Green World Read online

  “Huh… so you like, bought chunks of meat or something?”

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking. Most recently I bought a Cephalopod. It’s only fitting, don’t you think, that I should be experimenting upon them?”

  I faked a laugh. “Ha! Sure thing! But if you had a full body to start with… I mean… that’s not as impressive. All you did was throw them into one of these stewpots and hook them up to life support, right?”

  “No, McGill. I seeded each of these from a very small collection of cells. This Cephalopod grow, for instance, I just started this one today.”

  I thought about the big squid in the dung pit back in town. Suddenly, that weird incident made sense. Maybe he’d paid someone to push the confused squid through the gateway. The hogs had shot him down, sure… but all the Investigator needed was a small sample of living cells…

  “Oh. I get it. Hey, Floramel?”

  She was right on hand. She had something in her hands, too. It was the iced remains of one sad-sack lizard named Raash. She handed over the vacuum bottle to the Investigator.

  “Can you grow a new body from this?” she asked.

  The scientist opened the bottle with his leathery hands. He carried it to his instrument tables, which were strewn with equipment that was a mix of both hypermodern and antiquated.

  After fifteen minutes, he returned the bottle to us.

  “I cannot. The sample has decayed too far. There isn’t a single living cell in the bottle. What did you do? Burn it?”

  Floramel turned me a dark glare. I shrugged and didn’t say anything. When a lady-friend was handing out well-deserved shame and shade, I knew it was best to stay quiet.

  She sighed. “This was all for nothing. We might as well go back, James. Investigator, we thank you for your time and your hospitality. I hope you learn a lot from your unorthodox experiments, and I promise not to reveal their nature to Central. I recommend that you do the same.”

  Crestfallen, she turned away to leave, but the Investigator called her back.

  “You haven’t even told me yet what your experiment entails.”

  We paused, and after a shrug from me, Floramel spilled the beans. She told him about Raash, how I’d killed him by mistake and the rest of it.

  Of course, the part about it being a mistake wasn’t exactly true, but I kept my yap shut.

  The Investigator listened with interest. “And this saurian—this alien from a hostile world—he’s your friend?”

  “More than that, if you know what I mean,” I said.

  Floramel shot me another dose of hate, but I ignored it. If you wanted to go around screwing lizards, well sir, I figured you had to be willing to own up to it.

  “Hmm…” the old man said.

  He walked with a ground-eating stride. He returned to the tank where he was growing a saurian. “Will this body do? Or are you overly attached to the one your friend had before he died?”

  Floramel blinked in surprise. “I… I hadn’t considered this idea. It seems… unnatural. Impossible, even.”

  “What?” I asked, not quite getting it.

  “He’s asking if we want to revive Raash, placing his mind into this stranger’s body.”

  “Can you even do that?”

  “Of course,” the Investigator said. “You have the engrams. They’re nothing but a tangle of neural connections. Unless the brain of the original totally out-classes the brain of the new vessel, they should be compatible. Some editing might occur if there are incompatibilities, but it won’t be anything fatal.”

  “Incompatibilities?” I asked. “Hey, wait a second… is this body…?”

  I reached my hand down into the tank and felt around for a few seconds. I grimaced a moment later and drew my hand back, shaking it so it splattered muddy nutrients everywhere.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “this lizard is a male, at least.”

  Floramel looked at me reproachfully.

  “Hey, I’m just looking out for the guy. Raash wouldn’t be happy to come back a female lizard, would he? I don’t think you’d like that too much, either.”

  “I can’t believe we’re even contemplating this,” she said.

  The Investigator eyed us both for a moment. “I’m naturally in favor of the idea, as I believe we’ll learn from the results. However, I’ll leave the decision up to you two.” He walked away then, and we were left gazing down into the brown bubbles.

  “Well?” I asked. “What do you think?”

  “I think you are a moron, James. Just like everyone has told me for years.”

  There was some anger in those words—more than a hint of it. I didn’t get upset, however. I could be the bigger man when a situation warranted. “Maybe we could take him somewhere else.”

  “Like where? No one can revive a mass of dead, burnt cells. I should have realized this from the start. This entire trip has been a waste of time.”

  “Nah,” I said. “You tried to help a friend, it just didn’t work out, that’s all.”

  She looked at me sharply. “You’re saying we should give up? We should walk away? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  I blinked at her. “Uh… I thought that’s what you just said.”

  “No. I won’t do it. Raash—I think he wants to live. I can feel it.”

  I looked at her sidelong as she gazed into that turd-tank at the floating saurian body. In my opinion, it was Floramel who wanted things she couldn’t have.

  “Uh… you know, he’s as good as permed right now. Maybe we should leave well enough alone. I’m just saying…”

  She heaved a sigh. “I can’t do it. I have to try.”

  “What if Raash, like, freaks out when he finds out he’s in another body?”

  She shrugged. “Then he can kill himself again if he wishes. At least it will be his choice, not ours.” She looked at me, and she was plain crying now. “Isn’t that the right thing to do? To give him the option?”

  Hell no. That’s what my mind kept telling me, but I knew women quite well by now. She wasn’t going to ever let this go, or ever forgive me, if I didn’t let her perform this particularly wicked crime against all that was holy and natural.

  Throwing a big arm around her, I faked a smile and gave her a polite hug.

  “It’s decided, then. Let’s tell the old man. He’ll be pleased as punch.”

  We walked out, but we found the Investigator was already hard at work. He had dragged out a big set of electrodes, some kind of fancy headdress made of wires, and a leather apron with crusty stains on it that were of a questionable nature.

  “Uh…” I said. “Were you listening in, or something?”

  He smiled. “No. but I’m a student of the mind as well as the body. I calculated you two would go through with the procedure. No one comes all the way out to Dust World to seek my help without being highly committed to their cause.”

  We couldn’t argue with his logic, so we followed him back into the main chamber. Floramel served as the Investigator’s assistant, and she did her job with quiet efficiency. You wouldn’t have even known how personally involved she was—not until, that was, they began shocking the body.

  When the thing in the tank began to squirm and writhe grotesquely, curling up its limbs in random patterns, she winced every time.

  But she never faltered. They worked for hours, loading the mind in my tapper into that poor carcass. Apparently, the Investigator’s equipment wasn’t as efficient as that developed over centuries by the people of Edge World. That wasn’t really a surprise, as his gear was essentially homegrown and almost untested. There were showers of sparks and blasts of stinky bubbles—it was awful.

  Still, we dared to hope it would work in the end.

  -15-

  After the lengthy loading process, the body in the tank finally stopped squirming around in agony. That was a sheer relief for Floramel.

  The Investigator, however, was frowning. He kept prodding at the floating lizard, as if he expected it to stand up
and sing hallelujah.

  “What’s wrong?” Floramel asked in concern.

  The Investigator didn’t answer her.

  She waited a long moment or three, then she sniffled. That was the first sign of grief she’d displayed all night.

  I knew what the trouble was right off: She’d figured out the procedure hadn’t worked.

  I was ahead of her on that score. I gently took her by the elbow. “Come on. Let’s get some air outside. Let the Investigator do his work.”

  She flinched at my touch, but she didn’t pull away. She let me guide her toward the exit, walking backwards. Her eyes never left that dirty tank, and there were tears welling up at the corners.

  Good job, McGill, I thought to myself. Due to my efforts, the poor girl was experiencing her loss and grief all over again. Sometimes, false hopes were worse than none at all. I should have just left well enough alone.

  As we were about to leave, the Investigator suddenly straightened and looked around for us. “Where are you going? McGill, are you on yet another campaign of fornication? If so, it’s poorly timed. This is a critical stage in the process. Please unhand my assistant.”

  Floramel pulled away from me and took six steps toward the Investigator. “You mean… the saurian might live?”

  “Of course he’ll live. Gaining a mind has never been fatal to anyone.” Then he gave a dark look. “Well, with our present company excepted. Come here, please. I need your help.”

  Floramel rushed to his side. It made me chafe to see it. After all, what did that damned lizard have that a proper human male—such as myself—lacked?

  Thinking that question over in my mind made my lips twisted up in disgust. I didn’t want to know.

  Walking up to the edge of the tank, I peered inside. The two spooky scientists were shocking the water again—or rather, they were zapping the lizard floating in the middle of the tank.

  “Good… adjust the gain and repeat.”

  “Is this an analog control, sir?” Floramel asked in shock.

  “Yes. Experimental equipment requires a highly variant set of inputs to do these tests.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Please increase the gain. Make slow, steady increments.”

  Floramel examined the knob in her hand. There was a dark line on it, and some ridges to grip it better—but that was about it. There weren’t any numbers or anything.

  “I have no idea how much to turn this knob. There are no markings, no indicators—”

  “If I knew what the correct increments were, I’d have no need of your hand on the knob. Nudge it about five percent of a full revolution at a time—and do that slowly, with care. We’re trying to see where the sweet spot is.”

  “The sweet spot?”

  “It’s an old Earth expression,” I told her.

  Floramel gave me a baffled look, but she started working the knob. As she did so, the lizard twitched now and then. As she turned the knob slowly around the poor body wriggled with increasing frequency and vigor.

  But no matter how much she twiddled that knob, the Investigator kept gesturing for more juice. Soon, Floramel and I were both wincing.

  Then, all of a sudden, the tail splashed up into the air. It slapped on the side of the tank, making a loud banging sound and sending a spray of disgusting fluids all over the place.

  “Aw, Hell!” I complained, backing away from the tank and brushing at my soiled clothing.

  Floramel stood her ground, however. She kept working the knob and squinting through the occasional showers. I stayed well back, admiring her dedication from afar.

  At last, the lizard did stand up and salute—well, not exactly. He kind of had a conniption, flapping his limbs and lashing his tail around so hard he rose up and came down hanging half over the side.

  “Continue! Continue!” the Investigator roared.

  Floramel, with her shoulders hunched and her eyes all squinty, twisted the knob—but I think she slipped this time. She really goosed it.

  I saw a crackle of electricity, and I heard a pop. A wisp of steam rose up from that awful liquid, and then… the mindless lizard rose with it.

  He surged up, then flopped down over the side, falling on the stone floor. It became dark with fluids, and there was plenty of snot and blood included.

  Wriggling in obvious agony, the creature shivered and squirmed. The Investigator stepped forward, extending his hands toward the pitiful beast on the floor between us.

  “Have you ever seen the like? After all my years of work, my achievements continue to amaze even me. Never have I managed such a vivid simulacrum of a non-human life-form.”

  “That’s it?” Floramel wailed. “After all that effort and torment? You’ve created an idiot that exists only to feel the agony you afflict.”

  The Investigator straightened, and his smile faded away. He looked at us both reproachfully. “What did you expect? A genius of the arts, perhaps? You gave me an engram to imprint onto the jellied brains of some random beast from Cancri-9. I’m a scientist, not a miracle worker.”

  “Come on, Floramel. Maybe we should go.”

  “That’s all you can think about? Taking me away from Raash?” she demanded, turning on me and venting.

  “Uh… that’s not really Raash. It’s a tortured monster.”

  “The Investigator is right. Your motives should always be suspect.”

  She turned and ran out of the caverns into the harsh Dust World winds.

  Sighing, I turned back to the Investigator and the sloppy mess we’d made on his stone floors. “So that’s it? The best you could do was get this lump of meat to twitch and jump around a little? That’s a shameful thing, Doc. You should do better by Floramel. She’s a sweet woman.”

  “Admonishments? Dismissal? I suppose I should expect nothing better.” After saying this, the Investigator proceeded to ignore me while he continued his work. He prodded the lizard and shocked it some more, but it had stopped moving once it had flipped up out of the tank onto the floor.

  Disgusted, I walked away to find Floramel. I searched the catacombs, then the cooling rocks and the windy night outside. It was pitch dark, and she wasn’t running any of her body-lights.

  Frowning in concern, I lifted up my hands to my face and called for her. I bellowed until the walls of the great canyon rang with my voice.

  Nothing came back to greet my ears. Sighing, I consulted my tapper, got a bead on her whereabouts, and marched off toward the lake in the middle of the valley.

  Every inhabited mud puddle on Dust World had a swampy body of still, deep water in the center of it. These pools were dangerous, infested with ravenous rockfish and worse.

  At the swampy edge of the water, I found Floramel sitting in a clump of reeds. She was despondent, more so than I’d ever seen her since we’d slaughtered her gremlins back on our old transport, Legate.

  “You okay, girl?”

  “No. I’m not okay. I let my hopes and fantasies get away from me. I blamed you for this—but I shouldn’t have.”

  I moved up slowly and sat beside her. “You really loved that old lizard, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. He also loved me, as no one else ever has. For all his flaws, his emotions were real.”

  That stung a bit. I liked Floramel. I’d had a thing for her for years. We’d had some good times, and we’d slept together off and on. But love…? I wouldn’t use that word.

  The trouble was, I was such an old soul—and not in a good way. I didn’t have much innocence left in me. I’d been living and dying at random for longer than any man was ever meant to. Sometimes, a man who’s wandered the stars for decades became callous about the feelings of others. That was the way things were between Floramel and I.

  I patted her lightly, making sure not to grab her or hug her or anything. For one of her kind, such a move indicated carnal interest, and I was trying to play the gentleman.

  “Do you want to go back to Earth, now?”

  “I don’t know. My work
at Central all seems so clinical, so—”

  Just then, we hear a wailing cry. It was long, weird, and full of pain. It warbled and moaned for perhaps ten seconds before suddenly ending.

  We both stood up and looked back over our shoulders.

  “That came from the Investigator’s cave, didn’t it?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “You don’t think…?”

  Floramel was already running. I could have stopped her or tried to talk reason into her, but I didn’t bother. I just trotted after her instead. Whatever had happened, I knew she was going to have to see it for herself.

  -16-

  A big blue stood over the Investigator, who was a bloody mess on the stone floor. Saurians came in lots of colors, but usually they were kind of tan or light green. Not this bad-ass lizard. He was as blue as a summer sky.

  “Raash?” Floramel asked. “Is that you?”

  The lizard turned toward us. His muzzle dripped gore. The Investigator wasn’t moving. He had to be dead or at least unconscious.

  “This creature is not Raash. It cannot be Raash. My… my scales are not right.”

  “That’s who you are to me, Raash.”

  “What is this place? Who is the ghoulish human?” Here, he pointed at the mess on the stone floor.

  “That used to be the Investigator,” I said reproachfully. “He’s a genius. A man who worked tirelessly for years to bring your sorry carcass back to life. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

  Raash turned his head from me, to the bloody Investigator, then he extended a claw toward Floramel. “You. I recall you. I once called you my mating-toy.”

  “That’s right. That was your pet name for me.”

  I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t polite, but I was kind of irritated and grossed out. This lizard… sheesh.

  “Do you remember me, Raash?” I asked.

  He steered those odd eyes my way. He cocked his head to the left, then the right, the way a parrot will look at you with one side of his head then the other. He took two steps toward us.

  Floramel shrank back, moving behind me, but I stood my ground. I wasn’t happy about this development. Here I was, duty-bound to protect her, after she’d gone and upset her weird lizard boyfriend. Maybe we’d kill each other—it wouldn’t be the first time. What an unpleasant predicament.