No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories (51 page)

Then, hurrying back toward the clearing, I glimpsed hunters heading my way and moved quickly, quietly aside into the forest shade. The hunting party passed me by; but back there under the trees I had found another pink graveyard—
the
pink graveyard, the graveyard of the man-likes! All of the graves had the weird asparagus plants growing out of them; some with as many as four spears, each as thick as my forearm and from eighteen inches to two feet tall, with bulbous tips as big as a clenched fist. But there were also some with collapsed stems and bulbs with empty, shattered husks. And once again I experienced that sensation of trespassing, of feeling that I really shouldn’t be there.

How did I know this was the biped graveyard? Because every plot was well tended and marked with unmistakable, stylized
pictures
of man-likes drawn on papery bark, that’s how. And one of the graves—a mound
without
the weird plants—was brand new and the soil still wet!

I would have left at once but the strangest thing happened. One of the fattest of several asparagus stems on an older grave had started quivering, and the leaves or petals on the big bulb at its tip were peeling back on themselves and leaking a gluey liquid. Not only that, but something was wriggling in there—something pink!

That was enough and I got the hell out of there.

Luck was with me; I got back to the clearing and my habitat without encountering any more pinks, and Friday was waiting for me with a big bunch of those purple carrots. This time, though, I haven’t accepted them. Actually, I’ve only just realized that I’ve been feeling a little sick and dizzy ever since breakfast.

Day Fourteen: (I think…or maybe Fifteen?)

God, I’m not at all well. And what happened this morning hasn’t much helped the way I feel.

I was dreaming. I was with this woman and it was just about to turn into a wetty. We were in bed and I was groping her: one hand on her backside, the other on her breasts, while the, er, best of me searched for the way in; but damned if I could find it! And even for a guy who has spent most of his time in space, that wasn’t at all like me. I mean, it simply wasn’t there! But anyway, as I went to kiss her she breathed on me, causing me to recoil from her strange, sweet breath—and likewise from the dream.

I woke up—came starting awake—and saw these big limpid, alien eyes staring straight into mine! It was Friday, under the sheet with me, and both of us were sweaty as hell!

What the screaming fuck
? He (shit, maybe I should have been calling Friday “she” all this time!) was holding my face in
its
wet, three-fingered hands, its body trembling with some kind of weird passion. I jerked back, kicked it out of there and was on my feet before it could get up from the dirt floor. But finally it did, and there it stood in a padded bra, frilly knickers and a lacy chemise that could only have belonged to Emma Schneider. And I knew it was so because Friday’s mouth was a ghastly crimson gash that was thickly layered with the
Albert E.
’s ex-exobiologist’s fucking hideous lip gloss!

Jesus H. Christ!

And out he, she,
it
went; out of my habitat, out beyond the defensive security perimeter, and out of what’s left of my life in this fucking place for good. And I hurled the February, 2196 issue of
Lewd Lustin’ Lovers
it had left lying open on my folding card-table right out there into the clearing after it! But even after I’d washed myself top to toe, still I felt like I’d been dipped in dog dirt, and here it is noon and I still do…

Later: (mid-afternoon.)

I went down to where a stream joins the ocean to swim in a pool there. I’m still not a hundred percent, crapping like a volcano blowing off, and throwing up purple, but at least my skin feels clean again.

When I was in the water I thought I saw Friday lurking near the rocks where I left my pants, socks and shoes, but he wasn’t there when I came out and dried off. Back in the habitat when I went to switch on the perimeter I couldn’t find my remote…I could have sworn it was in my pants pocket. And that’s not all; the perimeter’s wiring had been yanked out of the generator’s connection box. It’s not impossible that Friday did it accidentally when I tossed him out of bed, but it’s also possible he’s been in here sabotaging stuff. When I’m feeling better I’ll fix things up again, try to knock together a new remote.

But that’s for when I’m feeling better. Right now I’m feeling lousy, so I’m going to have to get my head down…rest and recuperation, Jim lad.

Later: (early evening.)

Went back to the old
Albert E.
I was going to climb the ladder, go looking for tools, electrical gear, and like that. No way, I was too weak. Made four rungs and had to come down again before I fell.

Down there under the ship’s crumpled hull, it suddenly occurred to me maybe I should pay my respects to the crew, which I haven’t been doing for a while now. And what do you know, these slimy shoots were gradually uncoiling, standing up out of their graves.

Dizzy and staggering about like I was falling-down drunk, I went to kick the things flat, crush, destroy and…and murder them? But a bunch of bipeds got a hold of me, guiding and half-carrying me back to my habitat.

I thought I saw Friday standing there, just watching all of this—the little pink fairy! But hell, it could have been any one of them. No, I reckon it was him. And now I can’t help wondering if maybe he’s poisoned me—and if so, was it deliberate?

My temperature’s way up…I’m sweaty and dizzy as all get out…puking all over the place but bringing nothing up. What the hell? Is this the end of it?

Don’t know what day it is but it feels like morning.

They’ve carried me out into the clearing, and I think it’s Friday who’s cradling my head. He doesn’t seem to mind me talking to my personal log. He’s seen me do it often enough before; probably thinks it’s some kind of ritual, which in a way it is or has become. Well, and we all have our rituals—right, Jim lad?

I’m no longer sweating; in fact I feel sort of dry, almost brittle. But my mind is very clear now and I think I’ve figured it out. Something of it, anyway. It’s that thing called evolution. If I was an exobiologist like Emma Schneider I might have worked it out earlier; but no, I’m just a grease monkey.

Evolution, yes. We human beings became the Earth’s dominant species by evolving. We walked upon the dirt—the earth under our feet, terra firma—but wanted a whole lot more. What about the winds above the earth, and the vast waters that flowed over it? So we made machines, vessels to sail on the seas and in the skies; finally we even built space-ships, to journey beyond the skies. So you might say that in a way we achieved our dominance mechanically: that old opposing thumb-theory-thing.

Well, the pinks are also becoming dominant, on their world as we did on Earth. Except so far, with them, it’s all biological. For the time being they don’t have much need for machines; they’re conquering the skies, seas, and forests without mechanical devices, by utilizing and changing the DNA of the various species that live in those environments and then by inhabiting them themselves.

On Earth we took out the predators, who were our competitors, by killing them off. Well, the pinks are doing it, too—except they are doing it by
becoming
them! It explains why the vultures stay way high in the sky and why the black hogs stick mainly to the deeper woods—because having evolved alongside the pinks they’re learning to keep their distance. As I should have kept mine…

I must have passed out but now I’m back. Probably for the last time, Jim lad.

Friday is still cradling my head, but his sweating has become something else. The pinks are unisexual, I’m pretty sure of that now. I can’t any longer feel my body, my limbs…can only just speak or whisper, and I’m able to turn my head a few inches but that’s all. My eyes are still working, however, and from time to time as Friday relaxes his efforts (fuck it, I’ve gone and made him a “he” again!) I can see it’s his time. What time? Well see, he’s not sweating any more, he’s ovulating!

I see these silvery droplets with their tadpole cores issuing drip by drip from beneath the steeply arched nails on his central digits, his ovipositors. And now he sticks his fingers deeply into my neck. I can barely feel it, for which I’m truly, truly glad, Jim lad.

Who knows, maybe me and my old
Albert E.
shipmates—or I should say our pink descendants somewhere down the line—maybe they’ll get back out into space again. Because it surely has to follow that whatever issues from us will be a lot more man-like than these man-likes.

And that, I think, is all for now, probably forever. Uh-oh! Maybe we should make that definitely forever, because here come the musicians…