The Compleat Werewolf

by Anthony Boucher

  But in the doorway he halted. There, coming across the desert, heading for the adobe, clearly seen this time, was another—a female.

  He made an involuntary gesture of indecision. The blade of the machete clanged ringingly against the adobe wall. He heard the dry shuffling of a roused sleeper behind him.

  He turned fully now, the machete raised. Dispose of this nearer one first, then face the female. There was no room even for terror in his thoughts, only for action.

  The lean brown shape darted at him avidly. He moved lightly away and stood poised for its second charge. It shot forward again. He took one step back, machete arm raised, and fell headlong over the corpse of Morgan. Before he could rise, the thin thing was upon him. Its sharp teeth had met through the palm of his left hand.

  The machete moved swiftly. The thin dry body fell headless to the floor. There was no blood.

  The grip of the teeth did not relax. Pain coursed up Tallant’s left arm—a sharper, more bitter pain than you would expect from the bite. Almost as though venom—

  He dropped the machete, and his strong white hand plucked and twisted at the dry brown lips. The teeth stayed clenched, unrelaxing. He sat bracing his back against the wall and gripped the head between his knees. He pulled. His flesh ripped, and blood formed dusty clots on the dirt floor. But the bite was firm.

  His world had become reduced now to that hand and that head. Nothing outside mattered. He must free himself. He raised his aching arm to his face, and with his own teeth he tore at that unrelenting grip. The dry flesh crumbled away in desert dust, but the teeth were locked fast. He tore his lip against their white keenness, and tasted in his mouth the sweetness of blood and something else.

  He staggered to his feet again. He knew what he must do. Later he could use cautery, a tourniquet, see a doctor with a story about a Gila monster—their heads grip too, don’t they?—but he knew what he must do now.

  He raised the machete and struck again.

  His white hand lay on the brown floor, gripped by the white teeth in the brown face. He propped himself against the adobe wall, momentarily unable to move. His open wrist hung over the deeply hollowed stone. His blood and his strength and his life poured out before the little figure of sticks and clay.

  The female stood in the doorway now, the sun bright on her thin brownness. She did not move. He knew that she was waiting for the hollow stone to fill.

  Expedition

  The following is a transcript of the recorded two-way messages between Mars and the field expedition to the satellite of the third planet.

  First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition to Central Receiving Station:

  What has the Great One achieved?

  Murvin, Central Receiving Station, to First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition:

  All right, boys. I’ll play games. What has the Great One achieved? And when are we going to get a report on it?

  Falzik, First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition, to Murvin, Central Receiving Station:

  Haven’t you any sense of historical moments? That was the first interplanetary message ever sent. It had to be worthy of the occasion. Trubz spent a long time working on the psychology of it while I prepared the report. Those words are going to live down through the ages of our planet.

  Murvin to Falzik:

  All right. Swell. You’ll be just as extinct while they live on. Now, how’s about that report?

  Report of First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition, presented by Falzik, specialist in reporting:

  The First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition has landed successfully upon the satellite of the third planet. The personnel of this expedition consists of Karnim, specialist in astrogation; Halov, specialist in life sciences; Trubz, specialist in psychology; Lilil, specialist in the art; and Falzik, specialist in reporting.

  The trip itself proved unimportant for general reporting. Special aspects of difficulties encountered and overcome will appear on the detailed individual report of Karnim after the return of the expedition. The others, in particular Trubz and Lilil were largely unaware of these difficulties. To anyone save the specialist in astrogation, the trip seemed nowise different, except in length, from a vacation excursion to one of our own satellites.

  The majority theory is apparently vindicated here on this satellite of the third planet. It does not sustain life. According to Halov, specialist in life sciences, it is not a question of cannot, since life of some strange sort might conceivably exist under any conditions save those of a perfect vacuum. But so far as can be ascertained there is no life of any remotely recognizable form upon this satellite.

  This globe is dead. It is so dead that one may say the word without fear. The euphemism extinct would be too mild for the absolute and utter deadness here. It is so dead that the thought of death is not terrifying.

  Trubz is now working on the psychology of that.

  Observation checks the previous calculations that one face of this satellite is always turned toward its world and one always away from it, the period of rotation coinciding exactly with the orbital period. There seems to be no difference in nature between the two sides; but obviously the far side is the proper site for the erection of our temporary dome. If the hypothetical inhabitants of the third planet have progressed to the use of astronomical instruments, we do not wish to give them warning of our approach by establishing ourselves in the full sight of those instruments.

  The absence of life on this satellite naturally proved a serious disappointment to Halov, but even more so to Lilil, who felt inspired to improvise a particularly ingenious specimen of his art. Fortunately, the stores of the ship had provided for such an emergency, and the resultant improvisation was one of the greatest triumphs of Lilil’s great career. We are now about to take our first rest after the trip, and our minds are aglow with the charm and beauty of this exquisite work.

  Murvin to Falzik:

  All right. Report received and very welcome. But can’t you give us more color? Physical description of the satellite—minerals present—exploitation possibilities—anything like that? Some of us are more interested in those than in Trubz’s psychology or even Lilil’s practice of the art.

  Falzik to Murvin:

  What are you asking for? You know as well as I do the purpose of this expedition: to discover other intelligent forms of life. And you know the double purpose behind that purpose: to verify by comparison the psychological explanation of our race-dominant fear of death (if this were a formal dispatch I’d censor that to “extinction”), and to open up new avenues of creation in the art.

  That’s why the personnel of this expedition save for the astrogator, was chosen for its usefulness if we discover life. Until we do, our talents as specialists are wasted. We don’t know about minerals and topography. Wait for the next expedition’s report on them.

  If you want color, our next report should have it. It will come from the third planet itself. We’ve established our temporary base here easily and are blasting off very soon for what our scientists have always maintained is the most probable source of life in this sytem.

  Murvin to Falzik:

  All right. And if you find life, I owe you a sarbel dinner at Noku’s.

  Falzik to Murvin:

  Sarbel for two, please! Though what we’ve found, the Great One only—but go on to the report.

  Report of First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition, presented by Falzik, specialist in reporting:

  The site of the Expedition’s landing on the third planet was chosen more or less at random. It is situated on the third in size of the five continents, not far from the shore of the largest ocean. It is approximately indicated by the coordinates — and —* in Kubril’s chart of the planet.

  In the relatively slow final period of our approach, we were able to observe that the oceans of the third planet are indeed true liquids and not merely beds of molten metal, as has been conjectured by some of our scientists. We were more elated to observe defini
te signs of intelligent life. We glimpsed many structures which only the most unimaginative materialist could attribute to natural accident, and the fact that these structures tend to cluster together in great numbers indicates an organized and communal civilization.

  That at least was our first uplifting emotional reaction, as yet not completely verified. The place of our landing is free of such structures, and of almost everything else. It is as purely arid a desert as the region about Krinavizhd, which in some respects it strongly resembles.

  At first we saw no signs of life whatsoever, which is as we could have wished it. An exploratory expedition does not want a welcoming committee, complete with spoken speeches and seven-string sridars. There was a sparse amount of vegetation, apparently in an untended state of nature, but nothing to indicate the presence of animal life until we saw the road.

  It was an exceedingly primitive and clumsy road, consisting of little more than a ribbon of space from which the vegetation had been cleared; but it was a sign, and we followed it, to be rewarded shortly by our first glimpse of moving life. This was some form of apodal being, approximately one-fifth of the length of one of us, which glided across the road and disappeared before we could make any attempt at communication.

  We continued along the road for some time, suffering severely from the unaccustomed gravity and the heavy atmosphere, but spurred on by the joyous hope of fulfilling the aim of the expedition. Lilil in particular evinced an inspired elation at the hope of finding new subjects for his great compositions.

  The sun, markedly closer and hotter here on the third planet, was setting when at last we made our first contact with third-planet life. This being was small, about the length of the first joint of one’s foreleg, covered with fur of pure white, save for the brown dust of the desert, and quadrupedal. It was frisking in a patch of shade, seeming to rejoice in the setting of the sun and the lowering of the temperature. With its forelegs it performed some elaborate and to us incomprehensible ritual with a red ball.

  Halov approached it and attracted its attention by a creaking of his wing rudiments. It evinced no fear, but instantly rolled the red ball in his direction. Halov deftly avoided this possible weapon. (We later examined it and found it to be harmless, at least to any form of life known to us; its purpose remains a mystery. Trubz is working on the psychology of it.) He then—optimistically, but to my mind foolishly—began the fifth approach, the one developed for beings of a civilization roughly parallel to our own.

  It was a complete failure. The white thing understood nothing of what Halov scratched in the ground, but persisted in trying to wrench from his digits the stick with which he scratched. Halov reluctantly retreated through the approaches down to approach one (designed for beings of the approximate mental level of the Narbian aborigines), but the creature paid no heed to them and insisted upon performing with the moving stick some ritual similar to that which it had practiced with the ball.

  By this time we were all weary of these fruitless efforts, so that it came as a marked relief when Lilil announced that he had been inspired to improvise. The exquisite perfection of his art refreshed us and we continued our search with renewed vitality, though not before Halov had examined the corpse of the white creature and determined that it was indubitably similar to the mammals, though many times larger than any form of mammalian life has ever become on our planet.

  Some of us thought whimsically of that favorite fantasy of the science-fiction composers, the outsize mammals who will attack and destroy our race. But we had not yet seen anything.

  Murvin to Falzik:

  That’s a fine way to end a dispatch. You’ve got me all agog. Has the Monster Mammal King got you in his clutches?

  Falzik to Murvin:

  Sorry. I didn’t intend to be sensational. It is simply that we’ve been learning so much here through—well, you can call him the Monster Mammal King, though the fictionists would be disappointed in him—that it’s hard to find time enough for reports. But here is more.

  Report of First Interplanetary Exploratory Expedition, presented by Falzik, specialist in reporting:

  The sun was almost down when we saw the first intelligent being ever beheld by one of our race outside of our planet. He (for we learned afterward that he was male, and it would be unjust to refer to an intelligent being as it) was lying on the ground in the shade of a structure—a far smaller structure than those we had glimpsed in passing, and apparently in a sad state of dilapidation.

  In this posture the fact was not markedly noticeable, but he is a biped. Used as we are on our own planet to many forms of life—octopods (though the Great One be thanked that those terrors are nearly wiped out), ourselves hexapods, and the pesky little mammalian tetrapods—a biped still seems to us something strange and mythical. A logical possibility, but not a likelihood. The length of body of this one is approximately that of a small member of our own race.

  He held a container apparently of glass in one foreleg (there must be some other term to use of bipeds, since the front limbs are not used as legs) and was drinking from it when he spied us. He choked on his drink, looked away, then returned his gaze to us and stared for a long time. At last he blinked his eyes, groaned aloud, and hurled the glass container far away.

  Halov now advanced toward him. He backed away, reached one forelimb inside the structure, and brought it out clasping a long metal rod, with a handle of some vegetable material. This he pointed at Halov, and a loud noise ensued. At the time some of us thought this was the being’s speech, but now we know it came from the rod, which apparently propelled some form of metal missile against Halov.

  The missile, of course, bounced harmlessly off Halov’s armor (he prides himself on keeping in condition), and our specialist in life sciences continued to advance toward the structure. For the first time we heard his voice, which is extraordinarily low in pitch. We have not yet fully deciphered his language, but I have, as instructed, been keeping full phonetic transcriptions of his every remark. Trubz has calculated psychologically that the meaning of this remarks must be:

  “Ministers of the Great One, be gracious to me!”

  The phonetic transcription is as follows:*

  AND THEY TALK ABOUT PINK ELEPHANTS!

  He watched awestruck as Halov, undaunted by his former experience, again went directly into the fifth approach. The stick in Halov’s digit traced a circle in the dirt with rays coming out of it, then pointed up at the setting sun.

  The biped moved his head forward and back and spoke again. Trubz’s conjecture here is:

  “The great sun, the giver of life.”

  Phonetic transcription:

  BUGS THAT DRAW PRETTY PICTURES YET!

  Then Halov drew a series of concentric ellipses of dotted lines about the figure of the sun. He drew tiny circles on these orbits to indicate the first and second planets, then larger ones to indicate the third and our own. The biped was by now following the drawing with intense absorption.

  Halov now pointed to the drawing of the third planet, then to the biped, and back again. The biped once more moved his head forward, apparently as a gesture of agreement. Finally Halov in like manner pointed to the fourth planet, to himself, and back again, and likewise in turn for each of us.

  The biped’s face was blank for a moment. Then he himself took a stick and pointed from the fourth planet to Halov, saying, according to Trubz:

  “This is really true?”

  Transcription:

  YOU MEAN YOU’RE MARTIANS?

  Halov imitated the head movement of agreement. The biped dropped his stick and gasped out sounds which Trubz is sure were the invocation of the name of a potent deity. Transcription:

  ORSON WELLES!

  We had all meanwhile been groping with the biped’s thought patterns, though no success had attended our efforts. In the first place, his projection was almost nil; his race is apparently quite unaccustomed to telepathic communication. In the second place, of course, it is next to imposs
ible to read alien thought patterns without some fixed point of reference.

  Just as we could never have deciphered the ancient writings of the Khrugs without the discovery of the Burdarno Stone which gave the same inscription in their language and in an antique form of our own, so we could not attempt to decode this biped’s thought patterns until we knew what they were like on a given known subject.

  We now began to perceive some of his patterns of the Solar System and for our respective worlds. Halov went on to the second stage of the fifth approach. He took a group of small rocks, isolated one, held up one digit, and drew the figure one in the dirt. The biped seemed puzzled. Then Halov added another rock to the first, held up two digits, and drew the figure two, and so on for three and four. Now the biped seemed enlightened and made his agreement gesture. He also held up one digit and drew a figure beside Halov’s.

  His one is the same as ours—a not too surprising fact. Trubz has been working on the psychology of it and has decided that the figure one is probably a simple straight line in almost any numerical system. His other figures differed markedly from ours, but his intention was clear and we could to some extent follow his patterns.

  Using both forelegs, Halov went on to five, six, and seven with the biped writing down his number likewise. Then Halov held up all his digits and wrote a one followed by the dot which represents zero and is the essence of any mathematical intelligence. This was the crucial moment—did these bipeds know how to calculate or was their numerical system purely primitive?

  The biped held up eight digits and wrote a new figure, a conjoined pair of circles. Halov, looking worried, added another rock to his group and wrote down two ones. The biped wrote a circle with a tail to it. Halov added another rock and wrote a one followed by a two. The biped wrote a one followed by a circle.

  Then Halov understood. We have always used an octonary system, but our mathematicians have long realized the possibility of others: a system of two, for instance, in which 11 would mean three, a system of four (the folk speech even contains survivals of such a system) in which 11 would mean five. For 11 means simply the first power of the number which is your base, plus one. This system of the bipeds obviously employs a decimal base.