The Test Colony by Winston K. Marks (best way to read ebooks txt) 📗

after the first week they were still carrying them around, finding choice morsels of fruit for them, fanning off the insects and singing them to sleep with their new-found abilities to make music.

Benson noticed it and called a meeting of the secret six. He said, "Our little program had better work this time or we are in for it. Apparently this koodi animal that Sam had the tussle with is the principal population control, and now the mothers are packing their kids around until they're old enough to fight off the koodi."

Donnegan shook his head. "Damned if I can find out where we slipped up. Frost and I just finished a series of tests with native ova and human sperm. They don't mix. Of course, we didn't expect them to, but what in hell is the answer?"

I hadn't known of this project. I said, "You didn't think that our male colonists—"

Benson scowled with exasperation. "We don't know what to think, Sam! We sterilized 481 native males last fall, and the babies are just as thick as ever."

I said, "Well, we got to 496 of them this time. That should do it for sure. Joe says he'll keep a lookout for any males without the two stains on his shoulder."

Benson narrowed his eyes. "You know, it strikes me that Joe is being awfully helpful. What reason did you give him for wanting this information?"

"He didn't ask," I said.

Our 12-month year was composed of 37-day months, except February which we shorted six days to make it come out even.

According to this calendar the "May-flies" came in July, just a month before our first anniversary. The little winged insects were a seasonal life-form, one more item that escaped the exploratory party, and for which we were unprepared.

They came out of the north, and they struck us before we could take shelter in the ship or our plastic-screened huts. They were a little smaller than flying ants, and even their long wings were jet-black. Their bites were infinitesimal, but each one smarted like a prick with a hot needle.

In the midst of the confusion of rescuing babies and herding everyone in doors, I noticed that all the natives had disappeared into the forest. Everyone had suffered a hundred bites or more, and we were sorry, swollen sights. Sue insisted that I cover myself and make a run for the clinic to see if Dr. Bailey had any remedies for the bites. Richard Joseph was crying loudly from the irritation, so I agreed.

It was only 75 yards to the clinic, and I made it without collecting many more stings. But the doctors had nothing to offer. They were dabbing various salves, astringents and pastes on test patches of their own skin, but nothing seemed to have any effect at all.

"All we hope," said Sorenson, "is that the flies aren't microbe-carriers."

I started out the door to return then stepped back and peered through the screen. The forest was erupting with natives. They staggered into the clearing, headed for the center of it and sank down as if with great weariness. On and on they came until the ground among our buildings was literally paved with their prone bodies.

"Poor devils." Bailey murmured as the clouds of flies continued to sweep through our village. "Nothing we can do, though. I wonder why they come out in the open? You'd think they had better protection in the trees."

I had no answers, so I covered my head again and made a dash for my own hut. Inside I brushed off the clinging flies and stamped on them. "The medics don't have any help for us," I said. Then I saw him.

Sue was struggling to hold Joe on his feet. His arms were draped loosely over her shoulders, and for a second I couldn't decided whether he was ill or making a pass at Sue.

I pulled him off her by one shoulder. He swung around and toppled into my arms. Remarkably few insect bites showed under the transparent haze of golden hair, but he reeked of tala.

"You're drunk," I yelled at him. "A lot of help you are at a time like this!"

"Tala," he said from loose lips. "Much tala."

"You've had much tala, all right!" I said disgusted.

Sue said, "We've got to let him stay in here, Sam. The flies will eat him alive out there." She went to the window and knocked the flies from the outside of the screen. Then she screamed. I thought she had just discovered the massed natives, but she kept on screaming until I went to her and looked out.

In the late afternoon sun, fuzzy little brown animals were waddling out of the forest, closing in on the 900 or more natives lying senseless in the clearing. Koodi! Dozens of them.

I forgot my screaming wife, my crying infant, the drunken wife-stealer slumped on the floor. I forgot the torture of my own stings. All I remember is snatching my pistol from its holster that hung by the door and plunging out and pulling the trigger until fire ceased to come out of it. Then I was kicking and smashing with a tree limb, and every blow smashed one of the vile little ghouls into the grass. I thought I saw Benson firing and kicking, but I blacked out before I could be sure.

I regained consciousness with the flies still keening in my ears. Sue was calling my name and slapping me sharply in the face. Joe was trying to pull me to my feet, but the last thing I remember is the both of us collapsing to the ground.

I awoke days later with a burning fever and gloriously drunken sensation of floating. Joe brought a fruit to me when he saw I was stirring. I drank the thin, tangy juice in one breath and sank back into a deep sleep again.

My next drink came from the long, slender fingers of a pretty little female native. This time it was water, and I stayed awake. Joe came in, saw I was awake and came back in a few minutes with Benson and Dr. Bailey.

They both looked terrible, Benson especially. Bailey said, "Take it easy. Sue's at the clinic. She and the baby are all right, but you damned near didn't make it."

Benson said, "Can you talk?"

I cleared my throat and decided I could. He waved Joe and the female out. Then he and Bailey sat down beside me. I asked, "Any casualties?"

"Two of our babies and thirty-six native babies. Some of the koodi came in after dark."

It sounded strange, Benson's listing native casualties with our own.

The memory of the koodi attack brought a wave of nausea over me. I said, "Benson, I'm sorry, but I'm all done trying to murder Joe's race. I want no further part of it."

Benson's face was thin and drawn, and he stared at the floor. "If we haven't murdered it already," he said, "there will be no more attempts while I am in charge." He covered his face with his hands. "Bailey. Tell him, Bailey."

The doctor's voice was gravelly and weak. "If it hadn't been for the natives we'd all have died. The venom from the flies paralyzed everyone the second day after the swarm hit us. The flies were gone the next morning, but every soul in the colony passed out. Joe and his friends took care of us, poured tala down our throats and fed us."

"But they were soused," I said.

"Their only defense against the flies. The little black devils left the natives pretty well alone, and it appears that the tala was responsible. Could be that the stuff is what neutralized the toxin, too. They must have poured a gallon of it down me, judging from the empty skins by my bed. At any rate, they kept us alive until we could get up and feed ourselves."

"Why did they come into the clearing when they drank the tala?" I asked.

Bailey said, "Joe told us that the day he saw Sue kill the koodi that was attacking you, he got the idea that he should do something about them himself. Through his efforts the natives no longer take the little devils as an inevitable evil. They kill them wherever they find them now. And when they had to get drunk to save themselves from the flies, Joe passed the word for them to head for the clearing. The koodi usually avoid the sunlight, but it was late in the afternoon. They came anyway."

"Phil," I said, "did I see you out there with me, killing the little bastards?"

He nodded silently.

"You had changed your mind about the natives at that time?"

"I—I suppose so. Don't rub it in, Sam. It's hard enough to live with the thought of how wrong I was. All I can do now is pray that whatever failed in our first try failed again. Joe's people have made the human race look pretty dismal. They have every right to their planet, and if we are foolish enough to go native, well—at least we have a stronger survival instinct."

At that point Susan came in carrying Richard. He had the hiccoughs. Sue kissed me. "Richard just drew his ration of sterile tala from the clinic. He still has a slight fever. But thanks to Joe and Harmony—"

"Harmony? Who's that?"

"The native girl who helped Joe nurse us. Her name is really Hah-ah-arm-ig-hin-ih-hee, or something like that. She answers to Harmony, though."

And she did. Hearing her name the little golden girl came through the door towing Joe by one hand.

I said, "One of your favorites, Joe?"

He ran a caressing, four-fingered hand over her shoulder. "I like her," he admitted. "She wants to call me husband like Sue calls you."

Bailey smiled. "It seems there is a new fad among the natives. Something like monogamy, I understand."

I said, "What do you think of the idea, Joe?"

He thought it over. "I have not made up my mind."

Sue pressed him, "Why not marry Harmony, Joe?"

In the blunt manner in which he so often made his curious revelations, Joe blurted out, "Because I am in much demand among all the females. It is—very pleasant."

Bailey's eyes widened. He ordered, "Bend over, Joe."

Joe obliged so we could all examine his back. There were two brown stains on his shoulder blades as there should be, but Bailey was not satisfied. He poked a finger into them and examined the skin under the hair. "Mango pitch!" he announced. "Stained clean down to the skin. Did you do that, Joe?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I knew you would force me to go into the ship with the others if I didn't have the stain."

Benson looked up, shocked. "Then you—you knew what we were trying to do?"

"Yes. You and Samrogers spoke of it outside the hut one day. You thought I was asleep. Some of your words puzzled me, so I stayed away from the ship. Then I found out what they meant."

"But you helped us get the others to go into the ship!"

"It was what you wanted," Joe said simply. "Later, when we went south, the females saw that only Joe's favorites continued to have babies. So Joe became very—popular."

I said, "You mean they figured it out?"

Joe smiled. "Did you think we do not know about—" he paused to dredge among his amazing store of human idioms, "—the facts of life?"

Bailey shook his head. "What a man! What a race! Think what they would be if they had a human's survival instinct!"

"And thumbs," I added.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Test Colony, by Winston Marks