Phylogenesis by Alan Dean Foster

  "What _do you_ think, Desvendapur?"

  "What?" Dimly, it registered on his brain that his name had been invoked, together with the attached verbal baggage of a question. Turning from the tree, he saw that everyone was looking at him-including the master. Another student might have been caught off guard, or left at a loss for words. Not Des. He was never at a loss for words. He was simply sparing with them. Contrary to what others might believe, he _had _ been listening.

  "I think that much of what passes for poetry these days is offal that rarely, if ever, rises to the exalted level of ten­dentious mediocrity." Warming to the subject, he raised his voice, emphasizing his words with rapid, over expansive move­ments of his truhands. "Instead of composing we have com­posting. Competitions are won by facile reciters of rote who may be craftsmen but are not artists. It's not all their fault. The world is too relaxed, life too predictable. Great po­etry is born of crisis and calamity, not long hours whiled away in front of popular entertainments or the convivial company of friends." And just in case his audience felt that he was utilizing the opportunity to answer the query in order to grandstand before the master, he concluded with a choice, especially coarse, expletive.

  No one spoke, and fixed thranx countenances were ca­pable of little in the way of facial expression, but rapid hand movements showed that his response had elicited reactions ranging from resentment to resignation. Desvendapur was known to be habitually outrageous, a quality that would have been more readily tolerated had he been a better poet. His lack of demonstrated accomplishment mitigated against ac­ceptance by his peers.

  Oh, there were occasional bursts of rhetorical brilliance, but they were as scattered as the _quereequi_ puff-lions in the trees. They manifested themselves just often enough to keep him from being kicked out of the master classes. In many ways he was the despair of the senior instructors, who saw in him a promising, even singular talent that never quite managed to rise above an all-consuming and very unthranx-like preoccupation with morbid hopelessness. Still, he flashed just enough ability just often enough to keep him in the program.

  Even those instructors bored with his disgraceful outbursts were reluctant to dismiss him, knowing as they did his family history. He was the last of the Ven save two, the progenitors and inheritors of his family having been wiped out in the first AAnn attack on Paszex more than eighty years earlier. This harsh hereditary baggage had traveled with him all the way north to Yeyll. Unlike the wrong word or an inept stanza, it was something he would never be able to redraft.

  "Ven, Ven? I don't know that family," acquaintances would murmur. "Does it hail from near Hokanuck?"

  "No, it hails from the afterlife," Desvendapur would muse miserably. It would have been better for him if he had come from offworld. At least then it would have been easier to keep his family history private. On Willow-Wane, where everyone knew the tragic history of Paszex, he could indulge in no such covertness.

  Wuuzelansem did not appear upset by his comments. It was not the first time his most obstreperous student had ex­pressed such sentiments. "You condemn, you criticize, you castigate, but what do you offer in return? Crude, angry plati­tudes of your own. Specious sensitivity, false fury, biased frenzy. 'The jarzarel soars and glides, dips to kiss the ground, and stumbles, perspiring passion: contact in a vacuum.' "

  Softly modulated clicks of approval rose from the as­sembled at this typically florid display of words and whistles from the master. Desvendapur stood his physical and intel­lectual ground. Wuuzelansem made it seem so easy, the right words and sounds spilling prolifically from his jaws, the pre­cisely correct movements of his hands and body accompa­nying and emphasizing them where others had to struggle for hours, days, weeks just to compose an original stanza or two. The war was particularly acute within Des, who never seemed quite able to find the terminology to frame the emo­tions that welled up from deep inside him. A simmering vol­cano, he emitted much steam and heat, without ever really erupting creatively. Artistically, something vital was missing. Aesthetically, there was a void.

  He accepted the lyrical rebuke stolidly, but the way in which his antennae curled reflexively back over his head re­vealed how deeply he had been stung. It wasn't the first time, and he did not expect it to be the last. In this he was correct. Poetry could be a savage business, and the master's reputa­tion did not extend to coddling his students.

  Looking back, Des was not surprised that he had survived the rigors of the curriculum. But despite being utterly con­vinced of his own brilliance, he was nonetheless surprised when he was graduated. He had expected dismissal with less than full ordination. Instead, he found himself armed with pri­vate blessings and official certification. Graduation had led to a boring but just barely tolerable position with a private com­pany in the wholesale food distribution business, where he spent much time composing attractive jingles lauding the beauty and healthfulness of the concern's produce and prod­ucts. While it provided for the maintenance of his physical upkeep (he certainly ate well), his emotional and artistic well-being languished. Day after day of waxing lyrical about the multifarious glories of fruits and vegetables left him feeling like he was ready to explode. He never did, with the result that one vast, overriding fear dominated his waking thoughts.

  Would he ever?

  Dozens of invited guests were arrayed in the traditional circle in the garden where the dead poet was to be recycled. Notables and dignitaries, former students both famous and obscure, representatives of clan and family, all listened po­litely to the respectful speeches and ennobling refrains ex­tolling the virtues of the deceased that droned out on the steamy morning breeze. The ceremony had already gone on too long. Much longer than the humble Wuuzelansem would have liked. Had he been able to, Des reflected amusedly, the master would long since have excused himself from his own sepulture.

  Wandering through the crowd as the sonorous liturgy wound down, he was surprised to espy Broudwelunced and Niowin-homek, two former colleagues. Both had gone on to success­ful careers, Broud in government and Nio with the military, which was always in need of energetic, invigorating poets. He wavered, his habitual penchant for privacy finally giving way to the inherent thranx proclivity for the company of others. Wandering over, he was privately pleased to find that they both recognized him immediately.

  "Des!" Niowinhomek bent forward and practically wrapped her antennae around his. The shock of familiarity was more refreshing than Des would have cared to admit.

  "A shame, this." Broud gestured with a foothand in the di­rection of the dais. "He will be missed."

  " 'Rolling toward land, the wave pounds on the beach and contemplates its fate. Evaporation become destruction.' " Nio was quoting from the master's fourth collection, Des knew. His friends might have been surprised to know that the brooding, apparently indifferent Desvendapur could recite by rote everything Wuuzelansem had ever composed, including the extensive, famously uncompleted _Jor!k!k _fragments. But he was not in the mood.

  "But what of you, Des?" As he spoke, Broud's truhands bobbed in a manner designed to indicate friendliness that bordered on affection. Why this should be so Des could not imagine. While attending class he had been no more consid­erate of his fellow students' feelings than anyone else's. It puzzled and even unnerved him a little.

  "Not mated, are you?" Nio observed. "I have plans to be, within the six-month."

  "No," Desvendapur replied. "I am not mated." Who would want to mate with him? he mused. An unremarkable poet lan­guishing in an undistinguished job leading a life of untrammeled conventionality. One whose manner was anything but conducive to the ordinary pleasures of existence. Not that he was lacking in procreational drive. His urge to mate was as strong as that of any other male. But with his attitude and temperament he would be lucky to spur a female's ovipositors to so much as twitch in his direction.

  "I don't think it's such a shame," he went on. "He had a no­table career, he left behind a few stanzas that may well outlast him,
and now he no longer is faced with the daily agony of having always to be brilliant. The desperate quest for origi­nality is a stone that crushes every artist. It was good to see you both again." Dropping his foothands to the ground to re­turn to a six-legged stance, he started to turn to go. The initial delight he had felt at once again encountering old friends was already wearing off.

  "Wait!" Niowinhomek restrained him with a dip and weave of both antennae-though why she should want to he could not imagine. Most females found his presence irksome. Even his pheromones were deficient, he was convinced. Searching for a source of conversation that might hold him, she remem­bered something recently discussed at work. "What do you think about the rumors?"

  Turning back, he gestured to indicate a lack of comprehen­sion. Suddenly he wanted to get away, to flee, from memories as much as from former friends. "What rumors?"

  "The stories from the Geswixt," she persisted. "The hearsay."

  _"Chrrk,_ that!" Broud chimed in with an exclamatory stridulation. "You're talking about the new project, aren't you?"

  "New project?" Only indifferently interested, Des's irrita­tion nevertheless deepened. "What 'new project'?"

  "You haven't heard." Nio's antennae whipped and weaved, suggesting restrained excitement. "No, living this far from Geswixt I see that it is possible you would not have." Step­ping closer, she lowered her voice. Des almost backed away. What sort of nonsense was this?

  "You cannot get near the place," she whispered, her four mouthparts moving supplely against one another. "The whole area is fenced off."

  "That's right." With a truhand and opposing foothand Broud confirmed her avowal. "With as little fanfare and announce­ment as possible, an entire district has been closed to casual travel. It is said that there are even regular aerial patrols in the area to seal off the airspace all the way out to orbital."

  Mildly intrigued in spite of himself, Des was moved to comment. "Sounds to me like somebody wants to hide something."

  Using four hands and all sixteen digits, Nio insinuated agreement. "A new biochemical facility doing radical re­search. That's the official explanation. But some of us have been hearing other stories. Stories that, in the fourteen years they've been being propagated, have become harder and harder to dismiss."

  "I take it they don't have anything to do with biochemical research." Des desperately wanted to leave, to flee surround­ings that had become suddenly oppressive.

  Broud implied concord, but left it to his companion to con­tinue with the explanation. "Maybe a little, but if so and if the stories are true, then such research is peripheral to the central purpose of the Geswixt facility."

  "Which is to do what?" Des inquired impatiently.

  She glanced briefly at Broudwelunced before replying. "To watch over the aliens and nurture a growing relationship with them."

  "Aliens?" Des was taken aback. This was not what he had expected. "What sort of aliens? The Quillp?" Refusing to ally themselves with either thranx or AAnn, that race of tall, ele­gant, but enigmatic creatures had long been known to the thranx. And there were others. But they were well and widely familiar to the general populace. Why should any of them be part of some mysterious, secretive 'project'?

  But then what did he, bard to fruits and vegetables, know of covert government undertakings?

  "Not the Quillp," Nio was telling him. "Something even stranger." She edged closer, so that their antennae threatened to touch. "The intelligent mammals."

  This time, Des had to pause before replying.

  "You mean the humans? That's an absurd notion. That project was shifted in its entirety to Hivehom years ago, where the government could monitor it more closely. There are no humans left on Willow-Wane. No wonder it's the basis for rumor and speculation only."

  Nio was clearly pleased at having taken the notoriously unflappable Desvendapur aback. "Bipedal, bisexual, tailless, alien mammals," she added for good measure. "Humans. The rumor has it that not only are they still around, they're being allowed to set up a colony right here on Willow-Wane. That's why the Council is keeping it quiet. That's why they were moved from the original project site to the isolated country around Geswixt."

  He responded with a low whistle of incredulity. Mammals were small, furry creatures that flourished in deep rain forest. They were soft, fleshy, sometimes slimy things that wore their skeletons on the inside of their bodies. The idea that some might have developed intelligence was hardly to be credited. And bipedal? A biped without a tail to balance itself would be inherently unstable, a biomechanical impossibility. One might as well expect the delicate _hizhoz_ to fly in space. But the humans were real enough. Reports on them appeared periodically. Formal contact was proceeding at a measured, studied pace, allowing each species ample time to get used to the existence of the fundamentally different other.

  All such contact was still ceremonial and restricted, offi­cially limited to one project facility on Hivehom and a humanoid counterpart on Centaurus Five. The idea that a race as bizarre as the humans might be granted permission to establish permanent habitation on a thranx world was out­landish. There were at least three different antihuman groups that would oppose such a development, perhaps violently. He said as much to his friends. Nio refused to be dissuaded. "Nevertheless, that is what the rumors claim."

  "Which is why they are rumors, and why stories imagina­tive travelers tell so often differ from the truth." For the second time he started to turn away. "It was pleasant to speak with you both."

  "Des," Nio began, "I... we both have thought about you often, and wondered if... well, if there is ever anything ei­ther of us can do for you, if you ever need any help of any kind..."

  He stopped, turning so suddenly that her antennae flicked back over her head, out of potential harm's way. It was an an­cient reflex, one she was unable to arrest.

  Preparing to leave, he had been struck by a thought preg­nant with possibility. Bipedal, tailless, intelligent mammals were an oxymoron, but no one could deny that the humans existed. Tentative, restricted contacts between humankind and the thranx had been taking place for a number of years now. There were not supposed to be any humans on his world. Not since the project begun on Willow-Wane had been shifted to Hivehom. But what if it were true? What if such outra­geous, fantastic creatures were engaged in building not a simple research station, but an actual colony right here, on one of the thranx's own colony worlds?

  It was what the AAnn had sought to do by force, in their re­peated attacks on the Paszex region. It was extraordinary to think that the Grand Council might actually have granted equivalent permission to another species, and to one so alien.

  What possibilities might such an unprecedented situation present? What wonders, however inherently appalling, did it conceal? What promise would such an outlandish discovery hold?

  The promise, just possibly, of the inspiration his muse and life had thus far been lacking? The thought simultaneously terrified and intrigued him.

  "Broud," he said sharply, "you work for the government."

  "Yes." The other young male wondered what had happened to transform his former colleague's manner so dramatically. "I am a third-level soother for a communications processing division."

  "Near this Geswixt. Excellent." Desvendapur's thoughts were churning. "You just offered me help. I accept." Now it was his turn to lean forward, as the members of the commem­orative funeral crowd began to disperse. "I am experiencing a sudden desire to change my living circumstances and go to work on a different part of the planet. You will recommend me to your superiors, in your best High Thranx, for work in the Geswixt area."

  "You ascribe to me powers I don't possess," his age-counterpart stammered, truhands fluttering to indicate his distress. "Firstly, I don't live as near this Geswixt as you seem to think. Neither does Nio." He glanced at the female for sup­port, and she gestured encouragingly. "Rumors may alert and influence, but they weigh little and travel without effort. Also, as I told you, I am onl
y a third-level soother. Any recommen­dations I might make will be treated by my superiors with less than immediate attention." Antennae dipped curiously forward. "Why do you want to uproot your life, shift tunnels, and move nearer Geswixt?"

  "Uproot my life? I am unmated, and you know how little family remains to me."

  His friends gesticulated uncomfortably. Broud was begin­ning to wish Des had never come over to talk with them. His behavior was uncouth, his manner unrefined, and his motives obscure. They should have ignored him. But Nio had insisted. Now it was too late. To simply turn away and leave would have been an unforgivable breach of courtesy.

  "As for the reason, I should think that's obvious," Des continued. "I want to be nearer to these bizarre aliens-if there is any basis to these rumors and if there actually are any still living on Willow-Wane."

  Nio was watching him uneasily. "What for, Des?"

  "So I can compose about them." His eyes gleamed, the light reflecting gold from intricately interlocking lenses." Wuuzelansem did. He was a frequent contributor to the original project, composing for as well as about humans. I person­ally attended at least three performances during which they were mentioned." His antennae twitched at the remembrance. "Difficult as it may be to believe, he always claimed that de­spite the absence of appropriate cultural referents, they ap­preciated his poetry."