by James White
Wemar had been a verdant, thickly-forested world whose dominant life-form had risen rapidly from pre-sapience to technologically advanced civilization by the traditional method of forming alliances and periodically threatening themselves with extinction through increasingly mechanistic forms of warfare. Fortunately, they had not developed nuclear fission or fusion power so that they survived with their civilization intact until they slowly learned the ways of peace and the population expanded without control. Unfortunately, they were an inward-looking culture that considered their world's resources, its animal life and its growing and fossil fuel supply to be inexhaustible.
Until too late they did not have the orbiting eyes to see what they were doing to their planet.
With every new generation the Wem population tripled, and the levels of atmospheric pollution from its power-hungry and non-nuclear manufacturing processes kept pace, until the ionization layers protecting it against the harmful parts of the solar radiation spectrum became increasingly affected. Like the majority of worlds that had no axial tilt and seasonal temperature variations, the meteorological changes were driven only by Wem's planetary rotation so that its weather systems tended to be unspectacular and predictable. As a result the pollutants found their way into the upper layers of the atmosphere to collect over the north and south poles. There the quantities of destructive material grew and spread, stripping the polar regions of their protective ionization and spreading inexorably into the upper levels of the stratosphere above the heavily populated temperate zones, and beyond.
It was a gradual process, but slowly the planetary surface from the poles to the sub-tropical latitudes adjoining the equator sickened and much of it died, as did the great herds of food animals that depended on the dying vegetation. The fish and underwater plant life occupying the on-shore shallows sickened as well, and in steadily increasing numbers so did the Wem—who starved without their meat. Worse, the sun, which had once caused plants and grasses eaten by their food animals to grow and thrive, was causing them to wither and die; and the Wem, too, were dying in great numbers from strange wasting diseases of the skin and eyes, caused by exposure to their increasingly lethal sunlight.
Gradually their technology collapsed. The steady attrition of population was accelerated by increasingly savage wars waged between the equatorial and comparatively well-fed Haves, who still had an adequate ionization layer protecting them, and the starving temperate zone Have Nots. Over the past two centuries the situation had stabilized, with the world population much diminished and the pollution it had caused removed, so that now the desperately ill planet was beginning to cure itself. The sun was beginning to reionize the upper atmosphere and renew the damaged protective layer.
In time, perhaps in four or five generations, the off-world teachers on Tremaar insisted, the cure would be complete. But only if the tragically few remaining Wem were able to survive, and they did not once again allow their population to grow out of control or reintroduce the old, dirty technology to support it.
"I tell you again," said Gurronsevas very seriously, "the next time the Wem try to kill themselves, you might succeed."
Remrath did not look up from the special cold desserts it was preparing for the teachers and students. Angrily, it said, "The Wem do not like being constantly reminded that we are criminally stupid. Certainly I don't."
"I feel very strongly about this situation," Gurronsevas said quickly, "so that my words were hasty and ill-considered. You are neither stupid nor a criminal, nor is any other Wem that I know of. The crime was committed by your ancestors. The problem is inherited, but it is you who must solve it."
"I know, I know," said Remrath, still without looking up. "By eating vegetables?"
"Soon," Gurronsevas replied, as he had done so often before, "there will be nothing else to eat."
Over the past few days Remrath and he had grown close, as acquaintances if not friends, so much so that he no longer allowed politeness to get in the way of truth. At first this had worried the listeners on Rhabwar who, as well as supplying him with the information they had been able to discover or deduce about the Wem culture, kept reminding him that he was their only effective channel of communication. But they expected him to explain to Remrath and the other teachers a situation which, not being a medic or anthropologist or even a biologist, he did not fully understand himself.
When he asked for a fuller explanation it was usually Pathologist Murchison, speaking to him in a manner identical to that of Tawsar addressing a very backward pupil, who gave the densely clinical answer. Gurronsevas knew nothing about genetic rifts, or the various other-world precedents for the Wem's apparent change from omnivore to carnivore eating habits at puberty, or the fact that on Earth tadpoles and frogs made the same changeover, and he cared less. So far as he was concerned, the legs of frogs were no more than a culinary delicacy enjoyed by some Earth-humans as well as a few other species with cultivated palates.
Unlike the Earth-human Murchison, in his youth Gurronsevas had never caught tadpoles or frogs, or kept one of them in a glass jar, because there was no equivalent of those life-forms on Traltha. But finally the pathologist had been able to make him understand the differences between the digestive systems possessed by herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.
The large, meat-bearing herbivores were usually ruminants who had to graze continually while they were awake so that their multiple stomachs could metabolize the food which, because of its high proportion of vegetable fibre and low energy content, required a long time to digest and store. When threatened by predators, the grazers could move fast and sometimes protect themselves with horns or hooves, but they lacked the speed and stamina of the meat-eating carnivores whose food intake was more easily assimilated and available as energy.
It was only in rare environmental circumstances that a ruminant species evolved to planetary dominance or the level of intelligence that preceded civilization. If they were not hunted to extinction, they were domesticated, bred, and protected as a continuing source of food by the species which had achieved domination. And very rarely did a carnivorous species achieve the level of cooperation beyond the family unit that allowed an advanced culture to develop, and then only when they made major changes in their predatory behavior and eating habits.
Omnivorous life-forms were much more adaptable in the matter of food because they had the choice of hunting for it, gathering it or, when their ability to adapt became the stirrings of true intelligence, of herding and cultivating it. And if these intelligent omnivores were threatened with starvation because a crop had failed or their food-herds had sickened and died, they would find a way to survive even if they suffered a natural disaster on the scale of that which had overtaken Wemar.
There was a much easier way to that which the Wem hunters were now pursuing.
Gurronsevas went on, "Out of instinct or experience, the few animals that are left to hunt have learned to stay out of the sun. Large and small, they have become twilight or nocturnal creatures who shelter during daylight in deep caves and ground burrows. And because they have only each other to prey upon, they have become very dangerous indeed. Frequently, as you have told me, your hunters have to spend many dangerous hours in the sun, hampered by their protective cloaks, while digging them out or following them into deep lairs, because at night the advantage lies with their prey. It is hard, dangerous work that they do, and often your hunters become the hunted.
"A mere grower of vegetables would not attract the admiration and prestige of a brave hunter," he continued, "but the work is easier and the life-expectancy higher because vegetables don't fight back.
"Unless served with too much powdered cressle root," he added.
"Gurronsevas," said Remrath, "this is a serious matter. The Wem have always been meat-eaters."
He wished suddenly that he was back in Sector General and able to consult Chief Psychologist O'Mara or, better still, Padre Lioren, about t
his problem. He was pitting logic against belief, indisputable scientific fact against a situation that had become a religion; and, as so often happened with emerging cultures, science was losing the argument.
"You are right, of course," he replied. "The matter is very serious and the Wem have always, as far back as your memories and written records go, been meat-eaters. Many centuries ago, when your plains and forests were still well stocked with animal life and you could hunt them in the sunlight without fear, I think that it was not only the adults who ate meat. I think, and my thoughts are supported by the investigation of our healers on the ship, that infants, newly-weaned from their mothers' milk, were fed a thin, vegetable, meat-flavored stew because their young stomachs were unable to accept meat alone. At a very early age, however, and making allowance for their smaller physical size, they would be given meat in the same proportion as that served to the adults.
"But neither they, nor you, are necessarily carnivorous.
"Physically the Wem are not suited to be farmers," Gurronsevas went on. "Your long rear limbs and tails, your fast movements and ability to suddenly change direction, were probably evolved to escape large predators in your pre-sapient past. Until the ecological catastrophe overtook your world, meat was always plentiful and hunting and herding it was much easier than trying to grow it, so that meat-eating became a virtue of necessity. But when your meat supply diminished, and you may have difficulty accepting my words, it became a vice.
"I do not speak with certain knowledge," Gurronsevas went on quickly before Remrath could interrupt, "because I can only speculate about events that happened two or three centuries ago. But I would guess that, when the meat shortage became gradually more severe, the short period when vegetable stew was fed to young infants was increased until they reached puberty, and the restriction on eating meat was extended, probably at their own request, to those aged adults who were past their physical best. I would guess that soon afterwards only the young male hunters and female hunters, because of the increasing dangers they faced and their importance to the survival of their tribal group, were certain of having meat to eat. And in times of great shortage it might be that the hunters were expected to keep the meat they caught for themselves.
"They would not do this because of selfishness brought on by great, personal hunger," Gurronsevas added. "It would be because of a firmly held belief that the future survival of the Wem lay in feeding the food-gatherers with meat. Is this not so?"
Because the returning hunters were making slower progress than expected, there had been time for Gurronsevas to learn a little of Remrath's body language and facial expressions. The old cook was looking distressed and ashamed, emotions which could change quickly to anger, and it was not replying. In his anxiety to help the other he was pushing too hard. Something must be said quickly to lighten this conversation, he thought, or contact might be broken permanently here and now.
"If I were to ask them politely," he said, "would your hunters give me some of their meat? Just a small portion would do. I can be quite creative with a meat course."
For a moment Remrath had difficulty with its breathing, but the choking sounds subsided into the low barking that he recognized as the Wem equivalent of laughter.
"They would not!" it said. "Meat is too precious for an off-worlder cooker of vegetables to risk spoiling it."
Gurronsevas remained silent, deliberately. As he had hoped, it was Remrath who now felt that it had given offense because its tone became apologetic.
"You would not spoil food deliberately," Remrath said quickly. "But you might change its taste with your sauces and spices so that they would not recognize it as meat." It hesitated, then went on, "And you are right. Unless there was a particularly successful hunt, and that has not happened since I left the hunters to become a teacher, neither the old nor the young share the meat. Sometimes, secretly, a returning hunter will spare a morsel for a teacher parent or an offspring, but I cannot remember when that last happened.
"Now meat is so scarce that even the hunters are forced to eat vegetables," it went on in a voice so quiet with shame that Gurronsevas barely heard it, "to add bulk to what would otherwise be very frugal meals. But they insist that meat is present to give them strength, and they feel privileged when the taste of meat is there. I think their hunters' pride very often brings them close to starvation and weakness rather than giving them greater strength."
That was what Gurronsevas had been trying to tell it all along, but this was not the time to be scoring argument points. Instead, he laughed and said, "Then we must go on cooking vegetables, and make the hunters envious of the taste."
Remrath did not laugh. It said, "A few days ago, before you had everyone wanting to eat your strange three-meals-in-one, that would have been a ridiculous suggestion. But now...Gurronsevas, vegetable novelties for the young and very old are not enough. It is meat that we need if the Wem are to survive as a race and, and our hunters are long overdue."
In a regretful voice it added, "Need I remind you of the promise made by your First Healer that the off-worlders would leave us before the hunters returned?"
Prilicla had left it to Gurronsevas to decide when would be the best time to tell the people in the mine that their hunters could be expected soon, and this seemed to be the right moment. But with the good news there should also be a strong reminder that changes for the Wem were inevitable. He opened the satchel strapped to his side and directed an eye into it, searching for Rhabwar's reconnaissance pictures.
"Allowing for the differences in size and age," he said, "the young and old Wem are healthy and active on their diet of vegetables. The healers on the ship, who have knowledge of such matters covering many worlds, say that your young adults, too, would live and thrive and proliferate on the same diet. The eating of meat is good for them, the healers agree, but it is not the only source of health and energy for them. We feel that the eating of meat has become a belief and a habit going back many generations, and that it is a habit that can be broken.
"But let us not start another argument," Gurronsevas went on quickly, "because I have good news for you. At their present rate of progress, which is slow because they are heavily loaded, your hunters will be here in the late morning of the day after tomorrow. If meat is what you want then meat you shall soon have."
Without saying how long ago the pictures had been taken he gave a simple explanation of the workings of Rhabwar's casualty search vehicle and began spreading them out before Remrath. Enlarged and enhanced, they showed every detail of the five food animals struggling against their tethers, every fold in the sewn skins covering the litter that was being carried by six Wem and, because the day had been heavily overcast, the hunters had their sun cowls and cloaks tied back so that every face was clearly visible. Even to Gurronsevas the sharpness of the images was impressive.
"Maybe they are late arriving because they have five food animals and a heavily loaded litter," Gurronsevas went on enthusiastically. "You can see for yourself, so clearly that you will be able to recognize your friends. I have no idea of how much they usually bring back, but I think I know a big catch when I see one."
"You know nothing, Gurronsevas," said Remrath in a very quiet voice. "It is not a big catch. The hunters should not be walking, they should be running and tail-hopping so that the small animal carcasses in their belly-packs will not spoil before they reach us, and dragging upwards of twenty big crellan and twasacths behind them instead of five scrawny cubs. But many of their packs are empty, and they carry a Wem on a covered litter, which means that one of the hunters has been damaged and is dead or dying."
"I am sorry," said Gurronsevas. "Do you know...Is it a friend of yours?"
Gurronsevas knew as soon as he spoke that it was an unnecessary question. All the faces in the pictures were so clear and sharp that the other could identify the injured Wem by the simple process of elimination.
"It is Creethar, their leade
r," said Remrath in an even quieter voice. "A very brave and resourceful and well-loved hunter. Creethar is my last-born."
Chapter 27
Tawsar was reluctant but sympathetic and Remrath was adamant, which meant that it was the First Cook who won the argument. Even so, it took three hours before Rhabwar with Remrath on board was able to lift off on the kind of mission that it had been expressly designed to perform.
The situation did not bear thinking about, even for a non-medical person like himself. For an emotion-sensitive like Prilicla, he thought, it must be ghastly.
Gurronsevas knew exactly how he felt about it, and he thought that he knew how Remrath and the other people on the casualty deck were feeling. In spite of the attempts they must be making to control their feelings, they must all be emoting strongly within a few yards of Prilicla. Perhaps that was why the Senior Physician had not prefixed any of their names with "friend" for more than an hour.
The Wem were so short of meat that far-ranging hunting parties were sent out to find it, and so low in technology that there was no way that the catch could be stored for long periods unless it was brought to the mine, so the only way to transport it over long distances was to keep it alive. If the casualty was not already dead, it and its fellow hunters would try to keep it alive so that the young body meat that it must give up to its people would be fresh when it arrived home.
In spite of the continuing pain it would suffer on the journey, and of the fact that its selectively cannibalistic race knew little or nothing of the practice of curative medicine, Remrath told them that Creethar would try to stay alive until the last possible moment. As a brave and honorable Wem it was Creethar's bounden duty to do so.