The doctor shook his head, confusion filling his eyes. "But I don't understand how we got here--wherever we are. I was out of air. I must've passed out."
He glanced down at his side.
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"Waitaminit! This says I've got twelve minutes left on this pak." He looked back up, glaring at Mahree. "You switched breathing paks, didn't you? Gave me the last of your air?"
"It was the least I could do, after you lied to me," she said acerbically. "One dirty trick deserves another." She returned his glare with interest. "And if you dare to tell me that it was for my own good, you're going to find yourself stretched out on these damned moss-plants again."
"I knew you'd be pissed," he mumbled, obviously deeply touched by his discovery of the switched breathing pak. "But I didn't figure I'd live to hear about it. Forgive me?"
Rob sounded so uncharacteristically meek that Mahree had to laugh. "Let's call it even."
The doctor glanced around him, and his eyes widened as he recognized their location. "Hey, this is the same place as we left Dhurrrkk'!" He scratched his head. "Now, let me get this straight. We came back here to get Dhurrrkk', only this time there was oxygen in this hollow? But how?"
"Thank them," Mahree said, pointing to the blanket-creatures. "They're the things that have been emitting the O2"
"Them? The fungi?" He blinked. "That's impossible ... Crazy. They can't even photosynthesize."
"You ain't seen crazy, yet. Brace yourself, Rob. They're sentient. We've just made a First Contact."
He stared at her in silence, no expression on his face. "Sentient," he repeated, finally.
"They are," Mahree insisted. "They knew we needed oxygen, so they convinced me to take off my helmet, so I could breathe. And when I'd taken it off, this one"--she pointed to the closest blanket-creature--"crawled over just so it could give me extra O2 when I was giving Dhurrrkk' artificial respiration."
He hesitated. "Uhhhhh ... that's hard to believe," he said, finally, using a carefully neutral tone. "Are you sure?"
"Honored Mahree is correct," Dhurrrkk' interjected, in English. "Before I lost my awareness of my surroundings, I was conscious of something contacting my mind, something that touched and questioned with intelligent purpose. It instructed me to take off my helmet, but I was unable to comply."
"That's because it was stuck," she told him.
Rob stared at both of them. Then he looked down at the blanket. "You're telling me this thing is sentient," he said, in a
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this-can't-be-happening-to-me tone of voice. "This thing"-- he pointed--"this phosphorescent patch of fungus?"
"It's not a thing, it's a person, Rob. Mind your manners," Mahree admonished. "Watch, I'll prove it."
Turning back to "her" blanket, Mahree ran through the same demonstration that she had earlier. Finally, she said to the being, "This is my friend, Robert Gable--Rob, as he's called. This is what he looks like." She glanced at the doctor's face. "And this is my friend Honored Dhurrrkk'." She looked at the Simiu. "Now, if you don't mind, Blanket, I'd like you to move over and stop in front of Rob, so he'll know for sure that you can understand me."
With surprising speed, the alien creature crawled unhesitatingly over to Rob, stopped, then raised one edge into the air and waved at him.
The doctor paled as he stared at the being, eyes wide, then suddenly he bent forward until his forehead rested on the moss- plants before him. "Good grief, Rob," Mahree exclaimed, "you don't have to pray to it! Just say 'hello'!"
He drew several long breaths. "I'm not praying, you idiot," he said crossly in a muffled voice. "If I hadn't gotten my head down, I would've fainted. Give me a break, sweetheart. It's been a long, hard day."
After a minute Rob sat back up, his color much improved. "I'll be damned,"
he whispered softly, eyeing the fungus-being. He cleared his throat. "How do you do, uh, Blanket? It's a real pleasure."
Mahree concentrated, and received a clear sense of inquiry. "It's telepathic--
or something--" she said. "Right now, it wants to know about us. How we got here."
"It is asking me the same thing," Dhurrrkk' said.
Trying to be as clear and simple as she could, Mahree thought slowly, deliberately, of how they had come to this world, aboard Rosinante, and why. She tried to make her images of the ship as vivid as possible, knowing instinctively that the creature before her could have no concept of technology or artificial constructions.
Finally, she turned to Dhurrrkk'. "Did you tell it?"
"Yes," he said. "As clearly as I could. Communication with the being is growing easier for me, the more I do it."
Mahree felt a prickle of envy. "It's still pretty hard for me," she admitted.
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Rob was watching them. "I can feel it now, too," he said. "A sense of inquiry, and curiosity, right?" When they nodded, he continued, "But it's sure nothing like what Great-Aunt Louise used to do. She spoke in words,- except they were silent."
"Maybe Blanket can learn words, eventually," Mahree said. "At first it just communicated faint impressions. Now they're getting stronger."
"It would like to help us," Dhurrrkk' announced suddenly.
"It already has helped us," Rob said. "Though I have to admit that it might have been kinder if it hadn't interfered when we passed out. Spending the rest of my life here in this hollow, while we slowly die of thirst, isn't a very appealing prospect."
"No," Dhurrrkk' said. "It is giving me images, now. It thinks it knows a way."
Mahree felt an absurd sense of abandonment as she realized that "her"
blanket was now communicating most effectively with the Simiu. Don't be stupid, she thought sternly. It obviously has discovered that a Simiu brain is easier for it to reach.
She and Rob waited as the Simiu sat there, an abstracted expression on his face. Finally, he raised his violet eyes to theirs. "I have learned something about these beings. Each of these creatures is very, very old, and each is intelligent. Mostly, they are not greatly interested in much outside of pursuing their own obscure musings, mental games, and philosophical reflections.
However, the one that Mahree calls 'Blanket' is different. For one thing, it is younger--perhaps only a million or so of my years old."
Mahree and Rob gasped sharply. "A million years old?" she repeated, and the Simiu nodded soberly.
"Blanket is far more interested in external stimuli and events than its companions. It is intrigued by the notion of our ship, and traveling through space. It likes us. It does not want us to perish, and it is willing to help us safely reach our destination. If we would like it to, Blanket has volunteered to join us aboard Rosinante, and provide us with oxygen. In return, we must promise to bring it back here, when it asks to be returned to its own world."
"Can it give off that much oxygen?" Rob said skeptically, after he'd spent a moment assimilating the Simiu's words. "Doesn't it need its oxygen for itself?"
"No, the blankets themselves require very little oxygen. It is a 201
by-product they produce during digestion. It has no part in their breathing process. "o
They fart oxygen? Mahree thought, wildly, and giggled shrilly before she could stop herself. Rob reached over to put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
"We will need to provide Blanket with native rock and moss- plants, sufficient to allow it ample nourishment for the duration of our journey," Dhurrrkk'
concluded.
"Well, if it tells us how much it needs, we'll be happy to do that," Rob said.
"But there's just one thing. How the hell do we get out of this hollow, and back to Rosinante?"
"Blanket has asked its companions to assist, and they have agreed. They think their companion foolish for wishing to depart this world in order to aid us," the Simiu paused, then continued, as he evidently received additional information, "but none of them wish to see us perish. As long as they can remain here, the others are willin
g to help us reach the ship."
"How do they propose to help us?" ¦ "You wil see. Please remain stil . They mean no harm."
Rob started as two more of the creatures stirred, then began moving across the moss-plants toward them.
Mahree's "Blanket" began crawling back toward her. She felt a moment of pleased satisfaction that it had evidently elected to return to her instead of staying with Dhurrrkk', then the creature moved past her, out of her line of sight unless she turned her head. What is it going to do?
Mahree swallowed hard as she both heard and felt something brush against the material of her vacuum suit, then the front collar of the suit was pressed against her throat as something heavy begin pulling itself up her back. She clenched her fists, squeezing her eyes shut, as Blanket slowly inched its way up. It's saving your life, she thought, repeatedly. That's not a fungus crawling up your body, it's a person. A good, kind person. It's saving your life . . .
Finally, the creature lay over her shoulders and down her back like a phosphorescent cape. At the extreme edge of her peripheral vision, she caught movement, then two glowing narrow "fingers" appeared as Blanket extruded two corners across her cheeks.
Mahree shivered, forcing herself to sit quietly. She closed her eyes as she felt the cold, admittedly damp substance of the alien
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being creep across her skin, until both pseudopods met, linking together across her upper lip.
She opened her eyes to find Rob staring down at the phosphorescent mass moving toward him. The doctor was chalky pale, and runnels of sweat coursed down his face. He was trembling violently.
"Rob!" she said sharply. "Rob!"
Slowly, he looked up. "Don't pull a Simon Viorst on us, Rob! They're helping us, just keep telling yourself that." The doctor took several deep breaths, then finally nodded. A touch of color reappeared in his lips. "Okay. Don't worry about me, honey. I'm okay now."
He sat still as the phosphorescent mass crept slowly up his back. "I just wish," he said, and the control he was exerting over himself was palpable,
"that I hadn't watched that nineties version of The Puppet Masters so many times. Remind me to show it to you if we ever get home."
Mahree drew a deep breath of relief, then picked up her helmet and gloves.
"Everybody ready?" she said, standing up. She discovered that, even with her head above the level of the hollow, she was breathing easily--the O2
level was no thinner than what she'd experienced camping in the mountains on Jolie.
"Ready," Dhurrrkk' said, handing Rob his helmet to carry. His blanket-creature was draped over his neck and back like a second, glowing mane.
"Ready," Rob said. "Let's rock."
"Rock?" echoed Dhurrrkk', as the three blanket-caped explorers picked their way out of the moss-plant hollow. "We must gather a number of rocks, true, along with harvesting the plants, but don't you believe, FriendRob, that we would be better served to do that closer to our ship? Rocks are heavy to carry."
"Uh ... yeah," Rob said, giving Mahree a wink, and speaking with some difficulty because of the pseudopods linked across his upper lip, "you're right, FriendDhurrrkk'. Rocks are heavy."
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CHAPTER 14
Doctor Blanket's Miracle Cure
People are strange.
Here it is, almost exactly one week since I sat there on Avernus (that's what we named the little planet; it's a classical name for one of the gateways to the underworld), thinking that I was going to die within the next minute. After an experience like that, one could reasonably expect that I'd spend all my subsequent minutes just being grateful to be alive, n'est-ce pas?
WRONG. Instead I'm so teeth-grindingly jealous of my best friend that I can hardly think straight!
Why? Because Dhurrrkk' can "talk" easily with Doctor Blanket, and I can't.
Until last week I thought I'd discovered my "something special." Out of all the humans aboard Desiree, I was the best at communicating with the aliens.
For the first time in my life, I excelled, I was unique.
Not anymore.
The blanket-creature (whom Rob dubbed "Doctor Blanket" because just
"Blanket" sounded disrespectful) is safely ensconced in the Avernus-adapted portion of the hydroponics lab, contentedly undulating its way amid clumps of the dull-leaved mossplants we transplanted, and piles of its native rock, absorbing nutrients and "flatulating" a marginal level of oxygen--
enough to keep us alive, but we can't exert ourselves.
It turns out from Rob's tests that Avernians derive most of
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their nourishment from a non-sentient variety of fungus that grows on the leaves of the moss-plants, which they cultivate for food. In addition, they also require certain trace elements that they get from breaking down minute amounts of the native rocks. One by-product of this particular digestive process is oxygen!
Rob's been having a wonderful time trying to figure out the Avernians'
physiology. He says that in some ways they resemble both Ascomycetes (bread molds, truffles, and such) and Basidiomycetes (mushrooms, bracket fungi, and their ilk). They're multinucleate and without internal cell boundaries, and their bodies are covered with a semi-rigid wall composed of a cellulose-akin material. He also told me that the blankets could be regarded as "the culmination of the coccine state in protistan evolution," but I didn't have the energy to ask him to translate that into English.
He says that each of multitudes of "nuclei" within the creature contain huge numbers of tiny interlocked "threads" of some kind of organic material he'd never encountered in that molecular arrangement before. He thinks that these millions of subnucleic "threads" serve the creature in the same way our brain cells serve us.
Apparently the blankets reproduce (extremely rarely because they're so long-lived) by consciously releasing spores as they cultivate their mossplant patches. They really are asexual, though it bothers me to call Doctor Blanket "it." Seems rather flippant to address such a wise, kind being as though it were an inanimate object.
We've had to make environmental changes to accommodate our Avernian benefactor. White light could literally burn it, so we creep around in a dim reddish twilight, except when we're in the control room with the door tightly sealed. Doctor Blanket is uncomfortable in warm air (in contrast to many types of terrestrial fungi), and the extra gravity bothered it, so Dhurrrkk'
turned the ship's temperature way down, and reduced the gravity to one-half gee.
So now, instead of being too hot all the time, I'm cold. We wasted so much fuel during our search that we can't afford to use the extra power it would require to maintain different temperature levels on the ship. Besides, we can't expect Doctor Blanket to spend all its time cooped up in the lab.
Incidentally, my dream has come true . . .I'm finally sleeping with Rob. Only problem is, I'm sleeping with Dhurrrkk', too!
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We all cuddle together for warmth each "night"--isn't that cozy? We make a snug heap of flesh and fur on the deck of the control room. Rob calls us the S.P.W.S.P.--the Society to Preserve Warmth among Somnolent Primates.
It's so cold that Rob and I can barely stand to wash our hands and faces, much less sponge ourselves off with that icy water. Hypothermia is a constant threat--especially for Dhurrrkk', who's used to a warm climate.
Fortunately, Rosinante carried lots of the woven comforter mats in its small crew dormitory, so we pressurized that area long enough to drag the things out. Then, using Rob's surgical scissors and some resin-like material Simiu use in emergencies to "solder" electronic equipment into place, we fashioned garments for each of us, topping them off with long, hooded robes.
Rob says we look like elderly medieval monks as we totter around in the red-tinged darkness, gasping if we exert ourselves too much--except, of course, that in normal light our "robes" would resemble an accident in a paint factory.
Which would you rather do, freeze or suffocate? And, to top i
t all off, we're running short on human food, since we have to eat more to keep our body temperatures up. Dhurrrkk' assures us that the Mizari, with their advanced bio-sciences, will be able to duplicate human food if presented with some samples, and I hope to hell he's right.
This has been such a fun trip!
At least we only have about six days' journey left to Shassiszss. We're going slowly, to conserve fuel.
Maybe if I work harder on "listening" to Doctor Blanket, I can communicate with it better. The Avernian is very wise. It could teach me a lot if I can only learn to talk to it!
Mahree stopped short when she saw Dhurrrkk', bundled in his crude "robes,"
squatting outside the hydroponics lab. He looked up, saw her, and an anticipatory twinkle brightened his violet eyes. Beneath his hood, his crest rose straight up. "Hello, Mahree. We were just going up to the control room, so Doctor Blanket can 'see' the stars, using the eyes within my mind."
It took Mahree a second to understand the reason for the alien's expression of pleased expectation, then she did a double- take. "Dhurrrkk'!" she gasped.
"Your English! It was so ... so fluent! How did you manage that?"
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"It was Doctor Blanket," Dhurrrkk' said, no longer trying to conceal his excitement, "When I was practicing my English and my Mizari this morning, it was 'listening in.' It asked me why I was not utilizing all the speech-knowledge areas of my brain, so my thoughts could travel more rapidly between different languages. I replied that I was not aware that I had not been using all my language capability. Then Doctor Blanket asked me if I would like to be able to fully utilize those areas--so of course I said 'yes.' "
Dhurrrkk' paused, then switched effortlessly to the sibilants of the Mizari language. "One moment I was sitting there, then it was as though a tingling darkness crept across my mind. I blinked, and when I could see again, I found that I could now think in English! And in Mizari! Somehow, the Avernian must have altered the neural paths between my memory and my speech centers!"
The Simiu's new fluency was little short of miraculous. He still had problems with pronouncing certain words, difficulties that were caused by his facial structure and tongue placement, and his accent when he spoke English remained thick and lisping, but the hesitations caused by his having to translate from one language to another were gone.
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