The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  “You wanted to know more about this thing,” Flaster said. “As my heir apparent, you have a right to find out.”

  “The others think it’s from the Gene-craft Center,” Dennis said.

  Flaster chuckled. “But you knew better all along, right? The lifemakers aren’t good enough at their new art to make anything quite so unique,” he said with savor. “So very savage.

  “No. As you guessed, our little friend here is not from the genetics labs, nor from anywhere in the solar system, for that matter. It came from Lab One—from one of the anomaly worlds we’ve latched onto with the zievatron.”

  Dennis stood. “You got it to work! You latched onto something better than vacuum, or purple mist!”

  His mind whirled. “It breathed Earth air! It gobbled down a dozen canapes, along with a corner of Brian Yen’s ear, and kept going! The thing’s biochemistry must be …”

  “Is … it is almost precisely Terran.” Flaster nodded.

  Dennis shook his head. He sat down heavily. “When did you find this place?”

  “We found it during a zievatronics anomaly search three weeks ago. After five months of failure, I’ll freely admit that we finally achieved success only after returning to the search routine you first designed, Nuel.”

  Flaster took off his glasses and wiped them with a silk handkerchief. “Your routines worked almost at once. And turned up the most amazingly Earthlike world. The biologists are ecstatic, to say the least.”

  Dennis stared at the dead creature in the glass. A whole world! We did it!

  Dr. Guinasso’s dream had come true. The zievatron was the key to the stars! Dennis’s personal resentment had disappeared. He was genuinely thrilled by Flaster’s accomplishment.

  The Director rose and returned to the coffee urn for a refill. “There’s only one problem,” he said nonchalantly, his back to the younger man.

  Dennis looked up, his thoughts still spinning. “Sir? A problem?”

  “Well, yes.” Flaster turned around, stirring his coffee. “Actually, it has to do with the zievatron itself.”

  Dennis frowned.

  “What about the zievatron?”

  Flaster raised his demitasse with two fingers. “Well,” he sighed between sips. “It seems we can’t get the darned thing to work anymore.”

  3

  Flaster wasn’t kidding. The zievatron was busted.

  After most of a day spent poking through the guts of the machine, Dennis was still getting used to the changes that had been made in Laboratory One since his banishment.

  The main generators were the same, as were the old reality probes he and Dr. Guinasso had laboriously handtuned back in the early days. Flaster and Brady hadn’t dared tamper with those.

  But they had brought in so much new equipment that even the cavernous main lab was almost filled to bursting. There were enough electrophoresis columns, for instance, to analyze a Bordeaux bouillabaisse.

  The zievatron itself took up most of the chamber. White-coated technicians moved across catwalks along its broad face, making adjustments.

  Most of the techs had come down to greet Dennis when he came in. They were obviously relieved to have him back. The backslapping reunion had kept him away from his beloved machine for almost an hour and had irritated the hell out of Bernald Brady.

  When, finally, Dennis had been able to get to work, he concentrated on the two huge reality probes. Where they met, deep within the machine, there was a spot in space that was neither exactly here nor quite elsewhere. The anomalous point could be flipped between Earth and Somewhere Else, depending on which probe dominated.

  Six months ago there had been a small port through which samples could be taken of the purple mists and strange dust clouds he and Dr. Guinasso had found. But since then it had been replaced by a large, armored airlock.

  Working near the heavy hatch, Dennis realized that all a person had to do was walk through that door to be on another world! It was a strange feeling.

  “Stumped yet, Nuel?”

  Dennis looked up. Bernald Brady’s small mouth always seemed to be slightly pursed in disapproval. The fellow was under instructions to cooperate, but that apparently didn’t extend to being civil.

  Dennis shrugged. “I’ve narrowed the problem down. Something’s cockeyed about the part of the zievatron that’s been pushed into the anomaly world!—the return mechanism. It may be that the only way to fix it is from the other end.”

  He had come to realize that Marcel Flaster would exact a price for putting him in charge of the lab. If Dennis wasn’t able to figure out a way to repair it from this end, he might have to go through and fix the return mechanism in person.

  He hadn’t yet decided whether to be thrilled by the idea, or petrified.

  “Flasteria,” Brady said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Dennis said, blinking.

  “We’ve named the planet Flasteria, Nuel.”

  Dennis tried to work his mouth around the word, then gave up. The hell you say.

  “Anyway,” Brady went on, “that’s no great discovery. I’d already figured out it was the return mechanism that had broken down.”

  Dennis was starting to get irritated with the fellow’s attitude. He shrugged. “Sure you knew it already. But how long did it take you?”

  He knew he had struck home when Brady’s face reddened.

  “Never mind,” Dennis said as he stood up, brushing off his hands. “Come on, Brady. Take me on a tour of your zoo. If I’m expected to go through and visit this place, I want to know more about it.”

  Mammals! The captive animals were air-breathing, four-legged, hairy mammals!

  He looked over one that resembled a small ferret, going through a short mental checklist. There were two nostrils above the mouth and below forward-facing hunter’s eyes. There were five clawed toes on each paw, and a long, furry tail. A tomography chart in front of the cage showed a four-chambered heart, a rather Earthly-looking skeleton, and apparently all the right sorts of viscera in all the right places.

  Yet it was alien!

  The creature stared back at Dennis for a moment, then yawned and turned away.

  “The biologists have checked for bad germs and such,” Brady said, answering Dennis’s next question. “The guinea pigs they sent through aboard one of the exploring robots lived on Flasteria for several days and came back perfectly healthy.”

  “What about the biochemistry? Are the amino acids the same, for instance?”

  Brady picked up a large binder, about five inches thick. “Doc Nelson was called away to Palermo yesterday. Part of the government shake-up, I suppose. But here’s his report.” He dropped the heavy tome into Dennis’s hands. “Study it!”

  Dennis was about to tell Brady where he could put the report for the time being. But just then a sharp, snapping sound came from the far end of the row of cages. Both men turned to witness a stout wooden crate begin shaking and rattling.

  Brady cursed loudly. “Hot damn! It’s getting out again!” He ran to one wall and slapped an alarm button. At once a siren began to wail.

  “What’s getting out?” Dennis backed up. The panic in Brady’s voice had affected him. “What is it?”

  “The creature!” Brady shouted into the intercom, hardly encouraging Dennis. “The one we recaptured and put in that temporary box … yes, the tricky one! It’s getting out again!”

  There was the sound of splintering wood, and a slat fell out of the side of the crate. From the blackness within, a pair of tiny green reflections gleamed at Dennis.

  Dennis could only presume they were eyes, small and spaced no more than an inch apart. The green sparks seemed to lock onto him, and he could not look away. They stared at each other—Earthman and alien.

  Brady was shouting as a work gang hurried into the room. “Quick! Get the nets in here in case it jumps! Make sure it doesn’t let the other animals loose, like the last time!”

  Dennis was growing increasingly uneasy. The green-eyed star
e was disconcerting. He looked for a place to put down the heavy book in his hands.

  The creature seemed to come to a decision. It squeezed through the narrow gap between the slats, then leaped just in time to escape a descending net.

  In a glimpse Dennis saw that it looked like a tiny, flat-nosed pig. But this pig was one of a kind! In midleap its legs spread wide, snapping open a pair of membranes, creating two gliding wings!

  “Block it, Nuel!” Brady shouted.

  Dennis didn’t have much choice. The alien creature flew right at him! He tried to duck, but too late. The “flying pig” landed on his head and clung to his hair, squeaking frantically.

  As Dennis let go of the biochemistry tome in surprise, the heavy volume landed on his foot.

  “Ow!” He hopped, reaching up to grab at his unwelcome passenger.

  But the little creature peeped loudly, plaintively. It sounded more frightened than angry. At the last moment, Dennis restrained himself from using force to tear it off. Instead, he managed to peel one webbed paw away from his eye—just in time to duck beneath a wrench swung by Bernald Brady! Dennis cursed and the “piglet” squealed as the bludgeon whistled just overhead.

  “Hold still, Nuel! I almost had him!”

  “And almost took my head off, too!” Dennis backed away. “Idiot! Are you trying to kill me?”

  Brady seemed to contemplate the proposition syllogistically. Finally, he shrugged. “All right, then, Nuel. Come out slowly and we’ll grab him.”

  Dennis started forward. But as he approached the other men, the creature squeaked pathetically and tightened its grip.

  “Hold off,” Dennis said. “It’s just frightened, that’s all. Give me a minute. I may be able to get it down myself.”

  Dennis backed over to a crate and sat down. He reached up tentatively to touch the alien again.

  To Dennis’s surprise the shuddering creature seemed to calm under his touch. He spoke softly as he stroked the thin, soft fur that covered its pink sin. Gradually its panicked grip eased. Finally he was able to lift the creature with both hands and bring it down to his lap.

  The men and women in the work gang cheered. Dennis smiled back with more confidence than he felt.

  It was just the sort of thing that could become a legend. “… Yes, boy. I was there the day ol’ Director Nuel tamed a savage alien critter that had him by the eyeballs.…”

  Dennis looked down at the thing he had “captured.” The creature looked back at him with an expression he was sure he had seen somewhere before. But where?

  Then he remembered. For his sixth birthday his parents had given him an illustrated book of Finnish fairy tales. He recalled many of the drawings to this day. And this creature had the sharp-toothed, green-eyed, devilish grin of a pixie.

  “A pixolet,” he announced softly as he petted the little creature. “A cross between piglet and pixie. Does the name suit?”

  It didn’t appear to understand the words. He doubted it was actually sentient. But something seemed to tell Dennis that it understood him. It grinned back with tiny, needle-sharp teeth.

  Brady approached with a gunny sack. “Quick, Nuel. While it’s passive, get it into this!”

  Dennis stared at the man. The suggestion wasn’t worthy of a reply. He arose with the pixolet in the crook of his left arm. The creature purred.

  “Come on, Brady,” he said, “let’s finish the tour so I can get my equipment list together. Then I’ve got some preparations to make.

  “You may thank our extraterrestrial friend here for making up my mind for me. I’ll go through the zievatron and visit his homeworld for you.”

  4

  The zievatron had become a one-way road. Anything shoved through the airlock would arrive on the anomaly world, as planned. Robots could still be sent through, as had been done for almost a month. But nothing came back.

  Enough faint telemetry came back to show that the machine was still linked to the same anomaly world—the place the flying piglet creature had been taken from.

  But the zievatron was incapable of sending even a feather back to Earth.

  All machines fail sooner or later, Dennis realized. Undoubtedly the problem could be solved simply by replacing a burned-out module—maybe two minutes’ work. The rub was that it would have to be done in person. Somebody would have to go through the zievatron to do it by hand.

  Of course, a manned expedition had been planned anyway. These weren’t exactly the best circumstances for such a first visit, but somebody would have to do it, or the world they had found would be lost forever. Dennis had seen pictures taken by the exploring robots before the failure. They might search for a hundred years before stumbling onto another place so compatible with human life.

  Anyway, he had made up his mind.

  The equipment Dennis had asked for lay in stacks just outside the airlock door. The speed with which the list had been filled showed how anxious Dr. Flaster was to have results soon. Sending Brady after the supplies had also kept the fellow out of his hair while he triple-checked his calculations.

  He had insisted on a long list of survival supplies, not that he expected to need them on this first outing. Even replacing every module in the return mechanism shouldn’t take more than an hour, but he wasn’t taking any chances. There were even cases of vitamins in case he was stranded for a while, and the biology report had missed a decimal point in its compatibility rating of the anomaly world.

  “Okay, Nuel,” Brady said. He addressed Dennis from the left side. The pixolet rode Dennis’s other shoulder, surveying the preparations grandly, hissing whenever Brady approached.

  “You’ve got almost enough gear to build another damned zievatron when you arrive on Flasteria. You should be able to fix it in five minutes. You’d think you were the Admirable Bird, lugging all that survival junk around, too. But that’s your business.”

  The fellow actually sounded jealous. Still, Dennis hadn’t noticed him volunteering to go.

  “Just remember to fix the machine first!” Brady went on. “Then it won’t matter if something eats you while you’re trying to talk to all the local animals.”

  Richard Schwall, one of the techs who had worked with Dennis back in the early days, looked up from checking a schematic and shared a look of commiseration with Dennis. Everyone at S.I.T. appreciated Brady’s sunny attitude.

  “Dennis!”

  Gabriella Versgo’s valkyrian figure wove toward them through the crowd of technicians. When one tech was slow to get out of the way, he was swept aside by a well-swung pelvis.

  Brady beamed as she approached, looking much like a lovestruck puppy. Gabbie gave him a brilliant smile and then took Dennis’s right arm in a grip that partly interrupted the blood supply to his hand.

  “Well, Dennis,” she said, sighing happily, “I’m glad you and Bernie are talking to each other again! I always thought it was silly of you two to feud so.”

  Actually, she sounded as if she thought it was delightful. Dennis realized that Gabbie was under the mistaken belief that his enmity with Brady was over her. If that really were the case Dennis would have run up a white flag and surrendered long ago!

  “I just came ahead to warn you two boys that Dr. Flaster’s on his way down to see Dennis off. And he’s bringing Boona Calumny with him!”

  Dennis looked blank for a moment.

  “The new Science Minister for Mediterranea!” Gabbie cried. She tugged his elbow sharply, accidentally thumbing his ulnar nerve in the process. Dennis gasped, but Gabbie went on, oblivious to his momentary agony.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” She exclaimed. “Such an eminent man coming down to watch the first human set foot on an anomaly world!” In her final sweeping gesture she released her grip. Dennis stifled a sigh and massaged his arm.

  Gabriella cooed at the pixolet, trying to chuck its diminutive chin. The little creature bore it for a few moments, then erupted into a tremendous yawn, revealing twin rows of needle-sharp teeth. She quickly withdrew
her hand.

  She went around to Dennis’s other side and leaned up to kiss him primly on the cheek. “Gotta run now. I have an important crystal in a float-zone. Have a good trip. Come back a hero and we’ll celebrate special, I promise.” She winked and nudged him with her hip, almost knocking the pixolet from its perch.

  The scowling Brady brightened suddenly when Gabriella gave him a peck as well, for equality. Then she sauntered away, doubtless aware that half the men in the lab were watching.

  Richard Schwall shook his head and muttered. “… woman could upstage Lady Macbeth …” was all Dennis made out.

  Brady snorted indignantly and stalked off.

  As Dennis returned to his calculations, checking one last time to make sure he had made no mistakes, the pixolet launched itself into a low glide to land on a perch overlooking Richard Schwall. It peered over the balding tech’s shoulder, watching as he adjusted a portable electronic drafting tool for Dennis to take along.

  For two days, ever since Dennis had declared the creature tame, the technicians had routinely looked up to find those tiny green eyes staring down at them. Uncannily, the pixolet always seemed to choose the trickiest adjustments to oversee.

  As the preparations progressed smoothly, the creature became a status symbol of sorts. The techs used bits of candy to attract it over to their stations. It had become a good luck charm—a company mascot.

  When Schwall looked up and saw the pixolet, he grinned and picked up the little alien so it could get a better look. Dennis put down his notes and watched the two interact.

  The pixolet appeared less enthralled with what Schwall did than how the tech felt about it. When his face showed pleasure, the creature looked back and forth quickly, from Schwall to the sketch pad and back again.

  Although it was clearly not a sentient being, Dennis wondered just how intelligent the little alien really was.

  “Hey, Dennis!” Schwall grew excited. “Look at this! I’ve made a real neat picture of the launch tower in Ecuador! You know, the Vanilla Needle? I’ve never really noticed how good I am at this! Your little friend here really is lucky!”