Eileen Gunn - Stable Strategies and Others

The day the new thropo hits Pomona, me and the guys lay a cherry bomb on him, just to show we’re glad he came.

Then when he comes down from the palm tree (heyzus, can those snakeheads jump), we tell him it’s a, uh, local custom.

“Most hospitable,” he says. “Must show you a few of our customs some day.” The tentacles where his head should be are wriggling like crazy. He looks like a clothespin wearing a nest of snakes, and he sounds like a mucken 3V announcer.

He sits down next to us on the curb and starts asking us what we do, where we live, all the old jakweb.

We got a couple hours to kill before we hit the condo we been casing, so we scag him around a while. I say I test birth control shots. Chico says he’s an assistant breather for DivAirQual. You know.

The thropo swallows everything. Doesn’t blink an eye. (And he’s got a few extra eyes to blink.) His tentacles quiet down while he listens. After a while the joke bennies and we burn it. Then we just sit around for a couple minutes and look at each other. Finally the thropo gets up and he shakes himself like a dog and he says, “Well, you young people seem to have a very high collective imagination index. Just the sort of thing I’ve been looking for. Have a pleasant afternoon.” Then he walks off.

Later on, after we finish the job (which goes off smooth as high grade hash), we catch him down to Paco’s store on the corner. He’s over by the magazine rack, checking out the skinnies, taking notes on a little pocket corder. I don’t get what he’s saying, but he looks pretty worked up for a snakehead.

Allie pokes me in the back. “Hey,” she says, “you think they go for that kind of stuff? I thought they laid eggs or something.”

“I dunno,” I say. “Maybe he’s just finding out what he’s missing.”

“We ought to get old Margie on his ass,” says Chico. “She’d teach him a thing or two.”

“Shit,” says Allie, “even Margie wouldn’t do it with a snakehead.”

Then he sees us, and all his little tentacles wave. We kind of look at each other. Then we figure what the hell and go over. “A most unusual concept,” says the thropo as we get closer. “Portraying the distribution of genetic information in a social context to stimulate the economy.”

We look at each other again. “You want stimulating, you should see the live shows down on South Garey,” says Allie.

“That would be most instructive,” says the thropo. “Perhaps you would all like to accompany me?”

“Shit, man,” says Chico, “it costs ten bucks to get in.”

“My discretionary fund was intended for such contingencies,” says the thropo. We just look at him, and he says, “My treat.”

So pretty soon we’re sitting in the Pink Flamenco on South Garey, around these tables with bug candles on them, and I’m thinking that this is a pretty screwy thing to be doing, going to a skinshow with a snakehead. The other thropos, they come sniffing around, ask you a few questions, and you give them all the wrong answers. After a while they go away, whether we fool them or not.

But fuck ’em, I say, with their questions and their clinics and their rules and regulations. Sign up here, look over there, pee into this, cough, and let’s have a sample of your blood. I don’t see where that gets anybody. And it was the same with the government, before the invasion. I mean, a lot of people were really racked out when the snakeheads took over, and a lot of other people said it was a good thing, but to me it’s all politics, and whether it’s snakeheads or shitheads don’t make much difference. So when they send their thropos around asking a lot of dumbass questions like a bunch of snakey little missionaries, I like to give them a hard time. And I don’t really understand what I’m doing at the old Flamenco with the new thropo, if you see what I mean.

Just as I’m thinking all this, the show starts. The same tired old farts doing the same tired old numbers they was doing when me and Allie used to sneak in as kids. So we’re whistling and yelling and throwing condoms and popcorn at the stage. Then I look over at the thropo, who is sitting next to me, and see that he’s taking notes again on his corder.

“What do you use all that stuff for anyway,” I say.

“Well,” says the thropo, “most of it goes straight into the central processor for reduction and comparative analysis. Be used later in your species evaluation.”

“Oh,” I say. The double-jointed brother-and-sister act is on stage now, so I return my attention to the show. The thropo goes on snuffling into his corder.

When the DJs are through, I start wondering what the thropo means. Our species evaluation? “What species evaluation?” I say.

“Evaluation by our population control board,” he says. “Individuals selected will be transferred to an unoccupied planet. More than enough to go around — hardly seems worth renovating this one.”

I am for the moment speechless.

But the thropo’s not. “You and your friends have, if I may say so, an excellent chance of being transferred, for your genetic variety ratings are good, your collective imagination score is high, and you demonstrate ability to survive in the face of a hostile environment.” He waves his tentacles to include the Flamenco, the valley, the whole state of Los Angeles. “The wealthier castes, I’m afraid, are less adaptable. Deprive them of bodyguards, and they wouldn’t last an hour on the streets.”

My voice returns. “What happens to the people who stay here?”

“Not my department. Assume they’ll be scrapped with the planet. Can’t allow them to continue breeding like this, cause trouble in no time.”

The double-jointed twins are back, but I’m not in the mood. “Whose idea is this, anyway?”

“Oh,” says the thropo, “it’s standard procedure. All the new planets are stabilized at a healthful population level where proper aesthetic conditions can be maintained. Never any trouble after that.”

No, I think, there wouldn’t be.

“When’s all this get underway?” I ask.

The thropo shrugs his back and all his tentacles ripple. “Doing the best we can. Genetic studies have been completed, of course, but the evaluation process can’t start until the anthropological studies are ready. Afraid you could be here another week.”

“A week? Shit, man, that don’t give us much time to pack.” I am thinking I don’t mind being among the chosen few, but I am not so sure I want to be trucked off to some other planet. I mean, I was in Michigan once, and once was enough. But I figure there’s nothing I can do about it right now, so I decide to relax and glom the show.

“Ain’t that blonde a whiff?” I say to the thropo, just to be friendly.

“Marvelous, simply marvelous,” says the thropo. “A shame that such things must come to an end, but then, as one of your poets has put it so beautifully — ”

“What come to an end?” I say. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, there will be programs recorded on holotape in the museums. No need to worry that it will all be completely lost.”

“Completely lost?” I say, beginning to sound like a looped holotape myself. “What will be completely lost?”

“Nothing, as I say,” says the thropo. “But naturally, after the conversion process, this sort of thing will no longer be commercially feasible. It’s to be expected that there will be some changes in the economic milieu as a result of the migration. But this is such an unusual approach to the peripheral economic situation — an entire industry devoted to depicting the mechanics of evolution and species survival, millions of people dependent upon it for their livelihood, you understand — that I think it’s worth recording, if only as a galactic cultural curiosity. One of my little projects this trip.”