An Alien Heat

"Wonderful," said Lord Jagged with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm. Jherek, struggling to restrain an expression of nausea, was amazed at his friend's self-control.

"And what," said Lord Jagged, picking up a dish on which sat a piece of quivering, bloody flesh, "would this be?"

"Well, it's my own reproduction, of course, but I think it's authentic." Mongrove half-rose to peer at the dish, looming over the pair. "Ah, yes — that's Snort — or is it Snout? It's confusing. I've studied all I could of the period. One of my favourites. If it's Snort, they had to change their entire religious attitude in order to justify eating it. If it's Snout, I'm not sure it would be wise for you to eat it. Although, if you've never died from food-poisoning, it's an interesting experience."

"I never have," said Lord Jagged. "But on the other hand, it would take a while, I suppose, and I was rather keen to see your menagerie this afternoon."

"Perhaps another time, then," said Mongrove politely, though it seemed he was a trifle disappointed. "Snout is one of my favourites. Or is it Snort? But I had better resist the temptation, too. Jherek?"

Jherek reached for the nearest dish. "This looks tasty."

"Well, tasty is not the word I'd choose." Mongrove uttered a strange, humourless laugh. "Very little Plague Century food was that. Indeed, taste is not the criterion I apply in pla

"No, no," nodded Jherek. "I meant it looked — um…"

"Diseased?" suggested Lord Jagged, munching his new choice (very little different in appearance from the Snout or Snort he had rejected) with every apparent relish.

Jherek looked at Mongrove, who nodded his approval of Lord Jagged's description.

"Yes," said Jherek in a small, strangled voice. "Diseased."

"It was. But it will do you no great harm. They had slightly different metabolisms, as you can imagine." Mongrove pushed the dish towards Jherek. In it was some kind of greenish vegetable in a brown, murky sauce. "Help yourself."

Jherek ladled the smallest possible amount on to his plate.

"More," said Mongrove, munching. "Have more. There's plenty."

"More," whispered Jherek, and heaped another spoonful or two from the dish to his plate.

He had never had much of an appetite for crude food at the best of times, preferring more direct (and invisible) means of sustaining himself. And this was the most ghastly crude food he had ever seen in his entire life.

He began to wish that he had suggested they have the Turyian dungwhale, after all.

At last the ordeal ended and Mongrove got up, wiping his lips.

Jherek, who had been concentrating on controlling his spasms as he forced the food down his throat, noticed that while Lord Jagged had eaten with every sign of heartiness he had actually consumed very little. He must get Jagged to teach him that trick.

"And now," said Mongrove, "my menagerie awaits us." He looked with despondent kindness upon Jherek, who had not yet risen. "Are you unwell? Perhaps the food was more diseased than it should have been?"

"Perhaps," said Jherek, pressing his palms on the wood of the table and pushing his body upright.

"Do you feel dizzy?" asked Mongrove, grasping Jherek's elbow to support him.

"A little."

"Are there pains in the stomach? Have you a stomach?"

"I think I have. There are a few small pains."

"Hmm." Mongrove frowned. "Maybe we should make the tour another day."

"No, no," said Jagged. "Jherek will appreciate things all the more if he is feeling a little low. He enjoys feeling low. It brings him closer to a true understanding of the essential pain of human existence. Doesn't it, Jherek?"

Jherek moved his head up and down in assent. He could not quite bring himself to speak to Lord Jagged at that moment.

"Very good," said Mongrove, propelling Jherek forward. "Very good. I wish that we had settled our differences much earlier, gentle Jherek. I can see now how much I have misunderstood you."

And Jherek, while Mongrove's attention was diverted, darted a look of pure hatred at his friend Lord Jagged.

He had recovered a little by the time they left the courtyard and plodded through the rain to the first menagerie building. Here Mongrove kept his collection of bacteria; his viruses, his cancers — all magnified by screens, some of which measured nearly an eighth of a mile across. Mongrove seemed to have an affinity with plagues.

"Some of these illnesses are more than a million years old," he said proudly. "Brought by time-travellers, mostly. Others come from all over the universe. We have missed a lot, you know, my friends, by not having diseases of our own."

He paused before one of the larger screens. Here were examples of how the bacteria infected the creatures from which they had originally been taken.

A bearlike alien writhed in agony as his flesh bubbled and burst.

A reptilian space-traveller sat and watched with bleary eyes as his webbed hands and feet grew small tentacles which gradually wrapped themselves around the rest of his body and strangled him.

"I sometimes wonder if we, the most imaginative of creatures, lack a certain kind of imagination," murmured Lord Jagged to Jherek as they paused to look at the poor reptile.

Elsewhere a floral intelligence was attacked by a fungus which gradually ate at its beautiful blossoms and turned its stems to dry twigs.

There were hundreds of them. They were all so interesting that Jherek began to forget his own qualms and left Jagged behind as he strode beside Mongrove, asking questions and, often, giving close attention to the answers.

Lord Jagged was inclined to linger, examining this specimen, exclaiming about that one, and was late in following them when they left the Bacteria House and entered the Fluctuant House.

Here was a wide variety of creatures which could change shape or colour at will. Each creature was allowed a large space of its own in which its environment had been recreated in absolute detail. The environments were not separated by walls but by unseen force fields, each environment phasing tastefully into another. Most of the fluctuants were not indigenous to Earth at any period in her history (save for a few primitive chameleons, offapeckers and the like) but were drawn from many distant planets beyond the Solar System. Virtually all were intelligent, especially the mimics.

As the three people walked through the various environments, protected from attack by their own force shields, creature after creature encountered them and changed shape, mimicking crudely or perfectly either Jherek, or Jagged, or Mongrove. Some changed shape so swiftly (from Jagged, say, to Mongrove, to Jherek) that Jherek himself began to feel quite strange.

The Human House was next and it was in this that Jherek hoped to find the woman he intended to love.

The Human House was the largest in the menagerie and whereas many of the other houses were stocked from different areas of space, this was stocked from different ages in Earth's history. The house stretched for several square miles and, like the Fluctuant House, its environments were phased into each other (in chronological order), recreating different habitats from many periods. In the broader categories were represented Neanderthal Man, Piltdown Man, Religious Man and Scientific Man and there were, of course, many sub-divisions.

"I have here," said Mongrove, almost animatedly, "men and women from virtually every major period in our history."

He paused. "Have you, my friends, any particular interest? The Phradracean Tyra