Sentenced to Prism

by Alan Dean Foster

  "I can see that." Evan pointed toward his old shades, lying nearby.

  "No. Your old lenses are here." Reaching into a cavity within his own body, the first physician removed something small and shiny and held it out. Evan found himself staring transfixed at two small, glassy objects. They were oval when seen from the side, round when viewed from above. They quivered slightly in the physician's open hand.

  Evan stared at them until he began to shake violently. Finally he turned away, unable to look any longer. Despite the bright sunlight he was suddenly cold. But the headache was beginning to fade and there was no pain, though he was more conscious of his eyes than he'd ever been in his life. He kept them tightly shut, afraid to open them again.

  "It was not as difficult as one might suppose." Unaware of Evan's trauma, physician rambled on as though discussing the repair of a simple household utensil. "We have studied soft-bodied forms intensively. We simply replaced your original lenses with new ones and made some small adjustments to the interpretation mechanism behind them."

  "You did something to the rods and cones," Evan mumbled. "Something that enables me to see beyond the normal visible spectrum in both directions as well as to interpret fractal shapes more clearly."

  Gently he used the tips of his fingers to press all around the orbits of his eyes. "What if it hadn't worked? What if I'd woken up completely blind?"

  "You must have more confidence." Library spoke for the first time since Evan had rejoined them. "These physicians are among the most artistic of their kind."

  "Your eyes are simple in form and almost identical to many we have studied," the second physician said. "The modifications were not complex. And we can always replace your old lenses anytime you wish us to do so."

  "Not complex. My God, what could you people do with access to a few basic biology texts? What other operations can you perform?"

  The first physician took another step toward him. "We have devoted much speculation to that. If you would like, we can— "

  Evan retreated hastily. "No, no, you've done, more than enough!" He blinked at the wonderfully enhanced world around him. "You're sure you can restore my original sight if you have to?"

  The physician displayed Evan's original lenses a second time. "Reasonably sure. That is why I will retain them." In a gesture worthy of the most accomplished surrealist he slipped them back into a small body cavity.

  "I do hope you will elect to keep your new lenses," the second physician said. "It would be a shame to undo such a good piece of work."

  "I'll think about it," Evan told it. "In the meantime, promise me you won't perform any more surprise operations? No matter how much you're convinced it will benefit me?" The physicians promised. Reluctantly, it seemed to Evan.

  "If we had told you of our intentions beforehand, would you have permitted us to perform the operation?" asked the second physician.

  Evan swallowed. "Look, I've been out for most of a day and a night. It's time we were moving on. And no modifications while I sleep, understand?"

  They pushed through the forest, leaving the river far behind. It was late afternoon when Azure came running back to rejoin them from his forward position. Instead of speaking immediately he reared back on his hind legs and listened intently.

  "What is it?" Library inquired impatiently.

  "I wish we had a talker with us to confirm."

  Wishful thinking indeed, Evan knew. The towering talkers had less mobility than any other member of the Associative, which was why none had come along in the first place.

  "Confirm what?"

  "Something is coming toward us. Very low-grade emanations. Not intelligent."

  Suddenly Evan found himself joining his companions in scanning the surrounding growths. They were in a section of forest where the pure silicate flora had largely crowded out the organosilicates. Clusters of glassy gripes reached heavenward all around them save where they were shoved aside by thick brown arches. The crest of each arch was full of huge, weaving photoreceptors.

  Evan turned sharply to his left. "Wait a minute, I think I hear something too." This announcement was followed by a loud, splintering crash.

  The physician next to his legs looked around nervously. "I hear nothing."

  It struck Evan that his friends might be deaf at the lower frequencies, attuned as they were to radio frequencies they utilized for interpersonal communication. Something sporting half a dozen delicate wings set three to a side along a slim silicate body flew out of the forest. It wasn't attacking and ignored the travelers completely. It boasted a long sharp bill and was bright pink with yellow stripes.

  It was followed by half a dozen equally bizarre flying things. Then a veritable silicate zoo came swarming toward them, running, rolling, and crawling its way eastward. Evan barely had time to note the new species as they raced past.

  They all had one thing in common: they were running from something. Azure had sensed it too.

  "Maybe we'd better run also." Evan took a step backward. "Back to the river."

  "Unreasoning flight is not the refuge of the intelligent," library pointed out. "We should not retreat until we have ascertained the nature of any potential danger." He didn't need to add that neither he nor the physicians were built for running.

  Evan tried to see through the dense undergrowth. It couldn't be a fire. There was nothing there to burn. Besides, he saw neither smoke nor flame. Suddenly two huge silicate trees shattered directly off to his left. Syrupy liquid began to fountain from the broken trunks. Evan's eyes widened.

  "A shervan!" the library shouted even as he turned to scramble for cover. But there was no cover from a shervan. One simply got out of its way.

  Evan had encountered few large lifeforms since setting down on Prism and he could only gape in astonishment at this one, the most extraordinary by far. What he'd thought at first were long, thick tentacles sheathed in opaque glass revealed themselves on closer inspection to be mouths on the ends of muscular necks. Each maw was lined with a splendid array of rotating serrated teeth and appeared capable of functioning independent of its neighbors. He counted twelve snapping, voracious sets of jaws growing from a massive gray lump of body without visible eyes, ears, or anything resembling a sensory organ. It traveled on a series of flat plates that ran in a continuous band around its entire body, which propelled the entire organism forward with startling speed.

  Before Evan and his companions could scatter, one of the warriors was grasped by a powerful mouth. Two more mouths immediately attacked it from both sides while it squirmed desperately in the crushing grip of the first. Dismemberment occurred rapidly, but not before the doomed warrior had succeeded in damaging one neck with its own buzzsaw-like teeth.

  Evan dodged around a tree, looking backward instead of where he was going. So he didn't see the mouth that was waiting for him until he felt the pain. The shervan teeth went right through his froporia armor and pulled away with most of the lower section. It also tore out a substantial chunk of his abdomen. He staggered backward, staring down at his exposed intestines.

  Another warrior jumped in and clamped its jaws on the neck, the sound of its rotating teeth harsh in Evan's ears. Flesh and silicate shards went flying. The mouth turned its attention to this new threat.

  Somehow he ran on despite the gaping hole in his gut. The shervan pursued with demonic speed. It bit again, at his chest this time, spinning Evan completely around. Bones splintered as pressure was applied. The warrior who had freed him once leaped to the attack again and this time succeeded in cutting completely through the neck.

  A human body can cope with only so much damage before the brain begins to shut it down. The last thing Evan remembered was a feeling of falling backward. He lay there, still half-conscious, and tried to follow the progress of the battle.

  The shervan seemed to be turning away. Having lost one mouth completely with two more badly injured it had apparently decided to seek less resilient prey. Evan could see first physician attending
to various wounds. One warrior at least had been killed and consumed, but by and large, his companions had survived the attack.

  Unfortunately, he thought as he passed out, he was only made of flesh and blood.

  They found him lying motionless in the patch of quick­weed where he'd fallen. In order to determine the full extent of his wounds the physicians hurriedly cut away what remained of his froporia armor. From what they knew of organic construction, it was clear that the damage was extensive.

  In order to prevent the kind of decay and infection soft things were heir to, second physician immediately sealed the damaged areas with a thin, aseptic transparent film. Blood quickly began to fill the two raw cavities. It was clear even to the warriors that if drastic surgery wasn't performed soon, their strange otherworldly visitor would not last until nightfall.

  The physicians were consulting nonstop. That peculiar pumping device which pushed red fluid through the entire system, for example, was badly damaged and functioning only fitfully. The same could be said for the twin gas bellows which lay over the pump and to the side, and for the chemical processing organs lying shredded in the main body cavity below. It was just as well Evan had passed out before becoming aware of the extent of his injuries. Had he known he undoubtedly would have given up on the spot.

  His companions, however, were appraising the situation dispassionately.

  "It will be interesting," library said. "We have never before undertaken to repair such an extensively damaged organic form."

  "He won't like it." Azure glanced from processor, already working furiously, to the two physicians.

  "He has no choice," library pointed out, "and neither do we. The life will leave him unless he can be repaired." It gestured with a thin tentacle. "Look at that mess. You know how fragile these organic systems are. Something must be done, and quickly."

  "I am concerned about the shock when he regains consciousness," murmured the scout.

  "Let us worry about that if and when he regains consciousness," the first physician said. "If we do not hasten to repair the damage, he will never regain consciousness long enough to experience shock." It turned its attention back to the soft body. "This is going to take some time. We will maintain necessary functions through the use of our own bodies where necessary. I hope this Evan form is possessed of a strong constitution. He is going to need it if he is to survive our work." It gestured, spoke to its colleague. "I think it best if we begin with that pump."

  Second physician agreed. A tentacle reached toward that irregularly beating, pinkish-red organ. Its silicate tip was bright and sharp.

  There was only the deep darkness. Then there was a distant, faint humming sound, soft and relaxing. Evan opened his eyes.

  He was lying on his back, staring up at faces. Not faces exactly. More like the product of some busy abstract sculptor. The sculptures moved away until only two remained. He recognized Azure and first physician.

  As he recognized he remembered: the terrible hot pain of the shervan's teeth cutting into him, ripping away huge gobbets of flesh, sending blood flying everywhere. He remembered gazing down at himself to see his guts hanging out of his belly like so many white ropes tom from a hidden spool. How detached his mind had been while considering his evisceration. It was as if he'd been only a witness to the disaster instead of an intimate participant.

  In his mind he went over the long list of injuries he'd suffered. By any reasonable stretch of the imagination he ought to be stone cold dead. He was not. He did feel, though, as if he'd been run over several times by a large, heavy vehicle. His entire being ached, and he was glad of it. Another sign that he was alive. Everything seemed to be functioning properly, including the communications device the physicians had plugged into him. He was certain of the latter because he could clearly hear Azure addressing the rest of his companions.

  "It works," the scout assured them.

  "Yes, I still work," he mumbled mentally, "but I shouldn't. I shouldn't be talking to you now." He knew why he was alive, of course: the physicians had been at work. Somehow, they had taken the mess the shervan had made of him and put it back together. He was almost afraid to look down at himself for fear of what he might see. A foolish and unbecoming fear, he told himself. Whatever he saw could not be worse than being dead.

  He sat up, noting that his newly modified eyes were functioning perfectly. Since he could now see well into the infrared he was not surprised to see that his lower abdomen was generating a substantial amount of heat. That was normal enough for a human body.

  What was not was the transparent pane which had replaced his skin from the groin to just below his neck, much less the alien and unrecognizable shapes which lay behind it. He sat and stared, and stared.

  "Shock?" the first physician wondered.

  "I think not." The second stepped forward, rested a reassuring tentacle on Evan's right leg. "We were unable to repair the covering as it was too badly shredded. We cannot regenerate organic compounds such as those which comprise the covering you called skin. We haven't the necessary skills. So we repaired as best as we were able." Evan didn't comment. He was too engrossed in an intimate study of self.

  First physician moved to stand alongside his colleague. "We had no choice. You would have died. You were dying as we worked on you. We did the best we could. We had no choice."

  "I told you he'd be upset," Azure said.

  "Upset?" Evan recognized the croak as his own voice. He raised his gaze to the physicians. "I know I was dying. Hell, I should be dead right now. That I'm not I know is due entirely to your skills and the work you did. I'm just not used to the kind of work you did." He looked thoughtful. "You know, we have an expression, something about a 'window onto the soul.' " Gingerly he pressed against the transparent skin, discovered that it was flexible and remarkably tough. Behind it, his insides hummed away at keeping him alive. And some of them literally hummed.

  A lesser man might have fainted or gone mad. Not Evan Orgell. He was too conscious of his own invulnerable self. He wouldn't die because the universe obviously couldn't get along without him.

  First physician extended a tendril. "We concluded that this was the most important organ of all, so we replaced it first."

  "A good thing you were not struck in the head," second physician said. "That would have been beyond our skill."

  Evan looked down into his chest, past the silvery balloons that were flexing in and out, out and in. Behind the one on the left was a mass of plastic and tubing that pulsed at a different rate.

  "Two pumps. One for fluid, one for gas. That's all," first physician said.

  "Yes, that's all."

  "You can see where we bonded the replacement material to what remains of the original organic flesh. It was simpler than rebuilding the mess left behind. All that tubing, just to carry fluids, and so many small ones. Very inefficient. But we were too busy keeping you alive to worry about possible improvements."

  Evan examined the new arteries and veins, flexible hoses fashioned of vitreous, gleaming material. They were translucent. If he looked hard he could make out the blood flowing through the largest.

  "Actually, the pumps gave us less trouble than some of the less vital organs located farther down." Second physician gestured. "Those things there."

  Evan looked off to one side. Lying on the ground, stacked neat as a roll of used cable, were his intestines. He swallowed, tried to view the sight clinically and from a distance. It was not easy.

  His stomach had been repaired and put back in place. Protruding from it was a neat mass of tubing. Off to one side and slightly lower than the stomach was something that looked like a loaf of dried bread. As near as he could tell, his spleen and liver had survived intact.

  Second physician turned back to him, occasionally referring to the pile of tattered intestines as he spoke. "Those were badly damaged. Repairing them properly would have taken too much time, and the entire arrangement struck us as a particularly bad example of internal organiza
tion. For one thing, they took up far more space than necessary." A tendril indicated the peculiar loaf shape. "We devised a storage facility for your body. It collects and distributes additional energy compounds as they are needed." The physician's voice was tinged with humor. "You helped us create a battery for our own bodies. We thought it only fair to return the favor."

  "This absurd business of metabolizing gas and the component parts of other soft things to power a body never ceases to amaze," library added.

  "There is a simpler device for carrying off waste materials directly from the metabolizing units," first physician went on. "Less risk of contaminating the rest of the body. We also installed one venting device instead of the previous two. It struck us an utterly unnecessary duplication, in addition to which the vent now discarded appeared to possess the potential to interfere with organic reproductive methods. I'm sure you'll agree that this new arrangement is far more sensible and efficient."

  "You know," the library said thoughtfully, "I really don't understand this need to kill and consume other organic forms when you can obtain all the same compounds directly from the ground. I think your modified metabolic system could process them directly. It would be much neater and save you a lot of light time."

  "I don't think I could get used to eating dirt." At least there were no blinking lights inside his torso. He was still human— wasn't he? Or did Azure and the others now qualify as near relations instead of just friends?

  "Are you ready to stand up?" asked Azure.

  Evan nodded, put both palms against the ground, and pushed. He thought he rattled as he rose, but it was only his imagination. The remaining empty spaces within his body had been packed firm with an antiseptic, transparent gel. His immune system ignored all the replacements. There wasn't a "living" carbon-based device among them.

  He wasn't the least bit hungry, nor was there reason for him to be, the physicians explained. They had helpfully tube-fed him while waiting for him to recover consciousness. Not only his stomach but his new storage organ should be full of glucose and other readily metabolized substances.