“Pop! Hey, Pop!”
I turned in my seat and faced my offspring—plumpish, round-faced and freckled. “What is it, son?”
“Do I have to wear this—this—”
“That’s a fine wool suit, son. It’s what they wear on Earth for formal occasions. Anything more comfortable would be an insult to our host’s Maturity Flight!”
“Aw, who cares about a Jam’s binge?”
“I do, son. And your mother also.”
“Awwww.”
“And you needn’t look as though it’s a discriminatory torture I’m putting you through. I’ve got on a suit just as well-made and just as scratchy.”
“Harolde and Nande don’t! None of the other kids do!”
“Different cultures, different customs. You must remember that your people are from Earth and that Earthians have never been entirely logical.”
“Huh, especially parents.” I watched my son lean back with a magazine, STRUMBERMIAN TERROR TALES, and I closed my eyes. I thought of all the changes on Earth and wondered if I’d ever go there again—to visit, since no one in his right mind would want to live on such a planet. Things were better now— much better. Our prisoner-coveralls had changed the styles back home, and a lot of other changes had followed. Artificial prudery was gone, and morals had not been noticeably degraded by its absence. As a matter of fact, it might be true that Earthians today were both more moral and more sensible (the two qualities not being synonymous) than they had ever been prior to Galactic contact.
“Pop?”
“What now, Bumqu?”
“Is it true what it says in this magazine, Pop? Is this Qumax Jam really getting this super-fast star-yacht as a present?”
Startled, I looked at the magazine. It was a different one; evidently he had tired of Strum atrocities and gone on to a Galactic-gossip publication. A picture showed a long racy hull that scintillated against a background of stars. It would hold a very large harem, I thought, and wondered again how sheiks and Tyrants managed honeymoons. I imagined it would make any male either a tyrant or a cringing sissy in short order.
“Pop?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s true—perfectly true. It says here you’ll get to go through it, along with all the other guests.”
“That’s good,” said Bumqu.
*
Things change slowly on Jamborango—so slowly that thirteen and one half Earth-years appeared to have slipped away unnoticed. The streets were still flowing silver and the pedestrians still came in as bewildering a variety. Winged Jamborangs flew us from the busy spaceport to Qubuc’s castle; here we mingled with the crowds that covered half the mountainside, visited the fabulous starship whose maiden voyage would really be what we would call a mass honeymoon and the Jams called Maturity Flight. We renewed, as the saying goes, old acquaintances.
“Up there,” Captain Fuzzpuff, once of the Comet’s Tail, said, pointing a top right hand, “you see the doorway where they’ll come out: two hundred carefully picked maiden worms and your old friend Qumax.”
I strained my eyes but could see nothing other than pink and silver lines on the castle’s smoky blue background. “You Pmpermians have better eyes than we Earthians.”
I see it! I see it! thought one of Bumvelde’s litter. Harolde, probably.
No you don’t! No you don’t! another—Nande?—challenged.
“Harold,” Nancy said with annoyance, “I can’t see Bumqu anywhere.”
“He’ll show up.”
“I lost Harolde, too,” complained one of Bumvelde’s wives.
So I had mis-guessed, again, in identifying those little seals. “Don’t worry,” I said, “they’ll—”
“Mom! Mom!”
“Why, Nande, what is it? Why have you been running so hard?”
“It’s the boys, Mom. They said they were going to steal a ride on the Jam starship.”
“WHAT!”
“And the others got scared. But Bumqu said he’d go even if the others were—what kind of animal is a ‘chicken,’ Mom? So he slipped inside and when nobody was watching, he hid inside a cabinet. The other boys waited for a while and then one of them said Bumqu must’ve smothered—”
“Oh, no!” Nancy cried.
“—but he hadn’t because when they tapped on the door he answered. Then he said the door was locked and he couldn’t get out and he’s spilt some sort of itchy powder all over him. Then he said, ‘Go away!’ And—”
“That boy! I’ll skin him alive!” I said.
“That won’t be necessary!” a strange deep voice boomed.
I whirled. Half lying, half hovering on iridescent wings, was the biggest, most masculinely beautiful Jam I’d ever seen. In his large tentacle, close to his broad bright chest, he held the scaredest-looking freckle-faced going-on-thirteen-year-old Earthboy imaginable.
“There’s one of us in every generation,” said the adult Qumax.
Author’s Note: Piers Anthony
Back in 1962 I joined the National Fantasy Fan Federation (NFFF or N3F), an organization of science fiction and fantasy fans. I told them that I hoped to become a professional writer. They said that half their membership had the same aspiration. They put me in touch with several other hopeful writers, and we formed what we called the Pro2 group, exchanging manuscripts and commenting on them. I did not remain with NFFF because it was too fouled up, but I remained in touch with those other writers. This was not always a perfectly amicable association, but overall I believe we all profited and became better writers for it. One of those others was Robert E Margroff, or REM.
Rem’s fiction, for my taste, was overly serious. Finally I suggested that he try something light and funny, just as contrast. He did, and it was the first chapter of what was to develop into the novel The Rumpleskin Brat. I liked it, and so did the others. I still think it is hilarious in places, sexy in others, and thoughtful in its later stages, and is a good novel that readers should enjoy as much today as in the past. In due course he completed it and marketed it, and met the usual editorial response to new writers: rejection.
In the interim I was having better luck, managing to place several novels. Finally Rem gave up on Brat and suggested that I take it over collaboratively and see if I could sell it. Since I did like the novel, and felt it should have been published, I agreed. I reworked it for style, and his literary agent marketed it and in 1969 sold it to PAPERBACK LIBRARY for $2,000. It was published in 1970 as The E.S.P. Worm—publishers like to change titles, just because they can—and as far as I know the readers weren’t disappointed. But all was not happy ever after.
I had stipulated that only American/Canadian rights were available, but the agent told the publisher that world rights were being sold. I balked, and it was limited, but the publisher refused to do any further business with us, believing that I had reneged. I in turn refused to touch that dishonest agent again. He had tried to force me to agree to terms I had denied, thinking I wouldn’t risk the loss of a sale. He had something to learn about ogres. The novel did get sales in Italy and France.
Years later the novel reverted to us, and in 1984 my agent sold it to TOR for $5,000. Thus it had a second run at the public favor. It reverted again to us in 1998, and now we are self publishing it so as to keep it available.
Our association remained, and Rem is I think my longest professional associate, 39 years at this writing. We have published six other collaborative novels and a couple of shorter pieces.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1970, 2002 by Piers A
nthony and Robert E. Margroff
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5738-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Piers Anthony, E. S. P. Worm
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