The Power of the Nail

The Power of the Nail by Samuel R. Delany and Harlan Ellison

Coffins, on Saquetta, are round. The natives, on Saquetta, are round. When they die violently, the sound they make rises up into the ultrasonic and an Earther’s liver tightens inside him. But on Saquetta there is very little violent death. It is a peaceful world; there are very few Saquettes and unless they are violently killed, they are reincarnated almost immediately.

That was the way it had always been on Saquetta, till the Earther, Zagaramendo, came. Always gentle, in azure breezes with full bellies. They never hurt one another, they knew nothing about killing. To die was to pale and shiver and cease moving, without pain, until the dormant skinshell emerged from the sky-night-blue sand of the Hatchery Desert and they knew their dead brother had been reborn into the skin-shell that had always waited for him. And then the skin-shell moistened, tore, fell away, and the Saquette had returned.

That was the way it had always been, with many rotations of Saquetta passing without the terrible sound of the violent death scream rising up till it could no longer be heard.

And then came Robert Zagaramendo, with Margret.

“I hate it here.”

“Shut up.”

“You promised me better than this, somewhere; there are other posts. I hate it here!”

“Shut up, Margret.”

They had planted the automatic ecology equipment. Now they sat on the empty equipment cases. She brushed auburn hair back from her forehead; she was perspiring and the scent of herself reached her; it was hardly unpleasant, but it disgusted her. “This is what you call providing for me?”

Zagaramendo stood up: motion and emotion made him hiss. He started to say something loud, but instead turned and walked to the squid. He punched out the building codes on the squid’s belly; it was something to do that was not fighting. Fighting had been constant since he had accepted this Observer post, and he wanted no more. They were here now, far out on the Perimeter, and they would make the best of it.

He completed the building codes and punched the squid to action. Stamp…stamp…stamp, stamp, stamp. It huzzzed away on tractor-tread feet.

Zagaramendo went back to her. “Look…”

“I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

“Margret, look, we’ve got a chance here, please try to be reasonable.”

She turned on him. “Bob, this isn’t what I call a chance…this isn’t what I call a main chance to save our marriage.”

“Three years, Mar—”

“Being a prisoner for three years is no damned chance, Bob! You lied to me, you said we’d have a new start, somewhere. This isn’t somewhere, it’s nowhere!”

Behind them the squid was laying the foundation for their cabin. “Bob, this, here—!”

“Margret—!”

Already, around them, the squid had half completed their front yard.

The first of the Saquettes made their appearance during the fifth week of their Observership. At first there was only a scrambling and scurrying in the grass, then one or two peered out from the tall reed-like stems, and Margret moaned with a mixture of wonder and terror.

Zagaramendo went to them and looked down. They were round and small. Moles with soft blue fur? Not quite, but close enough. Their bright eyes blinked up at him and their candy chocolate noses trembled.

“They’re ugly,” Margret said, behind him. They were. They had everything cute going for them, but in totality they were repulsive. Zagaramendo sighed. “Go get in the cabin,” he told her. “I’ll tend to this.” When she didn’t move, he pivoted on his heel, crouching there, and shouted at her. “G’wan, get the hell out of here…make me something to eat!”

She gave him the smile that meant loathing, and went into the cabin. Zagaramendo turned back to the Saquettes.

The shadow fell over him. He looked up into the sun, shading his eyes, and for a moment all he saw was a black blur of something speeding down on bat wings. The Saquettes squealed in wafer-thin voices. It sounded to Zagaramendo as though they were shrieking mollok, mollok.

Then he threw himself aside as the winged creature swooped in and skidded on taloned claws, tearing out great chunks of grass and earth. The mollok—if that was indeed its name—kept coming, its long serpent body extending past its feet…and the bat head with its parrot beak darted faster than anything Zagaramendo had ever seen.

It caught one of the Saquettes and lifted it high, arching its ugly neck. The Saquette…popped. And the shriek rose up and up and up till Zagaramendo slammed his hands over his ears, and his eyes rolled up in his head. Then, silence. Either it had gone too high or the Saquette was dead. Zagaramendo opened his eyes and saw the pale blue blood dribble from the mollok’s beak.

It shot forward, dropping the first Saquette. It vanished into the tall grass, and a moment later the shriek came once again. Zagaramendo stumbled to his feet and pulled the burner from his holster. He plunged into the tall grass, even as Margret came out onto the front porch of the cabin, screaming. Her scream mingled and twined with that of the second Saquette, and Zagaramendo only paused an instant to howl, “Shuttttupppp!” and then raced into the grassland.

The mollok had done with the other little Saquette. And now it was pacing back and forth between the edge of the grassy place and the body. Zagaramendo raised the burner to kill, then paused. The mollok was looking for something.

Bat-wings folded back, parrot beak quivering, the filthy creature bobbled its head forward and back, forward and back, and moved in an erratic path toward a clear space just inside the grassy verge. It stopped, and hung its head. It vibrated gently, as though in a vagrant breeze. Then it hummed.

Margret was beside him. Zagaramendo put out a hand to stop her. “What is it?”

Zagaramendo shook his head. “I don’t know. A thing that eats the little ones.”

“What’s it doing—?”

Zagaramendo burned the mollok to ash. He walked to the dead Saquette. He moved it with the toe of his sod-boot. It seemed boneless.

“What was it doing?”

Zagaramendo ignored her. He walked to the clear space where the mollok had been drawn, where it had quivered on point, like a bunting dog. The phase-antenna of the automatic ecology equipment they had buried there, protruded from the soil. He placed a palm flat on the ground. It vibrated through his skin.

He heard the tiny sound to his left, and looked up to see three more furry little Saquettes, coming through the saw-grass, toward the cleared space. He watched as they paused, redirected, and came on directly. They stood just inside the cleared space, and their candy chocolate noses quivered toward the antenna.

“It’s the equipment,” Zagaramendo said. “It’s sending out a hum, a vibration. They come to it; I suppose their systems are responsive to the vibration at this frequency.”

Margret moved closer. “Their eyes are closed. Are they enjoying it?”

Zagaramendo shrugged softly. “I don’t know. They could just be reaching instinctively. It could be a tropism. Like a moth to a flame. I’ve never heard about a tropism like this, though. Sound-drawn. Have to call it an audiotropism.

Margret shuddered. “Why aren’t they cute? They should be cute.”

“They aren’t, that’s all. Stop it.”

“I can’t help it. I hate it here, I hate them, I hate that—that thing you killed. There’s something just hateful about this whole world. You lied to me.”