Exceptions to Reality_ Stories.

by Alan Dean Foster.

Introduction.

There was a time when writers of short fiction used to be able to make a living at it. Back in the heyday of the slicks and pulps, the 1930s and '40s, magazines vied with radio, sports, and going out to the movies as a major arena of popular entertainment. Nowadays magazines containing fiction are an endangered species. Shifting short fiction to websites has not proven the savior of the genre some thought it might be. It may yet turn out to be the case, perhaps when soundtracks and ill.u.s.trations are added. But at present the auguries are not good, the entrails being read less than sanguine.

While novels remain highly popular, the market for short fiction of every kind appears to be on the wane. I find this surprising. Today's denizens of planet Earth, raised on ever-briefer and more compacted bursts of information delivered via the Net and the ever-accelerated editing of the visual image, would seem ideally conditioned to accept their printed fiction in equivalently more concise packages. Yet the fantasies that sell best have mutated into gargantuan doorstops spanning multiple volumes. As for science fiction, it largely continues to resist the trend toward obesity, though the sp.a.w.ning of sequels (an inclination to which I, too, must plead guilty) continues unabated.

Therefore whence then the short story, that polished gem so demanding of readers' attention but not of their time?

It has been saved for now, not by the brave magazines that continue to hang on in the face of ebbing coteries of truly dedicated readers, but by the anthology. Buyers who shun the magazine section of a bookstore, and never seek out magazines online, who don't want to be bothered with subscribing to anything anything anymore, be it anymore, be it a.n.a.log a.n.a.log or the Fruit-of-the-Month Club, will find anthologies of short fiction conveniently included alongside the monolithic novels on bookstore racks and available in the book section of their favorite Web retailer. That is where short fantasy and science fiction continues to survive and, on a modest scale, even prosper. or the Fruit-of-the-Month Club, will find anthologies of short fiction conveniently included alongside the monolithic novels on bookstore racks and available in the book section of their favorite Web retailer. That is where short fantasy and science fiction continues to survive and, on a modest scale, even prosper.

I love the magazines. I miss the ill.u.s.trations they provide (why can't we have ill.u.s.trated anthologies in the United States as they do in Europe?) and their sense of immediacy. But they do not wear well, they don't fit on bookshelves cleanly alongside all those bloated epics (where are the magazine publishers who have modified the size of their 'zines to match that of the standard hardbound novel?), and their built-in impermanence makes them look and feel cheap. Readers today like their purchases to have heft and solidity. Books continue to provide that extra tactile bonus. Magazines do not.

Marketing isn't my job, though. I just continue to write short stories and hope that whatever the venue, readers will continue to find them.

I'm pleased that you found these.

ALAN D DEAN F FOSTER,.

Prescott, Arizona, 2006

The m.u.f.fin Migration

Deep-s.p.a.ce explorers struggling to survive on a new world. Bizarre alien life-forms, sometimes friendly, often-times not. Issues of survival, interpersonal conflict, malfunctioning equipment, the impossibility of rescue in the event of harrowing circ.u.mstances-all these are tropes of the adventure science-fiction story that existed even before the arrival of Amazing Stories Amazing Stories in 1926. That they are old, even h.o.a.ry, does not automatically render any of them invalid or useless as plot points in the telling of a tale. Or as John W. Campbell, editor of in 1926. That they are old, even h.o.a.ry, does not automatically render any of them invalid or useless as plot points in the telling of a tale. Or as John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding/a.n.a.log, Astounding/a.n.a.log, used to prefer to say when he found a good old-fashioned used to prefer to say when he found a good old-fashioned story story that he liked, "I think you've got a pretty good yarn here." that he liked, "I think you've got a pretty good yarn here."

A good story is a good story. I see the proof of it in the faces of very young readers whenever the occasion arises for me to read to them. They respond to the same elements as their ancestors have down through the millennia. Danger, new discoveries, the need to cooperate in order to survive-these are fundamentals of adventure storytelling that have existed since Ur-storyteller Norg first enthralled listeners around the cave fire with tales of what really lay behind those mysterious lights that appeared in the sky every night.

Today we look up at those very same stars with a good deal more understanding of their true nature. But our science is not yet all-encompa.s.sing, our knowledge far from absolute. Those stars still hold many mysteries, and where there is mystery there is always room for adventure. We know now for a certainty that around those stars...o...b..t other worlds. Perhaps some that are much like our own. On those planets we can yet hope to experience the adventures that Norg and his fellow myth-spinners first began to envision.

We might even imagine that one of those still-unknown alien worlds could be home to creatures as strange as m.u.f.fins...

It was a beautiful day on Hedris. But then, Bowman reflected as he stood on the little covered porch he and LeCleur had fashioned from sc.r.a.ps of shipping materials, every day for the past four months had been beautiful. Not overwhelming like the spectacular mornings on Barabas, or stunningly evocative like the sunsets on New Riviera; just tranquil, temperate, and bursting with the crisp fresh tang of unpolluted air, green growing gra.s.ses, and a recognition of the presence of unfettered, unfenced life-force. beautiful day on Hedris. But then, Bowman reflected as he stood on the little covered porch he and LeCleur had fashioned from sc.r.a.ps of shipping materials, every day for the past four months had been beautiful. Not overwhelming like the spectacular mornings on Barabas, or stunningly evocative like the sunsets on New Riviera; just tranquil, temperate, and bursting with the crisp fresh tang of unpolluted air, green growing gra.s.ses, and a recognition of the presence of unfettered, unfenced life-force.

In addition to the all-pervasive, piquant musk of millions of m.u.f.fins, of course.

The m.u.f.fins, as the two planetary advance agents had come to call them, were by incalculable orders of magnitude the dominant life-form on Hedris. They swarmed in inconceivable numbers over its endless gra.s.sy plains, burrowed deep into its unbelievably rich topsoil, turned streams and rivers brown with their bathing, frolicking bodies. Fortunately for Bowman and LeCleur, the largest of them stood no more than fifteen centimeters high, not counting the few thicker, lighter-hued bristles that protruded upward and beyond the otherwise dense covering of soft brown fur. A m.u.f.fin had two eyes, two legs, a short fuzzy blob of a tail, and an oval mouth filled with several eruptions of tooth-like bone designed to make short work of the diverse variety of half-meter-high gra.s.s in which they lived. They communicated, fought, and cooed to one another via appealing sequences of chirruping, high-pitched peeping sounds.

It was a good thing, Bowman reflected as he inhaled deeply of the fresh air that swept over the benign plains of Hedris, that the local gra.s.ses were as fecund as the m.u.f.fins, or the planet would have been stripped bare of anything edible millions of years ago. Even though a patient observer could actually watch the gra.s.s grow, it remained a constant source of amazement to him and his partner that the local vegetation managed to keep well ahead of the perpetually foraging m.u.f.fins.

The uncountable little b.a.l.l.s of brown-and-beige fur were not the only native browsers, of course. On a world as fertile as Hedris, there were always ecological niches to fill. But for every kodout, pangalta, and slow-moving, thousand-toothed jerabid, there were a thousand m.u.f.fins. No, he corrected himself. Ten thousand, maybe more. Between the higher gra.s.s and the deeper burrows it was impossible to get an accurate account, even with surveys conducted with the aid of mini-satellites.

Such qualified stats filled the reports he and LeCleur filed. They had another five months in which to refine and perfect their figures, hone their observations, and codify their opinions. The House of Novy Churapcha, the industrial-commercial concern that had set them up on Hedris, was anxious to put together a bid and stake its claim in front of the Commonwealth concession courts before any of the other great trading Houses or public companies got wind of the new discovery. By keeping their outpost on Hedris tiny, isolated, and devoid of contact for almost a year, the managers hoped to avoid the unwanted attention of nosy compet.i.tors.

So far the strategy seemed to have worked. In the seven months since the fabrication crew, working around the clock, had erected the outpost, not even a stray communication had come the way of the two agents. That was fine with Bowman. He didn't mind the isolation. He and LeCleur were trained to deal with it. And they were very well compensated for maintaining their lack of offworld contact.

A few clouds were gathering. There might be an afternoon rain shower, he decided. If it materialized, it would be gentle, of course, like everything else on Hedris. No dangerous lightning, and just enough distant thunder to be atmospheric. Then the sun would come out, attended by the inevitable rainbow.

The smoky-sweet smell of m.u.f.fin on the grill reached him from inside, and he turned away from the brightening panorama. It was LeCleur's week to do the cooking, and his partner had long since mastered multiple ways of preparing the eminently edible little indigenes. Not only were the mult.i.tudinous m.u.f.fins harmless, cute beyond words, and easy to catch, but their seared meat was tender and highly palatable, with a sugary, almost honeyed flavor to the whitish flesh that was nothing at all like chicken. Tastewise, it easily surpa.s.sed anything in their store of prepackaged concentrates and dehydrates. There wasn't a lot of meat on a m.u.f.fin, but then, neither was there a shortage of the hopping, preoccupied, forever foraging two-legged creatures.

The slim, diminutive humanoid natives who were the dominant species on Hedris virtually lived on them, and lived well. Only their metabolism kept them thin, Bowman reflected as he closed the front door of the station behind him. Overawed by the far more ma.s.sive humans, the native Akoe were occasional visitors to the outpost. They were invariably polite, courteous, and quietly eager to learn all they could about their extraordinary visitors. Their language was a simple one. With the aid of electronic teaching devices, both experienced field agents had soon mastered enough of it to carry on a rudimentary conversation. The Akoe were always welcome at the outpost, though sometimes their quiet staring got on Bowman's nerves. An amused LeCleur never missed an opportunity to chide him about it.

"How's it look outside?" LeCleur was almost as tall as Bowman, but not nearly as broad or muscular. "Let me guess: clear and warm, with a chance of a sprinkle later in the day."

"What are you, psychic?" Grinning, Bowman sat down opposite his friend and partner. The platter of grilled m.u.f.fin, neatly sliced, sizzled atop a warmer in the center. It was ringed by reconst.i.tuted bread, b.u.t.ter, jams, scrambled rehydrated eggs from three different kinds of fowl, and two tall self-chilling pitchers flamboyant with juice. Coffee and tea arrived in the form of the self-propelled carafes that approached the men whenever they verbally expressed their individual thirst.

"Thought we might run a predator census between rivers Six EW and Eight NS today." Having finished his meal, LeCleur was adding sweetener to his hot mug of high-grown tea.

Bowman was amenable to the suggestion. "Maybe we'll see another volute." They'd only encountered one of the pig-sized, loop-tailed carnivores so far, and that from a distance.

The agent was smearing rehydrated blackberry jam on his toast when the perimeter alarm went off. Neither man was alarmed.

"I'll get it." A resigned LeCleur rose from his seat. "My turn."

While Bowman finished the last of his breakfast, LeCleur activated the free-ranging heads-up. A cylindrical image appeared in the middle of the room, a perfect floating replica in miniature of a 360-degree view outside and around the outpost. A spoken command from LeCleur caused the image to enlarge and focus on the source of the alarm. This was followed by an order to shut down the soft but insistent whine.

The agent chuckled into the ensuing silence as he recognized the slender standing figure that had set off the alert. A combination of experience and study allowed him to instantly recognize the expression on the alien's face: slight bewilderment. "It's only Old Malakotee."

Wiping his mouth, Bowman rose. "Let him in and we'll see what he wants." It was always interesting and instructive to observe the elderly native's reaction to the many miracles the outpost contained. Also fun. He and LeCleur had few enough diversions.

Precisely enunciated directives caused the circ.u.mferential viewer to be replaced by a floating command board. In seconds LeCleur had shut down the station's external defenses, rotated the bridge to cross the deep artificial ravine that encircled the outpost, and opened the front door. By the time Bowman was finishing up the dishes, the Akoe elder had arrived at the entrance.

Old Malakotee was a venerable leader among his people, wizened and much respected. The Akoe were led not by one chief but by an a.s.sembly of elected seniors. Decisions were made by group vote. All very democratic, LeCleur mused as he greeted the alien in his own language. Malakotee responded in kind but declined to enter, though he could not keep his eyes from roving. Nor did he accept the offer of one of the chairs that sat invitingly on the porch. His much slighter, smaller body and nearly nonexistent backside tended to find themselves engulfed by the ma.s.sive human furniture. Also, he never knew quite what to do with his tail. It switched back and forth as he chattered, the tuft of kinky black hair at the tip swatting curious flying arthropods away.

Dark intelligent eyes peered out from beneath smooth brows. The alien's face was hairless, but the rest of his body was covered with a fine charcoal-gray down. When he opened his mouth, an orifice that was proportionately much wider than that of a comparably sized human, LeCleur could see how the stubby incisors alternated with flattened grinding teeth. In place of a nose was a small trunk with three flexible tips that the Akoe could employ as a third, if very short, hand.

A cloak comprising the skins of many native animals, especially that of the ubiquitous m.u.f.fin, was draped loosely over his slim form. The garment was decorated with bits of carved bone, handmade beads of exceptional quality-the two humans had already traded for samples-and shiny bits of cut and worked sh.e.l.l. The Akoe were very dexterous and possessed substantial artistic skill. Necklaces hung from Old Malakotee's throat while bracelets jangled on his wrists. He leaned on a ceremonial kotele staff, the wood elaborately garnished with feathers, beads, and paint.

"Thanking you for offer to come into your hut." The native had to tilt his head back to meet the much taller human's eyes. "I not stay long today. Come to tell you that my people, they are moving now."

LeCleur was openly surprised. Recovering from their initial shock and stupefaction at the humans' arrival, the Akoe had been a fixture on the sh.o.r.es of River One NS ever since. Calling for his partner to join them, the agent pressed their visitor for an explanation.

"The Akoe are moving? But where, and why?"

Raising his primitively florid staff, the elder turned and pointed. "Go north and west soon. Long trek." Bowman appeared on the porch, wiping his hands against his pants as Malakotee finished. "Find safety in deep caverns."

"Safety?" Bowman made a face. "What's this about 'safety'? Safety from what?"

The elder turned solemn eyes to the even bigger human. "From migration, of course. Is time of year. When migration over, Akoe come back to river."

The two men exchanged a glance. "What migration?" LeCleur asked their pensive visitor. "What is migrating?" Uncertain, he scanned the vast, barely undulating plain that extended in all directions beyond the outpost's perimeter.

"The m.u.f.fins. Is time of year. Soon now, they migrate."

A modest herd of less than a hundred thousand of the small brown browsers was cl.u.s.tered in the gra.s.s in front of the outpost, grazing peacefully. Their familiar soft peep-peeping filled the morning air. LeCleur watched as several, each no bigger than his closed fist, hopped as close as they dared to the edge of the steep-sided ravine that surrounded the station to graze on the ninic.u.mb flowers that were growing there.

"We'll see you when you come back, then."

"No, no!" Old Malakotee was uncharacteristically insistent. "I come warn you." He gestured emphatically. "You come with Akoe. You big skypeople good folk. Come with us. We keep you safe during migration."

Bowman smiled condescendingly to the native, whose appearance never failed to put him in mind of an anorexic Munchkin. "That's very kind of you and your people, Malakotee, but Gerard and I are quite comfortable here. We have protections you can't see and wouldn't understand even if I tried to explain them to you."

The miniature tripart.i.te snout in the center of the Akoe's face twitched uneasily. "Malakotee know you skypeople got many wondrous things. You show Malakotee plenty. But you no understand. This is ixtex," he explained, using the native word for the bipedal m.u.f.fins, "migration!"

"So you've told us. I promise you, we'll be all right. Would you like some tea?" The chemical brew that was Terran tea had been shown to produce interesting, wholly pleasurable reactions within the Akoe body.

Ordinarily Old Malakotee, like any Akoe, would have jumped at the offer. But not this morning. Stepping down from the porch, he gestured purposefully with his staff. Beads jangled and bounced against the rose-hued, dark-streaked wood.

"I tell you. You come with Akoe, we take care of you. You stay here"-he made the Akoe gesture for despair-"no good." Reaching the ground, he promptly launched into a slow-spinning, head-bending, tail-flicking tribal chant-dance. When he was through, he saluted one final time with his ornamented staff before turning his back on them and striding deliberately away from the outpost.

As LeCleur called forth the heads-up and rotated the bridge shut behind the retreating native, Bowman pondered what they had just seen. "Interesting performance. Wonder if it had any special significance?"

LeCleur, who was more of a xenologist than his partner, banished the command panel display with a word and nodded. "That was the 'Dance for the Dead.' He was giving us a polite send-off."

"Oh." Bowman squinted at the sky. Just another lovely day on Hedris, as always. "I'll get the skimmer ready for the census."

The Akoe had been gone for just over a week when LeCleur was bitten. Bowman looked up from his work as his partner entered. The bite was not deep, but the thin bright line of blood running down the other man's leg was clearly visible. It emerged from beneath the hem of his field shorts to stain his calf. Plopping himself down in a chair, LeCleur put the first-aid kit on the table and flicked it open. As he applied antiseptic spray and then coagulator, Bowman looked on with casual interest.

"Run into something?"

A disgruntled, slightly embarra.s.sed LeCleur finished treating the wound with a dose of color-coded epider-mase. "Like h.e.l.l. A d.a.m.n m.u.f.fin bit me."

His partner grunted. "Like I said: run into something?"

"I did not run into it. I was hunting for burrowing arthropods in the gra.s.s over in the east quad when I felt something sharp. I looked back, and there was this little furry s.h.i.tball gnawing on my leg. I had to swat it off. It bounced once, scrambled back to its feet, and shot off into the gra.s.s." He closed the first-aid kit. "Freakish."

"An accident, yeah." Bowman couldn't keep himself from grinning. "It must have mistaken your leg for the mother of all casquak seeds."

"It wasn't the incident that was freaky." LeCleur was not smiling. "It was the m.u.f.fin. It had sharp teeth."

Bowman's grin faded. "That's impossible. We've examined, not to mention eaten, hundreds of m.u.f.fins since we've been here. Not one of them had sharp teeth. Their chewing mechanism is strictly basal molaric dent.i.tion, evolved to grind up and process vegetation."

His partner shook his head slowly. "I saw the teeth, Jamie. Sharp and pointed. Saw them and felt them. And there was something funny about its eyes, too."

"That's a description that'll look nice and formal in the records. 'Funny' how?"

Clearly upset, LeCleur pursed his lips. "I don't know. I didn't get a good look. They just struck me as funny." He tapped his leg above the now hermetized bite. "This didn't."

"Well, we know they're not poisonous." Bowman turned back to his work. "So it was a freak m.u.f.fin. A break in the m.u.f.fin routine. An eclectic m.u.f.fin. I'm sure it was an isolated incident and won't happen again."

"It sure won't." LeCleur rose and extended his mended leg. "Because next time, you're doing the periphery arthropod survey."

It was a week later when Bowman, holding his coffee, walked out onto the porch, sat down in one of the chairs, and had the mug halfway to his lips when something he saw made him pause. Lowering the container, he stared for a long moment before activating the com b.u.t.ton attached to the collar of his shirt.

"Gerard, I think you'd better come here. I'm on the porch."

A dozy mumble responded. The other agent was sleeping in. Bowman continued to nag his partner until he finally appeared, rubbing at his eyes and grumbling. His vision and mind cleared quickly enough as soon as he was able to share his partner's view.

On the far edge of the ravine, m.u.f.fins were gathering. Not in the familiar, tidily s.p.a.ced herd cl.u.s.ter in which they spent the night seeking protection from roving carnivores, nor in the irregular pattern they employed for browsing, but in dense knots of wall-to-wall brown fur. More m.u.f.fins were arriving every minute, crowding together, filling in the gaps. And from the hundreds, going on thousands, there rose an unexpectedly steady, repet.i.tive peep-peeping that was somehow intimidating in its idiosyncratic sonority.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" LeCleur finally murmured.

Bowman remembered to take a drink of his coffee before pulling the scope from its pocket on the side of the chair. What he saw through the lens was anything but rea.s.suring. He pa.s.sed it to his partner. "Take a look for yourself."

LeCleur raised the instrument. The view it displayed resolved into groups of two to three m.u.f.fins, bunched so tightly together it seemed impossible they could breathe, much less peep. Each showed signs of swelling, their compact bodies having puffed up an additional 10 percent, the brown fur bristling. Their eyes-LeCleur had seen harbingers of that wild, collective red glare in the countenance of the one that had bit him a week ago. When they opened their mouths to peep, the change that had taken place within was immediately apparent. Instead of a succession of smooth, white eruptions of bone, the diminutive jaws were now filled with a mixture of grinding projections and triangular, a.s.sertively sharp-edged canines. It was as if the creatures had visited en ma.s.se some crazed m.u.f.fin cosmetic dentist.

He lowered the scope. "Christ-they're metamorphosing. And moving. I wonder how extensive the metamorphosis is?"

Bowman already had the command heads-up in place. A few verbal directives were sufficient to materialize an image. Atop the single-story station, remote instrumentation was responding efficiently.

The plain around the outpost was alive with rustling, festering movement. Come midday they no longer needed the instruments to show them what was happening. The two men stood on the porch, seeing with their own eyes.

All around them, as far as they could see and beyond, the gra.s.s was coming down, mowed flat by a suddenly ravenous, insatiable horde. Within that seething, frenzied ma.s.s of brown fur, red eyes, and munching teeth, nothing survived. Gra.s.s, other plants, anything living was overwhelmed and consumed, vanishing down a sea of brown gullets. From the depths of the feeding frenzy arose an unsettling, relentless, ostinato peeping that drowned out everything from the wind to the soft hum of the outpost's hydrogen generator.

Bowman and LeCleur watched, recorded, and made notes, usually without saying a word. By evening the entire boundless ma.s.s of m.u.f.fins had begun advancing like a moving carpet in a southeasterly direction. The Akoe, Bowman suddenly recalled, had gone northwest. The two agents needed no additional explanation of the phenomenon they were observing.

The migration was under way.

"I suppose we could have offered to let the Akoe stay here," he commented to his partner.

LeCleur was tired from work and looking forward to a good night's sleep. It had been a busy day. "I don't believe it would've mattered. I think they would have gone anyway. Besides, such an offer would have const.i.tuted unsupported interference with native ritual. Expressly forbidden by Church protocols."

Bowman nodded. "You check the systems?"

His friend smiled. "Everything's working normally. Wake-up alarm the same time tomorrow?"

Bowman shrugged. "Works for me." He spared a final glance for the heaving, rippling sea of brown. "They'll still be here. How long you estimate it will take them to move on through?"

LeCleur considered. "Depends how widespread the migration is." Raising a hand, he pointed. "Check that out."

So dense had the swarm become that a number of the m.u.f.fins at its edge were being jostled off into the ravine. The protective excavation that ringed the station was ten meters deep, with walls that had been heat-sealed to an unclimbable slickness. A spider would have had trouble ascending those artificial precipices. The agents retired, grateful for the outpost soundproofing that shut out all but the faintest trace of ma.s.s peeping.

The station AI's pleasant, synthesized female voice woke Bowman slightly before his partner.