Man of Two Worlds

  And you’re in control of our body. How’s that for a power trip?

  To be civil, I will relinquish control occasionally, permitting you to behave as you ordinarily would. I want to observe Earther behavior.

  But no women?

  I saved your life, Lutt. Is that not enough?

  Abruptly, metal clanged far down the corridor and there was the sound of clumping footsteps approaching.

  Oopsah! Ryll thought. They mustn’t see this.

  He swiveled his eyes inward and restored the jail cell’s Spartan appearance, then stretched out on the bare bunk. He pulled the blanket to his chin and stared at the barred door through slitted eyelids.

  A female guard appeared beyond the bars—muscular body and a heavy face.

  “Just making sure you’re comfortable, honey,” she said. “I hear you like strawberries. Too bad we can’t bring you some on your evening gruel.”

  She noted the mattress leaning against the wall.

  “Tough guy, eh? Sleeping on the bare pipes.”

  “Too many other occupants of that mattress,” Ryll growled in a reasonable copy of Lutt’s voice.

  “Maybe I should come in and make you comfortable.” She laughed, a grating sound deep in her throat, and turned away. There was the sound of her clumping footsteps receding.

  Lutt tried to sit up but Ryll resisted, preventing all except faint jerks and twitches. Ryll provided a lecturing thought.

  You must understand that I can control this body whenever I wish. I know every thought you have but you cannot share my thoughts without my permission.

  I’m getting tired of this dream.

  Then we will go to sleep.

  Perchance to dream of a beautiful woman and I can . . .

  We will merely rest on this rack, Dreen fashion.

  This isn’t Dreenor, asshole! You wanta learn Earth’s ways? You’re imposing on me. I’m uncomfortable.

  Just to be nice, I agree that you may use the mattress for a while.

  Lutt, beginning to doubt his belief that this was all some kind of nightmare, tried to suppress bitterness. If Ryll could read every thought, best to keep him happy.

  Ryll relaxed and permitted Lutt to reassemble the bunk. When they returned to it, they argued about which way to rest—face down or on the back. They compromised by facing the wall, a position neither of them wanted as first choice.

  Lutt tried controlling their voice, just a whisper at first.

  “Let’s say I believe this crazy story,” he said. “So you’re just a Dreen kid. How come they let you take a ship?”

  “I.. . ahhh, fed a drug to the monitor and took the ship without adult permission.”

  “Dreens use drugs?”

  “There is one—it’s called bazeel. The monitor was an addict.”

  “Crazy, crazy. And all for a little joyride.”

  “I suspect the best part is yet to come.”

  As he spoke, Ryll realized his boyish zeal had returned.

  ***

  Up is only up when you have a down.

  —Sayings of the Raj Dood

  The temperature along Florida’s mangrove coast had plummeted to six degrees Centigrade during the night and Dudley bundled himself in a red woolen blanket to watch Osceola at their morning fire. With his bare shanks sticking out beneath the blanket, he looked like a strange bird—long-faced, a fuzz of straggly blond hair tumbling around his head.

  He could not understand why Osceola insisted on this primitive way of cooking. Something to do with her Seminole ancestry, probably. He saw no other reason. She could afford the most modern kitchen in the solar system and the profit charts from her Spirit Glass industry would not even show a blip at the cost.

  Dudley glanced around him at jungle growth, Osceola’s old shack they called home on Earth, the rickety pier extending out into the tidal estuary. This place did guarantee the privacy they both prized so much.

  By any contemporary standards, Osceola was an ugly old woman, but she suited Dudley. Sometimes, though, he wished she would not dress so garishly. This morning she wore a magenta muu-muu adorned with pale green and bright yellow tie-died splotches. Her long dark hair was braided and held at the forehead by a purple bandanna.

  Gold bangles jingled at her wrists as she prepared a turtle-egg omelet. One of the neighboring Seminoles, all of whom feared and revered Osceola, had left the eggs the night before, departing without being seen . . . at least by Dudley. Osceola always knew when her neighbors left propitiatory offerings.

  She put a pan in the orange coals to heat the oil and spoke without turning.

  “That dang nephew of yours got hisself in deep shit this time. I told you this was gonna happen.”

  “I wish you’d stop spying on him, Osey.”

  “I don’t do nothin’ you don’t do.”

  “But I have to know what he’s doing.”

  “Well, I told you to put a stop to it when he started messin’ with the Spirals.”

  “I didn’t stop you learnin’ about ’em, did I?”

  “I’d like to’ve seen you try.” She poured eggs into the sizzling oil.

  “I don’t think I could’ve stopped him once he stumbled onto the secret.”

  “Stumbled, my ass! You been proddin’ him the same way you did me. And don’t think I’m so dumb I can’t figure why. You won’t quit till you make that kid’s father cry uncle!”

  Dudley chuckled. “You’ve raised old L.H.’s blood pressure yourself a few times, Osey.”

  She gave the pan an expert flip and put it on gray coals at one side. “You want pan bread or grits with this?”

  “Why can’t I have both?”

  “‘Cause you’re gettin’ fat in the body to match your head. Lutt’s wise to you, you know? It’s those crazy names you give people you send to help him. Sam R. Kand! Crissakes, Dood, he’d have to be a pureblind idiot not to know something funny was goin’ on. Well, which is it, grits or pan bread?”

  “Pan bread.”

  She spooned eggs onto a warmed plate, placed a thick slice of golden pan bread beside the eggs and put the plate on the ground in front of him.

  Dudley squatted and began eating. One thing about waiting while Osceola built a fire and made breakfast, he thought. It sure got the juices running.

  Osceola stood over him, hands on her hips.

  “Lutt coulda got hisself killed there, Dood.”

  “You wouldn’t’ve missed him.”

  “Your own flesh and blood! Sometimes I wonder. You takin’ it out on the kid ‘cause you hate the father?”

  Dudley spoke around a mouthful of omelet. “Don’t hate him, Osey. Tried to save him from himself once. Failed. Now, maybe I can save his boy.”

  “Lutt’s no boy! He’s a mean son-of-a-bitch and don’t you ever forget it.”

  “But not sneaky like his brother. Lutt has a few good qualities.”

  “Name one.”

  “He’s capable of loving a woman.”

  “Like all them whores he uses?”

  Dudley wiped up the last of the omelet with a corner of bread and ate it before answering. “That’s because of his father, Osey. L.H. dirties most things he touches. My sister never should’ve married him.”

  “You were just as big a fool going partners with him!”

  “That was a mistake. I admit it. But I was young then.”

  “And just as soft in the head as you are now. I swear, Dood, all those Hansons are a bad lot. Best you forget em.

  “But you said it yourself, Osey. Lutt’s my blood kin.”

  She turned away from him, prepared a plate for herself and squatted beside the fire to eat. Presently, she asked: “When you goin’ back to Venus?”

  “When enough of them need me up there.”

  “Need! You’re a meddlin’ old fool, Dood. Don’t see why I put up with you.”

  “Because you don’t like being bored, Osey.”

  Her teeth flashed a wide grin. “That’s the truth, and no mi
stake. But we gotta be careful with those Dreens, you hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “That Habiba could be more trouble than a pen full of wildcats, Dood. She may seem peaceful but I got a bad feelin’ about that one.”

  “Osey! You haven’t been risking a look in on Dreenor without my knowing, have you?”

  “I’m stayin’ clean away from Dreens, but now we got a new one loose in our own backyard, so to speak. And I tell you true, I’m worried.”

  “He’s just a kid, Osey.”

  “But he’s mixed up with your nephew! Dood, that could be real trouble. Might lead him straight to you!”

  “We’ll watch it, Osey. We’ll watch it.”

  “That Dreen could make things hot enough around here even inceram suits from your precious Venus couldn’t save us.”

  “I told you I’d watch it!”

  “Like you did when you let old L.H. steal some of your best inventions?”

  “He didn’t get the really important stuff, Osey.”

  “Enough to make him the richest man in our universe!”

  “Some things you can’t buy, Osey. Just remember that.”

  “I hope you’re right. Here, take my plate. It’s your turn to clean up.”

  ***

  In the ceremony of the Seedhouse, a Dreen’s need for dominant mass is made basic to his nature and this is reinforced whenever he uses his idmage powers. Shapeshifting into reduced mass is seen by a Dreen’s subconscious as a threat to his existence, But whether he shapeshifts smaller or larger, he must return quickly to his body’s remembered mass. The longer he remains offsize the more difficult it is to resume Dreen normalcy.

  —“The Dreen Subconscious,” a Zone Patrol report

  On the trillion and eighty-first cycle of Habiba’s reign, afternoon of the second day in the Dreenor week (varying from seven to seventeen days depending on the season), Habiba made a mental note that this was officially New Story Day.

  Sunlight, tinted green by the visuplex of her witch’s-cap cupola atop the Supreme Cone, felt warm to her but did not ease the chill in her seedglands. Her towering cone, riding on a floating island at the center of an ancient sea, put her high above the walls of an extinct volcano. From this vantage, Habiba now exercised her secret and exclusive power to see to the limits of Dreenor’s horizon and deep into the sea. To the west across the distant Flats, she identified Mugly the Elder’s yellow cap and the green smocks of his aides. They stood beside a low building.

  A shallow dent in the soil nearby revealed where the stolen Excursion Ship had been.

  It’s gone, Habiba thought. It’s really gone! Jongleur was right to bring me the full story before Mugly comes ranting in here.

  Habiba wore no garment, permitting the taxables who might chance upon her to be reassured by sight of the great brown-skinned mother-body in its cupola greenhouse. The green silk of her hair, sprouting like a wild garden atop her mounded head, lay draped over her ears in a calculated tangle. Her large horn snout stood out prominently between her bulbous brown eyes. Her mouth, its dendritic pulpers withdrawn, formed a shocked oval.

  Is this how it must end? she asked herself.

  Far down below her pinnacle, visible in a sweeping panorama from the top of the Control Cone, ancestral homes of her people lay like scattered childhood toys—mud-colored copies of her dominant abode.

  She thought them rather pitiful in their immobility.

  A swirl of pumice dust drifted around the cone but did not settle on the sea that filled the extinct volcano below her. The clear water of the sea glistened with reflected sunlight.

  Mugly the Elder and aides could not see her in the distant cone but they stirred and glanced toward her, then looked away.

  Mugly will think I incited the child to steal the ship, Habiba thought. He will not come right out and accuse me but he will think of it. Poor Mugly. He believes his plans to erase Earth are such a secret.

  Despite the great distance, she identified his seven companions by their distinctive movements. Two of them attracted her special attention.

  Deni-Ra and Prosik are in for a hard time. I will have to make some reassuring gesture in their tax assessments. Mugly goes too far sometimes.

  Mugly glared across the Flat in the direction of the eroded volcano. The shiny green surface of Habiba’s cone poked above the rim. He turned back to look at Deni-Ra, a young adult female of low parentage. Short and plump with deep creases beneath her eyes, Deni-Ra displayed only limited Storyteller signs. She crouched on all four legs while holding an ear flap open with an extruded hand, the better to hear Mugly’s words.

  “You’re sure the ship was operational?” he demanded.

  “With a Storyteller captain such as yourself at the controls, Patricia was fully operational,” Deni-Ra said.

  “I intended to be that captain,” Mugly growled.

  He twisted his floppy yellow cap, badge of his membership in the Elite Storytellers, to a firmer position on his head. The tiny silver pin on the cap, symbol of his rank as third in command behind Habiba and Jongleur, jabbed into a finger and he suppressed a cry of outrage.

  “Which of you was on duty when my ship was stolen?” Mugly demanded. He swept his glowering gaze across the seven Dreens who stood in a semicircle around him.

  Six sets of eyes twitched in the direction of Prosik, a tall, thick-eared Dreen, but Mugly pretended not to notice.

  So it was that stupid Prosik!

  Mugly fixed his gaze on Luhan, youngest of the group and second-brightest of the seven behind Deni-Ra despite a deformed but still extrudable right arm.

  Or perhaps he is bright to compensate for the deformity.

  Luhan remained calm. So Luhan was not connected with this disaster.

  Mugly shifted attention to Alade, so neatly turned out in forest green, the big pockets of his smock empty as usual and pressed flat to show the sleek lines of his ideal Dreen form. A conformist who followed orders with lackluster consistency, always taking into account a way to avoid blame, Alade would be sure to have an impenetrable excuse for his part in this affair. He displayed a certain tension, though.

  Ah, yes. Alade was one who recommended Prosik.

  Mugly turned and stared directly at Prosik.

  Barely awake and leaning his weight on his two left feet, Prosik fought to stay alert. His eyelids fluttered.

  Bazeel hangover! And Prosik doubtless is one of those who calls me “Mugly the Characterless.”

  Mugly waited, letting tensions build. The aides stared at him nervously. Mugly did not deceive himself about what they saw. There were few creases, supposedly marks of storytelling ability, in his light brown face.

  I’m a great Storyteller despite my lack of character lines!

  No false pride inflated Mugly’s recognition that he could captivate large audiences with charm and wit.

  I’m every bit as good as Jongleur!

  But these aides were more immediately familiar with his dark side: Mugly’s fiery temper and ability to deceive. He was a person deeply frustrated by Dreens who promoted the much-touted peaceful nature of their kind.

  “Prosik!” Mugly barked. “Look at you! Is this any way for my chief monitor to appear? What’s the matter with you?”

  Prosik’s eyes became bird-alert, then dull.

  “Speak up, Prosik!”

  “I ahhh . . . I’m. . .”

  “Bazeel, isn’t it?”

  Prosik lowered his gaze. Confession enough. But the chief monitor outraged Mugly even more by what he said next.

  “I have already told the full story to Jongleur.”

  He dared go over my head! He has a sneaky intelligence.

  “What did you tell Jongleur?”

  Prosik stared along the bridge of his horn-tool nose at the ground. “Ryll, Jongleur’s son, has been raising bazeel and providing it for me. The boy obviously did it to incapacitate me and permit him to steal the ship.”

  “You see?” Mugly swept his gaze across
the other aides. “You, who share our secret that Earthers capture and imprison Dreens, must now have no doubts about the peril from that deadly planet!”

  They knew what he meant. Bazeel, a terrible substance with no antidote, the only drug known to alter Dreen behavior, had originated on Earth. More and more insidious things were appearing from that place once considered the product of a Great Story—Wemply the Voyager’s supreme creation.

  But the bazeel!

  Earthers, totally unaffected by it, spiced their food with bazeel. Despite severe warnings, Dreens persisted in bringing back large quantities of bazeel from Earth. Clandestine bazeel gardens had been found even on Dreenor.

  “I want the full story,” Mugly said.

  They listened quietly while Prosik recounted his sorry tale. Prosik spoke loudly so Mugly would not be forced to lift an earflap, a thing certain to increase the Elder’s irritation.

  “You frequently let him board Patricia?”

  “He was a gifted student and Jongleur’s son. I thought he was just playing. He said his classes bored him.”

  “A gifted student, indeed! He undoubtedly figured out the controls in short order.”

  “He gave me his solemn promise he wouldn’t touch the controls without an adult there to guide him.”

  “A solemn promise! I’m sure that makes this whole affair acceptable.”

  “I assumed the son of Jongleur would act with honor.”

  “Honor? From the family of Jongleur? But is he not one of those who oppose erasure of Earth?”

  “Habiba herself opposes it,” Prosik ventured.

  “But I do not! Tell me, Prosik, to whom do you owe your Eminence? You owe it to me! Did you not consider the possibility that Ryll might be his father’s agent sent to sabotage me?”

  Prosik shifted from left feet to right feet and back. “But how could they have known the ship’s purpose?”

  “Bazeel addled your brain!” Mugly accused. “They chose the perfect attack time—when the ship was ready to go.”

  “It is rumored that Ryll does not get along with his father,” Deni-Ra said. “The boy is known to have objected to the school for gifted children.”