Mongoose (story)

"Mongoose" is a short story by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, part of their Boojumverse setting that combines elements of the Cthulhu Mythos and creatures from Lewis Carroll in a space opera setting. The story first appeared in the anthology Lovecraft Unbound (Dark Horse Books, 2009).
"Mongoose" centers on the relationship between Izrael Irizarry, an exterminator of interdimensional vermin, and Mongoose, an alien creature with whom he has a symbiotic bond; the two are hired to deal with an infestation on a space station, and soon find that they may be over their heads.
==Bestiary==
===Cheshires===
Small, predatory alien creatures, adapted for vacuum, with the ability to phase between dimensions. They form intensely close bonds with human partners; they are deaf, but can sense and understand speech when in physical contact. They change the colors of their skin for communication and self-decoration--though flat representations mean nothing to them. 
They have wedge-shaped heads on extensible necks, four compound and twelve simple eyes. They have catfish-like barbels and flick their tongues out to taste the air. Their teeth are a "needle-sharp crystalline array".
Cheshires are bred by Arkhamers, a spacefaring culture of knowledge-seekers whom outsiders view with suspicion. There is a theory that cheshires are sub-adult bandersnatches (see below)--“trained and bred and intentionally stunted so that they never mature fully”--though the main cheshire in the story firmly rejects this theory.
The name "cheshire" comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VI, by Lewis Carroll (at Wikisource). A cheshire can, like their namesake, disappear slowly, with its grin the last thing visible--but it will likely only do so if they've had Lewis Carroll read to them.
===Toves===
Interdimensional vermin with sluglike, segmented bodies, a little short of a meter long. They often attach themselves to ceilings with a foul-smelling secretion; a tove infestation can be identified by their "sharp stink...ammoniac and bitter." They hunt by dangling glowing, sticky lure-tongues, half a meter long, which they use to catch prey which they then attack with "flesh-ripping pincers".
Despite this, toves are less a threat than a nuisance, "with their tendency to use up valuable oxygen, clog ductwork, eat pets, drip goo from ceilings, and crunch wetly when you stepped on them." They are lazy creatures--or "energy efficient"--"never crawl[ing] farther than was necessary to find a useable anchoring point." Their real danger is that they weaken the barriers between dimensions, attracting raths, their natural predators--and worse things.
The name "tove" comes from the "Jabberwocky" poem from Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter I, by Lewis Carroll (at Wikisource). Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice in that book that toves are "something like badgers——they're something like lizards——and they're something like corkscrews."Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter VI, by Lewis Carroll (at Wikisource).
===Raths===
Vicious interdimensional predators who normally feed on toves, but are also known to eat "weakened humans or small gillies." They "weren’t sapient, not like cheshires, but they were smart." They have "strange starlike bones."
They come in a few forms: juveniles, who are "small flitting things... near-transparent in their phase shift"; "sexually dormant adult rovers," who appear as "blots of shadow"; and the massive breeders, who may be older rovers or an entirely separate caste. The juveniles are harmless, being too young to bite, though one expert notes, “If we stood perfectly still for long enough...they could probably leech out enough of our body heat to send us into hypothermia."
A breeder rath has "no recognizable features, save for its hideous, drooling, ragged edged maw." Though very slow, breeders are the most dangerous form of rath, and very hard to kill, as they are "armored like titanium armadillos." When threatened, they gather their offspring to themselves and curl up in a ball, in which position "it would take a tactical nuke to kill them." Their only truly vulnerable point is the organ through which "little baby raths came into the world," and that can only be attacked by a cheshire when the breeder is an upright position. Their feet, while not vulnerable, are sensitive, and attacking them can provoke the rath into exposing their ovipositor.
The name "rath" also comes from "Jaberwocky". Humpty Dumpty tells Alice that a rath is "a sort of green pig."
===Bandersnatch===
"Bandersnatch" is the common name in the Boojumverse for what are known elsewhere in the Cthulhu Mythos as the Hounds of Tindalos. (The bandersnatch's scientific name is Pseudocanis tindalosi; the Arkhamers refer to them as "hounds".) They are mostly known for being exceedingly deadly, with no one known to have survived an encounter with them who didn't immediately flee. Footage of a bandersnatch attack shows "flickering angular limbs appearing like spiked mantis arms from the corners of sealed rooms." For a boojum, however, a bandersnatch is "not much more than a case of indigestion."
A "bandersnatch" is a fearsome creature mentioned in "Jabberwocky"; not much is said about them, except for the fact that they are "frumious".
===Boojums===
Boojums, introduced in the short story "Boojum", are titanic creatures at home in outer space, used by humans as living spaceships. "Mongoose" introduces the boojum liveships Manfred von Richthofen, Erich Zann, and Harriet Tubman--and possibly the Arthur Gordon Pym.
===Gillies===
Gillies are a small humanoid species, apparently semi-aquatic, possibly from Venus.
==Characters==
Izrael Irizarry: A professional exterminator of toves and other interdimensional vermin, who travels around the Solar System wherever his services are needed, often being transported by boojum. He "hate[s] dealing with apparatchiks and functionaries."
Mongoose: A cheshire bonded to Irizarry; she is jealous, and does not like other creatures touching him. After having Winnie the Pooh read to her, she decides that she is a "jagular," because she is a "Very Good Dropper," and "nobody ever saw her coming unless she wanted them to." She also identifies with Rikki Tikki Tavi, the mongoose from the Rudyard Kipling story.
Station Master Lee: The chief bureaucrat on Kadath Station. She is unscrupulous, putting her career ahead of the safety of the station--and appears to be unpopular; "nobody seemed to have a good word for Lee." Described as having a round face.
Intelligence Colonel Sadhi Sanderson: Kadath Station's political officer. She is described as "average height, average weight, brown hair drawn back in a smooth club; her skin was space-pale and faintly reddened across the cheeks."
==Publication History==
After its initial appearance in Lovecraft Unbound, the story was reprinted in numerous "best of" collections, including The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Four (Night Shade Books, 2010), The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2010 (Prime Books, 2010), The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection (St. Martin's Griffin, 2010), and The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (Robinson, 2010).Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: Mongoose".
It was also included in the anthologies New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (Prime Books, 2011) and In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (Baen, 2013).
==External Link==
*"Mongoose" complete text at Clarksworld
==References==
Category:Elizabeth Bear works
Category:Sarah Monette works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works