Phthor (18 page)

The tongue slapped toward it. The whale felt the weight, and was orienting on the morsel; it didn’t care that it was part of the caterpillar-accomplice. Arlo’s attempted passage across that surface would have been perilous indeed!

He went to the next separate segment and pitched it off. And the third; none were any good for his purpose. Then he came to the unified tail assembly.

Now he had a problem. He couldn’t get by it, and it was too massive to lever into the pool entire. Also, there were several very nice segments in it—rock chippers with heads and forelegs that should be serviceable. He wanted to save these.

Meanwhile, the whole unit continued to move, cornering Vex. In a moment the stab-tail would be in range of her.

Arlo jumped down. With three morsels between him and the tongue, he should be safe—for a while.

His feet shot out from under. The potwhale’s skin was spongy and slippery, offering no firm footing despite its bulk, and it undulated under his weight. But there was not enough water to swim in. Arlo thrashed about, making no forward progress.

“Another way!” Aton cried.

“Another way!” Arlo echoed. He lifted the ax with difficulty, about to chop it into the slick black flesh beneath, carving a foothold. But again he paused: surely the pain would attract the potwhale’s immediate attention, and the erupting blood would make the foothold less secure than ever! What else offered?

He reached up and grabbed the foot of the nearest caterpillar segment. Now he had purchase. He clamped the ax between his knees and hauled himself from one leg to the next, hand over hand. He had found another way!

When he got to the terrible tail, projecting half the length of a man, he paused yet again. He had no leverage to chop at it! But at any moment it would shoot out, for Vex was now within its range. The last thing he wanted was to see her impaled.

He saw the tail shortening. That meant it was about to spring. Arlo grabbed the end foot with his left hand and swung the ax with his right. The blow was weak, the armor of the tail hard; the blade bounced off, almost cutting his own left arm. He could not stop it that way.

The tail shuddered. It was starting to make its thrust! Arlo dropped the ax and grabbed the rod with both hands as it elongated. At the same time, he heard a splash.

The rod shot out, its diameter decreasing as its length increased. Arlo hung on, bracing both feet against the wall and pulling. He succeeded: the tail was angled out over the water, missing its mark.

Only there was now no target. Vex had jumped off the ledge. “Let go!”she cried.

Arlo looked at his hands—and realized what was happening. The tail was geared to spear through the prey, then to incorporate the new entity into the scheme of the caterpillar by injecting some kind of pacifying chemical. Its surface was now slick with goo—and Arlo’s hands were numb. “I can’t!” he cried.

Vex grabbed him and got her body under his arms. She shoved off hard from the wall, carrying him with her. She was amazingly strong—but of course that was a property of the minionette, to be able to take sadistic punishment. His hands tore free, and he saw how the surface of the tail had opened little pores in its elongated state. No doubt that fluid was much more effective when set into a massive wound, such as the puncture of a complete entity. His skin and callus protected him somewhat, but not enough. The effect was spreading.

Arlo fell and could not move. The caterpillar poison had entered his system, paralyzing him. He could see, hear, and feel—but that was all.

“Oh, no!” Vex cried.

She set him down face-up on the blubbery back of the potwhale and splashed his hands in the water. But there was little water here, and it was already too late for washing to have much effect. She gave it up and handed herself along the caterpillar segment in the fashion Arlo had. “Aton!” she screamed.

And Arlo realized how convenient it would be for her simply to leave him and take up with his father. She didn’t have to do anything; she had tried to save him and had failed. What more could be asked? If he died, he could not return to aid Chthon’s campaign, so her mission would be complete in that sense. Soon she would generate her own son from the loins of her father to carry on the tradition...

The tongue had brought in the third segment morsel. Now it was casting for Arlo. Still he could not move. Vex had reached the other end of the tail assembly and Aton was helping her back up to the ledge. He knew this as much with his mind as with his eye; perhaps he was picking up images from the eyes of the other people. Vex had taken up the ax Arlo had dropped; fortunately it had not slipped down between the potwhale and the rock and on to the bottom of the pool. The two of them walked away.

Walked away...

Arlo fought, but the caterpillar venom held him immobile. Millions of years of evolution had gone into the perfection of this serum, and it was adequate to its task—even for the alien life-form Arlo was. Only on order from the caterpillar brain could he move—and then only his feet, synchronized with the caterpillar metronome. And there were no signals because there was no connection.

How had Bedside fought off this drug, to become a man— albeit a mad one—again?

The tongue slapped across one of his legs, curled about it, tugged. Arlo slid across the blubber toward the potwhale’s mouth.

Another way... ?

The ten-segment segment—it had been marching and functioning, though it had no caterpillar brain! Bedside’s brain had also been able to control a small unit. So portions of a caterpillar could function! If the lead-segment handled it correctly...

I am a caterpillar, Arlo thought. I am marching home...

And his legs began to move. He was a single-segment caterpillar.

I am running home!

Faster, as his legs caught the beat his mind provided. They were not responsive directly to his brain any more than his penis was, but like it they were influenced by visions his mind conjured. The brain was smart, the legs stupid; they could be fooled.

The potwhale’s tongue clasped his leg tightly, hauling him up the rise surrounding the mouth regardless of his running motions. He smelled the rank intestinal gas that steamed up from that orifice, heard the grindings deep inside.

My feet are impeded; they must fight to maintain the cadence...

His feet kicked wildly. His free foot smacked into the tongue, battering it against the captive foot. Again, harder.

And the tongue, hurt, slackened. The foot slid out of the loop. Arlo rolled down the incline, away from the mouth, feet still working. He turned over, his face rubbing across the black surface, and turned again, helplessly. And saw the forepart of the caterpillar.

Aton and Vex were astride it, one near the head, the other near the severed end. “One...two...three...heave!” Aton called, and they both shoved hard against the wall, just as the outer row of legs was coming down. Off-balanced, the caterpillar teetered.

“Heave!” And slowly the entire length of it toppled off the ledge, into the pool. The massed legs churned up a froth.

The splash was loud. The entire potwhale tilted with the added weight. Huge as the creature was, Arlo realized that it had to be shallow, flat like a leaf instead of round like a stone. Not nearly as massive as it appeared. A surprised honk emerged from the mouth. Then the orifice closed and the tongue sucked in.

Water poured over the rim. The monster was submerging!

Arlo, unable to swim because of the venom, knew he had exchanged one form of death for another. Instead of being eaten, he would drown. Even Chthon could not save him now—and Chthon did not have reason to.

Then strong hands gripped his arms. Aton and Vex swam for the rim, hauling him between them.

They had saved him.

The venom of the caterpillar was powerful. Arlo fought his way to consciousness, oppressed by suffocating heat—but still he was unable to move voluntarily. Not even his feet, now. Or his eyes.

But he could feel, and he could hear. Someone was stroking his brow. It was the gentle, cool touch of his mother, Coquina: cool because of her malady the chill. He was in her hot cave, and she was taking care of him, as she had when he had been a child. He was relieved; he felt safe here, and it was good to have her attention, and to have her know that she was needed. She had given up everything for the sake of his father Aton—and now she was losing Aton himself.

Footsteps approached, halting at the entrance, where Arlo knew a curtain of woven cave-vines contained the heat necessary to Coquina’s survival. “Come in, Vex,” Coquina said.

Arlo’s mind reacted, though his body could not. What was the minionette doing here? In the nature of things, the two women should be enemies!

There was the rustle of vines being parted, a slight stir of warm air, and Vex stepped in.

“Put on some clothing,” Coquina said, a bit sharply.

After another rustling pause while Vex donned one of Coquina’s dresses—a tight fit, Arlo was sure!—she spoke. “I brought fruit from Arlo’s garden. Is he better yet?”

“Not yet. But thank you very much for the fruit.” Coquina was being very polite, very formal. “I know the trip to the garden is dangerous for you, alone.”

“Aton went with me.” Arlo felt his mother’s hand on his forehead freeze, almost literally: it seemed to become deathly cold. Small wonder!

Then Coquina stood. “There is no need to tell me this.”

“Please—I must tell you. I—here.” Evidently Vex was holding out something. Arlo struggled to regain that ambience of perception he had had, to see things through their eyes. What was the object?

There was a brief silence. Then: “He—gave you the hvee?”

Arlo knew exactly what his mother was feeling: he felt the same. If Aton had given Vex the hvee, all was over for Coquina—and for Arlo.

“He—sent it,” Vex said quietly. “As—a gift for you. Please take it.”

What? The hvee could not be transferred like this!

Coquina accepted it. “It does not wilt. How is this possible?”

“Aton loves you,” Vex said. “We did nothing in the gardens. He picked this flower; it oriented on him. See, it does not match my blue one from Arlo. You love him—”

“But how could you carry it?”

“How can anyone carry the hvee? I love him, too.”

Wrong, Arlo thought. The hvee loved its master, and loved the one who loved its master, but could not be transferred between common lovers. It was strictly series, not parallel. For when more than one woman loved a given man, there was rivalry, and that destroyed love—and the hvee. So something was wrong here. The hvee should be wilting—and wasn’t.

Coquina moved away from Arlo and went to Vex. Oh, no!

Arlo thought. They can’t fight... not my mother and my sister, my two closest loves!

“Aton has shown me something I did not know,” Coquina said gently. “Come, child—sit by me. I shall not hold you long.” And her voice was oddly soft.

“I am confused,” Vex said. “There is strange and terrible emotion here, and I don’t know whether it emanates from you or Arlo, or from both.”

“My son is conscious?” Coquina asked.

Of course Vex would know. She was telepathic. Arlo could have few secrets from her!

Vex must have nodded affirmatively, for Coquina continued: “It is best that he know this too.”

“You know what I am!” Vex cried with sudden vehemence. “You know how it must end! How can you speak to me?”

Now Arlo felt her emotion, in large part a blissful experience, in small part a black abyss. It was his own telepathy at work, coming at last, becoming stronger because of the urgency stemming from the incapacity of his normal senses. Three-quarters human, that picked up Vex’s negative emotion as positive; one-quarter minion, that received it as it was. He really was a mixture of types. Yet this duality was giving him a breadth of comprehension he could not have had otherwise, as though it required two views to fathom any given feeling. Chthon could see physical objects from many views, but had no inkling of this mental holography.

“I knew your mother,” Coquina said. “She was a fine woman—Aton’s first love. I was never jealous of her.”

“I did not know my father still lived!” Vex said in agony. “He was listed as dead because he went to Chthon prison. I met Aton and did not recognize him because of that belief. When Arlo told me his grandmother was Malice—”

“Peace, child! I know you did not know. When you fled from me at our first meeting, I knew you had to be a minionette—and I recognized in your aspect your likely lineage. I remembered how clever Uncle Benjamin Five was,

and I comprehend some of that man’s motives. There was that of Aton in you—”

“I never intended to betray Arlo! See—I still wear his hvee, and it lives. I have sworn—”

“I know, Vex. I understand. Let me explain about the hvee.”

Why was Coquina suddenly so calm? Arlo could pick up her emotion now, separating it from Vex’s; it was mainly positive, only partly negative—which meant that it was all positive in origin, owing to his own partial reversal of reception. She was not pretending; she was confident and relieved.

“I know what normals go through to love a minionette, now,” Vex said. “I never wanted to hurt anyone, but I can’t be false to my nature. Had Aton been dead, as I thought—”