Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  Bathed in the bright automated beams positioned atop the roof of the outpost was a Dantean vision of glaring red eyes, gnashing teeth, and spattering blood; a boiling brown stew of muffins whole, bleeding, dismembering, and scrambling with their two tiny legs for a foothold among their seething brethren. Presumably the rest of the darkened plain concealed a similar vision straight from Hell. Presumably, because the astounded agents could not see it. Their view was blocked by the thousands upon thousands of dead, dying, and frenetic muffins that had filled the outpost-encircling ravine to the brim with their bodies. At the same time, the reason for the transformation in the aliens’ dentition was immediately apparent.

  Having consumed everything green that grew on the plains, they had turned to eating flesh. And each other.

  Bulging eyes flared, tiny feet kicked, razor-sharp teeth flashed and tore. The curdling miasma of gore, eviscerated organs, and engorged muffin musk verged on overpowering. Rising above it all was the odor of cooked meat. Holding his hand over mouth and nose, LeCleur saw the reason why the outpost had awakened them.

  Lining the interior wall of the artificial ravine was a double fence of waved air. Frenzied with instinct, the muffins were throwing themselves heedlessly onto the lethal barrier, moving always in a southeasterly direction. The instant it contacted the electrically waved air, a scrambling muffin body was immediately electrocuted. As was the one following behind it, and the next, and the next. In their dozens, in their hundreds, their wee corpses were piling up at such a rate that those advancing from behind would soon be able to cross unhindered into the compound. Those that didn’t pause to feast on the bodies of their own dead, that is.

  “I think we’d better get inside and lock down until this is over,” LeCleur murmured quietly as he stood surveying the surging sea of southward-flowing carnage.

  An angry Bowman was already heading for the master console. Though it held an unmistakable gruesome fascination, the migration would mean extra work for him and his partner. The perimeter fence would have to be repaired, and even with mechanical help it would take weeks to clear out and dispose of the tens of thousands of muffin corpses that filled the ravine, turning it into a moat full of meat. They would have to do all that while keeping up with their regular work schedule. He was more than a little pissed.

  Oh well, he calmed himself. Everything had gone so smoothly, Hedris had been so accommodating, from the first day they had occupied the outpost, that it would be churlish of him to gripe about one small, unforeseen difficulty. They would deal with it in the morning. Which wasn’t that far off, he noted irritably. As soon as the greater part of the migration had passed them by, or settled down to a more manageable frenzy, he and LeCleur could retire for an extended rest and leave the cleaning-up to the automatics. Surely, despite the muffins’ numbers, such furious activity could not be sustained for more than a day or two.

  His lack of concern stemmed from detailed knowledge of the station’s construction. It had been designed, and built, to handle and ride out anything from three hundred mile-an-hour winds, to temperatures down to a hundred and fifty below and the same above. The prefab duralloy walls and metallic glass ports were impervious to wind-blown grit, flying acid, ordinary laser cutters, micrometeorites up to a diameter of one inch, and solid stone avalanches. The interior was sealed against smoke, toxic gases, volcanic emissions, and flash floods of water, liquid methane, and anything else a planet could puke up.

  Moving to a port, he watched as the first wave of migrating muffins to crest the wave fence raced toward the now impervious sealed structure. Their small feet, adapted for running and darting about on the flat plains, did not allow them to climb very well, but before long sufficient dead and dying bodies had piled high enough against the north side of the outpost to reach the port. Raging, berserk little faces gazed hungrily in at him. Metamorphosed teeth gnawed and bit at the port, their frantic scratching sounds penetrating only faintly. They were unable even to scratch the high-tech transparency. He watched as dozens of muffins smothered one another in their haste to sustain their southeasterly progress, stared as tiny teeth snapped and broke off in futile attempts to penetrate the glass and get at the food within.

  Once again, LeCleur made breakfast, taking more time than usual. The sun was rising, casting its familiar benign light over a panorama of devastation and death the two team members could not have imagined at the height of the worst day during past four halcyon, pastoral months. As for the migration itself, it gave no indication of abating, or of even slowing down.

  “I don’t care how many millions of muffins there are inhabiting this part of the world.” Seated on the opposite side of the table, LeCleur betrayed an uncharacteristic nervousness no doubt abetted by his lack of sleep. “It has to slow down soon.”

  Bowman nodded absently. He ate mechanically, without his usual delight in the other man’s cooking. “It’s pitiful, watching the little critters mass asphyxiate themselves like this, and then to be reduced to feeding on each other’s corpses.” He remembered cuddling and taking the measurements of baby muffins while others looked on, curious but only mildly agitated, peeping querulously. Now that peeping had risen to a tyrannical, pestilential drone not even the outpost’s soundproofing could mute entirely.

  “It’s not pitiful to me.” Eyes swollen from lack of sleep, LeCleur scratched his right leg where he had been assaulted. “You didn’t get bit.”

  Holding his coffee, Bowman glanced to his right, in the direction of the nearest port. Instruments and the time told them the sun was up. They could not observe it directly because every port was now completely blocked by a mass of accumulated muffin cadavers.

  Still, both men were capable of surprise when the voice of the outpost announced that evening that it was switching over to canned air. Neither man had to ask why, though Bowman did so, just to confirm.

  The station was now buried beneath a growing mountain of dead muffins. Their accumulated tiny bodies had blocked every one of the shielded air intakes.

  Still, neither agent was worried. They had enough bottled air for weeks, ample food, and could recycle their waste water. In an emergency, the station was almost as self-sufficient a closed system as a starship, though quite immobile. Their only real regret was the absence of information, since the swarming bodies now obstructed all the outpost’s external sensors.

  Three days later a frustrated LeCleur suggested cracking one of the doors to see if the migration had finally run its course. Bowman was less taken with the idea.

  “What if it’s not?” he argued.

  “Then we use the emergency door close. That’ll shut it by itself. How else are we going to tell if the migration’s finally moved on and passed us by?” He gestured broadly. “Until we can get up top with some of the cleaning gear and clear off the bodies, we’re sitting blind in here.”

  “I know.” Bowman found himself succumbing to his partner’s enticing logic. Not that his own objections were vociferous. He knew they would have to try and look outside sooner or later. He just wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea. “I don’t like the thought of letting any of the little monsters get inside.”

  “Who would?” LeCleur’s expression was grim. “We’ll draw a couple of rifles from stores and be ready when the door opens, even though the only thing that might spill in are dead bodies. Remember, the live muffins are all up top, migrating southeastward. They’re traveling atop the ones who’ve been suffocated.”

  Bowman nodded. LeCleur was right, of course. They had nothing to fear from the hundreds of compressed muffins that now formed a wall enclosing the outpost. And if anything living presented itself at the open door, the automatic hinges would slam it tight at a word from either man, without them having to go near it.

  With a nod, Bowman rose from the table. After months of freely roaming the plains and rivers beyond the outpost, he was sick and tired of being cooped up in the darkened station. “Right. We’ll take it slow and careful, but we have to s
ee what’s going on out there.”

  “Migration’s probably been over and done with for days, and we’ve been wasting our time squatting here whining about it.”

  The rifles fired needle-packed shells specifically designed to stop dangerous small animals in their tracks. The spray pattern that resulted subsequent to ignition meant that those wielding the weapons did not have to focus precisely on a target. Aiming the muzzles of the guns in the approximate direction would be sufficient to ensure the demise of any creature in the general vicinity of the shot. It was not an elegant weapon, but it was effective. Though they had been carried on field trips away form the outpost by both Bowman and LeCleur as protection against endemic carnivores both known and unknown, neither man had yet been compelled to fire one of the versatile weapons in anger. As they positioned themselves fifteen feet in from the front door, Bowman hoped they would be able to maintain that record of non-use.

  Responding to a curt nod from his partner signifying that he was in position and ready, LeCleur gave the command to open the door exactly two inches. Rifles raised, they waited to see what would materialize in response.

  Seals releasing, the door swung inward slightly. Spilling into the room came a stench of rotting, decaying flesh that the outpost’s atmospheric scrubbers promptly whirred to life to deal with. A line of solid brown showed itself between door and reinforced jamb. Half a dozen or so crushed muffin corpses tumbled into the room. Several exhibited signs of having been partially consumed.

  After a glance at his partner, LeCleur uttered a second command. Neither man had lowered the muzzle of his weapon. The door resumed opening. More tiny, smashed bodies spilled from the dike of tiny carcasses, forming a small, sad mound at its base. The stink grew worse, but not unbearably so. From floor to lintel, the doorway was blocked with dead muffins.

  Lowering his rifle, Bowman moved forward, bending to examine several of the bodies that had tumbled into the room. Some had clearly been dead longer than others. Not one so much as twitched a leg.

  “Poor little bastards. I wonder how often this migration takes place?”

  “Often enough for population control.” LeCleur was standing alongside his partner, the unused rifle now dangling from one hand. “We always wondered why the muffins didn’t overrun the whole planet. Now we know. They regulate their own numbers. Probably store up sufficient fat and energy from cannibalizing themselves during migration for enough to survive until the grasses can regenerate themselves.

  “We need to record the full cycle: duration of migration, variation by continent and specific locale, influencing variables such as weather, availability of water, and so on. This is important stuff.” He grinned. “Can you imagine trying to run a grain farm here under these conditions? I know that’s one of the operations the company had in mind for this place.”

  Bowman nodded thoughtfully. “It can be done. This is just the primary outpost. Armed with the right information, I don’t see why properly prepared colonists can’t handle something even as far ranging as this migration.”

  LeCleur agreed. That was when the wall of cadavers exploded in their faces. Or rather, its center did.

  Still sensing the presence of live food beyond the door, the muffins had dug a tunnel through their own dead to get at it. As they came pouring into the room, Bowman and LeCleur commenced firing frantically. Hundreds of tiny needles bloomed from dozens of shells as the rapid-fire rifles took their toll on the rampaging intruders. Dozens, hundreds of red-eyed, onrushing muffins perished in the storm of needles, their diminutive bodies shredded beyond recognition. A frantic LeCleur screamed the command to close the door, and the outpost did its best to comply. Unfortunately, a combination of deceased muffins and live muffins had filled the gap. Many died between the heavy-duty hingers, crushed to death, as the door swung closed. But—it did not, could not, shut all the way.

  A river of ravenous brown poured into the room, swarming over chairs and tables, knocking over equipment, snapping and biting at everything and anything within reach. Above the fermenting chaos rose a single horrific, repetitive, incessant sound.

  “PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP…!”

  “The storeroom!” Firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, heedless of the damage to the installation stray needle-shells might be doing, Bowman retreated as fast as he could. He glanced down repeatedly. Trip here, now, and he would go down beneath a wave of teeth and tiny, stamping feet. LeCleur was right behind him.

  Stumbling into the storeroom, they shut the door manually, neither man wanting to take the time to issue the necessary command to the omnipresent outpost pickups. Besides, they didn’t know if the station voice would respond anymore. In their swarming, the muffins had already shorted out a brace of unshielded, sensitive equipment. The agents backed away from the door as dozens of tiny thudding sounds reached them from the other side. The storeroom was the most solidly built internal component of the station, but its door was not made of duralloy like the exterior walls. Would it hold up against the remorseless, concerted assault? And if so, for how long?

  Then the lights went out.

  “They’ve cut or shorted internal connectors,” Bowman commented unnecessarily. Being forced to listen to the rapid-fire pounding on the other side of the door and not being able to do anything about it was nerve-wracking enough. Having to endure it in the dark was ten times worse.

  There was food in the storeroom in the form of concentrates, and bottled water to drink. They would live, LeCleur reflected—at least until the air was cut off, or the climate control shut down.

  Bowman was contemplating similar possibilities. “How many shells you have left, Gerard?”

  The other man checked the illuminated readout on the side of the rifle that provided the only light in the sealed storeroom. “Five. “ When preparing to open the front door, neither man had, reasonably enough at the time, considered it necessary to pocket extra ammunition. “You?”

  His partner’s reply was glum. “Three. We’re not going to shoot our way out of here.”

  Trying to find some additional light in the darkness, LeCleur commented as calmly as he could manage, “The door seems to be holding.”

  “Small teeth.” Bowman was surprised to note that his voice was trembling slightly.

  “Too many teeth,” LeCleur responded. Feeling around in the darkness, he found a solid container and sat down, cradling the rifle across his legs. He discovered that he was really thirsty, and tried not to think about it. They would feel around for the food and water containers later, after the thudding against the door had stopped. Assuming it would.

  “Maybe they’ll get bored and go away,” he ventured hopefully.

  Bowman tried to find some confidence in the darkness. “Maybe instinct will overpower hunger and they’ll resume the migration. All we have to do is wait them out.”

  “Yeah.” LeCleur grunted softly. “That’s all.” After several moments of silence broken only by the steady thump-thumping against the door, he added, “Opening up was a dumb idea.”

  “No it wasn’t,” Bowman contended. “We just didn’t execute smartly. After the first minute, we assumed everything was all right and relaxed.”

  LeCleur shifted his position on his container. “It won’t be repeated, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what the situation: I’ll never be able to relax on this world again.”

  “I hope we’ll both have the opportunity not to.” Bowman’s fingers fidgeted against the trigger of the rifle.

  Eventually they found the water, and the food. The latter tasted awful without machine pre-prep, but the powder was filling, and nourishing. Unwilling to go to sleep and unable to stay awake, their exhausted bodies finally forced them into unconsciousness.

  LeCleur sat up sharply in the darkness, the hard length of the rifle threatening to slip off his chest until he grabbed it to keep it from falling. He listened intently for a long, long moment before whispering loudly.

  “Jamie. Jamie, wake up!”<
br />
  “Huh? Wuzzat…?” In the dim light provided by the illuminated rifle gauges, the other man bestirred himself.

  “Listen.” Licking his lips, LeCleur slid off the pile of containers on which he had been sleeping. His field shorts squeaked sharply against the smooth polyastic.

  Bowman said nothing. It was silent in the storeroom. More significantly, it was equally silent on the other side of the door. The two men huddled together, the faces barely discernible in the feeble glow of the gauge-lights.

  “What do we do now?” LeCleur kept glancing at the darkened door.

  Bowman considered the situation as purposefully as his sore back and unsatisfied belly would permit. “We can’t stay cooped up in here forever.” He hesitated. “Anyway, I’d rather go down fighting than suffocate when the air goes out or is cut off.”

  LeCleur nodded reluctantly. “Who’s first?”

  “I’ll do it.” Bowman took a deep breath, the soft wheeze of inbound air sounding abnormally loud in the darkness. “Cover me as best you can.”

  His partner nodded and raised the rifle. Positioning himself at the most efficacious angle to the door, he waited silently. In the darkness, he could hear his own heart pounding.

  Holding his own weapon tightly in his left hand, Bowman undid the seals. They clicked like the final ticks of his own internal clock counting down the remainder of his life. Light and fresher air entered the room as the door swung inward. Exhaling softly, Bowman opened it further. No miniscule brown demons flew at his face, no nipping tiny teeth assailed his ankles. Taking a deep breath, he wrenched sharply on the door and leaped back, raising the muzzle of his weapon as the badly dented barrier pivoted inward. Light from the interior of the station made him blink repeatedly.