“There’s this small sort of pouch with a membrane you can see out, and an exposed knot of ganglia that can be manipulated to guide the thing. This clearing is like the local bus stop. The leviathans may be docile, but they’re just too big and too dumb to be allowed inside their villages. In fact, I think further study will show that the indigenes have definite overlapping routes set up. They are, as Maud said, clever bastards.”
“So you… drove that leviathan back here after it ate you?”
“Neat, huh?”
That wasn’t quite the word that sprang to his mind. “But if they are so docile, why didn’t you just climb back out its mouth instead of its, um, back door?”
She shook her head ruefully. “I couldn’t. That front funnel is strictly one-way. Oh, air can go back out when the ambient pressure is low enough and the leviathan wants it to, but the things have an incredible gag reflex. Believe me, I know. What it boils down to is their having one-way airlocks at either end, one in and one out. When a leviathan reaches its destination it takes a deeeep breath and then forcibly flushes out all the stale air, waste materials and any passengers it happens to be carrying. The indigenes seem to know some sort of trick for moderating that process. I figured out how they got back out when I saw an indigene, ah, unloaded.” She laughed. “Unfortunately I’m a bit larger than its usual passengers and got stuck in the exit.”
“Remarkable adaptation,” Arthur murmured thoughtfully, thinking of the stir this would cause in academic circles. Then he frowned. “That still leaves two questions unanswered. What do the leviathans get out of this arrangement, and why did Maud go inside one? She must have been after more than a simple joyride.”
“She was. Your two questions are connected. The pods used to call the leviathans are like candy to them, and may even alter their biochemistry to make crossings easier, like a carbo load before a workout. Then there’s a second benefit, and the solution to the riddle. Near as I can figure, during the crossings the indigenes make the leviathans stop in certain places, take a deep breath, slip out the back way to go outside for a minute or two so they can dig up digestive aids for their pets, then crawl back inside through that oral airlock, which opens just enough to let them back in without any serious loss of air. Then off they go again.”
Arthur didn’t get it. “Digestive aids?”
“Stones, like the gravel some birds swallow. Remember, the leviathans don’t have any teeth—” She laughed. “—And a good thing too! Stones in those muscular stomach pits help grind up the vegetation they eat. One certain kind can be dug up on the ridges between the pits. Once again, there may be some extra nutritional benefit, trace minerals maybe.”
Arthur nodded. “OK, that makes for a sensible symbiosis. But it still doesn’t explain why Maud wanted one to swallow her.”
Claire’s eyes gleamed with merriment. “Actually it does. Tell me, Mr. Science, what’s unusual about leviathan dung—besides its size, that is.”
He thought it over. “It glitters?” he said uncertainly.
“Excellent observation. Those sparkles are dust and chips from the grinding stones.” She reached into her pocket. “Here are a few half-worn-out stones I grabbed while I was inside.”
She opened her hand, and a dozen gleaming gemstones the size of robins’ eggs clattered onto the table between them.
“Almost there,” Arthur called from the science console. “You should be able to see it any time now.”
“Got it,” Claire replied, peering out the bay window as she piloted the ship on manual. The ungainly blind-ship turned slightly and began settling down toward the sun washed scarp.
“Poor thing,” she murmured as she put the craft down beside the dead leviathan. “It bit off more than it could poo.”
“No life signs at all,” Arthur reported tightly as he deployed the spytes. “Let’s get this over with.”
Claire went to stand behind her husband with her hands on his shoulders as the spytes flitted around the massive carcass like curious flies. They did not have to wait long for the answer they sought.
“Old Whaletits made a bad mistake by going into that poor creature to make her pile.” Arthur said mournfully.
Only the woman’s head had emerged into the killingly thin air, the rest of her corpulent body too large to pass. A breather mask dangled uselessly inches from her mouth.
“Yeah,” Claire agreed. “Thanks to being greedy she ended up looking like one—”
The Pyg’s face was the dark purple of a strangulation victim, her eyes wide and staring, her tongue black and protruding.
“—In the end.”
As Science Master, Arthur had final say in the collection and disposition of specimens. He was inclined to leave the unlucky leviathan and its fatal passenger for the exobiologists to separate and dissect. Claire agreed that there was no hurry in reclaiming Whalsitz’s body for an autopsy; cause of death was fairly obvious.
Their work on Pitstop done, they lifted off and headed back to where the Expedition’s mothership waited out by the system’s sixth planet so they could deal with the list of problems which had arisen while they were gone. Why Not U being a largely human enterprise, there were always problems, and quite often they were ones the two of them had to work together to solve.
Before they were even three kilometers up Arthur was bitching about her driving, and Claire was gleefully terrifying him with acrobatics and bludgeoning him with bad jokes.
Listening in, you might have thought that they didn’t get along, and divorce had to be just around the corner.
But really they couldn’t get along without each other.
Which made their marriage very convenient indeed.