The Metal Maiden Collection

by Piers Anthony

  “Oh! But that will take you out too, beloved.”

  “Yes. It will be a suicide mission. But maybe it will show our world that resistance is possible, and there will be a spontaneous general uprising that will extirpate the alien menace.”

  “It will kill a great number of our neighbors.”

  “I know it, and it pains me. But if I do not act, they will soon die anyway, being canned for alien food. This seems less unkind.”

  “I will help you.”

  “No, Kess! I want you to survive and find happiness elsewhere. You must flee far from here.”

  “I will have no happiness without you, Kop. Besides, it requires two to transport the bomb.”

  She was correct. Reluctantly I allowed her to assist me in our suicide mission. We fetched the bomb and wheeled it by night to the outer wall of the building. The stench surrounding the edifice was terrible. I went about arming the device. There would be no delay once I completed the process and depressed the DETONATE button. It would blow, and this entire section of the planet would be vaporized.

  It was ready. My digit hovered over the button. “I love you, Kess,” I said sincerely.

  “I love you, Kop.”

  “You can still escape,” I said. “I can wait a time period, long enough for you to get clear.”

  She licked my hide. “I can imagine no greater honor than dying with you, for the greater welfare of our planet.”

  I was gratified. If I had to die, dying with her was my preference. I went for the button.

  But my digit did not descend. It remained hovering.

  “Do it, beloved,” Kess said urgently.

  “I can not,” I said.

  “Then I will do it.” She reached for the button.

  And paused. “Neither can I,” she said, appalled.

  Then I understood. “We have been taken over by alien minds.”

  “Duh!” a voice in my head said. “Did you think we would allow you to destroy our handiwork?”

  “Who are you?” I asked aloud, for the moment unable to think of a better reaction.

  “I am your alien master from Oumic. I have been with you all along, observing. But now it was necessary to take over.”

  “How did Oumic achieve the means to defeat us like this?”

  There was a hollow laugh. “We didn’t. We were taken over by the Maggots. Our planet is now a mass of fecal matter, the remnant of the meat that once governed it. The Maggots are moving on to the next food planet, this one. I have been spared temporarily to do their bidding, which is to govern you. Too bad; I admit I had hoped that you would successfully oppose them. But now I know they can not be stopped by species as stupid as ours or yours. Only one that can make the reduction of their planet more costly than it is worth can balk them even temporarily.”

  “You can balk them!” I cried. “Set off the bomb!”

  “This?” The Oumic laughed hideously. “Like this?” Kop’s digit descended and punched the button.

  Kop flinched, but nothing happened for a moment. Then a panel on the surface lighted with the word DUD.

  “Did you think the Maggots would leave dangerous weapons adrift for any fool to use?” the Oumic asked rhetorically. “You never had a chance.”

  “But I’m Aware,” Kop protested. “I know that bomb was live.”

  “You knew only what I allowed you to know. The bomb was illusion.”

  So it seemed. They had, as the alien said, never had a chance. Kop’s Awareness had been functioning as usual in other respects, enabling him to bring the bomb here unobserved. It had never occurred to him that an alien mind had joined his own, blocking off both his Awareness of its presence and the trap set for him. It had not occurred to him because the alien blocked him.

  “Now you are catching on. We have dawdled long enough,” the Oumic said. “The master is hungry.”

  Then the two of us marched on into the building. I was not conscious of being directed; it seemed that the imperative was my own, though I now knew it was not. Here the odor was a magnitude greater. I was surprised that the people of the neighborhood had not remarked on it.

  “What people?” the Oumic asked. “They have all been reduced. You are the last; we saved the two of you for two purposes.”

  Was there any point in asking what those purposes were? We would surely learn it all too soon.

  We came to a kind of office. There was a person sized grub, with several little forefeet, a slimy snout, several body segments, and a tail that oozed excrement. It smelled even worse than the building. But its mind was quite another matter. Telepathic awareness fairly radiated from it, overwhelmingly powerful.

  This, I realized, was a Maggot.

  Kess walked forward, seized by the rapacious mind of the Maggot. I tried to call out to her, warning her to stay away from it, but its mind had control of mine too. All I could do was stand there, mute.

  “Canned meat is fine,” the Oumic said in my mind. “But Maggots prefer live meat when it is available.”

  Kess rapidly stripped away her apparel and threw it aside. Then she went right up to the awful thing, reaching her forelimbs out toward it as if seeking to embrace its gross torso. But it was neither love nor sex it sought. Its snout oriented, and squirted translucent juice that soaked her skin. She screamed in utter agony as that strong digestive acid melted her flesh and continued penetrating to the bone, but she did not flee.

  Beloved! I cried internally, still unmoving.

  “The Maggot appreciates your pain also,” the Oumic said with my mouth. “That is one reason you are witnessing this.”

  The Maggot applied its gross snout to that dissolving flesh and slurped it in with gusto. Kess continued to scream. She could not move or defend herself, only shriek as the pain of dissolution continued. Just as I could not move or defend her, only watch in horror.

  When her forelimbs were gone, Kess bent forward as if to kiss the monster. It squirted more liquid on her head. She screamed anew as her fur, skin, and face dissolved, then the bone of her skull. When the pulsing matter of her brain was exposed, the Maggot put its snout to it and sucked it in, slowly hollowing out her head.

  Before long Kess stopped screaming. Her vocal apparatus had dissolved. But she was still hurting; I could tell by the helpless quivering of her body. Not until most of the brain was gone did I know that she had found the relief of death. Beloved! I repeated, stunned by grief and desolation.

  At which point the Maggot stopped eating. “Dead meat is less tasty,” the Oumic remarked.

  Now I walked forward. Was it my turn to be eaten? Why not; I had nothing left to live for. But the Maggot settled back on its fat posterior, squeezing out fecal pudding, ignoring me. I reached down, grabbed hold of Kess’s remaining torso, heaved it up on my shoulder, and walked out of the chamber. I went to a large hopper and dumped the body in. There was a grinding sound as it disappeared into that mechanical maw. It was being rendered into meat for canning.

  The Oumic took me on a tour of the slaughterhouse, showing me how the naked people were marched inside, ascended a ramp, and dived into the open orifice of a larger meat grinder. They didn’t even scream; apparently that was merely for the enjoyment of the Maggot during its repast. The rate of reduction seemed to be about one per second, and the line was continuous. This was only one of many grinders, and one of many slaughterhouses. Giant pipes conducted the slurry to the canning section where it was rendered into barrels of paste. These barrels were loaded onto the cars of the rail facility, which then were sent to the spaceport.

  It required a lot of meat to feed the full Maggot force. The life of our entire planet was being efficiently converted to that sustenance.

  At the conclusion of my involuntary tour, I paused at a dispenser of small cans. I took one and opened it. I tried to balk, but the Oumic had possession of my willpower. “Yes, it’s fresh; your sister may be part of the mix. You need to eat, as you have work to do.”

  I ate, though my gut retched. I
had no power of resistance.

  “You are an intelligent, trained, experienced executive,” the Oumic informed me. “You will learn the details of instituting, constructing, and staffing a slaughterhouse. For this chore your life is spared, for perhaps a year of conscious functioning.”

  “I’d rather die!” I retorted, now able to speak.

  “So would we all. But we have no choice. The Maggots govern, and they are hungry.”

  “Why should I learn this, when my world is already doomed?”

  “You will direct this operation on the next world.”

  I was dully surprised. “Then what of you?”

  “My term is expiring. Within months my body will be canned, and my mind will cease. You will continue on your own.”

  “Yet you continue to do their dreadful business!”

  “As will you.” I could not question his certainty.

  He trained me, and in due course his mind faded from mine and I knew he had been canned. He had not seemed like a bad sort, considering. All of us simply obeyed the will of the Maggots.

  In due course my planet was exhausted. It was nothing but a layer of shit surrounding islands of slaughterhouses. All the original life, animals, insects, plants, bacteria were gone; only feces-eating entities remained. I was packed into a spaceship and put in stasis, for how long I do not know. Later I was revived and my mind was sent to occupy that of one of the selected denizens of the next planet slated for reduction. This one. I observed for several months, learning the local details so I could perform my assignment effectively when the time came. Once that was done, I would be canned.

  There was just one bright spot. In that time I came to know you, Elasa, and to love you.

  You see, you have two aspects I require, apart from your animation, beauty, and intellect. You are not alive, so I do not feel as if I am somehow cheating on my beloved sibling Kess. Because you are not made of flesh, the Maggots will be unable to eat you, and I will be spared that horror. That makes you safe in another respect. I am satisfied to endure my remaining months in your company. I would love to have you succeed in defending your planet from the Maggots, but I can neither assist you nor encourage you in that lost cause. I can only find faint solace in loving you.

  I have rendered this narrative into your vernacular for more ready comprehension, adapting things like body parts to the closest equivalents you have. Now you know my story. I hope you will come to care for me despite it.

  I will return this body to its original owner for a while, so that you will have the illusion of privacy as you assimilate my narrative.

  Chapter 7:

  Analyste

  “This is amazing,” Elasa said. “A thorough alien invasion not for dominance, but simply for food. That’s all they want our planet for: a passing fast-food stop.”

  “And I, or rather, my body, is facilitating it,” Pauling said. “All my organizational expertise is co-opted to destroy my people. And I can do nothing about it.”

  Elasa smiled. “That’s my job. It may be impossible, but I’ll have to try.”

  “Kop believes it is impossible. I gather the Maggots made a survey of Earth’s resources and concluded that it lacked the ability to stop them. Which is not surprising, as few if any galactic species have made them pause even briefly. They expect to eat the galaxy.”

  “Well we do have some precognition. That’s what warned us of this threat.”

  “They have it too. Not the Maggots, but their captive species, whose powers become theirs. Their precognition indicates that Earth has nothing sufficient.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to hope something comes up.”

  He smiled. “Kop doubts you have anything, but he likes the aura of your illusion. He hates the Maggots.”

  “But serves them loyally.”

  “He has no choice, any more than I do. He has felt the direct power of a Maggot; nothing on Earth can withstand even a single one of those monsters, and they have millions.”

  “I must go,” Elasa said. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this ugly business, Paul.”

  “So am I.” He shrugged. “I love you. So does Kop. At least our final months are in your company.”

  “That’s sweet.” Elasa departed.

  Adela was with her on the drive home. “We do have a way,” she said. “But it is devious and fraught with danger. We are treading extremely carefully.”

  “It can’t be more dangerous than doing nothing and getting eaten by the Maggots.”

  “True. But there is luck involved. We have worked with Bunky to clarify the path, and we are on it, but we can’t be certain we will succeed.”

  “I thought precognition made it certain.”

  “Not when there is precognition on both sides. They tend to cancel each other out. One side makes a plan, the other side makes a counter-plan, and the result is future-vision chaos.”

  “But then how can the Maggots be so sure they’ll win?”

  “More than ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the likely paths give them the victory. Those are acceptable odds.”

  “And we have only one hundredth of one percent chance to stave them off?”

  “Not even that. Our odds are so small they don’t even register on the chart.”

  “Then what gives us any hope at all?”

  “We are zeroing in on that one faint chance. We have a secret weapon they don’t know about.”

  “What secret weapon?”

  Adela smiled. “If I told you, I would have to kill you.”

  “I can’t be killed!”

  “So I can’t tell you.”

  Elasa sighed. The logic was tight. “I will gladly leave it to you.”

  “No, you are the centerpiece. Without you we would have no chance.”

  “I can’t be your secret weapon!”

  “True. But you are the one who will wield it.”

  “You have more for me to do?” Elasa asked, surprised. “I thought that zeroing in the key personnel and getting the story of the Maggots would conclude my part.”

  “Here is the thing: you are the only conscious person on Earth whose mind can not be read or taken over by the minions of the Maggots. That makes you central.”

  “But I have no idea how to stop them!”

  “You don’t need to know, yet. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

  “Maintaining a placid home life while having a weekly affair with a high Earth official and/or an alien spy. This does not seem like much of a resistance effort.”

  “The Maggots agree. They know you mean to stop them if you can. Every person on this planet wants to stop them. They don’t care. Now they know you’re a robot. It doesn’t matter. They have encountered machines before. It simply means you are inedible. They are not concerned.”

  “How do you know so much about the Maggots?”

  “When Kop told you his history, the Lamb and I read his wider thoughts. He learned a lot about the Maggots while working for them. Now we know what he knows.”

  “The Maggots seem pretty arrogant.”

  “They are. But also unstoppable. Until now.”

  “Do you believe that, or are you merely giving me hope?”

  “Yes.”

  Elasa did not pursue it farther. She had plenty to assimilate regardless.

  She dropped Adela off at an empty corner. The Aware would find her own way back into anonymity. Then she drove to her house.

  Banner welcomed her home. He knew she had been having sex with another man, but he loved her and trusted her. She welcomed that attitude. She practically dragged him into bed.

  Then she got together with the Companions. Lamb, Vulture, Python—she had come to love them all. They identified more with Mona, who had brought them to Earth, and they preferred her, but had become friends with Elasa.

  *

  Time passed in the current mode. Elasa continued her affair(s) and Earth continued its routine, not even noticing the appearance of huge new buildings nea
r city centers. Evidently the titans of the media had been taken over, and anyone who tried to raise a question was quietly silenced. Elasa was amazed by how readily Earth was submitting to the looming disaster. But by similar token, it was clear that any potentially effective resistance would have to be hidden, because the Maggots were quite capable of extinguishing it the moment it manifested.

  So the Maggot menace cruised steadily closer. Elasa knew that their ships were now visible to Earth’s observers, but as with the Qqqs there was no alarm. Earth remained almost willfully blind. Could she run in the street crying “The Maggots are coming! The Maggots are coming!” and thus publicize the peril? Hardly; that would just get her institutionalized, if any attention was paid at all.

  What did the Awares have in mind? Elasa was desperately curious, but also knew it was best to remain ignorant, lest she give it away prematurely. Yet the schedule for opening the slaughterhouses was approaching. Once that process started, it was likely to be too late. As it was, the Companions, here in exchange, were nearing the end of their term, and would have to exchange back to Jones. Mona also planned to exchange, so she could have a baby with her husband Brian. If the Maggots didn’t eat Earth first.

  The threat was like a dark cloud intensifying as it loomed. But it seemed that only she could see it. The rest of the world went placidly in its petty pace, with no notion of the dreadful doom about to be unleashed.

  Then the ship from Colony Jones arrived, and a woman delivered Venus Flytrap to Mona, who promptly brought it to Elasa. Bunky immediately went to sniff noses, as it were, and so did Vulture and Python. The four were old friends. The plant was larger now, and would soon need a new pot. Elasa had tamed Venus, but Mona had spent far more time with her on Jones. It would be an experience getting to know this more mature version. It would be a minor distraction from the larger disaster that had been tormenting Elasa the past few months.

  She introduced the Plant to her son Bela with a certain caution. But in the presence of the Companions, who knew about Plants and babies, it was all right. They gave Venus the word, and it was clear that she and Bela would get along. Just as Venus and Elen’s baby Elmo had got along on Jones, according to Mona.