Priest-Kings of Gor coc-3

by John Norman

  I held the torch high and looked at the Priest-King, who was rather small for a Priest-King, being only about twelve feet long.

  What most astonished me was that he had wings, long, slender, beautiful, golden, translucent wings, folded against his back.

  He was not strapped down.

  He seemed to be completely unconscious.

  I bent my ears to the air tubes in his abdomen and I could hear the slight whispers of respiration.

  “I had to design this equipment myself,” said Misk, and for that reason it is inexcusably primitive, but there was no possibility to apply for standard instrumentation in this case.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “No,” said Misk, “and observe I had to make my own mnemonic disks, devising a transducer to read the scent-tapes, which fortunately are easily available, and record their signals on blank receptor-plating, from there to be transformed into impulses for generating and regulating the appropriate neural alignments.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Misk, “for you are a human.”

  I looked at the long, golden wings of the creature. “Is it a mutation?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Misk.

  “Then what is it?” I asked.

  “A male,” said Misk. He paused for a long time and the antennae regarded the inert figure on the stone table. “It is the first male born in the Nest in eight thousand years.”

  “Aren’t you a male?” I asked.

  “No,” said Misk, “nor are the others.”

  “Then you are a female,” I said.

  “No,” said Misk, “in the Nest only the Mother is female.”

  “But surely,” I said, “there must be other females.”

  “Occasionally,” said Misk, “an egg occurred which was female but these were ordered destroyed by Sarm. I myself know of no female egg in the Nest, and I know of only one which has occurred in the last six thousand years.”

  “How long,” I asked, “does a Priest-King live?”

  “Long ago,” said Misk, “Priest-Kings discovered the secrets of cell replacement without pattern deterioration, and accordingly, unless we meet with injury or accident, we will live until we are found by the Golden Beetle.”

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “I myself was hatched,” said Misk, “before we brought our world into your solar system.” He looked down at me. “That was more than two million years ago,” he said.

  “Then,” I said, “the Nest will never die.”

  “It is dying now,” said Misk. “One by one we succumb to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle. We grow old and there is little left for us. At one time we were rich and filled with life and in that time our great patterns were formed and in another time our arts flourished and then for a very long time our only passion was scientific curiosity, but now even that lessens, even that lessens.”

  “Why do you not slay the Golden Beetles?” I asked.

  “It would be wrong,” said Misk.

  “But they kill you,” I said.

  “It is well for us to die,” said Misk, “for otherwise the Nest would be eternal and the Nest must not be eternal for how could we love it if it were so?”

  I could not follow all of what Misk was saying, and I found it hard to take my eyes from the inert figure of the young male Priest-King which lay on the stone table.

  “There must be a new Nest,” said Misk. “And there must be a new Mother, and there must be the new First Born. I myself am willing to die but the race of Priest-Kings must not die.”

  “Would Sarm have this male killed if he knew he were here?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Misk.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He does not wish to pass,” said Misk simply.

  I puzzled on the machine in the room, the wiring that seemed to feed into the young Priest-King’s body at eight points. “What are you doing to him?” I asked.

  “I am teaching him,” said Misk.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “What you know – even a creature such as yourself-” said Misk, “depends on the charges and microstates of your neural tissue, and, customarily, you obtain these charges and microstates in the process of registering and assimilating sensory stimuli from your environment, as for example when you directly experience something, or perhaps as when you are given information by others or you peruse a scent-tape. This device you see then is merely a contrivance for producing these charges and microstates without the necessity for the time-consuming external stimulation.”

  My torch lifted, I regarded with awe the inert body of the young Priest-King on the stone table.

  I watched the tiny flashes of light, the rapid, efficient placement of disks and their almost immediate withdrawal.

  The instrumentation and the paneling of the room seemed to loom about me.

  I considered the impulses that must be transmitted by those eight wires into the body of the creature that lay before us.

  “Then you are literally altering his brain,” I whispered.

  “He is a Priest-King,” said Misk, “and has eight brains, modifications of the ganglionic net, whereas a creature such as yourself, limited by vertebrae, is likely to develop only one brain.”

  “It is very strange to me,” I said.

  “Of course,” said Misk, “for the lower orders instruct their young differently, accomplishing only an infinitesimal fraction of this in a lifetime of study.”

  “Who decides what he learns?” I asked.

  “Customarily,” said Misk, “the mnemonic plates are standardised by the Keepers of the Tradition, chief of whom is Sarm.” Misk straightened and his antennae curled a bit. “As you might suppose I could not obtain a set of standardised plates and so I have inscribed my own, using my own judgement.”

  “I don’t like the idea of altering its brain,” I said.

  “Brains,” said Misk.

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “Do not be foolish,” said Misk. His antennae curled. “All creatures who instruct their young alter their brains. How else could learning take place? This device is merely a comparatively considerate, swift and efficient means to an end that is universally regarded as desirable by rational creatures.”

  “I am uneasy,” I said.

  “I see,” said Misk, “you fear he is becoming a kind of machine.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You must remember,” said Misk, “that he is a Priest-King and thus a rational creature and that we could not turn him into a machine without neutralising certain critical and perceptive areas, without which he would no longer be a Priest-King.”

  “But he would be a self-governing machine,” I said.

  “We are all such machines,” said Misk, “with fewer or a greater number of random elements.” His antennae touched me.

  “We do what we must,” he said, “ane the ultimate control is never in the mnemonic disk.”

  “I do not know if these things are true,” I said.

  “Nor do I,” said Misk. “It is a difficult and obscure matter.”

  “And what do you do in the meantime?” I asked.

  “Once,” said Misk, “we rejoiced and lived, but now though we remain young in body we are old in mind, and one wonders more often, from time to time, on the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle.”

  “Do Priest-Kings believe in life after death?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Misk, “for after one dies the Nest continues.”

  “No,” I said, “I mean individual life.”

  “Consciousness,” said Misk, “seems to be a function of the ganglionic net.”

  “I see,” I said. “And yet you say you are willing to, as you said, pass.”

  “Of course,” said Misk. “I have lived. Now there must be others.”

  I looked again at the young Priest-King lying on the stone table.

  “Will he remember lear
ning these things?” I asked.

  “No,” said Misk, “for his external sensors are now being bypassed, but he will understand that he has learned things in this fashion for a mnemonic disk has been inscribed to that effect.”

  “What is he being taught?” I asked.

  “Basic information, as you might expect, pertains to language, mathematics, and the sciences, but he is also being taught the history and literature of Priest-Kings, Nest mores, social customs; mechanical, agricultural and husbanding procedures, and other types of information.”

  “But will he continue to learn later?”

  “Of course,” said Misk, “but he will build on a rather complete knowledge of what his ancestors have learned in the past. No time is wasted in consciously absorbing old information, and one’s time is thus released for the discovery of new information. When new information is discovered it is also included on mnemonic disks.”

  “But what if the mnemonic disks contain some false information?” I asked.

  “Undoubtedly they do,” said Misk, “but the disks are continually in the process of revision and are kept as current as possible.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE PLOT OF MISK

  I took my eyes from the young Priest-King and looked up at Misk. I could see the disklike eyes in that golden head above me and see the flicker of the blue torch on their myriad surfaces.

  “I must tell you, Misk,” I said slowly, “that I came to the Sardar to slay Priest-Kings, to take vengeance for the destruction of my city and its people.”

  I thought it only fair to let Misk know that I was no ally of his, that he should learn of my hatred for Priest-Kings and my determination to punish them, to the extent that it lay within my abilities, for the evil which they had done.

  “No,” said Misk. “You have come to the Sardar to save the race of Priest-Kings.”

  I looked at him dumbfounded.

  “It is for that purpose that you were brought here,” said Misk.

  “I came of my own free will!” I cried. “Because my city was destroyed!”

  “That is why your city was destroyed,” said Misk, “that you would come to the Sardar.”

  I turned away. Tears burned in my eyes and my body trembled.

  I turned in rage on the tall, gentle creature who stood, unmoving, behind that strange table and that still form of the young Priest-King.

  “If I had my sword,” I said, pointing to the young Priest – King, “I would kill it!”

  “No, you would not,” said Misk, “and that is why you and not another were chosen to come to the Sardar.”

  I rushed to the figure on the table, the torch held as though to strike it.

  But I could not.

  “You will not hurt it because it is innocent,” said Misk. “I know that.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because you are of the Cabots and we know them. For more than four hundred years we have known them, and since your birth we have watched you.”

  “You killed my father!” I cried.

  “No,” said Misk, “he is alive and so are others of your city, but they are scattered to the ends of Gor.”

  “And Talena?”

  “As far as we know she is still alive,” said Misk, “but we cannot scan her, or for others of Ko-ro-ba, without raising suspicion that we are solicitous for you – or are bargaining with you.”

  “Why not simply bring me here?” I challenged. “Why destroy a city?”

  “To conceal our motivation from Sarm,” said Misk.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Occasionally on Gor we destroy a city, selecting it by means of a random selection device. This teaches the lower orders the might of Priest-Kings and encourages them to keep our laws.”

  “But what if the city has done no wrong?” I asked.

  “So much the better,” said Misk, “for the Men below the Mountains are then confused and fear us even more – but the members of the Caste of Initiates, we have found, will produce an explanation of why the city was destroyed. They invent one and if it seems plausible they soon believe it. For example, we allowed them to suppose that it was through some fault of yours – disresepct for Priest-Kings as I recall – that your city was destroyed.”

  “Why when first I came to Gor, more than seven years ago, did you not do this?” I asked.

  “It was necessary to test you.”

  “And the siege of Ar,” I asked, “and the Empire of Marlenus?”

  “They provided a suitable test,” said Misk. “From Sarm’s point of view of course your utilisation there was simply to curtail the spread of the Empire of Ar, for we prefer humans to dwell in isolated communities. It is better for observing their variations, from the scientific point of view, and it is safer for us if they remain disunited, for being rational they might develop a science, and being subrational it might be dangerous for us and for themselves if they did so.”

  “That is the reason then for your limitations of their weaponry and technology?”

  “Of course,” said Misk, “but we have allowed them to develop in many areas – in medicine, for example, where something approximating the Stabilisation Serums has been independently developed.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “You have surely not failed to notice,” said Misk, “that though you came to the Counter-Earth more than seven years ago you have undergone no significant physical alteration in that time.”

  “I have noticed,” I said, “and I wondered on this.”

  “Of course,” said Misk, “their serums are not as effective as ours and sometimes do not function, and sometimes the effect wears off after only a few hundred years.”

  “This was kind of you,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” said Misk. “There is dispute on the matter.” He peered intently down at me. “On the whole,” he said, “we Priest-Kings do not interfere with the affairs of men. We leave them free to love and slay one another, which seems to be what they enjoy doing most.”

  “But the Voyages of Acquisition?” I said.

  “We keep in touch with the earth,” said Misk, “for it might, in time, become a threat to us and then we would have to limit it, or destroy it or leave the solar system.”

  “Which will you do?” I asked.

  “None, I suspect,” said Misk. “According to our calculations, which may of course be mistaken, life as you know it on the earth will destroy itself within the next thousand years.”

  I shook my head sadly.

  “As I said,” went on Misk, “man is subrational. Consider what would happen if we allowed him free technological development on our world.”

  I nodded. I could see that from the Priest-Kings’ pint of view it would be more dangerous than handing out automatic weapons to chimpanzees and gorillas. Man had not proved himself worthy of a superior technology to the Priest-Kings. I mused that man had not proved himself worthy of such a technology even to himself.

  “Indeed,” said Misk, “it was partly because of this tendency that we brought man to the Counter-Earth, for he is an interesting species and it would be sad to us if he disappeared from the universe.”

  “I suppose we are to be grateful,” I said.

  “No,” said Misk, “we have similarly brought various species to the Counter-Earth, from other locations.”

  “I have seen few of these “other species”,” I said.

  Misk shrugged his antennae.

  “I do remember,” I said, “a Spider in the Swamp Forests of Ar.”

  “The Spider People are a gentle race,” said Misk, “except the female at the time of mating.”

  “His name was Nar,” I said, “and he would rather have died than injure a rational creature.”

  “The Spider People are soft,” said Misk. “They are not Priest-Kings.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “The Voyages of Acquisition,” said Misk, “take place normally when we need fresh material from
Earth, for our purposes.”

  “I was the object of one such voyage,” I said.

  “Obviously,” said Misk.

  “It is said below the mountains that Priest-Kings know all that occurs on Gor.”

  “Nonsense,” said Misk. “But perhaps I shall show you the Scanning Room someday. We have four hundred Priest-Kings who operate the scanners, and we are accordingly well informed. For example, if there is a violation of our weapons laws we usually, sooner or later, discover it and after determining the coordinates put into effect the Flame Death Mechanism.”

  I had once seen a man die the Flame Death, the High Initiate of Ar, on the roof of Ar’s Cylinder of Justice. I shivered involuntarily.

  “Yes,” I said simply, “sometime I would like to see the Scanning Room.”

  “But much of our knowledge comes from our implants,” said Misk. “We implant humans with a control web and transmitting device. The lenses of their eyes are altered in such a way that what they see is registered by means of transducers on scent-screens in the scanning room. We can also speak and act by means of them, when the control web is activated in the Sardar.”

  “The eyes look different?” I asked.

  “Sometimes not,” said Misk, “sometimes yes.”

  “Was the creature Parp so implanted?” I asked, remembering his eyes.

  “Yes,” said Misk, “as was the man from Ar whom you met on the road long ago near Ko-ro-ba.”

  “But he threw off the control web,” I said, “and spoke as he wished.”

  “Perhaps the webbing was faulty,” said Misk.

  “But if it was not?” I asked.

  “Then he was most remarkable,” said Misk. “Most remarkable.”

  “You spoke of knowing the Cabots for four hundred years,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Misk, “and your father, who is a brave and noble man, has served us upon occasion, though he dealt only, unknowingly, with Implanted Ones. He first came to Gor more than six hundred years ago.”

  “Impossible!” I cried.

  “Not with the stabilisation serums,” remarked Misk.

  I was shaken by this information. I was sweating. The torch seemed to tremble in my hand.

  “I have been working against Sarm and the others for millennia,” said Misk, “and at last – more than three hundred years ago – I managed to obtain the egg from which this male emerged.” Misk looked down at the young Priest-King on the stone table. “I then, by means of an Implanted Agent, unconscious of the message being read through him, instructed your father to write the letter which you found in the mountains of your native world.”