David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

Jillanna shouldered her way up to the glass. "Okay, make room, make room." She squeezed a place for me.

The glass slanted diagonally out over a deep room below us; we overlooked it as if on a balcony. The light was dim below, hardly much brighter than the viewing room. There was a distinct orange cast to the illumination. I felt pleased at that-so someone else had discovered the same thing!

Deep, slow-paced sounds were coming from two wall speakers. Something breathing.

I stepped forward to look. There was an inclined notebook rack at the bottom of the glass; I had to lean out over it to see.

A layer of straw-it looked orange in this light-was spread across the floor. The room was high and square, a cube, but the bottom half was circular. The corners had been filled in to make a round enclosure four meters high; the top of it came right up to the window. There were cameras and other monitoring devices on the resulting shelves formed in the corners.

The Chtorran was directly below me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust.

It was a meter thick, maybe a bit more; two and a half, maybe three meters, long. Its fur was long and silky and looked to be deep red, the color of blood-engorged skin. As I watched, it humped forward once, twice, a third time, then stopped. It was circling against the wall, as if exploring. It was cooing softly to itself. Why did that unnerve me? As I watched, ripples-like waves moving through sluggish oil-swept back across its body.

"That means he's excited," breathed Jillanna. "He knows it's dinner time."

It slid forward into the middle of the room then, began scratching at the straw on the floor. From this angle, I could see its cranial hump quite clearly-underneath that fur, it was helmeted across the shoulders. A bony carapace to protect the brain? Probably. Its long black arms were folded now and held against its sides like wings, but I could see where they were anchored to the forward sides of the helmet. The brain bulge was directly behind the creature's two thick eyestalks. From this angle, the Chtorran looked more like a slug or a snail than a worm.

"Does he have a name?" one of the women asked. She was tall and blond.

Her date shook his head. "It's just it. " Sput-phwut went the speaker. Sput-phwut.

"What was that?"

Jillanna whispered, "Look at his eyes."

"It's facing the wrong way."

"Well, wait. He'll turn."

"Be a good show tonight," the guy at the end said as he lit a cigarette. "Saint Bernard and a Great Dane. I'm betting the Bernard puts up a better fight."

"Aah, you'd bet on your grandmother."

"If she still had her own teeth, I would."

Jillanna leaned over to me. "He needs fifty kilos of fresh meat a day. They have a real problem getting a steady supply. Also, they're not sure that terrestrial animals provide all the nutritional elements he needs, so they keep varying the diet. Sometimes they pump the animals up with vitamins and stuff. Sometimes he rejects the food; I guess it smells bad to him."

Sput-phwut.

The Chtorran humped around and looked at us with eyes like black disks. Like dead searchlights. It humped up, lifting the front third of its body into the air, trembling slightly, but focusing its face-like the front end of a subway, flat and emotionless-toward us. I stepped back involuntarily, but Jillanna pulled me forward again. "Isn't he beautiful?" Her hand was tight on my sleeve.

Sput-phwut.

It had blinked. The sound was made by its sphincter-like eyelids, irising closed and open again. Sput-phwut. It was looking right at me. Studying dispassionately.

I didn't answer her. I couldn't speak. It was like looking into the eyes of death.

"Don't worry. He can't see you. I think. I mean, we're pretty sure he can't."

"It seems awfully interested." The Chtorran was still reared up and peering. Its tiny antennae were waving back and forth curiously. They were set just behind the eyes. Its body rocked slightly too. I wished I had a closer view-something about the eyes; they weren't mounted in a head, but seemed instead to be on swiveled stalks inside the skin. They were held high above the body and gimbaled independently of each other. Occasionally one eye would angle backward for a moment, then click forward again. The creature was constantly alert.

The Chtorran lowered suddenly and slid across the floor, right up to the wall below us and halfway up it, bringing its face within a meter of the glass. I got my wish-a closer look. It angled its eyes upward, bringing them even closer. Its mandibles --sinuous like an underwater plant-waved and clicked around its mouth. Its eyes opened as wide as they could. Sput-phwut. "Too interested. You sure it can't see us?"

"Oh, he tries that almost every night," called the guy on the end with the funny-smelling cigarette. Laced with dream dust? Probably. "It's our voices he hears. Through the glass. He's trying to find out where the sound is coming from. Don't worry, he can't reach up here. He has to keep at least half his length on the ground to support himself when he rears up. Of course, if he keeps growing-as we think he will-we'll have to move him to a bigger lab. There might come a day when he won't wait for Smitty. He'll just come right up here and help himself."

The women shuddered. Not Jillanna, just the women. They moved instinctively closer to their dates. "You're kidding," the redheaded one said plaintively. "Aren't you?"

"Nope. It could happen. Not tonight, though-but eventually, if we don't get him into a bigger tank."

The Chtorran unfolded its arms then, like a bird flapping its wings once to settle them, but instead of refolding, the arms began to open slowly. They came away from the hump on the back and now I could see exactly how the shoulders were anchored, and the curve of that bony structure beneath the fur, how the skin slid over it as the muscles stretched, how the arms were mounted in their sockets like two incredible gimbaled cranes. The arms were covered with leathery black skin and bristly black fur. They were long and insect-like. How long and thin they were, and so peculiarly double-jointed. There were two elbows at the joint! And now the arms came reaching upward slowly toward us. The hands-they were claws, three-pronged and almost ebony-came tapping on the glass, sliding and skittering up and down it, seeking purchase, leaving faint smudges where they touched. There were soft fingers within those claws. I could see them pressing gently against the glass.

The eyes stared emotionlessly, swiveling this way and thatand then both of them locked on me. Sput-phwut. It blinked. And kept on staring.

I was terrified before it. I couldn't move! It's face-it didn't have a face!-was searching mine! If I had stretched, I could have touched it. I could see how narrow its neck was-a shaft of corded muscle terminating in those two huge, frightening eyes. I couldn't look away! I was caught like a bird before a snake-its eyes were dark and dispassionate and deadly. What kind of god could make a thing like this?

And then the moment broke. I realized that Jillanna was beside me, breathing heavily.

One more sput-phwut and the Chtorran began sinking back down to the floor. It slid away from the wall and began roving around the room again, sometimes humping like a worm, other times seeming to flow. It left a swept trail through the scattered straw and sawdust. There were several bales of it against one wall. It stopped to pull at one of them, did something with its mandibles and mouth, then left behind a small mound of weak-looking foam.

"Building instinct," Jillanna said.

"It doesn't seem very intelligent," the redhead whispered to her date.

"It isn't. None of them are," the man whispered back. "Whatever kind of invaders these Chtorrans are, they don't seem to be very smart. They don't respond to any kind of language-or any attempts at communication. Then again, maybe these are just the infantry. Infantry doesn't have to be very smart, just strong."