Screaming Science Fiction

by Brian Lumley

  “‘Go on back to the ship,’ Gilchrist went on. ‘Mildly poisonous, but Doc will give you a shot and you’ll be okay. Can you make it on your own? Good.’ And off the man staggered.

  “Meanwhile one of his colleagues in the clump had commenced attacking the offending tree fern—with a flamethrower, of all things!

  “‘What on earth are you doing?’ I screamed at them, as the tree fern began wailing and burst into flames.

  “‘Nothing, not on Earth,’ Gilchrist answered for them.

  “I might have rushed forward but the air was suddenly full of javelins. ‘I mean, it’s not as if you can punish the thing!’ I yelled at them, stamping my foot. ‘It’s only a plant!’ So why was I so inflamed?

  “‘Natural reaction,’ Gilchrist told me, chewing his lip and looking just a little guilty. And for a moment I thought he was talking about my reaction. But no, he wasn’t. ‘Stinging nettles in your garden,’ he went on, ‘you cut ’em down. Poison-ivy, you burn it out. Hurt, you take revenge.’ And he shrugged. ‘Natural reaction.’

  “By now the whole clump was wailing; maybe three dozen tree ferns, lashing the air with their fronds, releasing myriad javelins, sending a horde of squealing woodlice (which in fact are six-legged mammals that on the run look like nothing so much as chitin-plated meerkats, except they are herbivores and Ophiuchus VIII’s dominant life-form) tumbling for their lives.

  “But I had seen more than enough. Turning away, I caught up with Gilchrist’s injured man and helped him back to the ship. I couldn’t help hoping, though, that his shots were going to hurt like hell….”

  VI

  SESSION SEVEN.

  Subject: James Goodwin,

  former crew member United Earth Station IV.

  Object: following eight weeks of (apparently) successful psychotherapy applied in order to eliminate a severe psychological blockage, to interview shuttle pilot Goodwin in relation to his experiences following abduction by unknown inimical extraterrestrial intelligences.

  Interrogating Officer:

  Dr. Gardner L. Spatzer,

  Space Central, Arizona.

  12th Oct. 2407.

  RECORDED INTERVIEW

  Dr. S: “Good morning, Jim!”

  Goodwin, gloomily: “Yeah, sure.”

  Dr. S: “How are you feeling?”

  Goodwin, nervous and agitated: “How do you suppose I’m feeling, Doc? Okay, I’ll tell you—I feel like shit! Now maybe you can tell me something: do you intend to stick any more of those needles in me?”

  Dr. S: “No, that shouldn’t any longer be necessary—well, depending on your self-control. But if you should become excessively aggressive again…it was for your own good, Jim.”

  Goodwin, warily: “Okay, but be honest about it: do you have any needles on you, like right now?”

  Dr. S, with a partly suppressed chuckle: “None whatsoever.”

  Goodwin: “Good! So I won’t need to fight you off again….”

  Dr. S: “Do you feel like talking now, answering some rather important questions?”

  Goodwin: “You mean, am I able to talk about it? To tell you what happened to us? To tell the truth, I don’t know…maybe. Do I want to talk about it? Hell no! But I might if you go easy on me. See, it’s like the needles. Why do I fight them? Because if someone had stuck in your veins what they stuck in mine—in ours, mine and Susannah’s—then you’d fight them the same as I do. You say I had a…a what? ‘An extreme reaction?’ Doc, the needles are just a very small part of it. But right now, if you were to show me a pin, a tack, or a nail—almost any-fucking-thing with a sharp point—then I can assure you you’d get the same reaction! I mean, Jesus, it’s…it’s…it’s—”

  Dr. S: “It’s okay, Jim! Perfectly okay that you should feel upset. Perfectly natural. But do try to calm yourself down, and believe me when I tell you I understand.”

  Goodwin: “No, you don’t. But okay, I’m calm. Perfectly calm now. So go right ahead, ask your questions. Only first I’d like you to answer one more of mine.”

  Dr. S: “I will if I can, certainly.”

  Goodwin: “I dunno, maybe you’re not qualified. I mean, sure you’re a mind doctor, but what I want to know is—I mean, it’s not of the mind, at least I don’t think so. It’s sort of—”

  Dr. S: “What, some physical thing? Relating to your current infirmity, perhaps?”

  Goodwin: “That’s right. It’s like…I mean…I’ve heard it said that if you lose something…or things, like that—”

  Dr. S: “—that you can still feel them?”

  Goodwin: “Yeah.”

  Dr. S: “And can you?”

  Goodwin: “No. Just the hurt, is all….”

  Dr. S: “Well the hurting should stop—eventually. It’s not like the mind, Jim. You will heal in time—which isn’t to say that your mind won’t, except that once again it will take time. Me, I only wish we had time or that we knew how long we’ve got. As for your physical pain: there are pain-killers, drugs, if it continues to trouble you. But don’t let’s forget the prosthetic they’re working on; that will give you mobility and should help to take your mind off…things. You see, it’s not like you’re going to be helpless or confined or anything—not for too much longer, anyway.”

  Goodwin: “But as you just pointed out, Doc, it’s not just a physical thing, not just physical pain. I mean, I remember now. When I relax and stop fighting it, I remember. You caused me to remember. And you know something? I should hate you for that. I should really fucking hate it that you’ve made me remember! You and your needles, and your questions, and all your fucking psychobabble crap, and—”

  Dr. S: “Jim! Jim. you have to cut that out! We’re past that now. You have to stop thinking for yourself, start thinking for your world. What you’ve got locked up in your head, we need it, Jim! We need you to tell us about it. You’re an astronaut, Jim, one hell of a tough guy in a hell of a tough job. Which is why we know you can do this.”

  Goodwin: “Get it right. I was an astronaut, past tense.”

  Dr. S: “Well, I’m not going to lie to you; it must be obvious that we can’t give you that back. But it’s possible there’s something almost as satisfying; perhaps something that will put everything else—most of everything else—right for you.”

  Goodwin: “Oh really? Like, you really think there is such a thing? Like what?”

  Dr. S: “Like revenge! Why take it out on yourself, or on me and the others who are trying to help you, when you can take it out on them, the ones who did this to you?”

  Goodwin, his voice suddenly shuddery, hoarse: “Them…. God, but you’ve never seen them! So cold, impersonal, inhuman, insensitive. We were—I don’t know—nothing more than specimens, that’s all. Bodies for biological or medical examination, dissection…except we were alive! You want me to remember? Oh, I remember all right! I only wish to God you would let me forget! I want to forget! But I can’t, because every time I talk to you it’s just like now. You make me…you make me…you make me fucking…rememmmmm….”

  At which point Goodwin, traumatized, slipped back into what has become his safe haven, a comatose, psychoneurotic condition typified by severely restricted mental activity: a total neural shutdown. I am reasonably sure now that some unknown psychoactive agent has been introduced into Goodwin’s system to prevent him from speaking about his ordeal; perhaps they didn’t intend that he should talk about it. Nevertheless, I am encouraged to believe that we’re making some progress, and I’m sure that the anticipated early delivery of Goodwin’s prosthetic will accelerate the process.

  Dr. Gardner L. Spatzer.

  VII

  From the Notebook of Michael Gilchrist,

  exobioecologist aboard United Earth grav-drive vessel

  Starspike Explorer, Earthdate 7th January, 2403.

  “Knocked on the door of Laurilu’s bunk last night…. Don’t know why. Or maybe I do: wanted to apologize for what must have seemed my callous attitude out in the forest the other
day. The fact is I’m not quite the unfeeling bastard she thinks I am.

  “Anyway, and amazingly, she let me in! I thought maybe because she wanted to have it out with me—and that’s out with me, by the way, not off with me!—which she did, and so did I, though to tell the truth neither one of us knew where to start.

  “She had just opened a can of strawberry flavored juice—colored water, of course, with some added fizz—and asked me if I would like a drink. I accepted; we drank. And seeing a way to get through to her, I told her that only the fizz was real.

  “At first she didn’t know what I meant, then said, ‘Oh, you mean the strawberries?’

  “‘Ain’t no sech thang,’ I said, ‘not anymore. This is artificial flavoring, chemicals, that’s all. Since the soft-fruit disease—what, seven years ago?—there aren’t any soft fruit; well, except for the blackberries. They’ve been around forever; we never much tampered with them, and they’re tough. But as for the rest of the soft fruit…you can forget it. It’s a bug, a killer virus in the soil. But no way to kill it without killing the soil, which is three-quarters dead anyway.’

  “‘What?’ she said, sitting up straighter and looking really good in her ship’s uniform. ‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’

  “‘Why would you?’ I said. “You’re the 2nd Engineer, not the expedition’s ecologist, or bioecologist, or exobioecologist.’

  “‘Touché,’ she said, not a little ruefully. ‘But…you’re saying all the soft fruits—all the berries, with the exception of brambles—saying they’re gone forever? It’s like, where have I been? I mean, I thought I was well up on all that stuff. How come I missed that? I really didn’t know about it!’

  “‘People don’t generally,’ I told her. ‘What, you think the World Health people, Calorie Control Council and food-rationing agencies—all the various Ministries of Agriculture, Farming, Fisheries, Hydroponics—you think they’re likely to advertise the fact that the Earth is not-so-slowly dying, the air full of shit, the seas and lakes polluted, the ground poisoned? I think not. That is why we’re out here, Laurilu. Er, if you don’t mind me calling you that?’

  “‘No, that’s okay,’ she told me, ‘er, Mike?’ And then continued: ‘But that’s the Earth you were talking about, while this is Ophiuchus VIII. Which—’

  “‘—which will soon be Earth II,’ I cut her off.

  “‘Where we’ll start—have started—the whole rotten process all over again?’ She wasn’t any longer sounding off…she just seemed a little sad, or a lot sad, as she slowly shook her head and continued, ‘The destruction of a world, beginning with its inhabitants.’

  “‘You mean the tree ferns? They’re just lettuces, cabbages, kale, Laurilu.’

  “‘But they wail when they’re hurt!’

  “‘It’s the wind in their fronds when they start in whipping them about, is all.’

  “‘And they hurl their javelins.’

  “‘Which is a result of them whipping their fronds! Because they evolved along with those meerrats or whatever you want to call them. But you know, if they could up roots and walk about, well! I wouldn’t be any too happy about it either. Hell, I’m not especially happy about it anyway! But they’re just plants—you even said so yourself.’

  “Laurilu started to shake her head, then stopped and said, ‘Yes I did. But still it seems to me that they protect themselves, even deliberately.’

  “‘The cactus has its spines,’ I told her. ‘What’s more, and as well as deadly stinging tentacles, the Portuguese man-o’-war navigates the ocean’s currents under sail. But not one of these species is equipped to think or do anything deliberately, Laurilu. They do things automatically, yes. But deliberately, no.’

  “While I could see that I had her half-convinced, still she said, ‘So what do we get out of a full-grown tree fern? I mean, pound for pound, dollar for dollar, are they worth it?’

  “‘Oh, yes!’ On that I was positive. ‘A full-grown tree? We get maybe nine gallons of sap. Add a little sweetener—it’s as good as milk. Whip it, it’s cream. Curdle it, it’s cheese. Then there’s the tender roots, of which there’s almost as much below ground as above; maybe half a ton. And they’re as good as potatoes. As for the fronds: they break down into fiber for textiles. The bark is thick but pliable: cork. And the wood…well it’s wood, for burning. To settlers here the tree ferns will be like coconut-palms to the South-Sea islanders—when there were coconuts and South-Sea islands, that is.’

  “‘And when they’ve gone?’ she said, staring at me, so that for the first time I noticed how beautiful her eyes are. ‘After we’ve used them all up? What then?’

  “‘We won’t use them all up. For every one we cut down we’ll plant another. The only ground we clear will be for farming, to support us and whichever Earth livestock can thrive here. We’ll put home-world fish into the lakes and oceans, put grass out on the creeper plains…we’ll even have soft fruit again.’

  “‘Oh? How?’ she said. I thought you said they were gone for good—or for bad.’

  “I shook my head. ‘No, I didn’t say that. You said that. On Earth… they’re probably gone for good, yes. We fooled around with them genetically and weakened them. We may even have introduced that virus into the soil, albeit accidentally. The breeds—all the exotics—they were the first to suffer. But we have seeds, shoots, cuttings, all carefully preserved or in hibernation, just biding their time, waiting to be planted in a little rich, living soil under some generous G-type sunlight.’

  “She sighed her relief and said, ‘Which means that when the first settlers get here—’

  “‘Which is only a few short years away, once we get back to Earth and I deliver my feasibility report.’

  “‘—that at least for a little while, and probably quite a while, they’ll have to be vegetarians? Can I at least have that much to look forward to?’

  “‘Ah—not so.’ Trying not to take too much pleasure in it, I shook my head. ‘See, it’s the general rule that if something eats something we eat, we can usually eat the first something. There are exceptions, of course, but….’

  “Laurilu frowned and said, ‘Come again?’

  “And by way of explaining, I said: ‘Those little, er, armadillo guys?’

  “Her jaw fell open. ‘Those little…but they’re animals!’

  “‘That’s right—and very nutritious, too. And what do you think cows, rabbits, goats, sheep and pigs are, Laurilu? And as for chickens…well, we’ll have them all here, eventually.’

  “Clenching her fists, she almost stood up. ‘What do I think they are?” she said. ‘I think they’re sentient! Oh they may not think too good, but they do respond to stimuli…they do have brains, feelings—’

  “‘—And souls?’ I got it in quick. ‘Are you religious?’

  “‘What?’ she said, caught a little off guard. ‘Religious? I think so. My god may not be your god, but I don’t believe everything is just accidental.’

  “‘Well me neither,’ I said. ‘And the Good Book tells us Man shall have dominion over all…We’re that far above the other animals, that’s all. We’re almost as far above the home world’s fauna as it is above the flora! So of course we eat it. Fish or fowl or four-legged beast, if it isn’t poisonous we eat it! But we have to find that out first…which is what me and my team have been doing here on Ophiuchus VIII.’

  “‘But—’

  “‘But there’s no but about it, Laurilu! Put it this way: do we just let humanity go to hell in a bucket along with the home world? No, of course not. It’s us or the lesser species, kid.

  “Again she shook her head, sighed, and said, ‘Another world to ruin.’

  “And I admit I nodded, sighed with her and said, ‘Yes, only now we can do it a whole lot faster….’ But I knew at once that I had made a mistake.

  “Laurilu narrowed her eyes and said, ‘We’ll do what? How do you mean?’

  “I shrugged, but not negligently, and answered, ‘We managed to fin
ish off the Earth in about—oh, I don’t know—say four or five thousand years? But that was from our tribal beginnings to where we are now; from a time when the only fires were campfires to a time when we’ve sucked all of the black juice out of the ground and burned it in our cars, in heating our cities and powering our machines; from clean air and oceans to radioactive ruins and skies that leak dilute acid rains…. Are you with me so far?’

  “‘Go on,” she said, but very quietly now.

  “‘Ten years from now,’ I said, just as quietly, ‘they’ll be sinking oil wells here. Twenty, there’ll be towns, small cities. Twenty-five: airplanes and ocean-going liners, roads and tracks joining up the towns, motor cars on the roads and trains on the tracks. Another thousand years…well, by then we should have found Earth III, or IV, or even V. It’s evolution, Laurilu. Mankind is evolving, expanding throughout the universe.’

  “‘And leaving precious little room for anything else,’ she said.

  “‘But is there anything else?’ I asked her then. ‘We’re it, as far as I can see. Where sentience is concerned, we’re definitely it, Ma Nature’s clever kids, Laurilu. The universe is our playpen, our schoolyard, our many worlds—all the places we’re going to grow up in.’

  “‘You’re saying that nature is so utterly uncaring, insensitive of the rest of her creations, that she’s given us a whole universe to sack? All those stars and planets out here—or out there—and they’re all for us? Only for us?’

  “‘That’s how it appears,’ I replied. Then I asked her: ‘Did you ever hear of SETI?’

  “‘SETI?’

  “‘The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,’ I told her. ‘SETI operated for over two hundred years sending radio signals out to the stars. Now we can get there faster than the signals! But you know what? There wasn’t a single reply, not one. By now those signals have reached out over four hundred light-years in all directions, and no one out there gives a damn because there is no one out there. It’ll take us two thousand years to get to all the places those signals have already left behind, where as far as we know there’s nothing like us to compete with. So yes, it looks like it’s all ours, Laurilu. If there is a god, we are his—or her—main men.’