Half Past Human (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by T. J. Bass

  Walter turned to the dismantled meck eye. Without a Tinker, he and Val did what little repairs they could until a replacement could be assigned. Spreading the retinal membranes out, he checked them for EM sensitivity. Speaking into the dispenser’s audio pickup, he ordered new parts: ‘Need EM membranes for meck eye – layers IIIa, IIIb, and IVd. Eye number – HC 15-20486.’

  It was a routine expendable item. The requisition jumped smoothly up through channels and the little package came whizzing through the ten-centimeter tube. There was a crunch and a mangled container fell out into his chute.

  ‘Damn! The air cushion stop must be down again. Where’s our Pipe man?’

  ‘Eppendorff is with the Sewer Service today, sir.’

  3

  Moses Eppendorff

  Moses Eppendorff steered his minisub carefully through the mile-wide interior of the anaerobic digester. Visibility had been improved a little by recirculating a laminar stream of clear effluent, but he felt a bit nervous about the massive islands of sludge that remained. He preferred the placid check trips through the polar conduits carrying clear melt-water from the ice cap. There were few surprises in sterile fluids. But the digester was anything but sterile. Life flourished all around him – acres of fungus and bacteria pulsed with enzymatic life as sewage nutrients were digested. In the sub’s lights these resembled multicolored clouds above and firmer gelatinous towers below. Vertical stringy material connected the two. The stringy material clung to the sub’s bow-like gum and trailed behind. Soon he resembled an aquatic comet on the digester’s sensors.

  Flexing the craft’s surface charge he shook off the sticky tail of yeasts and mycelia. He maneuvered close to a yellow translucent mass about ten times the size of his sub and extended his sampler tube. Aspirating a fragment of the gelatinous material, he moved on. So far it looked like a routine inspection.

  ‘Still no sign of membrane activity,’ he reported.

  A square face appeared on the screen – a two-star Aquarius – J. D. Birk, Moses’ immediate superior in the Pipe caste.

  ‘You still have about a quarter of a mile to go,’ said Birk. ‘The first disturbance you’ll come to is on the other side of the bubble curtain, in the aerobic section.’

  Birk was a human, of course, but his years in the hierarchy had robbed him of his sense of humor. Moses was always a bit suspicious of anyone with authority who couldn’t smile.

  ‘Right, sir,’ said Moses, steering through the jungle of microorganisms. His membrane scope saw nothing. The micron-sized cell life did have polarized membranes, but his calibration was set for centimeter-and-up scale. The scope’s field continued to quest about the sludge for ghosts.

  For months the digester’s sensors had picked up nondescript sightings – membrane integrity on the level of a coelenterate with a size larger than his minisub. Of course such sightings did not compute. The data was given a ghost classification and the electronic components were being checked. The images appeared in different areas of the digester, changed shape and disappeared, only to reappear somewhere else. Birk was satisfied with the ‘ghost’ interpretation until the caloric output of the digester was observed to fall when they appeared. Ghosts – electronic or otherwise – did not require calories. Moses had been sent in.

  ‘I’m passing through the bubble curtain,’ shouted Moses over the hiss and roar.

  Around him the sludge islands became aerated and buoyed to the surface.

  ‘I have you on the screen. See anything?’ asked Birk.

  ‘Nothing. Visibility is pretty good too – more than thirty yards.’

  ‘Most of the sludge has been activated in that section. The skimmers are removing— Watch it! Looks like a ghost is forming up around you.’

  ‘Can’t see anything unusual. Turbidity might be increasing a little. That’s all – hey! Something just turned my sub over! Viewport clouded up. Can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Turn off your jets. It is alive and delicate. Your jets are tearing it apart. Keep recording. It is carrying you up out of the range of this pick-up.’

  Moses calmed down and deactivated his motor. Squirming for comfort in his harness he looked out the upside-down port. A quivering, amorphous mass covered the plate, blocking his view of the outside world. Depth gauge changes indicated a drop in water pressure. The sub slowly righted itself.

  ‘My instruments tell me I’m on the surface – but I still can’t see.’

  Birk switched to surface sensors in the arched ceiling of the digester. Audio picked up the drip, drip, drip of condensate. Optics showed the usual gas pocket – an arched dome trailing fine hairlike mycelia and the dark fluid surface flecked with bacterial colonies. He tried other optics. Several were blocked by a tangle of rootlike structures – branching, white and glistening.

  ‘Sit tight,’ said Birk. ‘Keep your sensors on. Maybe we’ll learn something. You are safe enough. If we want to get you out, all we have to do is turn on your jets and rip the membrane ghost apart.’

  Moses activated his sampler tube and biopsied the nebulous thing that held him. Then he sat back and relaxed. Opening a cylinder sandwich he munched his way through a crisp brown, a rubbery yellow and a pasty green. Several hours later he biopsied the thing again. That bite shook the sub. The ghost’s tensile strength had increased markedly. He opened his mouth to complain when the film over the port rolled up into a ropelike structure. He pressed his face against the cold, flat plate and peered out.

  Birk watched the ghost fade from the sensors. ‘It is gone,’ he exclaimed. ‘What can you see?’

  Moses stared a moment longer. ‘Not gone – dead.’

  Birk’s screen had registered a large sheet of ionic activity while the creature lived. Now, as it changed from a huge amoeba-like mass to a tangle of stems, the ionic activity faded.

  Moses amended: ‘Not dead – fruited. That thing has turned into a mat of tall white stems, each topped by a melon.’

  The sub floated in an acre-sized gas pocket filled with stalks and melons. Some of the melons were glistening and white, but most had taken on a dull gray appearance. A few were split, black and dusty. Moses described what he saw.

  ‘The Amorphus!’ exclaimed his superior. ‘It must be a giant mutant of the Amorphus – a slime mold. I’ve seen them in digesters before – the small one-inch size. Taste good. Delicious. Like a truffle. If these are related to the edible species, we’re rich! Can you suit up and get one of those white ones into your cockpit?’

  Moses put on his Pelger-Huet helmet. Its pair of large symmetrical view glasses gave him a buglike appearance. After checking the suit’s air supply he cracked the hatch. Digester gases were usually not breathable. He would have to wait until later to see how the Amorphus smelled.

  The mat of stems supported his weight with only slight fluctuations. He snapped off a small rubbery white melon with a short segment of stem, returned and wedged it behind his seat.

  The sub nosed its way into its home berth and bit into its power socket. Birk waited on the dock with two men from Synth. They transferred the melon to their cart and rolled off.

  ‘We’ll name it the Birk-Eppendorff Melon when we file our report. BEM. Has a certain ring to it,’ said Birk.

  Moses shrugged out of his sticky suit. He watched the cart with its burden disappear around a corner.

  ‘It must weigh twenty or thirty pounds,’ said Moses. Then he frowned thoughtfully. ‘Moses’ Melon. Moses’ Melon. I like that.’

  After a moment of suspicious silence Birk smiled cheerfully: ‘Right! Moses’ Melon does have a certain ring to it. I’ll write it up that way. And – I’ll add a recommendation for a bonus vacation for you. How would you like to go on a Hunt?’

  Moses shook his head.

  ‘Trophy-taking has never appealed to me.’

  ‘A Climb?’

  Moses shrugged. ‘A Climb? Why not.’

  Birk seemed satisfied, and began filling out his report.

  Even in the off hours the
tubeways were crowded. Half a million per hour passed through Moses Eppendorff’s home station. With fresh nose filters in place he was able to tolerate the acrid stench while he changed tubeways twice to end up at his own shaft base. A press of hundreds of his anonymous neighbors queued up at dispensers and blocked his way. Stepping over a discoloring corpse he pushed up the spiral. Two hours later, bone tired, he reached his crawlway.

  ‘HC has been calling,’ said his dispenser.

  Moses waited. Val’s face at Hunter Control appeared on the screen.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Moses. But we needed a Pipe. The catcher’s mitt unit went out on our dispenser. The ten-centimeter tube.’

  ‘Can you use the one in the garage until tomorrow?’

  Val saw the tired lines growing around Moses’ eyes.

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry about it tonite. I’ve been looking at it myself. If it’s in the timing circuit I’ll be able to plug in a new one myself.’

  Moses nodded a thank you and hit his cot, sleeping instantly. Tomorrow he served on the megajury.

  In the crowded station a frightened girl quickened her pace. She wore the blue-white smock of Attendant caste. Her Virgo emblem had no stars. Her smooth body curves marked her as one of the polarized – puberty plus four. Her green eyes darted over the crowd – hundreds of blank faces flowed around her – the usual mass of nose-picking strangers that filled the tubeways with its random movements. But now one of those strangers did not move randomly.

  He followed her.

  Rough hands reached out of the crowd. Strong fingers tore at her tunic exposing pink flesh of breasts and hips. A maniacal face pressed against her – beady eyes too close together, aquiline nose, thin dry mouth. A knife point toyed with the skin of her flank – scratching and pinking – releasing thin trickles of blood. A hard mouth sought hers. Her screams and struggle went unnoticed by the anonymous crowd. Two inches of the knife playfully poked into her belly, popping an unseen gas-filled viscus. In and out, in and out. The red blade made a row of puncture wounds under her ribs. A large vessel parted. Her strength faded. The image of the maniacal face was frozen into her memory molecules as she slumped to the floor. He bent down over her. The crowd continued its random movements. A careless footstep on her limp left hand snapped two small finger bones. Other footsteps tracked the widening circle of red.

  The murderer-rapist completed the second stage of his compulsive act and began stage three. He was gleefully trimming off pieces of his victim when the Security Squad arrived. The scene froze as the throwing net dropped over him. Moses studied the features – aquiline nose, close-set eyes. The optic record was clear enough. The wet knife was still in his hand. The image became smaller and moved to the right upper corner of the screen so the megajury could compare it with the prisoner who now appeared. He was obviously the same man. He sat in his cell eating a meal. This second image grew smaller and moved to the upper-left corner. The trial computer had assembled a complete picture of the crime this time, and Moses did not hesitate to press his ‘execute’ button. The arguments for suspension fell on deaf ears – too many of the organically ill awaited suspension space as it was. It was no time to be overly generous towards the psychotics.

  The Murder-Rape Syndrome and the Mass-Murder Syndrome were increasing logarithmically with population density. Moses had little hope for these mad-dog killers. They could never be returned to society at present population density. He felt that he owed it to society to press the button.

  After the arguments were complete, more votes tallied. The image of the prisoner moved back to central screen. His bioelectrical parameters ran across the bottom of the split screen. He finished eating and wiped his thin mouth on the back of his right hand. He did not even know when the voting hit over 50 per cent. Heavy metal ions and toxic radicals tied up his enzyme systems. Bioelectricals flattened out – membranes depolarized and stayed neutral.

  Moses acknowledged his credit award for megajury duty and rolled over on his pillow. The screen played light musicals while he slept. His own breakfast could wait until he finished his night’s rest.

  After brunch he checked with HC. They had the catcher’s mitt working. He adjusted his cubicle air vent and took a deep breath.

  ‘What does the Outside smell of today?’ asked a voice from the doorway.

  ‘Green,’ said Moses turning to see his visitor. It was Simple Willie, his badly scarred and sometimes confused neighbor from the next cubicle. Moses nodded. The dispenser issued a foamy. Willie picked it up with stiff contracted fingers.

  ‘Green is a color, not an odor,’ he said, sitting in the corner and foaming up his lip.

  ‘I consider it both – like artichoke and avocado can be both colors and flavors.’

  Willie drained his drink and wiped his pock-marked chin on his sleeve. He stared wistfully through the opposite wall.

  ‘Artichokes and avocados can be more than colors and flavors. They can be things – parts of plants, I think.’

  Moses studied Willie’s round face – tight with old scars. Willie had been Outside too long. It had begun as a Hunt, but there was an accident and he became lost – wandering for over a year – burning and peeling. When they found him with his trophy he had little memory. The heat of the sun had fried his brain, they thought. Plastic work was done on his face, hands and feet – but the scars continued to pucker and contract, tightening joints and disfiguring his face. Psych put him through rehab, but failed to make a useful citizen out of him. The combination of Hunt drugs and prolonged exposure to Outside traumas was too much. He was now living out his life span on the Big ES allotment of calorieand quarters-basic – CQB – fifteen hundred calories and thirty cubic yards – about half the CQB of Moses, a worker.

  Simple Willie would visit Moses at every opportunity. He enjoyed the spaciousness and flavors. Moses accepted Willie. The poor frightened guy was pleasant enough most of the time, but would often deteriorate into mumbling incoherencies and fondling his grisly cubed trophy. He earned his nickname – Simple.

  Willie continued: ‘There used to be many kinds of plants – yellow was the turnip; purple was the beet; dum de dum de dum dum; good enough to eat. I forget how the rest goes. My mother taught me that rhyme. My birth was a class four. Did you have a biouterus, or a meck?’

  ‘Meck, I think,’ said Moses. He knew that most of the citizens in his age group had been class ones – carbon copy in a bottle. Predictable genes in carbon copies – better citizens, more predictable, reliable, complacent Nebishes.

  ‘Too bad,’ said Willie. ‘I rather enjoyed having a pair of biological parents. I have some warm memories of family life. We shouldn’t be living alone in these tiny apartments. It isn’t good.’

  Moses picked up two more foamy drinks and gave Willie one.

  ‘I wish I had a son,’ said Willie.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is sad to die – unmourned.’

  Talking to Willie always made Moses feel uncomfortable. He walked back to the air vent and changed the subject.

  ‘I still say it smells green Outside. I think I’ll go have a look for myself.’

  Willie recoiled. ‘You’re not going—’

  ‘I’ll just climb upshaft and look through the grill. No harm in that. Why don’t you come along?’

  Willie withdrew into his corner and toyed with his trophy cube.

  ‘Can’t stand those crowds on the spiral. Damn people. There are too many of them. I used to be able to fight my way through any crowd when I was younger. But that was before I went Outside.’ Willie took off his boots, exposing his three-toed feet. ‘Lost my toes out there, too.’

  Moses chided: ‘Lost your toes and your guts. I guess you are a prime example of Toe Psychology – lose a toe, and lose initiative. If man ever evolves into a three-toed citizen things will get really dull around here.’

  Willie’s face showed a mixture of fear and anger. Sorting out his feelings he stood up hesitantly.

  ‘Maybe I�
��ll come with you, if – if the walkway isn’t too crowded.’

  Moses smiled confidently, patting him on the back. They filled their pockets with sweet bars, fat cubes and woven protein from Moses’ dispenser – charged to Moses’ credits – and started out.

  It was a fifty-yard crawl to the spiral. Only a few middle-aged apathetics straggled by. No crowd. They walked over to the railing and leaned out into the shaft. An eighth of a mile below the floor of the shaft was a hazy disc of heads. Above them the shaft cap was a vague glow – more than a half-mile straight up. They started around the upspiral, passing the anonymous crawlways of their neighbors in the shaft city.

  An hour later they took a drink break – each quarter-mile turn of the spiral lifted them only twenty yards. It would take over three hours to reach the cap.

  ‘Enjoy looking Outside?’ asked Willie nervously.

  ‘I guess it is interesting,’ shrugged Moses. ‘I got a good close look a few months back while repairing an air vent over at HC. It looked and smelled green then – real green. I felt green for a few days afterwards.’

  ‘Humans used to live Outside,’ said Willie wistfully. ‘Used to live in the ocean too – still carry gill slits to prove it – embryonic gill slits. I suppose our toes are embryonic memories of living Outside. We certainly don’t need them in the hive. No running, climbing or swimming to do here.’

  Moses didn’t like the way Simple Willie spat out the term hive. He knew how some citizens hated the Big ES, claiming it treated them unfairly. But these were not the Good Citizens, they were the outcasts, the misfits.

  Moses looked down at his own feet. ‘We need some toes, for walking – like now.’

  Simple Willie glanced around for Watcher sensors. He smiled knowingly at Moses.

  ‘I agree,’ he said placidly. ‘And the Big ES is really a wonderful place to live. I know. I spent some time Outside experiencing the dangers. It was terrifying. All that open space! I don’t think I could have survived it without my drugs to protect me. And there was weather.’ Moses waited for him to continue. They had been over this subject many times before.