Whatever Gods May Be

by George P. Saunders

  The worry was unidentifiable; the cold wave of paranoia apparently unjustified. Yet both would not be shaken, and it was all Thalick could do from bolting to all eight legs in a burst of nervous energy.

  Long dead and buried creatures to this world once known as psychoanalysts would have diagnosed the Thalick as having an anxiety attack. They would have recommended rest, medication, therapy ...or all three items to alleviate the problem.

  Thalick had none of these panaceas to aid him now. Something was wrong and he could feel it. Thalick let his antennae drop once again, and returned his attention to Valry.

  The feeling of wrongness now intensified. Suddenly, a low, alien emotion welled deep within his belly. And though it was the first time any Thelerick Stinger had ever experienced such a thing, it would not be the last.

  A new emotion, standard and prevalent among human beings, reared its ugly head within the Stinger; it was a cold, powerful thing -- and one that Thalick would encounter frequently in the days to come.

  He glanced at Valry and shuddered.

  For he was afraid.

  No growth of moor or coppice,

  No heather flower or vine,

  But bloomless buds of poppies,

  Green grapes of Proserpine,

  Pale beds of blowing rushes,

  Where no leaf blooms or blushes

  Save this whereout she crushes

  For dead men deadly wine.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Valry tried hard from giggling as she hid behind the tall boulders only a few feet from the Stinger. She knew that Thalick was resting now, and probably unaware of her presence; a logical assumption, since the antennae were relaxed over the Stinger's head, and his legs were curled beneath him like those of a sleeping dog. Since no breathing could ever be detected on a Thelerick alien, Thalick looked quite dead.

  Nevertheless, Valry knew that Thalick was probably very much awake, though many of his senses were biologically "turned-off" in order not to waste energy. One slip up on her part, and the game was finished.

  The use of her powers had never before been employed so ambitiously. Flinging rocks around open desert or uprooting an occasional plant, comprised the extent of her practices with the strange talents she possessed. They had been fun at first, but increasingly unsatisfying from a practical standpoint.

  If her wonderful powers were ever going to be translated into effective weapons, Valry realized that experimentation would have to take place on a grander scale.

  Today would mark the first phase of her new program and research. And Valry's first subject would be her staunchest supporter and friend - Thalick; who, had he been given any say in the matter, might possibly have resented acting as Valry's unwitting guinea pig. For this reason, Valry had taken special pains not to inform the Stinger of her latest demonstration of power.

  Ironically, while Valry's mental and telekinetic prowess was developing at an astounding rate, her body was still succumbing to the same fatal infection that gripped the rest of humanity. In her brief twenty years, she had already suffered periodic bouts with pneumonia, typhus and malnutrition, and would have perished long before without treatments from the alien Stingers. Valry herself was probably the healthiest human in the tribe, along with her father, but this was mainly due to her comparably shorter exposure to the Dark's malevolent influence; both Valry and John would outlive the tribe by a few months, but be dead inside of a year. Already, their health had deteriorated rapidly in only five years, and John Phillips was even now hanging on to life with only a modicum of strength.

  In another world and another age, Valry Phillips would have been a strikingly beautiful women. Even the great Stingers found the dark, green eyes of Valry unusually captivating, as did the primitive descendants of mankind who adored her without reservations.

  But the overall hideousness of the Dark's unholy pestilence had transformed Valry into something more exotic than lovely. Her body was almost painfully thin, and her face was a visage of jagged splendor; like some ancient marble bust that imitated life, but could only partially capture the authentic realism of flesh and blood. It was a cold, bewitching face warmed only be affectionate and intelligent eyes that bespoke an intense desire to live. Offset by a wide, generous smile, which she boasted often, Valry possessed the haunting, delicate quality that was both frightening and attractive; at any moment it seemed, she could teeter either way between both extremes.

  Glancing beyond the prone Stinger, Valry now only looked like a naughty little girl about to rob a cookie jar. Her eyes twinkled with glee as she noticed that Thalick and herself were quite a distance from the tribe encampment. Since it's arrival to the new valley, carved by several streams from the nearby mountains, the tribe had been recuperating from the long journey over the desert. Most everyone was around the stream embankment, while the other Stingers were resting like Thalick, or patrolling the boundaries of the new valley. No human was in the immediate vicinity, and even the few Stingers that weren't dormant and did see her, did not feel disposed to approaching her for conversational purposes. This was just fine as far as Valry was concerned, for it meant that she could now begin her experiment without the danger of being interrupted.

  Satisfied that the environment was uncluttered, Valry focused her concentration on Thalick's heavy stinger.

  All at once, dirt spumed out from underneath the tail, billowing into a large dust cloud. Valry started sweating and shaking, but her eyes remained trained on the ringed tail ahead. The power she enjoyed never caused her pain, but there was an accompanying pounding sensation against her skull that always occurred when she started using it. The deafening thunder inside was both annoying and exhilarating, and this time Valry noticed that it was more intense than usual.

  She knew that this was a good sign, and her instincts were bolstered positively when she saw the enormous tail begin to sway.

  Now came the tough part. Willing the tail to a standstill, Valry next gave her captive it's last order. If she could maintain the power, Valry knew that the results of such effort would be absolutely hilarious to witness...

  Sure enough, after a few seconds, the tail elevated itself in the air and became taught. Then, very slowly, the rest of the Stinger could be seen moving towards Valry's rock hideout.

  Thalick hissed, surprised and irritated. Valry fought the laughter inside herself, as she caught a glimpse of the irate Thalick floundering in the sand. Like some poor, undignified animal snared in a trap, Thalick could do nothing to stop himself from being dragged backward. He squirmed angrily and clawed at the ground disappearing beneath his eight legs, but against Valry's mental force there was little he could do to help himself.

  At last, Valry surrendered her hold on her friend and fell to the ground laughing and fighting for breath.

  "Did you see that, Thalick? Can you believe it? You couldn't get away from me. Not even you!" she exclaimed happily, panting and giving the Stinger her sweetest smile.

  Thalick brought his two claws together and stared down at the giggling Valry. His anger was less than momentary, and he considered what the girl had just achieved. It was an admirable accomplishment, there was no denying it, and Thalick was genuinely impressed with the trick. Sticking out a hairy leg, he nudged Valry affectionately, making her fall over on her side.

  YOU MAKE STRONG MOVE, LITTLE ONE. VERY STRONG TO MOVE THELERICK

  Valry beamed at the compliment, then rushed up and hugged one of Thalick's pinchers.

  "You aren't mad at me? It was mean, I know --" she began contritely, before Thalick intervened.

  THELERICK NO MAD, LITTLE ONE. GOOD GOOD YOU MAKE STRONG POWER Thalick replied, using his race title to address himself.

  In actuality Thalick, along with the other Stingers did not possess names. They acknowledged one another individually through a series of hisses or brainwave pulses - none of which would have meant anything to a human like Valry. "Thalick" was the distorted thought pattern sound impulse Valry received each time she com
municated with the Stinger, who referred to himself under the collective nomer of the entire Thelerick race. Since Thalick had been the first Stinger Valry had ever communicated with, he had been designated accordingly.

  Thalick had understood the problem completely and had left the name-calling business to Valry's discretion. Since Thalick already had his title, the other Stingers were labeled according to some outstanding physical characteristic or an occasional personality idiosyncrasy.

  Thanks to Valry's close scrutiny and imagination, every Stinger now had a personalized name in which he could refer to himself for human transmission purposes. Since the small minority of humans involved in bridging the Stinger "communication gap" included only her father and herself, Valry had seen no compulsion to seek out titles that were weighty and obtuse. She had named the Stingers as a little girl, and as an adult, she saw no reason to make any revisions.

  The nine other Stingers were referred to as One Claw (for an obvious lack of one pincher that was lost in space), Green Belly, Broken Tail, Big Sting, White Baby, Crab Face, Cat-Claw, Slow Charlie and Silent Hiss. As the language of Phillips and Valry had been fairly simple for the Stingers to assimilate, in time, the Thelericks actually became quite comfortable to being addressed by their Earthstadt titles. In any case, it saved Valry and Phillips considerable confusion when each Stinger had previously referred to itself as "Thalick". Now, only the nominal Stinger leader was recognized by the race title, with every other Thelerick adopting the Valry aliases.

  "I knew you wouldn't be mad, Thalick," Valry smiled happily, jumping onto the claw she had just hugged. "I love you."

  THELERICK LOVE YOU, LITTLE ONE

  The eternally magnanimous Stinger had never quite fathomed what meaning this last, bizarre colloquialism possessed, though he assumed that it was an allusion to satisfactory comradeship, and had found himself returning the gesture in kind. Love had never existed within the Stinger society, and indeed, what Thelericks felt for one another was quite alien to this strictly human concept. But since Valry seemed derive such contentment out of transmitting the common, almost indecipherable exchange, Thalick saw no objection in abiding to this enigmatic "humanism."

  Thalick was satisfied that his response gave the girl so much joy, and for good measure he repeated the transmission.

  THELERICK LOVE YOU, LITTLE ONE.

  Valry again patted his claw, then turned her attention toward the small collection of bivouacs scattered around the streams. There was still very little activity, though even from a hundred yards away, Valry could hear the interminable and ever-present hum of pain that followed the tribe wherever it went. The moans of the dying were commonplace, and they were sounds that Valry had lived with all of her life. For this reason, even though she knew she would shortly be among the dying, she had no actual fear or dread of death. Like life, it seemed inevitable, and the best she could hope for was a speedy demise. Her greatest terror lay in the possibility of lingering in agony for months at a time, and she had sworn to herself that she would choose her own death when the time was necessary.

  "Do you think," she asked almost absently while staring at the pathetic remnants of mankind, "that one day I could move the Dark like I moved you, Thalick? If I could, then maybe we'd all get better. Maybe we wouldn't ... have to die."

  Thalick probed the sky above with his antennae. The Dark -- a thing produced out of the Hall's impact with Earth a thousand centuries earlier churned incessantly above. It was not so much a single entity as it was an assortment of phenomena that seemed to splatter across the overcast day and night. Like enormous water droplets, the jelly-like black spots appeared and disappeared against the perpetual cloud cover, vacillating in size and shape for only a few moments at a time. Through patient extrapolation, the Stingers had deduced that the Dark was not only responsible for slowly destroying Mankind, but it also was assisting the demonic Redeye in their conquest of the world. Furthermore, the Dark's mysterious forces were also culpable of keeping the Stingers permanently Earthbound. Such a power was formidable indeed, and Thalick knew that a far more influential force would be necessary to rid Earth of it's black curse than that which Valry offered.

  An infinitely open-minded creature, however, Thalick provided Valry with her answer.

  TRY MOVE DARK, LITTLE ONE

  Valry looked as if she were about to protest, then thought better of it.

  "Alright," she said brightly.

  Hopping off the claw she had rested on, the girl moved away from Thalick and leaned against the boulder she had earlier hid behind. Watching the fast-flying black splotches above, Valry tried to hook her concentration on one of them. And of course she failed.

  "Not yet," she said quietly, in a voice that --as somewhat distant to Thalick. "I'm not strong enough now."

  Thalick remained silent for a moment.

  "But I can still kill Redeyes," she said a moment later, full confidence returning.

  TOO MANY REDEYES, LITTLE ONE. THEY KILL YOU FIRST BEFORE YOU KILL THEM. TOO MANY REDEYES EVEN FOR THELERICK OTHERS, the Stinger transmitted, admitting his own helplessness in dispensing with the vampire plight.

  "I will learn to kill them before they can kill me." Valry said sharply. "I must."

  Thalick also hated the Redeyes. The wasteful, maniacal vampire had been the original reason that he and the other Stingers had chosen to remain on Earth after the mysterious black void had deposited them to the surface. Finding the crippled remnants of humanity being cannibalized by the Redeyes, the Thelerick's altruistic compulsions prevented them from immediately departing the strange new world. It was a decision that had cost the Stingers their freedom, since the Dark that hovered above Earth had effectively attenuated their powers to pull free from the planet's gravitational pull. Now, aside from brief, heavy flights in the lower atmosphere, the Thelerick Stingers were completely tied to the surface.

  The Stingers had not regretted their decision to stay; the planet had become sandy and dry, and there had been purpose given to their existence with the mothering of Man. Repulsed by the alien Redeyes, the Stingers found it necessary to remain here for as long as it took to either wipe out the vermin completely, or see to it that humanity could increase its numbers sufficiently to battle the bloodsucking enemy.

  Furthermore, the Stingers were haunted by a sense of duty to Earth. Their own race, as well as that of the red world, had surrendered to extinction; they had received no outside help with their various calamities, which maybe could have prevented their respective doomsdays. Perhaps, the Stingers conjectured, if they extended their assistance to the race of Man - though how admittedly limited it could be with the Dark as a foe - the true people of Earth would not also perish in like manner.

  Such philosophical optimism, coupled with the temporary discovery of a world conducive to their environmental needs, had kept the Stingers relatively unperturbed at being marooned here for so many centuries. Though the Dark had weakened them considerably, it was by no means deadly, and the Stingers were confident that an eventual solution would be found that would allow them to escape from Earth. Even if the Dark persisted in restraining them, the Stingers would simply resort to using their most powerful weapon against the black hell -- they would, if necessary, outlive it.

  Such a far-off problem need not be grappled with immediately, for the Stingers still had much work ahead of them. The race of Man was dying in spite of their best efforts, and the possibility of failure in saving it, was far more disastrous to contemplate for the Stingers than a few thousand years of planetary confinement.

  Thalick stared at Valry resting on his claw. Peering into her thoughts, the Stinger shared the girl's visions of destroying great multitudes of Redeyes.

  Thalick was about to lurch forward and make his way back to the stream, when Valry spoke again.

  "Thalick," she said, not looking at him, in a very strange voice that was vaguely disquieting. "I don't want to die."

  Something inside of Thalick melted. Though he
had never suffered any disease or physical disorder in his long life, the Stinger now felt distinctly ill. He watched Valry closely, analyzing the salty water running down her face. The girl said nothing more after this and continued to stare ahead at her people, and though Thalick detected no pain from Valry he knew with a horrible certainty that she was in more agony now than ever before.

  Thalick did not send back a transmission. He suspected that Valry had not expected him to do so. Stewing in his own sense of helplessness, Thalick only hissed and punched the ground with his legs, waiting for Valry to stop crying.

  Finally, the girl recovered and patted a claw. "Let's go check on daddy," she said firmly.

  Thalick moved forward. His acute senses registered that the girl was still far from well. Dark, frightened thoughts raced through her mind that occluded the Stinger's usually clear perceptions. Since he was generally incapable of extending any kind of sympathy, Thalick decided that a general panacea for Valry's morose condition was required. It had worked before, he figured, perhaps it would work again.

  THALICK LOVE YOU, VALRY, Thalick hissed softly. Valry turned to look at her friend and smiled. But the Stinger was to be further disappointed and dismayed at the girl's reaction to his transmission.

  For this time, she was again crying.

  Worse still, she didn't stop crying for a very long time.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Seven Stingers stood side by side one another about eighty feet from the main body of the tribe. Their massive tails were looped over their backs lazily, with the stingers nearly touching the heavy armor plating beneath. Hissing quietly among themselves, the Thelericks then lowered their massive frames off of their legs, so that their bellies were touching the ground. This diminished their standing height considerably, which was exactly the intent of the procedure. termed - and perhaps not inaccurately - as Happy Hour.