James White: Double Contact

“Friend Fletcher,” said Prilicla gently, “please don’t be feeling so uncomfortable about your threat to depose the senior medical officer during a medical emergency, and do nothing hasty. Irisik is one cynical spider and I have a strong feeling, amounting to a virtual certainty that it wouldn’t believe anything I told it, which is why I shall tell it nothing and allow what it thinks are the other sources of food to do the talking. Please wait, watch the ward vision pickup, and listen…”

Naydrad had just finished its round of patient observations and had curled its caterpillar-like body into its relaxer frame in front of the monitor screens when the silence was broken by one of the Terragar casualties.

“Charge Nurse,” it said, “I’m starving to death.”

“Your self-diagnosis is not confirmed by the monitor readings,” Naydrad replied. “Considering the fact that your lower ambulatory limbs are missing and your food requirements are proportionately reduced, terminal malnutrition would only occur if fluids as well as food were to be withheld for twenty-plus standard days. Lunch will be in three hours. Until then, compose yourself and try to think beautiful thoughts.”

“He can’t think beautiful thoughts,” another one of the Terragar casualties joined in, “and neither can I, because Pathologist Murchison hasn’t been in for nearly three days. I like her around even if the spiders are keeping her from dunking us in the ocean…”

The other Earth-human patients radiated feelings of approval and minor disappointment while making whistling sounds that did not translate.

“… but why,” it ended, “won’t she come in and talk to us?”

Unable to lie, Naydrad elected to remain silent.

“Among my people,” said Irisik, speaking for the first time that day, “it is considered socially indelicate, unless the entity concerned is a close family relation or a loved one, to hold a lengthy conversation with what is in effect one’s next meal. To do such a thing would unsettle the emotions as well as the digestion, and this one is delicate in its handling of your feelings. After all, your two walking limbs are missing and yet you feel no hostility towards it, the person who ate them. Or is it a religious thing with you, and you know that the food you contribute in this way enables part of your being to survive into the indefinite future?”

“No!” said the Terragar casualty, radiating irritation and impatience. “It isn’t religious. She doesn’t eat intelligent entities. ”

“But all living creatures have intelligence,” Irisik broke in. “Are you saying that it eats only vegetation?”

“No,” said the other. “Meat is eaten, not frequently, and only when it originates from beings of very low intelligence.”

“Like you?” asked Irisik in a disparaging voice. After a moment, it went on. “But who sets the level of intelligence for edibility? You yourself do not appear to be of very low intelligence, so I suspect that a process of mental persuasion, perhaps reinforced by the use of mind-altering poisons rather than a spiritual belief in survival after death, is used to hide from you your status as a food animal. The mental persuasion must be both subtle and strong if it can make you, an apparently young and healthy person whose body has already been partially eaten, argue on behalf of your eater.

“My own mind,” it added, “would not be so easily influenced, especially by another member of my own species.”

“But my legs weren’t eaten, dammit,” the other replied. “They were cooked, maybe, but definitely not eaten. I was there and remember exactly what happened to them.”

“They might look like outsized druuls,” said Keet, joining the conversation, “but we know that they don’t eat people, they repair them.”

“Or perhaps you only believe that you know what happened,” Irisik went on, “because mental influence or chemicals have been used to influence you into thinking that way. It is natural among civilized beings to conceal the true facts from their prey so that they will not dwell unnecessarily on their fate, and remain content until the ultimate moment.” It swiveled its head towards the Trolanni patient. “Food appearance and presentation are important. Repairing its wounds, so as to avoid the possibility of a premature death, is a sensible course if the food is to live and remain fresh until the time for consumption arrives.

There is no reason why living food should be made to suffer unnecessarily.”

Prilicla felt a brief eruption of fear and uncertainty from the two Trolanni which they controlled and negated within a few seconds. From its litter, Jasam said weakly, “When a bunch of outsized druuls tried to tether and board oursearchsuit, we had the same idea. But the others who came along later placed themselves in great personal danger while retrieving the first group and learning to communicate with us and repairing our injuries. Plainly they were taking far too much trouble, when we had time to think about it, for a very meager addition to their food supply. As a species we are deeply frightened about our future survival, and these druul-like creatures and the others from their two ships have promised to help us to solve your problems, but we have no fears regarding our survival as individuals. Neither should you.”

Irisik paused before replying. “You say that you and your captors have walked the web between the stars, in ships with structures so hard that they have been neither woven nor grown, and that you have the knowledge to make and use many wondrous tools to build and repair these vessels and the sailors who fly in them. By your standards we Crextic are not educated. But I know the difference between education and intelligence and, with respect, an educated person can also be gullible.”

Keet lost its patience. “I know that skepticism is supposed to be a sign of intelligence, but this is ridiculous. You are a seagoing spider who disbelieves people who have sailed among the stars. It’s a waste of time trying to make you see sense because you probably haven’t got any. Your mind is tightly closed.”

The growing irritation and impatience from both Trolanni did not quite blot out the quieter, more complex emotional radiation coming from Irisik. The Crextic’s mind was beginning to suffer from the first stirrings of self-doubt.

For an instant Prilicla wondered if he should go in and join the conversation, then decided against it. A phrase used by Chief

Dietitian Gurronsevas back at the hospital came to him, regarding the preparation of food. He would let Irisik stew in its own juices for a while. He could feel growing uncertainty and a need to ask questions, but decided to wait for Irisik to voice them.

Keet left its litter and and moved quickly to the row of the Terragar casualties.

“There is something that Jasam and I must say to you,” it began. “It is an apology for the way that our searchsuit defense systems caused you to be burned and lose limbs. We could not believe that anyone who looked like a druul could want only to help us, but we were wrong. We ask your forgiveness and, if and when we return to Trolann, we offer help with the replacement of the burned limbs. Our technology on the interfacing of organic and inorganic materials is advanced. Your metal limbs would be linked to the relevant nerve connections to produce the sensations of pressure, touch, and temperature you knew in the past, although possibly not with the former degree of sensitivity, and be visually indistinguishable from the missing ones. Your fellow officers on Rhabwar, who have had firsthand experience of our searchsuit technology, will confirm this. Unless you have psychological or religious objections to…”

“We haven’t,” said one of the casualties.