There is no way that I could have been prepared for what I saw about twenty minutes later. We descended from the transport outside a large warehouse. At each end of the windowless building were two mammoth, drooling octospiders, with heads at least ten meters in diameter, bodies that looked like small blimps, and long tentacles that were slate-gray instead of the usual black and gold. Dr. Blue informed me that this particular morph had one, and only one, function: to serve as a food repository for the colony.
“Each ‘replete’ [my translation of Dr. Blue’s colors] can store up to several hundred full buffers worth of food for a regular adult octospider,” Dr. Blue said. “Since our individual intake buffers hold thirty days worth of normal sustenance, forty-five on a reduced-energy diet, you can see what a vast storehouse a dozen of these repletes represent.”
As I watched, five octospiders approached one of their huge brothers and said something in color. Within seconds the creature leaned forward, bent its head down almost to the ground, and ejected a thick slurry from the enlarged mouth just below its milky lens. The five normal-sized octos gathered around the mound of slurry and fed themselves with their tentacles.
“We practice this several times every day, with every replete,” Dr. Blue said. “These morphs must have practice, for they are not very smart. You might have noticed that none of them spoke in color. They do not have any language transmission capability, and their mobility is extremely limited. Their genomes have been designed so that they can efficiently store food, preserve it for long periods of time, and regurgitate it to feed the colony upon request.”
I was still thinking about the huge repletes when our transport arrived at what I was told was an octospider school. I commented, while we were crossing the grounds, that the large facility seemed deserted. One of the other doctors said something about the colony not having had a “recent replenishment,” if I interpreted the colors correctly, but I never received a clear explanation of just what was meant by his remark.
At one end of the school facility, we entered a small building that had no furnishings. Inside were two adult octospiders and about twenty juveniles, maybe one-half the size of their larger companions. From the activity it was obvious that a repetitive drill of some kind was under way. I could not, however, follow the conversation between the juveniles and their teachers, both because the octospiders were using their full alphabet, including the ultraviolet and the infrared, and because the juvenile “talk” did not flow in the neat, regular bands that I have learned to read.
Dr. Blue explained that we were witnessing part of a “measuring class,” where the juveniles were being trained to perform assessments of their own health, including estimating the magnitude of food contained in their intake buffers. After Dr. Blue told me that “measuring” was an integral part of the early learning curriculum for their juveniles, I inquired about the irregularity of the juvenile colors. Dr. Blue informed me that these particular octos were very young, not much past “first color,” and were barely able to communicate distinct ideas.
After we returned to the conference room, I was asked a set of questions about human digestive systems. The questions were extremely sophisticated (we went through the Krebs citric acid cycle step by step, for example, and discussed other elements of human biochemistry that I could barely remember), and I was struck again by how much more the octospiders know about us than we know about them. As always, it was never necessary for me to repeat an answer.
What a day! It began with the pain of discovering that the octospiders were not going to be able to help Benjy. Later on I was reminded of how resilient the human psyche is when I was actually lifted out of my despondency by the stimulation of learning more about the octospiders. I remain astonished by the range of emotions we humans possess-and how very quickly we can change and adapt.
Eponine and I were talking last night about our life here in the Emerald City and how our unusual living conditions will affect the attitudes of the child she is carrying. At one point Ep shook her head and smiled. “You know what’s so amazing?” she said. “Here we are, an isolated human contingent living in an alien domain inside a gargantuan spacecraft hurtling toward an unknown destination… Yet our days here are full of laughter, elation, sadness, and disappointment, just as they would be if we were still back on Earth.”
“This may look like a waffle,” Max said, “and it may feel like a waffle when you first put it in your mouth, but it damn sure doesn’t taste like a waffle.”
“Put more syrup on it,” Eponine said, laughing. “And pass the plate over here.”
Max handed the waffles across the table to his wife. “Shit, Frenchie,” he said, “these last few weeks you’ve been eating everything in sight. If I didn’t know better, I would think that you and that unborn child of ours both had one of those ‘intake buffers’ Nicole was telling us about.”
“It would be handy, though,” Richard said distractedly. “You could load up on food and not have to stop work just because your stomach was calling.”
“This cereal is the best yet,” little Kepler said from the other end of the table. “I bet even Hercules would like it- “
“Speaking of whom,” Max interrupted in a lower voice, glancing from one end of the table to the other, “what is his, or its, purpose? That damn octospider shows up every morning two hours after dawn and just hangs around. If the children are having school with Nai, he sits in the back of the room—”
“He plays with us, Uncle Max,” Galileo shouted. “Hercules is really a lot of fun. He does everything we ask. Yesterday he let me use the back of his head as a punching bag.”
“According to Archie,” Nicole said between bites, “Hercules is the official observer. The octospiders are curious about everything. They want to know all about us, even the most mundane details.”
“That’s great,” Max replied, “but we have a slight problem. When you and Ellie and Richard are gone, nobody here can understand what Hercules is saying. Oh, sure, Nai knows a few simple phrases, but nothing that’s involved. Yesterday, for example, while everyone else was taking the long nap, that damned Hercules followed me into the crapper. Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s hard for me to do my business even with Eponine within earshot. With an alien staring at me from a few meters away, my sphincter was absolutely paralyzed.”
“Why didn’t you tell Hercules to go away?” Patrick said, laughing.
“I did,” Max answered. “But he just stared at me with fluid running around in his lens and kept repeating the same color pattern that was totally unintelligible to me.”
“Can you remember the pattern?” Ellie said. “Maybe I can tell you what Hercules was saying.”
“Hell, no, I can’t remember it,” Max replied. “Besides, it doesn’t make any difference now-I’m not sitting here trying to shit.”
The Watanabe twins broke into howls of laughter and Eponine frowned at her husband. Benjy, who had said very little during breakfast, asked to be excused.
“Are you all right, dear?” Nicole asked.
Benjy nodded and left the dining room in the direction of his bedroom.
“Does he know anything?” Nai said quietly.
Nicole shook her head quickly and turned to her granddaughter. “Are you finished with your breakfast, Nikki?”
“Yes, Nonni,” the little girl replied. She excused herself and moments later was joined by Kepler and Galileo.
“I think that Benjy knows more than any of us give him credit for,” Max said as soon as the children were gone.
“You could be right,” Nicole said softly. “But yesterday when I talked to him, I saw no indication that he—” Nicole stopped in midsentence and turned to Eponine. “By the way,” she said, “how are you feeling this morning?”
“Great,” Eponine replied. “The baby was very active before dawn. He kicked hard for almost an hour-I could even watch his feet moving around on my tummy. I tried to get Max to feel one of his kicks, but he was to
o squeamish.”
“Now, why do you call that baby ‘he,’ Frenchie, when you know damn well that I want a little girl who looks just like you.”
“I don’t believe you for a moment, Max Puckett,” Eponine interrupted. “You only say you want a girl so that you won’t be disappointed. Nothing would please you more than a boy you can raise to be your buddy. Besides, as you know, it’s customary in English to use the pronoun ‘he’ when the sex is not known or specified.”
“Which brings me to another question for our octospider experts,” Max said after taking a sip of quasi-coffee. He glanced first at Ellie and then at Nicole. “Do either of you know what sex, if any, our octospider friends might be?” He laughed. “I certainly haven’t seen anything on their naked bodies that gives me a clue.”
Ellie shook her head. “I don’t really know, Max. Archie did tell me that Jamie is not his child, and not Dr. Blue’s either, at least not in the strictest biological sense.”
“So Jamie must be adopted,” Max said. “But is Archie the man and Dr. Blue the woman? Or vice versa? Or are our next-door neighbors a gay couple raising a child?”
“Maybe the octospiders don’t have what we call sex,” Patrick said.
“Then where do new octospiders come from?” Max asked. “They certainly don’t just materialize out of thin air.”
“The octospiders are so advanced biologically,” Richard said, “they may have a reproduction process that would seem like magic to us.”
“I have asked Dr. Blue about their reproduction several times,” Nicole said. “He says it’s a complicated subject, especially since the octospiders are polymorphic, and that they’ll explain it to me after I understand the other aspects of their biology.”
“Now, if I were an octospider,” Max said with a grin, “I would want to be one of those fat slobs Nicole saw yesterday. Wouldn’t it be great if your only function in life was to eat and eat, storing food for all your brethren? What an existence! I knew a pig farmer’s son back in Arkansas who was like a replete. Only he kept all the food for himself. Wouldn’t even share it with the pigs. I think he weighed almost three hundred kilograms when he died at the age of thirty.”
Eponine finished her waffle. “Fat jokes in the presence of pregnant women show a lack of sensitivity,” she said, feigning indignation.
“Oh, shit, Ep,” Max replied, “you know that none of that crap applies anymore. We’re zoo animals here in the Emerald City, and we’re stuck with each other. Humans only worry about what they look like if they’re worried about being compared with someone else.”
Nai excused herself from the table. “I have a few more preparations to complete for today’s school lessons,” she said. “Nikki will be starting on consonant sounds-she has already breezed through the alphabet drills.”
“Like mother, like daughter,” Max said. After Patrick left the dining room, leaving only the two couples and Ellie at the table, Max leaned forward with a mischievous smile on his face. “Are my eyes deceiving me,” he said, “or is young Patrick spending a lot more time with Nai than he did when we first arrived?”
“I think you’re right, Max,” Ellie said. “I have noticed the same thing. He told me he feels useful helping Nai with Benjy and the children. After all, you and Eponine are engrossed with each other and the baby that is coming, my time is completely occupied between Nikki and the octospiders, Mother and Father are always busy—”
“You’re missing the point, young lady,” Max said. “I’m wondering if we have another cup-el forming in our midst.”
“Patrick and Nai?” Richard asked, as if the idea had just occurred to him for the first time.
“Yes, dear,” Nicole said. She laughed. “Richard belongs to that category of genius with very selective observational skills. No detail from one of his projects, no matter how small, goes unnoticed. Yet he misses obvious changes in people’s behavior. I remember once in New Eden when Katie started wearing low-cut dresses—”
Nicole stopped herself. It was still difficult for her to talk about Katie without becoming emotional.
“Kepler and Galileo have both noticed that Patrick is around every day,” Eponine said. “Nai says that Galileo has become quite jealous.”
“And what does Nai say about Patrick’s attention?” Nicole asked. “Is she happy with it?”
“You know Nai,” Eponine replied. “Always gracious, always thinking of others. I think she’s concerned about how any possible relationship between Patrick and her might affect the twins.”
All eyes turned toward the visitor who appeared in the doorway. “Well, well. Good morning, Hercules,” Max said, standing up from his chair. “What a pleasant surprise! What can we do for you this morning?”
The octospider stepped into the dining room as the colors streamed around his head. “He says that he has come to help Richard with his automatic translator,” Ellie said. “Especially the parts outside our visible spectrum.”
2
Nicole was dreaming. She was also dancing to an African rhythm around a campfire in an Ivory Coast grove. Omeh was leading the dance. He was dressed in the green robe he had been wearing when he had come to visit her in Rome a few days before the launch of the Newton. All of her human friends in the Emerald City, plus their four closest octospider acquaintances, were also dancing in the circle around the campfire. Kepler and Galileo were fighting. Ellie and Nikki were holding hands. Hercules the octospider was dressed in a bright purple African costume. Eponine was very pregnant and heavy on her feet. Nicole heard her name being called from outside the circle. Was it Katie? Her heart raced as she strained to recognize the voice.
“Nicole,” Eponine said beside her bed. “I’m having contractions.”
Nicole sat up and shook the dream from her head. “How often?” she asked automatically.
“They’re irregular,” Eponine replied. “I’ll have a couple about five minutes apart, and then nothing for half an hour.”
“Most likely they’re Braxton Hicks contractions,” Nicole said to her friend after she put on her robe. “You’re still five weeks short of full term.”
“What’s a Braxton Hicks contraction?” Eponine asked.
“Fake labor, essentially. It’s as if your body is practicing. Come lie down on the couch, and I’ll take a look.”
Max was waiting in the living room with Eponine after Nicole finished washing her hands. “Is she going to have the baby?” he asked.
“Someday,” Nicole said, smiling at the nervous father. “But probably not now.” She began putting slight pressure on Eponine’s midsection, trying to locate the baby. ‘Tell me when the next contraction begins,” she said.
Meanwhile, Max paced fitfully around the room. “I would absolutely kill for a cigarette right now,” he mumbled.
When Eponine had another contraction, Nicole noticed that there was some slight pressure on the undilated cervix. She was worried because she wasn’t absolutely certain where the baby was. “I’m sorry, Ep,” Nicole said after another contraction six minutes later. “I think this is all Braxton Hicks, but I could be wrong. I’ve never dealt with a pregnancy at this stage before without some kind of monitoring equipment to help me.”
“Some women do have babies this early, don’t they?” Eponine asked.
“Yes. But it’s rare. Only about one percent of first-time mothers deliver more than four weeks before their due date. And it’s almost always due to some kind of complication. Or heredity. Do you know by any chance if you or any of your siblings were premature?”
Eponine shook her head. “I never knew anything at all about my natural family,” she said.
Nicole told Eponine to dress and return to her home. “Keep a record of your contractions. What is especially important is the interval between them. If they start occurring regularly, every four minutes or so without significant gaps, then come and get me again.”
“Might there be a problem?” Max whispered to Nicole while Eponine was dressing.<
br />
“Unlikely, Max, but there is always that possibility.”
“What do you think about asking our friends the biological wizards for some help?” Max asked. “Please forgive me if I am offending you, it’s just—”
“I’m ahead of you, Max,” Nicole said. “I had already decided to consult with Dr. Blue in the morning.”
Max was nervous long before Dr. Blue started to open what Max called the “bug jar.” “Hold on, Doc,” Max said, gently putting his hands on the tentacle holding the jar. “Would you mind explaining to me just what you’re doing before you let those creatures out?”
Eponine was lying down on the sofa in the Puckett living room. She was naked, but mostly covered by a pair of sheets provided by the octospiders. Nicole had been holding Eponine’s hand during most of the several minutes that the three octospiders had been setting up the portable laboratory. Now Nicole walked over beside Max so that she could translate what Dr. Blue was saying.
“Dr. Blue is not an expert in this field,” Nicole interpreted. “He says that one of the other two octospiders will have to explain the details of the process.”
After a short conversation among the three octospiders, Dr. Blue moved aside and another alien stood directly in front of Nicole and Max. Dr. Blue then informed Nicole that this particular octo, whom he called the “image engineer,” had only recently started learning the simpler octospider dialect used to communicate with humans. “He might be a little difficult to understand,” Dr. Blue told her.
“The tiny beings in the jar,” Nicole said several seconds later as the colors began streaming around the engineer’s head, “are called… image quadroids, I guess would be a satisfactory translation. Anyway, they are living miniature cameras that will crawl inside Eponine and take pictures of the baby. Each quadroid has the capability of… several million photographic picture elements that can be allocated to as many as five hundred and twelve images per octospider nillet. They can even create a moving picture if you choose.”
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