Exceptions to Reality_ Stories - Alan Dean Foster [12]
“You come with us now.” The elder gestured energetically. “Not much time. Akoe help you.”
“It’s okay.” Bowman gestured to take in their surroundings. “We’ll clear all this out. We have machines to help us. You’ll see. In a week or two everything here will be cleaned up and back to normal. Then you can visit us again, and try our food and drink as you did before, and we can talk.”
The agent was feeling expansive. They had suffered through everything the muffin migration could throw at them, and had survived. Next time, maybe next year, the larger, better-equipped team that would arrive to relieve them would be properly informed of the danger and could prepare itself appropriately to deal with it. What he and LeCleur had endured was just one more consequence of being the primary survey and sampling team on a new world. It came with the job.
“Not visit!” Old Malakotee was emphatic. “You come with us now! Akoe protect you, show you how to survive migration. Go to deep caves and hide.”
LeCleur joined in. “We don’t have to hide, Malakotee. Not anymore. Even if the migration’s not over, the bulk of it has clearly passed this place by.”
“Juvenile migration passed.” Stepping back, Old Malakotee eyed them flatly. Outside, the younger Akoe were already clamoring to leave. “Now adults come.”
Bowman blinked, uncertain he had heard correctly. “Adults?” He looked back at LeCleur, whose expression reflected the same bewilderment his partner was feeling. “But—the muffins.” He kicked at the half a dozen quiescent bodies scattered around his feet. “These aren’t the adult forms?”
“They juveniles.” Malakotee stared at him unblinkingly. His somber demeanor was assurance enough this was not a joke.
“Then if every muffin we’ve been seeing these past seven months has been a juvenile or an infant…” LeCleur was licking his lips nervously. “Where are the adults?”
The native tapped the floor with the butt of his staff. “In ground. Hibernating.” Bowman struggled to get the meaning of the alien words right. “Growing. Once a year, come out.”
The agent swallowed. “They come out—and then what?”
Old Malakotee’s alien gaze met that of the human. “They migrate.” Raising a multifingered hand, he pointed. To the southeast. “That way.”
“No wonder.” LeCleur was murmuring softly. “No wonder the juvenile muffins flee in such a frenzy. We’ve already seen that the species is cannibalistic. If the juveniles eat one another, then the adults…” His voice trailed off.
“I take it,” Bowman inquired of the native, surprised at how calm his voice had become, “that the adults are a little bigger than the juveniles?”
Old Malakotee made the Akoe gesture signifying concurrence. “Much bigger. Also hungrier. Been in ground long, long time. Very hungry when come out.” He started toward the doorway. “Must go quickly now. You come—or stay.”
Weak from fatigue, Bowman turned to consider the interior of the outpost: the ruined instrumentation, the devastated equipment, the masses of dead muffins. Juvenile muffins, he reminded himself. He contemplated the havoc they had wrought. What would the adults be like? Bigger, Old Malakotee had told them. Bigger and hungrier. But not, he told himself, necessarily cuter.
Outside, the little band of intrepid Akoe was already moving off, heading at a steady lope for the muffin-bridged ravine, their tails switching rhythmically behind them. Standing at the door, Bowman and LeCleur watched them go. What would the temperature in the deep caves to the northwest be like? How long could they survive on Akoe food? Could they even keep up with the well-conditioned, fast-moving aliens, who were, in their element, running for days on end over the grassy plains? The two men exchanged a glance. At least they had a choice. Didn’t they? Well, didn’t they?
Beneath their feet, something moved. The ground quivered, ever so slightly.
Chauna
“What do you give the man who has everything?”
It’s a phrase you hear constantly at gift-giving time: