language. Bill named the village Jugtown after the largest building that housed hundreds of hollowed out gourds. He suspected the building might be some sort of church.
Giant hairy vines slithered from trees higher than the tallest skyscrapers on Earth. He heard thrashing from the jungle that smothered both sides of the path.
A figure gradually came into focus through the fog. An old Carnegian hobbled down the trail. She sang an ancient Earth folk song, one that Bill had played for Earl many times. “
My
Uncle Mort is sawed off and short. He stands ‘bout four foot two. But he thinks he’s a giant if you give him a pint of that good old mountain dew.” She cackled. “
They call it that good old mountain dew. Them that refuse it are few …” She saw Bill and her
“How do you know that song?” Bill asked. The only native who ever seemed interested in learning English was Earl.
The old woman’s eyes opened wide. “Good morning, Bill. You taught me. I am Earl.”
Earl was a young man, little more than a teenager. “Is Earl hurt? Why didn’t he come to the ship?”
The woman clucked her tongue.
“You don’t believe me? Fine. I will show you what I once was.”
She winced several times on the trek through the woods. She seemed to be in a great deal of pain.
They came to the village. Jugtown wasn’t much of a settlement by Earth standards. It had a handful of simple communal buildings, constructed of rocks with dried vines for roofs. From what Bill had gathered over the months, the Carnegians had no sense of individual property. They shared everything. There was no family structure that he could detect.
Earl sat by himself near the church. Bill ran up to him and held out the banjo. “Are you okay, bossman?”
Earl just stared.
“He does not understand your words,” a voice behind Bill said.
Bill turned around to face the old woman. “Of course he can. I taught him.”
“You taught me,” the woman corrected. She pointed to Earl. “Someday I may be back in there. Perhaps never.” She touched her chest. “Now I am in here. I may die in here.”
“I don’t understand,” Bill said.
The old woman sat cross-legged on thick moss. She wheezed. “Pardon me, but I am not used to this old skin.”
A strange truth began to dawn on Bill. “Are you saying that your mind has somehow changed bodies?”
The old woman paused to suck in a deep breath. “The storm did it. The storm comes every few moons, or every few years. Once I saw it twice in one day. Who is to say? But, it comes. It always comes.”
“Storm?”
“It brings the change. For some it brings youth. For some death. A baby may become an old man. An old woman may be granted a new life. At least until the next storm.”
“The electromagnetism?”
“I do not know that word. Last night I changed from the form you knew into this ancient body. We all changed. I hope I can survive until the next storm.”
Bill sat down on a rock and plucked out “Cripple Creek” on the banjo. It was one of Earl’s favorite songs.
The old woman hummed along in a wavering voice while the shell of Earl, the younger body, wandered off.
***
“Beth, we need to leave immediately,” Bill urged as he and the Captain sat in the conference room.
Beth showed professional concern. “Bill, we’d all love to go home, but the mining tests aren’t conclusive.”
“Carnegie is dangerous.”
Beth leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Bill, what are you getting at? I have a seasoned crew here. Nobody sees any problems.”
“It’s about Earl.”
Beth massaged her temples. “You found him?”
“More or less.”
Beth let out a little laugh. “Explain something to me. I thought that anthropologists were supposed to learn about other cultures. So, aren’t you contaminating the natives by teaching them about country and western?”
“Bluegrass,” Bill said. Beth rolled her eyes. “Fine. Bluegrass. Shouldn’t you be learning about their music?”
“They seem more interested in ours.” He cleared his throat. “Beth, you know that electromagnetic disturbance last night?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“The natives call it a storm. This is going to sound nuts, but the storm affects the natives. Their minds switch bodies. Earl’s mind went into the body of an old woman.” Bill searched for the right terminology. He hadn’t exactly been a stellar student in biology courses in college. “I did some research on the ship’s computer and the best I can figure is that the storm somehow mimics or stores copies of the neuron centers of the brain and-”
Beth was staring at him.
“I’m just an anthropologist, but I think that these impressions might get kicked around by electro-magnetic fields and displaced so that people in close proximity to each other-”
“Switch brains,” Beth said.
“Yeah. I can’t explain it any better than that. Maybe something else happens entirely. Who the hell knows? Look, I know it sounds impossible, but Earl was the only one who could speak
English. Now the old woman is fluent.”
Beth sat up straight. “So, he taught her.”
“I think Earl is telling the truth.”
Beth smiled. “Bill, listen to me. The natives are probably playing a joke on you. Or maybe they’re trying to con you. Maybe they want something.”
“They don’t want anything. I could never figure why their culture hasn’t advanced. Why they don’t have need of any possessions. Now I understand. They don’t even own their own bodies. It would be a nightmare trying to keep track of who owns what. Family units would be moving constantly from house
to house, if they had homes. It’s just easier for everybody to own everything.”
“Okay, Bill, maybe they don’t need any possessions. They might just want us to leave.”
The Captain might have a point. If Skaggs had his way, Galactic would lay waste to the planet. “I don’t think that’s Earl’s motive.”
She moved an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. “So why didn’t this storm affect us?”