Prior stood and stared at that for some time, his groin twinging nervously. Was this a sculptural joke? He had never heard of a man with full-blown breasts, except for the chosen castrates who claimed to have converted to women. Yet every man did have nipples, and before puberty the chests of boys and girls were pretty much alike, and in some cases boy-babies dribbled milk from those nipples. So the potential was there—and if man was not intended by nature to have it, why was he born with nipples? Only body chemistry in adolescence made the difference. Why not men with breasts and women with beards?
Could it, in fact, have been this way in the past? Less differentiation between the sexes? Perhaps at one time every adult human being had had beard and breasts, and penis and vagina. Maybe only in historic times, when prudery could be developed, perfected and spread like a vile disease, had the woman's member been reduced to the clitoris and the man's hole portioned between anus and urethra. Once man had fought his way to supremacy on Earth, he had no longer needed to have every part interchangeable, and so true sexuality had developed. A modern woman could be considered at least in part a castrated male; a modern man might be a debreasted female.
Prior shook his head, embarrassed by the turn his speculations had taken. Next thing, he would be wondering whether there had originally been any differentiation between man and sheep and horse and bird and griffin. The statues implied that there had not been; that all could revel together sexually; that evolution had altered only the forms, not the sexuality.
Well, maybe so—but what kind of offspring would spring from the merged loins of man and griffin? The heraldic beast was already a cross between an eagle and a lion. Even the man-sheep combination was complex enough; would that be a mashep? Sheepan? Meep? Shan?
He paused. Maybe a succubus, or—
Satyr.
Satyr! Of course! Forepart of a man, hindpart of a goat. Bipedal, but with horns. No doubt it all made sense, once the big picture was viewed and grasped.
There was a good deal to learn from such statues. Maybe someday he would return for the whole course of instruction.
Chapter 13—Eggers
At last he arrived at the outpost of the Egglayers. At this point Prior was ready for anything. But his buildup was only for a let-down.
It was a small conservative cabin. The road looped around it and stopped. There was nowhere else to go.
He marched up and knocked on the door. After a moment a middle-aged saggy-gutted balding man yanked it open. “This is the place,” the inhabitant said abruptly, his whiskers quivering like those of some cartoon character. “I don't recognize you, though. Mighty small gut on you. You new?"
“I guess so,” Prior admitted. “I was told to look for the Egglayers."
The man reassessed him, scratching his ponderous belly. “You ain't an Egger?"
“I guess not."
“Then whatinhell you doing here?” the man roared.
“I don't exactly know. I'm supposed to stay here for a few days until...” He trailed off, not wanting to be too specific.
The man let fly a sigh as though breaking wind. “Well, come in anyway. Maybe we can train you."
Prior entered. The interior was every bit as humble as the exterior had promised. There were cobwebs in the upper corners and roach droppings in the lower corners. But he was hungry and tired and his crotch hurt and he wasn't looking for trouble or for palatial accommodations. He wasn't much for mystery, either; if the man cared to explain what the Egglayers were, fine; if not, who cared?
There was bread on the dirty table—a monstrous brown loaf, partially sliced. Beside it was a frothy bucket of brew. Prior helped himself and eased into the chair. Almost with the first bite he felt the gases bubbling in his intestine; this was flatulent stuff. “Who told you about the Eggers?” the man demanded as though just thinking of it.
“Oubliette Emdee. You see, she—"
“Oubie! Whyinhell didn't you say so?” The man belched resoundingly, and a faint putrid vapor drifted from his mouth. “Anything that li'l pekkermender wants is just fine with us!"
“She told me to come here for a while so my preliminary operation can heal. Because she has other patients, and it gets crowded."
“She's busy, all right. But she's got plenty of space. Must've wanted you here ... sure you didn't come to learn Egging?"
“I don't know anything about—"
“You'll find out!” He laughed with unseemly gusto. “Who's she got under the knife this time?"
“A sultan had his member damaged by a—"
“That camel-humping African? Haw, haw! He never learns! She must've warned him fifty times: stay clear of the camels, Sult; one fuck too many and they fuck you back. Specially the he-camels. But that old shitter, he—"
“And a homosexual with allergies to saliva and fecal matter."
“A fairy what don't like spit or shit on his horn! Cheese, Oubie really gets the cases! How's your maypole sliced?"
“I don't understand—"
“You don't see Oubie just ‘cause your swinger don't stand, you know."
“Oh. I was deprived of my member, so she—"
The man crammed a slice of black bread into his big mouth. “Hmd y'oos yr motherfucking coch?"
“Beg pardon?"
“Who sawdoff yr stinkin’ horseradish?"
Somehow the question didn't sound much better the second time around. Maybe it was the mouthful of food that made it sound messier than it was. “I was rolled,” Prior said with simple dignity.
Black crumbs spewed violently out of the man's hairy mouth. “Prick-rolled? My bellowing asshole! You don't say! Ain't that a jock-popper!” And he chuckled roundly.
It seemed best to get this mirthful loudmouth onto something more productive. “Do you know anything about prosthetic members?"
“Dead stick sledders? Never tried it myself, but I hear Oubie's the best fuckin’ cocklock in the business."
“You mean there's no sensation in the prosthetics? She implied—"
“You're farting through your yellow teeth, junior. Sensation? When Oubie sews ‘em on, just pissing can jack up your bug juice."
“Especially underwater, I understand.” But Prior took this as a favorable report. “What do you do here, really?"
“We lay the eggs.” He pronounced it with a long e. “Didn't she tell you?"
“Not in sufficient detail."
The man perked up a hairy ear. “Clucker's comin’ now. You just watch."
Sure enough, another magnificently bloat-bellied man barged in. “Well if it ain't Plymouth Rock!” the newcomer cried. “But who's yer mistress?"
“Oubie's threadin’ his clapper to the rucksack,” Plymouth explained. “What's your load, toad?"
“Gimme the nest, pest,” Clucker responded.
Plymouth brought out a box filled with straw. It did look like a nest.
Clucker touched his soiled buckle and dropped his filthy trousers and shorts. He squatted over the nest, his huge meaty buttocks spreading impressively.
“Watch,” Plymouth directed, pressing Prior's face down almost into contact with the straining brown-streaked rectum. “Now you'll see some real chickenshit!"
The hairy pink anus bulged. Gas leaked out, as though an old-fashioned bus were starting, and the aperture fluttered shut. Prior gagged from the stench, but couldn't get his head away. Then the flesh bowed again. It turned outward, blue veins showed, and the central cavity deepened. Something white appeared in the ugly depths.
A white turd? Prior marveled. Did the man have a liver-bile blockage? He had heard that bile was what made fecal matter possess its normal rich brown. When the bile duct got constipated, the stuff backed up in the liver and had to run through the blood, finally making the urine brown instead.
The pale lump pushed out. It was rounded and smooth, and its surface glistened. On an oily film it eased out of the heaving bowel. It was about the size and shape of a hen's egg.
An egg! Something hal
fway registered in Prior's mind. They did call themselves egglayers!
The egg dropped into the nest. Plymouth picked it up and studied it closely. “Good shape, good heft, Clucker. You sure can hold ‘em."
“Incubate it,” Clucker grunted. “Sometimes the end one gets cold."
Plymouth carried it carefully to a glassed-in nest and set it inside. Clucker strained over his own receptacle again. As Prior watched, another egg emerged. This too was incubated. Then a third and a fourth.
Clucker stood up and hitched aloft his trousers.
“You go to all that trouble just to carry a few eggs?” Prior inquired.
“Eegs,” Clucker said. “E-E-G."
“They look like plain old chicken eggs to me."
“Takes some chicken to lay an eeg,” Clucker said amiably.
“The first time, that is,” Plymouth said. “Our layings don't count; that's just transport."
“I don't understand. Why don't you just carry them in a basket, or a regular box of a dozen?"
Plymouth burst into laughter, his belly shaking St. Nick fashion. “Shitfaced inspector'd just love that start, fart!"
“Also, it's cold on the pass,” Clucker said. He finished his mug of brew, burped, hauled the nest around and dropped his pants again.
More slowly now, and with increasing grease, two more eggs passed. Then, after a labored pause of several minutes, a couple of chunks of odoriferous fecal matter and a seventh egg.
“You longtongued cuntlicker!” Plymouth exclaimed with admiration. “You packed an extra!"
“Going to shit for the record one of these trips,” Clucker said, pleased.
“You sure got a voluminous intestine! Five's the best I can manage. I'm afraid of breakage. What if I took a jumpstep on the pass and they knocked together?"
“Occupational hazard,” Clucker said, wincing. “I thought sure I'd cracked one, once, but I guess I hadn't, ‘cause here I am today."
“But what's the point of it?” Prior demanded. “Cramming eggs into your ass?"
“Who the fuck is this turd?” Clucker inquired politely.
“Oubie sent him along. Says he got pekker-rolled."
“Oh—another dope who'd lose his cock every time if it wasn't screwed on! And it wasn't, eh?” He laughed unkindly. “But I s'pose if she speaks for him, must be hokay.” He turned to Prior. “Hokay, you wanna know what's the fit, shit, I'll tell you. We pick’ em up on Beetlejuice VII and smuggle’ em past customs and take ‘em through the pass. There's a fence here on Earth who retails ‘em for the standard markup or more. Layers like us make good loot, long's we're careful. I figure to retire next year, if I don't bust an egg goin’ for the record."
“Good money?” This always interested Prior.
“Thirteen seventy-five per eeg viable,” Clucker said. “Makes ninety-six twenty-five this trip, my cut."
“Cut-cut-cut-daCU-U-UT!” Plymouth put in, sounding so perfectly like a cackling hen that Prior had to laugh. But he remained amazed.
“Almost fourteen dollars for an egg?"
“Thirteen hundred and seventy five dollars, sterling,” Clucker said curtly. “Eegs ain't cheap."
Prior couldn't digest this figure, so he didn't try. “Where'd you say they came from?"
“Beetlejuice VII. You know, seventh habitable planet of Betelgeuse, the red giant. Long trip."
“I guess so. Just how far away is it? I thought the stars were several million miles."
“Several hundred quintillion miles,” Clucker corrected him. “Give or take a decimal."
“Uh, sure.” Prior regretted having made the inquiry.
“'Bout 650 light years,” Plymouth said helpfully. “Be ‘un ‘ell of a trip if we didn't use the pass."
“'Ell of a trip,” Prior echoed. He still didn't understand what was going on. “I didn't know we had space travel. From star to star, faster than light, I mean."
“I told you. We use the pass. Cuts it way down."
“You told me,” Prior agreed. Some things he just wasn't fated to grasp.
“Any more due this week?” Clucker inquired.
“Rhose Island Red tomorrow. That's all on the schedule, until the fence comes next week."
“Rhose Island Red, huh? Red's a good fuck. I like her."
Until that last word, Prior had not been certain of the sex of Red.
“Yeah,” Plymouth agreed. “'Cept for the way she slips an extra eeg up her front hole."
“Whatsamatter with that? If I had a woman-hole, I'd use it too. Cop the record for sure!"
“Stretches her honeypot all outa shape. Got to wait a good hour ‘fore it's tight. Anything I hate, it's a loose woman. ‘How's the hunt, cunt?’ I asks her, and she says ‘Take yer pick, prick.’ Then she's too loose for me to get a good lodging. And even after a day or so, she still ain't exactly in Oubie's league."
Prior perked up. “You Eggers have intercourse with Oubliette?"
“Huh?” Two blank stares.
“You know. Cohabitation."
Plymouth squinted at him suspiciously. “You a Communist?"
“Sex!” Prior yelled. “Did you ever screw her?"
“Whyinhell didn't you say so! Sure we fucked her. Never got to the bottom of that well, though; deepest dame you ever fingered."
“Course usually she's too busy,” Clucker admitted. “So we leave her be unless she comes out here. Which she does, every month or so. Great gal!"
“Sometimes she hardly gets by the statues,” Plymouth said, inspecting the last two eegs. “All tuckered and fuckered out, can't screw mor'n three-four times before she nods off, and once or twice after that."
“She spends time looking at the statues?” Did she find them as dismayingly fascinating as he had?
“Yeah, and they look at her!” Both men laughed crudely. Prior didn't get the point of the joke, so he ignored it.
“Hey, Cluck!” Plymouth called suddenly. “Listen here."
“What's the word, turd?"
“I think it's bad luck, fuck."
Cluck joined him at the incubator-nests. “Great flying shit and little blivets on the halfshell!” he cried. “One of ‘em's pippin'!"
“That's night hatching!"
Clucker listened more carefully. “Not yet. The pips are still pretty far apart. Might be two days ‘fore the shell breaks."
“But the fence ain't comin’ for five days!"
“Thirteen seventy-five down the shittin’ tube!” Clucker moaned. “We sure can't fence it.” They paced the floor gloomily. “That damned ET!” Clucker exclaimed. “Looked me up the nose with all three eyeballs and swore on his kingfeather those eegs were fresh! I'll piss a river down his windpipe!"
“That ET don't have a windpipe,” Plymouth reminded him.
“He'll have a couple when I get through with him! It ain't just the cash. What if it'd hatched up my ass?"
“It's stuff like that makes me think ‘bout retirin’ early."
“Early hatch—that's retirin’ the hard way!"
They paced some more, in obvious distress. “Say,” Plymouth said. “Oubie always wanted an eeg. You think—?"
“Hey, that's a real birdbrained notion!” From the tone, that was a compliment. “We owe her a lot. We'll give it to her!"
“Except neither one of us can take the chance of going to her place. If we got caught in realtime—"
“Fartin’ cunts!” Clucker exclaimed, chagrined. “I forgot. She'll have to come here for it."
“Might not be time. If we miscalculated—"
“Yeah. Can't risk it. Not with her."
Then they both looked at Prior, struck by a common thought. “He's going back there anyway, and he's mundane,” Plymouth said. “No timespace barrier."
“Sure, I can carry an egg to Oubliette,” Prior said agreeably. He was glad for the pretext to get away from these odd, gutty, lowbrow, foulmouthed, foulassed, indecipherable men.
“Good enough,” Clucker said, visibly relieved. “Fir
st thing in the mornin', we'll load you up and send you back. Be a real nice surprise for her."
Only as he drifted to sleep in the midst of a surprisingly comfortable bed of straw did Prior begin to wonder why, if it were so chancy for Oubliette to carry her eeg back before it was hatched, it should be safe for him to do so. Was it because no one cared if he met calamity?
Chapter 14—Enema
One detail they had neglected to mention. The eeg, in a delicate condition, had to be maintained at body temperature, kept in darkness, and insulated against all severe jostles. It could not be transported in any external basket.
Well, they knew how to handle that. Plymouth Rock held Prior down while Clucker pried apart his tensed buttocks and greased his rectum with a horny finger. Then Clucker dipped the eeg in tallow and then in slippery oil, and applied the narrow end to Prior's pursed sphincter. “Open up,” he complained. “We got to slide it in without cracking."
“It hurts!” Prior protested, objecting on more than one level to the violation of his anus. “My operation—"
“Can't be helped. Just think of it as shittin’ backwards. This ain't fairy stuff, now; this is an eeg.” He rapped on Prior's lower spine with a calloused knuckle. Prior jumped—and in the moment his sphincter loosened, the eeg slurped in.
“Easy as bittin’ a balky horse,” Clucker said, satisfied.
“Work it around in there so it's comfortable,” Plymouth remarked. “You don't want it down too close to the asshole, case you sit down hard or pop it out with a fart. Up around the curve of the gut is better."
“Um,” Prior said, making swallowing motions with his anal canal. “What happens if it hatches early?"
“You got a morbid sense of humor,” Clucker said, unsmiling. Prior decided not to pursue that matter farther, since the eeg was already lodged.
He departed on his puttery golf-cart, feeling the mass of the eeg in his bowel. What a profession!
The roadside statues remained. He could have sworn that some of them had changed their positions. If he ever came this way again, he would make exact notes and discover whether the various scenes of copulation were in fact in slow-motion progress. But right now the weight he carried and the ominous warning of the Eggers reduced his inclination to tarry along the way.