“Who cares?” Iffspay said. “Let’s get them ana-lized, and then we can analyze the data—not that there’ll be any data to analyze. We’ll do it by the book, though.”
“By the book,” I agreed. And, by the book, we did the two bigger specimens first. We had to check the manual again to make sure just where to analize them. Iffspay thought the orifice emitting the air vibrations was the one that would take the probe, but he turned out not to be right. Evolution was even crazier than usual on that planet, you betcha.
And the manual didn’t exactly match the specimens we had. By what it said, the orifice should have been accessible once we figured out where the space fiend it was. But the locals had integuments more complicated than what the manual showed. Good old Iffspay was all for cutting right on through them. Iffspay never was long on patience, I’m afraid.
“Let’s try peeling them instead,” I said. “That way, we’re less liable to injure them.”
“Oh, all right,” he said sulkily. “It’ll take longer, though.”
I was the one who got to peel them. Since it was my idea, Iffspay didn’t want thing one to do with it. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, either, not getting started. I kept thinking about gross and fine motor functions. If the locals weren’t perfectly paralyzed… well, they’d splatter me all over the walls of the ship.
But I managed to peel the first one without doing it any harm I could detect—its heat signature and the kind of air vibrations it emitted didn’t change at all— and without getting hurt myself. Once I’d taken care of the hard part, Iffspay grabbed the glory. He bent the local into the position the manual suggested and threaded in the probe.
“Well?” I asked.
“Well, nothing,” Iffspay answered. “The computer can check me later, but there’s nothing. A big, fat, juicy nothing. So much for that.”
“Don’t prejudge. We’ve still got two more to go,” I said, though I wasn’t what you’d call optimistic about them either.
“Go on and peel the next one, then,” Iffspay said.
“Why me again?” I asked him. “How come I get stuck with all the hard stuff?”
“Because you did such a good job the last time,” he answered. Iffspay tastes smooth, no two ways about it.
After letting out a few last bitternesses of annoyance, I got to work on the second large local. Fortunately, everything went well. In fact, it went better than it had the first time, because I’d had the practice of doing it once. I reached for the probe once I’d got the local into the position—I did it myself that time— but Iffspay already had it in his appendage.
“This is the last lump,” I said angrily. “You’re going to peel the third one, and I’m going to do the analyzing. And if you don’t like it, I’ll talk to a lawyer when we get home. There are limits to how much you can impose on people.” I had really had it.
Iffspay could tell, too. “Fine. Fine!” he said. “Don’t get all disconnected from your nutrient provider. You want to analyze the third one, be my guest. Meanwhile, though…” He inserted the probe. He tried to go on as if everything were normal, but my talk about lawyers had put a bad smell in his chemoreceptors, let me tell you. After he withdrew the probe, he added, “Nothing again. Not even a hint. If you want to waste your time with the last one, be my guest.”
“I want to perceive you peel it,” I said. “That should be funny enough to go on the planetwide sensorium special.”
“You’ll find out.” Now I’d got Iffspay mad. I could taste it. And, of course, when he got mad, he got clumsy. I wish they would put the recording of the botch he made of that peeling job on the sensorium special. He’d have an offer to do sitcoms so fast, you wouldn’t believe it. The local’s air vibrations increased in amplitude, too. I don’t think it much cared for what was going on. After what seemed like forever, Iffspay turned to me and said, “There. All yours.”
I took the probe. But it didn’t want to do what it was supposed to. I had to feel around near the target area. “You bumbling idiot,” I said. “There’s still a layer of integument here. The other two had this layer—weren’t you paying attention when I dealt with them? Once you get this down, then it’s pay dirt.”
“Well, take care of it, then, if you’re so smart,” he said.
“Oh, no. The deal was you’d peel this one and I’d probe it. You finish your job, and then I’ll do mine.”
He made a stink about it, but he did it. I suspected there’d be some long, nasty silences on the way to the next star. Well, too bad. I know what my rights are, by the Great Eggcase, and I know when to curl up for them.
“I hope you’re satisfied now,” he grumped when he’d finally got the peeling right.
“Couldn’t be happier,” I told him, just to smell him fume.
And I meant it literally. This time, the analizer went in just as smooth as you please. I extended an appendage through it—and made contact!
Photosensitive creatures use energy waves to talk. I suppose you could talk with air vibrations, too, though I’ve never heard of any intelligent races that do. Too much ambiguity either way, as far as I’m concerned. Taste and scent, now, those are universal languages. No doubt about ‘em.
“Hello, there,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“We’re fine,” came the answer. “Hooked on to the intestinal wall here, kicking back and living the life of Reilly.”
Even universal languages have dialects. I’m still not sure what a Reilly is. But I got the point. They were happy where they were. “Do you need anything?” I asked.
“No way, Jose,” they replied without the least hesitation. My name isn’t Jose, but I didn’t bother calling them on it. “We’re happy right here, you better believe it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Now that we’ve finally found you, we’ll probably send you an ambassador or something before too long.”
“Whatever. No hurry. No worries,” they said. “You guys are free-living, aren’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “We have been for a long time. We think hooking up with nutrient when we want to is easier than staying tied to a host.”
“We like it better this way,” they told me. “We can ease back and relax and go along for the ride. Beats working—who needs technology if you’ve got a tasty host? From what we’ve smelled, free-living makes people pushy.”
“I didn’t know you’d met Iffspay,” I said.
“Hey, don’t drag me into this, you flavorless, unseg-mented thing,” Iffspay said, neatly proving my point.
“What’s an Iffspay?” the planet’s intelligent life-forms wanted to know.
“Nothing much—he’s my partner here,” I replied, just to smell Iffspay fume. He didn’t disappoint me either. Iffspay is a reliable guy.
The locals said, “Nice to meet you and everything, but we’d really like to get back to what we were doing. Some of our segments are going to break off and go out into the world to find new hosts.”
Ah, the simple pleasures of parasites! It almost makes me long for the eons before we were free-living. Things were simpler then. They… Well, enough. When a worm starts getting nostalgic, he’s the most boring creature in the bowels of the galaxy. And so I won’t. I just won’t.
I unthreaded the analizer and said, “Well, we’ll have to be careful placing the locals back on the ground now that we know some of them are inhabited.”
“Tastes like you’re right,” Iffspay agreed. “Who would’ve thunk it? All these negative reports, and now this!” Then he let out a bad smell. “Think of all the forms we’ll have to fill out on the way back to Prime.”
I did a little farting of my own, too. I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t wanted to think about it. “Can’t be helped,” I said, and he knew damn well I was right again. He set the local hosts back where we’d found them. Old Iffspay does have a nice appendage on the antigravity when he wants to, I will say that for him.