Planet Probability

by Brian N Ball

  Marvell found a stick and beat the ground with it. Liz watched, impressed. She tugged at the uncomfortable skin that restricted her movements. It would not come away. She desisted. There was a stench of sweetness, so she looked at a tree with wide flat leaves. She plucked a leaf and munched it. Marvell knocked at a branch with his newly-discovered stick. It broke so he threw the rest of it at the long, thin red ape that was about to be eaten by the tigers. Marvell capered again, delighted with himself.

  Liz found his display of strength and triumph overwhelming. She was afraid of the tiger, so she presented her anus to Marvell. He tapped it gently, reassuringly. She jumped up and down too. She tugged at the fur with all her strength and it came away. The wind blew on her skin and she snorted with delight once more.

  Marvell turned to inspect her.

  “Aff?” he said.

  “Aff!” she grunted.

  Marvell leaped up and down once more and nuzzled her deliciously.

  “Miss Hassell!” A metallic voice came floating to them as they made for a thicket of bushes. “Mr. Marvell!”

  “Ye traitorous Frog deserters!” bawled a threatening voice. “I’ll discharge me piece at ye should I see your poxy arses again!”

  Liz yelped and said nothing.

  Marvell felt a tiny memory trickling through the layers of reconditioning. He tried to repeat the sounds: “Miss-miss?”

  Liz bit him with an angry sharpness.

  Marvell turned to the business in hand.

  The mating was protracted and violent.

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  God’s teeth, monkey, d’ye see the shameless whore!” Hawk said. “Lifting her skirts to a Queen’s uniform! Why, she’s worse than a Cheapside trollop!”

  He pushed the more inquisitive of the two cubs away, but not roughly. The tigress bowled them both over and they hid under her belly. She watched the disappearance of the two white apes with a puzzled expression. They had taunted her, yet neither she nor her black and gold mate had felt any urge to chastise them.

  The strange long red thing that was no ape and had no smell of life was making disagreeable sounds. Yet it was not hostile. Neither was the other, the one with the sickly stench of another kind of ape: this one was angry, it reeked of anger, but it had no malice toward her or her mate or her cubs. She watched and waited. Last night they had fed well. The remains of the carcass were buried not far away.

  Meanwhile, there was the rest of the sunlight. She glanced at her mate and admired the sleek strength in his body. She gave a murmur of pleasure as the cubs nuzzled her. It was a form of ecstasy. She listened to the sounds, and memories filtered slowly into her cortex.

  “Well?” said Hawk.

  Horace answered immediately,

  “There is yet more wizardry in this place, Sergeant,” he said. “I think you will understand that the Devil and his works have dominion here?”

  “Aye, aye, true! With a vengeance! And what’s left to poor old Hawk? With his captain magicked away into a beast of the forest and doxies shaking their poxy flanks at him! Tell me, ye Oxford and Cambridge ape-machine! Eh? Ye’ve the learning of the universities, have ye? How comes it that ye’ve let the Frogs escape? And insult a Queen’s man?”

  Hawk patted the tiger roughly. It nudged him.

  “Why, Sergeant, the poor man Mr. Marvell and his young lady companion are the victims of wizardry, as I’ve told you. You must understand that their brains have been, ah, recycled, that is,” he went on, seeing Hawk’s long mournful look of incomprehension, “their brains have become addled! They’ve had a memory-cell implanted in their skulls—”

  “Gibberish!” snorted Hawk. He sat down and drew a leather bottle from his knapsack. “Talk the Queen’s English, monkey!”

  Horace translated the ideas of the Third-Millennium as well as he could into terms understandable to a Sergeant of Pioneers of the Gunpowder Age. But Hawk could not visualize the kind of operation that had affected Liz and Marvell. He saw it as some kind of injury, in particular a bullet wound.

  “They’ve been shot in the head, monkey!” he decided. “Why, if the bullet’s not extracted, they’ll surely die of the fever! A pound to a penny they’ll have the flux in a week and be stiff in two! And the butchers will try to trepan them! Many’s the time I’ve seen the horse-doctors cut the top off a man’s head when he’s stopped a French ball! But none live! None!” He glared into the bushes, but the couple had gone. “Treacherous dogs! They’re no loss, monkey! Why, Horace, ye say we’ve found me old captain, and surely it’s no raging beast that I see here! A very docile tiger it is!”

  “Quite so, Sergeant,” said Horace. “I’m sure Captain Spingarn recognizes you.”

  “Aye! And the lady that had the wings!” agreed Hawk. “Miss Ethel, ye’ll remember an old comrade? Ye call to mind the first time we set eyes on this malodorous land? When we came under the spell of the Devil? When ye grew the wings and me old captain sprouted horns and a tail?”

  The tigress advanced a step toward Hawk, her supple body glowing in the sunlight. She saw the brilliant blue eyes and remembered. White ape of the frightful stench that had been one of the pack—one of the pack? She could fix the voice somewhere. She touched his boot. A stinking paw touched her head and she flinched. It was smooth and vile. But she bore the touch.

  “I think Miss Ethel remembers,” said Horace. “But I should advise caution. The, ah, wizardry is such that she may forget she knew you, Sergeant.”

  “Aye?”

  Hawk drew his hand back. He finished the thin wine and put the leather bottle back into his knapsack. The cubs would have come closer, but the tigress flicked them back. Her mate subsided, lying next to the seated soldier. She stood, fairly relaxed but cautious.

  Minutes passed, with Hawk content to let the sun go down. Horace said no more.

  Eventually he got up. He looked at the robot.

  “Now, monkey?” he demanded.

  “Sir?”

  “Ye seem to know what this place is! Ye’ve the learning, haven’t ye?” He snorted. “And call me ‘Sergeant’!”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Then I’m ready!”

  “Sergeant?”

  “Ready to march, monkey!”

  “Very good, Sergeant.”

  “Well, lead on!”

  The robot turned to him blandly. “Where to, Sergeant?”

  “Where to? Why—” Hawk stopped. He glared suspiciously at the robot. “Why d’ye ask?”

  “Ask what, Sergeant?”

  “Bowels of God, ye befurred ape, why d’ye ask where ye should lead me?”

  “Because, Sergeant,” the robot said patiently, “I’m under your orders.”

  “My orders?”

  “Quite, Sergeant.”

  Hawk thought about it. Aloud, but to himself, he murmured: “Adrift in Hell? Me captain veritably a beast of the forest? ’Orris the monkey-machine reduced to the ranks? And gut-belly and the doxy deserted? God’s blood, it’s a sore pass for Hawk!”

  Horace did not comment.

  The tiger watched, fiery green-yellow eyes alert.

  “Ye say?” Hawk demanded.

  “I do, Sergeant. You see, my instructions are that I should place myself at the disposal of the members of either expedition to Talisker. That is, to these regions, Sergeant.”

  “The gut-belly?”

  “Quite, Sergeant.”

  “And the trollop that showed her arse?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But ye let them go!”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” Horace went on: “The fact is, that they can no longer be considered as humans, Sergeant. In effect, they’re changed into little better than apes. The wizardry,” he repeated. “And with Captain Spingarn still transmuted, you are the only human member of the two parties. Therefore, Sergeant, I am at your disposal.”

  “Aye!” said Hawk, in command of a situation he could appreciate. “Aye! I’m the only soldier capable of s
erving Her Majesty! Aye! Hawk is the officer to take charge!”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  The tiger that might be Spingarn observed the long shadows. It sensed the approach of night. Soon it would be time to drag out the remains of the kill. Yet it could not obey the instincts of its kind. Curiously, the stinking ape was a member of its pack, even though it mouthed disgusting sounds and excreted a sweat of horrifying impurity. The tiger could not leave the ape. It got to its feet and automatically talons flexed in the heavy pads, ready to rip and gouge. It spat noisily.

  “Very well, monkey!” announced Hawk. “I’ll give ye certain instructions, ’Orris, and mind ye obey on the instant! No more of your insubordination, or I’ll blow a hole through your clockwork guts!”

  “Sergeant?”

  “Ye claim learning?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Then find a way out of Hell!”

  Horace paused, for the first time since landing on Talisker betraying a certain anxiety.

  “Out of—”

  “Ye heard!” snarled Hawk. He hefted his musket, and the tigress remembered a sharp noise and pushed her cubs away; the stick was danger. “Escort me old captain and his lady wife and the bairns out of this fearful place!”

  “Lead you all out of the Possibility Space?”

  “And sharp about it!”

  The tiger looked at the robot.

  “What about Miss Hassell and—”

  “Deserters and vagabonds! Leave them to rot with the boggarts!” Hawk said fiercely. “Me duty is plain—it’s entirely owing to me captain, devilishly transmuted though he be! Lead on, ye befurred ape!”

  A low rumble of agreement came from the giant beasts.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” said Horace. “I expect there is a way of reversing the energy-fields.”

  “More Double-Dutch gibberish!” Hawk snarled. “Enough of it—lead on!”

  “Very good, Sergeant. This way.”

  Marvell and Liz Hassell were hungry. They followed the course of a small stream with cautious greed. Not a whisper of noise came as they put bare feet onto firm ground. Liz walked with shoulders hunched forward. The slope of shoulder protected the vulnerable areas of breast and belly. The nose was much nearer the ground than in a human’s walk; she picked up vivid smells, and her brain was alive with the prospect of blood and marrow. Trailing two paces behind Marvell’s naked bulk, she had implicit trust in his food-finding abilities. But she was alert for any opportunity he might miss.

  Like two white hulking shadows they disappeared into the dark shadows of a clump of hawthorn as they caught the scent of another kind of ape. Vaguely heard, the smell was potent. It was a male. A young male. Not large, but enough to satisfy their requirements for a few days. Liz felt the pulpy fruit hanging in her belly in her excitement. She needed meat. Leaves and grubs could not satisfy her. Meat. Blood and marrow and brains and flesh. Steaming lights and rich dark liver. She slavered silently as Marvell made a tiny grunting noise.

  She knew what to do. Both she and Marvell had adapted with instant reaction to the searing shock of cell-fusion. They were beasts, shifty, rather weak beasts, but they had an alertness and intelligence that would ensure their survival, unless a mischance occurred. They were more than a match for the quarry they hunted.

  Liz left Marvell at the water crossing where they had picked up the scent. She made a large circle to the right of the stream. Her job was to panic the incautious male ape. It sensed the presence of the hunters, she was sure of that much. It would have moved away from them, away from the direction of their approach. And then it would have hidden.

  Had it been accompanied by the rest of its tribe, Liz and her mate would have had to run for their lives; but this was a solitary and heedless red ape. Maybe it had been cast out by the leader of its tribe. It could be that it was hurt. Liz thrilled hopefully as she thought of the ape encumbered by a broken leg. She restrained her greedy excitement and sniffed.

  The wind was right. It blew a musky and terrified smell toward her. She was a hunched white statue in the gloom of the woods when a whimper of fright came from the red ape. The time was now!

  A shrill bellow came from her throat as she jumped out of hiding. She trod down dead wood, deliberately snapping dry branches with all of her weight to suggest a larger attacker. A number of birds danced out of the trees shrieking warnings.

  Far away, in the swampland, a vast roaring came to her. It was no business of hers, though. She thought she had chosen the wrong line of approach for a moment as she rushed toward a dark thicket.

  The small ape had a physical deformity. One leg was shorter than another. Liz howled in triumph and real rage. Hate engulfed the terrified animal. It ran straight into Marvell’s path, its yellow eyes wide open and hopeless.

  Marvell raised the solid branch with which he had armed himself and brought it down on the red ape’s shoulder. Liz leaped to seize one leg. She twisted as Marvell struck again at the head. The leg twisted slackly, for the little ape’s skull was cracked.

  For a moment, Liz looked down with something like horror at the small face. There were round, ridiculous ears. The eyes were turned up, not yellow but bland and white. Child-like, the young male was stretched out in a pathetic arms-open position. Under the overlaid persona, centuries of civilized living rebelled. She released the leg with a shudder. Her appetite waned.

  Marvell looked at her with suspicion. Then he forgot it and performed a brief victory dance. He pounded his shaggy chest, and Liz expressed admiration. She slipped back two million years once more and reached out a paw for the little head.

  “Affaw!” yelled Marvell, knocking her to the ground.

  Liz took a step back and waited until Marvell had begun ripping the body with the sharp end of his stick. She waited until he had located the easily-masticated liver. Satisfied at her show of humility, he gave her a portion. Then they cracked the skull and ate the brains.

  The tiger drew back into its primeval state as the shadows merged with one another and the dark red sun was obscured by volcanic dust. It needed water. The cubs whimpered twice at the tigress. She snarled them into silence. Her mate led, so she followed. But she too thought of the delicious buffalo meat they had buried the previous night.

  It had been a cow. They had caught it as it drifted almost silently through a water meadow. Huge red flowers trailed after it, for it had fed, wallowed and lazed in the sunshine. One crippling blow from the black and gold cat’s heavy armored paw had stunned it. Then she leaped, a streak of pure savagery, for the massive arteries in the neck. The cubs had drunk the pumping blood.

  The carcass would be pleasantly fresh. It would have the smells of rain and earth. The meat would be soft and luscious. She growled softly.

  Her mate continued to walk alongside the stinking white ape with the strange skins and the threatening stick. She hated the white ape. If her mate turned away from it, she would lunge once and strike it down. But not for food. These apes were vile.

  “How far?” Hawk demanded. “D’ye see, the sun’s well down in the satanical regions and poor Hawk’s done for! Eh, monkey?”

  “I estimate that we are at the weakest point of field-banding,” said Horace. “It is just over there.”

  He pointed to a small rock half a mile from the base of the cliff where the second party of investigators had emerged after their engulfment by the searing radiance of the Alien’s force-fields. The tiger smelled danger, or it recalled a moment of danger.

  “Aye?” said Hawk.

  “According to my calculations, the Alien—the Grand Devil, that is—has set up his conjurations at that point, Sergeant.”

  “Ye say?”

  The tigress remembered too. Her belly ached with hunger, and peculiar foggy sensations disturbed her brain. She thought of walking upright and wafting through the air. Her cubs wailed for water and food. She wished to kill the white ape with the iron voice.

  “Sergeant, I believe I can effect a short-ter
m reversal of the force-fields that hold the Possibility Space at this point.”

  “Aye? And the crocodileys? And the boggarts? Suppose they come? And me with only a little tub of powder and two prepared grenadoes and no means of making fire now me tinder’s gone!”

  The tiger watched Hawk and then transferred its gaze to the upright dead creature with the bright fur. Unclear associations formed, swam away and then formed again in its brain. It growled warningly to its mate when they were fifty yards from the small rock. The cubs squealed. The tigress thought of the swift rush that would snap the ape’s neck. A hint of her anger got through to the male. It nuzzled her to reassure her that whatever danger existed would be met by him.

  “Would ye have your trick of bringing fire from inside ye?” asked Hawk, still searching for a means of lighting his slow match. He remembered Horace’s contribution to the fantastic fight against the ghastly creatures they had defeated in their first encounters with the Alien’s presence on Talisker. “Why, surely ye’ve the means of lighting the match?”

  “Hardly necessary, Sergeant,” assured Horace. “It’s extremely unlikely that any of the denizens of this place would come here after sundown. The alignment of the gravitational forces that are being used by the Alien are such that the prospect of more Time-outers coming through is almost negligible.”

  “Ye say, monkey? Bowels of God, ye speak a strange tongue!”

  Horace grew sensors in his glowing red carapace. The antennas waved gently for a few seconds. His skeletal arms extended telescopically and more sensors crept out to scan the depths and powers of the energy-fields that held this weird Possibility Space together.

  The tiger crouched on all fours watching. His mate was alarmed but she obeyed his unstated commands; the cubs were frightened, hungry and silent. If they thought of anything it was the ripe stink of the meat buried not far away.

  “Sergeant, I must explain that the Devil has command of strange crafts,” Horace translated. “He uses the very elements contained in the ground and sea and sky to manufacture a powerful lodestone.”