Quofum (21 page)

The latter sentiment was the most difficult to explain. Certainly every day, sometimes every hour he spent collecting and recording, revealed new species of flora and fauna. Yet no matter how many discoveries he made he could not escape the feeling that he was missing something much greater, something far more important. That there was one momentous breakthrough teetering right on the tips of his antennae, and every time he flicked one in its direction it fluttered back just out of reach. It would have helped if he’d had some idea what it was that he was seeking. But if he had known that much, then he would have known it entire.

All he could do was keep to the daily schedule he had set for himself. It was the same with his colleague N’kosi and, the thranx presumed, with Haviti. Perhaps one of them would make the syncretic breakthrough he sensed lay waiting to be unveiled. Humans had a way of making jumps in logic and reason that often eluded the more disciplined but less intuitive thranx. That did not keep him from continuing the search for a unifying rationale for what he was feeling.

On certain days it was hard even to contemplate something like an overarching theme, so rich was the forest in individual new discoveries. He had long since given up exclaiming over findings any one of which would have supplied sufficient material for an entire paper by one of his colleagues back home. It wasn’t enough, for example, that the fungal spears he found growing out of a woody tree trunk were unlike anything in the applicable scientific literature. Despite their undeniably pseudofungal form, they had to go and sport tiny purple flowers. And the tree on which they were parasitic reproduced with cones that contained sporicites instead of seeds.

Quofum was not an ecology, he told himself as he wandered through a new quadrant of forest a kilometer or so from camp. It was a circus. Not a biota, but a riota. Every day he encountered and recorded contradictions bizarre enough to convince a senior researcher he was hallucinating. It was good that his studies were vetted and confirmed by his human colleague as well as the camp’s AI unit or he would have begun to question his own sanity.

There was the ground-dwelling forest quadruped that clearly scavenged meat but had neither teeth nor beak. How then did it eat? An automated recording unit provided an explanation for the elusive creature’s seemingly paradoxical behavior. Coming upon a choice bit of carrion, it extruded its stomach through a frontal aperture until it completely covered the rotting carcass. Secreting powerful gastric fluids, it dissolved the flesh and digested it on the spot. The thranx suggested “Insideouteater” for the common name, which an equally amazed N’kosi promptly placed in the records.

The ioe, to which the name was shortened, was by no means an extreme example of Quofumian fauna. Consumption was often carried out by anatomical designs that seemed more fanciful than practical. What was a sensible xenologist to make of a large herbivore that had two legs on one side and five on the other? How did perpetual lurching to the left enhance the animal’s chances for survival? Nor was the forest-grazer the only example of what on any other world would have been classified as mutant structural asymmetry. There was the flying creature that boasted one wing shorter and stubbier than the other, the river-dweller whose limbs constantly backfinned in what appeared to be an attempt to keep it from moving its wriggling form forward, the arthropods who fought one another as often as they cooperated for the sake of the hive, and far too many more to mention.

N’kosi proposed a simple explanation. Evolutionary principles on Quofum were not merely skewed; they had gone insane. In the absence of damaging radiation from the planet’s sun, its interior, or highly radioactive rocks, there was no immediate explanation for the phenomenon. The pink-tinged atmosphere was more than substantial enough to block or filter out gene-altering cosmic radiation from deep space. Valnadireb felt that if they could discover the answer to that question, they would also gain the explanation for the greater one he could not quite elucidate.

Thoughts of unifying biological theories and judicious explanations for explosive mutation and uncontrolled evolution went out the window on the evening he returned from a typical day of collecting specimens only to have N’kosi point out something strange on the side of his friend’s abdomen.

A plant had taken root there. Or at least, it was making an effort to settle in. As a field researcher Valnadireb was used to working in the proximity of potentially active parasites. With his chitinous exoskeleton he was safer from such incursions than his soft-skinned human companions, but he was by no means immune. And humans had the advantage of an epidermis flush with sensitive nerve endings that was more alert to such incursions.

He felt no pain as a solicitous N’kosi helped to treat the affected area. A dose of general growth killer followed by an antiseptic bath made short work of the would-be hitchhiker. Together they examined it inside the analyzer.

“Fascinating.” As he stared at the three-dimensional breakdown of the parasitic plant’s interior, N’kosi adjusted a sensor to give a more detailed reading.

“What on this world is not?” Valnadireb’s exoskeleton was not entirely devoid of feeling. The place where they had removed the parasite continued to itch. “It’s just one more amazing example of how little on this world makes biological sense, yet continues to thrive.”

Though the parasite looked wholly plantlike and boasted long, attractive green leaves, its inner structure was unmistakably ossiferous. The connective tissue that enabled this seemingly contradictory construction was a wondrous blend of plant and animal, to the point where the two scientists studying it were unable to agree on its taxonomy. It was placed, as had been hundreds of previous inscrutable discoveries, in the continuously expanding file reserved for the unclassifiable.

What would it have done if it had succeeded in penetrating Valnadireb’s exoskeleton and reaching the soft tissue within? Would it have spread throughout his system and eventually killed him? Or would it have been content, like more sensible parasites, to stay small and only draw from his body the minimal amount of nourishment necessary to survive?

From then on he paid more attention to himself as he explored the forest. It was quite all right for him to collect from it; quite another for it to collect him. Attempts by alien forest species to co-opt intruders were well documented from many worlds. To such creatures he was merely another tantalizing, wandering food source. As a scientist thoroughly versed in the relevant biology he took no umbrage at the growth’s efforts to infect him. Attempts at parasitization were wholly random and only a threat to the inattentive or inexperienced.

If it was random.

Now you’re thinking crazy thoughts,
he told himself as he pushed through a thicket of tall, single-leaved growths with coppery metallic skins. Parasitism was always random, though certainly on Quofum nothing could or should be taken for granted. It was not as if the grown-bone life-form had been commanded to attach itself to him by some unknown, unimaginable intelligence. That made less than no sense.

But then, didn’t this entire world? Was it necessarily crazy to contemplate the preposterous on a planet dominated by irrational evolution? Of course, there was one way to find out. He could allow himself to be parasitized. If not by the grown-bone, then by something even more persistent and advanced. He would not be the first dedicated scientist to study a parasitic life-form by deliberately allowing himself to be infected.

Despite his desire to know and his exhaustive quest for answers, he was not sure he was quite that dedicated.

His upsetting encounter notwithstanding, he continued to feel at ease in the forest. The next time one of its eager denizens took a stab at making a home for itself on his person he was ready for it and brushed it effortlessly away. On returning to camp he took especial care with his personal hygiene, making sure to sanitize himself thoroughly to prevent any kind of infection. Occasionally he was forced to deal with active predators as opposed to slow-moving parasites. Falling to precision bursts from his sidearm, these only added to the growing stock of specimens preserved in stasis at the camp.

But though the forest was unable to get a grip on his body, its wildly eccentric and diverse inhabitants and all that they potentially represented continued to prey on his mind.

Strangely, what appeared utterly outlandish during the day seemed to make more and more sense at night. The cautious cacophony of animal sounds grew almost familiar, an ever-changing alien concert he began to look forward to not only recording for an unknown posterity, but whose weird harmonic beauty often left him just standing and listening in admiration. The songs and squeals and hopeful hooted longings of the night welcomed him and drew him close in a way that more straightforward sight did not.

Though he worried about his friend and colleague’s growing detachment, N’kosi said nothing. Absorbed as he was in his own work and as infrequently as he saw his fellow xenologist nowadays, he had little time to spare to play therapist to a thranx. In the absence of facial expression, it was often impossible to tell what his counterpart was feeling, much less what he might be thinking. But by noting and interpreting little hints and small signs, it was becoming increasingly clear to N’kosi that Valnadireb was spending altogether too much time in the great evolutionary experiment that was the Quofumian forest and not enough dealing with the rudiments of daily life in camp. Still, despite the suspicions that were growing in his mind based on the informal observations he could not avoid making, he said nothing. Did not refer to it at all.

Until one night Valnadireb failed to come back.

Fearing the worst, N’kosi set out to look for his colleague. Had the increasingly blasé thranx xenologist let down his guard to the point where he had been overcome by another parasitic life-form? Had he fallen prey to one of the forest’s numerous active and unpredictable carnivores? Or had an emboldened group of aggressive spikers or hardshells caught him out after dark and insufficiently alert? The thought of losing half his remaining company, even if it was thranx, frightened N’kosi more than any predator he had encountered in the course of doing fieldwork down the coast.

Fortunately, whatever had prevented the thranx from returning to camp had not damaged his communit. Tracking its signal, N’kosi was able to home in on the beacon without difficulty. The fact that he reached Valnadireb in less than an hour was almost as unsettling as the thranx’s overnight absence from camp. If he was not injured or taken prisoner, then why had he failed to respond to N’kosi’s persistent queries? Something was not right.

He found Valnadireb sprawled across a surface root beneath a twisted nightmare of a tree. The branchless, upside-down growth thrust a single sap-coated bole skyward. In the absence of leaves, the upper quarter of its length was solid green. Looking like frozen fireworks, a spray of orange-hued surface roots exploded in all directions from the base of the trunk before plunging deep into the rich soil.

The thranx glanced up somnolently from where he was half asleep. “
Tch!!lk,
Mosi. You should be lying on a beach somewhere to the south, indulging in your kind’s inexplicable penchant for relaxing in close proximity to water. What are you doing here?”

Still unsure whether to be relieved or concerned, N’kosi gazed down at the recumbent scientist. “More to the point, my friend, what are
you
doing
here
?” He pointed back the way he had come. “You didn’t return to camp last night. You didn’t answer my repeated calls. I thought the spikers might finally have picked you off.” With a sweeping gesture he took in the forest surrounding them. “Or something else.”

“I am fine, Mosi. Comfortable, even.” On his left side, both truhand and foothand rose to gesture. “In the incomprehensible diversity of this place I have found solace.”

N’kosi’s gaze narrowed. “That’s no excuse for not responding to a call. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were drunk.”

“Intoxicated on information, perhaps.” Using his trulegs to brace himself and maintain his position on the smooth-surfaced loungelike root, the thranx slid slightly to his right. “I turned off my communit to ensure that I was not disturbed. I’m sorry if this upset you. All you had to do was ignore me. I have no difficulty ignoring you.” The triangular-shaped head swiveled almost a hundred eighty degrees before returning to face the staring human. “It is hard to believe that I was once afraid of this place. There are the known dangers with which we are both familiar and the unknown yet to be revealed, but the forest itself does not deserve to be feared.”

An irritated N’kosi chewed on his upper lip. “You’re coming back to camp with me, Val. I don’t know if you need medication, or food, or to immerse yourself in an hour or two of mindless, stupid vit entertainment, but you can’t stay here.”

Golden-lensed ovals peered up at him. Were they slightly glazed? N’kosi could not be sure. With compound eyes, it was hard to tell.

“Why not?” the xenologist asked his human colleague.

N’kosi held his temper. “Because it’s dangerous. Because the signs are becoming clear to me now. There’s an ancient human saying for what I think is happening to you, Val. Goes all the way back to old Earth. You’re at risk of going troppo. You need to get a bucketful of cold water in the face. Or that entertainment vit.” He scrutinized the dense vegetation that surrounded them. “I’m glad you’re comfortable here, but I won’t let you take root. Something’s going on here that we don’t understand. Maybe if we persist we’ll find out what it is. We surely won’t if we ‘free our minds,’ as certain capricious philosophers say. We’re dealing with rogue biology here, not spiritual enlightenment.”

Valnadireb’s gaze had not shifted. “How can you be so certain, Mosi?” Antennae flicked forward as truhands gave an eloquent flutter. “Humans are always so certain of themselves.”

“I’m not certain of myself at all, Val. You know that. I’m a scientist. We’re not allowed to be certain of anything.” Advancing, he slipped both arms underneath his colleague’s thorax and strained to lift. “Come on. Get up. Get off that root before you become one with it. I’m not leaving you here so I can come back in a week and find you covered in sprouted spores.”