10000 Light Years From Home Part 11

Bushbaby c.o.c.ked its golden head, listening. "You see? We just pa.s.sed a place with gorgeous fruit, but it'd kill any of us to go down there. If we could just ramplig you down for ten minutes?"

He started to say, "Glad to," forgetting they were telepaths. As his mouth opened, he found himself tumbling through strobe flashes onto a barren dune. He sat up spitting sand. He was in an oasis of stunted cactus trees loaded with bright globes. He tried one. Delicious. He picked. Just as his arms were full, the scene strobed again, and he was sprawled on the Lovepile's floor, his new friends swarming over him.

"Sweet! Sweet!" Ragglebomb bored into the juice.

"Save some for the pod, maybe it'll learn to copy them. It metabolizes stuff it digests," Bushbaby explained with its mouth full. "Basic rations. Very boring."

"Why couldn't you go down there?"

"Don't. All over that desert, things dying of thirst. Torture." He felt the boa flinch. "You are beautiful, No-Pain." Bushbaby nuzzled his ear.

Ragglebomb was picking guitar bridges on his thorax. They all began to sing a sort of seguidilla without words. No instruments here, nothing but their live bodies. Making music with empaths was like making love with them. Touch what he touched, feel what he felt. Totally into his mind. I-we. One. He could never have dreamed this up, he decided, drumming softly on Muscle. The boa amped, mysterioso.

And so began his voyage home in the Lovepile, his new life of joy. Fruits and fondues he brought them, hams and honey, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. World after scruffy world. All different now, on his way home.

"Are there many out here?" he asked lazily. "I never found anyone else, between the stars."

"Be glad," said Bushbaby. "Move your leg." And they told him of the tiny, busy life that plied a far corner of the galaxy, whose pain had made them flee. And of a vast presence Ragglebomb had once encountered before he picked the others up.

"That's where I got the idea for the Rulers bit," Muscle confided. "We need some cheese."

Bushbaby c.o.c.ked his head to catch the minds streaming by them in the abyss.

"How about yoghurt?" It nudged Ragglebomb. "Over that way. Feel it squis.h.i.+ng on their teeth?

Bland, curdy... with just a rien of ammonia, probably their milk pails are dirty."

"Pa.s.s the dirty yoghurt." Muscle closed his eyes.

"We have some great cheese on Earth," he told them. "You'll love it. When do we get there?"Bushbaby squirmed.

"Ah, we're moving right along. But what I get from you, it's weird. Foul blue sky. Dying green.

Who needs that?"

"No!" He jerked up, scattering them. "That's not true! Earth is beautiful!"

The walls jolted, knocking him sidewise.

"Watch it!" boomed Muscle. Bushbaby had grabbed the b.u.t.terfly, petting and crooning to it.

"You frightened his ramplig reflex. Raggle throws things out when he's upset. Tsut, tsut, don't you, baby. We lost a lot of interesting beings that way at first."

"I'm sorry. But you've got it twisted. My memory's a little messed up, but I'm sure. Beautiful. Like amber waves of grain. And purple mountain majesties," he laughed, spreading his arms. "From sea to s.h.i.+ning sea!"

"Hey, that swings!" Raggle squeaked, and started strumming.

And so they sailed on, carrying him home.

He loved to watch Bushbaby listening for the thought beacons by which they steered.

"Catching Earth yet?"

"Not yet awhile. Hey, how about some fantastic seafood?"

He sighed and felt himself tumble. He had learned not to bother saying yes. This one was a laugh, because he forgot that dishes didn't ramplig. He came back in a mess of creamed trilobites and they had a creamed trilobite orgy.

But he kept watching Bushbaby.

"Getting closer?"

"It's a big galaxy, baby." Bushbaby stroked his bald spots. With so much rampligging he couldn't keep any hair. "What'll you do on earth as stimulating as this?"

"I'll show you," he grinned. And later on he told them.

"They'll fix me up when I get home. Reconnect me right."

A shudder shook the Lovepile.

"You want to feel pain?"

"Pain is the obscenity of the universe," Muscle tolled. "You are sick."

"I don't know," he said apologetically. "I can't seem to feel, well, real this way."

They looked at him.

"We thought that was the way your species always felt," said Bushbaby.

"I hope not." Then he brightened. "Whatever it is, they'll fix it. Earth must be pretty soon now, right?"

"Over the sea to Skye!" Bushbaby hummed.

But the sea was long and long, and his moods were hard on the sensitive empaths. Once when he responded listlessly, he felt a warning lurch.

Ragglebomb was glowering at him.

"You want to put me out?" he challenged. "Like those others? What happened to them, by the way?"

Bushbaby winced. "It was dreadful. We had no idea they'd survive so long, outside."

"But I don't feel pain. That's why you rescued me, isn't it? Go ahead," he said perversely. "I don't care. Throw me out. New thrill."

"Oh, no, no, no!" Bushbaby hugged him. Ragglebomb, penitent, crawled under his legs."So you've been popping around the universe bringing live things in to play with and throwing them out when you're bored. Get away," he scolded. "Shallow sensation freaks is all you are. Galactic poltergeists!"

He rolled over and hoisted the beautiful Bushbaby over his face, watching it wiggle and squeal. "Her lips were red, her locks were free, her locks were yellow as gold." He kissed its golden belly. "The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she, who thicks man's blood with cold."

And he used their pliant bodies to build the greatest lovepile yet. They were delighted and did not mind when later on he wept, face-down on Muscle's dark coils.

But they were concerned.

"I have it," Bushbaby declared, tapping him with a pickle. Own-species s.e.x. After all, face it, you're no empath. You need a jolt of your own kind."

"You mean you know where there's people like me? Humans?"

Bushbaby nodded, eyeing him as it listened. "Ideal. Just like I read you. Right over there, Raggle.

And they have a thing they chew-wait-salmoglossa fragrans. Prolongs you-know-what, according to them. Bring some back with you, baby."

Next instant he was rolling through strobes onto tender green. Crushed flowers under him, ferny boughs above, sparkling with sunlight. Rich air rushed into his lungs. He bounced up buoyantly. Before him a parklike vista sloped to a glittering lake on which blew colored sails. The sky was violet with pearly little clouds. Never had he seen a planet remotely like this. If it wasn't Earth, he had fallen into paradise.

Beyond the lake he could see pastel walls, fountains, spires. An alabaster city undimmed by human tears. Music drifted on the sweet breeze. There were figures by the sh.o.r.e.

He stepped out into the sun. Bright silks swirled, white arms went up. Waving to him? He saw they were like human girls, only slimmer and more fair. They were calling! He looked down at his body, grabbed a flowering branch and started toward them.

"Do not forget the salmoglossa," said the voice of Muscle.

He nodded. The girls' b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bobbing, pink-tipped. He broke into a trot.

It was several days later when they brought him back, drooping between a man and a young girl.

Another man walked beside them striking plangently on a harp. Girls and children danced along, and a motherly-looking woman paced in front, all beautiful as peris.

They leaned him gently against a tree and the harper stood back to play. He struggled to stand upright. One fist was streaming blood.

"Good-bye," he gasped. "Thanks."

The strobes caught him sagging, and he collapsed on the Lovepile's floor.

"Aha!" Bushbaby pounced on his fist. "Good grief, your hand! The salmoglossa's all blood." It began to shake out the herbs. "Are you all right now?" Ragglebomb was squeaking softly, thrusting its long tongue into the blood.

He rubbed his head.

"They welcomed me," he whispered. "It was perfect. Music. Dancing. Games. Love. They haven't any medicine because they eliminated all disease. I had five women and a cloud-painting team and some little boys, I think."

He held out his b.l.o.o.d.y blackened hand. Two fingers were missing.

"Paradise," he groaned. "Ice doesn't freezer me, fire doesn't burn. None of it means anything at all, I WANT TO GO HOME.".

There was a jolt.

"I'm sorry," he wept. "Ill try to control myself. Please, please get me back to Earth. It'll be soon, won't it?"There was a silence.

"When?"

Bushbaby made a throat-clearing noise.

"Well, just as soon as we can find it. We're bound to run across it. Maybe any minute, you know."

"What?" He sat up death-faced. "You mean you don't know where it is? You mean we've just been going-noplace?"

Bushbaby wrapped its hands over its ears. "Please! We can't recognize it from your description. So how can we go back there when we've never been there? If we just keep an ear out as we go we'll pick it up, you'll see."

His eyes rolled at them, he couldn't believe it.

"...ten to the eleventh times two suns in the galaxy... I don't know your velocity and range. Say, one per second. That's-that's six thousand years. Oh, no!" He put his head in his b.l.o.o.d.y hands. "I'll never see home again."

"Don't say it, baby." The golden body slid close. "Don't down the trip. We love you, No-Pain."

They were all petting him now. "Happy, sing him! Touch, taste, feel. Joy!"

But there was no joy.

He took to sitting leaden and apart, watching for a sign.

"This time?"

No.

Not yet. Never.

Ten to the eleventh times two... fifty percent chance of finding Earth within three thousand years. It was the scouter all over again.

The lovepile reformed without him, and he turned his face away, not eating until they pushed food into his mouth. If he stayed totally inert, surely they would grow bored with him and put him out. No other hope. Finish me... soon.

They made little efforts to arouse him with fondlings, and now and then a harsh jolt. He lolled unresisting. End it, he prayed. But still they puzzled at him in the intervals of their games. They mean well, he thought. And they miss the stuff I brought them.

Bushbaby was coaxing.

"-first a suave effect, you know. Cryptic. And then a cascade of sweet and sour sparkling over the palate-"

He tried to shut it out. They mean well. Falling across the galaxy with a talking cookbook. Finish me.

"-but the arts of combination," Bushbaby chatted on. "Like moving food; e.g., sentient plants or small live animals, combining flavor with the frisson of movement-"

He thought of oysters. Had he eaten some once? Something about poison. The rivers of Earth. Did they still flow? Even if by some unimaginable chance they stumbled on it, would it be far in the past or future, a dead ball? Let me die.

"-and sound, that's amusing. We've picked up several races who combine musical effects with certain tastes. And there's the sound of oneself chewing, textures and viscosities. I recall some beings who sucked in harmonics. Or the sound of the food itself. One race I caught en pa.s.sant did that, but with a very limited range. Crunchy. Crispy. Snap-crackle-pop. One wishes they had explored tonalities, glissando effects-"

He lunged up.

"What did you say? Snap-crackle-pop?""Why, yes, but-"

"That's it! That's Earth!" he yelled. "You picked up a G.o.dd.a.m.n breakfast-food commercial!"

He felt a lurch. They were scrambling up the wall.

"A what?" Bushbaby stared.