E. S. P. Worm Read online

  “That’ll be tough,” I said.

  “Not really. I’m sure we have a record of what is needed for humanoid nutrition. The food will taste strange at first, as it must, because it is a synthesis. But a little practice and you’ll become expert. Don’t worry about wasting it; the scraps are all reprocessed.”

  I wished he hadn’t mentioned that last detail. How many reprocessed alien scraps would my meal be composed of? “I doubt I’ll be much of an expert,” I said gloomily. This was like dancing for my dinner—and I wasn’t much of a showman.

  I looked over the booths. No sense in taking one of the large ones that seemed designed for a creature with a giraffe’s neck. Or one of the squirrel-roost ones. Or the one that resembled a flooded hog-wallow. There were several booths of the appropriate size and complexion. Nancy and I stepped into one.

  “Nancy,” I said, “you’re the doctor. Suppose you order for us?”

  “Right away, boss,” she said, lifting the shining helmet. We waited there at the counter. Perspiration beaded her face. Nothing else happened.

  “I’m afraid I’m too inhibited,” she said sheepishly.

  “Here, let me,” I said. I should have realized that with her mind-block she would not get through. I took over the helmet. I thought of a delicious meal of filet mignon, pâté de foi gras, heart of artichoke salad, French pastry, Arabic coffee and rare Spanish wines. I made an order for three, knowing Nitti had to eat too.

  The panel burbled. A section of counter lowered. I took off the helmet.

  Nancy waited expectantly. I knew she’d be surprised.

  The top of the counter let out a ping. There were three trays. I closed my eyes blissfully and sniffed.

  I inhaled the stench of bloated corpses drifting in a hot sewer.

  I opened my eyes.

  I shut them again. “Can’t get it perfect every time,” I mumbled.

  “Harold,” Nancy said, holding a handkerchief to her face with one hand while she delicately nudged the first tray toward the disposal slot, “perhaps something simpler?”

  “Um.” I might have said more, but that would have required breathing, and the fumes were too strong. I took up the helmet.

  This time I thought very carefully of simple foods, omitting the side thoughts that had messed me up. Those fancy dressings and sauces and wines were not so delectable for my plebeian tastes even when they were right. This time I strove for naturality.

  We looked at the trays. The colors were right and so were the shapes. I picked up my hot dog and bit tentatively at one end. It was edible.

  “You forgot the mustard,” Nancy said.

  I ignored her and stepped around to the next booth to notify Nitti that his meal was ready. And stopped.

  Nitti was well into a platter of filet mignon, and had an entire decanter of rare French wine. Plus trimmings.

  I should have known he’d be a successful gourmet.

  “Perhaps it is time I show you to your quarters,” Bumvelde said after we had dined.

  Swimming downdeck was no harder than swimming updeck. As we emerged onto the landing we were met by three female Prunians—those with the monkey faces and the built-in bra-padding. They were on their way up and they stopped their chattering long enough to produce sharp-toothed smiles. I wanted irrationally to return the gesture, but found it impossible to look at them. Shame, though a natural part of Earthly existence, now interfered with my reactions.

  “Those Prunians,” Bumvelde said, “are a very primitive species.”

  “I can see that,” I said. I wanted, nevertheless, to look back up the shaft. At least one part of me did. From this vantage the anatomy under those short, so-human (prior to the baggie fashion) skirts would be rather clearly visible . . .

  Go ahead. Peek! And a mental frying sound. Damn Qumax!

  “Do you feel well?” Nancy asked solicitously. “You look flushed.”

  “Must be tired,” I lied.

  “Here’s a stateroom for you Earthians,” Bumvelde said as we came down a level hall. He stopped at a door and opened it. I stared inside at what appeared to be almost human furniture.

  “We can synthesize any furnishings you design for yourselves,” the Spevarian said. “Robot tailors will also provide you with whatever you desire in the way of body coverings; I must warn you that it is not wise to go about the ship without body coverings or to defecate anywhere except in a lavatory. Some individuals are amazingly sensitive about natural functions.”

  I looked at Nancy. She was upset about something. Then I realized. “We can’t all stay in one room,” I said.

  “Prince Qumax has a separate compartment, naturally.”

  “No! I mean—there are human-human sensibilities that— the three of us are different. That is, two of us are—” I stopped and bit my lip. Damn! I didn’t want to share a room with Nitti and I was reasonably certain Nancy was not about to share with either of us.

  “What he’s trying to say,” Nancy put in, “is that we each want separate rooms.”

  “Each?” The little seal seemed astonished.

  “Each.”

  “But I’m afraid that’s impossible. There is only one room at the moment suitable for humanoids. I can ask the captain—”

  “You could install suitable partitions,” Nitti said. A prison warden would naturally think of that, I thought resentfully. But it did seem feasible.

  Soon a tribe of carpenter-robots appeared and went to work.

  “Shall we now discuss Corcos Lamorcos?” Bumvelde inquired hopefully.

  “No!” Qumax said immediately. “We told you we weren’t interested.”

  Again the selfish brat, I thought. This Bumvelde had been perfectly decent to us, using up his own time to show us around, and now he wanted to talk about whatever-it-was. Why not?

  “I’ll talk with you,” Nancy said. “Let’s go for a walk while these gentlemen supervise the carpenters.” And she departed with

  the seal.

  Good for her, I decided.

  “She’ll be sorry,” Qumax said, and hissed hilariously.

  “Oh? Why?” I was curious. Even brats had their reasons for their attitudes.

  “Don’t you know what Corcos Lamorcos is?”

  “Of course I don’t know! We just came aboard, remember? And you never let Bumvelde explain.”

  “We’ve been aboard a few hours, by your reckoning,” he said smugly, rumpling a section of his torso. “But at our velocity, that’s about a thousand light years distance. In another day we’ll be at Jamborango.”

  “A thousand light years!” My mind balked at the notion. “I didn’t know we were even out of the Solar system!”

  “What,” asked Nitti, who had kept his mind on the main subject, “is Corcos Lamorcos?”

  “A slave contract,” Qumax said, and went into a convulsion of frying.

  Chapter 8

  I started down the passageway, determined to find Nancy and warn her before it was too late. Behind me the worm’s obnoxious merriment mingled with the chuckles of Warden Nitti.

  I got lost, of course. I ran up and down halls calling for her, attracting curious glances from pedestrians. A curious glance from a creature with three or four long-stalked eyeballs is something, but I couldn’t give up. No luck.

  I finally made my disgruntled way back toward the cabins. As I sulked down the passage I was almost bowled over by the huge snail we had seen in the recreation area. It slid by without so much as a thought for me, intent on getting somewhere fast. And it was fast, despite the large shell. It was as though it was sliding down a polished chute, except that this track was level. There was no trail of smear behind it, either. The eye-stalks rolled wildly as it passed.

  Down the hail a door slammed. One of the three Prunians ran by. She went on simian tip-toe, her newborn-baby face wrinkling with emotion. Her monkey-tail swished fleetingly. What was going on?

  And there before our cabin were Nancy and Bumvelde. They had come back while I care
ened about the ship. “Nancy!” I cried. “I have to warn you—”

  “Yes, we just heard,” she said, her face flushed with excitement.

  “You didn’t sign anything? Make any irrevocable contracts?”

  She looked at me questioningly.

  “Corcos Lamorcos,” I said. “It’s slavery. You mustn’t—” “Oh, Harold,” she said, irritated.

  “He hasn’t heard,” Nitti said.

  “Heard what? Am I too late?”

  “Harold, a strange ship had been detected following us,” Nancy said. “They say it could be a Strumbermian raider.”

  That was new. “But they don’t attack registered ships,” I pointed out.

  “They usually don’t,” Qumax said. Even he looked worried.

  There was a blackening.

  I found myself on the floor in the dark, one hand grasping Nancy’s arm. I was terrified. I heard noises all around us, and each jarred as though a spike was being hammered against my skull. Phantasms of utter horror gaped at me. “Nancy!” I cried.

  Then the lights came on again. We were strewn all along the hall. Yet I had felt no crash.

  “Psychological attack,” Bumvelde said, picking himself up. “Strumbermian tactic. Demoralize everyone, then board—”

  It struck again. Formless things of nightmare swooped and pounced, and the pain of their scratches and bites and stings and burns was real. This time I realized that the lights had not failed; I had merely clamped my eyes shut in my terror and fallen to the floor. I pried them open. Nancy, beside me, was writhing with her hands clapped to her face. And my fear lessened, for she needed comforting.

  I flung my arms about her, pulling her tight to me. “I love you!” I cried in her ear.

  The siege abated. Nancy opened her eyes. “What did you say?”

  I found myself speechless. I had not known I would say those words, and wasn’t certain now that I meant them. And they seemed silly, with the fear-wave gone.

  The floor shook. A shape loomed in the hall.

  “Strumbermian!” Bumvelde cried. “They boarded!”

  SILENCE! It was the mental blast of the pirate coming at us. Pale and grossly humanoid, the thing was an appalling caricature of Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. It aimed one huge extremity at Nancy and me. COME, EARTH-THINGS!

  I looked at Nancy—not over one hundred thirty pounds, and this Strumbermian a bad five hundred. Her judo would be useless here. “I—”

  EARTH-THINGS NOT COMMUNICATE!

  I looked at the pointing finger, the size of my arm. I decided not to communicate. Taking Nancy’s tender hand, I followed the Strumbermian’s broad, broad back. We filed up the corridor. Behind us, meekly, came Nitti and Qumax.

  We marched—down through nightmare. Screams, mental and physical, came at us from every side. Flesh was burning somewhere. One stateroom had its door torn off; inside, on the wide sleeping pallet, one of the baby-faced Prunians had her hairy arms locked about the throat of a Strumbermian. The monster had her by the tail, his massive thumb poking up under it. The other hand was yanking her skirt off. Then we were by, to see the other rooms, other atrocities in progress. In the salon we saw the snail-creature, his shell smashed, his body twitching and oozing ichor.

  I tried to look at Nancy, to reassure her. I couldn’t. Nitti and Qumax had disappeared.

  We went through the airlock and stopped in the anteroom. Here lay the wrecked remains of Nitti’s copter (not that it was much use in deep space), and broken spider robots were piled with mangled alien bodies. We waited for an interminable period amid the carnage, not daring to speak. Then at last we were directed past the wreckages and the dead, stopping at a huge transparent tube that joined our ship’s entry port to the facing hatch of a long, black starship.

  I saw lines of spider robots carrying tremendous loads from the cargo hold. There were boxes, bales, crates, kegs—all sorts of cargo. I wondered what it was these robots carried that was so valuable it had to be transferred piecemeal. Why did any of it have to be moved at all, if the Comet’s Tail had been fully secured by the pirates? It would be easier to take the entire ship to port and unload there.

  “Over here, Minister!”

  I looked. It was Nitti, calling and motioning at me. A Strumbermian with a star branded on its forehead stood glowering beside him. I looked at Nancy, not comprehending.

  “You’re to come with me, Minister,” the warden said.

  I stood there uncertainly. “But—”

  GO, EARTH-THING!

  I looked at the brute who seemed to have made the order. “I don’t understand.”

  GO! That two-by-four finger leveled at me.

  Hardly knowing what I was doing, I stepped over to where Nitti was waiting. “What’s this all about, Warden?”

  “We’re going back inside the Comet’s Tail. They’re going to turn it loose, after it’s gutted.”

  “But—” I looked back where Nancy stood like a doll beside the towering Strumbermian. “Nancy— Qumax—”

  And suddenly I got it.

  Warden Nitti had made a deal of some kind. A deal with the pirates. For his life and my life. Only.

  “I’ll kill you!” I cried, and meant it.

  “No. You don’t understand. I—I would have been all alone. One human is all they need. One Earthian to question. They’d rather have one bound over by majority vote—that makes it legal, by galactic law-and since you’re the Minister—”

  I threw myself at him. I grabbed a handful of shirt, chopped a knuckle at his fat throat . . .

  And fell on my face before doing any damage. It was as though I had been electrocuted.

  “I tried,” I heard him say. “Now they’ll just take both of you. They don’t care that much about the law.” When the haze of pain cleared he was nearly at the far end of the airlock saving himself while he could. Nancy was crying, and Qumax—Qumax was starting across that damnably solid transparent connecting tube, tentacles drooping in utter defeat.

  Beyond the end of the tube I saw into the Strumbermian raider. I marched back to Nancy, grabbed her hand, and led her into the tube. If we were to be taken captive, we’d go with our heads up, not whimpering like baby worms.

  Stars whirled outside, underfoot. I could not look at them and keep my balance in the trace gravity. Whichever way I peered, I felt as though I should fall on my head. I did not want to rivet my gaze to Nancy. Or Qumax. And certainly not the Strumbermians. But man is not made to tread empty space.

  Gravite-coated metal came under my feet at last. I looked at my companions. Nancy had stopped crying, and was now the chin-up, determinedly brave extraterrestrialogist. Qumax remained the child—antennae dropping, muzzle averted, the very picture of hopelessness. That, I realized, was the essential difference between the child and the adult, whatever the abilities or intelligence or cultural status: the manner he stood up under stress. The child gave up; the adult carried on.

  We were marched through corridors swarming with red ratlike things that I presumed had some function other than vermin business, to an unesthetic version of the stateroom we had never quite used. Our captors shoved us inside, closed and locked the door, and left. We were alone—for how long?

  Almost alone. Nancy flinched as a rat—actually a grotesque flesh-thing resembling a rodent—scooted from the lavatory recess. Without thinking I put my arm around her.

  “Harold, you’re a fool,” she said. “You could have gone with Nitti. You should have!” But she didn’t move away. “You’ve your mission to think about. To make Jamborango apologize. To win respect for Earth. Instead of that, you—you—”

  “Shut up, Nancy,” I said, and kissed her one.

  It was such an unexpected move on my part that it amazed us both.

  “You did mean it,” she murmured, and I knew she was thinking of my declaration of love during the fear-siege.

  “It isn’t over yet!” Qumax exclaimed, suddenly enthusiastic. Of all the times to interrupt!

  Th
e great worm lay at the port window. His antennae stuck out like horns and his skin rumpled reflexively. He was staring at the place where the connecting tube joined the Comet’s Tail. We joined him and peered out.

  A battle was going on inside the Comet’s Tail’s docking chamber, which remained held open by the connecting tube between ships. Somehow the entire section remained sealed, so that the vacuum of space did not intrude. The freight handlers of the two vessels were fighting each other—grappling, striking, tearing— in mindless arachnid fury.

  But why hadn’t the Comet’s Tail’s equipment rallied to its defense before? I decided that the shock and surprise of the Strum attack must have disorganized the supervisory personnel, so that no effective action had been possible. Now enough time had passed for the cargo ship to rally its crew, and things were happening. It seemed backwards—first the conquest, then the battle—but feasible.

  People were also becoming involved. I thought of them as people, though in fact they were all manner of alien creatures. A Strum officer with a star on his forehead lay dead near the tube’s end. Other Strums were trying to get in shots with their weapons. But there were few of them. Probably too many had indulged in victorious debaucheries, so that the raider’s force had been dispersed and dissipated. Bad tactics, I thought; they should have been sure the prey was secure before running rampant.

  Broken cargo strewed the lock. At the far end a trio of defenders appeared wearing spacesuits. Ahead of these crawled two robots holding a tall transparent shield. In the center position behind that shield strode the three-foot Captain Fuzzpuff, flanked by two tall Devians.

  A Strumbermian officer gestured. Something like a machinegun went into action; I couldn’t see it because of the angle, but I saw the broken beam of its firing. Curling white vapor struck the barrier and played with livid fury. A glowing area formed in front of Fuzzpuff.

  The captain took up a weapon at a shield-port, aimed down its barrel and fired. He and the gun jerked as though from recoil, but I saw no projectile and heard no sound. A Strum dropped. The party pressed forward.