Firefly. Part 30

"I think she fears for you, Geode. And you fear for her. That is why you are disturbed. Love is new for you, and you feel inadequate. You are afraid something terrible will happen. And indeed, there is the firefly."

It made such phenomenal sense he was amazed. "Thank you," he said, benumbed. He got out of the car.

She smiled briefly. "Anytime, Geode. Go to her, love her, and do not die."

"I will! After I finish my rounds."

"Of course." She rolled up her window and drove on, while he cut across the field to intersect his normal route.

The tortoise had told him true. May had had excellent advice for him. Now he could love none, even if he couldn't get an erection. It didn't matter! He could love her and not die.

* 34 - MAY FLOWERS DROVE on, shaking her head. Playing fairy G.o.dmother was a new role to her, but she enjoyed it. The nice irony was that it was coming back to refresh her own life. She had brought none here, and then none had helped her in return, lending her vital support and comfort in the hour of her nadir. She had left none alone with Geode; then the two of them had left May herself alone with Frank. Perhaps the one had not caused the other, but the two relations.h.i.+ps were interacting, and the exhilaration of new love was animating each. The abused child and the battered wife-what a common interest they had found!

She rounded the corner, idly noting the pa.s.sion flower vines bestriding the fence, and continued on south toward the house. She peered into the trees and brush on either side of the drive. She spied a rustling, and screeched to a halt, but in a moment saw that it was just a slender snake, the kind called black racers, that rapidly disappeared. There was no sign of the monster. But of course there wouldn't be; it fed only on the third day, and this was the second. Tomorrow night was the bad one.

Tonight, perhaps, Geode and none would make it. May, having little interest in s.e.x herself, nevertheless found herself excited by this secondhand prospect. She visualized the two of them together, stripping naked, looking at each other, perhaps for the first time. none was, of course, long experienced in s.e.x-very long experienced!-while Geode wasn't. She would have to lead him through it. What would it be like to do it with a hesitant, normally impotent man? May somehow found that more intriguing than the other type of s.e.x, and vastly preferable to what Bull Shauer had visited on her.

She came to the house, letting the brief hill subtract velocity from her approach. She parked and got out, carrying her groceries. Sure enough, none spied her and opened the door. "Geode let me in," she explained.

"Oh."

"We talked, briefly. He was troubled. I think he didn't quite understand a story you told him, but now he does."

none gazed at her without expression.

"I am a journalist," May said. "I research things. I know something of your past, just as you know something of mine." She lifted her dark gla.s.ses momentarily to show her black eye.

"Oh. Yes."

"I wish the two of you every happiness, having found some myself."

"Yes, with Frank."

Women weren't good at keeping things from each other! "Yes. The firefly seems to have brought us all together, in devious ways."

"The firefly," none agreed. Her lips were pale. "Geode is out there. It is out there. I fear for him."

"It has never to our knowledge taken a man on the move."

"I must love him before I die."

This brought May up short. "Before you die? Are you ill?"

"No. But I will die soon. It is the curse of none."

"Oh." May remembered the part of the myth that had not been in this woman's story. "Because she committed suicide after letting Paris die."

"Because she could not outlive him for very long. It was fated."

"Paris was a rotten philanderer who deserves no sympathy," May said. "Either version. You owe him nothing, certainly not your death."

"True. But it is fated."

May realized that the woman's problem was deeper than it had seemed. Her bad marriage still hung an albatross of guilt around her neck. She had perhaps cast off the nature of the molested child, who attempted to seduce every man she encountered because it was the only way she knew to gain affection, and adopted another, which was not necessarily an improvement. "Your husband was taken by the monster. So was mine. We are both well rid of them. I bear no guilt, only freedom. The same should be true for you. Once we take out the monster, you can remain here with Geode. To h.e.l.l with fate!"

But the woman would not be persuaded. "Fate cannot be gainsaid, only postponed. It will have its way. none will die."

"Perhaps in the sense that April Shauer died and gave me freedom," May said, nodding in agreement. She saw that argument would get her nowhere with this woman. Only if she could align herself on none's side would she be able to help, and she did want to help. This remained her Good Deed; she wanted it to be perfect, or at any rate, as good as she could make it. "There was no way out for April, but there was for May."

none angled her head prettily. "Yes! A new person. A new name. The only way."

"I planned for months-years, really, before I got the courage to do it. Then I was frightened for years, always looking over my shoulder, always afraid he would find me. And finally he did. But if I had changed my name again in time, maybe he would not have found me. I don't regret the name, only that that man was ever in my life. How did it start for you?" Would the woman respond now?

none turned away, but not in negation. It was as if her confession was too shameful for her to speak directly, so had to be refracted from the wall. "Jade was five when she became Nymph. She had to be Nymph, because Jade would have been punished. Only Nymph could be a real woman and keep the secret. When Mad went to prison, she was just plain dull Jade again, except that now mean George couldn't get her, because she Knew. Knew what it was all about, so much better than he did then. She told him what she would tell their mother if he ever bothered her again, and how their mother would cut off his thing and bake it in the oven, and that scared him. Her father was also scared, and no longer played with her; she didn't care about that, because now she knew what he had wanted, too, and knew what happened to any man who did it with a child. So her life was better in that respect. But it didn't make up for the loss of Mad.

"Then when Jade was ten she learned that Mad was dead. Her mother told her: 'You will be glad to know, dear, that that wicked man who bothered you is dead. The other prisoners got him, finally. You don't need to worry about him ever getting out and bothering you again.' Her mother spoke in an offhand fas.h.i.+on, but there was real satisfaction in it. Her mother hated Mad, just as she hated everything to do with s.e.x. Her mother wished that every man who ever even thought about s.e.x would be castrated. By this time Jade, or perhaps Nymph, understood a bit more about why her father had been so interested in her rather than in her mother: at least the child had been interested back. She understood that s.e.xual molestation did not just happen; it was a family situation, and those who seemed most honorable might be the most guilty if the whole picture were understood.

"Mad was dead. Nymph's lingering hope that he would one day get free and come to take her away from her drear Jade-life, and she would put on a dress with no bottom part the way he liked it, and they would go to a castle far away and spend the whole time eating candy and kissing and licking each other and playing with his big thing and making it fountain white fluid, and she would sleep in his arms feeling so safe with his warm thing inside her while it recovered its strength for the next fountaining-all this was gone. She had suspended her grief for five years with the promise that it was temporary, just waiting for Mad's freedom. Gone. Now that acc.u.mulated grief descended on her crus.h.i.+ngly.

"Her mother was watching her, and she knew the woman wanted to see her suffer for her disgusting crime of liking s.e.x, and that this was her mother's private revenge on her. Neither Jade nor Nymph would give her that satisfaction, so Jade said simply, 'Thank you, mother,' and went to her room to do her homework. She showed no emotion, and that was Nymph's little victory.

"But alone in her room, Jade knew that she could not survive the horror. She had indeed loved Mad, or at least the idea of Mad and of freedom from school and of her being the center of his attention and desire. He had represented all the love she lacked at home, and all the mystery and excitement she longed for and could never have as Jade. Without him, she had no life she wanted.

"He was gone because of her. Because she had Told. She had thought she was helping him, but she had instead condemned him. It was her fault. If she had never loved him, he would have been safe. If she had lied and said she never loved him, that it was all a big fat mistake, that all they had ever done was play card games he taught her, like strip poker, then he would have been safe. She had learned to lie too late. She had sent him to prison. She had killed him. Forever and ever, she would know she had killed him with her words.

"She wanted to kill herself, but did not know how. She tried to will herself to death, but it didn't work. All evening and all night she struggled to leave life by thinking of fading into nothingness. What she achieved was less than that, but it turned out to be enough. She discovered that the pain was less when she pictured a prison cell being built, brick by brick, bar by bar, around Nymph and her love. The higher the walls went, the more distant the grief seemed. Nymph was slowly closed off, and her pain too.

"The process was not completed that night. It took many days and nights, and often a wall would fall down and the pain would leak out, and it had to be laboriously rebuilt. But as time pa.s.sed, the enclosure became more comprehensive, and Jade, outside, was able to function in a normal manner. Much of her was missing, so that she was only the sh.e.l.l of a person, but other people were not aware of that. She coped.

"After that, whenever anything evil happened to Jade, she built another enclosure around it, so that it was muted and became a mere memory. She still knew of it, and could feel some of the pain of it, but most of the discomfort was gone. She got better at this as she aged, for there were many things that bothered her. She learned how to construct an almost sealed enclosure in a day, and then in an hour, if the hurt was small. By the time the monster took her husband, she was so well experienced that it hardly required a conscious effort to wall him off; indeed, she was privately glad to be rid of him. For her son it had been more difficult, but a night of denial and a day of concentration had done it.

"Yet that was not enough. Jade remained a mouse, a person of no interest, even to herself. Too much of her was walled away; there was not enough left to operate a full personality. So she compensated by building other enclosures that contained all the things she needed, and often she visited these and became a new and better person for the little time it lasted before the effect ebbed. Deprived of her greatest dream, she fas.h.i.+oned from the fragments lesser dreams, and these sustained her somewhat.

"Until at last she seemed to have the chance to step into one of the worlds of her fancy-for real. With a man unlike any she had imagined, but as good for her as any. One who was like a child in his naivete about s.e.x, but who wanted love. A man who was like Nymph, with whom she could be Mad. A man she could teach her way."

none turned back to face May. "Thus none, who became the princ.i.p.al personality, the one you now know. There are many other chambers, each with its woman, but it is none Geode likes, and all of them are intrigued by Geode in their special fas.h.i.+ons."

This was much more information than May had hoped for! The dam had burst, and the truth had flowed out. What the woman had told her confirmed May's general notion. Jade had indeed learned to cope, by constructing as well as sealing off multiple personalities. A psychiatrist would have a field day with her! But no psychiatrist was going to get near her. It was time for all the tormented women who occupied this body to have their fulfillment. Time for them to love and be loved. Geode was the perfect complement to Jade, and he did love her in all her forms. If only she could believe that, and believe that the curse was gone.

May had a sudden notion. "You were once a molested child, and once a neglected wife. Now you can be yourself-Jade. Let none die, if she must, but you will remain, in your new aspect. Your old aspect, which has never been fulfilled. That may be your true fate."

The woman's eyes widened. "A new role!" she breathed. "But not Jade! He wouldn't like Jade."

"Yes, he would! He loves you, whatever way you are. You don't need any artifice for him. Just love him, and let him love you."

"But Jade-"

"Jade will do! Ask him! Jade is a new role. Why don't you try it? It may even help you with Geode." For if the woman's nature changed with the role, in the manner of multiple personalities, she could write a whole new slate. She could exclude the prophecy of death.

The woman nodded, then advanced to embrace her. May was touched. She was getting better at the role of fairy G.o.dmother.

Later in the day she got in touch with Cyrano. "Tomorrow is Monster Day," she said.

"Tomorrow night I will be in that cabin," he responded. "This time I shall not miss my appointment with the firefly."

"Alone? I don't think that's wise."

"When has it ever taken a person in company? I have to be alone, or it won't come."

"You have a point. But when it attacks a person alone, it seems to have been one hundred percent successful."

"So it may be getting overconfident. This time it will not encounter a person who is sleeping, or who has been dosed with sedative. Or who is blinded by concupiscence. I shall be wearing a gas mask to filter out pheromones."

"How will you kill it when you don't even know what it looks like?"

"I know it depends on chemistry. That means it won't have its lever on me. I will discover what it looks like, and live to tell the tale."

"You already have a notion," she said, reading his reactions.

"A notion. The lab report on the samples was inconclusive, as I expected, but enough to determine that the chemistry is not that of any creature we know. It is reminiscent of the sea. I think it came from the sea, using waterborne pheromones to attract and pacify its prey. Those are not as effective in the air, but at close range they do work. It is able to tune in on the chemistry of potential prey and to formulate variations of its basic formula which incite the prey s.e.xually. That ability could revolutionize a number of aspects of our society."

"You're not planning to kill the monster!" she exclaimed, catching on. "You want to capture it!"

"I've got a cage that should be tight. I figure the thing is gelatinous or like a big snail. Mid should be pleased."

"This is dangerous!"

"Spice of life."

"Have you told Mid?"

"Not yet."

"Tell him before you try it! He has to decide."

"True. I'll set up the cabin tonight, and call him from the ranch on my way in."

"I hope your confidence is justified. I'd prefer to play strip poker with a man-eating tiger."

"That was the nature of your marriage."

She smiled. "Yes. Thank you for that hypo. It made all the difference."

"Mid values you."

"And you. Watch your step with the firefly."

He nodded. She left him. She wondered whether she could arrange another tryst with Frank. She had lost her taste for independence.

* 35 - CYRANO WATCHED HER go, then got in his van and set off for the Middle Kingdom Ranch. They had met at a park, as he did not use a hotel or other facilities; all he needed was some water and some privacy. He had slept in the van for years; it was really as good as a room, with all his things right there. The only problem at the moment was the presence of the bones of Bull Shauer; he had them in a tight bag, but even so, some lingering pheromones leaked out, making his dreams continually erotic. It was getting so that even May Flowers looked good, in the manner of an opera Valkyrie, and that Brown woman was as nice a little trick as any man could desire. He was normally satisfied to go his own way, but those pheromones had him so hyped up he'd grab any woman who offered. Well, once he caught the firefly, he'd see what offered!

May was right: he had to clear it with Mid, even though he was sure Mid would approve. He wanted that firefly so bad he got an erection just thinking about it. Not really s.e.xual, just that the presence of the firefly brought an erection because of the pheromones, so now an erection made the firefly seem closer. The gas mask should prevent the pheromones from affecting him, but the a.s.sociation remained.

Cyrano was not interested in money as such; Mid gave him all the security and comfort he wanted, which was what money was for. But the discovery and exploitation of a new species-that really turned him on. He had gone from veterinary practice to entomology, but his interest was in all living things.

Insects had a truly phenomenal range of predatory and defensive devices, much greater than the range of mammals or reptiles, and were quicker to adapt chemically as well as physically. In some cases chemical was most of it, as man tried to eradicate them with poison sprays and they developed immunities to his successive efforts. Plants, too, were often effective chemical warriors; they planted the ground around their roots with poisons against compet.i.tive plants, and of course their war against predators like caterpillars was continual. Bugs could graze a tree bare two years in succession, but the third year the foliage was poison, and the bugs were done for. Oh, it was a royal battleground, on the chemical level!

But this monster firefly set a new standard of excellence in that regard. Its pacification method tied in to what no species that employed s.e.xual reproduction could resist. Pheromones! Not only that, it adapted its formula for any species it chose to hunt, including man. A single product that affected male and female simultaneously. And did it rapidly-within a period of months, it seemed. First it had tuned in on mammals, then on man. This suggested that its tuning process was not a matter of natural selection, but of conscious intent. What other creature could receive, a.n.a.lyze, and duplicate the s.e.xual signals of its chosen prey?

This did not necessarily imply that the firefly was intelligent. It could simply mean that it had a sophisticated organ of duplication that oriented on what it received and produced a lot more of the same formula. The firefly seemed no longer to feed on animals. That could mean that man was easier or tastier prey. But it could also mean that the firefly oriented on only one type of prey at a time, sticking to that until no more offered, then orienting on another. Its pheromone factory could keep producing the same thing until the market was saturated.

Still, that was impressive enough. Since there were billions of human beings on the planet, there was no reason for the firefly to change to other prey. It could keep feeding and reproducing until no men were left.

That led to diverging lines of speculation. The first related to reproduction: how did the creature who mimicked the reproductive lures of other species reproduce itself? Was it male or female, and did it have a mate? There had been no evidence of two of them; it took its prey every three days now, probably oftener when the victims were smaller. In each case, a rate of travel of three or four hours per mile, plus 50 percent resting time, was sufficient to account for transport. A big snail could probably do that-a snail the ma.s.s of a man. That argued for one creature, and for as.e.xual reproduction. That might be appropriate, because it meant that the firefly could not be had the same way it had others. No pheromone would compel it to give up its life.

But if it was as.e.xual, what mode did it employ? Was it like a giant amoeba, growing and dividing in two? Again, that seemed unlikely. If it had divided, there should now be several sites of activity, and there were not. Did it give parthenogenetic birth? Did it lay fertile eggs without requiring fertilization? That seemed more likely. Such eggs could be buried for safety, and incubate for a period, and later hatch and go about their business. The firefly could leave a trail of such eggs, each of which might take weeks, months, or even years to hatch, so that the parent would be far away by the time the young were ready to forage. That was important, because overhunting a given territory was death to predators. There had to be a sufficient population of rabbits to support the wolves, and the balance was mandatory. Nature didn't play games; any creature who violated her rules was dead. That applied to alien predators from the sea as it did to the extinct dinosaurs. The dinosaurs, of course, had a bad rap; they had survived a hundred times as long as man had, dominating their world throughout, before nature changed the rules and brought them down at last.

But a creature from the sea would know about territorial dynamics. Sea resources were not infinite, despite the att.i.tude of commercial fishers. So the concept of extension of foraging range would be honored.

That was the first line of speculation, fascinating and not yet complete. The second was about the firefly's interaction with man. Its mode of predation and reproduction might be adequate for the creatures of the sea, and for most creatures of the land, but this time it was encountering something that had to be new to its experience, and as alien to its understanding as its nature was to those here. That was intelligence.

Man had a brain that was qualitatively as well as quant.i.tatively distinct from that of other animals. That brain had given him dominance over the planet with speed that was lightning, in geological terms. Natural selection no longer applied to man, or applied only fuzzily; instead of adapting to his environment, man adapted the environment to suit himself. The greatest extinction in the history of the planet was not the demise of the dinosaurs, but the demise of all creatures in the Age of Man. Anything that opposed man, or that man hunted, was doomed. Why had the superbly equipped hunter Smilodon, the saber-toothed tiger, become abruptly extinct, while the lesser tiger survived? Because Smilodon had not feared man. Smilodon had preyed boldly on the largest creatures, driving its huge tusks into shoulders, slicing them open, its jaws able to open so wide they were at a 180-degree angle, absolutely irresistible. What had it to fear from puny man? So instead of hiding from man, it had sought to frighten him away. Adios, Smilodon!

Now the firefly was preying on man, and thereby hung its destruction. There was no question about its end; the question was which man would bring it about. Cyrano had the immense good fortune to have the first crack at it. He was sure he could kill it, but what he wanted was to capture it, and study it, and learn everything about it. There was only so much to be had from a corpse, but everything to be had from a living specimen!

He was at the gate. He pushed the buzzer, and in a moment the gate opened. He drove on in. Mid had to agree! Mid would see the commercial ramifications, which were awesome. Cyrano hardly cared about those, but if they justified his action, he would argue their case. Capture the firefly! He could store it in his cage, feed it purchased carca.s.ses, take down its specs. He would come to understand it, divining the mystery of the century. They thought the great fish Coelacanth, supposedly extinct for fifty million years, was a great discovery in present times? Just wait for the firefly!

He stopped at the house. George Demerit came out to meet him. "I have to call Mid, just to be sure my trap for the firefly is okay."

Demerit shrugged, as he tended to do. He was a funny man, repressed.

Cyrano went inside and called his number. He got the answering machine. "I want to trap the firefly," he said, "tomorrow night. Tonight I'll set up at the cabin, and be ready tomorrow. This thing could be a diamond mine, biologically. If you say no, I ask you to give me a chance to argue my case. I'd much rather have the thing alive than dead." He hung up.

The woman was there, watching him, as she had before. "Capture?" she asked.

"Why kill it when it may be unique to science? Fireflies are better if we understand them. Look at snake venom, now used in medicine."

"Yes," she said.

"Come out and tell me what Mid's answer is," Cyrano told Demerit. He went out to his van, hoping there would be no negation from his employer.

* 36 - "HE SHOULDN'T DO it," none said. "The firefly will take him."

"How do you know?" Geode asked.

"I just know." Indeed she did, but couldn't say how. It was intuition and fear.