Romee did not doubt that the men and women from Earth were as fully human as the chimos and chimees of Notcid. But sometimes they did things that struck her as absurd.
And that made dealing with them difficult, and more than a little frightening.
Right now, she had to get the damn-television set fixed, and wasn't sure how to go about it. There was a repair shop at the Trading Center—or the Cultural Exchange Center as it was called by the new set of Earth people running it now. Romee had carried the damn-TV some forty-five miles under her arm, jittery all the way because she didn't know what to expect from the new people.
She wished the traders (or "exploiters" as the new people wanted them called) were still running the Center. A person could do business with them without so much upsetting uncertainty.
It was some relief to reach the compound, and to find the repair shop where it had always been. In fact, when she went in she recognized the Earthman in charge as the same one who was there two years earlier, when last she had visited the shop.
She lifted the damn-TV set onto the counter.
"Can you fix it?" she asked.
"Sure. I can fix anything," he replied, more understandably than the average Earthman despite his monotone accent.
"How much will it cost?"
"I won't know until I find out what's wrong. Give me your name, honey."
"Romee of West Hill with the Flat Rock on the Brook," she replied.
He shook his head. "That won't do for the record, Romee. The Demography Office has assigned family names. You run over to the office and find out what yours is."
"Oh, that," she gasped nervously, flustered by her mistake. "I already know it. Romee Westbrook."
"OK." The man wrote her name on a ticket which he attached to her damn-TV. "This ought to be ready for you tomorrow, Ro . . . I mean, Miss Westbrook."
"Mrs. Westbrook," she corrected him.
He grinned, and she grinned back. She was glad he was still running the shop. As a leftover from the time of the exploiters, he was fairly easy to understand.
"How come you're still here?" she asked, momentarily emboldened by his grin.
He shrugged. "Because I wasn't important enough to kick out when the new regime took over."
She nodded vaguely, said goodbye, and left the shop. How could a man who could repair something as marvelously intricate as a damn-TV set be unimportant? she wondered.
That was just one more unsolvable puzzle of the Earth people, she concluded. They made big importances out of little things, and no importance out of great dangers and fearful problems.
For instance, they did nothing about the horrors of the jungle lowlands.
And she had to go down to the jungle now. She had to go there to gather the natsacher shoots to sell to the Earth people, to get money to pay the damn-TV repairman, and to buy some chocolate . . . if the new people were still selling chocolate.
In any event, she had to gather natsacher shoots, and the thought intimidated her, almost to the point of making her whimper.
For a while she wandered around inside the compound of the Cultural Exchange Center, peering in shop and office windows at the men and women and chimos and chimees. She realized she was merely killing time, postponing the inevitable. But maybe she would gain courage by looking at other humans, particularly the men and women.
Maybe they looked strange, with their hair concentrated on the tops of their heads, and needlessly long there, and their peculiar stance with legs straight instead of flexed, which made them look taller than they really were. And the males almost as breastless as herself, since the Earth-women not only bore the young but also nursed them . . . an arrangement that struck Romee as so odd that she sometimes wondered if that physical absurdity might account for all the other ridiculous traits of these people.
But the humans from Earth, for all their foibles, had courage. They were brave beyond understanding. Why, she had heard that a loud noise wouldn't even make some of them jump!
She wished she had some of that courage right now.
Slowly she headed for the compound's gate, then turned aside to examine the bulletin board.
A woman was feeding in a new notice as she approached.
"Good morning," Romee said politely. "Is that something new?"
The woman turned and studied her. "Yes. Would you like to hear it?"
"If you please."
Romee hoped the new bulletin would not be another lecture on the evils of chocolate. Those lectures frightened her, and they were constantly popping up on damn-TV these days. Romee knew she was hooked on the stuff, and couldn't give it up. So, to be told over and over that it was taking years off her life was sheer torture. She had made up her mind not to believe the lectures, but she couldn't stay sure they weren't right, no matter how hard she tried.
But it turned out that the new bulletin wasn't a lecture. The woman pressed the button and the board said: "The services of several chimos and chimees are desired for a series of tests on response to environmental stimuli. A modest stipend will be paid to participants. Apply at Exotic Psychology Office, Brown Building."
"Thank you," Romee said to the woman, and headed once more toward the gate. Then she halted and turned. She had never heard of the Exotic Psychology Office before, which suggested it might be very new on Notcid—even newer than the replacers of the exploiters. And being new, it might have a lot of prestige and money, since Earth humans thought highly of new things.
"How much money is a 'modest stipend'?" she asked.
The woman frowned. "We prefer applicants who are motivated by a desire for increased understanding and cultural progress, rather than monetary rewards," she said stiffly.
Romee thought about that, and nodded. If this was something to increase her understanding of Earth people's peculiarities, or help these people progress toward more rational behavior, she was all for it.
"I have those motivations," she said, "but I have newly hatched young and a husband whose breasts are heavy with milk. For their sakes I must inquire about the stipend."
This seemed to please the woman. She nodded. "The pay will be fifty cashers."
* * *
That was more than Romee could expect from two gatherings of natsacher shoots!
"O.K. When do I start?" she said.
The woman blinked. "Why . . . immediately, I suppose. Yes. Come with me, please. I'm Miss Dallas McGuire, assistant director of Exotic Psychology."
"I'm Romee Westbrook."
Miss McGuire led the way to the Brown Building and into a sparsely furnished office suite near the rear. She motioned Romee into a chair beside a desk, and seated herself behind it. Without complaint, Romee perched on the chair instead of squatting comfortably on her haunches.
"We'll have to wait for Dr. Radley Truit, the director," said Miss McGuire, "but in the meantime we can fill out your application form." In a business-like manner she scribbled some words on a sheet of paper. "What is your age, Mrs. Westbrook?"
"Twenty-two years."
"The hatching you mentioned, was that your first?"
"No, my second."
"How many young?"
"Three each time."
"Are they all living?"
"Yes."
"What about your parents? Are they living?"
Romee repressed a whimper. "No. The jungle got them."
Miss McGuire made a clicking noise with her mouth and looked annoyed.
"Were they on chocolate?"
"Yes."
"And are you?"
"Yes."
Miss McGuire put down her pen and gazed at Romee. "Don't you know that's bad for you, Mrs. Westbrook?" she asked solemnly. "Can't you give it up for the sake of your young, if not for yourself?"
This was so absurd, to talk about giving up chocolate. "I've tried, but I can't," she replied, hoping to satisfy the woman. But she couldn't help adding, "I can't tell that it does me any harm, and it makes being alive much nicer."
"Any harm?" demanded the woman sharply. "Surely, Mrs. Westbrook, you know of the tests made on the dakcha and gobhow meat animals? Chocolate is utterly alien to Notcidese life forms! It has to be harmful! Look at the evidence, Mrs. Westbrook. Before the exploiters arrived, less than a hundred years ago, the high plains of Notcid were filled with your people. Now most of them are gone. Of the bowers still standing, at least half are empty and falling into ruin. And you don't see any harm in chocolate! Really, Mrs. Westbrook!"
Romee was so totally intimidated that she could hardly reply to any of this. She would have liked to say that no chimo or chimee ever ate enough chocolate at one time to coat their entire insides with an indigestible brown layer, which was what had killed the overfed experimental subjects, the dakcha and gobhow meat animals. Besides, she knew Miss McGuire would have an answer to that: that the pounds of chocolate fed the animals in one day was less than the hooked chimo or chimee would eat in ten years, and since Notcidese life could not assimilate chocolate, the cumulative effects could be similar. Not the coating inside the guts, of course, but harmful buildups of deposits elsewhere within the body.
Also, Romee would have argued, if she could, that chocolate was no more alien to Notcidese life than natsach was to Earth people. And tons of natsach were exported to Earth every year, where people used it to sweeten their food. They used it because it wasn't assimilable, and thus would not make them fat as Earth sugar would. Also, natsach left no unpleasant aftertaste and did not cause disease, the way artificial sweeteners did. If natsach was so good for Earth humans, why was chocolate so bad for Notcid humans?
And as for the rapid decline of the population . . .
"The jungle got them," she managed to say.
"Hah!" snorted the woman. "The jungle got them because their reflexes were debilitated, or because fear of the jungle was too much for chocolate-weakened hearts!"
Romee had reasons to wonder if this was true, but she did not have the nerve to argue the matter with this forceful Earth human, who was going to pay her fifty cashers. So she nodded and said, "I'll try harder to kick the habit."
"Good!" approved Miss McGuire. "Please understand, Mrs. Westbrook, nobody's blaming you or your people for this chocolate addiction. It was those damned exploiters."
Romee nodded again, as a short man with white hair on the bottom of his face came into the office.
"Dr. Truit, this is our first applicant, Mrs. Romee Westbrook," said Miss McGuire.
"Ah, fine, fine," the little man said rapidly. "I just completed setting up the test site. We can get started right away if you're ready, Mrs. Westbrook."
"I'm ready," Romee gulped.
"Then come along, come along."
* * *
He led the way out of the building with Miss McGuire bringing up the rear. Outside he cramped Romee in the back of a hovercar and got into the front seat with Miss McGuire. Much too fast for Romee's fragile peace of mind, the car whizzed out of the compound and across the rolling grassland. Romee cowered with hands over her eyes and ears till the motion stopped and the car's engine fell silent.
"Here we are. Everybody out," said Dr. Truit.
Romee climbed from the car and looked around. She was beginning to have doubts about this business. Of course, these new Earth humans had made it clear that they felt the best of goodwill toward the Notcidese, and wanted nothing more than to repair the harm done by the exploiters. But just the same, one never knew what to expect from Earth people. And fifty cashers was a lot of money . . . surely more than she could expect if no danger was involved.
Still, she could see nothing that looked like a threat. They were standing on a flat hill, a few miles from the compound with nothing around them but grass, close-cropped by wandering herds of meat animals.
Dr. Truit kicked at the stubble and muttered something about unbalanced ecology. Then he and Miss McGuire stationed themselves somewhat to one side and stood watching Romee.
She squirmed with fright and self-consciousness.
KRO-O-OMM!
The sudden tremendous roar behind her sent Romee in a flying leap, completely over the hovercar. She hit the ground on all fours, skittered around and lay flat.
"Beautiful response!" approved Truit. "Beautiful!"
Slowly Romee recovered her wits, and peered about. Still nothing in sight except the two Earth people and the hovercar.
"See?" said Miss McGuire. "There isn't any danger. Just a loud noise."
"What made it?" she whimpered.
"A piece of equipment, buried underground," said Truit, "No danger at all, Mrs. Westbrook. Stand up, please."
Romee rose, and saw they were watching her the same as before. Well, she was going to keep facing that place where the noisemaker was hidden, so it couldn't
KRO-O-OMM!
Again the blast of sound came from behind her, and sent her sailing over the hovercar.
This time she lost consciousness briefly. When she opened her eyes the two Earth people were bending over her.
"See? It was only a noise again," Truit assured her. "You don't need to be frightened by it, or respond to it. Nothing's going to hurt you."
"Let me help you up, Mrs. Westbrook," offered Miss McGuire.
"No, no!" she begged, hugging the ground and sobbing. "If I stand he'll do it again!"
"I'm not attempting to terrorize you," Truit replied frostily. "You can take a break until you settle down, and while I explain. What we wish to do is test your ability to modify, under controlled conditions, an over-response to stimuli that seems a universal flaw . . . characteristic, I mean . . . in the Notcidese psycho-physiological pattern. After you've rested a bit, we'll try it again, and this time I want you to try to modify your reaction. That is, keep rational control of yourself when the noise stimulus comes, and refrain from jumping."
Romee felt too weak and shaky to get up and run away. She lay there wondering how Truit had captured a jungle noise in his equipment, because that was what it was. He must have set up a recorder at the edge of the jungle to get the sound, and then made it loud and close the same way one turned up the volume of a damn-TV set.
So really, Truit was right. It was just a noise, and this wasn't the jungle. So why should she jump when she heard it?
For that matter, why did her people jump . . . at least a little bit . . . at any loud noise? Why not ignore noise like the Earth people usually did?
She stopped sobbing as the surprising thought struck her: maybe, in this one way, her people rather than the Earth people behaved absurdly.
In any case, it was better to be scared and alive, with fifty cashers, than to be scared and perhaps dead in the jungle. And she just had to get her damn-TV fixed, or lose status as a bowerkeeper with her chimo. And how good it would be to have some chocolate right now!
She had to go along with this experiment.
Still quivering, she rose to her feet and gazed questioningly at Truit.
"Good girl!" he approved, "I mean, very good, Mrs. Westbrook. Now remember, this time try not to jump."
She nodded and tensed, waiting for the noise.
When it came, her leap was half again longer than the two previous times.
"Don't tighten up so!" snapped Truit impatiently. "Dallas, can't you get this silly aborigine to settle down?"
"Watch it, Doc," the woman snapped back, then said softly to Romee, "Just try to relax, Mrs. Westbrook. Decide you don't care about the loud noise, that it isn't going to frighten you."
After a while, Romee stood up again, by now too exhausted to be anything other than relaxed. When the sound came, she jerked, and fell forward flat on her face.
"Excellent!" applauded Truit. "We modified the response! Next time, try to modify it still more, and not fall down."
But when Romee stood and the sound came, she jerked and fell again. Three more trials produced the same results, and Truit was getting extremely cross. This had tensed Romee up again, and it was all she could do to limit her response to merely falling down.
As she lay on the ground after the latest trial, she heard a different Earth human yell, "Are you idiots trying to scare the natives out of their limited wits? What's going on here?"
She lifted her head to see a second hovercar settle to the ground nearby, and Hector Grandolph, Director-in-Charge of the Cultural Exchange Center, come waddling out of it. When he saw her, he stopped in his tracks and pointed at her. "Who's that, and what's going on here?"
"Why, ah, yes, Mr. Grandolph," stammered Truit. "Yes. Yes, indeed. How are you today, sir? Well, yes, we have been running a little experi—a little examination, with the cooperation of Mrs. Eastwood here—"
"Westbrook," corrected Miss McGuire numbly.
"Yes, that is to say, Mrs. Westbrook agreed to cooperate with us, for the advancement of cultural understanding—"
Grandolph growled. "Don't cover it with crap, Truit! This was illegal experimentation, as you know damned well! What were you trying to find out . . . how much it would take to scare this poor creature to death?"
"On the contrary, sir," retorted Truit, stiffening. "We were seeking only to ameliorate her fright response by . . ."
"Nuts! Both of you can start packing when you get to the compound! You're going back to Earth on the next ship!" Grandolph waddled over to Romee and hunkered down beside her. "Are you all right?"
"I'm tired is all," she said. Very slowly she rose to her feet. "When do I get the fifty cashers?" she asked.
Grandolph's face looked as if it might explode. "Did they offer you fifty cashers to cooperate in this experiment?"
"Yes."
The big man turned to glare at the culprits. "Your names are mud from now on," he growled. "Count on it."
"What about my fifty?" Romee persisted.
"You'll be awarded damages, chimee," said Grandolph, "and I would guess that'll come to several hundred cashers."
Romee did not dare risk a reply to such astonishingly good news as that. She stood waiting in silence for the money. Was it supposed to come from Truit or from Grandolph? she wondered.
Truit presumably had nothing to lose by talking, because he was doing a great deal of it. "We were doing her no harm at all," he was protesting. "At one time the Notcidese were obviously jungle creatures, for whom the fright response and nervousness in general were a necessary survival pattern. They escaped the predator that emits the pre-attack roar by leaping.
"When they left the jungle for the plains, after developing rudimentary herding and agricultural skills, they no longer needed the fright response," Truit continued, "but so far they haven't lost it. This may be taken to indicate their sojourn on the plains has been relatively brief. However, the fright response is now a handicap to their cultural creativity. They cannot undertake innovative activities that require extensive forward cerebration, such as plains-cultivation of natsacher shoots, or supra-bower social organization, because too much of their energies are absorbed by fright activities. Thus, the test being conducted by Miss McGuire and myself was—"
"—was even worse than I thought!" Grandolph broke in angrily. "So you were trying to turn the Notcidese into Earth-style peasants, huh? Imposition of our cultural pattern on a native intelligence! Very exploitative, Truit!"
"I was trying to keep them from becoming extinct!" Truit almost screamed, making Romee quiver. "By removing the need for them to enter the jungle to gather natsacher shoots . . ."
"Nonsense!" bellowed Grandolph, and Romee made a tentative six-foot leap. "Everybody knows what's killing off the natives! It's chocolate, not any damned jungle!"
Romee wondered self-pityingly why these Earthmen didn't stop arguing absurdities and give her the damage money so she could leave. Or at least not yell so loud.
"You two are frightening Mrs. Westbrook," Miss McGuire announced smugly.
"Huh? Oh, my apologies, chimee . . . Mrs. Westbrook," said Grandolph.
"That's all right," Romee quavered. "If I can have my damage money I'll leave so you can yell all you like."
"Your damage money?" He looked puzzled. "Oh, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little while for that, Mrs. Westbrook. The claim must be processed through the nearest Interspecies Circuit Court—a matter that will have my personal attention."
Romee nodded. "Tomorrow?" she asked.
"Longer than that, I'm afraid, but very soon. Probably within half a year, certainly no more than a year, Mrs. Westbrook."
Romee wondered dejectedly how "half a year" could be considered "very soon."
Grandolph reached in his pocket. "Here," he said. "If you are short of money, Mrs. Westbrook, this should tide you over."
Romee took the paper and studied it. It was a two-casher note. "Thank you," she said, hoping she was not revealing her disappointment.
Because she was going to have to go down to the jungle, after all.
* * *
She found an empty bower near that of a cousin of her chimo in which to spend the night. The next morning she returned to the Cultural Exchange Center compound and entered the trading post. She felt she just couldn't face the jungle today without a bite of chocolate first.
"Half a casher of chocolate, please," she said timidly to the woman behind the counter.
"We don't have any," the woman snapped crossly.
"Oh." Romee hesitated. "When will you get some?"
"Get some what?"
"Chocolate."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the woman snapped. Romee was shaking badly, but her desire wouldn't let her leave. "Chocolate is what I'm talking about."
"Never heard of it," said the woman, not quite so harshly.
Could it be that this woman really didn't know about chocolate? That didn't make sense at all, but after all, what did about Earth people?
"It's brown and bitter unless it has sugar in it," Romee explained pleadingly. "It comes in square cakes about this thick." She held up her hand to show the thickness.
"Oh, that stuff," said the woman. She reached under the counter and came up with a half-casher block of chocolate in a plain green wrapping. "This what you mean?"
Romee took the block and tore the wrapping from a corner. It was chocolate, all right.
"Yes."
"Half a casher, please."
Romee paid her and received her change. Quickly she took a bite and chewed it rapidly. Um-m-m. How nice it was! And already she was feeling less tensed up.
"I thought everybody knew about chocolate," she said to the woman, who was watching her with a strange expression.
"Knew about what?"
"About chocolate." Romee pointed to the block in her hand. "About this."
"Of course everybody knows about that!" said the woman.
* * *
Romee munched in thoughtful silence. Here was a strangeness that needed solving, because it dealt with chocolate. She wished she didn't have to worry about it now, since going to the jungle was problem enough for one time.
At last she said, "You know about this," indicating the block in her hand, "but not about chocolate."
"That's right," the woman said.
"But this is chocolate."
"I never heard of it."
Romee thought some more. "What is this stuff called?" she asked in sudden inspiration.
"It doesn't have a name, so far as I know," the woman replied.
"It had a name yesterday," murmured Romee.
"That's right, it did," said the woman. "But last night a directive came from Director-in-Charge Grandolph, who was steamed about something." She held up a sheet of paper with writing on it. "Would you like to know what it says?"
"Yes, please."
The woman read from the paper: "All personnel at this station have been entirely too negligent in their responsibility toward the native population whose welfare is our trust. Namely, we have taken no firm steps toward the reduction and eventual end of the (bleep-bleep) addiction that became established under our exploitative predecessors with fatal consequences for hundreds of thousands of innocent natives."
The woman looked up. "Where I said 'bleep-bleep', the Director-in-Charge used that word you mentioned," she explained, then continued reading:
"Unfortunately, the economics of our situation here make the immediate cessation of our trafficking in (bleep-bleep) impossible. And despite our warnings, the natives' cravings for (bleep-bleep) continue unabated. Only a few hours ago I was the pained witness to the indignities a native will willingly suffer to obtain the price of this addictive.
"Therefore, I order that, effective immediately, the very word (bleep-bleep) be omitted from the vocabulary of every Terrestrial on this planet. The health hazard warnings will be dropped from telecasts, as indeed will all mention and display of (bleep-bleep) be stricken from TV programming.
"It is my belief that we have discussed (bleep-bleep) entirely too much, and too freely, with the natives, and can make our abhorrence clear to them only by refusing to mention (bleep-bleep). It occurs to me that treating (bleep-bleep) as too horrid to mention may have a salutary effect on the natives, by playing upon their fright syndrome.
"To repeat, all personnel are hereby forbidden to speak of or display (bleep-bleep). If a native mentions it you will make clear that you never heard the word and do not know its meaning."
The woman finished reading and stood looking at Romee with a peculiar twisted smile.
Romee thought about the words on the paper. Presumably they were sensible words, from the Earth-human viewpoint. And she wasn't sure whether or not they were more absurd than most Earth-human doings, from her viewpoint. She was puzzled.
"Bleep-bleep," she murmured, trying the sound the woman had used in place of "chocolate."
The woman brightened. "Why, yes. Bleep-bleep!"
Romee tucked away the remainder of her block of chocolate, said good-bye to the woman, and left the trading post.
On her way to the gate she met a chimo she knew coming in. "Are you going to buy chocolate?" she asked him.
"Yes, Romee."
'They don't talk about it anymore," she told him. "But if you ask for bleep-bleep, they'll sell you some."
* * *
The chocolate was relaxing, but did not take away fright. Romee was very scared as she descended the steep slopes from the Cultural Exchange Center to the edge of the jungle, and felt almost numb once she entered the trails that twisted through the thick foliage, even though the trails were safe.
The danger would begin when she left the trails to squirm her way through the undergrowth, and she would have to do that. The trails were kept picked clean of natsacher shoots. She kept peering through the shadows, trying to spot a patch of natsacher that was not too far from safety. She found an isolated shoot or two that was within reach from the trail, but these were only enough to emphasize how big and how empty was her gathering-sack.
At last she took a deep, tremulous breath and plunged off the trail. For a distance of some fifty feet she fought through thick tangle, then came out in a relatively open area where enough light filtered down to make natsacher grow. And indeed, there were shoots all around her. Rapidly she began breaking them off and stuffing them in her sack.
When the patch was picked clean she plunged frantically back to the trail. Only then did she take time to estimate the fullness of her sack . . . about a third.
KRO-O-OMM!
The sound was distant, but it was behind her. She jerked and fell on her face. She lay there and trembled for a while, then rose and followed the trail deeper into the jungle.
A brightness off to her left indicated another likely natsacher patch. She pushed through to its edge, and paused, looking at it. She wasn't sure just why, but this patch had a particularly dangerous look to her. But it was a big one, at least twice as big as the other. She could fill her sack here.
Slowly she moved out among the shoots. Nothing happened. She began picking. This was a long narrow patch which she had entered at one end. As she worked her way along it, her confidence grew a little. It was heartening to see how fast her sack was filling.
And then it was full. She saw there were plenty of shoots left to be picked. If she needed another sack-load to pay for fixing the damn-TV and to get enough chocolate to last her family a while, she would come back to this place.
She lifted her sack, turning slowly toward the trail as she did so.
KRO-O-OMM!
She jerked and flopped on her face, her thoughts racing in terror and dismay.
It's got me! I didn't jump away from it! My poor hatchlings!
SWISH! Something large and fast swooped past, over her cringing form. She waited for the monstrous killer to pounce on her.
Instead she heard a creaking as of strained tree limbs. Several seconds passed.
KRO-O-OMM!
She tried to hug the ground more closely.
SWISH!
She was more than halfway unconscious, and aware of nothing but the continuing sounds, and only vaguely of them.
KRO-O-OMM! SWISH! CREAK.
KRO-O-OMM! SWISH! CREAK.
The pattern seemed to go on and on.
Finally it occurred to her that she wasn't being eaten, or even bitten. Slowly, and very cautiously, she twisted her neck and looked up.
KRO-O-OMM! SWISH! A greenish-brown mass about two feet in diameter came arcing down, across the natsacher patch, to zing through the air above her. It snapped to a halt a short distance past her, just short of the wall of undergrowth surrounding the patch.
CREAK. It reversed direction, moving slowly now, and came back over her. She saw that the mass was attached above to an oddly jointed limb or heavy vine. This limb was now bending, and in a moment had carried the mass upward and out of sight in the foliage. She could still see some of the limb.
KRO-O-OMM! SWISH! Here it came again! The limb was snapping straight, like a many-jointed leg of some kind. The mass reached the end of its trajectory and stopped.
CREAK. It began moving back once more.
Romee realized she could easily crawl away, out of its path. But she didn't feel up to moving just yet. So she watched it and thought about it.
If she had jumped when she heard the noise, she would have landed in the undergrowth, just about where that mass would have knocked her if she hadn't fallen out of its way. It was as if the noisemaker wanted her in that particular spot of undergrowth, and had meant to put her there, one way or the other.
What was waiting for her there? And why didn't it just come get her?
She was tempted to crawl over and peer through the leaves to find out. The temptation to do such a risky thing made her cringe some more.
KRO-O-OMM! SWISH! Creak. Crackle.
It had added a new sound. Crackle. She looked up, wondering why, and saw that the jointed limb was beginning to look shredded. It wasn't used to swishing so frequently and continually, she guessed, and was wearing itself out. It must have some way of sensing she was still in its path with her back more or less turned toward it, but couldn't tell she was lying down. She resolved to crawl away after the next swish, so it would stop that horrifying noise.
KRO-O-OMM! Here it came. SWISH! CRACK!
The limb snapped. Instead of making its sudden stop, the detached mass was flung into the undergrowth. A moment later Romee heard a rough grating noise coming from the spot where the mass had landed.
This noise was sickening rather than frightening. In a little while she felt much better, and her curiosity was aroused. She crept forward, pushed into the undergrowth, and stared at what was happening.
* * *
The ground there was covered by what looked like misshapen boxes with open tops, all packed tightly against each other. Each box was twisting in place, back and forth, rubbing against the sides of the neighboring boxes. Their top edges were sharp, and their motion made them cut anything touching them, the same way the power knives sold by the Earthmen cut.
They were chopping the greenish-brown mass to bits. The shredded pieces of it were forming a pulpy mess in the areas between the blades. Romee shuddered hard, thinking how close her own body had come to that same fate, and of how many people had been chopped up to feed that kind of . . .
. . . that kind of tree. Because she could see it was a tree. The slim trunk rose from the middle of the blade-edged boxes (they were really something like roots, she realized), and by changing position slightly while she looked up, she could follow the trunk to where it divided into three down-looping limbs, one of which had a splintered, bedraggled look. And no mass on the end of it like the other two.
Romee giggled. For the first time since she was a tiny hatchling. She giggled. Then she laughed. It was so funny! She had tricked the noisemaker into eating part of itself!
She was laughing like a drunken Earthman. It was a strange sensation, laughing, but nice. She squatted comfortably to enjoy it while it lasted.
Finally she grew quiet. The way she felt was puzzling, but she couldn't figure out what it was. Well, no matter. Life was full of mysteries she couldn't hope to solve.
She rose, looked at the noise tree for a moment, toying with the idea of tricking it into eating its remaining two masses. That would be a foolish and useless risk to take, she decided. She retrieved her sack of shoots, returned to the trail, and began the trip back to the Cultural Exchange Center.
There she would tell the Earthmen about the noise tree, and how it was killing and eating the chimos and chimees who went into the jungle for natsacher shoots. The Earthmen would know some way to kill off the noise trees so that . . .
No.
The Earthmen would pay her no attention. They would just say that chocolate . . . or bleep-bleep . . . was the culprit. And besides, they would say, they could not think of upsetting the jungle ecology of Notcid by exterminating a predator species.
Romee wished again that the exploiter Earthmen were still running things. They would have given the noise trees a real scorching. After which there would have been plenty of Notcidese on the plains once more, to go hunt natsacher shoots. Plenty of natsacher for Earth, and plenty of chocolate for Notcid.
But as things stood, whatever was done about the noise trees would have to be done by the Notcidese themselves . . .
She paused on the trail. If a noise tree was tricked into eating all three of its masses, would it die?
Perhaps. Certainly it would be harmless. Why not go back and finish off that one she had started on? She decided against it. That was something to try when she had no new hatchlings and a chimo heavy with milk . . . and when she was not herself heavy with eggs, of course.
* * *
The seasons passed at the bower on West Hill with the Flat Rock on the Brook. The new hatchlings grew rapidly. There was plentiful milk for them, because Romee and her chimo Pipak enjoyed the secondary sex act frequently, keeping Pipak's mammaries well stimulated.
And certainly there was no shortage of meat animals, although their flesh was tougher and less tasty than it had been when the animals were fewer and the grass taller. There was also enough redroot, even though it was almost impossible to keep the meat animals from raiding the garden and nibbling away the tops before the redroots could become mature.
And there was damn-television. And chocolate.
But the time came when Pipak's breasts were empty, and the hatchlings were weaned. And the chocolate was running out.
Romee had dreaded this moment, but knew it had to come. She had, of course, told Pipak about her experience with the noise tree, and how it could be outwitted. Also, she had told her neighbors, and they in turn had told theirs. Most everyone on the plains knew about it, but still natsach gatherers went into the jungle not to return when the noise sounded.
Telling them to fall flat rather than jump wasn't enough, Romee realized. They needed the Earthman Truit to train them, as she had been trained, to modify their reaction. But Truit and Miss McGuire were long gone.
Romee mentioned to Pipak once that she, not he, should go to the jungle, but he would not hear of it. He had his masculine pride, and it was his turn to go. She could not cross him.
One morning she set out for the Cultural Exchange Center, after promising him faithfully that she would not enter the jungle, that she merely wanted to find out about her damage money. She meant to keep her promise, but her trip had another purpose aside from the damage money.
As she neared the Center, she left the main path and angled off across the rolling grassland until she reached the flat hilltop where Truit had conducted his experiment. She had some trouble deciding exactly where the hovercar had landed, but finally figured it out. Then she picked a spot and began digging.
The device . . . the noisemaker . . . was still there, barely covered with a clump of loose sod. She put it in her sack and paced back past the place where the hovercar had sat. In a moment she found the second noisemaker.
She squatted and studied them for a while, but, as she had expected, she did not know how to make them work. She put both of them in her sack and headed for the Cultural Exchange Center.
The same man was still running the damn-TV repair shop. He grinned at her and called her "honey" because he didn't remember her name. It was strange, she reflected, that the exploiters had, like this man, always been friendly but hardly ever polite, while the new people were polite but hardly ever friendly.
Romee put the noisemakers on the counter. "I want to stand in one place, and make either of these work in two other places," she said to him.
He examined the devices. "No problem," he grunted.
* * *
She walked home through the dark that night, partly because she wanted to get the noisemakers in place while Pipak and the young ones were sleeping, and partly because she wanted to get back so quickly that Pipak would be sure she had not gone to the jungle. The Earthman Grandolph had surprised her by having her damage money ready for her, and she did not want Pipak to doubt her word when she told him how she had raised the price of a large sack of chocolate and a power knife as well.
She was squatting outside the bower, eating a redroot, when he woke at dawn and came outside. He smiled as soon as he saw her.
"You're back."
"Yes, I hurried."
Almost reluctantly she pressed the button on the little box concealed in her hand. In a way, this was a mean trick.
KRO-O-OMM!
Pipak went flying through the air, and there was a scurrying and scuffling inside the bower. In a moment six young furry faces were peering out the entry at her.
"Come outside, children," she ordered, "and stand facing that way."
When she had the young positioned so neither noisemaker would be behind them, she walked over to where Pipak lay shaking. "See? There isn't any danger," she said. "Just a loud noise. A piece of equipment made it. Stand up. I will test your ability to modify, under controlled conditions, an over-response to stimuli that seems a universal flaw . . . characteristic, I mean . . . in the Notcidese psycho-physiological pattern . . .
She hoped she was getting the words right.