Escape Velocity: The Anthology (26 page)

      
The creature finished its food pellet. It looked up at me, blinking. Amy handed me another food pellet, and I put it in front of him. “Welcome home, Chester.” I said.

      
Chester took the pellet and leaned his tablespoon-sized body against my fingers as he ate.

On our first date Amy told me about her own Hexi, a red-brown male named Merlot. Talking excitedly she inundated me with Hexapod lore; theories on where the Hexapod home world might be, how the eggs came to be floating through space, why these creatures would have evolved such hardy, grain-of-rice sized eggs that could survive the radiation and vacuum of space. By the third time she used the word ‘extwatewestwial,’ I was pretty much done for.

      
The brain chemistry of the Hexapods was Amy’s field. “It’s quite remarkable how similar their brains are to Earth mammals. It’s an amazing example of parallel evolution.”

       “
I’d kind of like to kiss you,” I said.

       “
Like the way an oyster’s eyes function almost ident...” she paused, finally. “Oh.” She smiled and lowered her eyes to her plate. Then she peeked up at me. “I’ll have to give that some thought.”

Whump! Eight pounds of Hexapod dropped from my ceiling to the floor. The first few times Chester did this I thought I must have the biggest klutz among Hexis. Then Amy told me this was a popular pastime for young Hexis, and thanks to his cartilaginous skeleton there wasn’t any danger of him hurting himself. Sometimes he’d do it over and over; climbing up the wall and across the ceiling and dropping to the floor and heading straight for the wall again, until I yelled at him to knock it off. For a boisterous six-month-old, he behaved pretty well. In spite of his fondness for the ceiling, he never rained pee down on me, and he’d gotten the hang of using a litter box with only a few ‘mistakes.’

       ‘
Sensitive to their owner’s feelings’ came to seem like an understatement. Chester knew when I was bored (time to play catch), when I was busy (time to sit near my feet, rolling his ball back and forth, periodically looking up at me with doleful eyes), when I was cranky (time to go take a nap in another room). Amy told me many owners become convinced that their Hexi can read their mind. “Are you sure they can’t?” I asked.

       “
Of course they can’t. They just read subtle visual cues. Try turning the lights out or hiding in another room and see how well Chester reads your mind.”

      
Chester whumped to the floor again when there was a knock on the door. It was Karen Hunt, my sixty-ish neighbor from downstairs.

       “
I’ve just realized what those sounds are,” she said when I opened the door. “You have a Hexapod.”

       “
Oh... Yes. I’m sorry if the noise...”

       “
May I see? She was a small, thin woman, with white hair cut short and spiky. I barely knew her, but she had an intensity in her eyes that made me think she must be an interesting person to know.

       “
Of course,” I said. “C’mon Chester. Here, boy!” He came out slowly at first, and then went straight for Ms Hunt.

       “
Oh, he’s still a pup.” She knelt down. To my surprise Chester ran up and into her arms.

       “
He’s, uh, very friendly,” I said.

       “
Of course he is. They all are. I used to have one. Before I moved here. Sarah was her name. One of the early ones. I found her while I was hiking in Washington.” As she spoke she hugged Chester’s little body to her neck, stroking her chin against his fur.

       “
Sarah died two years ago. She chewed on an electrical wire, and died in my arms, poor thing...” She hugged Chester again, and seemed to be talking to him rather than me.

      
Then she looked at me and I felt pinned to the wall by her eyes.       “You know about covering all your wires, don’t you?”

       “
Yes, I was warned.”

That night I had a date with Amy, and I told her about Karen Hunt’s visit. When I got to the part about Sarah dying in her arms, Amy started. “Died in her arms? She used those words?”

       “
Yes, it chewed on an electrical...”

       “
I have to talk to her,” Amy said. She reached for her jacket.

       “
Amy, slow down. Karen isn’t going anywhere. We can finish our meal and talk to her later.”

       “
Oh, right. Okay.” She took a slow breath. “You see, there have been stories that when a Hexi dies, it tries to sting its owner. We've recently confirmed that the stories are true. When Hexapods grow up together, they form a social pack, and when one member of the pack is dying, it has an instinct to sting another pack-mate just before it dies. When a Hexi is a pet, the owner takes the place of the pack members. Hexis don’t inject venom with this moment-of-death sting. Instead it’s some soup of brain proteins. Just before death, a Hexapod’s brain releases these proteins into the cerebrospinal fluid, and from there it’s shunted to the venom duct. There’s evidence this is how they transfer acquired skills from the dying Hexapod to another pack member.”

       “
So,” I said. “You’re wondering what happens if a person gets stung with this moment-of-death sting, and if Ms Hunt was stung when her Hexi died.”

       “
Right. Probably there’s no effect,” she went on. “The fluid from this sting has no effect on mice. In the seven years Hexapods have been around, some Hexi owner must have gotten a moment-of-death sting, and there haven’t been any reports of people getting sick from a Hexapod sting.”

       “
But you’d still like to talk to Karen Hunt.”

       “
Yes,” she said, and looked at my plate. “You finished yet?”

      
I huddled defensively over my meal. “Even if this sting
is
a way to pass on acquired knowledge, and
if
it has some effect on humans, what does a Hexi know that it could pass on to a person? How to walk up walls?”

       “
Har, har. The thing is, this is something we didn’t know about. We’ve been telling people for years that these animals are harmless, and it makes us look bad to be caught off guard.”

      
I saw her point. There was enough craziness around Hexapods already. No matter how often scientists pointed out that they were harmless, there was never a shortage of idiots willing to shout a warning from the rooftops that the Hexis must be a hideous danger. They were aliens after all. Maybe some day they’ll all spontaneously transmogrify into man-eating, city-stomping giants. Or maybe they’re hiding their true intelligence until that day when their numbers become sufficient, whereupon they’ll rise up and seize the reins of power in their little suction-cup paws.

      
Pointing out that Hexapods couldn’t reproduce in the wild didn’t stop some from wringing their hands over the specter of ecological catastrophe. Explaining that Hexapod bodies are devoid of alien microorganisms and incapable of hosting Earth-native microorganisms didn’t prevent some people from regarding them as walking pustules of unspeakable disease.

      
When we knocked on Ms Hunt’s door she was all smiles. “Hello, Charles. This must be your friend the scientist. Do come in. I’m so glad to meet you.”

      
The three of us sat in her living room on overstuffed furniture. On one wall there was a photograph of a snow-white Hexapod standing on a table set for an elaborate meal. It was caught in the act of stealing a Brussel sprout from a bowl. Amy launched into a hundred-word-per-minute interview/interrogation. In a moment when Amy wasn’t looking, Karen caught my eye over Amy’s shoulder and flashed me a big ‘isn’t she cute’ grin.

       “
Did she sting me?” Karen asked. “Yes, but just one time, right before she died. She didn’t know what she was doing, poor thing.”

      
Amy leaned closer. “Did you feel any effects? Dizziness or headache? Did you feel like you suddenly learned anything you didn’t know before?”

       “
I felt effects from my little Sarah dying,” Karen answered. She had a distant look in her eye, and a sense of quiet settled over the room. “She was very dear to me, so of course it affected me when she died. As for learning anything, I’d say we all have a lot to learn from Hexapods. Surely they are the gentlest, most innocent creatures. How nice it would be if people could learn just a little of that gentleness, don’t you think?”

“
Well,” I said to Amy after we left. “That sounds like a whole lot of nuthin’, eh?”

       “
Yes,” said Amy. “Good.”

Senator McKinnon was making one of his delusional anti-Hexapod speeches; my favorite occasion for yelling editorial comments at my TV set.

       “
This is an invasion,” the senator intoned. “As surely as if these hideous creatures were wearing jackboots and goose-stepping through the streets of our capital, this is an invasion!”

      
I tossed a ball to Chester. He dove for it, missed, and trotted after it. I tried to imagine him in jackboots. “The difference is that
this
invasion is being enabled by amoral scientists who seek to hide the dangers from us, and by deluded people who take these godless monsters into their homes as pets.”

       “
What dangers, you fossilized turd?” I shouted. Chester looked at me fretfully. He didn’t like it when I shouted at the TV. I clicked the thing off and turned to Chester.

       “
Okay, big guy,” I said, making a ball-catching gesture. “Let’s see what’cha got.” He reared back and gave the ball his best two-legged, underhand toss. It went about half a yard, then bounced and rolled to a stop at my feet. “Another amaaaazing pitch by Gaylord ‘Chester’ Perry!” I said. 

      
Chester wriggled with happiness; he always liked my sportscaster routine.

      
As the numbers of pet Hexis grew, so did the division of feelings about them. Hexis and their owners were attacked in the street. There were calls for new laws to protect them and new laws to eliminate them. By Chester’s first birthday, there were five million pet Hexapods in the United States. Hardly a drop compared to the 78 million cats and 65 million dogs, but their significance belied their numbers.

      
As the anti-Hexis became marginalized they became more violent. There were attempts to break into Amy’s lab. There were cases of Hexis being shot as they played with children in suburban back yards. Hexapod breeders’ homes were firebombed. Pet stores were afraid to carry them, but of course you could order the tiny, dehydrated eggs by the dozen online. ‘Just add two drops of water for 20 pounds of love!’

Chester was one year and three months old; almost full grown. It was a Friday night, and Chester and I had a date at Amy’s house. As usual, Chester knew what was up, and he had a happy bounce to his step as he followed me through my pre-date primping. He loved his play-dates with Merlot.

      
I scooped up Chester and stuffed him into his carry-case, then headed out.

      
There were two men on the sidewalk just outside my door. As I walked past them the taller one put his hand on my arm. “What’s in the case, buddy?”

       “
My pet orca, and I’m not your buddy.”

      
A gun pointed at my face, and suddenly I felt a lot less clever.

       “
Get back inside the building,” the one with the gun said. He smelled of old sweat. Both men wore gray armbands with a strange symbol. With the gun in my back, I unlocked the door to my building, went up the stairs to my condo, and unlocked the door. As soon as the door was closed behind us, the shorter one crouched down to look into Chester’s case.

       “
It’s one of them, awright!” he squawked. “We got one, goddamnit.”

       “
Shut up, Art,” said the tall one. Then to me: “Put it down over there, squid sucker.” He pointed at the middle of the room.

      
I could feel every part of my body trembling: legs, arms, torso, head, all vibrating like a tuning fork. I moved the case behind my back. “No.”

      
The man turned away from me. Then he swung his arm in a long sweeping arc back at me, hitting the side of my head with the butt of the pistol.

      
It didn’t seem like any time had passed, but I was lying on the floor and my head felt swollen and my eyes wouldn’t focus. Something was banging. I tried to think what I had in my house that would make such a loud bang. Then it stopped and a voice said, “That’s it. C’mon, if they allow aliens in this building there might be others living here. Let’s knock on some doors.” I heard my door open and close.

       “
Ches?” I said. The case was in the middle of the room. A puddle of blood was spreading around it. “Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no.” I crawled over to the case, opened it and took him out. The fur on his belly was soaked with blood, and blood was still pouring out of two holes in his side. He looked up at me and tried to climb up onto my lap, but none of his rear legs seemed to be working, and he was holding his ball with one of his front feet. I hadn’t put the ball in there. He must have been holding it when I put him in the case.

       “
Don’t you know you always lose your ball when you take it to Amy’s house?” I lifted him onto my legs. I couldn’t see very well through my tears, but I could tell his eyes were fixed on my face. “Merlot must have twenty of your balls, you knucklehead.”