Damon Knight - Orbit 16

“Prove it.”

“Dang bug.”

‘‘Sticks and stones.”

“Remember you love me.”

“I remember. As did my father.”

“Whom I never met,” I said with scorn.

“In myself are all magumas.”

“You’re more Valenian than maguma.”

Said Mattu, “Valenian, maguma, human, horse or mosquito, we are all one.”

“The universal id?”

“Soul,” he said. “In the beginning, it existed, and like the amoeba, it began to divide. Fly to the terminal and see the myriad faces of the One. Tell them they are individuals, hear them agree, see them support or turn against each other. What they do or claim changes nothing. You and I wish to be distinct, but we are part of the One.”

“My God, what’s the use of living, if that’s the case?”

Mattu’s eyes held amusement. “Haven’t I been asking that all along?”

“Tell me something. Just what the hell are you?”

“The Devil’s Adversary.”

“What you need is an opponent. I wish I could be it.”

Ha, ha, ha! All the rulers laughed with pleasure.

“Don’t you care that you’re killing people?” This was what Blacky said to me. We were in the nest, and I was wishing Dalia was there so I could share my comfort with her.

“You have it backwards, as usual,” I said. “I don’t kill anyone. Dalia does it.”

“At your urging.”

“The Council doesn’t object, so why should I worry? Besides, why should they care about people?”

“You sound like you’re talking about ants or something. What do you call me? Am I a person?”

“You’re a visual effect,” I said, and she took a fit, started yelling and kicking the wall of the nest. “At least you could show some gratitude,” I said, loud enough to be heard above the din. “When they look at you they get a terrific kick where it counts, and you ought to be glad since that’s the only reason you’re alive.”

There are four castes in Valenian society. First there is Valene. Nobody dictates to her. She is the boss and the rest are underlings. Insulted I suppose she can be by someone, but it’s probably nicer if she doesn’t feel insulted. The second caste is the Ruling Council. They discuss regulations and curiosities. In the Council are the five first-born, after the queen. Dalia is top dog in this group. In a class all by himself is the Devil’s Adversary, Mattu, but since he never challenges the higher echelons, it isn’t clear to me how much power he has. The fourth group encompasses every other Valenian, and they are happy slaves. Actually, there may be a fifth class, the honeycomb or nest, though I’m not certain about this, as I can’t absolutely claim the nest is alive and breathing. That is, it’s surely alive, but it may not have a soul. I ask myself if it has a brain. It seems to have. Every morning it wakes Blacky and me, as I said before. That makes it sound like a clock. It coaxes us to crawl through our sleeping tunnel, which seems to indicate that it possesses motive. It doesn’t hurt us, even appears to enjoy tasting us, and doesn’t this mean it obtains satisfaction? The Valenians feed it—at least I think this is what they’re doing when they fill the holes at each end with hay and grass and occasionally a bundle of bugs. That the nest eats these offerings is obvious. Blacky and I listen to it chomping away at night. So there are either four or five castes in Valenian society.

Yes, the nest is definitely a class by itself. Dalia told me so. When the life cycle draws to a close, the nest experiences the same alterations as the Devil’s Adversary. It atrophies, is sewn into an egg sac, is buried in a safe spot, et cetera.

The ancient Valene found the nest. Symbiote is its generic name. It was the only one of its kind that she located. Give it something, it will give you something. Think loving thoughts while you’re in it and it will love you and kiss you and lick you and put strange juices into your skin. It will provide you with intraporous feeding if you can’t find anything to eat, provide you with heat, softness, euphoria. In fact, lying in the nest is such a pleasant pastime that Valene has to make it off limits to her people, except when they are suffering from depression.

I saw a man agitate in the street. He stood on a box, and having drawn a sizable crowd around him, he yelled that humanity would not survive unless the nest was destroyed. He didn’t understand the nature of the nest. But the mob invaded a missile site outside NYC and fired off a couple of rockets. I don’t know where the rockets went. No one in the crowd knew a guidance system from a street sign.

Hitting the nest ought to have been easy. As big as a mountain, it sits in Rockefeller Center, a sweet-smelling pink box-thing which we all love with a fierce heat. From the air it resembles a soft slug. Its surface undulates, as do its sides. No openings are visible. Dalia flies toward it and suddenly there is a large tunnel with its mouth agape, always a different one, and this is how we go into the nest and say hello after our daily sojourns into the countryside.

Devil’s Adversary: “Mattu is my name. Beloved Friends is your name. Together we reason. Then why don’t we? Tell me, one of you, why the Valenians should continue.”

“To do what?” said I, standing on my hands and walking around the center of the circle which Valene and the Council created with their white, sleek, crouching bodies.

“To live,” said Mattu. “To come again. To experience another season when the ten thousand years are ended.”

“Why do you usually begin a sentence with why?” said I.

“Shut your mouth, Wasp,” said Blacky. She didn’t walk around the circle, merely stood still on flat palms. Her head was tilted upward and the sheen of sweat on her face glittered.

I ignored her and spoke to Mattu. “Some truths are self-evident. A living organism continues because it wants to.”

“Not so,” said Mattu.

He doesn’t look exactly like a Valenian. He is white and beautiful, aye, but his tail is long, slender, curled at the tip. His legs are furry pipes, his head is shaped like a horse’s. He has no wings. Poor Mattu can’t chase the wind. I think he speaks in ignorance.

He went on. “The Valenians do not wish to continue, nor do they wish to discontinue. Since theirs is a state of noncommitment, I repeat the question. Why do we maintain the status quo?”

“I fail to understand why you ask it in the first place.” I said this at the top of my lungs.

“Because of external circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“I am an abstract thinker, a philosopher if you will, which is why I have been preserved since the beginning. The Valenians are and have always been wishy-washy. This was why they wanted me to accompany them to the terminal, which is the end of eternity. As each new life span springs into existence, the Valenians forget a bit of the past. Mattu never forgets. I am the Reminder.”

“You’re the Devil’s Adversary,” I said.

“One and the same, speaking in the abstract. The Devil is a symbol of illogic. I am his enemy. Since the Valenians are wishy-washy and can’t decide whether or not they desire to experience the next life span, and since they can’t leave the decision to the eggs who aren’t alive yet, the decision must be my responsibility.”

“Which is where I come in, by golly,” I said. The floor of the nest beneath my hands kissed me. “Not now,” I whispered. It subsided, touched me ever so delicately with a hundred tiny mouths but never once tickled.

I went on and on. “What you say smacks of genocide, and I’m educated on the subject. It doesn’t matter if the Valenians don’t care whether or not the eggs hatch.”