Piers Anthony and Robert E. Margroff The E.S.P. Worm Chapter 1: I had been smashing planets for half an hour, and my best shot of the day was coming up. I leaned over the sun and took careful aim at Venus, ready to carom it off Mars and score on three planetoids simultaneously. A brown strand crossed my vision: my annoying, unmanageable hair. I brushed it back impatiently and resumed my stance. I held my breath, began my motion— BUUUZZZAAAKK! went the communiset. My arm jerked. The cometcue angled away, colliding with a nebula, then a vacuum seal, then the Jupiter sphere and on back into a sunspot where of course it was out of play. Jupiter's moon Ganymede spun out of orbit, up, down, sideways, bufferwards and finally into the "half-gravity" trap. I eyed the carnage and swore. I banged the comm switch on. "You misbegotten apefaced baggiebusting idiot!" I shouted at my untimely caller. "This is a private line—" I paused about then. The face in the screen was that of the President of the World. "Emergency," he snapped. "Get over here immediately, Harold." He seemed preoccupied. Maybe he hadn't heard me. "Sure, Freddy," I mumbled, somewhat daunted. Sometimes his actions were irritatingly peremptory, but he was the chief officer of Earth. He was also my only cousin. Indeed, I owed my present sinecure to him. This was not nepotism so much as convenience—but I never dwelt on that unduly. "Move!" he yelled. "It's high time you earned your paycheck." The term "paycheck" was archaic if not obsolete in our credit-balance economy, but I decided not to stand on technicalities. I moved. I rode the corridor belt past pictures and other strategically placed reminders of past administrations. What could Freddy want with me in such a hurry? True, my door bore the legend MINISTER OF INNER-GALACTIC WORLD AFFAIRS, but that was meaningless. Unless something special had come up. Maybe I should have watched the news this morning.... I glided around a bend, admiring my perfect poise as my belt intersected the belt from a cross-hall—and converged with a starchy baggie-dress. The metallic hoops and bustles of the thing bounced me back like a planetoid from the buffer. "Why don't you watch where you're—" I began, but had to pause again. The head above the baggie was blonde and so adorably feminine that I regretted never having seen it before. And here I was on the way to the Office, unable to dally! "Minister Prodkins," she said, her voice like the caress of a clean summer breeze. She held out a gloved hand. "I'm Dr. Dilsmore." "Just what I've always wanted," I said, squeezing the proffered digit with unseemly intimacy while I wondered who she was and how she knew me. That baggie might conceal a figure with all the sex appeal of a sprouting potato, for all I could see, but somehow I had the impression of buxom youth. "The extraterrestrialogist," she said, as though that clarified anything. "That's, uh, very interesting," I mumbled, wishing the baggie would pass before a strong light. The President's sanctum loomed before us, and I knew I had to cut this short. "If you'd like leave your comm number—" As though a dish like this would give her number to a nothing like me! I stood hardly taller than she, and sported neither muscle nor brain. Apart from my ability at Solar Pool, I was talentless—particularly when it came to women. But I had to try. "Of course, since we'll be working together," she agreed to my amazement. "But we'd better not keep the President waiting." Working together! For a tantalizing moment tomcats and billygoats pranced through my romance-starved mind. But that was ridiculous. Then we were past the guards and lined up like truants before the prune-faced secretary. "You may go right in, Minister Prodkins," she said sourly. "You, Dr. Dilsmore, take a seat—if such a thing is possible in that contraption." For the first and probably the last time I felt a flicker of camaraderie with Pruneface. She antedated the baggie-dress, and was not afraid to show her contempt of the style. No lesser person than the President's secretary could afford such an opinion, however; certainly I couldn't. Not openly. But the blonde had to be someone important, to be known by sight here. In fact— I had no time to ponder further, for President Frederik Bascum was within his lair. "Sit down, Harold. It's time I had a talk with you." I sat. This wasn't like the President and it wasn't like the stern, stodgy, but politically brilliant older cousin I'd known. I studied the gray hairs in his elegant mustache, the ice-crevasse lines in his face. I had to admit he was an impressive figure. "Harold," he said, steepling his hands in that practiced way of his, "it may surprise you to learn that you are about to take an active part in government. Oh, it will be suitably small for you to handle, but don't underrate its importance." "Naturally not," I murmured, more mystified than ever. Freddy had not spoken to me like this before. In fact, he had seemed happy to keep me entirely out of sight and without responsibility. "As you know if you have been watching the news analysts, Earth has now made contact with a race that we assume is inner-galactic. You have therefore become an important man." I looked at him, considering the incredible thing he had uttered. Either he had finally succumbed to the strain of the Office, or I had missed something phenomenal in the news. Or both. "I suppose you're right, Mr. President." "Of course I'm right! And knowing your proclivities as I do, I'm sure you're entirely confused right now. You probably spent the morning practicing Solar Pool and dreaming about anachronistic distaff apparel, and never bothered to keep up with world events." I did not dignify such a crass insinuation with a reply. He had me dead to rights. "Very well," he said tiredly, "I'll tell you what you need to know. I suppose you can't help being an albatross. It's my penalty for succumbing to a simplistic solution—installing a deadbeat relative in a pseudo-ministry." He seemed to have summed up that part of it very succinctly. Freddy was a realist. "An alien creature was recently captured in Florida," he said. "A juvenile. A child, in fact. But high-ranking. Possibly a runaway prince. Comes from a world that sounds to us like Jamborango; has a name that sounds like Qumax. He's wanted back home, and he won't get home if he gets loose and our Xenophobic populace spots him. The alien ship—" "You mean we've made contact with an alien civilization?" He looked pained. "Please pay attention, Harold. Why do you think I've summoned you?" There was that. Why would he summon the Minister of Inner-Galactic World Affairs, if not to handle an Inner-Galactic Affair? That reminded me of the blonde in the outer office. If she were part of that Affair... "The alien ship," Freddy resumed determinedly, "we have been in contact with is not really a police craft. That's a cover story we adopted for sundry and sufficient reasons. A ship will land to reclaim this problem child, but it won't be a cruiser. Actually it's more of a cargo ship that Qumax's parent casually ordered off from some adjacent trade line." "Is this a nonhuman alien?" I inquired, intrigued. The President pressed a button that elevated a solidi-projector to his desk top. A three-dimensional still came on. "Ulp!" I said, or words to that effect. Imagine the biggest, ugliest cabbage worm since the dawn of cabbage worms on Earth. Add a bulging cranium and two black shiny antennae. Add two eyes glinting with the lights of intelligence—dark eyes, though, like pits into eternity. Move down on the sausage-shaped body, skipping over the greasy folds like freshly turned furrows, all the way back to where the shoulders extend into twin flesh lumps attached to clusters of brachiating greenish-gray tentacles. That, plus a long taper back to a blunt and solid-looking wrinkly tail, was Qumax. "You can see now why I summoned you," Freddy said, shutting off the projector. "Yes..." I began, and found my inspiration exhausted. I was not much for speechmaking at great moments. My mock position had abruptly become real, and I had a job to do that literally affected the world. Contact with a civilized, galactic, alien species! Why, this could revolutionize our society! "We'll have a trebvee actor make some of your critical public appearances," he was saying, "and a battery of experts will prepare your statements. We may not be able to protect you entirely from the press, but Dr. Dilsmore will run interference for you and avert complete disaster." I had known my cousin didn't think much of me, but the implications hurt. He was so sure I'd bungle it that he was making me a complete figurehead. And he was saying it right to my face, as though my thoughts and feelings had no relevance at all. There were unwritten volumes of contempt in his attitude—whole libraries of underestimation. I sat there, nerving myself to prove how wrong he had been about Harold Prodkins, former black sheep. I had no intention of being a— The President activated his comm. "Send in Dr. Dilsmore, please." Oops! I didn't want her present while I braced Freddy. "Mr. President—" I began. "Later, Harold. This is important." That did it. I marshaled my intellectual forces as the blonde entered. Her name, it developed, was Nancy. "Dr. Dilsmore," Freddy said briskly, "I think it would be best if you gave the Minister an account of your first encounter with the alien Qumax. We don't want Harold to appear ignorant if the press gets at him." There was a slight stress on the word "appear." "Eh, before you do that, Doctor," I said, "I wonder if you can give me the gist of the seventy-eighth amendment to the World Constitution?" She looked surprised, but her aplomb did not suffer. "The seventy-eighth? Isn't that the one that puts you in complete charge of all dealings with inner-galactics?" The President was irritated at the interruption. "A formality. The congress never supposed—" "It puts the man holding my office in charge," I clarified. "And that man, once appointed by the President, holds office for a similar term and can be removed only by death or impeachment or unsolicited resignation. Do you remember, Doctor, what kind of dealings I'm empowered to handle?" She looked attractively perplexed. "Why—all kinds. Everything having to do with inner-galactics. Trade treaties, alliances, whatever. You can act without congress and without the President." "This is ridiculous," Freddy exclaimed. "That amendment was ratified in extreme haste by an outgoing congress who thought, erroneously, that Earth had received a signal from outer space. The press of other business prevented the office from being abolished after the signal's fraudulence was clarified. After that, congressional inertia—" "But the statute does remain on the books, doesn't it, Mr. President," I said. "And so I have extraordinary powers because that bygone congress, rightly or wrongly, feared that there would not be time for the conventional system, in its glacial haste, to deal effectively with aliens if they appeared suddenly. As it seems they have. So—" Freddy's face had taken on an asbestos hue. I had surprised him, and he did not much appreciate the experience. "And now, Doctor," I continued blithely, turning back to the female extraterrestrialogist, "suppose you give me that account the President so kindly suggested. Just so the Minister of Inner-Galactic World Affairs won't appear ignorant." "Nearly three days ago," she said without hesitation, "I was taken to a section of Florida swamp where the alien and several persons of low degree had been rendered unconscious by a quantity of Jupegas. Apparently Qumax had been endeavoring to use these people to help him find his way home. That part isn't clear yet." "Hmmm, yes," I said, stroking my beardless chin. "And exactly what was your impression of this—(I thought of the horrible solidi photograph and suppressed a shudder)—child, Doctor?" "My impression was that Qumax is a child. When he woke up surrounded by the might of our planet, he—he cried. He let loose big tears just as a human child might. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Any woman would." "Well, that's understandable, I suppose," I said uncomfortably. Sorry for that? I'd as soon step on it! "How does this tie in with the alien ship?" "Qumax knew our language. When he contacted his—well, the translation seems to be Swarm Tyrant, or perhaps Harem Sheik—I think he was genuinely frightened. This Swarm Tyrant's image was a bit hazy, coming as it did from goodness knows how far. Maybe the set wasn't working properly. I admit the creature did terrify me, at least, and I'm not a child." It occurred to me that before the baggie style came into fashion, women had not needed to say whether they were children. Visible anatomy had made their status plain. "But when the child—when Qumax—learned that the Tyrant was angry at Earth, not him, his manner changed completely. He demanded VIP treatment: his own trebvee set, gadgets from his spacecraft, special food not mentioned by the Tyrant... in fact, he's had everything his own way except that he's caged." "I suppose that's Lucifernia—the maximum security prison?" "Protective custody," Freddy said quickly. "And this Swarm Sheik went overboard?" "He certainly didn't apologize for our inconvenience! He gave us to understand that he wanted—demanded!—us to take good care of his—his larva—and he hinted that he would be most displeased if he found anything out of order. A serious infraction on our part might lead him to snuff out our sun, he said... and I don't think he was bluffing. Qumax put me in mind of an undisciplined brat, and that Tyrant was just plain insufferable." "Then he will have to apologize," I said. "He will have to apologize handsomely to Earth—and maybe we'll demand more than mere words!" The President of the World lost his bedraggled composure. He made a sound evidently preliminary to a categorical denial. In fact, he choked. "Mr. Minister," said Dr. Nancy Dilsmore excitedly, her hair flouncing with the vigor of her nodding. "Mr. Minister, I agree completely!" At twelve noon the longtime leftover election signs along the automated highway presented an uninspiring view. DO YOU WANT YOUR DAUGHTER TO BE A HARLOT? screamed one, showing the noble face of the now World President—Freddy—in his stern Moses-with-Commandments profile. HELP ELECT THE DECENT PEOPLE'S CHOICE pleaded a second. HELP STAMP OUT PORNOGRAPHIC DRESS urged a third. A fourth proclaimed FREDERIK MICHAEL BASCUM FOR WORLD PRESIDENT, and had a portrait of Freddy smiling approvingly at a bag in a baggie dress. I found it sickening. But those slogans had swept Freddy to victory in four continents. Whether he had led the world into the apex of New Victorianism or merely ridden NV into power, both man and attitude were now disgustingly entrenched. The good-looking Ph.D (from the top of her head to the bottom of her—head) was sad evidence of that. Her baggie bulged outward as she sat, like the folds of a broken accordion, providing her torso with all the lithe luster of a pregnant marsupial frog recently trodden on. She probably slept in that bag, so that at no hour of the day or night would any hint of any untoward (i.e., feminine) anatomy be manifest. I longed for a return of the fashions of the past century, when bosoms had been only nominally covered, and shapes had been shaped. Today, even in the best libraries, certain pages of the history texts had been blacked out. Those old-time fashions had been deemed indecent, you see. Some expensive bootleggers carried unexpurgated copies, but possession was a ticket to rehabilitation at places like Lucifernia. Alas, I had been born too late, and probably never would see a live female torso. Even household pets wore fluffy clothing these days, and babies were diapered in darkness. Lucifernia loomed on the horizon like a bad-tempered thundercloud, grim warning to lascivious thinkers like me. "It's even worse inside," Nancy Dilsmore said, mistaking my expression. "That poor innocent little alien, shut away deep underground." "I thought it was a spoiled brat." "It's still a child," she pointed out, and I let the matter be. The truth was, I found her feminine illogic rather appealing. All too soon we arrived at the massy twin gates of the goblin mountain and were gulped inside. Our air cushion hardly disturbed the light gray dust on the prison roadway. We passed electrified barbed wire emplacements and tall lookout towers snouted with large caliber machine guns and squat grenade launchers. Beyond these were ballistic missile sites and nozzles for nerve gas and flamethrowers. Then the sleek male tanks and sleeker female jet fighters. And several heavy-duty laser units. And I suspected a minefield or two, and maybe a battleship; there was a large enough moat, anyway, with signs proclaiming DANGER—ACID and UNSAFE—RADIATION and even TIGER CROSSING. None of them were intended to be funny. I was beginning to feel sympathy for that alien child. We parked at last and the automatic controls died. Two automatons in human guise stomped up. We were escorted through a portcullis into a metal antechamber where we were frisked by X-ray. A technician whistled and Nancy blushed, making me madder than ever at that baggie dress. There had to be real goodies concealed beneath those opaque hoops! But we were being hustled into an inner chamber. An elevator, in fact, for as the doors ground closed behind us, isolating us, the descent began. There was hardly room for Nancy's baggie and me. I felt like grabbing the thing and ripping it apart. Who knew—she might be nude thereunder! She looked about nervously, as though divining my concupiscent imaginings. "Mr. Minister, this isn't—" "Harold," I hinted. She collapsed against me with a little sigh. The ribs of the baggie dug into my natural ones. I stumbled back against the wall, my hands searching for some place to catch hold of her under the tent before she fell to the floor. My fingers punched through the taut material and groped across mind-expanding surfaces. Nancy was not being affectionate, unfortunately. She was unconscious. H-i-s-s-s-s-t! I felt something sting my left shoulder and knew it immediately for an. invisible splinter of frozen Jupegas, that all-purpose anesthetic. Of all the times to be hit! I thought with despairing frustration. And passed out myself. Chapter 2: My head was itching. It was as though a monstrous mosquito had lodged its iron proboscis within my skull and sucked out twenty cc of my gray matter, depositing a similar quantity of irritant. I woke up in a foul temper, unable to scratch at that agony because my cranium got in the way. My eyes moved, left to right, up and down. Wherever they turned green blanketing appeared. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor—all padded. Light filtered through from a recessed ventilator. It looked as though I had finally come to the end my relatives had direly predicted. I was wearing gray prison coveralls and soft slippers, and my brain hurt. I couldn't care less what the doctors said about the brain having no pain receptors; it hurt. Probably courtesy of the Jupegas dose, though I had always understood that the anesthetic from our giant brother planet was completely free of aftereffects. Some things have to be learned the hard way. But why? Why was I here in this cell? I was no criminal. I was Earth's Minister of Inner-Galactic World Affairs, and I had come to inspect a loathsome captive alien creature. Along with a luscious lady Ph.D. And what had they done with Nancy? I tried to work up a righteous fury, but the incessant itch in my head dissipated the necessary concentration. I refused, at any rate, to throw a tantrum. I was sure I was being watched. A padded section pushed open and I recognized a door. Behind it was a cubicle, and within that space was a soft plastic tray loaded with food. Coffee, fried eggs, nicely browned ham, a stack of golden wheatcakes and a thimble of bright maple syrup. I realized I was ravenous. I grabbed the tiny rubber spoon and fell to. In a moment I discarded the utensil, since it tended to bend rather than cut, and crammed the morsels into my mouth with my fingers. I ate everything. I licked the last drop of coffee from the cup, ran my tongue over the hotcake plate, inspected my sleeves for suckable syrup stains. After everything was more than gone, I realized that I had never been that kind of a pig before. And I was still hungry. There was a tiny toilet in one corner, really no more than a padded hole in the floor, and a low-pressure rubber faucet. No mirror, no towel, no soap and certainly no razor. I cleaned up as well as I could, glad that the awful itch had finally subsided. After about an hour—my watch was gone, naturally—another door cranked open, and two of the slab-faced guards took me away. We passed through interminable tunnels and alleys and up ramps and by cloisters and finally debouched into a plush office. Nancy was there. Her honey-blonde hair now hung to shoulder-length, and her shoulders... showed. Her baggie was gone, replaced by coveralls similar to mine, except for the bulges. I had not observed rondure like that since my last furtive look at a porno photograph: Woman In Street Clothes, Circa 1970. I tried to keep my eyes from bulging lasciviously, not to mention certain other anatomy. "Much better than baggies, aren't they," a harsh male voice said. I jumped guiltily. It was—I recognized his porcine profile—the infamous warden of Lucifernia. Something-or-other Nitti. I did not like him. Nancy turned her blue eyes on me, but did not speak. I saw with a shock that her hands, all the way up to the wrists, were naked. Some of her forearm even showed where the sleeve hung loosely. "I thought you two would like to watch a trebcast," Nitti said, burbling with some obnoxious humor. One wall illuminated as he spoke: a ten-by-ten foot receiving screen. The guards shoved me into a chair facing it. What was going on? The dateline flashed, and I had another shock. A full day had passed! No wonder I had been hungry. I had been knocked out by the Jupegas, or whatever else they might have given me later, for a good twenty hours. In the screen appeared a view that was three dimensional, for a trebvee receiver had depth as well as area. It was the broadcasting studio of one of Earth's most distinguished newsmen: Alvin Swept. He glanced at the worldwide audience with that penetrating demeanor that compelled instant attention, whether he was breaking a major news scoop or telling a joke. He had always impressed me as an intelligent, sincere man. "Tonight," said Alvin Swept, "I am honored to act as moderator at a very special interview with Earth's Minister of Inner-Galactic World Affairs, the honorable Harold W. Prodkins. With him is the noted Extraterrestrialogist Dr. Nancy Dilsmore. Participating with me on this panel will be—" I didn't hear the rest of the build-up. This thing was impossible! I wasn't on any trebcast, and neither was Nancy. Unless— Unless there was a trebvee pickup on us now, and we were about to be interviewed by remote control. Awful! I ran my hand over my stubbled chin and touched my disheveled hair. I looked at the lingering syrup stain on my sleeve. And what would I say? I knew almost nothing of the situation. And Nancy—it would wipe her out, socially, if she were exhibited before the world in that calamitously exposive prison outfit. Her neck down to the very collarbone, her hands, her ankles all showing brazenly, and the sensual contours of her torso burgeoning under the scant cloth.... In the screen appeared a shot of the Capitol House while the World Anthem blasted dismally. Then— Minister Harold Prodkins and scientist Nancy Dilsmore. Both apparently garbed—the one in a conservative but handsome suit, the other in an ornate but fully decorous baggie. Doubles! I should have remembered Freddy's threat to use them. Of course! I had proved to be obstreperous, so my model-of-integrity cousin had expediently had me incarcerated while he made other arrangements. And Nancy too, since she had been so shortsighted as to agree with my position, and to stand up for the dignity of Earth. We were out of it. All my posturing had been for nothing. Freddy had shut up and used his brain. If I had used my brain, feeble as it was compared to his, I would have known this would happen. Smart, smart Harold Prodkins, who should have stuck to Solar Pool and not attempted to interfere with his cousin's politics. "Minister Prodkins," Alvin Swept inquired with just the proper tinge of respect, "is it true that Earth has at last made contact with an Inner-Galactic species?" My double didn't bat his phony eye. "Perfectly true, Alvin. As you newsmen have been very much aware, contact was accomplished secretly soon after the alien landed—crash-landed, actually—in Florida, in the old region of America." Now the real questioning began, and I had to admit my double was sharp. He had my mannerisms down almost perfectly, and he hesitated in just the right places. "The names would mean nothing," he was saying in reply to a query about the exact identity of the alien creature. "The world sounds like Jamborango (a slight stumble over the pronunciation, just as I would have stumbled) so that's what we're calling it. Jamborango (more confidence)—somewhere in the center of the galaxy. Well out of our present technological reach." And, cleverly, in reply to preplanned questions (probably the entire interview had been rehearsed and taped and edited hours ago), the whole story came out. All except the real truth: that I had asserted Earth's right to an apology from an insufferable Swarm Tyrant, and had intended to demand it, regardless of Freddy's caution. And Dr. Dilsmore had agreed with me. Freddy was pulling it off, though. Those doubles, properly bolstered by rigged interviews, could pacify world curiosity until the alien worm Qumax was safely offplanet. Then— I looked at Nancy and tried to smile reassuringly. She smiled back, despite her dishabille. But both efforts were weak. For how could Freddy ever allow us to go free to spread the truth? That would destroy his career. It was quite possible that we both faced unofficial life sentences in Lucifernia. Or worse. "There," said Warden Nitti as the program concluded, "you have it. So—" Then an odd look came over him. He made as if to scratch his head, stopped, started to stand up, began to sweat, and finally plumped down again. He seemed to be suffering a siege of the most intense internal strife. Hate and doubt and fear all warred upon his features. Then the face and body calmed, and he turned to the nearest guard. "Your gun, please—hand it over!" Suddenly I was all-the-way scared. Nitti was about to take the initiative and liquidate us on the spot! The guard drew his Jupegas gun and handed it to Nitti, who put his fat finger on the trigger and raised the pinched nozzle. I watched the coil-barrel rotate.... "Harold!" Nancy cried. That got me moving. I lurched to my feet and dove for the warden. There was a sinister hiss as the gun fired, and a blast of icy air struck my ear. But the sliver of Jupeice had missed. I barreled into Nitti, grabbing for his gun-hand. He was far heavier and stronger than I, but I had to make the attempt before he put me away. His other hand came up heavily and caught my uniform. As I wrestled for the gun, I felt the fabric tearing. Of course prison clothing tore readily, so that it could not be used for strangulation or hand-over-hand descents from cell windows—but this was embarrassing. He had hooked his fingers into the collar of the prison unionsuit—all that I wore beneath the coveralls—and as his meaty arm jerked down all of it ripped away. I got the gun, by grabbing it with both hands and twisting hard. Then I wrestled my way clear of Nitti, leaving my clothing with him. I aimed at his ample torso and fired. The gun cooled in my hand. Frost formed on the snout, and the warden passed out. I shucked out of the sleeves and pantlegs, since they were attached to nothing now. Nancy was struggling with the armed guard. Suddenly he leaped into the air, did a flipflop, and came down heavily beside the warden. The other guard was already unconscious: the first Jupegas sliver Nitti had fired had struck him.