by James Morrow
Six days later, Francis walked into the bedroom and saw that Mr. Nose, Shag the Sea Serpent, and Tez’s clothes were gone. A note fluttered on the pillow. Its gist was that she had made good her promise to clear out. The last two sentences were particularly galling. “There is a difference between science and arrogance. I’m sorry to be the one who breaks this to you.”
Francis felt tears in his eyes, tried unsuccessfully to stopper them with a wince. Damn you Tez, he thought, Quetzalia is not my home. He tore the note repeatedly, a piece for every word, and scattered it like confetti.
When Burne rushed into the bedroom, Francis lay transfixed, staring at a ceiling crack that looked like one of the constellations Tez had shown him, Janet’s Dragon. “She moved out.” Francis’s voice was toneless.
“Are you surprised?”
“Moderately.”
“I want to tell you about a nice little result from down the hall. Maybe it will cheer you up.”
“I’m not really sure that I’m depressed.” He almost meant it. “It had to end sometime.”
Burne said, “I’ve been spending my morning banging chitzals together, and there hasn’t been so much as a family quarrel. It’s just as Vij predicted. In six days—poof!—the aggression is gone. Lostwax, buddy, I think we’ve got natural law where we want her.”
“What next?”
“We sacrifice the chitzals. We look for brain lesions, liver damage, cancer, teratogenic effects—three of the experimentals were pregnant, right?”
“Yes. And if all the tests are negative…?”
“We go for results that nobody can dispute. We put it into chitzals again, ten times, twenty times. We put it into pigs, mice, monkeys, rabbits, the whole damn zoo.”
“And if the animal trials fail?”
“We admit defeat.”
“And if they succeed?”
“We put it into people.”
15
GOVERNOR NAZRA installed his beefy rear in a lipocawool cushion and stared at the men below. So, he thought, these are the famous extraterrestrials who want to deliver us from neurovores—we’ll see about that. Nazra, a great waddling pudding of a man, had a hard nose to offset his soft belly. It would take some awfully fancy arguments to convince him this army business was a good idea.
Of the two Nearthlings who occupied the Vij Memorial Arena, only Francis returned Nazra’s gaze. Standing in the pit’s red ring, the entomologist writhed with self-consciousness. He wanted to be anywhere but here—the festering swamps of Arete, the bleak moons of Kritonia, anywhere. Our governor looks intelligent, he thought. Not easy to please, but not hostile either. If Burne plays his cards right, Aca will swing over, and our war will happen.
Of course, Francis wasn’t entirely convinced he wanted their war to happen. Could he really grab a sword and chop up neurovores? No, not even if he took a noctus dose himself. But without the war there would be no ship, and without the ship there would be no home, no Cortexclavus triumph, no Poelsig Award, and he would remain forever on this lunatic planet.
Nazra’s arrival inspired the rest of the Aca power structure—the aides, the cabinet members, the legislators, the professional sycophants—to shut up and find seats. Cuz was also represented, in the person of an Antistasist named Minnix Cies. Francis guessed Cies must be the gaunt, straight-backed one who sat friendless in the front row, politicians spread around him like iron filings around a magnet.
The remaining invitations had gone to Tepec’s great institutions: the library, the hospital, the church. Vaxcala was first to reply. She returned Burne’s battle plan with three words scrawled across the top: “This is insane.” Loloc Haz sent an angry note saying he was sorry to see Vij’s speculations exploited in this way, sorry he had let Francis even look at them. He would come to the council, but with the intention of asking as many unfriendly questions as possible. The Hospital of Chimec delegated Mool, who sat in uncharacteristic quietude behind folded arms.
“You have all read the proposal for this campaign,” Burne began. “Some of you probably have reactions.” Clearly an understatement, Francis concluded from the flood of grunts and nods. It subsided as Loloc stood and spoke.
“I shall not insult your cunning, Newman, by asking why you want exactly twenty-five days for this scheme and not twenty-six or twenty-seven. Obviously you know better than to disrupt the sacred cycle of Zolmec. But is such a timetable really workable? In twenty-five days can your hypothesized thousand reach the neurovore stronghold, wipe it out, and return to Quetzalia?”
“It would be unscientific of me to claim certainty in this matter,” Burne began through a mouthful of humble pie. “Who can prove the future? Nevertheless, let me spell out several of our war’s more impressive safety valves.” He carried a wooden staff equal to his height, and he jabbed it into the ground whenever a sentence ended with an exclamation point.
“Before we were forced to abandon our magnecar inside your Temple of Tolca, its odometer gave the distance from the neurovore oasis to Quetzalia: nine hundred kilometers. Now, I think you will agree with me that a lipoca, even a last-legs, out-to-pasture, ready-for-the-rubber-cement-factory lipoca, can travel nine hundred kilometers in eight days. Our plan allows eleven days! The enemy numbers three hundred at most—fewer than a hundred and fifty attacked us at the oasis. Hence, I anticipate a one-day battle. But we can take three days! After that, Dr. Lostwax and I proceed alone to our spaceship, a day’s ride, and the army returns to Quetzalia—another eleven-day trip that will in reality consume only eight. In short, we are assigning twenty-five days to a seventeen-day expedition!”
Approving noises rippled through the politicians. Loloc stayed on his feet. “I don’t dispute your arithmetic, Newman, merely your premises. You are promising to obliterate the tribes in a single raid—which assumes they are all concentrated in one place. But suppose the small band that attacked you at the drawbridge still roams the desert? They might attempt an ambush. Suppose a neurovore escapes the battle? The desert cannot be ours so long as even one creature with killing capacity lives. Suppose there is a second oasis? Or a third?”
“I shall be honest,” Burne replied. “My interests are not unselfish. Dr. Lostwax and I want Darwin back. But I hope you believe me when I say that I care deeply for this civilization and that, once I am home, my knowledge of Luta remains an imperishable secret. Nothing would pain me more than to see a Nearthian ship land here again. I owe you my life. You didn’t have to lower your bridge to us, but you did. I tried to repay your heroism by stopping that renegade Brain Eater. But let me go even further. Let me cut the entire neurovorean worm from the Quetzalian apple!”
“That was a very pretty speech,” said Loloc, “but if it contained an answer to even one of my questions then I did not hear it.”
Burne left the blue ring and approached Loloc. His exclamation point went to work. “A thousand soldiers are not vulnerable to ambush, Dr. Haz, not on open desert. I hope we are ambushed! Every neurovore dispatched along the way is one less to worry about later. As for the main battle, it’s true we may not kill them all. But we shall deal them a defeat from which they can never recover! If we eliminate only half the females, the whole race is on the road to extinction. Yes, there may be a second oasis, or even a third. I doubt it. But if Quetzalia can raise an army once, she can raise an army twice. Dr. Lostwax and I shall leave a syringe behind.”
“Your shamelessness is a model for us all.” In sitting, Loloc seemed to trigger Minnix Cies on the opposite side of the arena.
“I would like to speak in Dr. Newman’s favor,” Minnix began. He wore the flame-eyed, grim-lipped look of a man who had as little use for self-doubt as he had for other people’s approval. “To me he is a civilized man. In the past this country taught its children that only Quetzalians are civilized. Yes, he can kill. But he can also be killed. His neurovore hunt entailed staggering risks. I think Dr. Newman is like the falcons that our ancestors brought on Eden Three. He has talons, but he does no
t use them capriciously.”
“As long as things go his way,” Loloc put in without rising.
“I give him more credit than that. Dr. Newman was not forced to hold this meeting. He could have rounded up a thousand of us. He could have dragged us onto the desert, injected us right before the neurovores struck. Outnumbered, they lose, and Dr. Newman regains his ship.”
“Don’t give him any ideas,” said Loloc.
“All I can say is that the Antistasists find in this war the kind of boldness Quetzalia must embrace if she is to avoid stagnation and decay.”
Now it was Mool’s turn. He seemed not merely to stand but to ascend. He hugged himself and addressed a cloudless autumn sky. “As many of you know, I am a man who does mince words. I mince, dice, and subdivide them. The Antistasist who just spoke assumes total victory as Quetzalia’s destiny. I question this. In his proposal, Dr. Newman explains that the solution should be kept to ten percent, the dosage to one cc per twenty-five kilograms of body weight. Beyond these limits, the drug becomes a rabid weasel. As a scientist, I applaud his caution. But as a parent whose son may end up joining this bizarre adventure, I can’t help fretting.” Mool’s gaze slithered from the sky to the pit. “Dr. Newman, you have proved—to my satisfaction, at least, through controlled studies destined to become classics in the annals of pharmacology—you have proved that diluted noctus can render a pacifist organism capable of the obscenity called battle, meaning that if attacked the organism will defend itself.”
“Well put,” said Burne.
“Then my question—I call it a question, but, as is common in such situations, I am not really asking a question so much as I am doling out an amalgam of fact, opinion, and challenge—my question is, when neurovores are the enemy, is mere defensiveness adequate, even when coupled with numerical advantage? You are dealing with one of the strongest and most vicious animals in the galaxy. You are not dealing with…Quetzalians.” Mool looked around to confirm that he was drawing smiles.
“Finished?” asked Burne, regaining the blue ring.
“I am never finished. But you may speak.”
“There is more to my strategy than numbers, Dr. Mool. My soldiers will have superior mobility. They will be a cavalry, our enemy a barefoot infantry. My soldiers will have superior intellect. Most Quetzalians are educated to levels that on Nearth would equal degrees in philosophy and medicine. Our enemy is educated to levels that on Nearth would equal degrees in soup dribbling and nose picking. Finally, my soldiers will have superior equipment. The neurovores can fight only at close range, but Quetzalians can kill at a distance.” He made a sudden, checkmating move. “Behold!”
Much as he disliked calling attention to himself, Francis knew that he should now step into Burne’s ring. Arriving, he drew a lipocaskin thong from his robe. Burne, meanwhile, drove one tip of his staff into the dirt and bore down on the other, causing a bend. He took the thong from Francis and secured the bend with a quick knot at each end.
And so it was that Burne Newman manufactured within the walls of Quetzalia something that no citizen had ever seen manufactured there before. A longbow: a weapon.
Francis fumbled inside his robe and procured a thin dowel. One end, through radiating feathers, had been made stable; the other, through a pointed rock, lethal. He retreated to the shadows by the north door.
Burne threaded the nock, drew back the thong. Aimed high over the heads of the spectators, the arrow shot away with dazzling straightness and velocity. It reached an apex and, curving gracefully, passed beyond the eyesight of all save the astronomers in the audience.
Mool sat down. “I am convinced,” he said with a groan.
AS THE MORNING SLOGGED ON, side conversations and feet shufflings arose with increasing frequency. All of this became astoundingly evident the moment it stopped. Governor Nazra had lifted a finger.
“Each of you wonders what I think of this,” he began in an earthquake voice. “I shall tell you. I am impressed. Certainly we want the neurovorean curse lifted. And yet, one question has not been asked.” He slid his dumpling body forward and addressed Burne. “What makes you think that your results apply to people?”
“People do, Governor Nazra.” Burne flung a finger toward the north door. Taking the cue, Francis seized its ring and yanked hard. Well-oiled, the door pivoted freely, revealing Zamanta and Momictla. Their accouterments were not customary. Each held a broadsword in one hand and a shield in the other.
Walking to the couple, Burne took Momictla’s weapons, held them aloft. “Let me now prove the power of my science. Standing before you are two ordinary citizens. Seven days ago I took one of Dr. Lostwax’s hypodermic syringes and injected Zamanta with three cc’s, the right dosage for a human. I did not act against his will.”
“That is true,” said Zamanta, loud-voiced.
“Until yesterday he was capable of provoked aggression. Now the drug has worn off totally.” Burne whirled around and charged. Zamanta sidestepped, not far enough to avoid Burne’s thrust. Sword contacted shield with a crisp metallic peal.
“And now,” said Burne, “permit me to amaze you.”
Clutching his insulin kit, Francis quit the shadows and stepped back into the blue ring. He popped the kit open. Two five-cc syringes lay velvet-cradled like a pair of pistols. A black substance filled their bellies.
Resting sword and shield on the ground, Burne chose the topmost syringe, approached Momictla. She eyed the needle fearfully. In a coarse whisper that mingled reassurance with threat, Burne said, “Trust me. I saved your children.”
Momictla stiffened. Burne slid back her sleeve and stuck her. He retreated the plunger: no blood. Confident that he had not hit a vein, he loaded her arm with three cubic centimeters. She did not wince or move, even when a green welt bloomed where the needle had entered.
“The drug takes effect in ten minutes,” Burne explained.
Questions filled the time. A politician asked Zamanta if he had experienced any side effects, nasty or otherwise. No. In fact, he felt rather invigorated. Noctus had probably added “a good four hours to my life.” The crowd broke into a collective chuckle. Momictla reported a slight headache and a feeble twinge of nausea, but hastened to explain that she always got such symptoms when on public view.
“Prepare to defend yourself,” Burne instructed his subject, retrieving his own weapons from the ground. Momictla took sword and shield from her husband.
Burne struck first, hitting Momictla’s wobbly sword. She firmed her grip and returned the blow. The entire audience shot up like a spew of lava. They could not have been more amazed had the woman turned into a toad.
Momictla had never dueled before, but she was quick on her feet and took well to novelty. She knew the visual if not the kinesthetic side of violence, having watched it many times in the Temple of Tolca. She matched Burne blow for blow.
It was not until they had circled the arena four times, the gongs all the while getting sharper, the intervals between them shorter, that Burne caught Momictla relaxing and bashed the sword from her hand. Even now she did not surrender, but grasped her shield in both hands and stood ready to parry further attacks.
But Burne had made his point. He drove his sword into the dirt and held out his hands, palms up, as if he’d just executed an acrobatic feat. The politicians did not know whether to cheer, gasp, or retch. They looked at Nazra.
The governor rose. “For two hundred years we have been locked behind stone walls, prisoners on our own planet.” His voice was building to another shock wave. “Now we have a chance for freedom, and to take it we need only make a temporary and rather trivial break with an old tradition. Something in me hesitates to do this!”
He’s against us! Francis thought. As depression bored into him, he experienced the curious feeling than an identical depression would have attended Nazra buying their arguments.
“And yet,” the governor continued, “we cannot live in the past. We must give our descendants a whole planet, not a
green sliver jammed between cannibals and sea. I think I speak for the overwhelming majority when I say this plan is worthy.”
The arena broke into yeses and nodding heads. He has bought our arguments, Francis thought, shifting motives for his depression.
Nazra now focused on Burne. “I hope you realize that my religious beliefs would never allow me actually to condone this war. Zolmec is evermore opposed to all forms of violence. What I shall do is pressure my church to adopt an officially neutral stance. And with parliamentary support, which I think I’ll get, I can probably maneuver the clergy into certain dispensations regarding machines and war. Your troops deserve to partake of hypodermic technology without guilty consciences. But first one thing must happen.”
“What?” asked Burne.
“In seven days I want you to bring me this woman. I want to see for myself that she has reverted to pacifism. If she is still a Nearthling, I shall encourage Vaxcala Coatl to brand your army as heretical and wicked.”
Burne grew radiant. “An informed and reasonable demand, governor.”
HOME WAS CLOSER THAN EVER. Yet Francis knew somehow that, even with the entire Aca bureaucracy tacitly behind it, this war would be less clean than recent speeches suggested. The council, evidently, did not agree. They were shifting, muttering, and otherwise communicating a conviction that nothing more needed to be said.
But then a small female form stood up, face behind the shadow of a hood. “Wait!” the woman called in a husky voice, flipping back the hood to reveal a flagrant familiarness. Francis’s shock faded, became curiosity, became sexual longing.
“I was not invited here,” Tez began. “I probably have no authority to speak.”
Correct, you sneaky little invertebrate, Burne’s frown said.
“Who are you?” Nazra asked.
“I’ll tell you who she is,” said Mool in a lather. “She’s Tez Yon, a resident surgeon. Dr. Yon, I’m representing Chimec here. I suggest you go back to work.”