Chybee hoped against hope it wouldn’t come to that…
Well, she had stood here gazing about long enough. Now she must act. Presumably she ought to start by getting into conversation with somebody. But who? Most of those nearby were clearly lost in worlds of their own. Over there, for example: a girl about her own age, very slowly stripping the twigs off a dying branch and putting them one by one into her mandibles. She looked as though, once having settled to her task, she might never rise again.
And to her left: a boy trying to twist his eye around far enough to inspect his mantle which, as Chybee could see—but he couldn’t—was patched with slimy green and must be hurting dreadfully.
She knew, though, what kind of answer she would get were she to offer help. She had seen similar cases at home. Her parents even admired young’uns like that, claiming that they were making progress along the path that led to mind being freed from matter, so that it could exert total power instead of merely moving a perishable carcass. She had often angered them by asking why, if that were so, they themselves didn’t go out and rub up against the foulest and most disease-blotched folk they could find.
She tried not to remember that by now Isarg might all too easily have wound up in a similar plight.
So she left the boy to his endless futile attempts to view his own back, and moved along the branchway. The pheromones grew stronger with every padlong.
Abruptly she grew aware that people were staring at her. It wasn’t surprising. At Ugant’s she had enjoyed the best diet of her life, and she was tall and plump—too much so, in fact, to suit the role she was supposed to adopt. Who could believe she was a dedicated psychoplanetarist when she was in this condition?
She clung desperately to her recollection of how well favored Aglabec had appeared at Ugant’s house. More than once, thinking back over his appearance, she had wondered whether he was sharing his followers’ privations. If not, did that imply that he was crazy for some other reason? Was he spreading his lies for personal power and gain? If only one of the scientists she had met at Ugant’s had broached the subject … But none had, and she was too timid to suggest the idea herself.
Suddenly she wanted to flee. It was too late. Three young’uns—two girls and a boy—detached themselves from the group who had been looking at her with vast curiosity and approached in such a way as to cut off her retreat. She summoned all her self-control.
“Hello! My name’s Chybee and I’m from Hulgrapuk. Maybe you heard tell of my parents Whelwet and Yaygomitch? They sent me here to dig into a report they picked up off the wind, about how it was the folk of Swiftyouth and Sunbride that threw the Greatest Meteorite at us. I can trade information about life on Sluggard’s moons for fuller details.”
She curled her mantle into an ingratiating posture and waited for their response.
It came in the form of excitement. One of the girls said, “I didn’t know Sluggard had any moons!”
“Sure it does!” the boy countered. “Much too small to see, but there they are! Five, right?”—to Chybee.
Ugant and her friends had briefed Chybee carefully. “Only four. What they thought was a fifth turned out to be last year’s red comet on its way to us.”
“I made contact with the folk on that comet!” the other girl declared.
How can anyone be so crazy as to believe that comets are inhabited? But Chybee kept such thoughts to herself as far as her exudants allowed; at least the all-pervading pheromones masked most of them.
“Well, if your budder is Whelwet,” the first girl said, “I know who’ll want to talk to you. Come with us. We’re on our way to meet with Aglabec himself!”
Oh, NO!
But there was no gainsaying them; they fell in on either side like an escort and swept her along.
VII
At least the leaves Glig had provided were working. Chybee had no idea what they were, but the scientists of Slah had many secrets. Not only did they protect against the terrifying pheromones surrounding her; they seemed also to mask her own exudations. And that too was terrifying, in a way. It was a popular pastime for younglings at Hulgrapuk and elsewhere to reenact stories from the legendary past, but only the very young could so far submerge themselves in a false identity as to make each other and their audience believe in the roles they were playing. As soon as they started to secrete adult odors, the illusion waned.