Sidehunter

Rajnar Vajra

Year: 2002

Parson’s Planet was a nasty place, by human standards — and not all the nastiness was homegrown.

.

My heart was racing and a private pool of sweat was collecting in the small of my back. After two tense months in superspace I was finally down on Parson’s Planet, inside Parson Station. But I still wasn’t feeling overly safe. Five minutes ago I’d had the nastiest scare of my scare-filled career. And right now, something was very wrong.

George Friskel, the station’s “commo” (communications chief), had promised to be waiting right here to welcome me. He’d lied.

This solitude wasn’t soothing, especially since my nearest allies, on the ISS Centipede, were thousands of vertical kilometers away.

Ten minutes later — still no Friskel. I’d outlined my mission to him via ultrawave audio but hadn’t described myself because I hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise.

So far, the surprise was on me.

Fortunately, I’d killed time during the interstellar flight by memorizing a station diagram. Ave boredom! Perhaps I could find Friskel’s office unaided…

I was facing south. The hydroponics garden should be in the closed off dome behind me, administration more or less straight ahead.

I hurried forward, trying to cheer myself by imagining Friskel’s reaction when he saw me.

Happiness proved elusive. The hallway century-lamps were barely glowing. They were hoarding electricity here and were even stingier with sounds; all I heard was a soft droning, occasional metallic clanks, and echoes of my own breathing. The air smelled weird. I began getting this bad feeling that Parson Station had been abandoned, I was about to find out why, and I wasn’t going to enjoy the experience.

“Susie,” I told myself, “what you don’t need in your job is imagination.”

Then I noticed the whine of a medical scanner, inaudible to human ears. If Friskel was receiving the data, my prank was spoiled. But at least an operating scanner implied company!

Encouraged, I continued through gloomy and increasingly smelly corridors.

Upon reaching what I hoped was Friskel’s door, I was absurdly relieved to hear someone moving inside. I knocked gently.

“Professor Artab?” a muffled voice inquired. “Is that ye already?”

“Ce’tainly is,” I admitted. For reasons that I will reveal in my own sweet time, I couldn’t pronounce the letter “r” at this point and my “l”s were mushy.

“Come in then, ‘tisn’t bolted.”

The door was a powered affair, operated remotely or controlled locally by a wide, dirty pressure-sensing plate. I pressed the plate, vaguely puzzled by my own hand. Seven fingers?

I wiped my palm against my faux slacks while the entrance widened. Then I stepped through swiftly, ducking to clear the lintel.

Friskel had a stack of folders in one arm; the other extended for a handshake. When he saw me, folders went flying…

Somehow, his reaction wasn’t so amusing. And the way he kept pointing his index finger at my chest was downright creepy.

He looked about thirty. Deep-set blue eyes crowded a cucumber nose, his depilated arms and head were tattooed with scars, and one eyebrow was AWOL. He was pungent with the station aroma; closeup, it suggested burnt lemon rind.

As the papers settled down, so did Friskel. ”You be Professor Artab?” he croaked, anally lowering his finger.

I bowed acknowledgment.

A vase on his desk, near an antique microtelephone, held a crimson flower atop a shiny green stalk. The air was still, yet the flower kept waving around.

“Jeez! Ye might have said somethin’.” Friskel’s voice was steadier than his thick hands. “Christ, ye near give me a hard attack!” I’d talked to this man weekly, and his localized English still seemed charmingly quaint.

To an innocent, a thumbscrew might seem quaint….

“Sowwy,” I muttered, bending to help harvest folders. “Hadn’t I mentioned I was a hybwidim?” I felt too embarrassed to admit my little joke had been intentional. Yelling “boo” would have been more sophisticated.

Another humiliation: inability to pronounce “hybridim.”

“Mentioned it?” the Commo rejoined. “Rambshit! Yet… considering, who’d be better for this duty than a prince of the Assembled?”

“I may have been assembled, but I’m no pwince.”

Friskel was criminally unobservant! Then it dawned on me, painfully, that my latest physical “improvements” had finally made my gender unrecognizable. Withheld tears burn the worst…

“Wheah is evewybody, Geowge? This place feels like a ghost station.”

“Here and aboot. Uh… deep apologies I wasn’t awaiting ye. Lost track o’ time — getting old I fear.” Momentarily, he looked troubled.

“That’s all wight.”

“Shall we set to business?”

“Suits me.”

“Business” was paperwork. With actual paper! Friskel claimed “true” signatures were required.

As I filled out release forms, he asked, delicately, what I’d been assembled from. I mentioned lion, fox, bear, shark… leaving out far more interesting donors.

“Jeez! I’ve been here so long, I near forgot about some of those Earth crits.” He peered at me curiously.

“Your feet are — what was the dangly word? Ursine?”

“That’s it.”

“But ye started as human?”

The question seemed absurdly offensive. “What else? And I’m still mostly human — despite my good looks.”

“Ah. Me, I like animals, with some exceptions, but I wouldn’t care to become one. Especially in bits and pieces. Why would ye do such a thing to yourself?”

I was tempted to tell him.

.

Twelve years ago I’d been a xenobotanist, a normal woman, teaching at a good university, with a good life on an Earth-like planet named Rush. I’d had a husband and daughter I loved.

But the Philyra Corporation, “Purveyor of Fine Perfumes,” learned that a certain flower, the Blue Ireil native to equatorial Rush, produced a Fragrance to… die for. Philyra skimped on ecological research, getting instant permission for a huge harvest through bribes and faked certificates. So many fields of Ireil were removed, our local fire-bees (supposedly harmless) swarmed into our cities, desperate for any kind of sugar.

I survived. The day I was discharged from the hospital, I hobbled to the nearest Ecomission office and told the freshly arrived officers to sign me up. I needed to fight the kind of blind selfishness that had killed so many people, including my husband and daughter.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so eager to volunteer, but I’d been the fool who’d told Philyra about the Ireil….

.

Friskel was waiting. Why had I been willing to sacrifice my humanity and quite possibly my life someday? Even if I’ trusted this man, my wounds were still too fresh to uncover.

“It seemed wothwhile,” I replied.

“Really?” He studied my two and a half-meter form with a peculiar intensity.

I turned to sign the final form. “Done. Now, wheah am I most likely to find a sidehunteh?”

Sidehunters, I should explain, are predators, strange even by galactic standards. Supposedly, they stood on the crumbling brink of extinction. My assignment was capturing some, then hauling them to the Xenozoo’s Species Preservation Facility on Mars. The SPF had somehow already obtained donable tissue samples from another zoological oddity: the sidehunters’ prey.

“Likely? Greg Parson will take ye to Albamy Jungle where the last sighting occurred. Parson be station-master and our Founder’s great-grandson. Uh… ye may believe our world be rated seven on Kirby’s Risk Scale.”

“Seven point two.”

“Well, now… that be singing a bit softly.”

“You mean seven’s too low?”

“On a good day, Professor, Parson’s could overtop ten.”

Ten? Then why wasn’t Parson’s on the Proscribed Planets list along with horror worlds like Conibel or Swatt? An extra trickle of sweat rolled down my back. An old station report had described the jungle as dangerous, but — hell, I’d once briefly visited Swatt, rated 8.8, and survived by the skin of my shark teeth.

Parson’s Planet couldn’t be worse!

.

Ecomission scientists couldn’t say how many sidehunters were left. Albamy is thickly canopied; orbiting telescopes are impractical for observing the jungle floor. Likewise, chromathermic scanning and chromaphotography are usually a waste of time or film because sidehunters’ bodies regulate themselves close to ambient temperature.

Twenty-two parsecs away, xenobiologists on Mars had readied a cloning and forced-growth lab; with luck, skill, and enough genetic material, the sidehunter species might be preserved. Assuming someone could capture such dangerous and elusive beasts.

So far, nobody ever had.

.

As Friskel and I pored over a stereo map of Hame Continent, his scent — burnt-lemon, adrenaline, and sweat — intensified. What was he so afraid of?

With a scarred finger, he traced a line running due east from station to jungle. The map was scaled in miles, but I figured the distance as 130 kilometers.

Then he dropped a bombshell. He said it might take four days to get me there!

I’d assumed that somebody would fly me out on a station shuttle. Friskel regretted this “misunderstanding” but claimed that the station’s only shuttle was undergoing extensive repairs.

“A pity, too,” he observed. “Ground travel here be a wretched affair.”

“Why?”

I saw a glint in his eye: possibly amusement, perhaps pity. “Ye’ll find out. If I spoke, ye wouldn’t believe.

“Keep the map,” he ordered, “but… don’t advertise it. Station property and all. Turn right at the corridor’s end. Keep going until ye come to a four-way intersection; have another right. Then seek a double-door marked ‘AATV.’”

“AATV?”

“‘Armored All-Terrain Vehicle.’ Enter and Doctor Parson will be waiting. Ye spot all that?”

“I think so. Thanks. I’ll see you when I get back. Pawson has my cages?”

“Aye. Well… best luck!”

I suddenly saw my astonishing idiocy. With the station’s T-comm, I could contact Captain Becker and simply have Centipede‘s shuttle pick me up and ferry me to Albamy. But the idea bounced from my awareness like a water droplet hitting a hot griddle.

The mind is its own trap, to paraphrase Milton.

.

I’d heard about Greg Parson, CEO of Parson Pharmaceuticals. He was only thirty-five, but already a legend in sub-molecular biology. Supposedly, he was often off-planet, lecturing and consulting; whopping fees were rumored.

Yet, it wasn’t startling that the station-master himself was offering me a lift.

On Earth, 130 years ago, humanity had gotten a lesson. Oceanic pollution had dangerously diminished Earth’s primary source of fresh oxygen: pelagic phytoplankton. The consequences had caused the Interworld Council to see ecological matters in a brighter light. They’d awarded the Ecomission impressive powers.

Since then, Ecomission personnel (even Hybridim) have been treated with respect.

.

From the hallway, I waved to Friskel and sauntered away. His door clicked shut. I hustled to hide behind a nearby corner, tucked the map away, and listened.

The commo’s door opened and closed; I’d figured he might check to see if I was really gone. I waited another moment, then shifted my hips forward, locking my spine into running mode. I dropped to all fours and silently bounded back. Outside the office, I was all ears.

“Right,” Friskel was saying. From the faint buzzing reply, I knew he was using that old-fashioned phone I’d noticed earlier. “A cob-job, Boss. And big! Why the hell didn’t ye say when ye saw the scan? Bigger’n ye with your ma’s high heels and your da’s high helmet! A splicer — Christ, I speaked to him for months and never guessed.”

Buzz. Buzz.

“No. But wait ‘till ye hear him talk! If he weren’t so scary, ye’d bust a gut! Anyway, I’m telling ye: He’s deep dangerous for sure.”

I grinned sadly, about to turn away, when Friskel continued. “Another thing. I’ll warrant our splicer trips horizontal. He looked… wrong standing upright and his arms be fearful long! Bet he’s a real mover. What? Hell, no! He looks tough, but I’ll lay wide odds he won’t last more than ten minutes alone in deep jungle. Okay. Take care and we’ll see ye at week’s end.”

Damn! I’d been warned the stationers might be sharper than they looked. I dashed down the corridor, making up time. Near the four-way intersection I stopped and stood, my lumbar curve resettling with a soft click. I strolled into the intersection.

The air coming from the left carried the strongest stench yet. A guard was blocking an extra-wide doorway five meters down that passageway. He was holding a blue-laser rifle and pretending he didn’t see me. I followed instructions, taking the hallway to the right.

.

“Professor Artab, I presume?”

“Yes.”

If my appearance alarmed Dr. Greg Parson, he didn’t show it. He was taller than Friskel and even more battered. Two fingers on his right hand were stubs; one ear had been partly chewed off. In the corded muscles of his neck was a scarred sinkhole of missing flesh.

Didn’t regeneration techniques work here? Evidence was mixed. Parson had missing fingers but shiny new teeth… or implants.

He stood jauntily, as if he were sporting a top hat and twirling a silver-crowned cane. Instead, he wore a color-shifting chameleon suit and a hefty collection of weapons holstered in a chameleon waist-belt. I counted four slammers and an automatic pistol.

Excessive? He also carried a laser rifle, one behemoth-sized fuel-cell, five grenades hanging from their own belt, and two long knives poorly hidden under the zippers of his trouser legs, which were secured to color-shifting boots.

I was beginning to suspect the local wildlife wasn’t friendly.

Parson didn’t offer his hand, but favored me with a microscopic bow. “An honor, sir,” he said stiffly.

“The honeh is mine. But please call me Awtab.” Evidently, he hadn’t caught my feminine side on the scan and I was in no mood to enlighten him. “When do we leave?”

Aside from their coldness, the station-master had beautiful eyes, teal irises ringed in yellow. His scalp and chin were depilated like Friskel’s (and mine) as a precaution against Hame fungus. But his delicate lashes and high-arching brows contributed to an overripe air of refinement.

Eyelashes and eyebrows, always infested with specialized mites, are immune to the fungus. Turns out such mites relish ciliafungi. You never know what’s going to come in handy….

“We’ll leave when I’m convinced ye ken the facts o’ life,” Parson stated. He spoke softly, but what an abrasive voice! Evidently, his vocal folds were beaded with glass shards.

“Which facts?”

“Have ye heard o’ planet Conibel, Professor?”

It took a moment to identify an unfamiliar sensation in my chest: anger. Normally, my feelings of loss and guilt override petty annoyances. Yet I was starting to hate this man. He wore a presumption of superiority like a loud Hawaiian shirt. Also, I didn’t appreciate the topic, I had secrets concerning Conibel.

“I know of it,” I confessed.

“Conibel be famous for outlandish creatures. Yet — do ye ken the word ‘voracious’?” I nodded, conceding it was within my limited vocabulary. “Crits here be more voracious.”

“Fwiskel implied as much. But my ship’s datasehveh only mentioned —”

“We don’t want this known.”

“Why not?”

“Thrill-seekers would home in, like those fools sneaking into Conibel’s Forbidden Forest. We can’t be bothered by lawsuits from relatives of the eaten.”

“Eaten? Alien animals kill humans, admittedly, but why would they find humans… appetizing? Owe digestible?”

He feigned a pitying look. “Our crits and brits haven’t survived through picky eating.” A “crit,” I’d been told, was an animal and a “brit” was anything alive that wasn’t an animal.

“Seems unnatuwal.”

“Nature, sir, defines natural. Remember: This world has gone through massive changes. Life had to become flexible.”

True. Some dozen million years ago, the local sun, Gienah, had been a small white star….

Parson eyed me thoughtfully. “Tell me somewhat. See my costume? This be a ‘hidersuit.’ Try to nose.me. Whiff anything?”

His scalp was dirty, his breath heavy as a man twice his age, and he reeked of burnt-lemon, but I couldn’t smell anything emanating from beneath his suit.

“No,” I replied with more tact than accuracy.

“Course not. Now I’ll tell ye somewhat: Your Ecomission bosses be determined to get ye killed.”

“How so?”

“We’ve been instructed not to train ye or lend ye hidersuit or footswear — not that we’ve any your size — and not to bother ye in the Jungle.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Chances? With no weapons? No hidersuit, goggles, or UV protection? No boots? We normally require a year of instruction ‘fore a newcomer be allowed to step outside, and another year ‘fore they cross the fence. Professor, ye be dead… unless ye carry Jopper’s luck in abundant measure!”

I’d only heard “Jopper” as part of “Jopper’s ramb”: a ramb being a kind of herd animal you wouldn’t try to, say, milk. But if Parson kept patronizing me, he’d be needing some surplus luck himself.

The station-master donned a flexible, chameleon helmet; even its visor changed colors. He pulled on gloves covered with tiny flat disks and strode over to a wall-mounted Control panel.

“Here be the airlock; we must flash it proper.” He turned toward me momentarily, probably confirming that I was too distant to see the panel’s keyboard. Predictably, he’d underestimated my eyes. He typed ten digits and I made sure to memorize them.

Suddenly, the closed airlock was blazing with infrared. A human couldn’t have seen the heat as I could, but they would have felt it! Such doorways are invariably well insulated — how hot had it gotten inside the huge lock?

“That should give lurkers somewhat to think aboot! I’m opening t’inner door. Stay alert!”

Cooling units were laboring, but the escaping air was like foundry heat on a summer day. As we stepped inside, I had to shift from foot to foot to avoid burns, and my latest feet are tough. Where did these stationers keep their damn vehicles? Outside?

“Now, we flash the outer lock, and ye will get your first sight o’ the compound. Don’t touch the building or fence and for sure don’t test the acid moat with a toe. And never stand still. Without footswear, ye be prime bait for spike-worms and hemotodes.”

Soon, impossibly vivid daylight was jabbing my startled pupils while alien sounds baffled my ears. The cloudless sky was blinding indigo; vegetation surrounding the compound appeared to be sheathed with verdigris. We stepped onto a section of ice-smooth flooring — fused crude glass — still hot from the “flashing.” The lock snapped closed. I turned to regard the stranded-jellyfish bulk of the station from the outside.

My augmented eyes adjusted. Something large atop the flattened, distant summit of the highest dome reminded me…

.

My long shuttle descent from Centipede to the station had ended with a shocker. On anal approach, Bill Ku (my pilot) had gasped, pointing toward the vessel’s virtualport. I’d ignored safety regs, leaning over to peek. At that moment, we were fifty meters above the station’s roof-based landing circle. Yet right next to us, just beginning to fall, was a large and terrifyingly ugly animal. A deformed giant green octopus with two extra tentacles. A decapus, I suppose. We’d practically collided with it.

How had it gotten up so high without wings? Besides, the thing was obviously too heavy to fly. Billy must have feared it was raining monsters; he set the virtualport on both fish-eye and rapid sweep, not recommended for landings.

Seconds later, touchdown was rough enough to dent Billy’s pride, if little else. I allowed that his clumsiness was understandable and showed him my quivering hands. We hurriedly unloaded the cages through the shuttle’s floor bay, and the instant I’d entered Parson Station, Billy took off in an atmosphere-tearing hurry.

I’d been delighted to go directly from the shuttle’s interior to the station’s interior. If only my mission allowed me to stay inside….

.

A brown decapus was squatting on a dome, trying to eat the greasy white roof.

“Can those things… jump?” I asked quietly.

Barely glancing up, Parson explained, “Bloody bastards stretch themselves out on trees and shoot themselves off like rubber-bands.”

Lord! No wonder the airlock was ringed with gleaming plasma-coil nozzles! These stationers didn’t take chances…

What stationers? So far, I’d only seen three, when Ecomission records claimed four hunched residents.

“Why —”

“Damn ye! I told ye to keep movin’ and keep your fool eyes open!”

I whirled around. The noisy air was hot, heavy, smelling of chocolate and rot. The alien sun was a blinding Halloween pumpkin. Everything was eerie with reflections from cloyingly verdant foliage. Twenty meters ahead was an electrified perimeter fence topped with needle-sharp spikes and blue-white gas jets. Past the fence, a wide moat glittered green. Beyond that — I wasn’t ready to take it in…

Parson gestured for me to proceed.

I took one pace onto loose sand. A blurred form came bounding toward me, I jumped sideways. SNAP! Something sharp grazed my throat.

“Dart-snake. Rather poisonous,” the station-master remarked, glowering at a long, multilegged animal bunching up for another attack. “Buggers are hard t’ spot.” The sinuous form leaped. Parson pointed a gloved index finger. Instantly, a slammer drew itself from his belt, bobbed in midair supported by a metallic cable, and fired. The resulting corpse was an oval rug overlaid with a doily of violet blood.

“Darters can’t cross the fence; this one must’ve hitchhiked. Ye have bountiful reflexes, Professor!”

Now I understood that oversized fuel-cell. Parson had a command belt. Guided by glove-sensors, his weapons could kill with inhuman speed and accuracy.

The sand underfoot looked odd. I bent, ran some through my fingers, and sniffed. Salt and herbicides.

Reluctantly, I focused beyond the moat. The rare holovids of Parson’s Planet showed nothing like this. Plants were moving; adjusting oversized leaves to hog all possible sunlight, striding on hairy roots to more tempting locations, leaning over to shock attackers with silver sparks. Shoots were sprouting up (and vice versa) like miniature volcanic eruptions. The flowers weren’t the galaxy’s prettiest, but they were surely the most combative.

These vegetables, evidently, knew what was happening around them. Local potatoes probably had functional eyes.

Even trees battled. Some walked, spry as bushes. Most leaves were furiously green, although some coleus-style vari-colored foliage blocked a monopoly.

If vegetation was active, the animals were hyperactive! Creatures were running, leaping, slithering. Most were ravenous. Beasts were feeding even as larger beasts were eating them; sometimes those were being consumed in turn.

Animals were mating with desperate haste. Birthing was swift and babies ran upon hitting the ground. Few survived.

I watched, petrified. This food chain was ornately interwoven. Most animals were predatory omnivores, craving meat but snacking, when possible, on vegetation between kills. Clawed tentacles were prevalent…

Where was so much biological energy coming from?

The answer was blazingly obvious. Gienah, 53 Epsilon Cygni, is an orange-yellow giant far cooler than Earth’s Sun, but emitting sixty times more total energy. Parson’s Planet, orbiting five AUs away, receives twice Earth’s average daily lumens. Organic refrigeration renders it inhabitable. Its prolific vegetation (including seaweed) has evolved an ultraefficient infrared-absorbing photosynthesis, sometimes with photovoltaic aspects. In short, this bio-insanity was solar-powered.

Parson turned to face me. “What d’ye think?”

“Seems a lovely day, Docteh,” I replied mildly, defying my clenched stomach. “Wheah awe those AATVs?”

“In the AATV room — didn’t ye see the dangly sign? I just wanted ye to get the standin’ view. Watch behind as we round trip.”

As we walked back, I got another jolt. Something had burned huge holes into the dome-monster.

“Don’t tell me the station’s coated with some cowwosive!”

“A tasty one. Effective; eh?”

Effective, grotesque, and appalling. No wonder that big plastic ring had been attached to my shuttle’s underbelly! I’d joked about the poor shuttle needing a hemorrhoid pillow, but, strangely, I hadn’t asked what it was for….

The decapus was still trying to bite the roof. To make the sight penultimately horrible, its mouth was gone.

What happened to the liquefied remains of anything attacking the station? Would hidden gutters channel the run-off to some loathsome reservoir? Hadn’t Parson said “acid” moat? Maybe that’s where —

“Head down!” Parson yelled and I ducked.

Something red sailed over me.

“A salamandril,” my companion proclaimed. “Quite rare. Lucky ye dodged so thefty; those crits get their meat by setting flesh afire.”

“How… is that possible?” I asked weakly. The animal was burrowing into the sand.

Parson shrugged. “Some chemical they exude reacts violently with a wide spectrum o’ organic compounds. We haven’t studied them in depth. They be uncommon and we’ve more interesting beasties to research. But if ye lack protection, look out! Once your skin ignites, the fire won’t snuff and keeps spreadin’. They like their supper well-done, salamandrils do, and one touch is enough to kill.”

I glanced down at my shoulder. A streak of dampness was drying. Apparently, my fake blouse was fireproof… as far as salamandrils were concerned. First good news I’d had today.

Parson’s helmet hid his face, but I sensed he wasn’t smiling. He uncovered the red creature with a boot that momentarily blushed but didn’t ignite. Another slammer blast reduced the salamandril to paste. He then reopened the outer door with a furtively whispered command.

The code word, strangely, was “Bunny.” I almost smiled; my current vocal folds had been bioengineered for audio locks.

We reentered the station in edgy silence.

The AATV was hidden under a tarp. It was four meters long, somewhat narrow, and armored in chameleon plastic coated with translucent grease. I couldn’t see any weapons, windows, doors, or wheels.

“How… cozy.”

“Bit of a squeeze,” he conceded, removing his helmet, “but t’will do. She be roomier than she looks. Which reminds me: Our AATVs have heads including dry-showers. You’ll fit inside but not gaily, so ye may wish t’ relieve yourself before we leave.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself. Sure ye want to go?”

“Can’t wait. How does this toy move?”

Parson sighed. “On four split-treads and she can fly — briefly. Tamed oxy-hydrogen works pistons and jets.”

The treads must have been retracted. “How do we see out?”

“Abide and learn.”

Parson pulled a device from a zippered pocket. One end held a flexible tube, which he placed on the AATV, moving it around while squinting at an illuminated readout. Fluorescent light projected a blue bandit’s mask over his beautiful eyes.

“Coating be thin,” he snapped. He redonned his helmet and snatched a heavy glove off a workbench, placing it on his right hand over the command glove. Then he pulled an insulated hose from the wall, aimed its nozzle at the AATV, and squeezed a trigger. Scorching spray emerged, its infrared flare making my eyes water. Suddenly, the vehicle was utterly shiny.

I’d seen this phenomenon before, somewhere. But before the memory clarified, I was distracted by my own reflection. Distorted by surface curvature, my image was unfamiliar enough for some belated objectivity.

Slowly, over the years, I’d become something terrible. Each “improvement” had left me bigger, scarier, and less human.

The fun-house-mirror wasn’t helping. My delicate, pointed ears appeared grotesquely widened, more batlike than vulpine. Only my new eyes were unaltered: big, golden, and feline. I avoided staring into them too deeply. Let sleeping dolors lie….

I forced myself to check my clothing. The blue tunic, brown trousers, and gray belt still looked satisfactorily realistic.

Aside from a backpack, my only genuine adornments were a golden chain supporting a silvery Ecomission pendant and a whimsical touch: an antique digital wristwatch. In the mirror, my watch was a swollen spider strangling a swollen arm.

The moment of reflection (the AATV’s and mine) faded. Parson retested the surface, nodded, and whispered another word I wasn’t intended to overhear: “Safe.”

The vehicle’s roof unfolded; I stared into what was to be home-sour-home for the next few days.

“My cages?” I tried to sound unimpressed.

“Already loaded. They’ve filled the boot so ye’ll have t’ carry your back-kit by lap.”

I climbed in, sat down, and gawked. Everything looked ultimately sleek, efficient, and costly, especially the translucent virtual heads-up display. My seat was small for me, but oversized for any normal person. It was form-adaptive and immediately began working to keep me comfortable: vibrating, subtly varying shape and texture. The air-filtration system was outstanding; I was hardly aware of my companion’s stench when his hood and gloves came off.

As the canopy closed, it seemed to vanish. The AATV was a “convirtual,” a virtual convertible. I’d ridden in convirtuals, but here, the effect was persuasive. Image resolution seemed perfect. Subtle breezes from hidden fans enhanced the semblance of open space and acoustic dampers were operating. Sounds within the cockpit now had a subtly anechoic, outdoor quality.

Parson slipped his rifle and battery into floor-clamps. For a few relatively happy seconds, I thought the journey might be easy. Then the doctor “touched” an orange virtual-button.

All hell and its suburbs broke loose. I tried not to react, but Parson wasn’t blind.

“Ye can hear that?” he asked, astounded.

Pointless to deny it. “That’s a — an unde’statement. Please shut it off!”

“I cannot — in fact, t’will soon be louder. These sub and supersonics stand ‘twixt us and certain digestive tracts.”

With this unsettling news, he touched another button. A pale aquamarine sphere materialized over his right armrest, a sapphire cube over the left. Parson clenched his right hand, inserting it into the shimmering, translucent aquamarine. His fingers opened, the sphere turned ruby, and the vehicle arose on its treads.

This setup wasn’t merely state-of-the-art; it was an up-to-the-damn-minute virtual guidance system costing… twice God’s salary!

Parson studied readouts, then committed his left hand to the sapphire cube, which deepened to amethyst. Weapons control module, I guessed. But where was the weapon?

A small right-hand gesture rolled us to the airlock. When the AATV got close, the airlock “flashed” itself and opened automatically.

In the lock, as promised, the decibel level soared. I covered my ears with my hands. The outer door opened and we moved rapidly arid smoothly over the sand. Parson raised his right arm. We jumped the fence and moat with a roar of burning fuel that added another bad note to the cacophony. And we didn’t land daintily.

For the next few incredible moments, I forgot I had ears.

I’ve seen reckless driving, but this took the cheesecake. Parson seemed determined to kill us, deliberately crashing into random monsters and trees — only the impacts were unaccountably feeble, scarcely slowing us. Our journey was dreamlike, dizzying, and zigzag.

Ecomission doctors should renovate my IQ. It took ten terrifying minutes for my brain to work out why it was still working.

“The oil!” I screamed over the noise.

“Ye don’t have t’ shout, damn ye, I’m right here!” Parson’s obnoxious voice somehow made him perfectly audible. “What oil?”

(We splashed through a shallow pond, spray flying.)

“On the AATV.” I couldn’t hear my own words now, but I assumed he could. “This vehicle’s too slick foah sewious collisions unless we hit dead on; and you keep tu’ning at the last moment!”

Parson flicked his eyes toward me. “Of course. Your ‘oil’ be named fulleron.”

Suddenly, I remembered! Years ago, I’d witnessed a special presentation at Chicago’s Physics Research Laboratory…

(We skidded between two huge crits; both ignored us.)

A PRL spokesperson had described fulleron as a superpolymer of chained “fullerene capsulettes” with certain carbon atoms replaced by nitrogen, argon, and silver. Historically, buckminster-fullerenes (various molecules constructed as regular polyhedrons of carbon atoms) begot carbon nanotubes, which begot fulleron…

(Parson swerved to avoid a harmless-looking thing resembling animated fabric.)

Fulleron isn’t merely slippery like your classic CD buckyball. Under laser-fire, a molecule-thin layer of fine silver rises to the surface. The spokesperson called this the “floating are vapor deposition” effect.

The demonstration was impressive. A military laser was fired at a greasy-looking ceramic tile. The tile became so perfectly reflective that the bounced beam punctured a metal plate….

“I know about Fullewon,” I said. “I’ve just neveh seen it applied so… libewally.” The stuff had proven economically impractical.

Parson’s eyes narrowed. “Ye know? How?”

Oops. He was probably wondering why a xenobiologist would be aware of an experimental military product — why had I attended that demonstration?

“My cousin helped develop Fullewon.” Feeble, but the best I could improvise.

I needed to distract him and one issue sprang to mind. “I’m cuwious, Station-masteh. Why the hell awe you hitting evewything in sight?”

“We have a saying: “Ricochet be the only way.’”

“Why?”

“Too many moving beings here. If I track toward a clear spot, that spot will likely be filled when we arrive. And understand this: we be armored, but hardly invulnerable. Beasts large enough to spring for a slice o’ us avoid the giants, so I aim for giants, who mostly don’t case about us. They tend t’ be big eaters, if ye follow me. If I miss, we be that much ahead; if I hit, no harm done; we simply track on, proceeding on the bias. Now shut up. Let me concentrate!”

.

If you get carsick, seasick, or spacesick, don’t go sightseeing on Parson’s Planet in an AATV. I’d never suffered from motion sickness before, but traveling by caroms….

Gradually, I became more worried about holding my breakfast than about imminent death. I snagged two water balloons from my backpack and drank the water, which reduced my queasiness by a good half-percent. As an afterthought, I stuffed as much of the soft plastic in my ears as would fit, thus simultaneously inventing the galaxy’s worst noise-reducers and its ugliest earrings.

Terrain was changing. Fewer pools of standing water, calmer vegetables, smaller animals. Interesting.

And here, the struggle for survival wasn’t all-out anarchy. Many species, including some plants, worked cooperatively to protect their young.

Parson drove on, ignoring me until he abruptly jerked in surprise.

“Professor, here be an oddity: an adult phobe.”

“What?”

“A phobedon. They usually go for larger meats.”

“Wheah is it?”

“Trackin’ us.”

I twisted around, looking over my backrest. The phobe was a tyrannosaur-style predator. But this fellow seemed larger and came equipped with two long tentacles. Its tusks made T-rex’s fifteen-centimeter fangs seem like wee baby teeth.

Despite our sirens and evasions, tentacles began slapping against our vehicle and slithering off. Suddenly, the beast accelerated, lowering its head. Out of the corner of one eye, I saw the station-master jerk his left hand backwards…

Behind us, horribly brilliant blue fire lashed out. Then, nothing was chasing us. I watched the mushrooming steam and dust for a moment before turning around. Orange afterimages obscured my vision.

I was stunned. This AATV was essentially a dandified plasma-pulse cannon! Military armament reserved for Earth Planetary Security. Something was exceedingly wrong here.

I wanted to ask how Parson had obtained such an illegal weapon, but his impenetrably smug expression warned me. Better to choose questions he wasn’t expecting.

.

Travel continued easing. My tour-guide suddenly started talking and forgot to stop.

Initially, the monologue was interesting, filled with historical glimpses and clues to local slang. But I learned (the hard way) that Parson’s repertoire was limited. Or maybe his stories just sounded identical. Every tale had one moral: only Parson, his father Daron, grandfather Daffid, or great-grandfather Enoch who had built the station (apparently bare-handed), could handle a crisis.

Partly in desperation, I asked about the station’s palpable emptiness and why it had been constructed in such a biologically active area. Wouldn’t it be easier to live elsewhere? Maybe even on another continent such as Alabaster?

“Alabaster?” Parson sneered. “That land be cruelly unstable. When a mile-deep crack opens beneath ye, what would ye do? Fall, I warrant!”

Having put me in my place, he resumed the stories or story — without answering the basic question.

Miserable hours passed before I interrupted. “Doesn’t this damn sun eveh sink?”

“Do ye jest? Sun sank hours ago, and well trip for another two afore we bed.”

I regarded the image with new respect; it looked like daylight out there. Only… no shadows. I’d let Parson bore me to stupidity.

When we finally stopped, he buried the AATV by running the four treads in opposing pairs. We sank slowly but steadily. He then delicately applied the cannon to surround us with semi-fused earth.

A galaxy of tiny cabin-lights appeared on the now-visible ceiling.

In my lifetime, no music has matched the glory of the sirens dying. Utter bliss! I joyfully pulled out the sad excuses for earplugs.

My companion sighed, stretched, and mumbled something about compressed air and CO, scrubbers.

Dinner was packaged rations; we drank something brown. Trash went into a minicompactor under my seat. Parson checked our progress on the virtual chart and performed the challenging feat of looking smugger.

“Not too shabby — near sixty miles! But tomorrow we reach Lake District and slow goin’. By the bye,” he asked casually, adjusting his seat for reclining; “I was wonderin’…what besides balloons might be in your kit?”

I studied his face. Did he suspect the truth?

That thought caught me totally by surprise. What truth?

“In my pack?” I fought for composure. “Just the usual.”

Was this a test? Eavesdropping on Friskel, I’d learned that Parson had gotten my medical scan. Since the pack was my only obvious hiding place, he would have practically dissected its contents…

The station-master yawned hugely. “What be ‘usual’?”

“You know. Food. Watch. Um… fwuit juice, depilatowy. Toilet papeh, toothbwush, soap, That’s about it.” Honoring Friskel’s request, I overlooked the map.

As I mentioned depilatory, Parson lifted his right hand to hide a smirk; two missing fingers spoiled the subtlety.

I was too upset to care. The depilatory treatment I’d given myself on the Centipede would last for months. What had possessed me to bring along depilatory?

What was wrong with me?

This was intolerable! I would soon be alone in a zoological hell and I couldn’t even trust myself….

Parson unzipped his suit and clambered over his seatback to reach the small bathroom behind us. I felt no need; my body was designed to process nutrients and water efficiently. This was prosurvival in itself, and the less waste I left, the harder I’d be to track.

He returned, dry-shower scented. He wriggled in his seat to get comfy, turned off display and cabin lights, and appeared to fall asleep instantly.

For me, sleep seemed as distant as Rush. My eyes were propped open by disturbing mysteries: the station’s emptiness, its peculiar odor. Why had an armed guard been posted in that hallway?

Another issue was more troubling.

We were buried; nearly all sounds involved breathing and pumping: air flowing into the cockpit, the respiration and heartbeat of my unpleasant companion, the gentle creaking of ribs; my own vital noises. Occasional stomach gurgles. Yet no matter how quiet it was, no matter how long I stared into the dark, I couldn’t block out one question:

Was I on a suicide mission?

.

The next morning, after a pitiful breakfast, Parson blasted us from our ceramic pit and we were underway, sirens screaming. My nerves were soon shot even with my improved earplugs (I’d squeezed dabs of food-paste inside).

Parson’s driving was almost normal. All too soon, he pulled out his short bag of long stories.

When we reached a lake, I expected we’d fly over. Instead, Parson drove into the water, flooding an internal compartment. Cabin pressure compensated automatically as we sank.

On the bottom, the treads propelled us along at a surprising clip.

An eerie experience! The open-roof illusion made it seem as if clean water was surrounding us, but magically keeping its distance. I had an excellent view, somewhat enlarged g hope), of a finned welcoming committee.

Finally back on land, we entered another biological hotspot and had to rebound until we came to another lake — and so it went. It was a long, sickening day; when we stopped for lunch, I wasn’t interested.

Sure enough, I could squeeze into the bathroom.

.

We’d parked on a steep hill. Parson magnified the view to study the valley ahead, which did nothing to restore my appetite.

While Parson ate — mayhem didn’t bother him — I asked about one particularly odd-looking creature. He nodded, expanding the image for a closeup. My mystery beast was a brit called a “draper.” I’d seen dozens on our journey, and noticed how careful he’d been to avoid hitting them.

The draper had a bizarre means of locomotion: depositing parts of itself on other parts. Its “front” end lengthened in gushes while the “rear” end shrank. Sometimes it resembled an animated, horizontal stalactite, other times… drapes.

It was speckled with turquoise droplets and the ground bubbled as it passed. Other species gave it a wide berth.

I asked the logical question: were these brits acid-covered? Parson found the idea so amusing he nearly choked. I wished I’d been funnier.

“Hardly, Professor. Drapers ooze deepest alkali. Not much chews on them.”

“Oh. Thought I’d found the source of the station’s acid.” His grin widened. “It’s not impossible, damn it! I’d expect you to use animals in nasty ways.”

Surprisingly, Parson arrested mid-chuckle. Yet Ecomission rules are tolerant — perhaps too tolerant — of colonists exploiting wildlife if there’s no danger of ecological disruption or species extinction. I’d seen enough drapers to discount imminent extinction.

“We synthesize our acid,” Parson stated unnecessarily. “I’m done, let’s go.”

.

The next morning started badly with another horrid breakfast. When we surfaced, Parson glanced around grimly and released “safety webs.” Apparently, shoulder straps couldn’t handle slipping and sliding added to the usual bouncing and jouncing.

The webs were gossamer cocoons that held us firmly. Mine was uncomfortably small.

Today, some collisions weren’t so mild; fortunately, our chariot was tough. Drenching rains brought out aggressive brits resembling wingless, armored, wolf-sized mosquitoes.

All in all, a day worth forgetting.

.

The journey’s final day was overwhelming.

It was drizzling as we entered a magnificent forest strangely devoid of hungry life. Parson called this the “Trap-Door Jungle.” The enormous trees, whose arching branches created a semi-closed canopy, stayed rooted. We could drive like sober folks!

Parson adjusted the sirens to emit two tones: one at about six Hertz, the other at fifteen. The result simulated riding an earthquake.

“Here we enter the herd-runs,” he explained. “Herd beasties gang in vast numbers; they stampede, tramplin’ anything they overtake. Then they cut back, feedin’ on remains.”

“This noise fwightens hewds?”

“Hell, no! It scares trap-door crits who be canny enough to hide until a stampede passes. I’m duplicating a herd ground-shake.”

“swap-dooah … what? What kind of cwits?”

“Wait ‘till we come to a long-enough clearing.”

Soon, Parson found a path fit for his demonstration. He damped the sirens, rapidly returning his hand to the guidance module; acceleration flung me backwards.

“Watch t’ rear.”

I twisted around to face a paranoid’s time-and-motion study. Multitudes of round or rectangular plates set into the earth had appeared. On the ground we’d just passed over, these doors were barely up. Farther back, the plates had risen enough to reveal dark holes. Still farther were open holes whose resident monsters were emerging. From that point on… a sea of monsters.

Every crit seemed unique, impressively ugly, and lethal.

An especially athletic denizen leaped prodigiously, landing on our roof. The convirtual effect provided a closeup of snapping jaws, multiple tongues embellished with miniature teeth, and a wash of yellow drool.

I had one heart-stopping moment to appreciate all this before the monster slipped off, its dozen spiny limbs flailing. Concerned neighbors emerged with eye-blurring speed, but not to comfort the dazed creature; it was half-eaten before we moved twenty meters.

“You can sound the siwens again,” I remarked thoughtfully. “We have plenty of fuel, I hope?”

.

Earth and Parson’s Planet are similar in atmosphere, gravity, and rotational speed. Parson’s year is six times longer.

Both planets have oceans, volcanoes, magnetospheres, and a large moon; their respective suns rise in the east (as defined by magnetic north) and set in the west.

Yet, when we finally arrived at Albamy Jungle, it seemed the most alien environment I’d ever encountered.

Parson, recounting another cloned story, muttered, “Here be Albamy.” The monologue resumed and I paid even less attention than usual.

The place suggested an underwater forest. Gienah’s actinic light, filtered through millions of leaves, dimmed to emerald. Undergrowth was minimal. Enormous, permanently rooted trees were lined up in neat rows, verdigris-colored trunks practically touching; between rows was a long, wide corridor floored with dead leaves and moss: a giant’s carpet.

Spectacularly colorful fungi sprouted, yellow, blue, and scarlet.

Above us, trees competed, but their branches were so intertwined, wavelike movements were generated, dropping scores of leaves as they passed. I got the strongest impression of watching ocean breakers from beneath.

The jungle appeared infinitely more civilized than the station’s demesne.

“Hunter territory,” Parson observed sourly, then he snapped to attention. Two green squares adorned his display, representing two large groups of large animals. The squares were converging on the triangle signifying our current position. My companion fell silent, tensely studying the passing landscape.

“This’ll do,” he said, halting the AATV, then backing it smartly into an atypical space between trees, oddly bright and densely walled by branches.

Parson killed engine and sirens, grumbling that such sounds attracted danger here: herd-predators.

His timing was inspired. Two armies of crits coming from opposite directions stampeded down the corridor. Each herd kept strictly to one side.

Darwinian protocols?

Even inside our vehicle, rumbling was intense. I shouted, asking what happened if a herd encountered, say, phobedons. A pile-up?

He hollered back that the herd would “flow around” uncrushable obstacles, but I’d be surprised at how big such obstacles had to be.

The galloping animals looked like…

“Wambs!” I exclaimed. “Which kind?”

“Bright’s rambs, Professor; three hands larger than most and with wider dorsal mouths.”

“Sidehunteh meat?”

Parson’s jaw muscles began’ twitching like a bad actor’s. “Hunters feed on rambs, true. Here be a… symptom of a strongly fecund world: meat-eaters eating meat-eaters.” Another evasive answer for the collection.

“Wheah was the last sidehunteh sighting?”

“Not far. Listen, we’ve no time for idle chit, I’ll flash the place, then we must unload your cages right quick. Ye might prefer bolting your eyes.” He donned his headpiece.

I took the advice; even through lids, the blue light stung. When I dared look, the closest trees were burning, those across the corridor were smoking, and the nearby fungi were history. A dazzling patch of late afternoon sky shone directly overhead.

Parson had fired in a hemispherical pattern, vaporizing a circle of canopy. As I stared, aghast, the fires were smothered by watery sap oozing from damaged trees.

“Make quick, I say!” Parson pulled on his gloves. The roof opened and we climbed out. “Push that lever,” he ordered, indicating a new virtual button on the vehicle’s stern. Evidently, his belt knew when he was simply pointing.

The button opened a wide compartment containing three cages: long gray tubes of pressure-set memory polymer stabilized by end-caps.

‘Get ‘em out lively!” he hissed, head constantly turning.

I grabbed two cages, set them down, and was reaching for the third when the c-belt whined. To my chagrin, Parson had noticed trouble first.

He was pointing everywhere like the ultimate tourist. One weapon after another levitated, aimed, and fired even as Parson doomed his next target.

Those targets made my feet itch to unfold… or run. Running wasn’t acceptable, yet I hated to reveal my hidden assets.

But Parson was in trouble; ten human-sized but terrifying crits had attacked. Now, the three survivors were charging him. He wouldn’t get them all in time.

Without consciously deciding, I leaped, barely clearing Parson’s head. As my body blocked his view, I unfolded one foot, releasing its long, razor-sharp cutting-bone. I twisted in mid-air, kicking in a wide are.

While Parson blasted the remaining crit, the two beasts I’d decapitated slumped, twitching, blood-geysers squirting from open necks.

I felt ill. I’d come to save animals. “You all wight?” I asked in an overly high voice.

The station-master was trembling. “Aye! Thanks for your… timely assistance.”

“Likewise.” I considered the bodies and shuddered.

For days, I’d been mentally grouping Hame’s incredibly diverse species into “clades”: organisms whose similarities imply a common ancestor.

One likely clade resembled the coelurosaurs of Earth’s Cretaceous period. Unhappy convergent evolution; coelurosaurs had been gifted killers. The corpses approximated that supposed genius among dinosaurs: troödon — the “wounding tooth” coelurosaur.

“These things have a name?”

“Dinoreps,” Parson replied hoarsely. “Generic.”

“Wheah did they come fwom? You’d just blasted!”

“Hidin’ behind boles, maybe;”

“Behind twee twunks?” The trees were packed too tightly for that to fly.

“What’d I just say?” he already sounded more like himself. “But perhaps… I’ve underjudged ye. Ye’ll surely die soon, yet maybe ye’ll not be killed by anything small.”

He leaned over, apparently to inspect my hands and feet. Wondering, perhaps, how I’d produced dean cuts with blunt objects.

I glanced downwards again. “Do all native cwits have violet blood?”.

“Only those using vanadium to carry oxygen: dinoreps, dart-snakes, chewders and the like. Hemotodes and bell-flies use copper — gives ‘em greenish ichor… other crits use iron like — wait! This be no place for a dangly biology lesson! I’m off, whilst I can. See ye in a fortnight. If ye still want to stay?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Any last questions, Professor?” Faint emphasis on “last.”

He’d recovered his poise. Although his face was hidden, I knew that unbearably smug expression had resurfaced…

“Yeah. You keep using ‘dangly’ as an obscenity. Awe you having some ewectile dysfunction?”

A childish sally. But Parson jerked as if struck, climbed into the AATV, rolled from the parking place, and was gone.

I had severely mixed feelings. In part, I wanted to run after him, begging to return to the station. Another part never wanted to see the inside of that accursed vehicle again.

In the distance, two-tone rumbling suddenly resounded. The noise faded, and apparent peace filled the forest. I removed my earplugs with shaky fingers and looked around warily.

The leafy waves high above even sounded like combers rolling onto a beach. A melodious hooting began; small rustlings spread. Gentle breezes blew the carrion scents away from me. My nostrils were filled with smells that were fresh, green, kissed with chocolate.

The lowering sun managed to poke an oblique orange finger through the canopy to the ground, turning flying bugs and suspended dust motes into temporary shooting stars. Everything was incredibly tranquil.

I looked closer; insects were feeding on each other exuberantly. From afar, a percussive sequence echoed. Was some Titan making popcorn? I was alone on one hell of a planet, and night was coming. I spun around twice, making sure nothing more ominous than darkness was creeping up.

“What now, Susie?” I wondered.

The parking place was pebbled with annoying, walnut-sized bumps, but it seemed my only possible campsite. So I began hauling bodies (and parts) into the corridor. The corpses were unexpectedly light; hollow bones, I imagined. Like mine.

After finishing that grisly task, I examined my only hope: the cages. Each one would spring into its intended shape once its end-caps were removed.

Very small, faint numbers were embossed on the cages. They were numbered one, three, and four.

A-ha! Now I could guess which to open first.

I pulled both caps off cage one, jumped hack, packed the caps away, and waited. Nothing happened.

Oh dear.

Mindful the thing might suddenly expand, I worriedly peered into an open end and spotted an abnormality: a yellow o-ring, so sticky it took determination to pry it free. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I shook it off my hand.

Another o-ring squatted in the far end. When I withdrew it, the cage transformed so quickly it clobbered my nose as I sprang backwards.

Strange results! A fair-sized dome whose surface reflected like heated fulleron stood there. I gawked at a curving jungle, complete with bloated hybridim. The very model of anxious astonishment, I was crushing an o-ring and my mouth was open.

I fixed my mouth, discarded the ring, walked closer to the cage, and touched it. The material felt incredibly slippery, like flowing liquid.

“Slick,” I whispered, both meanings intended. Frictionless surfaces were becoming a fad….

Here was shelter; but how was I supposed to use it?

A reflected crit was suddenly behind me, its skeletal arms terminating in machete-length claws. I whirled. The beast hissed, hastily retreating. Pumping those thin arms sprinter-fashion, it disappeared into the branches and vines that seemingly walled the end of my campsite.

I followed cautiously, pushing aside vegetation and soggy webs to discover another tree-lined corridor beyond the barrier. This is where the dinoreps had come from.

“I’ll be damned,” I muttered, intuiting the Jungle’s layout. “It’s God’s bowling alley. With twees instead of guttehs. Ten thousand lanes, no waiting.”

The image was so compelling, I released the branches carelessly. Before I knew it, a leaf-colored serpent had its fangs sunk into the seventh finger of my left hand.

.

If Snaky had expected to chomp and run, it must have been surprised. I certainly was. The reptile was choking, writhing while dangling to the ground because my littlest finger had stretched like warm toffee.

The crit spat out its mouthful, gave me a dirty look, flung itself onto a branch, and corkscrewed away. I stared at my left hand.

Stay awake, Susan, I warned myself. Elastic fingers can wait.

I anxiously inspected my surroundings. Five meters up, branches were crawling with… serpents? No, animated vines; the teeth had fooled me. I blessed whatever was keeping them up so high.

Unable to help myself, my eyes locked onto my hideously stretched-out finger. Why didn’t it hurt? And when, I wondered uneasily, had I gotten four extra digits, and why? I touched each one. None felt a thing.

They were bogus. I wiggled my real fingers, the fakes wiggled along. Memory polymers responding to pressure changes?

What the hell?

I tugged the ruined spare completely off, rolled it, packed it away, and returned to my potential future home.

I tried pushing my way in; my hand kept sliding off. Then I tried voice command, which seemed silly and was.

Finally I considered the discarded o-rings. Experimentally, I stacked them. They flowed together like drops of quicksilver, creating a larger ring. Progress! Maybe.

I eased the circle toward its own reflection. It reached the cage… and went though! My arm appeared amputated at the wrist. Hastily, I withdrew it, hand still nicely attached. This ring was a key ring.

Holding it before me, I moved forward. Through the looking glass I go…

The surface parted, I was in! I released the ring and a breath I’d apparently been holding for days.

From inside, the membrane was pleasantly translucent, somehow admitting air and light. I would have appreciated it more, but something strange happened.

Fiery cursive letters appeared in mid-air, spelling: “Alice in Wonderland, go through the Looking Glass.”

.

I stared, unable to comprehend how something I’d just been thinking could… manifest.

Then I recognized the handwriting: mine. Whatever crazy plan the Ecomission had concocted, I’d evidently been in on it.

Why couldn’t I remember?

Some letters were fading. I tried to touch one, but when my hand approached, they all vanished. An instructional hallucination? If so, I’d ruined it.

No sense worrying, I told myself. If it happens again, just watch and see what develops. Meanwhile, why not slip into something comfortable?

I removed my backpack and let my mimetic “bubble” relax. Freedom! My bubble, the latest addition to my biological repertoire, had been mimicking clothing. It became twin blankets of limp, gray skin attached to my shoulder blades.

Recently developed “mediating cells” along with AIAs (Artificial Instinct Algorithms) now allow Hybridim to be equipped with non-terrestrial attributes, invisible to standard medical scanners.

My foot-blades were those of a Conibel razorlion. My bubble was the protective cloak of a Hopping Mime from Conibel’s Forbidden Forest.

I allowed blood to flow into certain channels. Bubble-sections began lifting, transforming into iridescent, tightly folded wings, which fluttered slightly with every breath.

No, I can’t actually fly….

Heavy rumbling inspired me to grab the ring and step outside. There was nothing new to behold until three medium-sized dinoreps joined me in the campsite. A splitsecond later, four tentacled citizens appeared, along with one mobile brit that was all waving roots and whipping branches.

Expecting bloodshed, I backed away, but nothing happened. Each species ignored the others, avoided eye contact (easy enough for the brit), and took up as little space as possible. My general impression: an elevator crowded with shy strangers.

When the rambs arrived, they didn’t trip over the corpses I’d left. The leaders used their twin elephant trunks to lift the bodies, hurling them up and backwards to land on the “cranial knives” of following animals. The bodies were carved progressively; prehensile tongues pulled bloody ribbons into hungry mouths.

The rambs had two eyes facing forward and two on their backs near their mouths, which were constantly open, gathering falling leaves like whales gathering plankton.

Nodding to my elevator companions, I muttered, “My flooah,” reentered the cage, and dropped the ring. The fiery words were back! Same nonsensical message: “Alice in Wonderland, go through the Looking Glass.”

Again, some letters faded, but this time I merely watched. Finally seven lingered, spelling “iewdrkn,” which remained incomprehensible even when the “w” rotated to become an “m.”

Then the letters switched positions, settling into “Drink me.”

Suddenly, one scrap of information burned its way out of hiding, leaving me shaken and sweat-drenched. But knowing what to do!

I opened my jaws, let a specialized lingual muscle relax (another relief!), and pushed air down an artificial channel inside my tongue. A thin, flexible, medically undetectable tube shot from my mouth. I caught it.

“Will wonders never cease?” I commented quietly. But the words came out crisp and clear…

I could talk normally! “All right!” I cried out, exaggerating the “l”s and rolling the “r” outrageously. I began dancing around, grinning, mouthing formerly troublesome words. But when “Parson” accidentally emerged, my joy popped like a balloon.

Amber liquid filled the tube. My momentary inspiration had faded along with the letters. But the message had been explicit.

I broke the tube’s seal and gulped its bitter contents. Time held its breath….

Reality stuttered. A sound like the word “wow” was repeating endlessly. Cracks in thin air opened and collapsed, providing glimpses of impossible realms. I must have fallen, but I can’t remember.

Inside my head, a golden chrysanthemum of mental sparks ignited — which hurt. I sensed that my body was rolling, shaking. Then I passed out.

Drink me, indeed. It had been lousy advice, even for Alice!

.

I woke up, opened my eyes, and sat up gingerly. Reddish light was still filtering into my lair. I gazed blankly at the empty tube beside me. Then the blow fell. The sheer impact of restored memory almost knocked me flat again.

Everything was rushing back…

I wasn’t employed by the Ecomission’s endangered-species branch. My paycheck came from its enforcement arm: the Ecoservice Agency.

And I wasn’t just another xenobiological troubleshooter. My title was Special Agent Extraordinary. I’d been so good at forensic ecology, the Agency had declared me its premier investigator.

In practical terms, this meant that Bluff and Washington, my immediate superiors, only sent me into the worst situations on their long list.

Responsibility hit me like a ten ton anvil, but without any matching increase in courage or determination. I just wanted to go home.

And what I didn’t know was appalling. My initial briefing had been deliberately skimpy; I hadn’t put myself through the wringers of voluntary amnesia and forced recovery for laughs.

Sometimes ignorance is the only defense.

.

The verifier, all-but-omniscient descendant of the twentieth century’s uncertain polygraph, concurrently records, analyses, and interprets brain waves, eye-movements, skin reflectivity, heart rate, saliva volume, etc.

The abuse potential of such machines is vast. They are only legal on Earth, in specific situations. With them, it’s possible to ferret out anything from industrial secrets to a political opponent’s election strategy.

Sadly, illegal machines and troublesome planets are often married.

So, just in case, I’d arrived as uninformed as practically possible, my mind conditioned to shun those few secrets I’d had to carry.

But memories get attached to other memories. I’d had to temporarily forget elephants to hide peanuts.

.

Now I craved information. And with suppressed memories breaching like whales, I remembered my biggest secret….

Another stampede interrupted my congealing plans; its rumble included a distinct rhythmic pulse. Presumably, these weren’t Bright’s rambs. Would I become a connoisseur soon, able to distinguish species by rumbles?

Then another noise intruded: a disconcerting clicking, moving damn fast. The desperate chorus of snarls and squeals pulled me outside, ring stuck to my chest.

All that remained were carcasses gruesome enough to make me lightheaded. Parts were scattered: a leg here, a head there. Remember that old anthem? O’er the ramb parts we watched…

I forced myself to walk over and assess a random wedge of meat, seemingly cut with immense serrated scissors.

Grits and brits were emerging from the woodwork now, feasting. From the north, a machine gunlike popping made me flinch. It was high time to —

I turned. Eight dinoreps were behind me; similar to those I’d decapitated, but bigger. Two of them eyed me, then looked away, meandering closer as if by accident. Various gory tidbits slowed their progress… insufficiently.

The remaining six hopped directly to my cage. Something must have smelled appetizing because they kept sniffing.

How awkward.

Searching for an alternative to slaughter (likely my own), I repressed squeamishness and gathered up two dripping heads. I then strolled toward my campsite, as casually as rubbery knees would allow.

Every dinorep turned to face me. The nearby couple was directly in my path but took several hops backwards as I approached. I kept a steady advance. Ha! These beasts had never seen anything like me before! To make myself appear larger, stranger, and more dangerous, I stayed upright, sending random patterns and colors swirling though my wings. I let them unfold halfway, and gave my audience a shark-toothed, insincere grin.

Apparently, I didn’t look scary enough. The two closest predators stopped retreating. Both took a single bound toward me and stood three yards away, lime-green eyes glittering unnaturally in the twilight.

They lowered their heads, adjusting their rear ends like cats about to pounce. Their mouths opened extra wide and — the larger fangs were writhing like beckoning fingers!

Uneager to see what other tricks these crits knew, I bowled a head underneath each. As they hunched over to sniff my offerings, I leaped onto the nearest scaly back, using it as a spring-board.

.

I’d made spectacular jumps before; mortal fear made this one outstanding. I cleared the wriggling, snapping fangs with angstroms to spare. Luckily their reptilian arms were short.

In midair, I snatched the ring off my chest, held it beneath me, and fell through the dome’s top. The floor was harder than I remembered.

While rubbing my hip, I made a decision: no more impromptu excursions!

The dinoreps knew where I was. They grunted like lovesick alligators, testing the dome with clawed feet. I sat back, sifted through reawakened memories, and watched the hideous shadows.

.

Some wit once described a T-comm as “two tin cans connected by a super-string.”

Well, sort of. T-comms are notorious for poor sound quality; their signals modulate too randomly to filter out extraneous noise. Half the time, noise is the signal and communications depend on psychoacoustic perception. But such transmissions are secure and instantaneous.

They utilize “transfinite waves,” virtually massless, open strings whose ends can only move along a four-dimensional manifold (called a D2+2 brane) where two dimensions are the ultradimensions of K+ string theory (used for superspace travel) and two belong to the usual gang of six “compactified” microdimensions.

T-waves (ultrawaves) are almost infinitesimally short and rigid from the stand-point of superspace and can be almost infinitely long and flexible from an ordinary perspective. Once such a wave is established, it will automatically adjust to changes in transceiver positions.

Move an ultrawave and the entire wave moves en masse. Jiggle it, and the far end — even if ten million parsecs away — will simultaneously copy the jiggle (with small random variations produced by shifting time-flow inconsistencies).

T-comm video is coming, but current prototypes aren’t ready for mass distribution. People might find it somewhat disconcerting to be viewing a loved one and suddenly see them upside-down, or in any number of vivid cross-sections.

.

Outside, my unwelcome visitors had gotten unwelcome visitors. Hints of spiky silhouettes were cast onto the thin but (so far) impenetrable membrane of my home. I tried to ignore the sounds.

It took only fifteen minutes to assemble the gizmo.

The recipe required cage end-caps for mixing wet ingredients, certain food-pastes, one kind of depilatory, my medallion and chain, and all four fake angers. The “exciter” was my ridiculous watch, which had kept lousy time anyway.

Soon, metallic threads (macromolecular nonsymmetric ionic crystal lattices for the stuffy) were sprouting from the medallion in the swirled herringbone pattern of a T-wave antenna.

Apple juice was the activator; I applied enough to the battery for about twenty minutes of power. While waiting for the charge to build, I idly snacked on paste from a black-labeled tube. Some chef wasn’t destined for greatness.

The animals outside were gone or dead; the light was dimming. Perhaps stars were twinkling in the hole overhead. I tried to remember if Diana, the local moon, was due to rise. Fantastic colors suddenly splashed my dome; a “fireworks” plant must have released its incandescent spores.

This time of year, central Hame would be a thrill for sightseers. Naturally occurring nightly light shows could distract tourists from mundane cares such as their own impending deaths.

A sudden crackle made me jump.

“Susan? We’re getting a signal… is that you?”

“Freddy!” I cried. “How are you?” Being in touch with Centipede made me feel like singing. Hymns!

“Sue! You sound like yourself again!”

“Back to abnormal, I’m happy to say.”

Captain Fred Becker and I had been working together for six standard years; he was the best friend anyone could want. When we’d first met, I’d still looked human… almost.

“Thank God you’re alive.”

“Nice to hear your voice, Captain.” That was putting it mildly. “You’re coming in fine, how about me?”

“Loud and unclear.”

“Why are you on the Comm, Freddy? Get demoted?”

“We’ve been listening for you ‘round the clock, dear. What’d you do, crawl to Albamy?”

I filled him in.

“We were worried sick,” he confessed. “Just a sec.” I heard Kit Kobe’s familiar baritone in the background but static blurred his words.

“Sue, Kit’s here. Can you help him pinpoint your location?”

“Can he hear me?”

“No, I’m on headphones.”

“Tell him I’m about 130 klicks due east of the station, directly beneath a large hole in the canopy.”

“That’s help. But there are dozens of holes in your area. Stand by.”

Minutes passed slowly, but I didn’t mind. I felt as if I’d been rescued.

“Got you! We sent bleeps through every bleepin’ hole around, and finally got a bounce from your dome. The hole above you is especially big and round. What causes them? And why is yours different?”

I couldn’t answer the first question, so I jumped on the second, eager to mention the plasma-cannon.

Silence. Then, “You’re kidding.”

“No, but the gap might come in handy. Igor can fit through easily.” Igor was our robot shuttle. “Trust me: Don’t send people!”

The hole might even have another

USC….

“Sorry, Sue, there’s a few, uh, scorpions at our picnic. For starters, jungle plants grow quicker than bamboo. Your gap won’t last.”

“Plasma blasts, Freddy, cauterize vegetation.”

“Maybe,” he allowed. “But forget Igor; got some harsh news, dear. There’s been an accident. The main shuttle is totaled and Bill Ku got hurt.”

Dear Lord! “Is he all right?”

“Broken ribs, assorted lumps, but he’s healing. And dishing some cock-and-bull about flying squids.”

“More an octopus, actually. Just one and it wasn’t exactly flying.”

“Oh? He claims it was bigger than my damn mortgage! Says he almost hit another one on takeoff. Got so rattled, he screwed up his docking.”

Suddenly, I had what you might call a diminishing sense of rescue. “Do tell.”

“Bill crashed into Igor — probably saved his fool life. Susan, I can’t retrieve any, uh, specimens until another Edge-ship arrives.”

“How about repairs?”

“On Earth, sure.”

“Well… my hypothetical specimens should keep indefinitely in suspended animation. Theoretically.”

“Screw the sidehunters! I can’t retrieve you. Unless —”

“Unless?”

“We take Centipede itself down.”

My eyes flooded. “Thanks,” I managed to choke out. “I love you too. But you know I couldn’t allow that.” Edge-ships aren’t built for planetary landings.

“Shit. Then you’d better… borrow a station shuttle if you want to get off-planet soon.”

“If only.”

“Buck up, Sue! You always manage to do the undoable. Say! After your sidehunters are in suspension, couldn’t you just… suspend yourself? That would make waiting easy.”

“Wrong metabolism. Besides, Albamy is no place to be helpless.”

“Pity. What’s it like?”

“Lord! Think Swatt — on steroids! Don’t tell anyone, Freddy, but I’m petrified.”

“That,” he lowered his voice, “doesn’t sound like you. It’s not really worse than Swatt?”

“Albamy is horrendous, but the station’s neighborhood is unbelievable!”

“Anything I can do?”

“Just… get my briefing.”

“Right.”

“Have a pencil?” I asked. “The code is: 41592653589.”

“Got it. I’ll go fetch. Meanwhile, gossip with Kit. He’s making mysterious obscene gestures, but maybe he just wants to chat.”

“I’d like that.”

.

“Susan?”

“Konbanwa, Kit-san!”

“Good evening to you, too, Su-san,” he chuckled. Kobe was Centipede‘s topological navigator.

“How are things?”

“Good, now that you’ve made contact. Between us, Fred’s been a stinker.”

“He tends to fret.”

After a slightly awkward moment, he remarked, “Has your diction improved or something?”

“Arigato gozaimasu.”

“It has improved!”

“Easiest way to cure a speech impediment is to remove the impediment.”

“What?”

“People with tubes in their tongues shouldn’t throw speeches.”

“Do you mean — ah, our peerless Captain has returned. I’ll give you two some privacy. Jaamataashita, Susan.”

“Jaamataashita.” I was pleased he’d said “so long,” not goodbye.

.

“I’m back,” Fred muttered, “and we’re alone. I previewed your printout. Heavy stuff, Sue! Got any… specific questions?”

“Is Parson Pharmaceuticals obscenely rich? I can’t believe how —”

“The company isn’t even profitable anymore. Competitors are duplicating Parson’s drugs as fast as he can release them. But there’s a better question.”

“Then — oh, damn! Hold everything. I’m about out of juice… literally. I’ll call back ASAP.”

“I’ll be here.”

The ghostly, pitch-shifting howls that accompany ultrawave contact faded and my terrible sense of isolation and loneliness returned.

.

After pouring more cider into my homemade battery, I measured my troubles. Ku’s accident had complicated matters. I couldn’t finish my job without a shuttle…

But why worry about that with closer hurdles to clear? Whatever my orders, they’d certainly include capturing sidehunters. How could I hunt them without being hunted?

One possibility leaped forth, but was I skillful enough to —

The T-comm crackled.

“Freddy?” I asked.

“Expecting strangers?”

“What’s the better question?”

“This: who told us that sidehunters were endangered?”

“I… assumed Ecomission inspectors —”

“In the past ten standard years,” he interrupted, enunciating precisely, “only one inspector has landed at Parson Station. You.”

“What? The Council mandates yearly inspections at every frontier station!”

“An oversight, perhaps.” He sounded uncharacteristically humorless.

“Therefore our information is —”

“A decade stale, generally speaking.”

“So who spilled the beans about sidehunters?”

“Occam’s Laser suggests an anonymous stationer leaked it…”

“Oh.”

“…to the Interworld Council;”

“Not the Ecomission? Are you —”

“Wait, Sue. Take a minute and mull.”

Odd advice. Something was seriously worrying Fred. Why was he being so circumspect?

This was looking grim.

Obviously, the Ecomission had intentionally omitted its inspections, which suggested a most distressing possibility. If corrupt officials had planted a spy on the Centipede, I needed to proceed… delicately.

“Who cut my orders, Freddy?”

“Charlie Bluff’s signature is right here.”

I understood him: only Charlie had signed. Yet this operation should have required two additional signatures from Ecoservice Oversight bigwigs.

Incredibly, Charlie had finagled a private mission. The implications frightened me worse than any dinorep.

.

The rest was simple and distressing.

A survey-ship discovered Parson’s Planet (Gienah V) 180 years ago. The seven-person ground team landed on comparatively harmless Alabaster. Three lucky souls even managed to depart, eventually submitting a thoroughly discouraging report.

The planet would have been written off, but a survivor sent biological samples to Scotland’s Parson Pharmaceuticals. These specimens showed such extraordinary promise that Enoch Parson dropped everything to build a station on Gienah V, making it his new headquarters. (If Enoch matched his great-grand-son, he’d probably dropped a tactical nuclear bomb to give his prefab workers elbowroom.)

After the Interworld Council was tipped off about the sidehunter problem, Councilor Wu informed the Ecomission. The ISS Fling was dispatched to study the matter… mostly from orbit.

But a hybridim aboard, Investigator Bobby Gaines, made a solo trip to Albamy. He lived long enough to partially dissect a dead ramb, load tissue samples and what was left of himself into his shuttle, return to the Fling, and make a brief report.

He’d been incredibly.lucky in a way. He’d actually seen a sidehunter hunting, concluding that the technique employed would only work on one kind of animal: the Jopper’s ramb.

His final words were his guess that sidehunters were endangered because Jopper’s rambs were getting scarce.

After the Fling returned, something strange happened. After sending Gaines’s specimens to Mars for storage, the Ecomission ignored Parson’s Planet for three years. Perhaps two species would have vanished unnoticed, but Colone Bluff discovered a hidden file….

Apparently my job was fourfold: save the sidehunters, investigate the station (that’s why I’d been dropped there), determine the fate of the Jopper’s ramb, and — the painful part — indirectly investigate my own organization.

After Fred signed off, I went straight to bed and dreamt that my dead husband and little girl were trying to warn me about something. Their lips were moving, but all I heard were the ghostly wails and squeals of a comm when no one is talking.

.

I awoke exhausted despite a comfortable hammock I’d improvised from my mimetic bubble. This bubble, I thought, has a thousand uses. How about one more?

I stood, reshaping the tissue into a formless shroud. It was tricky enough to duplicate the modulating appearance of a draper, but those alkali droplets were little bastards.

Realistic transparent drops need lens-like attributes: focussed light, magnification of underlying surfaces, highlights, subtle shadows, color changes…

Praying the natives weren’t art critics, I settled for stationary blue bumps.

I practiced moving “drapes” around, ate breakfast, and resumed practice until the imitation was automatic. Finally satisfied, I extended the shroud to cover my entire body, including my head. From inside, the tissue was sheer enough to see out.

Next step: testing.

I’d come with no apparent shelter or weapons because we hadn’t wanted the stationers to perceive me as a real threat. But I sure wished that squeezing together food-pastes would miraculously produce, say, a burst-laser.

After checking for suspicious shadows, I took a deep breath, grabbed the key, stepped outside, and formed my draper-shell.

Yesterday’s gore was gone. Green shoots, encouraged by the gap overhead, were springing up underfoot. And I’d forgotten to bring my lawnmower….

I searched for a test subject.

One was waiting in the corridor: a six-legged fellow master of disguise with phony leaves hiding its broad back, a deformed crocodile’s jaw, and more teeth than seemed decent.

Watching the beast through my stretched-out bubble, I approached warily.

Damn, that animal could scoot! It took one look at me and darted off like a cheetah. My masquerade was a success!

Delighted, I experimented on other crits. More success. Finally I felt confident enough to go exploring. I kept to all fours, alert for rumbles.

Before I could panic about being too far from safety, a nook between trees appeared, so similar to my campsite it even had, implausibly, another canopy-gap overhead! Someone should post a sign, I decided. In event of stampede, head for nearest refuge.

We jungle crits need our escape valves.

.

Go ahead: label me Hybridimmus Moronicus if you must. Considering the growth rate of Albamy plants, why hadn’t I noticed the glaring-inconsistency?

I had. But I’d figured stampede refugees kept the nooks cropped just as herds kept the corridors clear. This assumption, of course, ignored a few holes….

.

As twilight slithered in, I hurried home, wondering if sidehunters were already extinct. Quixotically, I assembled the big cage anyway. Would it contain any specimens before Parson returned?

Would Parson return?

The third “cage” was my salvation if he didn’t. I gazed fondly at the unexpanded plastic tube, even waving to it While entering my dome.

I was unknowingly waving goodbye.

.

Around midnight, a sharp detonation blasted me awake, heart thumping. Two thumps later, the night bellowed concussions. Moonlight dimmed. My dome was suddenly batted into the air, coming down hard enough to send me sprawling.

Was I under attack? I couldn’t think.

Then it was over. The abrupt silence had that stunned quality following a heavy bombing.

I stood up shakily. The moon, Diana, had reemerged; I stepped outside to join her.

Not one fallen leaf, twig, or bug lay on the campsite floor. The new shoots were gone. But it wasn’t clean. Evidently, the walnut-sized nodules had burst; shell fragments littered the area. What had been inside those… artillery shells? How could anything so tiny have caused so much damage and then vanished so completely?

Trees abutting my sanctuary appeared whittled, trunks stripped to bare wood and branches eaten away. The alarming vines were gone, teeth and all.

Overhead, the canopy-gap was bigger.

I bent down, scraping away a layer of rich loam. Under the surface, new nodules were forming. A cycle was underway…

Reluctantly, I examined my cages. Both assembled structures were shiny and undamaged, protected by sheer lubricity. But, as I’d feared, the unassembled third structure was eroded and distorted like something caught in a combination tornado and sandstorm. Would it remember its primary shape?

What the hell had been in those pads?

Several badgerlike crits scampered past me and threw themselves on the ground near my dome. They ignored me, yawned, and then apparently fell asleep. A moment later two medium-size dinoreps appeared, repeating the performance except for the yawning.

I’d never had company except during stampedes or when something was hunting me. But crits kept arriving. Paying no attention to the potential meals around them, each found a spot and settled down for a good night’s snooze. Evidently, word was out that Susie’s place was safe… for tonight.

Survival needs make strange bedfellows.

There wasn’t much room left at the inn; I returned to my dome before over-crowding forced me to use sleeping killers as stepping-stones.

I reported the latest bizarre events to Centipede and tried to sleep.

.

Most hybridim have crazy dreams. Ecoservice psychologists think this is a consequence of Artificial Instinct Algorithms, which allow humans to control nonhuman attributes. AIAs are like having scraps of alien habits hiding inside your brain.

In that night’s insanity, various brits and crits were square dancing. The caller was a phobedon with a fiddle and a sense of rhythm.

But so many large animals swinging their partners were shaking the floor. I awoke to the thunder of a passing herd.

They say that people living near train tracks, on worlds with trains, learn to sleep right through.

.

The next morning, the damaged trees were partially regenerated, unlike my mangled tube, which, I now noticed, lacked end-caps and o-rings. This device should have assembled itself. It hadn’t. On a whim, I kicked it and was instantly rewarded with a large twisted mess instead of a catapult.

If Parson didn’t return, I was in deep trouble.

.

I spent that day and five more searching, dodging herds, and upsetting the wildlife. Only real drapers ignored me.

Albamy was striped with streams; drinking water was plentiful. But fishy creatures with silver bodies and piranha attitudes were also plentiful. Bathing was out. Despite bacteria-resistant skin, I was developing a certain… ambience. I poured water over my body, scrubbed, and still felt grubby afterwards. And soapy.

The campsite-nodules were growing, but slowly.

.

The seventh day wasn’t restful.

I was in a refuge, sheltering from a stampede (even drapers avoided stampedes). The final row of Bright’s rambs held an impostor: a scalene ramb. I’d seen pictures of a “scaly” on the Centipede; the relatively small sleek form was unmistakable.

I was wondering why a scalene had joined a Bright’s herd, when two sidehunters appeared from nowhere, clearly targeting the scaly.

Thrilling! And baffling. Sidehunters were allegedly solitary hunters with incredible appetites, only physically capable of preying on Jopper’s rambs. A bony scalene was a stingy meal for two hungry sidehunters.

Beneath my disguise, I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. Parson had called the native animals “flexible.”

I was starting to agree.

.

According to station reports (and Gaines), sidehunters have gigantic appetites. They’ve evolved a unique method of bringing down prey much larger than themselves.

They resemble seriously overgrown armadillos and have two little holes in their armor, one on each side of their streamlined torsos. Their serrated teeth are comically large.

Inside the torso-holes are organic harpoons, permanently attached by long umbilici. These darts contain a paralyzing fluid and are fired via a gas-filled bladder connected to a secondary stomach.

The system has limitations.

Imagine a sidehunter spearing a massive ramb. The predator, only capable of sprints, is soon dragged along helplessly with possible fatal consequences.

Therefore, a hunter dashes up between two rambs toward the back of a herd. Both darts are fired together, one into each beast. The umbilici retract somewhat and the hunter is lifted and carried along by the dual attachment.

Another problem arises: if the poisoned rambs collapse midjump, the umbilici may snap and the hunter bleed to death. Likewise if one ramb falls before the other.

Dosage is key.

Since each harpoon delivers a specific quantity of venom, the sidehunter needs prey with a specific mass. Rambs must be slowed to a walk before they drop.

Bobby Gaines believed that only the Jopper’s ramb has the proper mass.

Sidehunters wolf their food. When the herd turns, anything in their path becomes flat meat.

.

There they were, ten meters away — two animals I’d come seventy-five light-years to rescue. And I wasn’t prepared. I’d been stupidly waiting for proof of living sidehunters. The only useful thing I could do was kick myself.

But the instant the herd departed, so did I.

At home, I grabbed my backpack and tore free its metal buckles. My shark teeth have their good points.

I found an empty balloon, eased the buckles inside, and dribbled in water plus a catalyst: food paste from a green-labeled tube. Twenty drops of a very special depilatory went in last. After resealing the balloon, I shook it thoroughly. The assembling process would take hours, but I watched for awhile anyway, trying to see something interesting through the murk.

Finally I set the thing aside, and resumed thinking about my favorite topic: ways of reaching the station if Parson never showed. As usual, I could only come up with one idea, and that one was certifiably insane. Then I had a new thought: What if I returned, and the stationers locked me out?

I didn’t sleep that night.

.

The next morning, on a hunch, I forced down double rations.

My primed balloon was lying in shreds atop a greasy stain. Among the shreds were ten thin darts with needle tips, fluid-filled bodies, and precise “feathers.” The needles were shape-memory-alloy, the soft bodies and feathers came from the memory-plastic of the balloon itself, and the fluid was water-diluted depilatory.

My tongue hadn’t been cored only to provide a hiding place….

The depilatory, which might even remove hair, was paramount. Bobby Gaines had spent himself in making it possible. His samples had contained traces of sidehunter venom, skin, and saliva. From these, biologists had produced a neurotoxin intended to put sidehunters into long-term suspended animation.

If, by some miracle, I hit a hunter with a dart, the flexible body would compress, forcing neurotoxin through the tip. Two drops should be enough… if the drug worked.

A risky experiment — sidehunters weren’t defenseless.

I made a pocket from a bubble-fold and stored away all ten darts.

Rehearsal time.

Mimicking a scaly ramb was easier than imitating a draper. In only two hours, I was ready for the curtain to rise.

But I needed the proper audience. So I waited, sipped water, and listened. For once, it seemed to take forever for the shaking to start.

.

Midrumble, I went outside to watch a thundering herd of Bright’s rambs. When the last row passed, I sprang and managed to catch up. Quite a challenge, keeping pace with a herd while maintaining my scalene disguise!

Soon, I was panting too heavily for self-congratulations. And vision through the bubble was imperfect; periodically, I’d nearly slip on something unfortunate. I’d never imagined a career as sidehunter bait, but life is filled with opportunities.

My plan worked almost too well.

After three kilometers, I was wishing the race had a finish line. Then it happened. I suddenly understood how sidehunters had adapted to their… nutritional predicament when I spotted one on either side of me.

By finding a properly sized victim, each hunter could fire a harpoon; their combined mass would suffice to control their prey.

Surviving hunters must have been jungle geniuses to invent this new technique, but at the moment I wasn’t tempted to pat them on the back.

I slowed, shifted to running upright (stretching my disguise accordingly), and pushed enough bubble aside to free my face and an arm. I hastily loaded my tongue with a dart. Now, it was harder to breathe, which wasn’t my worst problem. My tongue only held one dart at a time but my attackers had their own missiles. While I was dealing with one crit, the other could fire.

I was still untangling this dilemma when the hunters shot together. If I’d been a ramb, that would have been that. Luckily, I was smaller; the harpoons merely tore holes in my disguise, remaining stuck in the tough tissue.

I used my built in blowgun on the hunter to my right and loaded another dart.

Predator one collapsed, its harpoon and cord pulling free. That wouldn’t do. I got smart and grabbed predator two’s umbilicus.

This beast couldn’t escape; I shot it, holding fast until it slowed and collapsed. As I released the umbilicus, it retracted automatically.

For a glorious second as I puffed and huffed, I felt a sense of achievement. Then a fist-sized spider flew by, humming, reminding me where I was. I donned my draper costume and hauled my specimen back to where the first’ had Men. It was going to ruin my year if something ate predator one before i could grab it.

All was well. After chasing away some ratlike crits who were contemplating drugged sidehunter for lunch, I began dragging my two heavy burdens down the long, long corridor. I used bubble-extensions as ropes and kept on all fours. I was terrified that another herd would come through before I could get my charges to a refuge. So I pushed myself.

I’d expanded my draper imitation enough to keep both beasts covered, which made the illusion… wear thin.

When my dome finally appeared, I forgot about aching arms and exhausted legs. The last hundred meters felt easy.

After caging my charges, I threw my self a party.

I ate three containers of food (white-labeled tube-paste tasted almost harmless) and sang dirty ballads accompanied by tongue-whistles. The occasional rude noise or bad note only enhanced the festivities.

.

The next day was an exhilarating anticlimax, and held a major revelation.

By the time evening fell, I’d captured six additional hunters! I hate to brag, but sidehunters simply couldn’t resist my performance. Now eight animals were dormant in their very crowded cage. That was the anticlimax: my specimen-gathering tasks were more than complete.

But I’d learned something crucial.

I was dragging back the day’s second pair when I stumbled upon another duo feeding. I fired a dart while throwing a second one by hand at the other quarry. It hadn’t occurred to me that the damn things could simply be hurled!

Two hits. I was elated until I studied the leftovers: clearly, a Jopper’s ramb, perhaps the last.

This idea was so upsetting, my costume fell apart. I fought it into shape, wondering how these sidehunters had brought down such a large, solitary animal. Maybe it hadn’t been running…

The wind shifted, bringing a familiar stench: burnt lemon. From the ramb! More precisely (my nose knows) the ramb’s blood carried the smell. Its other tissues had a gamier aroma.

Somebody must have discovered that Jopper’s blood was useful. So useful, Parson had established a secret cell-cloning facility. The station and the stationers I’d met had reeked of —

I snapped my fingers; they couldn’t smell it! Maybe no ordinary human could.

This didn’t explain why the Jopper’s species had vanished, but I had a terrible suspicion… and an icy foreboding.

But while dragging back four hunters simultaneously — a Herculean task! — I had one encouraging thought. If Gaines hadn’t provided samples of Jopper’s blood, perhaps I could.

My hunters were metabolically frozen; their stomach-contents would remain somewhat undigested. If I could get my specimens to Mars, scientists could figure out what made burnt-lemon blood so special.

.

The day Parson was due, I woke early, ate breakfast, and prepared to leave. I wasted some apple juice calling Centipede. Were any vehicles moving my way? They couldn’t tell.

When the sun finally sank, my heart kept it company.

Finally, I had to face reality.

Lying on my mimetic hammock, staring at the moonlight-dappled ceiling, I retrieved the lunatic concept I’d had for returning on my own.

The idea was bonkers; but, aside from climbing a tree, I couldn’t imagine another way to get high enough. Those toothy vines — would my draper disguise frighten a vine? I decided to forego the pleasures of arboreal exploration.

It was cooler this evening. With my enhanced vision, I could identify the right spot. Maybe. And it wasn’t raining; what better time to try?

I told a horrified Fred Becker my plans, ate, drank, and put the remaining two darts in a bubble-pocket, my map in another. Soon, I was loping westward, the fastest draper ever. I had a long way

to go.

“Freddy was right,” I admitted to myself, “I must be crazy!” At least I didn’t hear a reply.

Sunrise was stirring before I saw wisps of telltale heat wafting from below. No visible creatures were around, not even drapers (a bad sign). I stopped — a misstep here could prove fatal — and studied the rising infrared patterns.

Soon, I’d spotted several trap doors. With sincere delicacy, I tiptoed between well-disguised plates.

Finally I stood on my choice: a long rectangle. I looked up. Perfect! The canopy wasn’t quite so tight. There were holes I’d fit through easily — if I could reach them.

I prepared myself, said a prayer to whatever God might be awake this early, and then stomped.

The trap door was hurled open with unthinkable power. I was suddenly fifteen meters in the air! I spread my mimetic wings, extending them and wrapping their fronts around my extended arms. My shoulders snapped into their locked position. I’d become a living glider.

But what was needed at the moment, more than anything in the Universe, was lift. I was already losing altitude.

I opened the bubble-pocket in my left wing and let my last darts fall downwards randomly.

Two more doors were flung open, starting a chain reaction, each monster probably wondering what its neighbors were having for breakfast. Soon, so much trapped heat was rising that I had an excellent thermal to work with. I banked around, my wings filling with infinitely precious hot air.

Gliding: that’s why I’d been given infrared vision and hollow bones. I was immensely thankful as I used the heat to climb, finally sailing through an opening high in the foliage.

This hole was an unqualified blessing. It channeled rising air like a funnel, allowing me to turn in mounting spirals in the cloudless sky, laughing beneath.a fading moon.

As if to celebrate the moment, a host of fireworks-plants released spores. Shooting colors challenged the rising sun’s glory for a few startling moments.

The scene beneath was a protean ocean of leafy chaos. Sunrise edged the struggling foliage in beneficial fire, generating new thermals well within gliding range.

I pointed my feet toward the alien dawn and flew westward.

.

At first the flight was delightful. Jungle living had felt like living underwater. Now, the blue sky’s uncompromising brightness was intoxicating.

Looking down, I could frequently see to the forest floor where apparently tiny crits were sadly reentering their lairs.

Here, on the periphery of the great herds’ stomping grounds, the monsters supposedly avoided herds. What, I wondered uneasily, was feeding so many beasts? Which crits were brainless enough to stroll through the Trap-Door Jungle?

.

Gliding has its own music. The air makes a pleasant swish as your wings cut through; when a crosswind appears, the sound intensifies. Sometimes your wings flutter. I kept gliding from thermal to thermal, rising just enough to reach the next. With the favorable wind, I hoped to reach the station before dark.

I blessed the lack of aerial predators.

From above, the forest had distinguishing features; restless branches didn’t obscure overall patterns. Changes in terrain and color-splashes from non-conformist trees made identifiable landmarks…

Uh-oh.

Parson had avoided flying me here because I could have arranged a distinctive, pre-prepared landing spot. He didn’t know the Centipede‘s shuttles were useless.

Randomly deposited in Albamy, I would have been virtually unfindable… without a radar-reflecting dome and home-baked T-comm.

Of course, Parson hadn’t wanted me here; that’s why he’d showcased the station-area insanity. I hadn’t crumbled, so he’d probably selected the most intimidating route to the jungle.

When I persisted, he finally dropped me at a lovely campsite, scheduled for demolition by whatever nightmare lived in those innocent-looking shells. Not that he’d expected I’d survive even that long.

In short, he’d wanted me off the job or dead; the burnt-lemon secret was that important to him.

Would the stationers invite me inside if I knocked politely? More likely they’d start shooting. And locking me out would be child’s play…

What was I going to do? Chew through an acid-coated dome?

And where should I land? In the compound, I’d be exposed to fire from plasma-cannons, plasma-coils, blue-lasers, etc.

But landing outside, I’d have to cross that wide and dearly moat — before scaling an electrified fence topped with spikes and flames. And then I’d be facing weapons, locked doors, and murderous stationers.

Susan, I told myself, you’d better think of something exceptionally cute this time.

So I did. But it wasn’t going to be fun.

.

My plan required landing outside the compound, which involved desperate moments searching for a clear spot. I settled. for (and in) a tree striding purpose-fully in the right direction. I jumped down only twelve meters from the moat.

In draper disguise, I gazed through the fence, hoping this would be the right place.

It wasn’t; the domes weren’t lined up properly. This meant forcing my way along the perimeter through twenty meters of bloodthirsty frenzy.

At first, getting crushed seemed the chief danger. Then I attracted an admirer: a six-legged crit — unafraid of drapers! — with scythelike front legs. My charmer had two massive cutting surfaces in lieu of teeth. With built-in cutlery, who needs teeth?

A decapus in a tree rescued me by snatching my pursuer off the ground. It bit the animal in half, holding the remainder upright and level while it chewed, probably to avoid unnecessary spillage.

Finally, I stood opposite the dome containing the AATVs. Two weeks earlier, in happier times, I’d stood on the other side looking out.

Genuine drapers were near, essential to my plan. This instant, nothing was threatening me.

Time for a quick mud bath.

A small stagnant pool was close. Using handfuls of stinking muck from the bottom, I coated my chest and arms (so much for smelling like stale laundry) while considering the moat.

The damn thing was too wide to jump; even the fumes were deadly, and creatures kept away. After running full-tilt, I could probably glide over… and wind up on the fence, electrocuted.

The fence looked sturdy and had to be acid-resistant to boot. This left the one ugly option I’d creamed up.

I applied more goo to my hands and arms and then — mentally apologizing to the innocent brit — lifted the smallest nearby draper and ran toward the moat. The creature wasn’t heavy, but I can’t sprint my fastest while upright and my skin protection already bubbled from concentrated alkali.

I soon felt like I had an armful of acrid smelling molten lava, but I kept moving.

Eyes tearing, I approached the moat and hurled the draper across and into the fence. Sparks showered, white smoke erupted, and a scourge of white bubbles slowly ate a hole in the barrier. When it had expanded enough, my unwilling ally fell through, thoroughly dead.

By now my hands hurt so much, I took a desperate chance. I closed my eyes, held my breath, and moved forward to stick my arms directly into the acid for a splitsecond. Lucky my eyes were closed! The hissing and popping war of chemicals spattered my face. I jumped backwards, returned to the puddle with earnest haste, and tried to rinse everything off.

Trouble was, I had no time. The damage would be triggering alarms and Parson could guess who was responsible.

I slapped on more mud, made sure the way was dear, then ran on all fours toward the moat. At its edge, I jumped, spread wings and glided; at the last moment, I furled my wings. Momentum carried me through the hole.

Now for the worst part. Could I do it?

Hoisting the draper again, muffling my involuntary scream, I ran toward the shiny muzzles outlining the airlock. I tried not to wonder what being incinerated feels like.

No plasma emerged, but my hands and arms were on fire anyway.

I’ll never know how I managed to fling the draper high enough. But the body landed atop the nearest dome and slid lazily downwards, almost to my feet.

The results were spectacular! Giant bubbles covered the air lock, the dome, and were spreading.

Plasma-coils with blocked apertures won’t energize — a safety feature. And bubbles would foil exterior optical scanners. For now, I had a degree of both safety and privacy.

I leaped the furiously boiling corpse, stood on fused sand before the lock, and tried to recall Parson’s inflection.

“Bunny,” I whispered and the door to the kingdom opened.

.

Yes, I could have glided to this spot, said “Bunny,” and gotten in without half killing myself. But I didn’t feel foolish. If Parson had taken the elementary precaution of changing the code and I hadn’t painted the station with draper juice, I could have wound up in a hopeless position.

My plan, if I’d been locked out, had been to lift the poor brit one last time, rub it directly on a wall, and see which would yield first: the wall or my cutting blades.

In my business, you minimize risks and live with consequences.

Trying to ignore my hands, I entered the lock — another tense moment. I used my tongue to punch the remembered keypad sequence. The outer door closed, the inner one opened, and I stepped warily into the room. Nobody home.

These stationers, I thought, might he brilliant biologists, but they needed a remedial course in tactics.

For a while now, an annoying whimpering sound had been troubling me. I clamped my mouth shut; the sound stopped…

With my teeth, I quickly pulled aside three tarps and there they were: three AATVs! Probably the station’s entire inventory. How could Parson be so foolish? Using his obnoxious voice again, I said “Safe” and the nearest machine opened.

Even before the roof had automatically closed, I was crammed inside the bathroom, rinsing my wounds with clean water.

Agony.

My injuries were serious. What little skin remained on my hands was either dead white or ominous with blisters; blood and lymphatic fluid were oozing. Hide on my forearms was more intact, but tended to hang off in ragged fringes. Underlying muscles looked burned. I was panting like a dog.

A small sink-mirror showed a face I hardly recognized. Aside from waxiness, it was suffering from a plague of boils: blisters from the spattering at the moat. The leonine eyes were feral….

The bathroom had a medical kit. Using my mouth, I grabbed a tube of burn ointment, bit it open, and used my hollow tongue as a straw, sucking in petroleum-tasting ointment. I extended my tongue, gently spraying lotion on my hands and arms. Another disgusting dip bought me enough goo to coat a bubble-section, which I rubbed over my face.

Far too slowly, the fire subsided to merely excruciating. My breathing calmed. I could function now, but could only gaze longingly at gauze and bandages….

Incredibly, I spotted a tiny smile hiding beneath mutilation, pain, and smeary ointment. What was there to smirk about?

The answer erased the smile. So far, this had been absurdly easy and I knew why. Sure, Parson was unaware of my… unnatural endowments, but he’d underestimated me for another reason: my speech impediment. Many people assume a person with slurred speech is dim-witted….

And I was dim-witted, gazing endlessly at my reflection like some overage adolescent! It was past time to get moving!

Blessed be thy virtual controls, for they do not require physical pressure!

I’d watched Parson operate this vehicle. The hardest part was curling my hands enough to insert them into the glowing modules.

After that memorable task, I backed the AATV up and practiced using the plasma-cannon. The other vehicles melted beautifully. Even fulleron can only take so much.

I drove to the double-door, angling my machine to touch the pressure-plate. The door stayed closed; could someone have finally noticed things were amiss?

I shook my head, sadly, before blasting the wall and rolling through. Down the hallway, four armored guards were aiming blue-laser rifles.

They began shooting.

.

Didn’t these idiots know about fulleron? Light was already bouncing off my chariot in increasingly coherent patterns.

Soon, my attackers would be amputating their own limbs… at best. I considered putting the quartet out of my misery, but decided I was just cranky from pain. I fired a trivial plasma pulse, aimed high.

Throbbing turquoise faded. The guards hooded their eyes, contemplated the red-hot ceiling, and decided to vacate. Some dropped their weapons to vacate faster. I followed leisurely.

Coming to the four-way intersection, I went straight, stopping before an extra-wide doorway. No guard today.

Even with the AATV’s superb air-scrubbers, I smelled burnt-lemon.

Unsurprisingly, the pressure-plate didn’t work. But before I could make my own entrance, the door opened. My vehicle barely fit. I stopped halfway through, barricading the opening.

Inside was a typical lab: shiny surfaces, test tubes, ultracentrifuges, virtual-microscopes… and two women wearing typically white lab-coats and atypically anxious expressions. Parson was also there, wearing his command belt.

“Can ye hear me, Professor?” he shouted.

“Easily.”

“What’d ye say?”

I raised my voice, “You needn’t shout, station-master, I’m right here.” I was in foul humor, mocking him with his past words. “Now that my… elocution is repaired, sir, you should have no trouble understanding me.”

“Well — ye seem to have us at a disadvantage. What… occurs now?”

“We’ll have a chat; but first, I need to use your dataserver.” A workstation lurked in one corner.

“No! Ilisa be private station property and I don’t see —”

“Parson,” I roared, “we are long past that point! I know about the rambs and the drug.” More bluff than lie, really.

“Sweet Jesus!” he groaned, lapsing into a sort of festering silence. Then, “Listen, Artab, mayhap I hold an interesting offer. Can we bespeak face to face?”

“Why not? Remove your belt and gloves, put them on the floor. Nicely done! Now, kindly stand back.”

The tiniest plasma pulse slagged the weapons. I advanced the AATV just enough so that its roof could open, and climbed out carefully. Burnt-lemon stench almost knocked me over.

I’d restructured my bubble into clothing, but I’d forgotten how I looked (and smelled).

The stationers gasped, backing away. “Mother Mary!” Parson cried. “What happened to ye?”

“Nothing good. Sit on the floor, all of you, and stay put. I’ll be with you shortly.”

“And what occurs… should we refuse?” the station-master asked slowly, eyeing my wounds.

“That problem shouldn’t arise.” I unfolded one foot and sliced a sturdy wooden stool neatly in half.

My audience, two shades paler, followed instructions.

I sat in a wide chair facing the dataserver he’d called “Ilisa”: a recent-model IWBM with a virtual screen and no keyboard. I whipped my head around and caught a fugitive slyness on Parson’s face.

I grinned, showing all three rows of teeth. “It’s voice-controlled, but only by authorized voices?”

He stared back challengingly.

“No problem.” I cleared my throat. “Ilisa, do you ken who I be?” I said in Parson’s voice. The station-master’s eyes gaped in horrified astonishment.

“Ye be station-master Gregory Parson,” replied a pleasant contralto.

“No!” Parson cried out.

“I mean aye!” I corrected enthusiastically. Those horrid AATV days were paying off. “Keep your mouth shut, Doctor,” I growled in my own voice. “Ilisa, who holds the station’s highest security status?”

“Ye do, station-master.”

“Be it legal for me to reassign this status?” Dual grunts revealed that Parson and one of the women knew where I was heading.

“The word ‘legal’ be ambiguous in this context.”

“Hmmm. Be it… allowable?”

“Such a reassignment be proper if ye wish it, station-master.”

“Excellent! When I stop talking, you will only respond to and obey the next voice you hear: that of Professor Artab. Be that clear?”

“Aye, station-master.” I heard Parson inhale sharply but my glare discouraged any stray remarks.

It was that easy. I spoke normally and became the station-master.

I immediately ordered every doorway and internal partition shut and locked until I said otherwise. Stationers would remain wherever they happened to be.

An electronic check on Parson’s shuttles produced no surprises. Both shuttles were operational and fueled. I accessed the communications system and reported to Centipede, telling a very relieved Fred Becker that I’d commandeer a shuttle and pilot after resolving some final issues.

The next step was to scrutinize station records through the dataserver’s myopic eye. I got to work.

Names and faces appeared from the settlement’s early history: Will Jopper; Arnie Bright; Enoch Parson’s wife, Barbara, whose nickname, I read, had been “Bunny.” I encountered redheaded Carl Rambis, who’d discovered the herds….

Name after name, face after face, appeared — mostly people I’d never heard of and largely filed under “deceased.”

The founder showed up, of course, but I wasn’t interested in old Enoch; surely, the hint I was seeking would be more recent. I did note his family resemblance to Greg.

But one early settler grabbed my attention: Ian McDougal, an animal-behavior specialist with extremely close-set blue eyes.

I swiveled the image forty-five degrees. My absent neck-hairs tried to rise.

Three minutes with a holograph-editing program and this mug could become George Friskel’s. Or visa versa. Or maybe the record was honest, but a morphic-surgeon had gotten rich.

In either case, I was dealing with something extraordinary. If Friskel was McDougal, he was over two hundred years old! Even with telomere therapy, no one was living that long, and no one past the century mark looked thirty.

He’d said he liked animals. He’d given me — damn. He’d tried to help me. He’d given me a map!

Friskel had alerted the Council about the sidehunters! And Parson suspected. On our journey, he’d asked about the contents of my pack to see if George had slipped me anything useful. Which suggested there was a verifier on this world: hidden on the AATV!

I retrieved Enoch Parson’s stern face.

“Machine,” I said. “Expand screen 50 percent. On half, show me Enoch Parson’s left eye, magnified ten times.” I ignored an unhappy hiss from nearby. “On the other half, show Greg Parson’s left eye, similarly magnified.”

Yes. Enoch and Greg had different faces, but identical eyes, down to minuscule color variations.

Impossible. Due to nutritional and other small deviations, even monozygotic twins have disparities in fingerprints and iris-patterns. Even clones develop unique irises!

Someone should have retouched Enoch’s eyes. Disregarding the absurd possibility that Greg had transplanted his grandfather’s orbs into his own head, Greg was another bicentigenarian… or whatever the hell you call people who’ve lived that long.

I called up records for Greg’s father, Daron. Slightly different face, same eyes.

Burnt-lemon reek was forcing the obvious explanation down my throat. I was choking on ugly implications.

.

I swiveled around..“Ladies and gentleman, let’s see if I’ve got the story straight.”

Silence.

“This planet is a biological gold mine. That’s why you’re here. For years, Parson was king of pharmaceutical mountain, raking in money fast as anyone could print it. Then, one sweet day, you struck the mother lode. Someone — Will Jopper? — discovered the ultimate rejuvenator. Something in Jopper’s ramb blood.

“But success attracts economic predators. Despite your foresight in building the station in a spot guaranteed to discourage uninvited visitors, competitors were managing to duplicate your drugs, killing profits. You didn’t want that happening with the geriatric product.

“It wasn’t just the money. That product was your chance for power. You decided to keep it secret.

“But anyone who acquired a Jopper’s ramb could eventually produce the same medicine. If word leaked and some enterprising industrial or government spy bribed a station employee to reveal the drug’s animal source… It wouldn’t be the first time armored thugs with Ph.D.‘s raided a frontier planet.

“Incidentally, the Xenozoo already has Jopper’s tissue specimens.”

That got an interesting nonresponse. Apparently, they knew but didn’t care. Maybe Bobby Gaines hadn’t taken blood samples after all…

“I’ve also gathered fresh samples.” Suddenly, Parson was overdoing his poker face. “Returning to our sordid tale: You sat on the drug, set up a cell-cloning lab, and for years used the rejuvenator strictly on yourselves. How am I doing so far?”

From the murderous looks, I was on track.

“You planned to peddle the stuff, sure; but first you had to ensure your exclusive. So you decided on a… radical approach. Maybe abhorrent would be a better word, or stupid, or desperate.”

I couldn’t help sounding angry.

“The Jopper’s, according to old station reports, was once profuse; must have taken many decades to exterminate them. Decades, never knowing if some unauthorized collector might get lucky, before you dared offer the drug to anyone outside your inner circle.

“And since Ecomission inspections were still happening then, you had to be… devious. Luckily, you had plenty of time. God knows, you had time.”

“So what?” Parson exploded. “What harm have we done? My world be crawling with crits. So what if one kind stops crawling?”

I stared in disbelief. “Have you forgotten what happened on Earth? Don’t you remember ‘global browning’?”

“Remember? I’d been living here five decades when that browning nonsense occurred.”

Now I stared harder, in a sense staring at history. Parson, like everyone, was a product of his times. When he’d been growing up, the idea of ecology had become almost a joke, like some silly fad people had outgrown.

Fifty years ago on Earth, no one was laughing. The planet’s primary source of fresh oxygen, oceanic phytoplankton, had thinned dangerously. Farming productivity kept dropping due to the troublesome combination of global pollution and a diminished oxygen supply. Plants require carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, but they also need oxygen for the respiration part of their cycle. Eventually, scientists saved the day by retro-evolving and releasing vast clouds of cyanobacteria: primeval anaerobic organisms that originally gave Earth’s atmosphere the gift of oxygen.

The crisis passed, but not without terrible suffering. Humanity learned its lesson. Most of humanity.

“Doctor Parson,” I said quietly. “I’ll tell you something you should know. It’s absurdly simple. All life on your planet is interdependent.”

“Rambshit! The Jopper’s be almost gone now and ye can’t describe one bit o’ difference it’s made.”

“Wrong. Ill give you two examples of major changes already underway. I don’t know how you killed so many Jopper’s, but I know where the evidence went.”

“Where?”

“Down the gullets of trap-door monsters. The immense food supply generated hordes of new citizens. What’s going to happen as they starve?”

Parson had been leaning forward aggressively, but now he shrank back.

“They’ll eat each other,” he offered weakly.

“I doubt it. But there’s more. I was in the jungle for two weeks and I only saw one scaly ramb. One. Scalenes used to be common, right? But all the Jopper’s predators have had to switch brands. The scalene supply is running out…

“These things have consequences, Doctor. I have reason to know. You’ve started an avalanche, and so far, all you’ve heard is the first pebble shifting.”

.

The station-master raised his head; some of the fight was back. “So? We’ll simply leave this world if we must.”

“Shortsighted callousness nearly ruined the Earth, but your idiocy is on a grander scale. Once, the Atlantic Ocean seemed too big to pollute. But even a galaxy isn’t too big to pollute!”

“Bah! There be more stars than —”

“We can’t live on stars, sir. How many truly habitable planets do you think this galaxy holds? The human species is delicate, Doctor; we need a very specific environment. It may take centuries, but eventually, if everyone treats their worlds the way —”

“Ye claim this world be habitable?”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“I can’t imagine why. But how many crits did ye butcher to endure?”

“In Albamy, I killed exactly two animals. They were about to pounce on you, if you’ll recall. Surviving the jungle wasn’t difficult — with some protective coloration.”

“Then —”

“No time for more debate. But there’s one thing I’m curious about.”

Parson’s hands clenched. “Why I haven’t had my missing fingers regenerated.”

“No, I figured that out. The drug makes you heal so quickly, scar tissue blocks true regeneration. You can’t debride fast enough.”

“Well… yes, but —”

“My question is: what happened to your wife, Barbara?”

That shook him. “Dart-snake,” he whispered. For the first time, I felt some connection to this man. He’d chosen her nickname as his password…

I returned to the dataserver. “Ilisa? How many people are in the station right now?”

“Eighteen, Professor Artab.”

“Good news, Parson,” I turned in my seat. “I have another question after all. Where did everybody go?”

“I will say because I choose to.” A return of habitual arrogance hardened his face. “For years we’ve had no need o’ crowds; this one lab supplies us with funds and to spare. We’ve… let the understaff go. You see, I’ve given a lecture or two among the stars, and made friends along the way.”

“Important, influential friends? Young-looking friends, by chance?”

“Perhaps they be getting that way. Meanwhile, most o’ our people have returned t’ the Interworlds. Gone back rich…”

“You’re offering me a bribe.”

“Long life, and staying young while ye live it! Financial luxury. And a chance to shape the future.”

“Sounds like quite a bribe. How would I earn it?”

“Keep our secrets secret, then go or stay as ye please.”

“Then here’s my counteroffer: sufficient private time for your advanced ecological studies. Jail, and plenty of it.”

Parson looked nervous, but also like he had something up a sleeve. “Ye be choosing to act the fool, Professor.”

“Know why people like me were officially named hybridim, Parson, not just… hybrids?”

“Does it matter?”

“To show respect. The word refers to cherubim and seraphim. High-class angels. We’ve made sacrifices to become what we are, trained harder than you’d believe; and they keep altering our bodies, which means more pain and training. And it looks like we’ll never get to be human again.”

“So why —”

“It takes commitment to accept this life. And discipline. Who would go through so much hell without truly believing it was necessary?”

Parson sat straighter, eager to play that hidden card.

“Alas, Professor, your noble sacrifices don’t signify. The Ecomission carries weight with the Interworld Council, certainly. But we’ve been… distributing our medicines with care. Truthfully, I carry some of your precious Ecomissioners right in this pocket. I guarantee, your report will wind up permanently drawered.”

“How forthcoming of you! I only assumed you’d corrupted Ecomission administrators.” No wonder he hadn’t worried about the older ramb samples. “But I may have misled you… inadvertently. I don’t work for the Ecomission. Not directly. My team has a few more teeth.” I manufactured another sharky grin.

“The Ecoservice?”

“Absolutely.”

“Christ! That be misfortunate. But mayhap your Ecoservice bosses be less blind than yourself to longevity’s worth.”

“My particular boss seems worried about that, too; I gather he sent me here without informing his peers or superiors. But I shouldn’t have any trouble… sniffing out corruption at home.” Such as Ecomissioners reeking of burnt-lemon.

“Frankly, between your wholesale slaughter operation and your political, uh, chicanery, you might be in for some legal trouble.”

Parson’s suddenly looked his age. “Ye be one of Colonel Bluff’s men? Hell, I’ve been warned about him.”

“I work for Charlie. But you keep making one mistake. Tell you what: I’ll tutor you after I finish my business in the jungle. You won’t mind if I change the entrance code on the AATV before I leave?”

.

We’re halfway to Mars now. I’ll be savoring the disinfectant smell here in sickbay for another week, but I’m breathing. Right now, that’s enough.

My nurses, bless them, claim I whimper in my sleep and advise me to demand stronger painkillers, but I know better. It’s those dreams….

I haven’t shared everything I experienced on parson’s Planet and never will. No sense in giving others such nightmares.

But when I awaken in the dark, shivering, I can cheer myself by remembering my final encounter with Greg Parson.

.

The station had a gamma-class shuttle, big enough to carry twenty sidehunters. After a merry round of analgesics, I had George Friskel fly me out to my jungle camp. With his help, and by using my bubble as arms, which made his eyes .bug, we managed to get all eight sleeping beauties inside.

For once, nothing went wrong.

Back at the station, I handed over partial control of its doors and partitions to Parson. I didn’t want stationers starving before Ecoservice police ships could offer them a lift to the nearest Interworld courtroom. But I couldn’t have Parson locking anyone out or gaining access to firepower.

After organizing a collection of portable weapons and destroying them, I reentered the lab and made some final arrangements via the dataserver. Of course, Parson and his companions were there. No one seemed pleased to see me again.

“I’m leaving now,” I said sweetly. “But there’s something I wanted you to know first, Doctor.”

“What might that be?” he asked’ sourly.

“My name. I’m Special Agent Susan Diane Artab. Sure, I’m one big muscular daughter-of-a-bitch, but next time you examine someone’s scan, take my advice: check for ovaries.

“So don’t think of me as one of Charlie Bluff’s ‘men.’ No, sir. Think of me as a lady.”

You should have seen his face.

Rajnar Vajra

The art to this story, by Wolf Read, can be found here.

Copyright © 2002, Rajnar Vajra. All rights reserved. Do not redistribute.

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Text last modified on 18 August 2002, v1.1. Text generated on 30 November 2002 by Foxbook v0.84.20021120.