The town where he was born was an apple town. The fruit was an ancient wrinkled mountain still anchored to the earth by a thin bough tufted with leaves, though the bough was long since empty of sap and the leaves were parasols that rustled like sails in the stirring winds of autumn. But the flesh inside was still firm and men were not afraid to cut long galleries through the desiccated exterior where the flesh was juiceless (cells like dust-filled rooms repeated in endless transparency) to reach the sweet white heart.
They had found his father in one of those galleries, a long excavation that intersected the tunnel of a Moth. The body was wadded up into the gallery’s end, a boneless mass of flesh frosted with the drying web-stuff of the insect’s cocoon. ...
Billings blinked back the image and drew a deep breath. The tunnel was empty around him, and for a few dozen yards in each direction he could see it stretching emptily into the shadows. Lifting the lamp he looked at the walls and saw his face reflected back from the depths of the transparent lining, a long gaunt impassive face that might have been his or his father’s, or that of a ghost haunting the vast mountain of the apple, the spirit of a man lost in the empty halls of the centre, as Billings was lost—as they were all lost.
The deeper he penetrated the less he was afraid. The worst fear was of failing, but when there were no other men around him this fear disappeared. It belonged to ordinary people. The men who hunted Moths were different. They had an understanding with the universe, a heightened sensitivity to the world off which other men merely scavenged. The thick white massy bulk of the apple was a place with its own rules in which Billings was comfortable, at home. He recognised the risks, but they were risks of the apple and of nature, not of men. He faced death, but it was nature’s death, not man’s.
Thick and white the apple bulked around him. Billings could hear it in motion on all sides. Tides surged through its oceanic cells, membranes quivered with a motion as palpable as that of a heart. Above, below, on all sides, he sensed the white flesh sleeping in darkness, perfect, sweet, waiting. He moved in the apple like a god, feeling other gods, his father and his father’s father, waiting in the shadows for him, resting just beyond the green tunnel wall. Layers of civilisation began to slough from him like shed skins and, half dreaming, he listened for the expected voice.
His foot slipped momentarily before the cleats caught again and he realised the tunnel was shelving slightly. At the same time his nose caught a different scent, an edge in the mustiness of the gallery, a suggestion of putrefaction. He unslung his knife. The tunnel was reaching its end, dipping down to intersect the vulnerable heart. His feet slipped more often and he had to cut steps in the floor to hold him from sliding forwards. The lamp showed him no ending to the tunnel but an area ahead of him that he could not penetrate with light. Slicing fresh footholds every few feet he slithered forwards. The tunnel ended—and he looked down into a deep chamber whose walls, glossy and transparent, reflecting his own elongated image, tapered some twenty feet below him to a point in which the globular brown shape of a seed was wedged. He had reached the centre.
From now on the real business of his task began. Sitting on the lip of the tunnel, his legs dangling over the edge, he methodically checked his equipment. Then he looked down. The walls were mirror smooth and he could tell from their sheen that they remained slippery even though the seed chamber had been pierced. Wedging a piton into the tunnel wall he threaded his rope through its eye, tossed the rest of the roll out into space and climbed down.
There was no movement or sound, so he could assume his presence was still undiscovered. And when, behind the seed, he found the unguarded doorway to the inner chamber, he knew he could have surprise on his side. Pausing only for a glance back to make sure his rope remained fastened to the tunnel entrance, he dropped quickly into the main seed space.
Seeds hung like tightly cocooned beetles above him, their smooth backs turned out, their unseen claws clutching the central axis of the apple that gave Billings his only indication of the direction in which he was moving. It lay ten degrees off the horizontal, making the main seed chamber slope slightly upwards. The floor was slippery and being forced to fight uphill was some disadvantage but he depended a great deal on surprise. If he could catch the Moth sleeping or perhaps somnolent, beginning a cocoon—it was their breeding time now and most of them were sleepy and slow—then his job would be easy. He moved forward, keeping the brown kernels on his right, watching the part of the chamber he could see under the rows of seeds for any movement. Each step made an infinitesimal but noticeable sound, a slight creak, as if he walked on transparent leather.
The chamber was quiet, as silent as if it were the centre of the earth. Billings reached the upper end of the space, unslung his knife, and half turned.
A face looked back at him from the chamber.
In the far wall a spot of opacity had appeared in the transparency. The skin was unbroken but a window had been cleared as a new tunnel reached the central core. It widened quickly. A low-held head butted the membrane, lifted to bite through it—and looked at him. He glimpsed for a terrible moment the waving furred antennae, the brow, eyes and mouth of a fearsome face; wide eyes, sharp cornered; high cheek bones; a wide and scarlet mouth. Female, young ... a talon split the skin and from the tunnel, newborn, the magnificent insect erupted into the silent space.
Backed against the wall, Billings watched the Moth, waiting for its move. The insect was patient, perhaps tired. She stayed near the new tunnel, licking globules of juice from her fur, watching him, preening.
Her body was that of a young Moth, about the size of a human girl, though slimmer than most. Only in the smoothly swelling breasts was there a specific reference to humankind. The down that covered her body in a honey-coloured mist shadowed but did not hide the smooth play of muscle under the flexible skin of the legs and torso, but around the head and shoulders a quick shading off of the fur and the appearance of tight shell across the skull and neck betrayed her insect nature. On first glance there were few other signs, but then she stretched back her arms in a quick gesture and the magnificent beige wings expanded from between her arms and body, their patterns of brown and black scrawling like hieroglyphs across his vision.
Billings blinked. In that moment clawed feet gripped the chamber wall, wings twitched an instant, and she sprang.
A right-hand cut to stop her advance, then Billings scrambled for the seeds hanging like a garland of gunshot down the chamber’s centre. Air buffeted him as her wings gripped, but he was safe, sheltered from the slash of her claws for an instant, allowing him the luxury of a turn and new grip on his blade. Then she was under the seeds and rising to attack him.
Cut. The pointed tip caught a clawed forearm, bit, then slipped. The shrill twittering of her voice filled the air. Then her other arm lashed out and he felt a blaze of agony in his side.
Cut again, hack down on the arm buried in him. Blood— green blood. Another lateral slice and wing membrane parted. Another. But she was still coming, her wings, delicate but not vital, taking the blows while her body remained shielded behind them.
Spinning down the chamber from her blow, Billings sensed the hollowness of the wall behind him. He looked down through the membrane into emptiness; a suggestion of mist but nothing else. A further chamber hollowed out beside the others, probably her living place.
Before he had raised his knife she was on his back but he swung down with one last desperate movement and felt the rotted chamber wall rip like paper. They fell down into a warm, steamy space that smelled rotten and corrupt. Billings twisted as he fell and sensed the disappearance of her weight from his back. Then he landed with a sickening suddenness on something soft and thick. He grabbed at it, slithered, hung on.
He was on a ledge of crumbling flesh high in her living chamber. Dimly he took in the rest of the place, the walls that descended in rotting terraces to the floor, the trickling juice that welled out of them in a dozen places, the flaccid sac of her disc
arded cocoon on which he had landed. From his ledge it fell twenty feet to the floor to lie among the stalagmites of brown flesh in valances of dusty green.
The escaping juice dribbled down to the bottom of the space where a pool of it almost covered a seed brought from one of the other chambers. The juice had partly fermented, and the place was hot, steamy, thick with the smell of decaying matter spiced by the tang of alcohol. Billings felt dizzy and sick. His side was beginning to hurt and he felt blood on his hands.
She lay by the pool, twenty feet below him, her wings sprawled across the juice-wet surface of the poolside, their delicate transparency glued to the smooth tacky surface. She was struggling to rise, her hands fluttering across the floor in front of her.
The room was misty and Billings was wounded. He made a mistake. Unslinging his second knife—the first was lost in the main chamber—he grabbed a handful of the soft cocoon and slid over the edge.
The moment he did so he sensed his error. The cocoon was rotten, eaten to shreds by the humid air. Under his weight it ripped like decayed cloth. He fell, tumbled, scrambled down, enveloped in its clinging folds. His grasping hands tore at the stuff, bringing down fresh curtains of it around him. Then he landed with an impact that emptied his lungs. His knife skidded across the floor.
Billings turned his head to look at the Moth, then bowed to it like a sacrifice. Her body, no longer glued to the ground, surged up triumphantly, her magnificent face looked down at him, her talons raised in an embrace. He saw the descending claw, cried out, and was silent forever.
* * * *
They never found his body as they had found that of his father but it was there for them to find if they had cared to look. Deep in the apple he lay cocooned in her web, his face looking out at her dried carapace. Long dead in the cold currents of autumn that, even deep in the core, she had felt and responded to, she left behind a final sign for him to ponder. Deep in his body, the larvae lay that would one day rise to be another Moth, inhabit another apple, just as she had risen from a Moth Killer’s body herself, and others would rise after her.
Though dead, Billings sensed the last great possession of his life and was content. Staring into the silent chambers of his tomb, he waited for resurrection.
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* * * *
ROBOT’S DOZEN
G. L. Lack
As a pleasant change from the normal straightforward narrative, here are thirteen communications regarding the hiring of a house robot which have more to say than most stories do.
* * * *
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath, Somerset.
30th August, 1979
Rentarobot Ltd.,
London, W.15.
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for your prompt and efficient service. The robot you supplied to take care of my house and garden while I was away on holiday on the continent proved (if you will excuse the term) a model of perfection. It did all the jobs required, cleaning the house, mowing the lawns and generally keeping up the appearance that the property was occupied, as recommended by the police in their Crime Prevention Manual.
Also I must congratulate you on achieving a perfect likeness to myself after only two sittings.
I have set the homing device in motion and trust that you receive the robot safely, and I shall be pleased if the invoice for the fee outstanding is sent as soon as possible.
Yours faithfully,
Arthur Willis
* * * *
Rentarobot Ltd.,
London, W.15.
10th September, 1979
Arthur Willis, Esq.,
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath, Somerset.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your communication dated 30th August, 1979. We are pleased that you were satisfied with our service and I have passed your complimentary remarks about the resemblance of Model RR/1307 to yourself on to the technician concerned with its manufacture.
The slight delay in sending the enclosed invoice was caused by the time-lag between the machine’s departure from your house and its subsequent arrival at our establishment. A small retardation of the homing mechanism may have been responsible, otherwise it is in perfect working order.
We shall be pleased to receive your remittance in due course and look forward to your custom again in the future.
Yours faithfully,
P. Crane
(Dispatch Officer)
* * * *
Bright, Bright & Purvis,
5A Town Square Chambers, Bath.
10th September, 1979
Arthur Willis, Esq.,
15 Slimbridge Gardens, Bath.
Dear Sir,
On the instructions of my client Mr. Robert Stagg of 17 Slimbridge Gardens I am writing to you concerning certain incidents alleged to have occurred during the month of August and in the first week of September this year.
I refer to the fact that you appear during this time to have spent much of your time, while presumably your wife was on holiday, in watching the every movement of my client’s wife, until she was reduced in the end (after giving you the benefit of every doubt) to such a state of nerves that she was afraid to venture outside the door or indeed to leave the curtains pulled open.
Since the end of your wife’s holiday and your return to work there seems to have been almost an end to the constant surveillance except for three evenings when she saw you watching from the cover of the small shrubbery in your garden.
This has been a great shock for Mr. and Mrs. Stagg who, although not well acquainted with you socially, had a great respect for you. I trust that my client will have no more cause for complaint and I shall be pleased to forward an explanation and apology for your behaviour to him should you not wish to do so personally. He hopes that you take the latter course.
Yours faithfully
Alexander Bright
* * * *
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath, Somerset.
11th September, 1979
Rentarobot Ltd.,
London, W.15.
Dear Sir,
I hope that the robot I hired from you has returned. However, this letter is about a much more serious matter than its delay.
Enclosed is a copy of a letter I received today. You will note that the complaints referred to coincide with the presence here of your robot and my neighbour has assumed it to be me.
While this may be a compliment to your modellers it has, you will appreciate, put me in an acutely embarrassing position. I shall be pleased if you will send a letter confirming that you supplied me with the robot and explaining the purpose of your organization so that I may take it with me when I go to see Mr. Stagg.
Yours faithfully,
Arthur Willis
* * * *
Rentarobot Ltd.,
London, W.15.
13th September, 1979
Arthur Willis, Esq.,
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your letter received today. May I say how well I realize your difficulty. However, as you are aware, our service is confidential and available (and indeed only made known) to selected clients. Since Mr. Stagg is not yet on the Approved List I am obliged to refuse your request and suggest that a verbal explanation should be satisfactory.
Yours faithfully,
P. Crane
(Dispatch Officer)
* * * *
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath, Somerset. .
16th September, 1979
Managing Director,
Rentarobot Ltd.
Dear Sir,
Further to my letter of a few days ago and the solicitor’s attached (which I trust you still retain) may I say that the interview between myself and Mr. Stagg was far from successful. In fact Mr. Stagg, normally a quietly-spoken, mild-tempered man, became extremely abusive and dismissed my explanation as a “load of old excreta” and abs
olutely refused to believe that a service such as yours exists.
Now that the matter has reached boiling point it is certain that even a letter of explanation will no longer suffice and I shall be pleased if you will dispatch the robot back to me to prove my point. I shall of course pay the necessary expenses and shall ensure the utmost secrecy.
Yours faithfully,
Arthur Willis
* * * *
Rentarobot ltd. Internal Memo. Date: 18/9/79 URGENT
From: Managing Director. To: Deep-freeze stores.
Please check that Model RR/1307 is in full working order and dispatch immediately to:
A. Willis, Esq.,
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath,
Somerset.
* * * *
15 Slimbridge Gardens,
Bath, Somerset.
21st September, 1979
Managing Director,
New Writings in SF 10 - [Anthology] Page 7