yes, he took all sorts of things. But it was usually by mouth. Still, there might be a needle in the storeroom next door. Why!"

  If I could get a big strong needle with a sharp point, I might be able to jab through the outer covering of the nutrient lines. It's worth trying, anyhow."

  "OK, I'll go look. I think I know where a needle would be." She got to her feet. I saw that she moved as if she were tired. Well, no wonder. She'd been through a lot in the last few days.

  While she was looking in the storeroom, I went back to the kitchen and tightened up on Binns's bonds. He had worked himself under one of the chairs and was humping himself like some industrious inchworm. "If you'll be quiet," I told him, though without much hope that he would cooperate, "we'll untie you after we finish with the Dancers." He was too tightly bound to shrug.

  Franny was standing beside the tank with a fine large needle in her hands. It was the sort of thing you could use to give a horse an injection. "What are you going to try to inject into the line?" she asked. "There's quite an assortment of chemicals in the storeroom."

  I considered. "Are the bottles labeled in English?" I asked.

  "No, but I know some chemical formulae. Tell me what you want. I may be able to find it."

  I rubbed my nose. "Well, I suppose almost anything would disrupt the balance of the tank-embryo system. Salt, or sugar, or even just air in the line. But I was wondering whether some waste product wouldn't be quicker and better. Is urea what I mean?"

  "That's a good idea. I'll get the bottle and make up a solution."

  I followed her into the storeroom. She looked on several shelves before she found a bottle labeled OC{NH2/NH2. She made up a solution with water from the faucet of the sink and filled the hypodermic with it. She handed it to me.

  "There," she said. "I made it strong. Use all the muscle you have, Sam. I don't know what will happen, but it ought to be spectacular. Nobody has ever killed a Dancer, even an embryonic one, before."

  "Are the tanks interconnected?" I asked.

  "Oh, yes. Didn't you see how all four embryos moved when you squeezed out the nutrient solution? An injury to one is an injury to the other."

  It seemed to me the best place to try to get into the system would be a spot where I hadn't made a previous attempt. I found a virgin spot on the tubing of the farther tank. If this failed, I didn't know what I could do. I'd have to try to set fire to the lab, and it seemed improbable I'd be successful. There was little that would burn.

  For five or six seconds I breathed as Pomo Joe had taught me, Then I tensed my arm and jabbed.

  For a moment the tubing resisted. I thought the needle was going to break. Then it went in deeply. I pressed the plunger down. I got the needle emptied and out before the action began.

  A lump the size of a veal heart formed at the spot where I had made the injection. It moved at a moderate speed along the line toward the tank. It was corrugated and pitted, almost muscular.

  When it got to the tank's clear material bulged out around it. The clear swelling grew to the size of a grapefruit, and then collapsed suddenly.

  The rectangular sides of the tank contracted in a glassy spasm. Wrinkles formed and deepened in it. Its shape was changing. It was growing orbicular.

  The other tank was beginning to be affected too. The area of both of them diminished as they sucked in on themselves. They were quite a lot smaller than they had been.

  The embryos had begun to move. They made struggling motions with then arms. Whether they were swimming or boxing I didn't know. Then both tanks split along what had formerly been their longitudinal axis. Nutrient fluid gushed out. It smelled like blood.

  The embryos began to writhe convulsively. They bounced and bounded. They made furious motions with their legs, like maniacs pedaling bicycles. Their inflated pink skin withered like old, dried-out apples. They humped and twined, tangles of big pink worms.

  Franny and I were watching absorbed, delighted, and horrified. With a final furious spasm, a Catharine-wheel of energy, they collapsed. There was a nasty smell of excrement in the air.

  Franny looked at the crumpled tanks. Nutrient solution was slopping around our feet. "Nobody will ever grow Dancers in those tanks again," she said.

  -

  Chapter XVI

  We were back on Highway One. We had traded for a motorbike at Boonville, with me contributing some herbal advice to the storekeeper as part payment, and we had a bag of provisions slung under the seat of the motorbike.

  Things seemed relatively rosy. We had disposed of the bodies of the slaughtered Dancers without sentiment—it was impossible to think of the embryos as anything more than so much dead tissue—and had parted from Binns on relatively friendly terms. Our plan was to get through to Bodega, make contact with the fugitives there, and from that vantage see what could be done toward ridding the tribes of their Dancers. But at Point Arena something happened.

  Point Arena—there were only about a hundred people living there then—was said to be a square, tribe-hating, self-righteous sort of place. We tribesmen stayed away from it as much as we could. Unfortunately, we needed fuel for the bike, which was turning out to be an extravagant fuel-burner, and there was a rudimentary service station at P.A.

  I left Franny with the bike on a side street, and went on foot to the station, carrying the fuel can. I thought there would be less risk of an unpleasant incident if I went in by myself. When I came back with the fuel, the bike was still there, but Franny was gone.

  My first thought was that she had gone into the store, which next door to the service station. I could have missed her on the street. I waited. The minutes passed. After about half an hour I began to get alarmed. I went to the store and the service station asking after her. Nobody had seen her. I went back to the bike and waited some more. When a whole hour had passed, I realized I was seriously afraid.

  I looked at the blank, unresponsive facades of the houses. Perhaps she'd gone into one of them, though I couldn't think why. I went up the steps of the nearest house and knocked at the door. After a moment, a fat, slatternly woman peeped out at me. "Excuse me, but have you seen a—"

  The woman didn't wait for me to finish. She slammed the door in my face.

  I tried two more houses. Nobody answered at all. At the fourth house, where most of the windows were cracked, I heard heavy breathing from the other side of the door, but nobody answered my repeated knocks.

  What should I do? I couldn't break into all the houses in Point Arena where people didn't come to the door. Where could I look for help? There was nobody to whom I could report Franny's disappearance. The only people w
ho would have been interested in trying to find her—her tribesmen—would kill her if she were found.

  I realized that I had always been apprehensive that what had happened at Navarro would happen to her: a disappearance absolute, sudden, never explained. Where had Franny gone?

  She wouldn't want to disappear. She'd try to get back to me. But I didn't suppose the people at Navarro had wanted to disappear either. Where had she gone?

  I didn't think the Avengers had taken her. Franny would have made some outcry, struggled. She must either have been called away from the bike in a manner that didn't alarm her, or have been silenced, utterly and completely, before being removed. I suppose an Avenger could have come up behind her and cast a noose over her head, but Fran had extraordinarily keen senses. It was improbable. But she was gone. I couldn't get beyond that. I felt like looking under the seat of the motorbike for her.