Cottonwood (3 page)

Laughter, as always, to break the tension. Most everyone knew the story, of course, but it was always different to hear it when looking at the ship, frozen in this timeless video, as fresh and as terrible as it had been the day of its arrival. Pollyanna merely flickered a smile. Her gaze remained rapt upon the screen.

“The Cabinet of First Contact was commissioned and made many attempts to communicate and then to enter, but the ship remain silent, closed. At last, come the USS Enterprise.” He paused again to let the appreciate chuckles and whispers run their course. “It brought scientist and linguist and ambassador and all manner of important men and women to make semi-permanent settlement until the mystery of the ship could be solved, but when the great carrier arrive, the ship open. It does not land, does not move. The bug do not emerge. But the ship open and when Mr. Kurtz and his team go up to meet them, they are met without resistance. They enter the ship—” He spread his hands to indicate the insufficiency of words. “—and look in awe upon the faces of beings from another world.”

Soft humming at his elbow, swiftly stifled. Pollyanna blushed and stared at the screen.

“Now I will not bore you all with a faithful recounting of the following days. I am certain you have to study these things once in school already,
nee
? And they are all on file at the IBI museum for those who are interested in such things.” He watched little Pollyanna make a note on her ancient PAS. “I will say only that First Contact did not bring aids to end world hunger or cure disease, only the great responsibility—and great cost—of housing nearly half a million refugees. And so was born the International Bureau of Immigration. We—for you are part of that family now—are a community of many nations, representing no country but only humanity, and seeking to better the lives of those unfortunate strangers who have been stranded here by circumstance.

“For they are stranded. By whom, no one can say; the bug himself seem unable to grasp just how or why they have come. It is believed by our top researchers that the bug are, quite sadly, of a hive-like mentality, where unknown queen or similar intelligence has been demised in their disastrous landing. The remainder are notably weak of will, of mind, of imagination. But it must be admitted we judge them perhaps by human standards, which is a presumption. You will make up your own minds, I hope, but you will always remember as you do so that you are IBI and you will show a professional attitude and professional kindness towards your clients always.”

A hand raised near the back of the room.

“Sir? What, uh, what do we call them? I mean, all I’ve heard is…uh…”

Sheep shifted, eyeing one another.

Van Meyer smiled and said it for them. “Bug.”

“Well…yes.”

“Bug. Roach. Jim Cricket,
ja
. But bug particularly. Bug will do.” He caught Pollyanna’s frown and addressed her kindly, as a grandfather. “In twenty years, we have never been able to make them understand what we mean when we ask for the name of their people. Their minds are not like ours. And yet, we must call them something,
nee
? After twenty years, it cannot continue ‘The Visitors,’ eh? ‘The Travelers?’ ‘The Aliens?’”

“I guess not,” she said. “But bug is…is kind of derogatory, isn’t it?”

“To a degree, from one who use it so, but to look another way, do they not resemble a bug? Eh? Let us examine.”

A nod to Piotr and the video switched. There stood, as large as to life, one of
them
.

It was the closest look any sheep had ever received. No camera was allowed inside the immigration camps, no news-craft allowed to fly over or even near the walls. In days not too long distant, it would have been impossible to keep such secrets, but in these enlightened times, with the anonymity of the internet extinct and agents of even a free press easily detained for treason, IBI’s control over those images available to the public remained absolute. Some illicit photos and videos cropped up now and then, but they were grainy, amateur things that merely tantalized the eye. This one pierced it.

“The adult bug stand 2.3 meters, with a fifteen percent variation to healthy individual height or weight, same as human,
nee
? As you see, body is distinctly arthropod overall, but biped, with many man-like characteristic. Coloring of shell typically appear dull, with green, grey, black or brown base and brighter color overlaid. Certain individuals will have much brighter pigmentation of yellow, red, or blue, and this is not sexual display, as all bug appear to be one gender, which we shall shortly address.

“The eyes are, as you see, binocular, wide-set by our standards, and quite large, but are not insect-like or faceted in any way. I have heard them often compared to human eyes, and indeed, our research suggest their vision is very much like ours. You will notice large and small pair of antennae on top of the head, which is somewhat flat and oblong, as that of mantis. These appear to be used as part of language of the bug and not as sensory organ of any kind. If I magnify—” Piotr did so. “—you can determine several short filaments along the head, which relate in some fashion to the bug’s balance and other senses, particularly to hearing, as they are arranged around the plate which correspond to the bug’s ear. We call them hairs, but they are not truly. The bug is entirely hairless. You will see no nose—”

“How do they smell?” someone whispered, and at least six answered, “Terrible.” There was much laughter. Pollyanna frowned again.

“The mouth is formed by this network of finger-like appendages which hang in front of the throat and assist both in speech and the breaking up of food. Bug language is quite well-developed and their ear for speech quite good. All understand English excellently, and most understand several languages beside, although of course they do not speak it, as they can produce little beyond the sorts of click, chirp, and buzzing sound one would expect of giant insect. Yet they have a language of word as well as sound. Most of our employees find that after immersion, they do not even need the translators. But you will require one to begin.”

Piotr took his cue and heaved himself up to pass them out, each ear-mounted little curlicue in its own baggie with a serial number to be filed with the sheep’s papers.

“They’re quite comfortable,” van Meyer said encouragingly. “Resists water and pressure. Battery life of ten years. You can shower with them, sleep with them, and it is highly recommended that you do not take off at any time while on premises. There have been misunderstandings in the past, regrettable and perhaps avoidable. Please. It is not always possible to comprehend the motives of the bug, but one can at least comprehend his words.”

Pollyanna put hers on, right there in the auditorium. Precious child.

“I will warn you that in effort to as fully enhance the translator’s usefulness, we have integrated many rather offensive words and phrases. I apologize to our members of delicate ear, but we at IBI are interested in accuracy foremost. It is not our place to impose moral standard upon the speech of the bug, which, like many of low intelligence and imagination, tend to be vulgar. And now we move on.”

A gesture, and Piotr returned to the video equipment and pulled the bug’s head out to a full-body shot once more.

“Observe please. The bug has no bone, but exoskeleton of hard and extremely durable plates of a chitinoid structure, similar in composition to that of crab or insect, but much stronger. Although the plates overlap in most areas, there can be found several joints or seams along the body, where are pliant spans of sensory skin. Although you might imagine this make the bug stiff and immobile, they are surprisingly agile and much, much faster and stronger than a human being.”

The next several minutes showed a variety of bugs in motion—leaping over vans, running over rooftops, throwing things, snatching things, slapping things…

“I must warn you, the following images become quite graphic,” van Meyer murmured, and immediately afterward, the bug scuffling with soldiers on the deck of the Enterprise seized a human head and twisted it right off the man’s shoulders.

Gasps and squeaks from the audience. Pollyanna’s mouth dropped open.

After that, the images came more rapidly, assaulting the eyes with unblinking, uncensored violence. A bug, seizing the human arm that has just shoved him and kicking once, still holding that arm with a belligerent stare while the viewing eye tries to reconcile there being no man attached anymore, no man anywhere in frame, just a spray of blood. Screen-shift to a bug grabbing the door of an armored IBI van and ripping it away in a squeal of metal. Screen-shift to a bug leaping up and kicking at what appears to be a metal wall, just one kick to dent it, three kicks to break through. Screen-shift to a bug snatching up a soldier and swinging him overhead like a sack of flour, swinging and slamming him down so that he split, yes, exactly like a sack of flour, red flour in a red cloud that settles as the bug straightens and wipes a hand over its clicking, alien face.

Lastly, van Meyer’s personal favorite, a bug listening attentively to a screaming soldier’s tirade, accepting pushing, accepting blows from the butt of a gun, and then reaching up, quite calmly, casually, to take the soldier by his flak jacket just as one takes the lapels of a dinner coat, take and
rip
it entirely open, then kicking a neat round hole through which exiting portal one can clearly see, on slow frame, first the man’s somewhat mangled heart ejecting and then the bug’s clenched foot.

“Dear
God
,” someone said. Not Pollyanna.

“We have much fewer of these misunderstandings since we develop the translator,” van Meyer demurred, and there followed a mad plastic rush as the sheep put them on.

The image on the screen returned to that of the bug simply standing, staring into the camera with eyes that were so much like that of humans…and which were not entirely defeated, no matter how quiet or still he stood. Van Meyer gave his new sheep some time to look with new eyes on this docile monster and then went on.

“You will notice the arms and legs also being quite long and slender. And strong, as we’ve seen, far out of proportion to their size. Please note the sharp, thorn-like protrusions along the bug’s forearms and thighs, along the hip and side of chest, and especially those along the underside of forearm and elbow-joint. These are not poisonous, as I have heard many rumors, but are very sharp, so be careful when engaging bug to remain facing them, for as I’ve said, they have no sensory perception in their shell and can swiftly cause very bad cuts brushing sidelong against you.”

“Now what are those?” someone asked. “The twitchy things on its stomach? Are those…more arms, or…?”

“You refer to small, jointed appendages here along the lower region of the body? These we call plumapods, which they tell me mean ‘feathered foot’, but these are neither feet nor feathers. Some also call them claspers, as they resemble that appendage somewhat, although their function is very different. True insect clasper is used in reproduction. These, we surmise are involved somehow to bug’s sense of smell. You see when he extend them fully, there are brushes along the tip which contain very powerful chemical receptors. Very delicate, you see how he keep them snug up, just so, against his shell where it fit into small concavity evolved for this protective purpose. Although we do not understand precisely why, we do know that removal of these appendages has caused death in many of the bug.”

Pollyanna looked up.

“But please, we are getting ahead of ourselves.” Van Meyer brought out a pen-light to pinpoint specific areas on the viewing screen. “The body of the bug can be compared to that of many Earth insects, most notably the ant, at least in outward appearance. It has three main regions: the thorax, or chest; the abdomen; and the metasomal node. Now the thorax, the chest, is comparable to human ribcage in size, but waist tapers to exceedingly narrow, here, at what science calls the petiole, and this is because the bugs possess very few actual organs. Rather, they have very complex blood and very large heart whose many chambers do the work also of stomach and lung to metabolize oxygen, food, and all his needs. He requires only a very few extraneous glands in addition, and of course, the bladder and sexual apparatus, contained here, in the lower abdomen.”

“I thought they were drones,” someone said.

“
Nee
, they are unisexual, having one gender, which would appear to be the male gender, so indicated by certain sexual organ which the bug carry internally.”

Piotr, in the corner, reached down with a toothy grin and gripped his crotch. Some sheep tittered. Van Meyer did not approve.

“And so, as our language does not admit unisexual personal pronoun readily, for sake of simplicity, we call the bug ‘he’. But although the bugs do not mate in a sexual fashion, they can and do reproduce. Sadly. Now, the metasomal node contains mainly the posterior chamber of the heart and certain glands which circulate digestive juices and nutriment back up into the abdominal region for expulsion. The legs attach at the post-petiole segment, between the abdomen and metasomal node, which is itself entirely inflexible. Please again note the thorn-like protrusions here and here and remember that these are not venomous, but can inflict considerable damage.”

Pollyanna raised her hand. “Sadly?”

“My dear, the population control of the bug has been our greatest challenge from the beginning. Proceeding, the leg is the leg of a large, powerful insect, as that of a cricket or a—”

“Why?”

“Excuse?”

“Why are you controlling their population growth? I mean—” She blushed again, not so prettily. “If they live here now, shouldn’t they be free to—”

“Hell, no,” someone else said, and there were sheepish bleats of agreement. “I’m sorry, lady, I’m all for peace and love and all that, but I want Earth for humans. I don’t want a bunch of bugs breeding my grandkids off the planet.”

Pollyanna seemed surprised. “But…They live here now. If someone came to your house and told you—”