“I tell you what,” said Battlemont. “You leave us alone, we leave you alone.”
“But what about my enlistments?” wailed Finnister.
“You think our Gwen, sick or well, can’t solve your problems?” asked Battlemont. “For your enlistments you use the program as outlined.”
“I won’t!”
“You will,” said Owling.
“General Owling, I refuse to have…”
“What happens if I have to dump this problem on the General Staff?” asked Owling. “Where will the head-chopping start? In the Psych Branch? Certainly. Who’ll be next? The people who could’ve solved it in the field, that’s who!”
Finnister said: “But—”
“For that matter,” said Owling, “Miss Everest’s idea sounded pretty sensible … with some modifications, of course.”
“No modifications,” said Battlemont.
He’s a veritable Napoleon! thought Gwen.
“Only in minor, unimportant details,” soothed Owling. “For engineering reasons.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Battlemont. “Provided we pass on the modifications before they are made.”
“I’m sure we can work it out,” said Owling.
Finnister gave up, turned her back on them.
“One little detail,” murmured Battlemont. “When you make out the double-fee check to the agency, make a substantial addition—bonus for Miss Everest.”
“Naturally,” said Owling.
“Naturally,” said Battlemont.
When the space brass had departed, Battlemont faced Gwen, stamped his foot. “You have been very bad, Gwen!”
“But, André—”
“Resignation!” barked Battlemont.
“But—”
“Oh, I understand, Gwen. It’s my fault. I worked you much too hard. But that is past.”
“André, you don’t—”
“Yes, I do! I understand. You were going to sink the ship and go down with it. My poor, dear Gwen. A death wish! If you’d only paid attention to your Interdorma telelog.”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone here, André. Only those two—”
“Yes, yes. I know. You’re all mixed up.”
“That’s true.” She felt like crying. She hadn’t cried … since … she couldn’t remember when. “You know,” she said, “I can’t remember ever crying.”
“That’s it!” said Battlemont. “I cry all the time. You need a stabilizing influence. You need someone to teach you how to cry.”
“Would you teach me, André?”
“Would I…” He wiped the tears from his eyes. “You are going on a vacation. Immediately! I am going with you.”
“Yes, André.”
“And when we return—”
“I don’t want to come back to the agency, André. I … can’t.”
“So that’s it!” said Battlemont. “The advertising business! It bugs you!”
She shrugged. “I’m … I just can’t face another campaign. I … just … can’t.”
“You will write a book,” announced Battlemont.
“What?”
“Best therapy known,” said Battlemont. “Did it myself once. You will write about the advertising business. You will expose all the dirty tricks: the hypno-jingles, the subvisual flicker images, the advertisers who finance textbooks to get their sell into them, the womb rooms where the you-seekers are programmed. Everything.”
“I could do it,” she said.
“You will tell all,” said Battlemont.
“Will I!”
“And you will do it under a pseudonym,” said Battlemont. “Safer.”
“When do we start the vacation, André?”
“Tomorrow.” He experienced a moment of his old panic. “You don’t mind that I’m … ugly as a pig?”
“You’re just beautiful,” she said. She smoothed the hair across his bald spot. “You don’t mind that I’m smarter than you?”
“Ah, hah!” Battlemont drew himself to attention. “You may be smarter in the head, my darling, but you are not smarter in the heart!”
MATING CALL
“If you get caught we’ll have to throw you to the wolves,” said Dr. Fladdis. “You understand, of course.”
Laoconia Wilkinson, senior field agent of the Social Anthropological Service, nodded her narrow head. “Of course,” she barked. She rustled the travel and order papers in her lap.
“It was very difficult to get High Council approval for this expedition after the … ah … unfortunate incident on Monligol,” said Dr. Fladdis. “That’s why your operating restrictions are so severe.”
“I’m permitted to take only this—” she glanced at her papers—“Marie Medill?”
“Well, the basic plan of action was her idea,” said Dr. Fladdis. “And we have no one else in the department with her qualifications in music.”
“I’m not sure I approve of her plan,” muttered Laoconia.
“Ah,” said Dr. Fladdis, “but it goes right to the heart of the situation on Rukuchp, and the beauty of it is that it breaks no law. That’s a legal quibble, I agree. But what I mean is you’ll be within the letter of the law.”
“And outside its intent,” muttered Laoconia. “Not that I agree with the law. Still—” she shrugged—“music!”
Dr. Fladdis chose to misunderstand. “Miss Medill has her doctorate in music, yes,” he said. “A highly educated young woman.”
“If it weren’t for the fact that this may be our last opportunity to discover how those creatures reproduce—” said Laoconia. She shook her head. “What we really should be doing is going in there with a full staff, capturing representative specimens, putting them through—”
“You will note the prohibition in Section D of the High Council’s mandate,” said Dr. Fladdis. “‘The Field Agent may not enclose, restrain or otherwise restrict the freedom of any Rukuchp native.’”
“How bad is their birthrate situation?” asked Laoconia.
“We have only the word of the Rukuchp special spokesman. This Gafka. He said it was critical. That, of course, was the determining factor with the High Council. Rukuchp appealed to us for help.”
Laoconia got to her feet. “You know what I think of this music idea. But if that’s the way we’re going to attack it, why don’t we just break the law all the way—take in musical recordings, players…”
“Please!” snapped Dr. Fladdis.
Laoconia stared at him. She had never before seen the Area Director so agitated.
“The Rukuchp natives say that introduction of foreign music has disrupted some valence of their reproductive cycle,” said Dr. Fladdis. “At least, that’s how we’ve translated their explanation. This is the reason for the law prohibiting any traffic in music devices.”
“I’m not a child!” snapped Laoconia. “You don’t have to explain all…”
“We cannot be too careful,” said Dr. Fladdis. “With the memory of Monligol still fresh in all minds.” He shuddered. “We must return to the spirit of the SocAnth motto: ‘For the Greater Good of the Universe.’ We’ve been warned.”
“I don’t see how music can be anything but a secondary stimulant,” said Laoconia. “However, I shall keep an open mind.”
* * *
Laoconia Wilkinson looked up from her notes, said: “Marie, was that a noise outside?” She pushed a strand of gray hair from her forehead.
Marie Medill stood at the opposite side of the field hut, staring out of one of the two windows. “I only hear the leaves,” she said. “They’re awfully loud in that wind.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t Gafka?”
Marie sighed and said, “No, it wasn’t his namesong.”
“Stop calling that monster a him!” snapped Laoconia.
Marie’s shoulders stiffened.
Laoconia observed the reflex and thought how wise the Service had been to put a mature, veteran anthropologist in command here. A hex-dome hut was too small to confine brittle tempers. And the two wom
en had been confined here for 25 weeks already. Laoconia stared at her companion—such a young romantic, that one.
Marie’s pose reflected boredom … worry …
Laoconia glanced around the hut’s crowded interior. Servo-recorders, night cameras, field computers, mealmech, collapsible floaters, a desk, two chairs, folding bunks, three wall sections taken up by the transceiver linking them with the mother ship circling in satellite orbit overhead. Everything in its place and a place for everything.
“Somehow, I just can’t help calling Gafka a him,” said Marie. She shrugged. “I know it’s nonsense. Still … when Gafka sings…”
Laoconia studied the younger woman. A blonde girl in a one-piece green uniform; heavy peasant figure, good strong legs, an oval face with high forehead and dreaming blue eyes.
“Speaking of singing,” said Laoconia, “I don’t know what I shall do if Gafka doesn’t bring permission for us to attend their Big Sing. We can’t solve this mess without the facts.”
“No doubt,” said Marie. She spoke snappishly, trying to keep her attention away from Laoconia. The older woman just sat there. She was always just sitting there—so efficient, so driving, a tall gawk with windburned face, nose too big, mouth too big, chin too big, eyes too small.
Marie turned away.
“With every day that passes I’m more convinced that this music thing is a blind alley,” said Laoconia. “The Rukuchp birthrate keeps going down no matter how much of our music you teach them.”
“But Gafka agrees,” protested Marie. “Everything points to it. Our discovery of this planet brought the Rukuchps into contact with the first alien music they’ve ever known. Somehow, that’s disrupted their breeding cycle. I’m sure of it.”
“Breeding cycle,” sniffed Laoconia. “For all we know, these creatures could be ambulatory vegetables without even the most rudimentary…”
“I’m so worried,” said Marie. “It’s music at the root of the problem, I’m sure, but if it ever got out that we smuggled in those education tapes and taught Gafka all our musical forms…”
“We did not smuggle anything!” barked Laoconia. “The law is quite clear. It only prohibits any form of mechanical reproducer of actual musical sounds. Our tapes are all completely visual.”
“I keep thinking of Monligol,” said Marie. “I couldn’t live with the knowledge that I’d contributed to the extinction of a sentient species. Even indirectly. If our foreign music really has disrupted…”
“We don’t even know if they breed!”
“But Gafka says…”
“Gafka says! A dumb vegetable. Gafka says!”
“Not so dumb,” countered Marie. “He learned to speak our language in less than three weeks, but we have only the barest rudiments of songspeech.”
“Gafka’s an idiot-savant,” said Laoconia. “And I’m not certain I’d call what that creature does speaking.”
“It is too bad that you’re tone deaf,” said Marie sweetly.
Laoconia frowned. She leveled a finger at Marie. “The thing I note is that we only have their word that their birthrate is declining. They called on us for help, and now they obstruct every attempt at field observation.”
“They’re so shy,” said Marie.
“They’re going to be shy one SocAnth field expedition if they don’t invite us to that Big Sing,” said Laoconia. “Oh! If the Council had only authorized a full field expedition with armed support!”
“They couldn’t!” protested Marie. “After Monligol, practically every sentient race in the universe is looking on Rukuchp as a final test case. If we mess up another race with our meddling…”
“Meddling!” barked Laoconia. “Young woman, the Social Anthropological Service is a holy calling! Erasing ignorance, helping the backward races!”
“And we’re the only judges of what’s backward,” said Marie. “How convenient. Now, you take Monligol. Everyone knows that insects carry disease. So we move in with our insecticides and kill off the symbiotic partner essential to Monligolian reproduction. How uplifting.”
“They should have told us,” said Laoconia.
“They couldn’t,” said Marie. “It was a social taboo.”
“Well…” Laoconia shrugged. “That doesn’t apply here.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve had enough of this silly argument,” barked Laoconia. “See if Gafka’s coming. He’s overdue.”
Marie inhaled a trembling breath, stamped across to the field hut’s lone door and banged it open. Immediately the tinkle of glazeforest leaves grew louder. The wind brought an odor of peppermint from the stubble plain to her left.
She looked across the plain at the orange ball of Almac sinking toward a flat horizon, swung her glance to the right where the wall of glazeforest loomed overhead. Rainbow-streaked batwing leaves clashed in the wind, shifting in subtle competition for the last of the day’s orange light.
“Do you see it?” demanded Laoconia.
Marie shook her head, setting blonde curls dancing across her uniform collar. “It’ll be dark soon,” she said. “He said he’d return before it got fully dark.”
Laoconia scowled, pushed aside her notes. Always calling it a him! They’re nothing but animated Easter eggs! If only … She broke the train of thought, attention caught by a distant sound.
“There!” Marie peered down the length of glazeforest wall.
A fluting passage of melody hung on the air. It was the meister-song of a delicate wind instrument. As they listened, the tones deepened to an organ throb while a section of cello strings held the melody. Glazeforest leaves began to tinkle in sympathetic harmony. Slowly, the music faded.
“It’s Gafka,” whispered Marie. She cleared her throat, spoke louder, self-consciously: “He’s coming out of the forest quite a ways down.”
“I can’t tell one from the other,” said Laoconia. “They all look alike and sound alike. Monsters.”
“They do look alike,” agreed Marie, “but the sound is quite individual.”
“Let’s not harp on my tone deafness!” snapped Laoconia. She joined Marie at the door. “If they’ll only let us attend their Sing…”
A six-foot Easter egg ambled toward them on four of its five prehensile feet.
The crystal glistening of its vision cap, tipped slightly toward the field hut, was semi-lidded by inner cloud pigment in the direction of the setting sun. Blue and white greeting colors edged a great bellows muscle around the torso. The bell extension of a mouth/ear—normally visible in a red-yellow body beneath the vision cap—had been retracted to a multi-creased pucker.
“What ugly brutes,” said Laoconia.
“Shhhh!” said Marie. “You don’t know how far away he can hear you.” She waved an arm. “Gaaafkaa!” Then: “Damn!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I only made eight notes out of his name instead of nine.”
Gafka came up to the door, picking a way through the stubble spikes. The orange mouth/ear extended, sang a 22-note harmonica passage: “Maarrriee Mmmmmmedillll.” Then a 10-second concerto: “Laoconnnnia Wiiilkinnnsonnnn!”
“How lovely!” said Marie.
“I wish you’d talk straight out the way we taught you,” said Laoconia. “That singing is difficult to follow.”
Gafka’s vision cap tipped toward her. The voice shifted to a sing-song waver: “But polite sing greeting.”
“Of course,” said Laoconia. “Now.” She took a deep breath. “Do we have permission to attend your Big Sing?”
Gafka’s vision cap tipped toward Marie, back to Laoconia.
“Please, Gafka?” said Marie.
“Difficulty,” wavered Gafka. “Not know how say. Not have knowledge your kind people. Is subject not want for talking.”
“I see,” said Laoconia, recognizing the metaphorical formula. “It has to do with your breeding habits.”
Gafka’s vision cap clouded over with milky pigment, a sign that the two women had come to
recognize as embarrassment.
“Now, Gafka,” said Laoconia. “None of that. We’ve explained about science and professional ethics, the desire to be of real help to one another. You must understand that both Marie and I are here for the good of your people.”
A crystal moon unclouded in the part of the vision cap facing Laoconia.
“If we could only get them to speak straight out,” said Laoconia.
Marie said: “Please, Gafka. We only want to help.”
“Understand I,” said Gafka. “How else talk this I?” More of the vision cap unclouded. “But must ask question. Friends perhaps not like.”
“We are scientists,” said Laoconia. “You may ask any question you wish.”
“You are too old for … breeding?” asked Gafka. Again the vision cap clouded over, sparing Gafka the sight of Laoconia shocked speechless.
Marie stepped into the breech. “Gafka! Your people and my people are … well, we’re just too different. We couldn’t. There’s no way … that is…”
“Impossible!” barked Laoconia. “Are you implying that we might be sexually attacked if we attended your Big Sing?”
Gafka’s vision cap unclouded, tipped toward Laoconia. Purple color bands ran up and down the bellows muscle, a sign of confusion.
“Not understand I about sex thing,” said Gafka. “My people never hurt other creature.” The purple bands slowed their upward-downward chasing, relaxed into an indecisive green. The vision cap tipped toward Marie. “Is true all life kinds start egg young same?” This time the clouding of the vision cap was only a momentary glimmerwhite.
“Essentially, that is so,” agreed Laoconia. “We all do start with an egg. However, the fertilization process is different with different peoples.” Aside to Marie, she said: “Make a note of that point about eggs. It bears out that they may be oviparian as I suspected.” Then: “Now, I must know what you meant by your question.”
Gafka’s vision cap rocked left, right, settled on a point between the two women. The sing-song voice intoned: “Not understand I about different ways. But know I you see many thing my people not see. If breeding (glimmerwhite) different, or you too old for breeding (glimmerwhite) my people say you come Big Sing. Not want we make embarrass for you.”
The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert Page 40