Orbit 12 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Damon Knight

  Dying?

  It wasn’t like Herbie to keep quiet about a thing like that. He usually liked to air every problem he had. Nert remembered the time he had thought his cytoplasm was curdling and had sent to the captain to ask to be disposed of in free space when he died. The captain was agreeable, and when he lived Nert thought Herbie was disappointed. No, he wasn’t dying. It wasn’t likely, anyway. Maybe he was only changing sexes, as Nert’s own race did, and hoped Nert would be surprised at his new form. Nert liked that idea. And the more he thought about it, the more he liked it. And the more he liked it, the more he wanted to take Herbie’s advice and go out to have a good time. Nert decided he would be extraordinarily surprised for Herbie when he got back.

  He ran across the park and through the lobby, using his back leg to push off from the ground and his two front legs to pull himself forward, and out onto the street where he joined the milling crowds. Yes, he thought he would be very surprised at Herbie when he got back.

  * * * *

  There was no room on the slideway so Nert decided to walk. Besides, he didn’t know where he was going, and if he were moving too quickly, he might miss an interesting place. Following the crowd, he set off toward Amusement Central.

  Not that he couldn’t have gotten almost anything within a few feet of where he stood. Grespel to drink, altrink to creeble with, a mate, even mittlebran. The entire planet was given over to recreation in all its forms, perverted and otherwise. The laws were necessarily lenient, because what might be wicked for one race might be perfectly acceptable to another, and physically impossible for a third. Even so, there were places on that world, in that town in particular, which had reputations for offering more spectacular pleasures than any other world. Nert clicked his claws in anticipation.

  The buildings were alternately iridescent and lustrous black. One complemented the other, and strangely enough, the dark buildings, reflecting the glitter and glow around them, were sometimes more striking than their kaleidoscopic neighbors. The Galactica was not the tallest building, and the smallest was barely larger than a shack. Curious about what such a small place could offer, Nert was about to enter it when a sudden gust of wind pulled at his body and he was stranded in the eye of a small cyclone. As the wind blew harder, beings brushed past Nert unnoticed, and a nictitating membrane covered his eyes so that the lights dimmed, and a primal and uncontrollable fear grew like a weed strangling reason out of his mind. He lay flat on the ground, shivering. As suddenly as it had begun, the wind stopped.

  Someone spoke very close to his ear. “I got something for you, friend.” The words burbled as if they were spoken underwater.

  Nert got to his feet, using his claws like crutches, and slowly the nictitating membrane slid back up out of the way. He turned his head and saw a small grey-green feathered creature with a long, thin body wrapped around his arm, looking at him with black compound eyes.

  “What?” Nert was still recovering from his fear. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Arvin.” He waited a moment and when Nert didn’t respond, went on, “the Moretam?” He flapped his wing membranes slowly, as if that would explain everything.

  “Strange name for a hurricane. What do you want?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “How should I—”

  “What are you, a numby or something?”

  “A what?”

  “A policeman.” Arvin levitated his head a little and looked around.

  “No. What do you want?”

  Arvin spoke directly into Nert’s earhole. Someone two feet away couldn’t have heard them. “Kwishing,” was all he said

  “Frooth save you.”

  “What?”

  “You cleared your breathing tract and I said, ‘Frooth saveyou.’”

  The Moretam flew around Nert’s head a few times, his long body dangling limply below his wings, and settled on Nert’s other arm. “Frooth and breathing tracts have nothing to do with it. Haven’t you ever heard of lavishing?”

  “No.” Nert shook his arm violently and started to walk, hoping to give Arvin the idea that he wasn’t interested in kwishing, no matter what it was. If the Moretam wanted to sell him something, he’d made a bad start. Nert came from a planet where high winds blow the razor-sharp flowers off the jelbum tree and whip them through the air at tremendous and dangerous speeds. His race had adapted to that by getting as close to the ground as possible and shielding their eyes during windstorms. Usually Nert was able to control his reaction, but he could not when the wind came as suddenly as it had.

  Arvin said, “How can you say no if you don’t know nothing about it?” Nert jumped onto the slideway behind a windscreen. “I don’t want to know,” he said. “It isn’t necessary that I know.” He ignored the Moretam and watched the city flinging itself backward around him.

  “You’re here for a good time, right?”

  After a moment Nert admitted that he was.

  “Well then, you’re here for kwishing.”

  They passed a large rorschach building proclaiming in letters slithering across the facade that inside were prepared the most unusual foods in the galaxy: BOILED GREEB, OUR SPECIALTY. Nert leaped off the slideway and went into the restaurant. He sat down at a long counter and said to the waiter, “One boiled greeb, please.” The waiter was a mobile pair of antlers with eyes and small sets of tentacles arranged apparently at random on the points. It said, “Yeth, thir,” and clattered away on its innumerable stiff limbs.

  Nert took a thick booklet from the pouch slung around his neck and turned to the index. “Let’s see,” he said. “Kwishing . . . kwishing . . .” Arvin said, “You won’t find it,” and began to scratch under one of his wings with his teeth.

  At last Nert said, “Here is it. wishing, along with sprinkling mittlebran, is one of the few illegal activities on Spangle. It consists of electronically turning a being inside out through the fourth dimension. Frequently the initial change is free, while the operator (usually, though not always, a Moretam) charges a high price to change the victim back. Though seriously disorienting to most other beings, this treatment is no more than mildly stimulating to the Moretam, and if necessary they can even change themselves back without any mechanical help.’“

  Arvin had tried to leave when Nert began to read, but Nert grabbed him just behind the head and held him despite all Arvin could do. Nert snapped the book shut and slowly put it away. “What am I going to do with you?” He shook the Moretam.

  “You could let me go.” It was almost a question.

  “If Herbie were here, he’d know what to do.”

  “Herbie?”

  A policeman, a round, stringy ball, more like a tumbleweed with an official stick-pin as an axis thana minion of the law, rolled in. Nert and Arvin watched, one with indecision, the other with fear, as he came to rest two seats away from them. Arvin’s wings rested lightly on his body as if he were about to take flight

  The policeman rustled. “Something the matter?” It was impossible to tell which way he was facing. Maybe he faced in all directions at once.

  Arvin looked at Nert. Nert let go of him and said, “No. Nothing. Is there?”

  “No. No, no,” Arvin said, eyes wet with thanks.

  “Good to hear it.” A waiter, ticking against the floor as he walked, approached the policeman. They got into an animated discussion about something called creetoth. The policeman finally ordered one, and the waiter went away.

  Another waiter stopped in front of Nert with a large pan balanced among his horns like a nest in a tree. It was filled with a hot violet liquid surrounding white doughy lumps. Floating in it was something that looked very much likea small version of Herbie. Small black spots were crawling all over it, and it smelled like unprocessed waste material. Nert said, “What’s that?”

  “Boiled greeb. Best in the galaxy.”

  Putting down a few bills, Nert said, “You eat it. My compliments.” He left with Arvin still coiled around his arm.

&n
bsp; When they were outside, Arvin said, “Why’d you do that?”

  “Do what?” Nert began to walk slowly toward Amusement Central.

  “You know. You could have turned me in. The numbies are ready to believe almost anything about Moretams, especially when it comes to kwishing.” He flew around to Nert’s other arm.

  Nert said, “You don’t understand. I wasn’t angry about you trying to sell me on kwishing. That’s your business. I was upset first about the hurricane you made when you found me, and second that you wouldn’t tell me what kwishing is.”

  Arvin buried his head under a wing. He said, “You never asked.”

  “I did “

  “You didn’t, but all right I owe you a favor.”

  “No, you don’t. Why should I care how many silly beings you sell on kwishing? Besides, if I’d reported you, I’d have to wait around until the trial. I might never get off this rock.” He’d heard Herbie call planets “rocks” and the word had a professional and rough-and-tumble sound that Nert liked.

  “I still owe you a favor.”

  They traveled in silence for a while. Nert thought about Herbie back in the hotel room, missing all this excitement. He was probably all right, but Nert couldn’t be sure, and he was still worried.

  Maybe Arvin knew a good doctor. In a city this size Nert might search for days before he found one he could trust. If Arvin told him, that would take care of two things: It would cancel the debt before Arvin forgot there was one, and it might save Herbie’s life—if it needed saving.

  Nert told Arvin what he wanted. Arvin said, “A doctor? Sure, I know a doctor. For you?”

  “No. It’s for my friend Herbie.” Nert explained his friend’s condition.

  Arvin said, “It sounds serious. Come on, well go there right now.” He unwound himself from Nert’s arm and flew down a side street so quickly that Nert couldn’t see him until he stopped and hung in midair, his wings a blur.

  “I can’t follow if you go that fast. Why don’t you just give me directions and I’ll find the place myself?”

  “Ever been on Spangle before?”

  “No.”

  “Then I better stay with you. There’s all kinds of characters who would take advantage of a new Blue.” Arvin settled back around Nert’s arm and said, “All right, straight ahead.”

  Arvin led him away from Amusement Central and down increasingly dark and narrow streets. It was a good thing Nert had not insisted he go alone, because he was already lost many times over. They were in a part of town Nert never would have gone to alone, and he felt none too safe even with Arvin around. The farther from Amusement Central they went, the fewer brightly lit buildings there were, and soon it was not unusual to see an entire block of dark buildings crouching beside the street like a line of ragged beggars.

  The smell of the city had changed, too. Near the Galactica Hotel the air had been full of the scent of beings from all across the galaxy, mixed together in a pleasant muddle. There had been warm and cool pockets of odor where restaurants catered to as many different tastes as there were beings. In the part of the city they were in now, the air smelled mostly of age. Natural and synthetic building materials decomposed in buildings put up when Spangle was still a struggling colony. Old creatures waited for death. And there was the occasional smell of mittlebran. The smells came and went with the night wind, playing tag with Nert’s olfactory nerves. “It looks deserted,” he said.

  “Just an illusion. There’s a pair of eyes, or something that does the same thing as a pair of eyes, looking at us from almost every black hole.”

  Nert nervously clicked his claws. He hoped they looked formidable enough to anybody watching to make them think twice about attacking.

  “This doesn’t look like the kind of place I’d look for a doctor,” he said. “Not one I’d trust, anyway.”

  Arvin said, “You can trust Dr. Billingsley. He’s a personal friend of mine.”

  Nert considered asking Arvin if Dr. Billingsley helped him with kwishing, but decided he didn’t want to start an argument there, in unfamiliar territory. They traveled in silence, watching for sudden movements in the shadows. Nert tried to trace by scent anyone lurking close by, but the overwhelming stench of age and ancient fear was too strong.

  Arvin said, “Stop here.” He let go of Nert’s arm and hovered, bobbing gently in the air.

  They were in front of a narrow, dark passageway with steps that led down into a pool of obscurity. On either side of the opening were posters and handbills advertising the virtues of products that had long since gone out of use. They were marked up with sketches and indecipherable phrases whose meanings Nert guessed were in violation of some local taboo, but meant nothing to him. The smell of mittlebran, though faint, was all around and was mixed with the constant smell of decaying buildings, bodies, and minds.

  “Here? What kind of a doctor is he, anyway?”

  “I vouch for him personally. Just down the steps and a sharp turn to the right. Dr. Billingsley is the name. There’ll be a blue-and-white light over the door.”

  Nert peered down into the darkness, his eyes bulging more than usual. He said, “Are you sure about this?” He heard the small, skittering sounds of the local vermin. “Arvin?” When no one answered, Nert turned around to find the street empty.

  Didn’t even say good-bye, Nert thought. The shadows seemed, if anything, more menacing than before. But Nert had no idea where Amusement Central was, and hunting for it would be fruitless. Besides, Herbiedid need a doctor. It was just possible that Dr. Billingsley was a good one. Nert looked around and wished again that Arvin hadn’t left him alone.

  Cautiously he walked down the stone steps, one tripod leg at a time. The darkness closed around him like a blanket and stifled him with unmoving air. He looked back and saw the street a few feet above him glistening with dew. It looked almost friendly, compared with the unknown well below.

  In the few moments it took to reach the bottom of the stairs, Nert’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. The walls were made of synthetic bricks mortared with what looked like the local mud, though in the dim light it was hard to be sure. A walkway, separated from the open lot beyond by a low concrete wall, crossed the passage at the bottom. Nert looked to the left and saw a series of identical doorways which faced the alley growing smaller monotonously into the distance. On the right, a rusty metal stairway which looked as if it had once been a fire escape led precariously up to a second-floor door with two lights over it—one blue, the other white.

  His footsteps echoed between the walls as he walked through the alley and clanged up the metal stairs. He wondered if rooms here were at a premium because of the impossibility of sneak attack. From the landing in front of the door, Nert could look out over the dormant city to the brilliant splash of Amusement Central. He convinced himself that he could pick out the Galactica Hotel, and it made him feel less alone.

  Nert turned his back to the city and knocked on the door. It had an elegant mahogany sign screwed to it on which was cut the name, “Arthur Billingsley, MD.” The paint on the door was chipped and weatherworn, and Nert could just barely see the remains of a colorful and optimistically implausible drawing of a naked Terran female.

  In a few moments a small panel slid open and a pair of eyes stared blearily out at him. The owner of the eyes said, “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for Dr. Billingsley. I was told—”

  “Who sent you?”

  “Arvin the Moretam.”

  “Come back in the morning.” The panel slid shut with a loud bang that echoed back from the walls and made it sound as if a hundred people had turned Nert down instead of one.

  He pounded on the door, and when the slide opened he threw in a ten-credit note. The pair of eyes disappeared for a moment and left the peephole a dark square. He heard the being on the other side of the door scratching around and mumbling strings of mild profanity. Nert shouted up at the hole, “It’s an emergency,” and a thousand Nerts called
out their predicament

  The being said through the peephole, “Damn all emergencies.” He slammed the panel shut, and Nert was about to knock again when he heard the sound of bolts being drawn back, locks being jiggled, and the slow whine of a dying privacy shield. The door opened and Nert crossed the threshold into a large, dark room. The spindly legs of unseen tables and chairs made long shadows in the light that came through the doorway from the room beyond. Nert followed the Terran as he shuffled along the illuminated path between the ranks of furniture into the brightly-lit examining room.