The Flavors of Other Worlds Read online

  I’ve spent a fair amount of time underwater. It’s beautiful down there. In fact, one might almost say that life is much better down where it’s wetter, except that’s copyrighted, so I won’t say it.

  When you emerge from the sea after a long time, say more than an hour, a great deal of heat has been sucked out of your body. You are also dehydrated. You’re inordinately grateful for a drink, a dry towel, and a chance to stand in the tropical sun. It’s a very small but genuine heavenly feeling.

  On the other hand, depending on how you have evolved, the reverse might be true.…

  * * *

  “Why are you so determined to go to Hell?”

  Crouched down behind the fold of reef, Menno kept his bubbles small and deliberately unobtrusive as he whispered a reply to Codan. “All my life I was told that I was destined to go to Hell. It was a determination that I accepted willingly. What has always astonished me is that no one else shares my desire to do so.”

  Holding his spear steady as he floated parallel to the sandy bottom, his friend spoke while intently eyeing the parade of passing polosto. “How awkward it must be for you to find that the rest of the world is so terribly afflicted with sanity.”

  “Always the sarcastic one.” Menno joined his friend in patiently watching and waiting as the school of unaware potential prey continued to drift nearer. “Sarcastic and apathetic.”

  “I am not at all apathetic,” Codan assured the other hunter. “I am adamantly opposed to the very notion. Didn’t you ever realize that the suggestion was not to be taken literally? People are often told to go to Hell. None of them ever takes it as a personal challenge. At least, none until you, my friend.” Upon concluding this observation he exploded forward over the top of the reef and thrust madly with his spear. With their cover thus broken, Menno had little choice but to follow.

  He had to admit that Codan had chosen the moment well. The polosto had come in very close to the reef, enabling both hunters to spear good-sized individuals before the school could flee. As the impaled quarry writhed on the polished lengths of zek shell, unable to flee or reach around far enough to bite the hunters, the two Tyry began eating their prey alive. There was, after all, nothing a true Tyry enjoyed more than eating. Beginning with the tentacles, a true delicacy, the pair soon worked their way down to the half-consumed polostos’ internal superstructure which consisted of a single expanding spiral of bone.

  The rest of the carcasses and all of the polostos’ internal organs were saved and stowed in drag-sacks of woven absab weed. These would be towed home to be distributed among the members of both males’ extended families. Once the two hunters had eaten their fill they turned away from the outer reef to begin the long swim homeward. Coordinating their departure from the reef with the changing of the current allowed them to make steady and relatively easy progress.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Using a right-side tentacle to flick aside a persistent cluster of parasitic keleth worms, Menno drifted a little closer to his friend. His strong, broad, four-lobed tail made short work of those keleth who persisted.

  “What, to Hell?” Using one webbed tentacle, Codan gestured disparagingly. “I wish you would drop this enduring mania, Menno. It was already becoming tiresome years ago.” Using his spear, he prodded a likely-looking hole as he swam past the opening. If it had been home to a tasty foudan, the angry invertebrate within would have displayed itself and its anger immediately, an appearance that would have led to its becoming an instant appetizer. “Much as certain members of the community might wish it, you are not going to Hell, however much you persist in pretending to continue to humor their requests.”

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t give you the chance.” With a half flip of his tail, Menno accelerated out ahead of his friend.

  Turning his head slightly to the right so that he could focus one eye completely on the other Tyry, Codan flicked his own tail and caught up. “What are you talking about? What ‘chance’?”

  Menno slowed deliberately, dropping down beneath his friend in a gesture of polite deference. They were very close now to the place he had chosen for the attempt. “I’m going. This evening.” Raising two of his four webbed tentacles, he extended them rightward. “There.”

  Backfinning, Codan halted in mid-water. “Now you’re scaring me, Menno. A joke’s a joke, but you’re not bubbling laughter.” Having turned, he now found himself staring in the direction his friend had indicated.

  Instead of being composed of sand or reef or storm debris, the indicated area was smooth and solid; all rock, with nothing growing or hiding on it. Other than a distinct greenish tinge, its most notable characteristic was a remarkably unbroken upward sloping.

  “I have been all the way to the end,” Menno declared proudly. “To the terminus. To the place where the real world ends. The slope continues on and on, the greenstone ascending steadily until it breaks the sky—and passes beyond it to enter Hell. I am convinced of this.”

  Turning away from the stony incline Codan gaped at his lifelong friend and hunting partner, turning to regard him first out of his left eye, then the right. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  “I am quite serious.” Menno gazed back at him.

  Coming close, Codan studied his companion’s upper body. “Your eyes are clear and unfogged, so you have not been eating the purple kalis that grows in the lower caves. Your words are precise. Only your thoughts, it seems, betray any madness.” Having rendered this opinion, Codan resumed swimming toward home.

  Menno caught up to him easily. “Since others told me that I was destined to go there, I have always dreamed of being the first Tyry to visit Hell and return.”

  “Easy to visit.” Codan gestured with his left tentacles. “Impossible to return.”

  “Not any longer. I have devised an apparatus.”

  That brought Codan up short in mid-water. “An apparatus?” He held up his spear. “This is an apparatus, and a very effective one. But it cannot get me to Hell and back. No artificial construct can do that.”

  “I have prepared for this all my life.” Menno’s tone was confident, assured. “You’ll see. I will show you tomorrow morning. If you won’t join me, will you at least come to observe? Without a credible witness there will be none to believe me.”

  “Bereave you, you mean.” Reaching out, Codan draped a tentacle around his friend’s upper body. “Be a sensible fellow. We’ve made a good catch, we’re bringing back plenteous food to share around, and tomorrow is another bright and beautiful day. Enough of this talk of going to Hell.” He made a gesture that was reflective of his innate sardonicism. “We all get there sooner or later anyway.”

  “If you won’t come …” Menno’s voice trailed off tersely as he thrust hard with his tail lobes.

  “I didn’t say that.” Codan rushed to catch up. “I suppose I must attend. As a friend and hunter-brother. Someone has to be there to revive you.”

  “Thanks.” Menno entwined one of his own tentacles around that of his friend. “As a moment of historical importance it will be in need of recording.”

  “A moment of hysterical importance,” Codan corrected him—but gently, for he was truly and honestly concerned.

  The morning of the following day dawned clear and sunny. The atmosphere was bright, cool, and devoid of current. A perfect day for visiting Hell, Menno assured his friend. Or rather, friends, for Codan had insisted on bringing Kedef along. In addition to being senior to both of the hunters, among the Tyry Kedef had an impeccable reputation for honesty. Whatever he reported would be believed. This was the reason Codan proffered for inviting him, anyway. In reality it was a subterfuge, a way for him to enlist the aid of a respected elder in trying to talk Menno out of what was seeming to be more and more an inescapable episode of insanity.

  “Even if you could somehow enter Hell and survive there,” Kedef was muttering as the three males swam parallel to one another in the direction of the greenstone slope, “you are sure to be eaten by
a demon.” He turned reflective. “I commend to you the tale of Ses-Haban.”

  Ses-Haban was a mythical Tyry of ancient times who had dared to swim high enough to gesture contemptuously at the inhabitants of Hell. According to the legend, he had thrust two tentacles completely out of the real world and into that terrible nether realm. What he sensed there was unknown, because as soon as he had done the unbelievable deed, a demon had promptly bitten off both intruding limbs.

  Singled-minded of purpose and determined to fulfill the urge that had driven him since childhood, Menno would not be dissuaded. “Ses-Haban, if he existed, was unlucky.”

  “Ses-Haban, if he existed,” Codan suggested brusquely, “was stupid.”

  “Where is this apparatus of which you have spoken?” the elder inquired. Codan did not try to conceal his surprise. Was Kedef showing interest?

  “You will see it soon,” Menno assured him. “I’ve had to work on it in secret, when away from the community.” Having reached the flow of greenstone, he led them downslope. “Jeers and jibes do not bother me, but there are those whose fears exceed their common sense. Had they known what I was about they might have tried to interfere with my work.” He twisted his upper body to look back the way they had come. “They might have tried to stop me.”

  “You can hardly blame people for fearing Hell,” Codan reminded him.

  “People fear that which they do not understand,” the other hunter riposted.

  “Often with good reason,” Codan added. But this time, his friend did not respond.

  The entrance to the small cave had been camouflaged with loose reef growth and rock. Working with all four of his tentacles, Menno dragged the rubble aside. From the dark interior he extracted a thick, perfectly transparent tuzaca shell. But it was not the classic spiral tuzaca shape. A deformity had produced a shell that took the form of an elongated bubble.

  Kedef’s tone as he studied the product of the younger Tyry’s labors was admiring. Codan realized to his horror that the elder’s presence was starting to have the opposite effect from what he had intended by inviting the older Tyry along in the first place.

  “You have modified this.” Kedef spoke with assurance as he eyed the unusually developed shell. “In several places, it would appear.”

  Gratification suffused Menno’s reply. “Yes. See here, where I have smoothed the base after removing the animal?”

  Kedef’s tentacle ends tiptoed appraisingly over the exterior of the crystal-clear shell, stopping at a round opening. “And what is this hole for? It is not natural.”

  “No. I made it. That is where the voyoupa intestine goes.”

  Shells and intestines. Codan was beginning to wonder if he was going to have to use force to put a stop to this lunacy.

  As he and Kedef looked on, Menno extracted another shell from the cavity in the rocks. This one had a lid. When opened, both sight and smell identified the shell’s contents. Codan’s tentacles recoiled. The shell contained chisith innards. Sticky and stinking, they were violently expelled by a chisith whenever it was attacked or disturbed. Enrobed in the ejected viscous strands, a preoccupied predator would pay no further attention to the chisith, allowing that simple creature to scoot safely on its way. What possible use could Menno have for such a pot of scavenged goo?

  He proceeded to show them.

  Working with a silicate spatula, he daubed chisith innards all over the upper part of his body, careful to stay above his tentacles but below his head. Taking up the large tuzaca, he then carefully pulled it down over his head so that its base rested against the painted line of chisith guts that now encircled his upper body. The gummy chisith gripped the base of the shell. Menno then brought out a long coil of voyoupa intestine. Additional chisith innards were pasted both inside and outside the round opening he had made in the tuzaca shell. One end of the intestine was passed through the hole. More chisith was added to the outside. Within seconds it had been tightly sealed in place.

  “You perceive how this apparatus works?” he declared boldly. Though muted by the intervening shell that now enclosed his head and upper body, his words remained intelligible.

  Cedan had composed a choice response, but Kedef spoke first. “I think so, somewhat, but still …” The elder’s voice trailed off into uncertainty. “I am not sure I understand the proper function of the length of intestine.”

  “The principle is very simple.” Clutching the coil of intestine in two tentacles, Menno used another to hold up the end. “There is no atmosphere in Hell. Only searing heat. Studies suggest that a Tyry can endure the increased temperature for some time before it begins to adversely affect the body. But this point is moot in the absence of breathable atmosphere.” With his remaining free tentacle he reached up to tap the outside of the transparent tuzaca shell.

  “The adhesive chisith insides form an atmospherically tight seal between my upper body and the tuzaca shell. The latter is presently full of perfectly breathable atmosphere. When I venture into airless Hell, I will carry my breathable atmosphere with me.”

  “It won’t last you more than couple of minutes,” Codan pointed out relentlessly. “Studies suggest that, too.”

  “Which difficulty brings us to the purpose of the voyouda intestine.” Once again, Menno waved the open end. “There is a very small hole near the base of the tuzaca shell. Once in Hell, it will leak atmosphere. It is designed to do so. As exhausted atmosphere bleeds out, I will use the tube formed by this intestine to suck fresh atmosphere into the shell. Bad atmosphere out, good atmosphere in.” He eyed the two other Tyry; one old and thoughtful, the other young and alarmed.

  “What if this crazy setup fails on you?” Cedan demanded to know. “What if the chisith seal fails, letting the atmosphere inside the shell all out at once? What if you can’t suck in fresh atmosphere fast enough to replace the old?”

  “Then I will still have time enough to return to the real world.” Menno’s confidence had not deserted him. Indeed, Cedan thought, the closer his friend came to suicide the more assured he appeared to become. “I will only need a minute or two. If it comes to it, I can hold my breath longer than that.”

  “It is an astounding and bold notion.” Kedef hovered in the water above the smooth greenstone, his tail moving lazily back and forth to hold him in position against the current.

  Cedan turned on the elder. “You are not actually going to give your blessing to this madness?”

  Turning to his left, Kedef eyed the younger Tyry with his left eye. “It is not a matter of giving blessing or the withholding of it. Menno is of age. I cannot and would not try to stop him. Besides, everyone in the community knows he has spoken of a desire to fulfill the requests of many ever since his tail lobes were first formed.” He looked back at the obviously proud Menno. “Triumph rewards the audacious.”

  “There is audacity,” Cedan pointed out, “and then there is folly.” But by this time Kedef was paying him no more attention than was his friend.

  So thoroughly had things turned that Kedef helped Menno to secure the length of intestine to the hole in the tuzaca shell. Cedan refused to lend a tentacle to the final preparations. Even at the speed he could swim, it was too far to race back to the community to raise the alarm. He could only hope that the foredoomed experiment would not also destroy his friend.

  When the last of the preparations were concluded, Menno turned a slow circle in the water. “How does it look?”

  “Everything appears tight and secure, young boldness.” Kedef’s tone was full of admiration. “How is your breathing?”

  Holding up the open end of the voyouda intestine, Menno waggled it back and forth. “No problem.”

  “Of course there’s no problem,” Cedan growled. “He’s still in the real world.” But it was not long until that boundary was being tested.

  He and Kedef followed as far as they dared. They trailed behind the self-assured Menno as the latter swam upslope with even, powerful strokes of his tail. Soon they were in the shal
lows, and still Menno continued swimming. Onward and upward. Cedan realized that further pleading was of no use. His friend was determined to go through with this. It was, after all, the fulfillment of a life-long compulsion.

  Drifting together side by side, he and Kedef watched in fascination as Menno kept swimming, swimming, just kept swimming, until all they could see was the hunter’s lower body, then just his tail, and finally not even that. He was well and truly gone. Gone into Hell itself. But the end of the long coil of voyouda intestine trailed behind, whipping slowly back and forth in the slight current that marked the boundary between Hell and the real world.

  “Do you think he’s still alive?” Cedan finally asked after an interminable several moments had passed.

  “I think he must be.” There was wonderment in Kedef’s voice. “If he had been eaten by a demon, then I would think the piece of voyouda would have fallen back into the water by now. A demon would either pull it out or let it go, but not maintain a constant length. Think of it! A Tyry, moving about in Hell itself, observing and recording for the first time! What tales your friend will have to tell us when he returns. What unprecedented sights he will have seen!”

  Cedan said nothing.

  More time passed. It seemed impossible that Menno could have survived so long beyond the sky. The waiting was taking its toll on both him and Kedef. They had been half rocked to sleep by the current when his eyes suddenly dilated sharply.

  “There! By the Line of Otos, he’s coming back!”

  Upslope in front of them it was indeed the familiar shape of Menno that was coming in their direction. But something was wrong. The atmosphere-retaining tuzaca shell was still in place, glued securely to the hunter’s upper body by the tough chisith innards. The upper end of the voyouda intestine was still sealed to the hole Menno had artfully drilled in the shell. Despite this, the intrepid explorer was not swimming normally. His tail was not moving. His tentacles as limp as strands of ncasa weed, he drifted partway toward them before being caught by the current.