Alan Foster: Exceptions to Reality

Moving to a port, he watched as the first wave of migrating muffins to crest the wave fence raced toward the now impervious sealed structure. Their small feet, adapted for running and darting about on the flat plains, did not allow them to climb very well, but before long, sufficient dead and dying bodies had piled high enough against the northwest side of the outpost to reach the lower edge of the port. Raging, berserk little faces gazed hungrily in at him. Radically transformed teeth gnawed and bit at the window, their frantic scrabbling sounds penetrating only faintly. They were unable even to scratch the high-tech transparency. He watched as dozens of muffins smothered one another in their driven desire to sustain their southeasterly progress, stared as tiny teeth snapped and broke off in futile attempts to penetrate the glass and get at the food within.

LeCleur made breakfast, taking more time than usual. The sun was rising, casting its familiar benign light over a panorama of devastation and death the two team members could not have imagined at the height of the worst day they had experienced in the past seven halcyon, pastoral months. As for the migration itself, it gave no indication of abating, or even of slowing down.

“I don’t care how many millions of muffins there are inhabiting this part of the planet.” Seated on the far side of the table, LeCleur betrayed an uncharacteristic nervousness no doubt worsened by a lack of sleep. “It has to slow down soon.”

Bowman nodded absently. He ate mechanically, without his usual delight in the other man’s cooking. “It’s pitiful, watching the little critters asphyxiate themselves like this, and then resort to feeding on one another’s corpses.” He remembered cuddling and taking the measurements of baby muffins while others looked on, curious but only mildly agitated, peeping querulously. Now that peeping had risen to a tyrannical, pestilential drone not even the outpost’s soundproofing could mute entirely.

“It’s not pitiful to me.” Eyes swollen from sleeplessness, LeCleur scratched his right leg where he had been assaulted earlier. “You didn’t get bit.”

Holding his coffee, Bowman glanced to his right, in the direction of the nearest port. Instruments told them the sun was up. They could not confirm it directly because every port was now completely blocked by an unmoving mass of accumulated muffin cadavers.

Still, both men were capable of surprise when the voice of the outpost AI announced later that evening that it was switching over to canned air. Neither man had to ask why, though Bowman did so, just to confirm.

The station was now completely buried beneath a growing mountain of dead muffins. Their accumulated tiny bodies had blocked every one of the shielded air in-takes.

The men were still more aggravated than worried. They had enough bottled air for weeks, along with ample food, and they could recycle their wastewater. In an emergency, the station was almost as self-sufficient a closed system as a starship, though quite immobile. Their only real regret was the absence of information, since the swarming bodies now also obstructed all the outpost’s external sensors.

Three days later a frustrated LeCleur suggested cracking one of the doors to see if the migration had finally run its course. Bowman was less taken with the idea.

“What if it’s not?” he argued.

“Then we hit the emergency door close. That’ll shut it by itself. How else are we going to tell if the migration’s finally moved on and passed us by?” He gestured broadly. “Until we can get up top with some of the cleaning gear and clear off the bodies, we’re sitting blind in here.”

“I know.” Bowman found himself succumbing to his partner’s enticing logic. Not that his own objections were vociferous. He knew they would have to have a look outside sooner or later. He just was not enthusiastic about the idea. “I don’t like the thought of letting any of the little monsters get inside.”

“Who would?” LeCleur’s expression was grim. “We’ll draw a couple of rifles from stores and be ready when the door opens, even though the only thing that’s likely to spill in are dead bodies. Remember, the live muffins are all up top, migrating southeastward. They’re traveling atop the ones that’ve been suffocated.”

Bowman nodded. LeCleur was right, of course. They had nothing to fear from the thousands of compressed muffins that now formed a cocoon enclosing the outpost. And if anything living presented itself at the open door, the automatic hinges would slam the barrier shut at a word from either man. They would not have to go near it.

With a nod, Bowman rose from the table. After months of freely roaming the plains and rivers beyond the outpost, he was sick and tired of being cooped up inside the darkened station. “Right. We’ll take it slow and careful, but we have to see what’s going on out there.”

“Migration’s probably been over and done with for days, and we’ve been wasting our time squatting in here, whining about it.”

The rifles fired needle-packed shells specifically designed to stop dangerous small animals in their tracks. The spray pattern that resulted subsequent to triggering meant that those wielding the weapons did not have to focus precisely on a target. Aiming the muzzles of the guns in the approximate direction would be sufficient to ensure the demise of any creature in the general vicinity of the burst. It was not an elegant weapon, but it was effective. Though they had been carried on field trips away from the outpost by Bowman and LeCleur as protection against endemic carnivores both known and unknown, neither man had yet been compelled to fire one of the versatile weapons in anger. As they positioned themselves five meters from the front door, Bowman hoped they would be able to maintain that record of non-use.

Responding to a curt nod from his partner signifying that he was in position and ready, LeCleur gave the command to open the door exactly five centimeters. Rifles raised, they waited to see what would materialize in response.

Seals releasing, the door swung inward slightly. Into the room poured a stench of rotting, decaying flesh that the outpost’s atmospheric scrubbers promptly whirred to life to neutralize. A column of solid brown revealed itself between door and reinforced jamb. Half a dozen or so crushed muffin corpses fell into the room. Several exhibited signs of having been partially consumed.

After a glance at his partner, LeCleur uttered a second command. Neither man had lowered the muzzle of his weapon. The door resumed opening. More small, smashed bodies spilled from the dike of tiny carcasses to build a small sad mound at its base. The stink grew worse, but not unbearably so. From floor to lintel, the doorway was blocked with dead muffins.

Lowering his rifle, Bowman moved forward, bending to examine several of the bodies that had tumbled into the room. Some had clearly been dead much longer than others. Not one so much as twitched a leg.

“Poor little bastards. I wonder how often this migration takes place?”

“Often enough for population control.” LeCleur was standing alongside his partner, the unused rifle now dangling from one hand. “We always wondered why the muffins didn’t overrun the whole planet. Now we know. They regulate their own numbers. Probably store up sufficient fat and energy from cannibalizing themselves during migration to survive until the grasses can regenerate themselves.

“We need to record the full cycle: duration of migration, variation by continent and specific locale, influencing variables such as weather and availability of water, and so on. This is important stuff.” He grinned. “Can you imagine trying to run a grain farm here under these conditions? I know that’s one of the operations the company had in mind for this place.”