Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Respectfully,

  Folding the sheet carefully, Fenton tucked it away among his things before resuming his seat.

  “What was that?

  “Nothing important.”

  “Tunnelgrams are never unimportant.”

  “Just business.”

  “Expensive business.”

  Fenton nodded. “Yes, very. It’s time for your walk.”

  “So you want to save my life to compensate for Khela’an’s loss.”

  “You’re a student of human psychology?”

  Zepon copied Fenton’s tone. “Humans have a monopoly on guilt?”

  “Not guilt. Avarice.”

  Zepon’s neck frill fluttered a question mark.

  Fenton translated. “Greed. If I let you die so I could get to a conference, would any Stilhzani ever deal with my company?”

  “Probably. After a while. Not am I important.”

  “Every living soul is important. Enough procrastinating. On your feet.”

  As he allowed Fenton to haul him erect, Zepon said, “Why do you believe we have soul?”

  “That’s not for me to judge. It’s enough you’re alive.”

  The lethargy reclaimed Zepon and Fenton’s answer echoed in his uncomprehending mind. As they neared the washroom on their third circuit, Zepon veered off, saying, “Max, I think I’m going to be sick again.”

  Fenton helped him silently, sponged off his face, and carried him back to the bed, knowing that from then on, he’d have a bed patient on his hands.

  The next five days passed in a long series of crises with Zepon’s lucid moments becoming shorter and wider spaced. Between jobs, Fenton’s mind kept returning to the ’gram that really said, “Move away from that Stilhzani or you’re fired.”

  With each passing hour, such a course became even more impossible as his minute by minute attendance was the only thing keeping Zepon from giving up. After all, IDC was only a job.

  But, finally, when they were forty hours out of Stilhza, Fenton had to slip out to send a tunnelgram ahead. He stood at the counter, under the cold eye of the human clerk, and laboriously blocked in the Stilhzani characters he hadn’t used for ten years, paid for it out of his own pocket, and hurried back to his charge, knowing what the clerk thought of him but not the slightest concerned.

  When the door clicked open on the musty dimness he’d grown accustomed to, he knew at once that something was wrong. He’d been raising the temperature and humidity gradually for days, until the room was stuffy for him but frigid to the heat-starved Stilhzani. But now it seemed warmer than when he’d left, even ignoring the cloying moldiness that permeated everything.

  Swiftly, he checked the thermostat and turned it down a hair before he went to his charge. Zepon was curled with the small of his back to the wall and his head tucked between his arms at an angle impossible for a human. Fenton gasped, and let the shock of failure wash through him as it had ten years ago.

  But ten years ago he’d been too late. This time, he knew Zepon had had no more than fifteen minutes to bond himself in place. He’d stopped breathing, but he hadn’t yet begun to spew the gelatinous wrapping material that now fully distended his abdomen. There was still a good chance.

  Carefully avoiding the sensitive neck frill, Fenton grasped the Stilhzani’s shoulders and gently but insistently pulled him away from the wall. The transparent rope of connective tissue elongated until Fenton could see it hadn’t hardened into the nearly indestructible anchor it would become. Then it broke away from the wall with a wet smack and slowly retracted into the lower orifice.

  The upper orifice had just begun to project itself as Fenton hauled the compacted body to the edge of the bed and laboriously unfolded the limbs to get him in position for artificial respiration. He stripped off his watch, set it on the bed, clambered astride the head, and for the first time in years regretting his respectable paunch, he began the rhythmic pumping. Soon he was rewarded with a trickle of blue-green mucus that became a gushing flood and then Zepon was coughing and gasping.

  Hastily, Fenton hauled him to his feet and slapped his face smartly until those glowing red eyes focused on him, but without recognition. Zepon pulled away from the human, neck frill plastered down, blue with revulsion.

  “It’s Max Fenton, Zepon, try to remember. It’s not time yet. We’re still aboard ship.”

  Memory returned but anger grew. “By what right?!” Shaking, he spat fiercely, “Get away from me...human!”

  Fenton retreated a few steps. “Now calm down, Zepon. I’m sorry I had to do that, but it’s only a matter of hours to Stilhza. If you think what I did was bad, imagine what it would be like to wake up alone, not a female within parsecs, presuming of course you could wake up. And if that isn’t enough, remember the Line would have you removed and no court would call it murder.”

  Slowly, Fenton saw sense return to those blazing eyes and he urged the Stilhzani into a chair. “Now, just sit still. I’ll fix the bed.” He swung into the familiar routine of cleaning up a mess and, as he worked, he said, “It wasn’t your fault. Some defect in the thermostat caused the temperature to rise suddenly while I was out. It wasn’t much, but in your condition—”

  Installed between clean sheets, Zepon said, “I’m sorry I was angry. I was confused.”

  “Forget it. I know how you felt.”

  Those eyes focused in a rare moment of complete lucidity. “But how do your people feel about what you’re doing?”

  “Oh, the human race disowned me years ago. Doesn’t bother me.”

  “You may be a Corporation President, but you’re still just an employee. You’ll be fired.”

  Fenton noted how the anger-induced vitality improved Zepon’s accent as well as his mental agility. “If you die, I’ll certainly lose everything I’ve built these last ten years. But if you live, maybe I can salvage something. It might improve my position vastly if I knew how you’d come to be in this predicament.”

  “I guess I owe you that much.” Zepon’s frill rose briefly in a gesture accepting the human into his innermost circle of friends and Fenton flowed with a warmth he hadn’t know since Khela’an had accepted him.

  The Stilhzani drew a breath, coughed raggedly, and said, “A year ago, I got about two hundred of us together for an attempt to colonize Stovain VI, a planet out on the far frontier of the Federation.”

  “Strange I hadn’t heard of it.”

  Zepon’s neck frill fluttered annoyance. “I found private funds. I planned to establish a bretalon plantation. The planet was suitable, and since bretalon is one pharmaceutical that only grows on Stilhza and seems to respond only to Stilhzani hands, the market on that edge of the Federation is brisk.

  “We found a location that seemed ideal. There was a large, active volcano whose lower skirts were riddled with delightful catacombs. The outside temperature wouldn’t stabilize sufficiently, but the caves were well heated. So we installed vents to tame the volcano, planted our crops and were very optimistic as the temperature rose through the season quite comfortably.

  “Then one night, the volcano blew up, vents and all. In the end, I was the only survivor. I stayed at the Service’s District Hospital until my...wife...died. I didn’t really care whether they put me on this ship or not. I still don’t really care whether I live or how I die.”

  Fenton whistled tunelessly between even white teeth. He knew the deep attachment implied by Zepon’s term, wife. Not a sex partner but a life partner. With estivation approaching, of course he’d lost the will to live. But this was a real break!

  “Would you be willing to try that project again? This time with professional backing?”

  “I have not will.”

  “Not now. But when you wake up—” Fenton was counting on the tremendous personality shifts so characteristic of the Stilhzani after their severe seasonal changes.

  “I’m not going to live through this.”

  “Get that nonsense out of your head! I won’t stand for it. We’re
only a few hours out of Stilhza. I’ve just ’grammed the Aamidst to expect you and I am not, repeat not, going to let you make a liar out of me!”

  But the lucidity was fading and Fenton knew that from now on, he’d get no sleep at all.

  If the week had been arduous, the following hours were hell. Fenton had to content himself with fighting a delaying action, giving in gracefully when it was no longer possible to forestall the inevitable. Several times Zepon’s labored breathing ceased and, swallowing his heart, Fenton pumped air into the mucus-filled lungs and bore Zepon’s increasing hatred with calm indifference. He knew that if he lived, Zepon would be cheerfully thankful.

  During the rare moments of inaction, Fenton kept himself awake by rehearsing the defense of his actions. He was sure he could sell the Stovain VI project, if only he could keep Zepon alive. The Board was composed of men whose sole motivation was making money. They’d condone anything if there was a clear profit in it. With an experienced leader, a colony just might succeed.

  Eventually, Fenton stopped watching the clock and just conquered each minute separately. He convinced himself that the nightmare would go on forever and counted each choked breath a victory and each muttered curse a triumph. He talked himself hoarse alternating quiet encouragement with acid-tipped jibes at Zepon’s pride, couched in the remains of his spoken Stilhzani.

  The door chime, when it came, was an unexpected shock to fatigue-deadened nerves. He palmed the lock button and forced himself to his feet as the four Stilhzani rescue workers entered with their bubble stretcher.

  They brushed the human aside and went quietly to work, handling the patient with sympathetic expertness. In moments, they’d transferred the groaning and gasping Zepon to the stretcher and as the others departed, one of them came over to Fenton.

  “Not have we met before?” asked the Stilhzani, searching Fenton’s stubbled chin with double-pupiled eyes.

  Fenton smoothed back his hair, oddly conscious of its increasing thinness. “Yes, we have. Many years ago, I had a friend—”

  “Yesss.” The Stilhzani’s neck frill flushed purple in assent. “I remember Khela’an. You now have a new friend?”

  “Possibly. But at the moment he hates me.”

  “You will speak with him later.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “I must go.”

  “Sleep warmly,” Fenton called after the swiftly retreating back, making a mental note to brush up on his spoken Stilhzani. It seemed he was going to need it.

  THE VANILLAMINT TAPESTRY

  Raymond Yost didn’t like the idea of working on loan to the Intelligence Agency. He was a scholar, not a spy. But his feet carried him relentlessly along the springy floored, brightly utilitarian corridor toward the Vesting Chamber. He turned the last corner, squared his bony shoulders, and paced the final fifty yards with thin-lipped determination.

  He didn’t like the idea of working so close to a partner’s fission time either, but he’d keep his word, even if it killed him...and it probably would.

  He’d said that many times in the last nine years, and each time he’d survived. Director Proken kept saying that experience would polish his technique, but, privately, Yost thought experience would polish him off. He’d never had the nerve to try the pun on the bald-headed, blue-skinned Director of Humanoid Correlationists.

  At twenty-nine, all Yost had to show for his life’s work was an Interplanetary Health Certificate claiming that his six-foot, hundred-fifty-pound, Terran-born body was in excellent, if underweight, health. But, every morning, he searched for the first gray hair among the ashen blond. He’d vowed that when it appeared, he’d quit the Central Correlationists for the sedentary life of a desk scholar.

  At the end of the corridor, he paused before the ornate, ten foot-high doors, took a deep breath, and placed his hand on the sensor plate. Yost gritted his teeth at the grinding whir of heavily taxed servos, badly in need of the attention of the very scarce maintenance crews, but slowly the doors swung inward revealing familiar, red velvet shadows.

  The well-upholstered hush, soft, reddish shadows and mixed incenses of the Vesting Chamber created a wholly different world from the angular polished-chrome-and-fluorescent sterility of the rest of the Station. Within that chamber, haunted by the distant moaning of thin, dark winds through jagged rocks, Yost always felt he could believe the stories about the Ballatine race-memory being somehow connected with the spirit world or the Beyond where God sat on His throne and Created. The Ballatine reticence to discuss theology could be due to any number of things. Still, it would be nice to know if there really were a Creator.

  As he crossed the threshold, allowing the doors to close behind him, Yost felt his post-hypnotic conditioning taking hold and he yielded. Brushing aside the last wisp of mysticism, he checked his assignment card. It read, G-12, Kolitt.

  The door closed and Yost moved to the railing in front of him to survey the huge chamber, which was the off-duty home of CC’s resident colony of Ballatine. He was on a circular mezzanine, seven levels above the main floor. All the balconies were partitioned into smaller chambers by heavy hangings richly woven in dark-hued patterns. Only the main floor showed hard, reflecting surfaces, and Yost knew, those were merely the roofs of compartments which were as thoroughly hung inside as the balconies. He could see some of the small, spidery humanoids that served the Ballatine on Bellet, the Ballatine homeworld. “Friends-of-one-part” the Ballatine called them, soulless host bodies to provide mobility for the symbionts. It was their placid certainty in recognizing “soul” that had given rise to the rumors about the Ballatine.

  Yost had never been in a main-floor compartment, and he knew he never would be. That was where the Ballatine conducted their conjugation and fission rites. Investiture and Divestiture always took place in a balcony chamber. He was on level G, now he needed to find number twelve and pick up his senior partner for this assignment.

  He stepped back to the door, looked both ways along the narrow aisle, spotted number two, three, and four and followed along until he found a hanging with a number 12 woven into the abstract design. He pushed the soft velour aside, allowing the tactile sensation to trigger another post-hypnotic command, and entered.

  The incense Kolitt had chosen for his tiny, wedge shaped home smelled like sandalwood, fresh air, and eucalyptus. Even without his hypnotic conditioning, the California-born human found it pleasantly relaxing.

  And then he saw the Ballatine, ten pounds of amorphous, red- and black-veined, blue-white tissue floating at ease in his nutrient bath of enriched, Bellet seawater.

  Yost checked his card against the clipboard hung from the glassite bowl, double-checked the codes, and then clipped the card in place and lay down on the cot. He rolled up his left sleeve and dangled his arm in the water, brushing the Ballatine gently to signal his readiness.

  Only the first contact occasioned a twinge of instinctive revulsion...the primeval human reaction to soft, warm, slimy creatures. Then Kolitt commanded the nerves locally and Yost relaxed. The Investiture would take a good twenty minutes, and for the most of that he would be blind, deaf, and dumb, so he let his absent hypnotist talk him into a refreshing nap. Kolitt, like all his kind, would be considerate, but the procedure could still drive an unprotected human insane.

  Yost woke to an oddly alien environment that gradually converged on normality. Then the Ballatine spoke silently in his mind, ::Friend-of-two-parts, I greet you. Have I matched sensory inputs?::

  Yost nodded. ::Perfectly. You are Kolitt.::

  ::Correct. And you are Raymond Yost, among other things.::

  ::Correct. Now. We’ve many grave matters to discuss.::

  ::True. And meanwhile, you will make haste to consume calories lest I damage your health. Allow me to check my synapse linkages before we leave?::

  ::Please do. Control is all yours. Take me to the Commissary.::

  Still lying on the cot, Yost felt his individual muscle fibers tensing and relaxing
as the symbiont checked his control. Gaining co-ordination, his body rose to its feet and then, suddenly, he blacked out.

  He didn’t lose consciousness, so he had time to feel true panic before the room swam back into focus. He was seated on the cot. ::What happened?::

  ::Deepest apologies, Friend-of-two-parts. Slight fibrillation. No damage. It won’t happen again.::

  Panic allayed for the moment, Yost asked the question that had haunted him since Proken had talked him into this madness. ::Kolitt, do you feel...all right?::

  The inward silence lengthened until Yost felt as if Kolitt were gone. ::Kolitt, I apologize. I didn’t mean to offend...::

  ::Yes, Friend-of-two-parts, our pride is sometimes our worst enemy. Yet, if you doubt me, we’d best undertake no mission together. A partnership such as ours can survive only on trust.::

  ::If you tell me you can do it, I won’t doubt.:: Yost considered Ballatine integrity about the only constant in the shifting universe.

  After a moment the reply came and Yost was able to read intonation in the silent voice. ::Ray,:: said Kolitt gravely, ::I have at least six months. I’ve been thoroughly briefed, and I believe we can perform the task set us.::

  ::Then let’s go. We certainly haven’t time to waste.::

  Kolitt went through his callisthenic routine and then, with increasing smoothness, piloted their body to the Commissary and even displayed unusual talent in feeding themselves. Yost was surprised at such immediate proficiency until he remembered he’d never worked with such a mature Ballatine before.

  But Proken had wanted two Seniors for this mission, and he’d wanted the most experienced Ballatine on the staff...namely Kolitt. And Proken usually got exactly what he wanted.

  All through the meal they discussed the details of the mission. The Ballatine’s skill at the quasi-telepathic form of communication grew steadily until Yost could read nuances of meaning even more clearly than he could human facial expressions.

  All during their four-week journey to Harnuit, the technical details held their attention almost exclusively. They went over everything from local language, customs, and values to planetary geography, political history, and economic resources. In short, they approached the field of operations as Correlationists rather than as spies simply because they knew no other method.