Daughters of Earth and Other Stories

by Judith Merril

  Still, it would be better at least to try to get the child's agreement, even though it was a foregone conclusion that they could not expect her co-operation. The Lady summoned the Strange daughter once more to her chamber.

  'I could write the message here, I guess,' Dee said thought-fully. 'If you're going to send somebody to the rocket anyhow, there's no reason for me to go.' It wasn't as if she couldn't trust them; they wouldn't hurt anything. And anyhow, the Mother said she wanted to keep showing Dee what the son was doing, so they could ask questions whenever they didn't understand something.

  Right now, the Mother-bug was feeling a question. 'Write a message?' Dee stopped thinking herself, and then she understood. The bugs only used writing for keeping records of things. When they wanted to tell somebody something, it didn't matter how far away the person was; so they didn't write things down for other people. Just for themselves, and to make a kind of history for other bugs later on. The Mother wanted to know: wouldn't she 'be aware' of the rescue party when it came.

  She shook her head, and didn't try to explain anything, be-cause it was just too different. 'I've got some crayons in my room,' she told the Mother-bug, 'but I used up all the paper already.'

  'We have paper.' The funny jumpy Father-bug jumped up in his funny way, and went over to a kind of big table full of cubby holes, even before the Mother was done 'talking', and got a piece of their kind of paper, and gave it to Dee. The Mother was asking about crayons, what they were and how they worked, but Dee was asking her at the same time for something to write with, and what kind of paper was this?

  The paper was made out of tree bark, and covered with a kind of waxy stuff that they made in their bodies. They seemed to make everything right inside themselves—as if each bug was a kind of chemicals factory, and you could put in such and such, and turn some switches inside, and get out so-and-so. It was certainly useful, Dee thought, with vague distaste, and then realized nobody had given her a pencil or anything yet.

  But you wouldn't use a pencil' on this kind of paper. You'd use a stylus, or something sharp.

  'Very soon,' the Mother-bug said. 'My daughter brings you a sharp thing to write with.' Then she raised her arm to show Dee where a little sharp horny tip was, on the back of her elbow, that she used herself.

  'But how can you see what...?' Dee started to ask, and then she felt the Mother-bug laughing, and then she laughed herself. It was so hard to get used to people with eyes in the backs of their heads.

  One of the nurse-type bugs came in, bowing and crawling the way they always did if they got near the Mother-bug, handed Dee a pointed stick, and crawled out again.

  'I am staying with some bugs in a big house,' Dee scratched as clearly as she could through the wax. The bark underneath was orangy-coloured, and the wax was white, so it showed through pretty well. 'My baby brother Petey is with me. Please come and get us.' Then she signed it, 'Deborah (DEE) Levin.' And then realized she hadn't put anything in about how to find them. She tried to ask the Mother, but so far they hadn't been able to get together on that kind of thing at all. The bugs didn't use measurements or distances or directions the same way; they just seemed to know where to go, and how far they were.

  'We will know if Strangers come,' the Mother promised her; 'we will go to them.'

  Dee thought that over, and added to her message : 'P.S. If some big bugs come around, don't shoot. They're friends; they're taking care of Petey and me.' And put her initials at the end, the way you're supposed to do with a P.S.

  'When is he going?' she asked. 'I mean, should I stay here, so you can ask me questions, or do you want me to come back later?' Petey was getting kind of restless, and he wanted something, but she wasn't sure what.

  'The brother wishes to return to the garden,' the Mother explained. 'He understands what I told you about the food. He wanted to suck on the sweet plants before, but was afraid. Now he desires to return to the garden and to the other children, and suck as they do.' Then she said her son was going to the ship right away; but if Dee wanted to go to the garden with Petey, that was all right; the Mother-bug could talk to her just as well that way.

  'I'd rather ... I'd kind of rather look at you when we talk,' Dee said. She knew it seemed silly to them, because they weren't used to it, but she couldn't help it. Anyhow, she got a kind of good feeling being in the Mother-bug's room. The first time she came in here it was awful, but right now she felt nervous or something. She didn't know why, but she did know she'd feel better if she stayed here with the big old bug.

  'Stay then, my child.'

  One of the ones with wings came in; this kind just bowed, they didn't crawl. He took the message from Dee, and went back to the garden; then they just waited for a while.

  The mother was busy, thinking some place else, and the Father-bug gave her a funny feeling when she tried to talk to him, because he wasn't like a Daddy at all. Not the way the big fat bug was like a real Mother. The skinny, jumpy one was nervous and fussy and worried; and Dee thought he probably didn't like her very much. So she just sat still, squatting on the floor with her back against the wall, and thought maybe she'd go get her T-Z set and look at something till the Mother-bug was ready. But it was warm and comfortable and she didn't want to go away, out of this room, where the Mother was just like a Mother was a Mother—so she sort of rolled over a little bit, and curled up right on the floor and closed her eyes. If she didn't look at the piled-up mats and the ugly old belly on top, it felt more like a Mother than ever before for a long time since it was so warm, hot, glowing red, and the voice said, fire ... fire ... fire...

  That was on Hallowe'en, all black and orange, witches and ghosts, and the witch said, 'Fire ! Fire! Run ! Run!' but the ghost looked like a big fat bug, only white, except the white ones don't have eyes; and this one had two great big hollow eyeholes; and it was crying because it couldn't find the little girl who should have opened ... opened her eyes, so she could see, why didn't she open her eyeholes, so she could see the little girl? Because the little girl had no eyes, only it didn't matter as long as the door was closed, the ghost couldn't get through a safety safety safe; the little girl is safe, on Hallowe'en when the ground is black and behind the door is black, black, black you can't see, and black it's all burned up, and the ghost is white; so there's no ghost there in the black, only a great big ugly bugley belly all swell up with white dead long time ... No! ... all black for Hallowe'en, black, black....

  XXII

  THE LADY HEARD; and by her lights, she understood. It was a sick and ugly thing to hear, and a terrible sad thing to comprehend.

  A Mother of fourteen Families is, perforce, accustomed to grief and fear and failing; she has suffered time and again the agonies of flesh and spirit with which her children met the tests of growth: the fears of battle, terror of departure, pains of hunger, the awful shrinking from death. The time they almost lost their House to swarming hostile Families; the time the boy died in the ravenous claws of their own Bigheads; the time the rotten-fungus sickness spread among them ... time after time; but never, in all the crowded years of life-giving and life-losing had Daydanda known a sickness such as now shouted at her from the Strange girl's dream.

  Even her curiosity would have faltered before this outpouring, but she could not turn away. One listens to a troubled child's dream to diagnose, to find a remedy ... but this! If it were possible to invade the barriers of a full-grown Mother of crime, one might find sorrow and fear and torment such as this.

  As the sunlight had seared her eyeball, so the hellfires of the childish dreaming burned her soul.

  The girl desired that they should find her Mother dead! There was no other way to make sense of it. Daydanda tried. Everything in her fought against even the formulation of such a statement. It was not only evil, but impossible ... unnatural. Non-biologic.

  The child wanted to know that her Mother had been burned to death.

  Within the shining rocket, Daydanda's son moved curiously, feeling and touching ea
ch Strange object cautiously, examining with his eager eye each Strange and inexplicable shape. He waited there, unable to be still in the presence of so much to explore; too fearful of doing damage to explore further till his Mother's mind met his. But the Lady could not be disturbed, the sibling at relay duty said; the Lady was refusing all calls, accepting no contact.

  Wait!

  He waited.

  Non-biologic ... But what did she know of the biology of a Stranger? Even as much as the clerk at the Seat had told her, from the analysis of scrapings and samplings-even that much she did not fully understand, and that could not be more than a fractional knowledge in any case.

  She could not, would not, believe that the Strange daughter's Strange complex of feelings and fears and desires was as subjectively sick as it seemed, by her own standards and experience, to be. A different biologic economy—which most assuredly they had—or a completely different reproductive social organization .. .

  It was possible. The child's independence and resourcefulness her untrained awareness of self and others ... her lack of certainty even as to whether her Mother still lived ... the very existence of two siblings of such widely divergent age and size, without even a suggestion of others who had departed, or been left behind...

  Till now, the Mother had been trying to fit these two Strange children somehow into the patterns of her own world. But she remembered what she had considered at the time to be childish over-statement, or just a part of the confusion of the girl's mind as to place, time, and direction.

  From another world ...

  From above the treetops, but that had not been startling. A nesting couple always descended from above the trees, after the nuptial flight. From above the treetops, but not from below them. From another world...!

  Kackot was hovering nervously above her. The daughter on relay was asking on behalf of the son at the Strange ship. The daughters in the corral wished to report...

  To Kackot and the son both, imperative postponements. She clamped control on her seething mind long enough to determine that it was no emergency in the corral, then closed them all out again, and tried to think more clearly.

  The dream was still too fresh in her mind. And now there was more data to be had. Don't think, then ... just to regain one's sanity, detachment, ability to weigh and to consider. One cannot open contact with the child while looking upon her as a monster.

  (A monster! That's how I seemed to her!)

  Perspective returned slowly. She groped for Kackot's soothing thoughts, refusing to inform him yet, but gratefully accepting his concern. Then the son, waiting restively inside the Strange Wings-House. And last, the child ... Strange child of a Strange world.

  'Very well,' she told them all calmly, or so she hoped. 'Let us commence.'

  Dee was getting tired of it. For a while, it was sort of fun, looking at things the way the son-bug saw them, and watching how clumsy he was every time he tried to do anything the way she told him. Even if these bugs didn't have any machines themselves, you had to be pretty dumb not to be able to just turn a knob when somebody explained it to you.

  She realized she was being rude again. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that you shouldn't even think anything impolite around here. It would be pretty good for some kids she knew, to come here for a while...

  'Other children ... others like yourself?' the Mother felt all excited. 'Of your own Family?'

  Dee shook her head. 'No; just some of the kids who were in the Scout Troop on Starhope.'

  'Others ... brothers and sisters ... from your Household then?'

  She had to think about that, to figure out the right answer. A town or a dome or a city was kind of like the Household here ... but of course, the other kids weren't brothers and sisters, just because you played with them and went to school together. 'Petey's the only brother I have,' she said.

  She didn't think she'd made it very clear, but she had a feeling that the Mother was kind of glad about the answer. She didn't know why; and anyhow, it had nothing to do with the rocket. The son-bug was waiting for his Mother to pay attention to him again.

  For a minute, everybody seemed to go away. Telling secrets! Dee thought irritably. She was beginning to get very bored now, just sitting here answering a lot of silly questions. They'd already put the message on the waxbark up where anybody who came in could see it, and the son-bug had a batch of diapers cleaned for Petey, and a lot of food picked out of the dry storage cabinet. She hoped it was stuff she liked. She couldn't read the labels when she was looking through his eye; anyhow they didn't need her around any more.

  'Don't be silly,' she said out loud. 'There isn't any door to open; they're both open.' Now what did I say that for? 'Listen, I better go see how Petey's getting along. I don't like him trying out that fungus food all by himself. I better ...'

  She started to stand up, but the Mother said quietly, 'Soon. Soon, child. Just a little more. You did not understand; we wish to know how to close the door ... just how to operate the mechanism. My son is eager to try his skill at turning knobs to make machines work.'

  'You mean the airlock? You can't close that from outside. But if he just wants to try it out while he's inside, I guess that's all right. It's kind of complicated, though; he might get stuck in there or something, and..?

  'No child. The airlock is the double-arch opening in the outer wall, is it not?'

  '... yes, and I don't think he better ...'

  'He does not wish to experiment with that one. My son is brave, but not foolish. Only the other, the inner door. If you will...'

  'Okay, but then I want to go see Petey, all right?'

  'As you please.'

  'Okay. Well, you have to turn the lever on the right hand side ...'

  'No, please ... make a picture in your mind. Move your own hand. Pretend to stand before it, and to do as you would do yourself. Think a picture.'

  No! It won't open again! That was a silly thing to think. But all the food's in there!

  'He will not dose it then, child. Only show him how it works, how he would close it if he did. He will not; I promise he will not.'

  She showed him. She pretended to be doing it herself, but she felt strange; and when she was done showing him, she took a good look through the Mother and through him to make sure he hadn't really done it. The door was still open though.

  'Thank you, my child. You wish to go to the garden now?'

  Dee nodded, and felt the Mother go away, and almost ran out, She felt very strange.

  Wearily, the Lady commended her son for his intelligent perception, and queried him about his ability to operate the mechanism. He was a little doubtful. She reassured him: such work was not in his training; he had done well. She ordered two of her mason-builder sons to join their winged sibling in the ship and left instructions to be notified when they were ready to begin

  She tried to rest, meanwhile, but there was too much confusion in her mind: too much new information not yet integrated. And more to come. Better perhaps to wait a bit before they tried that door? No! She caught herself with a start, realized that she had absorbed so much of the Strange daughter's terror of ... of what lay beyond ...

  What lay beyond? Because the child feared it, there was no cause for her to fear as well. It was all inside the girl's subjective world, the thing that was not to be known, the thing that made the door unopenable. It was all part and parcel of the child's failure to be aware of her own Mother's life or death, of ...

  Of the sickness in the dream. She, Daydanda, had brought that sickness into her Household. It was up to her now, to diagnose and cure it—or to cast it out. Such facts were communicable; she had seen it happen, or heard of it at least.

  When a mother dies, there is no way to tell what will happen to her sons and daughters. Even among one's own people, strange things may occur. One Household she had heard of, after the sudden death of the Mother, simply continued to go about the ordinary tasks of every day, as though no change were noticed. It co
uld not last, of course, and did not. Each small decision left unmade, each little necessary change in individual performance, created a piling-up confusion that led at last to the inevitable result: when undirected workers no longer cared for the food supplies; when the reckless unprepared winged ones flew off to early deaths in premature efforts to skim the tree-tops; when nurses ceased to care for hungry Bigheads, or for crying babes, the starving soldiers stormed the corral fences, swarmed into the gardens and the House, and feasted first on succulent infants; then on lean neighbours, and at last—to the vast relief of neighbouring Households—on each other.

  For a time, Daydanda had thought the Strange child's curious mixture of maternal and sibling attitudes to be the product of some similar situation—that the girl was simply trying not to believe her Mother's death, and somehow to succeed in being daughter and Mother both in her own person. But the dream made that hopeful theory impossible to entertain any longer.

  Nor was it possible now to believe that the two children were the remnants of any usual Household. The girl had been too definite about the lack of any other siblings, now or in the past.

  What then? Try to discard all preconceptions. These are Strange creatures from another world. Imagine a biology in which there is no increase in the race—only replacement. The Lady recalled, or thought she did, some parasitic life in the Household of her childhood wherein the parent-organism had to die to make new life...

  The parent had to die!

  Immediately, her mind began to clear. Not sickness then ... not foul untouchable confusion, but a natural Strangeness. Daydanda remembered thinking of the fires of the landing as a ritual ... and now more fire ... the Mother must be burned before the young one can mature? Some biologic quality of the ash, perhaps? Something ... if that were so, it would explain, too, the child's persistent self-reminder that she must return to the rocket, even while she yearned to stay here where safety and protection lay.