Interstellar Pig

by William Sleator

  She spoke. It was a hoarse, guttural chirping, as jarring as the screech of an amplified needle sliding across a record, and it exploded with sudden clicks and cackles and moist sputterings. Without a headset I couldn't understand it, but it was a sound of such piercing foulness that it was probably better not to know the meaning.

  Unattractive as she was, Zulma's arrival was a stroke of luck. They were enemies, not cohorts anymore. Jrlb's torture would have to stop, so that they could fight over me. In the ensuing battle, I might be able to get out of the lasso, get my equipment back, and get away from them.

  Then Zulma moved toward me with unexpected speed. Why wasn't Jrlb stopping her? I tried to tell myself that she couldn't kill me, or even hurt me much, until I revealed The Piggy's hiding place. But it wasn't easy to be rational with all those legs and teeth coming at me. I went berserk, howling and fighting and screaming, too demented to tell her where The Piggy was even if she had given me the chance. I didn't go on fighting for long. In moments, I was bound like a mummy in her slimy threads, coiled in a fetal position, helpless on the floor. She kicked me out of the way, under the table again.

  Only then, with the prize neatly wrapped and going nowhere, did she and Jrlb square off.

  He lunged with his sword. She skittered out of the way, spitting venom at his face. He lunged again, unharmed; Zulma's aim had missed. She brandished some kind of gun. Before she had a chance to use it he struck with his sword and ripped the gun from her claw.

  It was a voiceless battle, but for the unvarying rhythm of her breathing apparatus. I didn't enjoy watching it. I closed my eyes. And suddenly I remembered Mom and Dad. It was getting late. Maybe they'd be home soon, in time to save me.

  Save me? That was a laugh! All that would happen when they walked in the door was that they'd be killed—by one creature or another. It was just one more awful possibility that I was helpless to deal with.

  But I couldn't stand being helpless. With wrenching effort I rolled over on my side, thinking I might be able to wriggle far enough to get the whip handle in my teeth. My eyes followed the path of the flashlight beam on the maroon and gray linoleum.

  Then I shrieked again. The pink smear, bubbling and spattering quietly, now covered half the kitchen floor. It was only a yard from my face.

  Jrlb lurched, and his webbed foot squished down into the middle of the stuff. His bellow of agony lasted only the fraction of a second it took him to escape into hyperspace. In that short time, the puddle had been able to rip a goodly amount of scales and webbing from his foot. It ingested them rapidly, continuing its progress toward my face.

  Now Zulma had seen it too. I could hear her miserable gibbering. Her claw closed around my feet and she began, haltingly, to drag me across the floor. She had won me from Jrlb, if she could get herself and me away from the stuff in time. I did what little I could to help her. I didn't like Zulma much, but the pink thing seemed to be a good deal less friendly.

  Then Zulma stopped, emitting a terrible rasping wail. I twisted around enough to see that the pink thing, or its buddies, had also been coming in from the back door. We were surrounded. The cellar was now the only exit from the kitchen, and even that gap was narrowing quickly. With me slowing her down, Zulma wouldn't have time to make it to safety. She dropped me and scrambled for the cellar door. She squeezed through and clicked away down the stairs. The hiss of her breathing gear, accompanied by her frustrated twittering and whimpering, faded as she went.

  I lay there as the thing spread closer. I could hear its lapping. Soon there was only an inch or so of bare linoleum around me. I waited, hardly breathing.

  A narrow little finger of it oozed toward my face. It wasn't going to dissolve me all at once. It would do it bit by bit, as Jrlb had attempted, torturing me until I gave it what it wanted.

  Then I remembered The Piggy. "Take it, you can have it, I'll tell you where it is!" I babbled. "Please, please. It's in the—"

  But apparently it wanted to sample me anyway. The finger of pink rippled forward. It touched me on the cheek.

  I closed my eyes and howled in expectation of the agony that had so terrified the others.

  I stopped screaming when I realized I had felt nothing but a dry, feathery caress. I opened my eyes.

  The part of it that had touched me seemed to have disintegrated. I watched as another finger reached tentatively for my nose. It withered at the touch of my skin.

  Then it waited, still surrounding me. There were little indecisive ripples near the part of it that had touched me.

  It didn't hurt me the way it hurt the others. As though I were immune to it.

  My 93.7 IRSC had taken awhile to realize the obvious. Perhaps it was because I had never actually seen the lichen before. The sapient carnivorous lichen from Mbridlengile, my character in the first game. And I was immune. That was the capsule I had taken.

  Finally my brain went to work. The others didn't know I was immune. The lichen didn't realize it yet either—another finger was moving toward my chin. Sapient it might be, but it wasn't terribly bright. It seemed to take a long time for information to travel from one unit of it to the next. And perhaps I could even use it to help me, before the entire colony figured out the situation.

  I gritted my teeth and rolled over on my stomach, into a solid puddle of it.

  It bubbled and steamed as it ate hungrily through Zulma's threads, through my clothes. But as soon as it touched my skin it withered, dry and lifeless.

  In a moment I stood up. What remained of Zulma's threads and my clothes fell away from me. It didn't take the lichen long to eat off my shoes. Barefoot, I stomped gaily through it like a child playing in the rain. Under my feet, the lichen crunched like potato chips.

  I still had the breathing gear and the disguise selector. The lichen had ignored the flashlight and whip under the table, I retrieved them and quickly switched off the flashlight to save the batteries. I didn't need light to ponder my next move.

  I leaned back against the table. My breath gradually stopped coming in gasps.

  A lot had happened in the last few minutes. I was glad I had a chance to calm down a little and try to take it all in. Did the game have to be so violent?

  Or was it the nature of the players that made it so? And it moved so fast! I had been the defenseless victim of two intelligent monsters. Now, only moments later, I seemed to be safe, even in a position of power. But wasn't it just chance that had given me the lichen antidote? Where would I be now if I hadn't eaten it?

  It is not only fate, my dear Ethan, but how a man responds to the blows dealt him by fate, that determines his true destiny, the computerlike voice blandly reminded me.

  "That's right," I said. I had chosen the antidote, hadn't I? And I had been smart enough to take it while I had the opportunity.

  My eyes had adjusted enough so that I could see now, without using up the flashlight—though the world was mostly shades of black and gray. Less fearful,

  I began moving around in the dark house. The lichen were finally beginning to get the picture, opening away from me like the Red Sea in a De Mille epic. But I didn't want it to run away. As long as it was there, the others couldn't get near me. "Nice lichen, good lichen. Just stay in the house and Barney will feed you," I coaxed it. I opened the refrigerator and tossed it a cellophane-wrapped package of bologna, to give it the idea. It gobbled it up appreciatively. I quickly closed and locked the front and back doors. Then, for good measure, I nicked a finger with a kitchen knife, and made a little barrier of blood in front of each of the doors, just in case the lichen tried to sneak out through the cracks underneath. Back in the kitchen, I tossed it the sandwiches Mom had made for me that morning, one at a time. "Do you like luncheon meat?" I asked it. "Good, isn't it? Just stay around, and there'll be more where that came from."

  Zulma and Jrlb wouldn't give me any trouble for a while. I hadn't seen Moyna yet, but I knew there was very little hydrogen in the earth's atmosphere.

  She'd be grounded
and limp, as vulnerable to the lichen as the others. All I had to do now was wait around until they gave up. I just hoped Mom and Dad wouldn't come home soon. They probably wouldn't believe whatever warnings I might have time to give them, and would be quickly eaten by the lichen.

  Meanwhile, I seemed to have a little breathing space, and that might give me a chance to find out more about the voice.

  Well, now we have some time, I thought at it with relief from the kitchen. Who are you, anyway?

  I'm not as stupid as they think. They']] never find me here. . . . But what's wrong? Why am I Jos-ing altitude? said the voice, in its mechanical flat tones.

  Now that I was a little more relaxed, the voice's non sequiturs didn't annoy me so much—they were like a puzzle, an intriguing part of the game. But you're not losing altitude, I soothed it, hoping to get it to say more. You're safe down here, with me.

  Maybe Zshoozsh can help me, droned the voice. Spiders, I need spiders. Help me, Zshoozsh! I'm going downnnnn. . . .

  Zshoozsh! That was the name of Luap's slug, who helped him in emergencies. But how could the voice be corning from Luap? He had died a hundred years ago. Nevertheless, Are you Luap? I asked it.

  Why did you not heed me? With my knowledge, I might have prolonged his life. Speak, man. You are not deaf and dumb, recited the voice, with all the emotion of someone reading from the phone book.

  I had heard that sentence before, and it wasn't Luap. It was the captain, who had said that after Luap had died. But the voice couldn't be either of those people, and it couldn't be both of them. I was beginning to feel worried again. Would I ever be able to figure it out? Can't you just tell me if you're The Piggy or not? I asked it.

  It is the Devil, the Devil, he revealed his true nature to me, Tobias. I had to do it. It is the Devil, the voice repeated.

  It was Ethan, the captain's brother who had said that! Now I was totally confused, and getting angry. I give up/ I don't care who you—I started to say.

  Then, without the aid of any artificial brain booster, I saw it. Only one entity had been with Luap in his falling ship and then with Ethan and the captain—The Piggy. Only The Piggy could have heard all the conversations it was now repeating to me.

  "So you are The Piggy, then!" I cried out loud. "And you are on my side, aren't you. Come on, admit it."

  Describe physiological sensation of realizing a vital truth, was all the mechanical voice would tell me.

  But it was enough. "So you admit I'm right!" I shouted. "You do help whichever player possesses you!"

  It is not fate, my dear Kthan, but how a man responds to the blows dealt him by fate, that determines his true destiny, the voice replied.

  The captain again. He had really said that, according to the document. The Piggy only seemed to report the truth. It stated things that had actually happened—the document proved that. And that meant it might tell me the truth about itself and the game—things even the others didn't know. All I had to do was ask it the right questions. And I had better do it fast. The game could change quickly.

  "Okay, Mr. Piggy," I said loudly, pushing myself away from the table. "I know you only tell the truth. And now we've got some serious truth-telling to do."

  "Not sso fasst, Barney," a voice whistled from above. Not The Piggy's voice, I looked up.

  Moyna. In some kind of elaborate, though quiet, breathing apparatus that kept her head buoyantly fat, inflated with hydrogen. And therefore as immune to the lichen as I was. She chortled softly as she drifted toward me, stretching her talons.

  17

  I’d sso been looking forward to thiss intime little tete-a-tete with you, Barney. But now it appears we are not alone, after all," said Moyna, in a mocking, sibilant whisper. "There sseemss to be a very talkative third party, quite closse by."

  She had been hiding, listening. She had heard me exclaiming aloud about the silent thoughts from The Piggy, meant only for me. The secret thoughts that were one of my few advantages. How much had Moyna discovered from what I had given away? I grabbed the whip and the flashlight.

  '"Sso you are The Piggy, and you are on my sside,'" Moyna mimicked me, lisping. "But not on your sside for very long, I'm afraid, Barney dear." She emphasized each word with a puff of her fetid, gaseous breath.

  I made the mistake of switching on the flashlight. She floated a yard from my face Zulma I had perceived only in darkness. Jrlb had looked like a fish, and how ugly can a fish be? But Moyna was another story. Manny's card hadn't done her justice. Her huge soft head was slimy with mucouslike membrane. Thick veins branched across it. She spasmed and pulsed like an exposed internal organ.

  The long threads that undulated around her tentacles made me think of earthworms. The tentacles themselves were pliant but muscular, their undersides stippled with suction cups secreting a yellow gluey substance. The eyes above the tentacles bulged out and then retracted, and bulged again. "How about a little kiss, Barney?" she said, through the trembling, protruding mouth that made me think of a rubber balloon nozzle. And then the mouth puckered and she laughed, and the bulbous eyes swiveled alarmingly in their sockets.

  But I was quick enough to see a tentacle move. I lifted the whip. Moyna sailed out of reach.

  "A pretty toy, but I have my toyss too," Moyna informed me, wrapping a tentacle around a large empty cola bottle beside the sink. "And I need not hessitate in the sslightesst to make full usse of them. I do not have to be careful of you, like the otherss did. You have become disspenssable now."

  "You'll never find The Piggy if you kill me," I said, hoping I was right.

  "The truth-telling Piggy, you mean," Moyna said, with a gleeful burst of expelling gas. "The factual Piggy. Sso terribly honesst. Issn't that right, Barney, my friend? Cute, sstupid little Barney." With vicious strength she smashed the end of the bottle and brandished it like a club.

  The gesture reminded me of the way Manny had brandished the rubber spatula, way back in their kitchen. But this Moyna bore no mental relationship to Manny at all. There had been a streak of kindness in Manny, a naivete that had put him always on the verge of giving things away. This creature was even nastier, if possible, than the other two. And did she really know as much as she seemed?

  "You're just putting on an act. You're not really like this," I said, trying to distract her. "You were Manny, and Manny was the nice one. Manny liked me. He wasn't like the other two. He didn't want to hurt me."

  "Manny wass a better actor than the other two, that'ss all," Moyna said, taking aim with the jagged bottle. I ducked out of the way as it whizzed past my head. The force of the throw was so great that the bottle smashed against the wall behind me.

  "And ssmarter, too, desspite what they may have thought," Moyna continued. The throw had flattened her somewhat against the window behind her, but now she floated forward again. "Ssmart enough to keep a transslator." (That explained why I could understand her.) "Clever enough to bide her time, to wait, to lissten, to learn."

  "There's nothing to learn," I insisted, hoping my voice was steady. "You're bluffing."

  "I ssusspect that The Piggy will tell the truth, to the one who possessess it.

  You ssaid ass much. When you die, I will possess it. Then it will tell me anything I want to know. Ssuch ass where you hid it. Ass I ssaid before, Barney, you are disspenssable now."

  "No, it's not like that," I insisted. But it was too late. I had divulged enough of what The Piggy was like to give Moyna a picture of its personality. She really believed that with me out of the way, it would tell her where I had hidden it.

  Moyna was still moving toward me. I lifted the whip, sending her back across the room, toward the stove. Just in time I dodged a cast iron frying pan that she had pulled from one of the burners.

  My only hope was to stay alive long enough to get more information out of The Piggy—information about what really happened at the end of the game, and how much time was left, and what The Piggy really was. Knowledge like that might save me, if I could get it.
>
  A bread knife hummed past my ear, and stuck, quivering, in the wall.

  The problem was, The Piggy wasn't especially terse. It didn't answer things directly. And I was not in the best situation for contemplating choice of words, or brilliant repartee.

  "Thiss iss getting too tiressome for wordss!" Moyna shrilled. A tentacle reached up behind her to pull something—a weapon?—from the breathing bag fastened to her head.

  I stumbled from the kitchen, my hands outstretched and groping. There was a faint rhythmic flickering on my wrist. The disguise selector! I had forgotten it.

  I had only a couple of seconds before Moyna would find me and zap me. I crouched down beside the fireplace. The lichen on the hearth still hadn't learned enough to get away from me. Listening for Moyna, I pressed the SELECT button. Species flowed across the screen. Where was the one I wanted?

  Moyna swept into the room, fizzling furiously. I didn't have time to see what her gun looked like. The species I wanted appeared on the screen. I lifted my finger and pressed ACTIVATE.

  The bolt from her weapon zipped past the space where my head had been, continuing on to melt one of the andirons in the fireplace. I had found my disguise just in time. Moyna squealed her frustration like a demented steam calliope. But for the moment I was safe from her. I had become a lichen.

  18

  Being a lichen didn't feel at all as I would have imagined it—though, admittedly, I had never spent much time contemplating the idea.

  Because it was a disguise, I did retain some of my human senses. Part of me could "see" the room, and Moyna, and the disguise selector on my wrist, and even my disguised self, like a pink soggy cornflake on the floor.

  But another part of me was experiencing what it felt like to be a lichen. Not an Earth lichen, which might have been dull: a sapient, carnivorous lichen.

  And a special one at that, a member of an adventurous colony that was risking its life on a strange planet.