David Brin
Copyright © 1984
“To the ‘Friday’ crowd, To Carol and Nora, And to lovers of Other worlds—“
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
avid rin was born in 1950 in southern California. He has been an engineer with Hughes Aircraft Co., and attended Caltech and The University of California at San Diego, where he completed doctoral studies on comets and asteroids. He is presently a consultant with the California Space Institute, a unit of the University of California, San Diego, doing advanced studies concerning the Space Shuttle and space science. He also teaches university physics and occasionally creative writing. A nominee for the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards, Brin is the author of two previous, highly praised novels, Sundiver and Startide Rising. He is currently secretary of the Science Fiction Writers of America and is at work on his next novel.
Spotlight Reviews
Early Brin, so be forewarned, July 1, 1997
Reviewer:
I rate books by the bathroom. A good book is one I find myself taking into the bathroom without conscious thought, and the exceptional book causes me to forget to the bathroom even exists. The pinnacle is the book which so enraptures that I forget to eat, somewhat negating my normal rating system.
Only novels by David Brin and Robert Heinlein have had that ultimate effect on me.
If your only exposure to David Brin is Startide Rising or the Uplift War and you"re expecting the same overwhelming immersion into a foreign land, you"ll be disappointed. Practice Effect is the first novel Brin wrote, although not the first published, and it is "only" a good read. It has the same heroic themes common in his latter works, but without the polish. The result is inevitably, and unfairly, disappointing to someone familiar with his later works.
On the other hand it may be a good introduction to Heroic SF, especially for juveniles. There"s still the same action on a grand scale, "ordinary joes" changing the course of nations, friendly familiars (a bit more explicitly than the Tymbrini computers hidden in Tom and Gillian"s quarters), and the smugly superior facing their own petards a-hoisting, but the heros and devils are clear from the start and the point of view doesn"t jump among the many players.
Finally, as a would-be author I"ve found it useful to compare the writing in Practice Effect, Sundiver, and Startide Rising, in that order. They form a dramatic demonstration of how a writer matures. If you want to learn how to write books like Startide Rising or the Uplift War, start by learning how to write books like Practice Effect and then refine your skills from "merely" very good to Hugo- and Nebula-award winning.
Top of Form Swift and entertaining, September 20, 2000
Reviewer:
Gee, not every SF book has to be a deep exploration of the limits of the genre. Sometimes you just like to kick back and enjoy yourself. This is exactly what this book is, and it"s a great read, fast and fun at the same time, while still throwing up some interesting concepts. David Brin normally is an acquired taste, his Uplift books are some of the best SF books around but then they to be heavy on the plot, stories seem to drag on for years (I think only recently he got around to resolving some stuff from the first trilogy) and he can be a bit wordy. Not here though. Granted the ideas aren"t as mindblowing as elsewhere but you know what, who cares? The basis here is that an
Earth scientist is sent to another world and trapped there for a bit. The world seems backwards and forwards at the same time, there is caveman technology sitting alongside highly advanced stuff, among other mysteries. The scientist (Dennis) has to try and figure out what the heck is going on before he gets killed, especially since a Baron is trying to take over everything. Sounds like fun, right? Dennis" solutions to get out of problems, especially once he figures out how everything works, are great, and Brin seems to delight in this world, putting a decent amount of detail into it. He uses a SF explantion at the end that makes a tiny bit of sense but by then it really won"t matter. There"s all sorts of good stuff here, from ingenuity to danger to suspense to action to a bit of romance as well. Even if this isn"t the most innovative stuff it"s well written and brisk and . . . fun. That"s all I can say. It"s a fun little book that is more memorable than some of Brin"s other work simply because of that. And you can"t go wrong like that.
Top of Form Bottom of Form All Customer Reviews Avg. Customer Review:
Amusing....but not great, January 5, 2003
Reviewer:
I found this book to be very entertaining, for half of the book. The first half of the book kept me very entertained. Finding a new world, and explaining it, and how it exists was very good, as were the characters. The second half of the book became irritating to me. Every thing could be fixed with the practice effect, regardless that it was something that rarely had ever happened before in the world that the story takes place in. It became a nice easy way to get the characters out of trouble, and was relied on too much. Was the story entertaining none the less...Yes. I could look past those things I have mentioned, I just did not rate the book very high because of it. I am not going to give the plot away, but several of the characters kept the book amusing. I like to read a story and smile every now and then at cute things that put humor into a book even though a tale is being told, and for that I applaud the author. The book left me with several funny images that still run through my head.
Top of Form Interesting concept, December 28, 2002
Reviewer:
David Brin"s earlier work have the show the same beginning skill as his newer novels. Here once again, he masterfully creates a world for his characters and he delivers this world to you in a way that makes the reading easy.
This novel centers around a physicist caught in the middle of office politics in the university he works in. This is not so much the basis of the story but the setting that the story begins with. At the university this physicist has created a device that enables you to explore other worlds on a different plane of existance. However, some minor problems with the use of this device ensue and the initial inventor of this device, who has been brushed aside due to these politics, has been asked once again to help with it.
Totally unarmed with previous information he is thrust into one of these anomaly worlds with only the idea that the physics in control of this world may be somewhat different. What a beginning!
As the main character Dennis Neul explores this world you understand his observations as all from earth would. However, pulling together his various theories based on Earth rules, don"t add up and he is forced to adjust his earlier assumptions.
There is a complication that extends his visit and he is thrust in the middle of some hostilities that are currently dominating this world. He interacts with the locals and begins to understand more of the local customs and rules of physics.
This book is classic Brin. His well thought-out science that is so easily portrayed to the reader is a joy.
You will thoroughly enjoy this book.
Contents
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 1 Sooee Generis 1 2 3 4 5 2 Cogito, Ergo Tutti Fruitti 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 3 Nom de Terre 1 2 3 4
The Best Way to Carnegie Hall 1 2 3 4 5 6 5 Transom Dental 1 2 6 Ballon d’Essai 1 2 7 Pundit Nero 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 ‘Eurekaarrgh” 1
2 3 5 9 Discus Jestus 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Sic Biscuitus Disintegration 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Et Two Toots 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 Semper Ubi Sub Ubi 1 2 3 4
1 Sooee Generis 1 The lecture was really boring. At the front of the dimly lit conference room, the portly, gray-haired director of the Sahara Institute of Technology paced back and forth—staring at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his back—while he pontificated ponderously on a subject he clearly barely understood. At least that’s how Dennis Nuel saw it, suffering in silence in one of the back rows. Once upon a time, Marcel Flaster might have been one of the shining lights of physics. But that had been long ago, before any of the younger scientists present had ever considered careers in reality physics. Dennis wondered what could ever have converted a once-talented mind into a boring, tendentious administrator. He swore he would jump off of Mt. Feynman before it ever happened to him. The sonorous voice droned on. “And so we see, people, that by using zievatronics alternate realities appear to be almost within our reach, presenting possibilities for bypassing both space and time. . . .” Dennis nursed his hangover near the back of the crowded conference room, and wondered what power on Earth could have dragged him out of bed on a Monday morning to come down here and listen to Marcel Flaster expound about zievatronics. His eyelids drooped. He began to slump in his seat. “Dennis!” Gabriella Versgo elbowed him in the ribs, whispering sharply. “Will you straighten up and pay attention?” Dennis sat up quickly, blinking. Now he recalled what power on Earth had dragged him here. At seven a.m. Gabbie had kicked open the door to his room and hauled him by his ear into the shower, ignoring his howling protests and his modesty. She had kept her formidable grip on his arm until they both were planted here in the Sahara Tech conference room. Dennis rubbed his arm just above the elbow. One of these days, he decided, he was going to sneak into Gabbie’s room and throw away all the little rubber balls the redhead liked to squeeze while she studied. She nudged him again. “Will you sit still? You have the attention span of a cranky otter! Do you want to find yourself exiled even farther from the zievatronics experiment?” As usual, Gabbie hit close to home. He shook his head silently and made an effort to be attentive. Dr. Flaster finished drawing a vague figure in the holo tank at the front of the seminar room. The psychophysicist put his light-pen down on the podium and unconsciously wiped his hands on his pants, though the last piece of blackboard chalk had been outlawed more
than thirty years before. “That is a zievatron,” he announced proudly. Dennis
looked
at
the light-drawing unbelievingly.
He whispered, “If that’s a zievatron, I’m a teetotaler. Flaster’s got the poles reversed, and the field’s inside out!” Gabriella’s blush almost matched the shade of her fiery hair. Her fingernails lanced into his thigh. Dennis winced, but managed an expression of lamblike innocence when Flaster looked up myopically. After a moment the director cleared his throat. “As I was saying earlier, all bodies possess centers of mass. The centroid of an object is the balance point, where all net forces can be said to come to play... where its reality can be ascribed. “You, my boy,” he said, pointing to Dennis. “Can you tell me where your centroid is?” “Umm,” Dennis considered foggily. He hadn’t really been listening all that carefully. “I guess I must have left it at home, sir.” Snickers came from some of the other postdocs seated around the back of the room. Gabbie’s blush deepened. She sank into her seat, obviously wishing she were elsewhere. The Chief Scientist smiled vaguely. “Ah, Nuel, isn’t it? Dr. Dennis Nuel?” Across the aisle, Dennis caught a glimpse of Bernald Brady grinning at his predicament. The tall, beagle-eyed young man had once been his chief rival until managing to have Dennis completely removed from the activity in the main zievatronics laboratory. Brady gave Dennis a smile of pure spite. Dennis shrugged. After what had happened in the past few months, he felt he had little left to lose. “Uh, yessir, Dr. Flaster. It’s kind of you to remember me. I used to be assistant director of Lab One, you might recall.” Gabriella continued her descent into the upholstery, trying very much to look as if she had never seen Dennis before in her life. Flaster nodded. “Ah, yes. Now I recollect. As a matter of fact, your name has crossed my desk very recently.” Bernald Brady’s face lit up. Clearly, nothing would please Brady more than if Dennis were sent on a far-away sample-collecting mission . . . say, to Greenland or Mars. So long as he remained, Dennis presented a threat to Brady’s relentless drive to curry favor and climb the bureaucratic ladder. Also, without really wishing to be, Dennis seemed to be an obstacle to Brady’s romantic ambitions for Gabriella. “In any event, Dr. Nuel,” Flaster continued, “you certainly cannot have ‘left’ your centroid anywhere, I believe if you check you’ll find it somewhere near your navel.” Dennis looked down at his belt buckle, then beamed back at the Director.
Why, so it is! You can be sure I’ll keep better track of it in the future! “It’s disappointing to learn,” Flaster said, affecting a hearty tone, “that someone so adept with a makeshift sling knows so little about center of mass!” He was clearly referring to the incident a week ago, at the staff formal dance, when a nasty little flying creature had come streaking in through a window, terrorizing the crowd around the punch bowl. Dennis had removed his cummerbund, folded it into a sling, and flung a shot glass to bring down the batlike creature before it could hurt someone seriously with its razor-sharp beak. The improvisation had made him an instant hero among the postdocs and techs and got Gabbie started on her present campaign to “save his career.” But at the time all he had really wanted was to get a closer look at the little creature. The brief glimpse he caught had set his mind spinning with possibilities. Most of those present at the dance had assumed that it was an escaped experiment from the Gene-craft Center, at the opposite end of the Institute. But Dennis had other ideas. One look had told him that the thing had clearly not come from Earth! Taciturn men from Security had quickly arrived and crated the stunned animal away. Still, Dennis was certain it had come from Lab One... his old lab, where the main zievatron was kept. . . now off limits to everyone but Flaster’s hand-picked cronies. “Well, Dr. Flaster,” Dennis ventured, “since you bring up the subject, I’m sure we’re all interested in the centroid of that vicious little varmint that buzzed the party. Can you tell us what it was, at last?” Suddenly it was very quiet in the conference room. It was an unconventional thing to do, challenging the Chief Scientist in front of everybody. But Dennis didn’t care anymore. Without any apparent reason the man had already reassigned him away from his life’s work. What more could Flaster do to him? Flaster regarded Dennis expressionlessly. Finally he nodded. “Come to my office an hour after the seminar, Dr. Nuel. I promise I will answer all of your questions then.” Dennis blinked, surprised. Did the fellow really mean it? He nodded,
indicating he would be there, and Flaster turned back to his holosketch. “As I was saying,” Flaster resumed, “a psychosomatic reality anomaly has its start when we surround a center of mass by a field of improbability which...” When attention had shifted fully away from them, Gabriella whispered once more in Dennis’s ear. “Now you’ve done it!” she said. “Hmm? Done what?” He looked back at her innocently. “As if you don’t know!” she bit. “He’s going to send you to the Qattara
Depression to count sand grains! You watch!” On those rare occasions when he remembered to correct his posture, Dennis Nuel stood a little above average in height. He dressed casually... some might say sloppily. His hair was slightly too long for the current style—more out of a vague obstinacy than out of any real conviction. Dennis’s face sometimes took on that dreamy expression often associated either with genius or an inspired aptitude for practical jokes. In reality he was just a little too lazy to qualify for the former, and just a bit too goodhearted for the latter. He had curly brown hair and brown eyes that were right now just a little reddened from a poker game that had gone on too late the night before. After the lecture, as the crowd of sleepy junior scientists dispersed to find secret corners in which to nap, Dennis paused by the department bulletin board, hoping to see an advertisement for another research center working in zievatronics. Of course, there weren’t any. Sahara Tech was the only place doing really advanced work with the ziev effect. Dennis should know. He had been responsible for many of those advances. Until six months ago. As the conference room emptied, Dennis saw Gabriella leave, chattering with her hand on Bernald Brady’s arm! Brady looked pumped up, as if he had just conquered Mt. Everest. Clearly he was crazy in love. Dennis wished the fellow luck. It would be nice to have Gabriella’s attentions focused elsewhere for a while. Gabbie was a competent scientist in her own right, of course. But she was just a bit too tenacious for Dennis to relax with. He looked at his watch. It was time to go see what Flaster wanted. Dennis brought his shoulders back. He had decided he wouldn’t put up with any further put-offs. Flaster was going to answer some questions, or Dennis was going to quit!
2 “Ah, Nuell Come in!” Silver-haired and slightly paunched, Marcel Flaster rose from behind the gleamingly empty expanse of his desk. “Take a seat, my boy. Have a cigar? They’re fresh from New Havana, on Venus.” He motioned Dennis to a plush chair next to a floor-to-ceiling lavalamp. “So tell me, young man, how is it going with that artificial-intelligence project you’ve been working on?” Dennis had spent the past six months directing a small AI program mandated by an unbreakable old endowment—even though it had been proved back in 2024 that true artificial intelligence was a dead end field. He still had no idea why Flaster had asked him here. He didn’t want to be gratuitously impolite, so he reported on the recent, modest advances his small group had made. “Well, there’s been some progress. Recently we’ve developed a new, high-quality mimicry program. In telephone tests it conversed with randomly selected individuals for an average of six point three minutes before they suspect that they’re actually talking to a machine. Rich Schwall and I think. . .” “Six and a half minutes!” Flaster interrupted. “Well, you’ve certainly broken the old record, by over a minute, I believe! I’m impressed!” Then Flaster smiled condescendingly. “But honestly, Nuel, you don’t think I assigned a young scientist of your obvious talents to a project with so little long-range potential for no reason, do you?” Dennis shook his head. He had long ago concluded that the Chief Scientist had shoved him into a corner of Sahara Tech in order to put his own cronies into the zievatronics lab. Until the death of Dennis’s old mentor, Dr. Guinasso, Dennis had been at the very center of the exciting field of reality analysis. Then, within weeks of the tragedy, Flaster had moved his own people in and Guinasso’s inexorably out. Thinking about it still made Dennis bitter He had felt sure they were just about to make tremendous discoveries when he was exiled from the work he loved. “I couldn’t really guess why you transferred me,” Dennis said. “Umm, could it be you were grooming me for better things?” Oblivious to the sarcasm, Flaster grinned. “Exactly, my boy! You do show remarkable insight. Tell me, Nuel. Now that you’ve had experience running a small department, how would you like to take charge of the zievatronics project here at Sahara Tech?” Dennis blinked, taken completely by surprise. “Uh,” he said concisely. Flaster got up and went to an intricate espresso urn on a sideboard. He poured two demitasses of thick Atlas Mountains coffee and offered one to Dennis. Dennis took the small cup numbly. He barely tasted
the heavy, sweet brew. Flaster returned to his desk and sipped delicately from his demitasse. “Now, you didn’t think we’d let our best expert on the ziev effect molder in a backwater forever, did you? Of course not! I was planning to move you back into Lab One in a matter of weeks, anyway. And now that the subministry position has opened up...” “The what?” “The subministry! Mediterranea’s government has shifted again, and my old friend Boona Calumny is slotted for the Minister of Science portfolio. So when he called me just the other day to ask for help. . .” Flaster spread his hands as if to say the rest was obvious. Dennis couldn’t believe he was hearing this. He had been certain the older man disliked him. What in the world would motivate him to turn to Dennis when it came to choosing a replacement? Dennis wondered if his dislike for Flaster had blinded him to some nobler side of the man. “I take it you’re interested?” Dennis nodded. He didn’t care what Flaster’s motives were, so long as he could get his hands on the zievatron again. “Excellent!” Flaster raised his cup again. “Of course, there is one small detail to overcome first—only a minor matter, really. Just the sort of thing that would show the lab your leadership ability and guarantee your universal acceptance by all.” “Ah,” Dennis said. I knew it! Here it comes! The catch! Flaster reached under the desk and pulled out a glass box. Within it was a furry-winged, razor-toothed monstrosity, rigid and lifeless. “After you helped us recapture it last Saturday night, I decided it was more trouble than it was worth. I handed it over to our taxidermist.. . .” Dennis tried to breathe normally.
The small black eyes stared back at him glassily. Right now they seemed filled less with malevolence than with deep mystery. “You wanted to know more about this thing,” Flaster said. “As my heir apparent, you have a right to find out.” “The others think it’s from the Gene-craft Center,” Dennis said. Flaster chuckled. “But you knew better all along, right? The lifemakers aren’t good enough at their new art to make anything quite so unique,” he said with savor “So very savage. “No. As you guessed, our little friend here is not from the genetics labs, nor from anywhere in the solar system, for that matter. It came from Lab One—from one of the anomaly worlds we’ve latched onto with the zievatron.” Dennis stood. “You got it to work! You latched onto something better than vacuum, or purple mist!” His mind whirled. “It breathed Earth air! It gobbled down a dozen canapes, along with a corner of Brian Yen’s ear, and kept going! The
thing’s biochemistry must be...” “Is... it is almost precisely Terran.” Flaster nodded. Dennis shook his head. He sat down heavily. “When did you find this place?”, “We found it during a zievatronics anomaly search three weeks ago. After five months of failure, I’ll freely admit that we finally achieved success only after returning to the search routine you first designed, Nuel.” Flaster took off his glasses and wiped them with a silk handkerchief. “Your routines worked almost at once. And turned up the most amazingly Earthlike world. The biologists are ecstatic, to say the least.” Dennis stared at the dead creature in the glass. A whole world! We did it! Dr. Guinasso’s dream had come true. The zievatron was the key to the stars! Dennis’s personal resentment had disappeared. He was genuinely thrilled by Flaster’s accomplishment. The Director rose and returned to the coffee urn for a refill. “There’s only one problem,” he said nonchalantly, his back to the younger man. Dennis looked up, his thoughts still spinning. “Sir? A problem?” “Well, yes.” Flaster turned around, stirring his coffee. “Actually, it has to do with the zievatron itself.” Dennis frowned. “What about the zievatron?” Flaster raised his demitasse with two fingers. “Well,” he sighed between sips. “It seems we can’t get the darned thing to work anymore.”
3 Flaster wasn’t kidding. The zievatron was busted. After most of a day spent poking through the guts of the machine, Dennis was still getting used to the changes that had been made in Laboratory One since his banishment. The main generators were the same, as were the old reality probes he and Dr. Guinasso had laboriously handtuned back in the early days. Flaster and Brady hadn’t dared tamper with those. But they had brought in so much new equipment that even the cavernous main lab was almost filled to bursting. There were enough electrophoresis columns, for instance, to analyze a Bordeaux bouillabaisse. The zievatron itself took up most of the chamber. White-coated technicians moved across catwalks along its broad face, making adjustments. Most of the techs had come down to greet Dennis when he came in. They were obviously relieved to have him back. The backslapping reunion had kept him away from his beloved machine for almost an hour and had irritated the hell out of Bernald Brady. When, finally, Dennis had been able to get to work, he concentrated on the two huge reality probes. Where they met, deep within the machine, there was a spot in space that was neither exactly here nor quite elsewhere. The anomalous point could be flipped between Earth and Somewhere Else, depending on which probe dominated. Six months ago there had been a small port through which samples could be taken of the purple mists and strange dust clouds he and Dr. Guinasso had found. But since then it had been replaced by a large, armored airlock. Working near the heavy hatch, Dennis realized that all a person had to do was walk through that door to be on another world! It was a strange feeling. “Stumped yet, Nuel?” Dennis looked up. Bernald Brady’s small mouth always seemed to be slightly pursed in disapproval. The Fellow was under instructions to cooperate, but that apparently didn’t extend to being civil. Dennis shrugged. “I’ve narrowed the problem down. Something’s cockeyed about the part of the zievatron that’s been pushed into the anomaly world—the return mechanism. It may be that the only way to fix it is from the other end.” He had come to realize that Marcel Flaster would exact a price for putting him in charge of the lab. If Dennis wasn’t able to figure out a way to repair it from this end, he might have to go through and fix the return mechanism in person. He hadn’t yet decided whether to be thrilled by the idea, or petrified. “Flasteria,” Brady said.
“I beg your pardon?” Dennis said, blinking. “We’ve named the planet Flasteria, Nuel.” Dennis tried to work his mouth around the word, then gave up. The hell you say. “Anyway,” Brady went on, “that’s no great discovery, I’d already figured out it was the return mechanism that had broken down.” Dennis was starting to get irritated with the fellow’s attitude. He shrugged. “Sure you knew it already. But how long did it take you?” He knew he had struck home when Brady’s face reddened. “Never mind,” Dennis said as he stood up, brushing off his hands. “Come on, Brady. Take me on a tour of your zoo. If I’m expected to go through and visit this place, I want to know more about it.” Mammals! The captive animals were air-breathing, four-legged, hairy mammals! He looked over one that resembled a small ferret, going through a short mental checklist. There were two nostrils above the mouth and below forward-facing hunter’s eyes. There were five clawed toes on each paw, and a long, furry tail. A tomography chart in front of the cage showed a four-chambered heart, a rather Earthly-looking skeleton, and apparently all the right sorts of viscera in all the right places. Yet it was alien! The creature stared back at Dennis for a moment, then yawned and turned away. “The biologists have checked for bad germs and such,” Brady said, answering Dennis’s next question. “The guinea pigs they sent through aboard one of the exploring robots lived on Flasteria for several days and came back perfectly healthy.” “What about the biochemistry? Are the amino acids the same, for instance?” Brady picked up a large binder, about five inches thick. “Doc Nelson was called away to Palermo yesterday. Part of the government shake-up, I suppose. But here’s his report.” He dropped the heavy tome into Dennis’s hands. “Study it!” Dennis was about to tell Brady where he could put the report for the time being. But just then a sharp, snapping sound came from the far end of the row of cages. Both men turned to witness a stout wooden crate begin shaking and rattling. Brady cursed loudly. “Hot damn! It’s getting out again!” He ran to one wall and slapped an alarm button. At once a siren began to wail. “What’s getting out?” Dennis backed up. The panic in Brady’s voice had affected him. “What is it?” “The creature!” Brady shouted into the intercom, hardly encouraging Dennis. “The one we recaptured and put in that temporary box . . . yes, the tricky one! It’s getting out again!” There was the sound of splintering wood, and a slat fell out of the side of the crate. From the blackness within, a pair of tiny green
reflections gleamed at Dennis. Dennis could only presume they were eyes, small and spaced no more than an inch apart. The green sparks seemed to lock onto him, and he could not look away. They stared at each other—Earth man and alien. Brady was shouting as a work gang hurried into the room. “Quick! Get the nets in here in case it jumps! Make sure it doesn’t let the other animals loose, like the last time!” Dennis was growing increasingly uneasy. The green-eyed stare was disconcerting. He looked for a place to put down the heavy book in his hands. The creature seemed to come to a decision. It squeezed . through the narrow gap between the slats, then leaped just in time to escape a descending net. In a glimpse Dennis saw that it looked like a tiny, flat-nosed pig. But this pig was one of a kind! In midleap its legs spread wide, snapping open a pair of membranes, creating two gliding wings! “Block it, Nuel!” Brady shouted. Dennis didn’t have much choice. The alien creature flew right at him! He tried to duck, but too late. The “flying pig” landed on his head and clung to his hair, squeaking frantically. As Dennis let go of the biochemistry tome in surprise, the heavy volume landed on his foot. “Ow!” He hopped, reaching up to grab at his unwelcome passenger. But the little creature peeped loudly, plaintively. It sounded more frightened than angry. At the last moment, Dennis restrained himself from using force to tear it off. Instead, he managed to peel one webbed paw away from his eye—just in time to duck beneath a wrench swung by Bernald Brady! Dennis cursed and the “piglet” squealed as the bludgeon whistled just overhead. “Hold still, Nuel! I almost had him!” “And almost took my head off, too!” Dennis backed away. “Idiot! Are you trying to kill me?” Brady seemed to contemplate the proposition syllogistically. Finally, he shrugged. “All right, then, Nuel. Come out slowly and we’ll grab him.” Dennis started forward. But as he approached the other men, the creature squeaked pathetically and tightened its grip. “Hold off,” Dennis said. “It’s just frightened, that’s all. Give me a minute. I may be able to get it down myself.” Dennis backed over to a crate and sat down. He reached up tentatively to touch the alien again. To Dennis’s surprise the shuddering creature seemed to calm under his touch. He spoke softly as he stroked the thin, soft fur that covered its pink sin. Gradually its panicked grip eased. Finally he was able to lift the creature with both hands and bring it down to his lap. The men and women in the work gang cheered. Dennis smiled back
with more confidence than he felt. It was just the sort of thing that could become a legend. “. . .Yes, boy. I was there the day ol’ Director Nuel tamed a savage alien critter that had him by the eyeballs. . . .” Dennis looked down at the thing he had “captured.” The creature looked back at him with an expression he was sure he had seen somewhere before. But where? Then he remembered. For his sixth birthday his parents had given him an illustrated book of Finnish fairy tales. He recalled many of the drawings to this day. And this creature had the sharp-toothed, green-eyed, devilish grin of a pixie. “A pixolet,” he announced softly as he petted the little creature. “A cross between piglet and pixie. Does the name suit?” It didn’t appear to understand the words. He doubted it was actually sentient. But something seemed to tell Dennis that it understood him. It grinned back with tiny, needle-sharp teeth. Brady approa...