had called them forth.
Occasionally a worm world touch one of the chanters, whereupon the individual so blessed would tumble onto its back and begin writhing in ecstasy. Deering worked her recorder frantically. Here was some kind of solemn symbiotic relationship no one on the expedition had so much as suspected. What the Inrem derived from the, worms was a matter for future speculation. Their mere existence, not to mention their special relationship to the natives, would cause pandemonium among her colleagues. She had slipped secretly out of camp seeking something unique and had been rewarded beyond her wildest dreams.
The worms were now swaying low over the twisting, jerking bodies of the blessed, doing something-it was difficult to see because the standing members of each group blocked her line of sight. She shoved another cube into the recorder.
Something touched her lightly in the small of her back.
Whirling, she found one of the worms not a meter from her face. Despite its lack of eyes, it seemed to be studying her curiously. Probably had a highly developed tactile sense, she told herself, breathing hard. It leaned forward. As she stood frozen to the spot, it brushed her right forearm. She held her ground. There were no teeth to defend against, no poison. Only a thin, pleasantly fragrant secretion of some kind.
Moving slowly so as not to alarm it, she adjusted her recorder for close-up work. All around her the worms were lightly touching and swaying over fallen villagers. A truly wild thought came to her.
What if the worms were not individual creatures but merely the tentacles, the limbs of something much bigger that pulsed and lived beneath the village? She envisioned it rising in response to the Gop musk, digging its way surfaceward from unimaginable subterranean depths to gently caress and commune with those who had summoned it forth.
The worm touched her again, startling her this time. She felt herself quiver all over, almost as if she'd received some kind of injection. That was impossible. The worm(tentacle?)-had nothing to inject with. But it-had left a glistening patch of that perfumed secretion on her arm. Suppose it could be absorbed through the skin? For the first time she felt uneasy. She was out there alone, surrounded by delirious aliens and giant pink worms. She'd learned enough to ensure herself a commendation. Better not push her luck.
A warm sense of tranquillity and well-being was spreading through her. She started to collapse the recorder. 'I-I think I'd better be going now,' she said to the Inrem nearest her. It smiled back up at her placidly.
'Norg gleeble gop?'
'Yeah. Norg gleeble gop.'
She hoisted the recorder and turned. She made it to the edge of the forest before she collapsed.
She awoke in a bed in the camp infirmary. Chief Physician Meachim was staring down at her. Disapprovingly, she thought.
Since nothing was holding her back, she sat up.
'They found you just outside the camp perimeter.' Meachim was frowning to himself. 'Your cubes have been played back. Everyone's arguing with everyone else. The biologists are going crazy.'
She touched her forehead, her temple. She felt fine. Better than fine; she felt terrific. 'I must've passed out. It was pretty exciting. I'm okay?' '
Meachim shrugged. 'You look great to me, but that's nothing new. Funny thing, though. I tried to bring you around with Compol and Damrin. Your system rejected both. But your vital signs stayed perfectly normal, so I didn't press it. You started to wake up about five minutes ago. The monitor notified me. Now you sit up by yourself with no apparent ill effects. Trying to put me out of a job?'
She slid off the bed, did a few experimental jumping jacks. 'Sorry, but there's nothing wrong with me, Meachim. Know what? I'm going to be famous.'
'That's what everyone's saying. The captain would like to have you drawn and quartered, figuratively speaking, but the scientists won't hear of it. They're slavering over your recordings and can't wait for you to lead a full-scale survey group back to the village. I imagine –they figure you've got a special in with the Inrem.'
'All it takes is guts, in science the same as everything else. I can go?'
'This infirmary's for sick people, Cerice. You aren't sick.' He turned and gestured. 'Someone waiting to see you.'
A1 Toney entered. 'You ought to be shot. Instead, I think they'll canonize you. You've made a discovery that's more important than everything we've learned about the Inrem to date.'
'I know.'
He shook his head. 'I wonder if you have any idea how lucky you were.'
'Luck had nothing to do with it, Al. I just had the Inrem figured right. Cute, remember?'
'I guess so. Oh, Dhurabaya's made some progress. Maybe when we go back to your village-that's what everyone's calling it now, your village-we can ask the right questions.'
'You don't have to know how to ask the right questions if you've got the right attitude. The Inrem know empathy when they feel it.'
Toney nodded, looked thoughtful. 'Silly-sounding speech they have, but logical once you work out the roots. That's what Dhurabaya's people say. Take 'Norg gleeble gop,' for instance. The Inrem have been using that phrase over and over for months.' He started toward the door. She went with him, anxious to bask in the admiring stares of her envious colleagues.
'I remember. They were using it quite a bit during the ceremony.'
'Really? Maybe that explains what kind of ceremony it was. 'Norg gleeble gop' means 'pregnant.' '
BATRACHIAN
Metamorphosis is a marvel of nature that's always intrigued me. Bid when I was a kid, and still does today. It takes many forms, not always that of caterpillar into a butterfly. The thought of beginning life in one body and ending it in something inconceivably different is hard for us humans to imagine, starting and ending as we do with essentially the same shell. I tried to deal with certain aspects of metamorphosis in a book called Nor Crystal Tears, which opens with the line 'It's hard to be a larva.'
Arthur C. Clarke stretched the concept in the classic: Childhood's End. Eric-Frank Russell took a different approach in his novella Metamorphosite. I wonder if the author of the book Cocoon ever read that story.
You take a familiar concept and run it into something; common and everyday, and sometimes you get a story.
'Forget it, man. You'll never get near her.'
Shelby moved a pawn two squares forward, trying to protect his king. 'Every guy in the building's tried, and few of the chicks, too.'
Troy advanced his knight, and one of his friend's bishops was removed from the board. Shelby frowned at this development.
'I can imagine they have. Immature jocks, most 'em. I'll bet you and I are the only two grad students in the whole complex. She's just waiting for someone with a little maturity to come along, that's all.'
Shelby reached toward his remaining bishop, thought better of it, and returned to studying the board. 'Sure she is. Bet you can't get inside her door.'
'What'll you bet?'
'Dinner for two at Willy's.'
'Done. The important thing is, is it worth getting inside her dooR?'
His friend nudged a castle sideways, looked satisfied. 'I've seen her going out. It's worth it. Believe me, it's worth it.'
'What does she look like?'
'Different. Exotic. Dresden china stained dark. She's a little bitty thing, but something about her intimidates
