Chapter Sixteen

Bonnie was chatting with Ryo as they strolled from the shuttle toward the laboratory complex when the first rising thunder reached the camp from overhead. It arose in the north and grew steadily louder until a pair of quadruple-winged ships roared by, rattling the trees fringing the glade and scaring hell out of the arboreals.

The two walkers pressed themselves back beneath a canopy of chamelo cloth. So did the other humans who’d been out in the comparative cool of early morning.

After a decent wait Bonnie leaned out to squint toward the southwest. “Think they saw us?”

“I don’t know,” said one of the shuttle’s crew from beneath the overhanging limbs of a nearby tree. He too was staring worriedly southward. “They were awfully low and moving damn fast.” He emerged from concealment. “I’d better get to my station, just in case.”

Bonnie was about to join him when she felt restraining pressure on her arm.

“I do not think we were observed,” Ryo told her. “You see, I am almost positive they were not looking for us.”

“Then what were they doing out here, at that altitude?” She noticed his oddly rigid posture. “Is something else wrong?”

“Very wrong.” Memories rose up, threatened to submerge all other thoughts. Fear and anger mixed inside him. “Those weren’t Thranx ships. Those were AAnn warshuttles. I know, because I’ve seen them before.”

“We’ve got to help.” Sanchez glared around at the hastily assembled conference. They were in the shuttle’s cargo hold, which had been converted to a conference chamber, among other things.

“It’s not our business to get involved in local squabbles,” the military attache reminded them perfunctorily. “We’re here uninvited. Our presence constitutes a dangerous provocation to the Thranx government. There is also the Project to consider. We could not assist the local colonists without revealing our presence, and that in turn would surely spell an end to our highly promising experiments here.” He gazed coolly down toward Ryo.

“Personal feelings must not be allowed to divert us from our principal reason for being here. We have no formal relations with the Thranx. The same is true for the AAnn. I have no basis for initiating hostilities against a neutral and uncontacted alien race.”

“You’ll pardon me if I disagree with that.” Sanchez gave him a wan smile. “I’ve established to my satisfaction that it was the AAnn who, deliberately and unprovoked, attacked the Seeker. I had many killed and several wounded. I’d call that ample provocation for, at the minimum, an instructive reprisal.”

“The attack on your ship could have arisen from misunderstanding,” the attache argued. He didn’t enjoy the position he was forced to take, but he defended it admirably. “We could be jeopardizing any future relationships with the AAnn race.”

“Your pardon, sir.” One of the xenologists at the far end of the room raised a timorous hand. “If these AAnn conform to the psychosocial pattern diagrammed by my programming, then we stand the best chance of making a peace with them by showing a willingness to fight.”

“That’s crazy,” the attache snapped.

“An apt AAnn adjective,” said Ryo, whose knowledge of Terranglo speech had progressed to an appreciation of alliteration.

“Their profile fits, however,” the quiet specialist said with some conviction.

The attache, outgunned, withdrew into silence.

“You must, of course, make your own decision based on the knowledge you have and your own customs,” Ryo said gently. “I am under no such restraints. I must take my harvester and render whatever assistance I can, regardless of personal risk. Besides, there is little you could accomplish. For one thing, you have no satisfactory ground transportation. For another, you do not have-‘

“I’m afraid that we do, Ryo,” Sanchez informed him. The Thranx made an instinctive gesture of fourth-degree astonishment.

“I know this was designed to be a wholly peaceful mission,” she continued, “and it should remain so with regard to human-Thranx relations. But considering our former imprisonment, surely you can understand that we wouldn’t set down on a Thranx planet unarmed.”

“No.” Ryo tried to conceal his considerable upset. “I do not understand that.”

The captain shrugged. “I’m sorry. Regardless, it remains that we have weapons.” She gazed around the room. “I propose that we use them to demonstrate our mental constitution to the AAnn, and to aid our newfound friends. Informally, it would seem.” She focused her attention on the attache. “of course, I cannot give the order to release weaponry for use here.”

The attache drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I still haven’t heard a strong enough reason. It’s insane to take up arms against one race on behalf of another that we have no relations with.”

“The whole experiment sounded insane when Ryo first proposed it,” Bonnie reminded him. “There’s something else you haven’t thought of. None of you.” Her gaze included Sanchez. “What of the larvae we’ve borrowed from the Paszex Nursery? Their parents and clanmates are all back there. If they’re killed we’ll have relations of a different sort to deal with, far more complicated relations.

“Also, by assisting the locals we have a chance to insinuate ourselves into their good graces. That would greatly aid the Project.” She looked hard at the attache. “Not hinder or finish it, as you claim. I feel it’s time to take the next step, according to the Project programming. We can’t stay hidden here forever.”

“A most succinct summation.” Bhadravati smiled pleasantly at the attache. “I should very much like to have a gun, please. In the interest of furthering the Project.” This sentiment was echoed strongly by most of the others in the chamber.

Ryo’s feelings were confused. It was marvelous finally to have committed the humans against the AAnn. He would rather have accomplished it under different circumstances, in a different place, but the web of existence had dictated it be in Paszex. He would cope.

At the same time, the presence of weapons on board the shuttle was a discomfiting revelation. Not one had see fit to come forward to tell him about it. Perhaps, he mused, because my reaction was anticipated.

In spite of the successes and accomplishments of the past months, had Wuu in the final analysis been right all along? Were these strange bipeds he had befriended really incurably warlike and violent? Or was the presence of arms here merely an understandable human reaction and precaution?

Dissection of philosophies would have to wait. All that mattered now was getting to Paszex as rapidly as possible. The harvester could rush there faster than the humans’ shuttle, which had been made a part of the landscape.

Of course, the AAnn ships might not be heading for Paszex. That would spare him a lot of trouble.

Perhaps three dozen armed humans were ready and it was impossible to fit them all inside the harvester. The excess sat on top, clung to the sides. Ryo thoughtfully set the interior thermostat at near freezing, which his passengers found delightfully refreshing.

How long ago had he rumbled through the jungle in a survey crawler on a similar mission, to try and disrupt an AAnn attack on his home? Surely, if the AAnn were intent on Paszex again they would remember and post guards around their shuttles. But they would be expecting only a possible charge by agricultural machinery, not a heavily armed force of aliens.

The military attache was present with his several associates. As trained soldiers, they easily and immediately assumed command. Ryo noticed how alert they appeared, how intense in posture and speech. That worried him as much as the presence of weapons had.

He’d observed humans in a warlike state months ago, when Bonnie and the lamented Loo had escaped from their military prison on northern Hivehom. That he could understand. Then they’d been motivated by fear. He wasn’t sure what was motivating the humans now.

With the humans on top and sides hanging on tightly, Ryo gently put the versatile harvester on lift. There was no point in trying to hug the earth now, and they didn’t have days in which to slog through the jungle. On full hover he set the craft for Paszex.

They set down into the trees at a sufficient distance to keep them off AAnn detection equipment. It took as long to negotiate the final short stretch of jungle separating them from the hive fields as it had to hover all the way from the glade.

The invaders had set down in a different orchard. As in the previous nightmare, smoke was rising from ruined ventilators and intakes. For some perverse reason the AAnn seemed to have selected Paszex as a test hive for their inimical soirees. Ryo had no idea how many small, isolated hives on Willow-wane and other colony worlds had suffered similar repeated attacks, but it was obvious that an alliance with the humans was more necessary than his own government was willing to admit.

Distant explosions sounded from the direction of the hive. “We will approach stealthily at first,” Ryo was telling the military attache, “and try to slip close to them. I found that if you threaten their shuttles’ engines they will-“

But the attache was already making loud mouth noises which even the knowledgeable Ryo could not interpret. Then the humans fell like lice from the sides and rear of the harvester, and were running remarkably mobile zigzag patterns through the field of shoulder-high weoneon and asfi.

It’s doubtful that their numbers would have overawed the well-trained AAnn soldiery. On the other hand, the sight of several dozen alien creatures waving alien devices as they charged from supposedly empty jungle shrieking at the tops of their lungs and generally comporting themselves like dangerous mental defectives would be enough to unsettle the most self-possessed warrior of any race.

The AAnn guards fired wildly and often blindly while the humans picked their shots with surprising accuracy. Bonnie, Captain Sanchez, Dr. Bhadravati, and all those whom Ryo had come to think of as peaceful, gentle scholars were blasting away with an enthusiasm that made Ryo feel very sad for them. He was no longer frightened of the possibilities they presented. Fear had become pity.

They need us, these poor bipeds, he told himself. He watched as an energy bolt seared the wingtip of -one shuttlecraft. They need us far more than we need them. They are the ones who should be crying for alliance.

The earth erupted and he ducked below the harvester’s roof for protection. A shot had struck something more than volatile within the body of the farther AAnn ship. It disintegrated in a storm of flaming plastic and flying metal shards. The explosion knocked the other shuttle over on its side, crumpling landing gear and one of the four wings.

Several of the humans had been shot, but the damage had been done. The startled AAnn who had not perished grouped themselves into a surrender formation, threw down their weapons, and linked arms in a gesture of defiant submission. They glared through slit pupils at the peculiar beings surrounding them.

Ryo watched and wondered what the commander of the AAnn base ship orbiting somewhere above must be thinking. He did not know if the AAnn suffered from panic. Other AAnn were staggering from the intact shuttlecraft. Those returning hastily from the underground corridors of Paszex took note of the submission ceremony their fellows were performing and joined in.

It was not until evening that it dawned on the invaders how greatly they outnumbered their captors. By then it was too late to organize any resistance. Besides, they had performed the submission ceremony. Regardless of their anger, they had committed themselves. So they contented themselves with much internal grumbling, intense study of the alien victors, and disparaging comments about their officers, who’d mistaken strangeness for superiority.

By then the inhabitants of the stricken community had begun to emerge. The local Servitors were joined by ordinary citizens who’d armed themselves with utensils and manufacturing implements. The captured AAnn regarded them with unconcealed disdain, their tails twitching listlessly as they shuffled about under the watchful gaze of the humans. Meanwhile the hivefolk kept their distance, their curiosity focused more on their fearful saviors than on the belligerent AAnn.

Eventually someone noticed Ryo standing among and conversing with the bipeds. He reluctantly made his way to the strangely garbed Thranx, striving to get no nearer the monstrous aliens than was absolutely ngcessary.

“I am Kerarilzex,” the Elder announced. His antennae were withered, but not his voice. “I am Six on the Hive Council of Eight. We would give our thanks to these peculiar visitors”-he’d been about to use the Thranx word for monster and at the last minute thought better of it “but I would not know how to do so. It appears you can converse with them.” Then he made a slow gesture of thirddegree uncertainty coupled with one of rising amazement. “I believe-I believe I may know you, youngster. Can it be that you are of the Zex?”

“I am called Ryozenzuzex, Elder.”

“The young agricultural expert who vanished so long ago. Truly do I remember you!” He paused, thinking furiously. “Word came to us all the way from Ciccikalk that you had become something of a dangerous renegade.”

“Something of that, yes. I am a renegade from and danger to the blind, the callous, and the reactionary. No one else has anything to fear from me.” Now that the AAnn had been neutralized, other problems-in their own fashion more serious-were beginning to resurface.

“Rest deep and warm, Elder. Neither I nor my friends,” and he indicated the monsters, “are any threat to the hive. The contrary is true. All will be explained.” I hope, he add silently. “All that matters is what I have accomplished in my absence.”

Bonnie had walked over to stand next to him. She was gazing with interest at the Elder, who found the attention very upsetting.

“Who are these … creatures, and how have you come to be among them?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” Bonnie said via the appropriate whistles and clicks.

The Elder was flabbergasted. Reflexively, he threw back a stream of questions.

“I don’t understand,” she told him patiently. “You’ll have to speak more slowly. I’m not very fluent yet.”

Ryo translated the rough places for both of them. The Elder’s active mind was homing in on another unsettling thought.

“We thank you for our hive’s salvation. I think we will be safe from AAnn depredations from now on. Would you by any chance know what happened to six children who were taken from the Nursery several months ago? Their Nurse vanished with them. A heinous crime.”

“And a necessary one, I’m afraid.” Ryo was past caring what local Elders thought. Having broken so many important laws in a comparatively brief span he had no compunction at mentioning yet another perfidy.

“The Nurse Falmiensazex had nothing to do with the disappearance.” He had to hesitate before he could go on. “She lies in a comasleep. That was my fault. It was also necessary.”

The Elder was watching him shrewdly. “You call it necessary, yet you show signs of remorse.”

“She is-was-my premate.”

“Ah.” The council member was trying to sort events in his mind. “And the larvae?”

“All are well, healthy, and maturing.” In areas you can’t begin to imagine, he added silently.

“There will have to be an adjudication, of course,” murmured the Elder.

“Of course.”

“What are they talking about?” Bonnie asked him.

“My most recent crimes. I will have to surrender myself soon to confinement.”

Bonnie hefted her rifle. “Not if you don’t want to, you won’t. You’re too valuable, too important to the Project to languish in some cell while we try and muddle through first contact without you, Ryo.”

“I assure you everything will turn out all right.” He put first a truhand and then a foothand on her arm. “A society functions because its citizens choose to abide by its laws.”

“That sounds funny coming from you.”

“So I am selective.” There was no accompanying gesture of humor. Bonnie wondered if that was for the benefit of the watchful Elder.

“The matter must be discussed, Bonnie. It will take time.”

As it turned out, it did not.

An echo of the thunder they’d hidden from earlier now rose out of the south. It grew to deafening proportions as half a dozen sleek shuttlecraft passed low overhead. They commenced a wide turn that would bring them circling back toward Paszex.

Bonnie and the other humans had a bad moment until they noticed the loud and clearly celebratory reaction of the hivefolk. “Our ships,” Ryo told her in response to the unasked question.

“Late again,” muttered the Elder Kerarilzex, “but at least in force this time. I hope others caught the command ship before it could flee orbit. Words will be composed,” he added darkly. “This is the fifth time in the last seventy years. Other hives endure worse. I do not believe the people will stand for it much longer.”

“And well you shouldn’t,” Bonnie agreed in passable Low Thranx.

The Thranx commanding officer, of the fifteenth rank, had stared through his compensating viewer as his modest armada passed low over the site of Paszex. He made mental note of the two ruined AAnn warshuttles, the cluster of AAnn prisoners, the armed hivefolk, and the astonishing aliens in their midst.

There was no immediate way of ascertaining which side the horrific bipeds were on. He could not fire on them since they were mixed in with the hivefolk. It was very frustrating.

The military of both species were livid. The bureaucrats were most upset. The politicians were confused and angry. The scientists were disturbed.

Each group had dreamed of holding center, stage when an intelligent, space-traversing race was contacted. Instead, the moment of glory had been usurped by some secretive researchers, a mutinous human crew, and an outcast alien agriculturalist.

There were pains and problems. The parents of the boys and girls who’d traveled to Willow-wane as part of the Project did their best to muster a feeling of betrayal. True, they had agreed to commit their children to Project control in return for a year of free room, board, and education, but to some of them the whole business still seemed like kidnaping. None had thought to inquire as to the precise location of the Project school or its distance from their homes.

The idea of lifting a group of impressionable youngsters and then plunking them down among a bunch of pale wormlike monsters grated against the public conscience. No one, of course, gave a thought to the effect the children might have had on the impressionable Thranx larvae.

The Thranx populace had an advantage because it had already been exposed to two semi-intelligent species and the AAnn. It was their highly developed sense of propriety that suffered most. Events had not unfolded according to carefully prepared procedures. When procedure was violated well, the Thranx were very strong on organization and rather less so at improvisation, and you simply did not improvise first contact with an alien race.

There was also the matter of larval abduction. Unlike the humans, Ryo did not have the permission of parents to enroll their offspring in the Project school. His action was kidnapping, whatever the motives.

Ryo didn’t care. He agreed with everything the adjudicators said. All that mattered was the Project. Its apparent success was vindication enough for him. None of the larvae had been harmed, physically or mentally, by their experience. The Nursery supervisors who attended them could attest to that.

It’s very hard to rouse public opinion against someone who politely agrees with everything his prosecutors say while patiently awaiting martyrdom.

His strongest condemnation carne not from government or public but from Fal. Under proper care she recovered rapidly from her comasleep, whereupon she laid into him far more devastatingly than any hivemother. Against her list of outrages he could offer only one thought in his defense: the fact that he had succeeded.

As to the avowed success of the Project, even the most jingoistic member of either species could not deny the evidence. Not only did the Thranx larvae and human children tolerate each other, they had grown nearly inseparable. Monster played happily alongside monster.

Recordings showing human children gamboling with their Thranx counterparts rapidly dispelled the initial outcry that had arisen on Earth and her colonies. How can something be considered a monster when a seven-year-old girl with pigtails can ride it bareback, or a couple of boys can tussle with it in a sandpile and all three are obviously having a wonderful time?

Reaction among the Thranx was, in accord with their nature, somewhat slower in forming. Grudging acceptance began to appear when chips revealed that the horribly flexible alien adolescents had no intention of butchering and barbecuing their larval companions.

A major ticklish problem was partially resolved when the Radical Agnostic theologians of Earth discovered their exact counterparts among the Aesthetic Philosopher sect of Hivehom. They answered the nervous and awkward question raised by many as to which side the Deity might be on by proclaiming that he was most likely sitting back and watching the whole business with considerable amusement.

Twenty years would pass before the first treaties were drawn and more than that before the boldest among both species brought up the specter of Amalgamation. For the time being, preliminary agreements were sufficient. They were attested to and duly recorded by wary officials on both sides whose hands had been forced, not by strength of arms or superior intellectual power, but by children cavorting in a playroom.

Ryo was formally relieved of his long-neglected agricultural duties and assigned to the permanent contact group. This was placed outside Paszex, which now assumed an importance beyond the export of vegetable products and handicrafts. Many of the latter, incidentally, were traded to the humans of the Project. Once again the pioneers had stolen a march on the official planners. Trade had begun.

The airfield was hastily enlarged so it could handle shuttlecraft. First official visitors were exchanged, and as a few handicrafts and mechanisms traversed the gulf between the stars, it was discovered that the profit motive was another characteristic human and Thranx shared.

So it was that contact was not forged so much as hastily cobbled together. But it was a beginning, the most important part of understanding.

Even Fal eventually reconciled with her now famous premate, though he was still regarded as a traitor among some of his own kind and an enemy spy in certain unrelentingly paranoid human circles. Wuuzelansem was brought from Ciccikalk, still suspicious of humankind but more flexible than most Thranx. His conversion came rapidly when some of the humans became fluent enough to admire his poetry.

“I don’t know how we did without them for so long,” he once muttered to Ryo after a recital. “Their appreciation of true art seems as boundless as their enthusiasm. The government may acquire an ally, but I have acquired something far more valuable.”

“Which is?”

“A new audience!” and Wuu returned to the display chamber to acknowledge the humans’ peculiar form of applause.

Ten years passed. A day arrived when several of the original Project members had to return to their homes. Two would travel to Centaurus, one to New Riviera, and several to Earth.

Jahan Bhadravati was one of them. Bonnie was another. They stood next to the Paszex shuttleport’s human-service area, still clad in Willow-wane duty uniform, which was to say practically nothing, and waited for departure call. It was a lovely rnidseason day. The temperature was 35deg C and the humidity hovered near 92 percent.

No officials saw them off with speeches. In the intervening decade the coming and going of humans at Paszex had ceased to be worthy of special notice. There was a farewell party, however. Ryozenzuzex was there, accompanied by a young Thranx adult named Qul and a tall, skinny human named Wilson Asambi. They were working together to help develop gentler strains of a hybrid fruit.

Bonnie took a last look around the surface of Willow-wane. The distant lines of orchard and jungle, the little thickets of air-intake stacks, the shuttleway, all were old friends to be left behind but retained in memory. She looked much the same as she had when she’d first set foot on Willow-wane ten years before. The world was a fine place for keeping fit. There was gray in her hair now, and contentment in her expression.

“I suppose you’ll continue at your post,” she said to Ryo.

He shrugged, a human gesture that was becoming quite popular among Thranx, and uttered a confirmatory whistle of agreement. He reflected on the gesture and its meaning. We give so much to each other, he thought. Gesture as well as science, habit as well as art. Especially poetry. He smiled inwardly. Two years ago, old Wuuzelansem had fled to wherever it was old poets retreated to, fighting and kicking and disparaging the state of the universe all the way, but not before he’d seen his poetry wildly praised by the very monsters he’d once sought to avoid contact with.

Ryo missed Wuu. Even if they hadn’t seen ommatidia to ommatidia all the time.

A high-pitched whistle sounded from behind. Fal was waiting near the entryway to Paszex: She still would not have close contact with humans. Her trauma was understandable, since they’d been responsible for luring her premate away and forcing him to strike her. She would barely tolerate them.

Toleration first, he told himself. Friendship later. If anything, progress on the latter was ahead of schedule.

To his surprise, he noticed that Bonnie was making eye moisture. Ryo waited to find out whether it was significant of happiness or distress. Water of delight, water of depression, Wuu had called it in one of his poems.

“I’m crying out of both,” she told him. “I’m glad that things have turned out so well and I’m sad that after all these years it’s finally time to leave. I just can’t turn down a university position on Earth. Loo-Loo would have liked the way things have turned out.”

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Ryo said. “I’ll retain my position as long as I’m able to help.”

Bhadravati shuffled his feet and said nothing. Conversation had never been the scientist’s strong point, Ryo knew. He felt a great sadness within himself at the coming departure of two of his oldest human friends.

“There is no reason to cry, my friend,” Ryo told Bonnie. “We have nothing but reason for happiness. We shall meet again someday.”

Bonnie was too much of a realist to believe that. Circumstance and distance, the ancient enemies of acquaintance, would conspire to prevent it.

Nevertheless she replied with a smiling, “I hope so, Ryo,” as she reached out both hands to touch the tips of his proffered antennae. The interspecies gesture was now as automatic as a handshake. Ryo repeated the gesture with Bhadravati.

“These youngsters here,” he said, indicating Asambi and Qul, “will be taking on the truly important work now. Nothing can prevent the deepening of our friendship.” She was still crying and he made a gesture of gentle thirddegree admonishment.

“Please, friend, let there be no more tears at this parting. Not water tears from you nor crystal tears from me, would that I were able to manufacture them. It’s a gesture I envy you. A small but intriguing physical difference.”

“The only significant differences between us anymore are physical,” said Bhadravati.

“Only physical,” Ryo agreed, “and that means less each day. Shape and composition mean nothing when understanding is present.”

“I thought old Wuu was the poet and not you,” Bonnie said.

“A little of everything you admire eventually rubs off on you. I’m sure you’ll be happy to live for a while now with less weighty matters on your mind.”

“Well, I will have my classes,” she admitted, “and Jahan his research and his books to compose.” From the way they gazed at one another Ryo thought Bonnie might mate after all. The soft beeping sounded from around them. Other passengers began to move toward the waiting shuttle. Not all of them were human.

“We should board.” Bhadravati put a hand on her shoulder. She nodded, didn’t-speak, looked back down at Ryo. Then she reached out and hugged him. Blue-green chiton slid against soft flesh. It was another gesture Ryo had learned but which he’d always observed performed by two humans. It was much too rough to be civilized, but he politely said nothing.

As they moved toward the shuttle he made the human gesture of farewell, waving two hands at them. He followed with the far more complex and subtle four-handed gesture of Thranx good-bye. At the base of the ramp Bonnie imitated it as best she could with only two hands. Then they disappeared into the ship.

He started toward the burrow entryway that led down into the busy terminal. The impatient Fal had withdrawn into the comforting confines below.

Bonnie and Dr. Bhadravati appeared content, and that thought made him happy. Everyone deserved contentment. They’d worked hard and long and deserved their share of mental peace.

The fruit he’d struggled so hard to plant had taken root. It had done more than survive. In ten years it prospered enormously and now showed signs of flowering into something far more than he’d ever dreamed of, more than mere friendship. The relationship between human and thranx was becoming more than deep. There were signs, signs and portents, that someday in the far future it could become truly symbiotic.

And there was another benefit, one Ryo had not considered. One he hadn’t thought much about during the last busy, exciting ten years. The realization came as a shock.

He found something useful to do with his life after all.

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Note: Map of the Commonwealth and its Chronology Published in 05: Flinx in Flux

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ALAN DEAN FOSTER was born in New York City in 1946 and raised in Los Angeles, California. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master of fine arts degree in motion pictures from UCLA in 1968-69, he worked for two years as a public relations copywriter in Studio City, California.

He sold his first short story to August Derleth at Arkham Collector Magazine in 1968, and other sales of short fiction to other magazines followed. His first try at a novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, was published by Ballantine Books in 1972. Since then, Foster has published many short stories, novels, and film novelizations.

Foster has toured extensively around the world. Besides traveling, he enjoys classical and rock music, old films, basketball, body surfing, and weightlifting. He has taught screenwriting, literature, and film history at UCLA and Los Angeles City College.

Currently he resides in Arizona.