Exceptions to Reality Page 3

  Responding to a curt nod from his partner signifying that he was in position and ready, LeCleur gave the command to open the door exactly five centimeters. Rifles raised, they waited to see what would materialize in response.

  Seals releasing, the door swung inward slightly. Into the room poured a stench of rotting, decaying flesh that the outpost’s atmospheric scrubbers promptly whirred to life to neutralize. A column of solid brown revealed itself between door and reinforced jamb. Half a dozen or so crushed muffin corpses fell into the room. Several exhibited signs of having been partially consumed.

  After a glance at his partner, LeCleur uttered a second command. Neither man had lowered the muzzle of his weapon. The door resumed opening. More small, smashed bodies spilled from the dike of tiny carcasses to build a small sad mound at its base. The stink grew worse, but not unbearably so. From floor to lintel, the doorway was blocked with dead muffins.

  Lowering his rifle, Bowman moved forward, bending to examine several of the bodies that had tumbled into the room. Some had clearly been dead much longer than others. Not one so much as twitched a leg.

  “Poor little bastards. I wonder how often this migration takes place?”

  “Often enough for population control.” LeCleur was standing alongside his partner, the unused rifle now dangling from one hand. “We always wondered why the muffins didn’t overrun the whole planet. Now we know. They regulate their own numbers. Probably store up sufficient fat and energy from cannibalizing themselves during migration to survive until the grasses can regenerate themselves.

  “We need to record the full cycle: duration of migration, variation by continent and specific locale, influencing variables such as weather and availability of water, and so on. This is important stuff.” He grinned. “Can you imagine trying to run a grain farm here under these conditions? I know that’s one of the operations the company had in mind for this place.”

  Bowman nodded thoughtfully. “It could be done. This is just a primary outpost. Armed with the right information and equipment, I don’t see why properly prepared colonists can’t handle something even as expansive as this mass migration.”

  LeCleur agreed. That was when the wall of cadavers exploded in their faces. Or rather, its center did.

  Continuing to sense the presence of live food beyond the door, the muffins had swiftly dug a tunnel through their own dead to get at it. As they came pouring into the room, Bowman and LeCleur commenced firing frantically. Hundreds of tiny needles bloomed from dozens of shells as the rapid-fire rifles took their toll on the rampaging intruders. Dozens, hundreds, of red-eyed, onrushing muffins perished in the storm of needles, their diminutive bodies shredded beyond recognition. A frantic LeCleur screamed the command to close the door, and the outpost did its best to comply. Unfortunately, a combination of deceased muffins and live muffins had now filled the gap. Many died as they were crushed between the heavy-duty hinges as the door swung closed. But—it did not, could not, shut all the way.

  A river of ravenous brown flowed into the room, swarming over chairs and tables, knocking over equipment, snapping and biting at everything and anything within reach, including one another. Above the fermenting chaos rose a single horrific, repetitive, incessant sound.

  PEEP PEEP PEEP PEEP…!

  “The storeroom!” Firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, heedless of the damage to the installation stray needle-shells might be doing, Bowman retreated as fast as he could. He glanced down repeatedly. Trip and fall here, now, and he would disappear beneath a tsunami of teeth and tiny clawing feet. LeCleur was right behind him.

  Stumbling into the main storeroom, they shut the door manually, neither man wanting to take the time to issue the necessary command to the omnipresent outpost pickups. Besides, they didn’t know if the station voice would respond anymore. In their swarming, the muffins had already shorted out a brace of unshielded, sensitive equipment.

  The agents backed away from the door as dozens of tiny thudding sounds reached them from the other side. The storeroom was the station’s most solidly constructed internal module, but its door was not made of duralloy like the exterior walls. Would it hold up against the remorseless, concerted assault? And if so, for how long?

  Then the lights went out.

  “They’ve ripped up or shorted internal connectors,” Bowman commented unnecessarily. Being forced to listen to the rapid-fire pounding on the other side of the door and not being able to do anything about it was nerve-racking enough. Having to endure it in the dark was ten times worse.

  There was food in the storeroom in the form of concentrates, and bottled water to drink. They would live, LeCleur reflected—at least until the air was cut off, or the climate control shut down.

  Bowman was contemplating a raft of similar unpleasant possibilities. “How many shells you have left, Gerard?”

  The other man checked the illuminated readout on the side of his rifle. It was the only light in the sealed storeroom. “Five.” When preparing to open the front door, neither man had, reasonably enough at the time, considered it necessary to pocket extra ammunition. “You?”

  His partner’s reply was glum. “Three. We’re not going to shoot our way out of here.”

  Trying to find some kind of light in the darkness, LeCleur commented as calmly as he could manage, “The door seems to be holding.”

  “Small teeth.” Bowman was surprised to note that his voice was trembling slightly.

  “Too many teeth.” Feeling around in the darkness, LeCleur located a solid container and sat down, cradling the rifle across his legs. He discovered that he was really thirsty, and tried not to think about it. They would feel around for the food and water containers later, after the thudding against the door had stopped. Assuming it would.

  “Maybe they’ll get bored and go away,” he ventured hopefully.

  Bowman tried to find some confidence in the dark. “Maybe instinct will overpower hunger and they’ll resume the migration. All we have to do is wait them out.”

  “Yeah.” LeCleur grunted softly. “That’s all.” After several moments of silence broken only by the steady thump-thumping against the door, he added, “Opening up was a dumb idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Bowman contended. “We just didn’t execute smartly. After the first minute, we assumed everything was all right and we relaxed.”

  LeCleur shifted his position on his container. “That’s a mistake that won’t be repeated, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care how benign the situation appears—I’ll never be able to relax on this world again.”

  “I hope we’ll both have the opportunity not to.” Bowman’s fingers fidgeted against the trigger of the rifle.

  Eventually they found the water and the food. The latter tasted awful without machine pre-prep, but the powder was filling and nourishing. Unwilling to go to sleep and unable to stay awake, their exhausted bodies finally forced them into unconsciousness.

  LeCleur sat up sharply in the darkness, the hard length of the rifle threatening to slip off his chest until he grabbed it to keep it from falling. He listened intently for a long, long moment before whispering loudly.

  “Jamie. Jamie, wake up!”

  “Huh? Wuzzat…?” In the dim light provided by the illuminated rifle gauge, the other man bestirred himself.

  “Listen.” Licking his lips, LeCleur slid off the pile of containers on which he had been sleeping. His field shorts squeaked sharply against the smooth polyastic.

  Bowman said nothing. It was silent in the storeroom. More significantly, it was equally silent on the other side of the door. The two men huddled together, the faces barely discernible in the feeble glow of the gauge lights.

  “What do we do now?” LeCleur kept glancing at the darkened door.

  Bowman considered the situation as purposefully as his sore back and unsatisfied belly would permit. “We can’t stay cooped up in here forever.” He hesitated. “Anyway, I’d rather go down fighting than suffocate when the air go
es out or is cut off.”

  LeCleur nodded reluctantly. “Who’s first?”

  “I’ll do it.” Bowman took a deep breath, the soft wheeze of inbound air echoing abnormally loud in the darkness. “Cover me as best you can.”

  His partner nodded and raised the rifle. Positioning himself at the most efficacious angle to the door, he waited silently. In the darkness, he could hear his own heart pounding.

  Holding his weapon tightly in his left hand, Bowman undid the seals. They clicked like the final ticks of his internal clock counting down the remainder of his life. Light and fresher air entered the room as the door swung inward. Exhaling softly, Bowman opened it farther. No minuscule brown demons flew at his face, no nipping tiny teeth assailed his ankles. Taking a deep breath, he wrenched sharply on the door and leaped back, raising the muzzle of his weapon as the badly dented barrier pivoted inward. Light from the interior of the station made him blink repeatedly.

  It was silent inside the outpost. A ridge of dead muffins nearly a meter high was piled up against the door. None of the little horrors moved. Rifles held at the ready, the two men emerged from the storeroom.

  Light poured down from the overheads. They still had power. The interior of the outpost was rancid with tiny cadavers. There were dead muffins everywhere: on the dining table, in opened storage cabinets, under benches, beneath exposed supplies, and all over the kitchen area. They were crammed impossibly tightly together in corners, in the living quarters, on shelves. Their flattened, furry, motionless bodies had clogged the food prep area and the toilets, filled the showers and every empty container and tube.

  Bright daylight poured in through the still-open front door. Scavengers, or wind, or marauding muffins had reduced the avalanche of dead creatures on the porch to the same height of a meter that had accumulated against the storeroom portal. The exhausted agents could go outside, if they wished. After weeks of unending peep-peeping, the ensuing silence was loud enough to hurt Bowman’s ears.

  “It’s over.” LeCleur was scraping dead muffins off the kitchen table. “How about some tea and coffee? If I can get any of the appliances to work, that is.”

  Setting his rifle aside, Bowman slumped into a chair and dropped his head onto his crossed forearms. “I don’t give a damn what it is or if it’s ice cold. Right now my throat will take anything.”

  Nodding, LeCleur waded through dunes of dead muffins and began a struggle to coax the beverage maker to life. Every so often he would pause to shove or throw dead muffins out of his way, not caring where they landed. The awful smell was little better, but by now the agents’ stressed systems had come to tolerate it without comment.

  A large, mobile shape came gliding through the gaping front door.

  Forgetting the beverage maker, LeCleur threw himself toward where he had left his rifle standing against a counter. Bowman reached for his own weapon, caught one leg against the chair on which he was sitting, and crashed to the floor with the chair tangled up in his legs.

  Gripping his staff, Old Malakotee paused to stare at them both. “You alive. I surprised.” His alien gaze swept the room, taking in the thousands of deceased muffins, the destruction of property, and the stench. “Very surprised. But glad.”

  “So are we.” Untangling himself from the chair, a chagrined Bowman rose to greet their visitor. “Both of those things: surprised and glad. What are you doing back here?”

  “I know!” A wide smile broke out on the jubilant LeCleur’s face: the first smile of any kind he had shown for days. “It’s over. The migration’s over, and the Akoe have come back!”

  Old Malakotee regarded the exultant human somberly. “The migration not over, skyman Le’leur. It still continue.” He turned to regard the confused Bowman. “But we like you people. I tell my tribe: We must try to help.” He gestured outside. Leaning to look, both men could see a small knot of Akoe males standing and waiting in the stinking sunshine. They looked healthy, but uneasy. Their postures were alert, their gazes wary.

  “You come with us now.” The elder gestured energetically. “Not much time. Akoe help you.”

  “It’s okay.” Bowman gestured to take in their surroundings. “We’ll clear all this out. We have machines to help us. You’ll see. In a week or two everything here will be cleaned up and back to normal. Then you can visit us again, and try our food and drink as you did before, and we can talk.”

  The agent was feeling expansive. They had suffered through everything the muffin migration could throw at them, and had survived. Next time, maybe next year, the larger, better-equipped team that would arrive to relieve them would be properly informed of the danger and could prepare itself appropriately to deal with it. What he and LeCleur had endured was just one more consequence of being the primary survey and sampling team on a new world. It came with the job.

  “Not visit!” Old Malakotee was emphatic. “You come with us now! Akoe protect you, show you how to survive migration. Go to deep caves and hide.”

  LeCleur joined in. “We don’t have to hide, Malakotee. Not anymore. Even if the migration’s not over, the bulk of it has clearly passed this place by.”

  “Juvenile migration passed.” Stepping back, Old Malakotee eyed them flatly. Outside, the younger Akoe were already clamoring to leave. “Now adults come.”

  Bowman blinked, uncertain he had heard correctly. “Adults?” He looked back at LeCleur, whose expression reflected the same bewilderment his partner was feeling. “But—the muffins.” He kicked at the half a dozen quiescent bodies scattered around his feet. “These aren’t the adult forms?”

  “They juveniles.” Malakotee stared at him unblinkingly. His somber demeanor was assurance enough this was not a joke.

  “Then if every muffin we’ve been seeing these past seven months has been a juvenile or an infant…” LeCleur was licking his lips nervously. “Where are the adults?”

  The native tapped the floor with the butt of his staff. “In ground. Hibernating.” Bowman struggled to get the meaning of the alien words right. “Growing. Once a year, come out.”

  The agent swallowed. “They come out—and then what?”

  Old Malakotee’s alien gaze met that of the human. “They migrate.” Raising a multifingered hand, he pointed. To the southeast. “That way.”

  “No wonder.” LeCleur was murmuring softly. “No wonder the juvenile muffins flee in such a frenzy. We’ve already seen that the species is cannibalistic. If the juveniles eat one another, then the adults…” His voice trailed off.

  “I take it,” Bowman inquired of the native, surprised at how calm his voice had become, “that the adults are a little bigger than the juveniles?”

  Old Malakotee made the Akoe gesture signifying concurrence. “Much bigger. Also hungrier. Been in ground long, long time. Very hungry when come out.” He started toward the doorway. “Must go quickly now. You come—or stay.”

  Weak from fatigue, Bowman turned to consider the interior of the outpost: the ruined instrumentation, the devastated equipment, the masses of dead muffins. Juvenile muffins, he reminded himself. He contemplated the havoc they had wrought. What would the adults be like? Bigger, Old Malakotee had told them. Bigger and hungrier. But not, he told himself, necessarily cuter.

  Outside, the little band of intrepid Akoe was already moving off, heading at a steady lope for the muffin-bridged ravine, their tails switching rhythmically behind them. Standing at the door, Bowman and LeCleur watched them go. What would the temperature in the deep caves to the northwest be like? How long could they survive on Akoe food? Could they even keep up with the well-conditioned, fast-moving aliens, who were, in their element, running for days on end over the grassy plains? The two men exchanged a glance. At least they had a choice. Didn’t they? Well, didn’t they?

  Beneath their feet, something moved. The ground quivered, ever so slightly.

  Chauna

  “What do you give the man who has everything?”

  It’s a phrase you hear constantly at gift-giv
ing time: birthdays, holidays, special occasions. To me the answer always seemed relatively simple and straightforward: ask him.

  With the very rich and powerful, the reply is apt to be predictable: more. More of everything. More wealth, more control, more toys, more possessions. And most especially, more than the next guy. The typical billionaire’s wishes are fundamental enough to border on the jejune. If the other guy has a hundred-foot yacht, you want a hundred-meter yacht. If his is bigger than a hundred meters, you have to have one with a helicopter, or a private submersible, or a Michelin-blessed chef concocting five-star meals in the galley.

  But what if there were a truly wealthy and powerful dreamer or two whose imaginings vaulted beyond the merely materialistic and puerile? What if there were an individual whose dreams matched his bank account? What might he seek? Would it be possible that he might even read science fiction, and have science-fiction dreams? What if he determined to put all his vast wealth and power at the disposal of those who might help him to fulfill such a yearning, even at the risk of being laughed at?

  It takes a strong billionaire indeed who can stand being laughed at.

  Carl Sagan’s Contact is one of the best books (and movies) about science and what motivates scientists. For most viewers of the film, the most sympathetic character was that of Jodie Foster’s Dr. Ellie Arroway. While I empathized fully with her hunger for knowledge, the individual I most strongly sympathized with was that of the reclusive, Howard Hughes–like billionaire S. R. Hadden (a sly and knowing John Hurt), who desperately wanted to take her place for that first contact with intelligent alien life, but whose failing health allowed him only to finance such an endeavor and not participate in it. Though few and far between, such people are not isolated examples.

  Even billionaires can have dreams.