Frederik Pohl - Jem

A gravid female scuttled past him. She moved slowly because she was near her time, but she ignored his presence.

That did not surprise Sharn-igon. It was what he had expected. Indeed, each lurching step into the alien village was harder for him than the one before, and he was a professional empathizer. “Sharn-igon,” he called bravely. “I would speak to one among you, although I am not of this place.”

There was no answer, of course. It would not be easy to make contact. Each village was culturally as well as geographically isolated from every other. They did not fight. But they did not interact. If a party of Krinpit from one village chanced upon an individual or a party from another, they depersonalized each other. One Krinpit might push another from a different village out of the way. Two alien Krinpit might each take an end of a many-tree trunk that was barring their mutual way. Both would lift. Neither would address the other.

Genetically the villages were not isolated. The seedlings dropped from their he-father’s backs when they were ripe to do so, wherever they might be. If they chanced to be near an alien village when they did — and if they were lucky enough to make their way to it without becoming food for a Ghost Below or any other marauder — they were accepted there as readily as any autochthon. But adults never did such a thing.

On the other hand, an adult had never found himself in Sharn-igon’s position — until now.

“Sharn-igon, Sharn-igon,” he called over and over, and at last a he-mother crept toward him. It did not speak directly to him, but it did not retreat, either. As it moved, it softly made the sound of its name: Tsharr-p’fleng.

“Have had good Ring-Greeting, alien brother?” Sharn-igon asked politely.

No answer, except that the sound of the stranger’s name grew a trifle louder and more assured.

“Am not of this place,” Sharn-igon acknowledged. “Most unpleasant for me to be here. Am aware is unpleasant also for you. However, must speak with you.”

Agitatedly the other Krinpit scratched and thumped its name for a moment and then managed to speak. “Why you here, Sharn-igon?”

He collapsed on the knees of his forelegs. “Must have food,” he said. The balloonist had been so very thin and frail that he made only half a meal, and of course Sharn-igon had been careful not to eat any part of the Poison Ghosts. He was not sure he had succeeded in killing all three, but two at least were certain, and the other would be a long time recovering. That settled the score for the balloonist.

But not for Cheee-pruitt.

If Sharn-igon had not been a professional empathist he could not have broken through the barriers between villages. As it was, it took much time and all of his persuasion; but at the end of it Tsharr-p’fleng helped him to a dwelling pen and ministered to his needs.

Sharn-igon devoured the crabrat they brought him while Tsharr-p’fleng engaged in agitated conversation with others of the village just outside the wall. Then they came in and ranged themselves around Sharn-igon, listening to him eat. He ignored their polite scratches of curiosity and concern until every morsel was gone. Then he pushed away the splintered carapace and spoke.

“Poison Ghosts killed my he-wife and did not eat him.”

A flickering sound of disgust.

“They captured me and held me in a place without doors. They removed my backlings and took them away. I do not think they were eaten, but I have not heard them since.”

Brighter sounds — disgust mixed with sympathy and anger.

“Moreover, they have also captured Ghosts Above and Ghosts Below and many of the lesser living things, and have eaten none of them. I therefore killed three of the Poison Ghosts. Intend to kill more. Are you back-mates with the Poison Ghosts?”

The he-mother rustled and spoke with contempt. “Not those! Their back-mates are the Ghosts Below.”

Another said, “But Poison Ghosts have ways of killing. They have spoken to us in our language and told us to beware of them, lest they kill us.”

“Beware of what? What did they tell you to do?”

“Only to refrain from harming any of them, for then they will kill all in our village.”

Sharn-igon said, “The Poison Ghosts do not speak truth. Listen! They say they come from another world, like stars in sky. What are these stars?”

“They say they are like heat from sky,” muttered the other.

“Have felt heat from sky. Have felt no heat from these other stars. I hear nothing from them. No matter how loud I shout, hear no echo from any of them.”

“We have said these things ourselves,” said Tsharr-p’fleng slowly. “But we are afraid of the Poison Ghosts. They will kill us, without eating.”

“They will; it is true,” said Sharn-igon. He paused. Then he went on. “Unless we kill them first. Unless all of our villages together fall upon them and kill them, without eating.”

MARGE MENNINGER’S HAIR was no longer blond. The name on her passport was not Margie Menninger. According to her travel orders, she was now a major, en route to a new duty station; and although the orders authorized a delay en route, it was unlikely that the general who signed them had contemplated that it would be spent in Paris.

In the little room of her hotel she fidgeted over the so-called croissant and what passed for orange juice, and phoned down to the concierge to see if the message she was expecting had arrived.

“I regret it, Meez Bernardi, but there is nothing,” sighed the concierge. Marge took another bite of the croissant and gave it up. France was nominally part of the Food Bloc — by the skin of its teeth, and by the relabeling of Algerian wine for export — but you couldn’t prove it by what they gave you for breakfast.

She was tired of this room, with its leftover smells of khef and sexual athletics from its previous occupants. She wanted to move around and couldn’t. And while she was fretting away time in this room, the Peep ships were going through pre-launch, the training of backup crews for the next Food Bloc mission was limping along without her, and God only knew what disasters were taking place in Washington and at the UN.

She abandoned the breakfast and dressed quickly. When she came downstairs, of course there was a message at the concierge’s desk, on a flimsy blue slip of paper:

Miss Hester Bernardi will be picked up at 1500 hours for her appointment.

It had obviously been there all along. Margie did not bother to reprimand the concierge; she would take care of that at tipping time. She pushed her way out into the Rue Caumartin, deciding what to do next. Six hours to kill! And for the life of her she could not think of any productive use to make of them.

It was a warm, drizzly day. The stink of gasoline drenched the air over the Place de l’Opera. Food Bloc or not, France was cozy with the Ay-rabs, as well as with the Peeps. That was another reason you could not trust the frogs, Margie thought darkly. One of her grandfathers had marched into this city in Wehrmacht gray, and the other, in the opposite direction a few years later, in American olive drab, and both of them had passed on to her their feelings about the French. They were inconstant allies and unreliable subjects, and the few who ever seemed to have any sense of national purpose usually wound up having their heads shaved or chopped by the many who did not. In Margie’s view, the French were not a bit better than the English, the Spanish, the Italians, the Portuguese, the Asians, the Africans, the Latins — and about ninety percent of the Americans too, when you came right down to it.

But the immediate problem was not what was wrong with humanity, but what she could do with this day. There was only one answer. She could do the thing most American women came to Paris to do. She could shop.