DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Part 11

It was a little nicety on the part of Tiresias. He hadn't had to do it, but he did it anyhow. Those old magicians had cla.s.s. And anyhow, that's what a good magician does-he ties up loose ends.

Neal Barrett, Jr.

I wrote six books for Don between 1976 and 1982-four in the Aldair series, one called Stress Pattern (one of my own favorites], and finally, The Karma Corps. I had published three books before that-two in 1970 and one in 1971-and a number of short stories beginning in 1960.

Still, I will always feel that the work I did for Don during that period gave me the right push, and brought in a lot of readers. I'm still getting comments on the Aldair series, after all these years, and more than once I've used the themes from those books in my work-most recently in The Prophecy Machine and The Treachery of Kings. I seem to have this thing about animals getting back at Man for all the dirty tricks he's played on them.

Of course, after Aldair, friends and fans would come up, stare at me, and say "Hey, man, PIGS IN s.p.a.cE!"

I only had the pleasure of meeting Don once, in New York City, somewhere around 1980. We had corresponded so often, I felt I knew him well, but I discovered he was even more charming and affable in person. And, more than that, a guy who knew writers, and what writing was all about. Science fiction would not have been the same without him.

-NB.

GRUBBER.

Neal Barrett, Jr.

1.

KHIRI remembered a round piece of cold. Far, far away, then chill-bone close. He shrank into the warmdark, back into the never, back into the no, but it was too late to run, too late to hide and he was thrust, rushed, into the born, into the terrible be ...

He sensed the bigger warms, sensed they were Mothers though they didn't have a name. They kept away the hunger, kept away the cold. There were others like himself nearby, but they were small and useless, too.

It was easy to tell when the Fathers came near. The Mothers became very still, their colors so low he could scarcely sense them at all. They would shiver, they would quiver, they would not-quite-be, they were somewhere Khiri couldn't see.

It was an awesome, wonderful thing to feel the Fathers about. They were big, rumbly, grumbly, their colors were black, vermilion, and blood. He couldn't understand why the Mothers tried hard to get away, tried hard not to be.

The first time a thought like this blinked into his mind, another came to chase it away. The new thought said it was not good to be when the Fathers were around. And, in an instant, he found out why. They saw him, knew he was there. Their colors screamed with anger, burned, seared, with a fierce and terrible heat. One, the biggest of them all, came so close he could feel its heavy sniff, feel its shuffle, feel its nuzzle-muzzle-breath.

Khiri didn't move, didn't think, didn't blink. Then, at once, he wasn't anywhere at all. He was there, in the not-place, though no one showed him where, no one showed him how.

He dared not show his fear. Now he knew what fear was for. Fear was to show the Fathers you were there. . . .

When the Fathers went away, he knew something else he hadn't known before. He knew about death. Death was not the same as the not-place, death was even farther off than that. The death hadn't happened to a Mother. It happened to one of the others like himself. It was torn, ragged, thick with a vile and fetid smell. He was curious about it, but the Mothers quickly nosed it away.

Sometimes Khiri would touch the others. The feathery brush of another was a new thing to do. Touching the others, he learned about himself. He learned he was hard with a softness underneath. He learned he could move from one place to the next. There were things in his soft that moved him this way or that. Some of the others were learning, too, and they darted all about until the Mothers made them stop, warned them they had to be still.During the still, the Mothers would touch him with the slenders they kept beneath their soft. One of the touches meant danger. Others meant stop-come-go.

Wake-sleep-bad. Food-wet-dry. And, as he grew, he learned you could string these touches together like a line of pebbles on the ground. When you strung them together, they meant much more than they ever meant alone.

Just as he was getting used to one set of slenders, another sprang from nowhere-and another, and another after that. Whenever something new broke through, he was certain he would die. The larger and thicker the new things became, the greater was the pain.

When it was done, and the new things were there, he learned how useful they could be. He could pick something up, hold it, carry it about. All he could find were pebbles and stones, but it was something new to do.

He began to know others like himself. One of the others was Ghiir. They learned how to fight. They learned how to play. The best thing they learned was they didn't even have to rub slenders to give each other words. They could think about the words, and the words were simply there.

They learned they were not all the same. Phaen helped them learn about that.

They would have learned more if the Mothers hadn't lashed them soundly and sent Phaen quickly away.

Going was Khiri's favorite thing to do. He had to go alone. Ghiir would go with him to the nears, but Ghiir would never venture to the fars. Khiri saw a number of strange and fearsome things. Colors he'd never seen. Places he could scarcely describe.

The things he would never go near were the lines. Whenever they appeared, he would choke up his food and get sick inside his head. The lines were too terrible to see.

2.

For a while, he hardly knew the Mothers were gone. He could find his own food now and didn't really care. There seemed no end to the pa.s.sageways and holes that led everywhere. Sometimes things were high, sometimes they were deep with no bottom at all. Nothing bothered Khiri. His slenders would take him wherever he wished to go.

The strangest thing he found was the thing. It wasn't a Mother, it wasn't a Father, it wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before. He ran his slenders across its dusty sh.e.l.l. To his great surprise, he found it was hard all over, with no soft at all.

"What kind of thing are you?" he asked it. "Soft is for inside, hard is for out.

And you have no slenders to touch or feel or know."

"Foolish Khiri. Why do you speak to a thing that cannot speak to you?"

Khiri started. He was so intent on the creature he had not sensed the Motherat all.

"I know I am not supposed to be here," he said. "You don't have to tell me that."

"No. But you are. You are often where you are not supposed to be."

"I cannot understand what I have found. It is not like a Mother or a Father. It is not like me."

"It is dead, Khiri. It has no bloodsmell about it, for it died a long time ago."

"What was it, then? What was it called?"

"It was what you are," the Mother said. "It was just the same as you. It wandered off to a place it shouldn't be."

3.

He was larger, now. Nearly as large as the Fathers. He feared them when they came, but knew how take himself where the Fathers couldn't see.

He was learning a great deal. Most of the things he learned were how to hide and stay alive.

Lately, he was learning to understand the lines. He could get much closer to them now. They seldom made him sick, seldom gave him dizzies in the head. He didn't know what the lines could be, but they didn't look at all like they had when he was small.

4.

He couldn't remember when he stopped seeing Ghiir. He didn't miss him, didn't want to see him, didn't really want to see anyone at all.

He caught the scent of a Mother once, as he roamed through the endless pa.s.sages and halls. She sensed his presence as well- tried to hide her colors, tried not to be. But Khiri knew she was there. He could sense the dark odor of her fear.

Why? What was she afraid of, why was she acting this way? For a moment, a new, peculiar kind of rage stirred within him. A picture of Phaen flicked through his head. Only this wasn't Phaen, this was a Mother down the hall.

The smell of the Fathers was heavy on the air. It had been like that all day.

Their almost-presence made him tense, irritated, filled him with a hate he had seldom felt before.

When the Fathers finally came, he was so hot with anger he nearly forgot about the not-place, nearly forgot to get away. A great, rumbly Father nearly had him, a Father hungry for his bloodsmell, hungry for his life.

Khiri shook with rage, ashamed that he had run, that he had not stayed to fight. He knew he would have died, but how could that be worse than the way he felt now?

And, when the Father was out of sight, he looked around for something to make this feeling go away.

He found the Mother later in the day. He was nearly upon her before sheknew he was there.

"Phaen. 1 remember you."

"I do not know you. I am Traea, not Phaen."

"You are Phaen," he said.

5.

His encounter with the Father had changed him. He was no longer angry or afraid. Sometimes, he wished he could find that anger again. Anger was better than feeling nothing at all. He did not even try to find the Phaen who said it was a Traea.

There were others of his kind around. He did not want to see them. He waited, now, until the foodplace was clear, a thing he had never done before.

When the ache was too sharp in his belly, he scuttled to the foodplace, choking down his meal so he could quickly go away.

He heard the other coming up behind. The intruder was silent, but Khiri knew who it was.

"Ghiir. Go away. I am at the foodplace now."

"I am here as well," Ghiir said.

"Then you must wait until I am done."

"I do not have to wait for you."

"You will wait, Ghiir."

"No, I will not-"

Ghiir came at him. Without even thinking, Khiri sucked in his slenders and rolled away. Something whipped him sharply about the head. Khiri backed off, keeping the thick part of his sh.e.l.l very low to the ground, and always facing Ghiir. He and Ghiir had played at fighting, but this was not the same. This was bloodsmell fighting, and Ghiir knew it, too.

Ghiir began a slow half circle to Khiri's right. He watched Ghi-ir's thick, bony slenders stab the air. They curved in a sharp, wicked arc, like his own. He knew what Ghiir meant to do. He wanted to back Khiri in a corner. Khiri decided that was the thing to let him do.

Ghiir sprang, slashing in quick, vicious thrusts. Khiri blocked every blow, making no effort to strike back. There was a pattern to his foe's attack-the more Ghiir came at him, the better Khiri understood. When the time came, when Ghiir grew weary . . .

Only, Ghiir showed no sign of slowing down. He flailed at Khiri with one blow after the next. Khiri decided the defender's role was not as easy as he'd thought. Ghiir hadn't hurt him, but his fierce a.s.saults were taking their toll. A dull ache had begun at the back of Khiri's head. Each time he countered Ghiir's thrust, he moved a little slower than before.

Ghiir sensed this at once and came in for the kill. He was certain he had Khiri now, and Khiri was not at all sure that he was wrong. He might not stopthe next blow, or the one after that. If he made one mistake- Suddenly, there it was again, Ghiir's familiar pattern. In an instant, Khiri knew what to do next. He moved, caught Ghiir's slenders against his own.

Pressed himself against the wall and shoved with all the strength at his command.

Ghiir stumbled, caught off guard. Khiri slashed up at his enemy's soft underbelly. Ghiir jerked back, tried to right himself, but he was helpless now.

Khiri found his mark again. Ghiir rolled on his back, quivered once, and lay still.

Khiri was too tired to move. Almost too tired to take himself to the not-place, but he knew he had to do that. Soon, the Fathers would come to see what the bloodsmell was about.

6.

In the not-place, Khiri didn't think about Ghiir. He didn't think about anything at all. This was a place for being-it was not a place to do.

All he had to do was wait for the Fathers to go away. He knew they were there, for there was something, a shadow-part of himself, that always stayed behind. He didn't understand the shadow-part. He only knew it was there. It would tell him when the Fathers were gone.