A week ago we finally found an opportunity to catch a biochemist and hisgaptwhile they were visiting a laboratory in the college. We injected a drug and hypnotized them. It was difficult getting the truth out of them but only because of the language barrier. However, I've learned a certain amount of American.
'We were horrified. But not really surprised. In fact, because we suspected something was afoot that we wouldn't like, and from the very first contact, we were ready to take action. So, from the first day your ship landed, we've been busy. The vessel, as you know, is directly–'
'Why didn't you hypnotize me?' Hal said. 'You could have done it easily and a long time ago.'
'Because we doubted that you'd be privy to anything that had to do with our blood. Anyway, we needed someone who had necessary technical knowledge. However, we've been watching you, though not so successfully, since you managed to sneak in thelalithapast us.'
'How did you find out about Jeannette?' Hal said. 'And may I see her?'
'I am sorry; I must say no to your second question,' said Fobo. 'As for the first, it was not until two days ago that we managed to develop a listening device sensitive enough to justify installing it in your rooms. As you know, we are far behind you in some departments.'
'I searched thepukaevery day for a long time,' said Hal. 'Then, when I learned of the stage of development of your electronics, I quit.'
'Meanwhile, our scientists have been busy,' said Fobo. 'The visit of you Earthmen has stimulated us to research in several fields.'
A nurse entered and said, 'Phone, Doctor.'
Fobo left.
Yarrow paced back and forth and smoked another cigarette. Within a minute, Fobo returned.
He said, 'We're going to have company. One of my colleagues, who is watching the ship, tells me Macneff and two Uzzites left in a gig. They should be arriving at the hospital any second now.'
Yarrow stopped in midstride. His jaw dropped. 'Here? How'd they find out?'
'I imagine they have means about which they failed to inform you. Don't be afraid.'
Hal stood motionless. The cigarette, unnoticed, burned until it seared his fingers. He dropped it and crushed it beneath his sole.
Boot heels clicked in the corridor.
Three men entered. One was a tall and gaunt ghost – Macneff, the Archurielite. The others were short and broad-shouldered and clad in black. Their meaty hands, though empty, were hooked, ready to dart into their pockets. Their heavy-lidded eyes stabbed at Fobo and then at Hal.
Macneff strode up to thejoat.His pale blue eyes glared; his lipless mouth was drawn back in a skull's smile.
'You unspeakable degenerate!' he shouted.
His arm flashed, and the whip, jerked out of his belt, cracked. Thin red marks appeared on Yarrow's white face and began oozing blood.
'You will be taken back to Earth in chains and there exhibited as an example of the worst pervert, traitor, and – and–!'
He drooled, unable to find words.
'You – who have passed the Elohimeter, who are supposed to be so pure – you have lusted after and lain with an insect!'
'What!'
'Yes. With a thing that is even lower than a beast of the field! What even Moses did not think of when he forbade union between man and beast, what even the Forerunner could not have guessed when he affirmed the law and set the utmost penalty for it – you have done! You, Hal Yarrow, the pure, the Lamedh-wearer!'
Fobo rose and said in a deep voice, 'Might I suggest and stress that you are not quite right in your zoological classification? It is not the class ofInsectabut the class of theChordata pseudarthropoda,or words to that effect.'
Hal said, 'What?' He could not think.
The wog growleld, 'Shut up. Let me talk.'
He swung to face Macneff. 'You know about her?'
'You areshibthat I know her! Yarrow thought he was getting away with something. But, no matter how clever these unrealists are, they're always tripped up. In this case, it was his asking Turnboy about those Frenchmen that fled Earth. Turnboy, who is very zealous in his attitude toward the Sturch, reported the conversation. It lay among my papers for quite a while. When I came across it, I turned it over to the psychologists. They told me that thejoat'squestion was a deviation from the pattern expected of him; a thing totally irrelevent unless it was connected to something we didn't know about him.
'Moreover, his refusal to grow a beard was enough to make us suspicious. A man was put on his trail. He saw Yarrow buying twice the groceries he should have. Also, when you wogs learned the tobacco habit from us and began making cigarettes too, he bought them from you. The conclusion was obvious. He had a female in his apartment.
'We didn't think it'd be a wog female, for she wouldn't have to stay hidden. Therefore, she must be human. But we couldn't imagine how she got here on Ozagen. It was impossible for him to have stowed her away on theGabriel.She must either have come here in a different ship or be descended from people who had.
'It was Yarrow's talk with Turnboy that furnished the clue. Obviously, the French had landed here and she was a descendant. We didn't know how thejoathad found her. It wasn't important. We'll find out, anyhow.'
'You're due to find out some other things, too,' Fobo said calmly. 'How did you discover she wasn't human?'
Yarrow muttered, 'I've got to sit down.'
19
He swayed to the wall and sank into a chair. One of the Uzzites started to move toward him. Macneff waved the man back and said, 'Turnboy got a wog to read to him a book on the history of man on Ozagen. He came across so many references to thelalithathat the suspicion was bound to rise that the girl might be the one.
'Last week one of the wog physicians, while talking to Turnboy, mentioned that he had once examined alalitha.Later, he said, she had run away. It wasn't hard for us to guess where she was hiding!'
'My boy,' said Fobo, turning to Hal, 'didn't you read We'enai's book?'
Hal shook his head. 'We started it, but Jeannette mislaid it.'
'And doubtless saw to it that you had other things to think of... they are good at diverting a man's mind. Why not? That is their purpose in life.
'Hal, I'll explain. Thelalithaare the highest example of mimetic parasitism known. Also, they are unique among sentient beings. Unique in that all are female.
'If you'd read on in We'enai, you'd have found that fossil evidence shows that about the time that Ozagenian man was still an insectivorous marmoset-like creature, he had in his family group not only his own females but the females of another phylum. These animals looked and probably stank enough like the females of prehomo marmoset to be able to live and mate with them. They seemed mammalian, but dissection would have indicated their pseudoarthropodal ancestry.
'It's reasonable to suppose that these precursors of thelalithawere man's parasites long before the marmosetoid stage. They may have met him when he first crawled out of the sea. Originally bisexual, they became female. And they adapted their shape, through an unknown evolutionary process, to that of the reptile's and primitive mammal's. And so on.
'What we do know is that thelalithawas Nature's most amazing experiment in parasitism and parallel evolution. As man metamorphosed into higher forms, so thelalithakept pace with him. All female, mind you, depending upon the male of another phylum for the continuance of the species.
'It is astonishing the way they become integrated into the prehuman societies, the pithecanthropoid and neanderthaloid steps. Only whenHomo sapiensdeveloped did their troubles begin. Some families and tribes accepted them; others killed them. So they resorted to artifice and disguised themselves as human women. A thing not hard to do – unless they became pregnant.
'In which case, they died.'
Hal groaned and put his hands over his face.
'Painful but real, as our acquaintance Macneff would say,' said Fobo. 'Of course – such a condition required a secret sorority. In those societies where thelalithawas forced to camouflage, she would, once pregnant, have to leave. And perish in some hidden place among her kind, who would then take care of the nymphs' – here Hal shuddered – 'until they were able to go into human cultures. Or else be introduced as foundlings or changelings.
'You'll find quite a tribal lore about them – fables and myths make them central or peripheral characters quite frequently. They were regarded as witches, demons, or worse.
'With the introduction of alcohol in primitive times, a change for the better came to thelalitha.Alcohol made them sterile. At the same time, barring accident, disease, or murder, it made themimmortal.'
Hal took his hands off his face. 'You – you mean Jeannette would have lived – forever? That I cost her – that?'
'She could have lived many thousands of years. We know that some did. What's more, they did not suffer physical deterioration but always remained at the physiological age of twenty-five. Let me explain all this. In due order. Some of what I'm going to tell you will distress you. But it must be said.
'The long lives of thelalitharesulted in their being worshipped as goddesses. Sometimes, they lived so long they survived the downfall of mighty nations that had been small tribes when thelalithafirst joined their groups. Thelalitha,of course, became the repositories of wisdom, wealth, and power. Beligions were established in which thelalithawas the immortal goddess, and the ephemeral kings and priests were her lovers.
'Some cultures outlawed thelalitha.But these either directed the nations they ruled into conquering the people that rejected them or else infiltrated and eventually ruled as powers behind the throne. Being always very beautiful, they became the wives and mistresses of the most influential men. They competed with the human female and beat them at their own game, hands down. In thelalitha,Nature wrought the complete female.
'And so they gained mastery over their lovers. But not over themselves. Though they belonged to a secret society in the beginning, they soon enough split up. They began to identify themselves with the nations they ruled and to use their countries against the others. Moreover, their long lives resulted in youngerlalithabecoming impatient. Besult: assassinations, struggles for power, and so on.
'Also, their influence was technologically too stabilizing. They tried to keep thestatus quoin every aspect of culture, and as a result the human cultures had a tendency to eliminate all new and progressive ideas and the men that espoused them.'
Fobo paused, then said, 'You must realize that most of this is speculative. It's based largely on what the very few human natives we've captured in the jungle have told us. However, we recently discovered some pictographs in a long-buried temple that gave us additional information. So we think our reconstruction of the history of thelalithais valid.
'Oh, by the way, Jeannette didn't have to run away from us. After we'd learned all we could from her, we'd have returned her to her family. We told her we would, but she didn't believe us.'
A wog nurse came out of the operating room and said something to the empathist in a low voice.
Macneff walked by her and obviously tried to eavesdrop. But as the nurse was speaking in Ozagenian, which he did not understand, he continued pacing back and forth. Hal wondered why he, Hal, had not been dragged away at once, why the priest had waited to hear Fobo out. Then, a flash of insight told Hal that Macneff wanted him to hear all about Jeannette and realize the enormity of his deeds.
The nurse went back into the operating room. The Archurielite said loudly, 'Is the beast of the fields dead yet?'
Hal shook as if he had been struck when he heard the worddead.But Fobo ignored the priest.
He spoke to Hal. 'Your larv – that is, your children, have been removed. They are in an incubator. They are...' he hesitated - 'eating well. They will live.'
Hal knew from his tone that it was no use asking about the mother.
Big tears rolled from Fobo's round blue eyes.
'You won't understand what has happened, Hal, unless you comprehend thelalitha'sunique method of reproduction. Three things thelalithaneeds to reproduce. One thing must precede the other two. That primary event is to be infected at the age of puberty by another adultlalitha.This infection is needed to transmit genes.'
'Genes?' said Hal. Even in his shock, he could feel interest and amazement at what Fobo was telling him.
'Yes. Sincelalithareceive no genes from the human males, they must exchange hereditary material between each other. Yet – they must use man as a means.
'Allow and permit me to elucidate. An adultlalithahas three so-called banks of genes. Two are duplicates of each other's chromosomal stuff.
'The third, I will explain in a moment.
'Alalitha'suterus contains ova, the genes of which are duplicated in the bodies of microscopic wrigglers formed in the giant salivary glands in alalitha'smouth.