Exceptions to Reality_ Stories - Alan Dean Foster [8]
“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