Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

  Memory of Limbcracker lying enormous at my feet, licking her muzzle like a dog, licking her paws like a cat and then cleaning behind her ears. Her... Memory of the Kapellmeister, explaining just a little bit of the wolfen’s apparent eusocial order to me, these free-roving wolfen bands groups of sisters, all from the same litter, loosely tied to other such bands in a kinship group, all descended from a common foremother, reaching back for many generations.

  And the males?

  The Kapellmeister said, There are other aspects of the wolfen social order. Finding these things out is part of the Arousian study. Local humans apparently never cared.

  Something reticent about the way it was said, probably no more than an artifact of the translator pod. But... a sense, from nowhere, that, perhaps, the Kapellmeister doesn’t quite trust me yet. Why does that trust seem so important just now? I never wanted anyone’s trust before.

  Soft noise in the distance, like a faraway crying child. Some chance animal sound, some little animal or another, like a konijn, or... The crying again, a little louder, as if nearer. One of the wolfen raised its head briefly, listened, then settled back. Maybe the distant cry is some small predator, like a hunting owl or...

  A sudden realization that I hadn’t seen many flying things in the air of Green Heaven. Certainly nothing like birds.

  I stood, stretching under the stars, intending to go in and sleep. Stood still, frozen in place, listening to that mewling cry. Not so far away at all, is it? No. A tiny whimpering, as if close by. That’s it. Nearby, and not very loud at all. I turned away from the encampment and started walking, in the direction I thought the sound was coming from.

  Plenty of light here, though both the moons are gone. Plenty of light from the stars, from the Milky Way’s dense, irregular band of golden dust. Creepy shadows everywhere, trees frozen against the sky.

  Momentary pause. Am I being an idiot? There could be... just about anything... I remembered how I’d felt, looking up from my campfire... only yesterday? Remembered that hard pang of terror when I saw the wolfen looking at me. Well. Here’s the comforting lump of my little dartgun, full of potent anesthetic. Not so good against wolfen, to be sure, but... I thought about going back and getting a rifle, but the crying drew me on, back of my neck prickling, hair threatening to stand on end.

  There.

  Down in the shadows.

  Dollies.

  Grouped together around one of their number, dollie squatting over what looked in the darkness like a nest made of grass, something dark runneling down the insides of its legs. I walked closer, slowly, quietly. One of the dollies looked up and saw me. Froze for a second, then looked away, as if dismissing me.

  The squatting dollie suddenly squeaked, a little mouse-cry of dismay, grunted softly, seemed to strain. A pale ovoid appeared between its legs, started to fall...

  One of the others, the one standing closest to the dollie in the center of the set-piece, reached out and caught the thing. Held it up to the starlight. Made a little coo, like a mourning dove. Held the ovoid between its own legs and seemed to shove. When it let go, the egg was gone. It stepped away, let another dollie take its place.

  Another little cry, like a lost kitten, another straining, another egg caught, examined and hidden. Dollie stepping back, letting another take its place. Then another. And another. I counted six more before... The ovulating dollie made a little sob and fell to its knees in the grassy nest, dark blood seeming to gush, and I caught a power whiff of something, a... I don’t know. A protein smell, amorphous, hard to pin down, tainted with something like cinnamon. Like the smell of French toast, that’s it.

  The other dollies closed in, the ones who’d taken the eggs snatching up handfuls of grass, pressing it between the egg-layer’s legs, as if to staunch the flow of blood. No, taking the wads of soaked grass away, chewing them, swallowing. The dollie was laying on the ground now, whispering softly to itself. After a while, the pile of bloody grass was used up and all the other dollies lay down as well, clustering round their comrade.

  Males and females here? I wonder.

  The library AI whispered, Unknown. But it seems likely, from what we know of Cetian biology. The wolfen males must be somewhere as well.

  Look at the dollies, snuggled together like so many pretty little girls at a slumber party. I felt a strong urge to go lie down with them, felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle again. As I turned to walk away, I found myself wondering if all the dollies dancing at the dollhouse had been female dollies. Wondered if their owners and... users had any way to tell.

  Wondered, in fact, if it even mattered.

  o0o

  I went back to the camper and locked myself in, got undressed and lay down naked in the darkness in a suddenly claustrophobic bunk. Lay looking out through the little window at my sky full of stars, willing myself not to think.

  Just animals, that’s all. Chickens lay eggs and we eat them for breakfast, eggs and chickens alike. Alligators lay eggs. Echidnas lay eggs. Even frogs lay eggs, though we only eat their legs. Animals. Despite a conscious will to keep my mind blank, stay focused on my window full of stars, I was suddenly transported back to the dollhouse, to the image of that groaning fat man with a dollie straddling his lap.

  Memory of the dollie getting off him, dabbing at her, its crotch with an already soiled bit of napkin, then dancing away. Dancing away to the next man? I hadn’t stayed to see.

  Great. Now I’m lying here in the darkness with...

  Somehow, I managed to put it aside, blot the whole business away, close my eyes and...

  Gaetan.

  I opened my eyes on blue-gray darkness, camper cabin flooded with starlight. Turned my head, feeling dizzy and confused, so I could look out the window again. Different stars, sparse in number, the sky somehow bright between them, tinged with a vague, nameless color.

  Voice whispering in my head, Gaetan, wake up.

  Faint prickle of alarm. Is something wrong? Why would the AIs...

  “Haaaaaaarrr...” Long, drawn out, metallic howl, loud enough to make the flimsy pop-up wall beside me seem to shiver. Outside.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  The library whispered, We thought this would be of interest to you.

  I got up, bare feet on a cold plastic floor, crouched to look out the window.

  “Aaaahaaaaaaaa...”

  Darkness outside, full of shadows. There. Sitting atop the pickup truck’s cab, the shape of a wolfen outlined black against the sky, head thrown back, jaws agape, so you could see the jagged shadows of its long, spiky teeth. “Aaaaaiiiii...” Rattling, metallic howl aimed at the starry sky, something thoroughly inhuman, gargling a throat full of cold steel.

  Other wolfen out there as well, white shapes visible by starlight, sitting together in a group, as if waiting. There. Over there the angular shapes of Arousians, mingled with other equally angular shapes that must be cameras and tripods and whatever else they...

  That little dark blot among them. That would be my Kapellmeister.

  Glint of starlight on the little stream’s water. Dark shapes off trees superimposed against the sky. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Library: We don’t know.

  “Then...”

  Translator: Though you forbade us to interfere, we’ve been... listening through the Salieran device.

  Spacesuit: I thought it’d be better to awaken you deliberately, rather than wait for the howls to...

  Soft shiver. Well, you got that right, pal.

  What the hell are those things? Pale human shapes, like the shapes of little children, kneel between the wolfen and the Arousians’ cameras? Dollies, of course.

  I found my pants, still on the floor where I’d thrown them, and went outside, barefoot and shirtless, cold breeze blowing over me, raising goosebumps on my arms and chest, making me shiver. One of the wolfen looked over at me, briefly, and I stood quite still, watching.

  The wolfen on top of the truck threw its head back and
sang, raising echoes in the distance, making me feel short of breath. Christ. I don’t know what I’m watching. Heart pounding away in my chest. An odd feeling in the pit of my stomach, though. As if something, something deep inside, knows what’s coming, I...

  Long, long silence, filled with the soft shushing of the wind, the distant gurgle of the brook, the faint, ticking whirr of the cameras. It seemed as though I could see everything quite clearly now, every little detail picked out in delicate shades of gray, the world created as a sophisticated million-hue grayscale holograph.

  I could see the dollies, facing the clustered wolfen, kneeling together. Could see the gleam of their little eyes, dollies in their cowgirl costumes like so many... frightened children. Eyes wide, dollies stirring gently, looking to one another for... what?

  The wolfen atop the pickup truck said, “Whuff.” Short, chopped, peremptory. The other wolfen... my God, as if their hair is moving, shifting about on their backs.

  One of the dollies turned in its position. Turned and looked around. You could see... The other dollies are terrified, looking away, avoiding the glance of this one. I... It lifted its... paw, seemed to gesticulate. The one it pointed to recoiled as if struck.

  I imagined I could hear it thinking, Not me.

  “Whuff.” Sharper. A little louder.

  Silence. Wind, water, cameras.

  Then the dollie that’d been singled out slowly rose from its knees. Very, very slowly. Reluctance and terror easily crossed the evolutionary divide that separated me from Cetian life, as though some universal... Hell. I could easily be imagining all this, I...

  The dollie slowly walked forward, threading through the rows of its companions. Walked forward until its stood right in front of the clustered wolfen. There was a soft thud-thump, a tremor through the ground as a heavy body hit the earth. The sound of the howler coming down from its perch, joining the others. Soft, fast, panting sound.

  Coming from the dollie, breathing hard and fast and...

  One of the wolfen reached out, lightning fast, and poked the little dollie in the chest. It staggered back with a sharp, high-pitched gasp, clutching its breast, and I fancied I saw a dark stain against the lighter background of its fur. It turned, as if to run, looking toward its comrades, arms raised beseechingly. Then it shouted, a chatter of pale cries, like so many panicky words...

  One of the wolfen struck it, heavy paw thumping into the dollie’s back, silencing the cries, throwing it on its face. The other dollies, huddled together now, seemed to be looking away.

  The spacesuit said, Please breathe, Gaetan.

  I could feel the tightness in my chest. Tried to relax, tried to...

  The dollie on the ground struggled, rolled over on its back, looking up. Screamed, a soft cry of despair, lifted one hand to ward off...

  The jaws closed on its arm, pulling it upright, dollie wailing, in obvious agony. The wolfen let go and the dollie staggered. I could see dark blood falling in big drops from where its hand had been, dollie chattering, voice climbing through a child’s high register, shaking its stump.

  The wolfen’s paw pushed it to the ground again and held it there, seeming to smother the cries, but I could see the dollie’s arms and legs flailing as it tried to struggle free. Struggle free and, I imagined, live. One of the other wolfen, flattened against the ground, slithered in and bit off the dollie’s right leg, severing it at the knee.

  Moment of silence.

  Then the dollie shrilled, full of agony, full of horror.

  For just a second, I imagined myself in its place, then recoiled from the image. This will all be over soon, I told myself. All be over soon and then it’ll be dead and gone and all the pain will be gone, will not have mattered, will...

  Another wolfen came and bit off the other leg in just the same way, dollie’s screams redoubling. I wonder, can it hear the crunching, crackling sounds, as its bones are crushed, crushed between powerful jaws and consumed?

  Other wolfen swarming round now, sniffing, tongues reaching out to touch the dollie’s terrible, bleeding wounds, other wolfen with their heads cocked, as though listening to those screams. Listening with obvious pleasure.

  Just the way a man might listen to a sizzling steak, perhaps.

  Wolfen slinking round, snapping jaws, crack of bone, dollie’s scream, amputated arm briefly visible, flopping loosely between grinning jaws.

  Then a pause in the action, wolfen taking its paw away, one-armed triple-amputee dollie lying on the ground, struggling weakly, moaning softly, rolling, rolling, trying to pull itself away with its remaining hand, eyes visible, staring out of its head beneath a mop of disheveled hair...

  Wolfen watching. Watching it try to live.

  Then they clustered round it, hiding the dollie from my sight. I heard a crackle of bone, dollie starting to scream again, scream out a babble so much like words I...

  Scream chopped off.

  Silence.

  Except for the soft sounds of eating.

  Somehow, I caught my breath again, turning away, going to sit in my chair beside the little table I’d left earlier. Table still littered with the remains of my meal. Corncob. An uneaten chunk of cold womfrog steak, still reeking of fishy garum.

  Across the way, the wolfen scattered now, going back to their little grow of trees, lying down, licking themselves cleaning. I thought I heard one of them burp softly. Where the dollie had been, there was nothing. Maybe some blood on the grass, maybe... I don’t know. Though a blue rim was forming over on the eastern edge of the sky, washing away some of the dimmer stars, highlighting faraway mountains, its seemed to have grown dark again down here.

  The Arousians were greeking among themselves, so many mechanical cricket noises that sounded nothing at all like words, clicking and clacking as they took down their cameras and folded up their tripods and headed for their tents. The other dollies... Still huddled together, seeming to look at the empty place where one of their number had been. Tiny, faraway sounds. Dollies whispering to one another. Whispering in unison perhaps, like children saying their bedtime prayers, Now I lay me down to sleep...

  Quiet mechanical voice beside me: “They are not at all a natural species, you know.”

  I jumped, looking down at the Kapellmeister, who’d crept up on me quite silently on those smooth, machine-like alien legs. “What do you mean?”

  It settled to the ground beside me, legs folding away out of sight, arms folded close to its forebody, eyestalks waving gently above its back. It said, “It appears the wolfen have been breeding them, practicing animal husbandry with the dollies for a long time. Tissue studies suggest it may be on the order of millions of years.”

  “The wolfen have been breeding dollies for longer than the human species has existed?”

  “That sort of thing is a commonplace with eusocial animals. The wolfen are to dollies what ants are to aphids.”

  And ants have been having their way with the aphids for rather a long time now. Not since the time of the dinosaurs, but certainly since the time when the remote ancestors of human beings were big eyed things that ate bugs for a living. I tried to remember if ants ate their aphids or merely sucked their sweat, but...

  The library whispered, Most species do not. Aphids prosper mightily by their association with the ants, who are such dangerous predators that few creatures willingly trifle with them.

  The other dollies were on their feet now, moving back into the shadows, settling down to sleep again perhaps, chattering softly among themselves. The Kapellmeister said, “Human depredation is interfering with the relationship between the wolfen and dollies, of course. Likely driving both species toward extinction.”

  I thought about the killpit, then the dollhouse. I could think of how the dollies might survive. I said, “Are the dollies... sentient?”

  The Kapellmeister said, “The phrase has little meaning, Gaetan.” It extended its pulpy mass of neural tentacles, spreading them wide in the growing gray light, light glistening off
wet black skin. “But even in the limited sense that humans mean when they use the word they’ve created... It seems so.”

  I thought about the way the Kapellmeister would drape its tentacles over the head of a prey animal just before snipping off its head. You’d think a creature that believed... I tried to picture a vegetarian Kapellmeister.

  The library whispered, The Salierans have a most thoroughgoing carnivore morphology.

  Still, a civilization with a technological sophistication easily exceeding that of human beings should have little trouble altering itself. Or even just breeding species of plant to take the place of living...

  The spacesuit whispered, Plants are living things.

  The Kapellmeister said, “We’ll be moving the camp this morning, Gaetan. Perhaps you’d better try to get a little sleep now, if you want to come along.”

  Watching the orange bloom of Tau Ceti on the horizon, I rubbed tired, grainy eyes, and wondered if I did. What else? Go on back to Orikhalkos and hang around ‘til its time to pick up my cargo of dollies and leave for Epimetheus? I could sleep all day and find whores every night.

  Or go to the wolfen killpits. Go to the dollhouse and watch the dollies dance. I thought about the fat man. Hell. At least he didn’t eat them.

  I said, “Sure. Wake me up when it’s time to go.”

  Went inside. Went to sleep.

  No dreams.

  Twelve: Sunlight in my face, butter-yellow

  Sunlight in my face; butter-yellow Cetian sunshine streaming in the camper’s little window, making a nice warm square on my pillow, bracketing my face. Sounds from outside. Voices. Not human voices, not speaking human words, but somehow, while I slept, they’d become voices all the same, the Arousians’ cricket-screeching welcome, as warming as the sunshine, making me feel like I was...