Whatever Gods May Be (20 page)

The Stingers had not regretted their decision to stay; the planet had become sandy and dry, and there had been purpose given to their existence with the mothering of Man.  Repulsed by the alien Redeyes, the Stingers found it necessary to remain here for as long as it took to either wipe out the vermin completely, or see to it that humanity could increase its numbers sufficiently to battle the bloodsucking enemy.

Furthermore, the Stingers were haunted by a sense of duty to Earth.  Their own race, as well as that of the red world, had surrendered to extinction; they had received no outside help with their various calamities, which maybe could have prevented their respective doomsdays.  Perhaps, the Stingers conjectured, if they extended their assistance to the race of Man - though how admittedly limited it could be with the Dark as a foe - the true people of Earth would not also perish in like manner.

Such philosophical optimism, coupled with the temporary discovery of a world conducive to their environmental needs, had kept the Stingers relatively unperturbed at being marooned here for so many centuries.  Though the Dark had weakened them considerably, it was by no means deadly, and the Stingers were confident that an eventual solution would be found that would allow them to escape from Earth.  Even if the Dark persisted in restraining them, the Stingers would simply resort to using their most powerful weapon against the black hell -- they would, if necessary, outlive it.

Such a far-off problem need not be grappled with immediately, for the Stingers still had much work ahead of them.  The race of Man was dying in spite of their best efforts, and the possibility of failure in saving it, was far more disastrous to contemplate for the Stingers than a few thousand years of planetary confinement.

Thalick stared at Valry resting on his claw.  Peering into her thoughts, the Stinger shared the girl's visions of destroying great multitudes of Redeyes.

Thalick was about to lurch forward and make his way back to the stream, when Valry spoke again.

"Thalick," she said, not looking at him, in a very strange voice that was vaguely disquieting.  "I don't want to die."

Something inside of Thalick melted.  Though he had never suffered any disease or physical disorder in his long life, the Stinger now felt distinctly ill.  He watched Valry closely, analyzing the salty water running down her face.  The girl said nothing more after this and continued to stare ahead at her people, and though Thalick detected no pain from Valry he knew with a horrible certainty that she was in more agony now than ever before.

Thalick did not send back a transmission.  He suspected that Valry had not expected him to do so.  Stewing in his own sense of helplessness, Thalick only hissed and punched the ground with his legs, waiting for Valry to stop crying.

Finally, the girl recovered and patted a claw.  "Let's go check on daddy," she said firmly.

Thalick moved forward.  His acute senses registered that the girl was still far from well.  Dark, frightened thoughts raced through her mind that occluded the Stinger's usually clear perceptions.  Since he was generally incapable of extending any kind of sympathy, Thalick decided that a general panacea for Valry's morose condition was required.  It had worked before, he figured, perhaps it would work again.

THALICK LOVE YOU, VALRY, Thalick hissed softly.  Valry turned to look at her friend and smiled.  But the Stinger was to be further disappointed and dismayed at the girl's reaction to his transmission.

For this time, she was again crying.

Worse still, she didn't stop crying for a very long time.

TWENTY-FOUR

Seven Stingers stood side by side one another about eighty feet from the main body of the tribe.  Their massive tails were looped over their backs lazily, with the stingers nearly touching the heavy armor plating beneath.  Hissing quietly among themselves, the Thelericks then lowered their massive frames off of their legs, so that their bellies were touching the ground.  This diminished their standing height considerably, which was exactly the intent of the procedure.  termed - and perhaps not inaccurately - as Happy Hour.

Happy Hour was a daily event that was never missed by the tribe.  Indeed, it could not be; for without the miracle treatments which the Stingers dispensed to everyone, the damning powers of the Dark would cut through the tribe life like a knife through hot butter.  Only with Thelerick administrations could tribe members be assured of a fighting chance against the Dark plagues.  Now, fifty or so patient individuals lined before each Stinger, waiting to receive the life-saving drug that was all that stood between the Dark and death.

Long before John and Valry Phillips had started migrating with the tribe, the Thelerick aliens for thousands of years had been nursing their small party of people across the globe, feeding it regularly with their powerful antibiotic and antiviral toxins.  These daily rituals which John had later given the name of Happy Hour to had continued nonstop for tribe members for centuries.  It was truly a blessed people that were under the auspices of the giant Stingers; for only in this small community of a thousand or so individuals could the perpetual pang of agony be mildly reduced - or at least numbed - by the powerfully intoxicating liquor/medicine produced by the great aliens.

As Valry and Thalick approached the encampment, Happy Hour was just beginning.  People waited patiently in line, while each person took his or her turn aboard a Thelerick back and extracted the precious fluid from the massive stinger above.  In some cases, where a recipient was too weak to take his treatment orally, the afflicted patient was given a precise and careful injection by the administering Stinger to the largest muscle on the human anatomy.  Such techniques produced mildly painful aftereffects for these individuals; the bruise caused by the stinger puncture, no matter how carefully executed by the conscientious Thelerick, was at least the size of a human fist and usually necessitated those who had received such treatments to conduct most of their business on their feet for several days afterwards.

Still, it was a small price to pay for a daily guarantee against any one of a thousand different diseases that were killing off mankind everywhere else in the world.  As it was, the tribe could not successfully ward off every type of contagion the Dark produced, and suffered to the last man and woman from some life-threatening misery that the Stinger toxins were useless against.

However, since most of these Thelerick-proof plagues demanded both protracted periods of hibernation and proliferation, the tribe was never in any danger of near-instant extermination.  Without Happy Hour, of course, this would not have been true.  Mankind's ancient enemies such as small pox, typhus, tetanus, influenza, hepatitis, pneumonia and syphilis would have long before taken a devastating and ultimately permanent swipe against the tribe had not the Stingers arrived when they did.

Valry disembarked off of Thalick and ran over to the nearest line of people.  Each tribe member was well over six feet tall, with some of the men topping seven and a half feet.  The abnormal size deviations in humanity today were some of the more harmless repercussions of long-term mutation, though it did give a kind of ganglia and disjointed appearance to the species that clearly segregated it from the kind of human Valry was.

Approaching a familiar and friendly giant, Valry looked up and smiled.

"Marma, has Phillips done Happy Hour?"

Marma kneeled down where she was in line to speak to Valry, choosing her words carefully and with great difficulty.

"No...no, Valry" she said very slowly, after so many years, still battling the strange language that John Phillips had given to the tribe with only minimal success, "Phillips sleep."

Valry looked towards her father's tent near the stream and nodded.

"Marma," Valry began, speaking just as slowly as the friendly female giant had done, "Go get Phillips cup.  Bring here."

Marma stared dumbly at Valry for just a moment, then grinned broadly and lumbered away.  Valry watched her go then proceeded to touch and pet a few people in Marma's Happy Hour line.  This brought on a few groans and grunts - and occasionally a recognizable word of 'thanks' - from the waiting giants, who each kneeled when Valry came near them.

"Hungry?" she asked loudly so that all the people standing before the other Stingers could hear her.

"Hungry'." was the thundering reply to her query.

"I get food!" she yelled, then turned and ran back to Thalick amidst howls of grateful approval.

She treated them almost like playthings, talking to them as if they were make-believe dolls, but she did so with clear adoration in her voice.  They were her children, and she loved them unsparingly.  The great span of evolution that separated herself from them did not diminish her devotion to the tribe giants; she had grown up with them, lived with them all of her life, and they had become her family.  Each person within it was a brother and sister, or more accurately, a helpless son or daughter to be cared for and looked after always.

In turn, though the Stingers were recognized' as the great omnipotents that gave life and defended them against the Redeyes, the tribesman looked to Valry Phillips as the spiritual and emotional leader of their lives.  Indeed, they could not have helped but worshipped her.  When there was death among them, it was Valry who showed more remorse than they could even comprehend.  It was Valry, too, who accompanied the Stingers on food expeditions, and brought back enough for all to survive on.  More than anything else, though, it was Valry who could understand the strange hisses of the Stingers, and who alone - even more so than the Old One Phillips - could command the great insects to do her bidding.

Though a totally communal society lacking any form of rank or file, the tribe did have its unspoken godhead, anthromorphosized in the form of Valry Phillips.  Her father was regarded with like reverence, though without the unconditional love that was reserved for Valry alone.  To the tribe, the Old One Phillips was more like the Stingers; a powerful force that commanded respect and attention, he was feared and obeyed - a being that was distinctly distant and alien...and had no interest in altering that status.

But Valry was theirs.  She was their mother, their comforter, their light in a world of perpetual blackness.

Given the opportunity, they would die for her in a moment.  And though their mutated brains could only comprehend the rudiments of self-sacrifice, they suspected that Valry would die for them as well.

Valry stopped a few feet from Thalick, then closed her eyes.  She stumbled forward, bracing herself against the Stinger's claw.  Thalick hissed his concern.

"I just need some Happy Hour myself," Valry smiled weakly, fighting off dizziness.  "We need to feed them, Thalick.  Have you found anything nearby?"

Thalick lowered his tail over his head for the girl's convenience.  While she squeezed out the precious toxin, he answered her question.

FUZZIES.  ONE HOUR AWAY Thalick reported, then paused mid-thought.  A moment later: SOMETHINGELSE 

Valry could detect the difference in the transmission instantly.  Thalick's message contained worry, and this caused her to share the Stinger's uneasiness.

"What?"

For a second, all ten Stingers hissed among themselves, even while they continued to engage in Happy Hour.  Valry recognized this as a strictly Thelerick interchange which she could not decipher.  She was not offended, though; Thalick would most certainly fill her in on what she had missed in the private consultation.

The hissing died away.  Thalick wriggled an antennae, then replaced his enormous tail over his back.

CITY.  MAYBE DANGER.  MAYBE REDEYES      

"How far?" Valry asked, her face going pale at the news.

The tribe was far too exhausted to contemplate another move just yet.  It needed food and rest, regardless of a possible vampire city in the vicinity.  Still, she knew that if the Stingers thought it was too dangerous to remain in the steamy valley, they would force the people to travel regardless of their weakened condition.

NOT NEAR.  NOT FAR.  AFTER FUZZY HUNT, THELERICK GO TO SEE.

"Good," she nodded, after gulping down a few handfuls of venom, "As soon as Green Belly and One-"

A scream of terror pierced the air around her.  Valry's eyes widened first with surprise and then fear.  For the voice she heard was that belonging to her father.

TWENTY-FIVE

The world of dreams had been inordinately cruel to John Phillips.  It refused to placate his tortured subconscious with the wavy, often forgettable ravings of a soul at rest.  The disjointed pictures from his past, for example, were not brief and hazy.  They instead flooded his brain with merciless clarity.

Back into years long gone Phillips would travel nightly, to a place and spot in time he had tried to forget without success.  As if the demons of his mind were perfect chronological navigators, they would steer him to the first, numbing days of the crash twenty years before.  Once arrived to that distant and horrible shore, the nightmare latched on to its victim and held it hostage to an interminable period of suffering.

For two decades, the nightmares had haunted the astronaut.  They had strengthened in severity since their beginning, adding new, brutal detail to their nightly sojourns to his psyche.