And though Malina possessed neither Miss Schlupe's lively imagination nor her gall, she asked herself, as she looked down on her unsuspecting prospective patients, "If she could do it, why can't IT'
The milling crowd around the sales windows was much too complex to grasp as an entity. She concentrated on individuals, watching one edge forward patiently, hover briefly at a window while he made his purchase, turn away nibbling or munching or chomping or rasping or grinding a sandwich; or, from another appendage, sipping or slurping or sucking or lapping or absorbing a mug of cider. One life form bought only cider, at least a dozen mugs carefully held side by side in its three enormous disc-tipped arms; and as it turned away from the window it passed its mouth over the liquid and inhaled it. Then it fastidiously deposited the paper mugs in a waste container and went burping off.
Miss Schlupe arrived, bringing Brian and Maia, and asked her if she was making any progress.
"As I understand it," Malina said, "the idea is to favorably impress these monsters. Do favors for them. Scratch them when they have an itch. That sort of thing. The only thing I can think of for a doctor to do is - doctor. Has the mart ever had an epidemic?"
"Arluklo would know. Just go over to the Kloa Common and ask for him."
Miss Schlupe had offered the children jobs. Their payment would be in the fibrous tokens that were the money she had invented. At the moment it wouldn't buy anything except cider and sandwiches, but she confidently expected it to become a common medium of exchange at the mart. "A lot of traders are going to get the idea that a tidy profit can be made in the arena from small sales for personal use or immediate consumption."
Brian and Maia were put to work filling sandwich crates for the sales force, and Malina, after seeing them safely occupied, avoided the crowded arena by transmitting back to the bakery. From there she walked to the arena and located the Kloa Common by the simple expedient of following several kloa who were scurrying along ahead of her.
She drifted through the common, asking each klo she met for Arluklo and receiving unintelligible replies. Then she saw the looming, creamy whiteness and the flashing lights, and she moved hypnotically toward it.
The kloatraz. Staring at it, she had an inspiration. If this marvelous computer knew enough about the mart life forms to help Miss Schlupe plan their sandwiches, why couldn't it help Malina treat them medically?
Arluklo approached her, indistinguishable from his fellow kloa until he called her Gula Darr in large-talk. She asked him for the favor of some information, and with his usual studious politeness he escorted her to a cubicle, got her seated, and scrambled onto a high stool to face her.
She asked, "Does the mart have a chief medical officer?"
She had to rephrase the question twice. Finally the klo answered,
"One of the gesardl is charged with medical responsibilities."
"Is this member of the gesardl a doctor?"
"No. He maintains a consultant who is a - a health scientist." "Does the mart have a hospital?"
Again she had to rephrase the question. Arluklo answered, "No." "How are the sick cared for?"
"There is no care for the sick," Arluklo said. "There is medical care for the healthy, so there will be no sick."
"Who provides that care? The mart's health scientist?"
"Each common has its own health procedures established by its own health scientists."
"I see. Does the kloatraz have medical information about the various life forms at the mart?"
"Very little," Arluklo answered.
"Since it had dietary information Gula Schlu could use in planning
the food she sells, I thought perhaps - "
"But that is commercial information!" Arluklo exclaimed. "Commercial? I don't understand."
"The kloatraz has complete information concerning products each life form trades or accepts in trade."
"And a life form would be likely to trade for food it is able to eat. Of course. But what about the medicines each life form trades for?"
"Few medicines are traded at the mart," Arluklo said.
And that, Malina thought, probably means that each life form tends to develop its medicines on its home planet. In any case, the kloatraz would be of no help to her. She asked, "Does every common have a resident health scientist?":
"I think not," Arluklo said. "I could inquire."
"Please do. As you know, I am the health scientist for the Prime Common. I was thinking of establishing a health clinic, where I would offer free consultations to life forms that do not have their own health scientist in residence. Is there a need for such a clinic?"
"I could inquire," Arluklo said.
"Please do. Has the mart ever had an epidemic?"
Arluklo did not know what the term meant. His ignorance raised questions that had never occurred to her: Was it possible that universal diseases were non-existent or extremely rare - at least in the Greater Galaxy? There couldn't be an epidemic at Montura Mart if no disease was capable of afflicting more than one or a very few life forms.
She reminded Arluklo to inquire as to the possible need for a clinic and took her leave of him, pausing for another look at the kloatraz on her way out.
When she returned to the Prime Common, she asked E-Wusk for a place to work. He presented her with an unused cubicle, where she seated herself on a hassock too small for her, at a desk too low for her, and could think of nothing to do.
Apparently Supreme had information that indicated some kind of dermatological crisis at Montura Mart. Otherwise, why pay a million dollars for a dermatologist? And Supreme was wrong. Not only was there nothing for a dermatologist to do, there was no need for any kind of doctor.
Later she told Miss Schlupe what she had learned, and Miss Schlupe said, again, "If only Mr. Darzek were here - "
Malina went to her bedroom and found Brian and Maia having a joyful battle with their sleeping mats. The room was a mess. She immediately arranged with Miss Schlupe for the use of one of the vacant rooms as a play and school room, but she knew it was not enough. She simply had to find a place where they could run off their surplus energy.
The next morning the gesardl imparted its grudging permission for them to use the park.
"Except that it isn't really a park," Miss Schlupe said, pointing to the patch of purple visible from the lounge of an apartment across the common from theirs. "It's just a freakish place where things grow. I've flown over it several times, visiting my cider mill, and I don't remember ever seeing anyone using it."
"Is it safe?"
"Perfectly safe. I made a point of asking about that. You can go this afternoon."
"Do you want to come with us?"
Miss Schlupe shook her head. "I've seen parks on too many worlds. They make me homesick. Grass that isn't anything like grass, trees that aren't, and never a decent picnic table to be had. No thank you. You'll find it interesting, though, and the kids should have a good romp. I'll stay here and catch up on my work."
After an afternoon of looking after Brian and Maia, Malina thought ruefully, Miss Schlupe probably had a great deal of work to catch up on. She turned down Miss Schlupe's offer of a picnic supper of cider and sandwiches. "I don't want to spend the entire afternoon there," she said. "There's no point in overdoing things on the first outing."
After a lunch prepared from their stock of canned goods and much appreciated by Miss Schlupe, they went down and boarded a strange little oblong flying saucer of a craft that the gesardl chauffeur had waiting for them in the landing field just outside their tower. They took off, and the ride made Brian's day long before they got to the park.
Against the setting of a barren Monturan landscape, the park was as much an anomaly as the mart. It was the only place in sight where anything grew. They were in the air only a few minutes, and then the flyer settled gently beside a low mound that marked the park's boundary.
The children scrambled out excitedly. Shimmering p
urple vegetation covered the ground everywhere and grew thickly on the mound, making it a mass of fluffy softness. At the mound's outside base, the growth came to an abrupt end; on the other side the park stretched before them, rising steeply to the crest of a hill, with a scattering of trees or something that resembled trees.
Their chauffeur made himself comfortable on the flyer's seats, coiled his hair about his face, retracted arms and legs, and instantly fell asleep. Malina followed her whooping children into the park. Brian turned a series of somersaults and then came to - his feet and stood staring down at the purple ground cover.
"Is that stuff grass?"
"It's what the world of Montura has instead of grass," Malina said. She smiled and reached out to smooth his ruffled blond hair.
"Are we the first human children to see it?" Maia asked. She had heard Miss Schlupe remark that they were the first human children to leave their solar system and also the first to leave their galaxy, and such distinctions had impressed her.
"The first to see it and the first to walk on it," Malina said.
Maia smiled and tested the springy softness with the toe of her shoe.
"Look at the funny leaves," Brian said, staring upward. "They're pretty," Maia said. "A pretty yellow."
"Our leaves turn yellow in the fall," Brian said. "Is it fall here?" "Probably not," Malina told him. "And it probably isn't correct to call them leaves, or to call these plants trees."
"What do the Monturans call them?" Maia wanted to know.
"There aren't any Monturans. But someone else, someone at the mart, may have named them."
Maia tumbled to the ground and rolled gleefully. "It feels scrumptious," she panted, stroking the purple fuzziness. "It's pretty, too. Everything is pretty."
"Beautiful, dear," Malina suggested.
"The things that are the most pretty are beautiful," Maia conceded.
"Indeed they are," Malina said. She was puzzling over the abrupt end of the growth at the park's boundary, as though a line had been drawn. Beyond it was the same hideous, eroded wasteland they had seen around the mart. Within the park, miraculously, was fertile ground and lush vegetation. It was as stunningly unreal as a cool oasis in a hot desert.
They walked to the top of the slope, and then they turned back and raced downhill toward the flyer.
"Do we have to leave now?" Maia asked plaintively, when they had reached it.
"Of course not. But I've had exercise enough. You two run and play, and I'll read my book."
Cheering, they started off. She called them back and said, "Remember, now - you're guests here. This park belongs to someone, and you must be respectful of his property. It would embarrass the entire Prime Common if the gesardl thought you guilty of bad manners."
They listened politely, but she knew their minds were on the unsupervised romp they were about to have. It would be almost literally the first time in months that they had been out from under their mother's thumb, and she could understand their impatience.
Brian edged away. Maia, effecting a more dignified departure, sniffed deeply and announced, "Everything smells nice."
Malina seated herself on the mound that marked the boundary of the park. She caressed the purple softness and remarked, "It is fragrant, isn't it? Run and play, but don't go far, and come back at once when I call."
Whooping deliriously, they raced back up the slope. Malina looked after them and worried. They desperately needed to be on their own occasionally, and the park was perfectly safe. She had walked to the top of the slope so she could look the place over and satisfy herself that there was no danger. But it was a strange world, and she worried.
With a sigh she opened her book, Shakespeare, and wondered if this world of Montura also was a stage.
The chauffeur, still stretched out in the flyer, was shaking the little craft with his snores. Malina felt drowsy herself, and she had to force herself to concentrate. Perhaps she did doze off; when next she thought of the children, they were nowhere to be seen. She called to them several times and succeeded only in awakening the chauffeur, who glared at her resentfully. Resignedly she got to her feet and went to look for them.
* * * *
When Brian and Maia reached the top of the slope, they paused to look back at the two motionless figures below, sleeping chauffeur and reading mother. Brian said scornfully, "Grownups never have any fun." He turned his attention to the treelike plants, which grew sparsely on the side of the hill they had just climbed but stood in thick clusters on the reverse slope. "Look at those funny old leaves," he said.
The plants were tall, with glossy, smooth surfaces on the trunks and branches, and from the branches hung long, spear-like clusters of bright yellow. Brian leaped at them, but the lowest were beyond his reach. He went to the trunk and examined it, obviously intent on climbing.
"Don't," Maia said. "You'll get us in trouble."
"For picking a leaf off a tree?" Brian asked scornfully. He leaped again, without success, and then he ran down the other side of the hill, dodging among the plants and shouting gaily, while Maia called after him to wait for her. At the bottom of the slope was a small stream. Brian leaped across it almost successfully.
He shook the water from one foot. "Come on!" he called. Maia held back. "Mother said not to go too far."
"You're scared!" Brian called mockingly. He chanted, "Scaredy! Scaredy!"
His taunts had no effect except to make her back away stubbornly, so he leaped back again, wetting his other foot. "Let's follow it," he said. "Maybe it'll get narrower."
"Mother said - "
"We haven't gone far. She's just over the hill."
They set off gaily to follow the stream. At intervals Brian leaped to the far side and back again, getting both feet thoroughly soaked because the rippling water gradually became wider.
"We're going the wrong way," Maia said finally. "Why don't you just wade across?" Brian asked.
He slipped off one of his shoes and stripped the wet sock from his foot. Maia watched him doubtfully. As he dipped a cautious toe into the cold water, the gravel stirred and a mottled, grotesque head broke the surface. A bloated body telescoped out of the gravel, and the creature began hunching toward them.
"Keep back!" Brian called protectively to Maia. "It might bite. What a funny-looking fish!"
"Strange-looking," Maia said, adopting her mother's corrective tone.
"It's a strange-looking fish. We'd better start back."
"Let's go the other way and see if the water gets narrower." "There's another fish!" Maia exclaimed. "It has two heads!"
Brian bent close to the water to study this monstrosity. "Naw," he said disgustedly. "It's just got two big eyes. Anyway - "
The second creature swished closer as he spoke, and he paused to stare at it. Whether eyes or heads, the thing clearly was strange beyond his powers of description. He abandoned it with a shrug.
"Wish we could wade."
"Better not," Maia said. "Those things might bite."
"I'm not afraid of them. We haven't had any real fun since - " "Look!" Maia gasped.
On the far side of the stream, something was moving slowly among the treelike plants.
"It's a monkey!" Brian exclaimed. "A big white monkey. Or a white chim- chim- " He hesitated. "Do we have white monkeys on Earth?"
"I don't know," Maia said. "What's it doing?"
The creature moved purposely from plant to plant, and sometimes it slowly circled a trunk, its head hunched forward as though to scrutinize it. So intent was it upon this action that without seeming to notice them it passed within a dozen meters of where they stood staring at it speechlessly from the other side of the stream. It was as tall as an adult human, and its bulky shapelessness at first seemed to be covered with white fur. When the creature came closer, this fur looked more like a closely cropped fuzz on a skin that hung loosely or lay in awkward folds.
Brian suppressed a chuckle and whispe
red, "Maybe it's just looking for a tree to climb."
Impulsively he reached into the stream and fished a round stone from the bottom.
"Don't!" Maia pleaded, but the stone already was in the air. It fell harmlessly some distance from the creature, which stopped short and looked about it. It turned a blank, pinkish mask-like face in their direction, but only for an instant. Then it resumed its scrutiny of a plant.
[Jan Darzek 03] - This Darkening Universe Page 12