by John Norman
“None, really,” said the git keeper. “But we have our calendar, and are fond of our traditions.”
“How could you have purchased the cooperation of the directress?”
“By means of agents, through the company,” said the git keeper.
“What did you buy her for?” asked Brenner.
“An interesting way of putting it,” said the git keeper.
“I did not mean it that way!” said Brenner.
“That is your disposition for atavistic conceptualization betrayed,” said the git keeper.
“No!” said Brenner, angrily.
“She is a female,” said the git keeper.
“I was never too sure of that,” said Brenner.
“Our agent, who is skilled in assessing such matters, assured us that she was quite female, and profoundly so, but one of those who is frightened of her own femaleness, and attempts, by any means, to suppress it, to conceal it, and hold it in check.”
“Absurd,” said Brenner. To be sure, he himself had sensed, or imagined, a profound, latent sexuality in the directress.
“She is female enough, it seems,” said the git keeper, “to have been fascinated by a handful of Chian diamonds.”
Brenner looked up at the git keeper. If pure, and well cut, such diamonds are quite valuable.
“I have heard the cries of a beast outside, from somewhere beyond the temple,” said Brenner. “What is it? What is its meaning?”
“That is not important for you to understand now,” said the git keeper.
“Is it caged?”
“Of course,” said the git keeper. “But do not fear. The bars are so closely set that it could not even thrust a part of its muzzle through them.”
“How could it have been brought here?” asked Brenner.
“By air truck,” said the git keeper.
“The drivers will know of this place.”
“The truck will fail to return to Company Station,” said the git keeper. “It will crash in the forests.”
“There will be a search,” said Brenner.
“The remains of the crash will be found,” said the git keeper.
“I see,” said Brenner. He suddenly felt cold, and began to sweat.
“Do not concern yourself,” said the git keeper.
“What of the directress?” he asked.
“What of her?” asked the git keeper.
“She is high in a party,” said Brenner, “perhaps in the metaparty, the party which controls the others!”
“No,” said the git keeper. “She was not in the metaparty.”
“She is high in her party!” said Brenner.
“No,” said the git keeper. “She was a low-level functionary.”
“She is, at least, in a party!” said Brenner.
“No more,” said the git keeper. “She does not now even have a name, unless someone has given her one.”
“I do not understand,” said Brenner.
“Not more than ten days after your departure from your home world she was in the hold of a slave ship, bound for Basra. Later, she was transported to, and sold on, Bokara.”
Brenner regarded the git keeper in astonishment.
“The directress’ battles with her femininity are at an end,” said the git keeper. “She will learn to obey, encouraged by instruments as inexpensive and simple as the lash and chain. She will learn her ecstasy in the arms of a master, and find her fulfillment in selfless service.”
“But, as what!” demanded Brenner.
“As a slave, of course,” said the git keeper.
“I see,” said Brenner.
“It is what she has always been,” said the git keeper. “The only difference is that that condition is now no longer deniable, not without absurdity, nor are its appropriate consequences avoidable. It is now overt, satisfying, explicit, and legal.”
“And what of the diamonds?” asked Brenner.
“They have been returned to us,” said the git keeper, “concealed in trade goods, from that enclave you refer to as “Company Station.””
“Of course,” said Brenner.
“If her master chooses to put her in diamonds,” said the git keeper, “she will wear them, of course, but I suspect that it will be a long time before she becomes such a slave. In any event, she owns nothing, not even a slave strip, if one is permitted to her. Rather it is she, who is owned.”
Brenner wept.
“What is wrong?” asked the git keeper.
“It is madness,” he said. “It is all madness!”
“No,” said the git keeper.
“What are you going to do with me?”
“You are the father,” said the git keeper.
“Kill me with your scarps and sticks,” said Brenner. “Or kill me with the rifle!”
“It is wrong to kill the father,” said the git keeper. “And the rifle, with its charges, will be destroyed. We disavow such instruments of violence. We disapprove of such things. They are not within our ways.”
“You are stinking hypocrites!” screamed Brenner. “You killed Rodriguez!”
“He is not dead,” said the git keeper. “We did need his body, to motivate you to dispose of the father.”
Brenner felt sick.
“We will give him a less dangerous body,” said the git keeper. “We have a use for such as he.”
“Release me!” said Brenner.
“Do not fear,” said the git keeper. “You will be released.”
“I demand to be freed!” said Brenner.
“You will be freed,” said another of the Pons, one with his hands on a rope.
“Yes,” said another.
“The father must be free,” said another.
“Of course,” said another.
“How could it be otherwise?” said another.
“I understand nothing of what is going on,” wept Brenner.
The git keeper motioned to the other Pons and they, putting their small individual weights collectively to the ropes, began to draw Brenner, on his side, from the temple.
Brenner noted, as he was drawn away, that the pedestal and the vat, or jar, which had been upon it, that in which he had seen the head of Rodriguez, were missing. They had been removed. So, too, had been the body of the slain Pon. Brenner refused to believe, now, that he had seen the eyes in the face open, or that the expression might have changed. Such things were not possible. He wept.
“Why do you weep?” asked the git keeper, indicating that his fellows should pause for a moment in their labors.
“Only one person, my friend, has ever cared for me,” said Brenner. “And now he is gone. And this has happened to me, and I have never been loved.”
“We love you,” said the git keeper.
“We always love the father,” said another.
They then drew Brenner from the temple.
When they were in the corridor Brenner heard again, from somewhere outside, the roaring of the beast. The sound was then, naturally, much louder.
They passed, in the corridor, the small figure of a Pon, one which was very small, even for a Pon, and frail. A hood muchly concealed its features. The git keeper and the other Pons, those at the ropes, did not pay it any attention, and it, of course, saw nothing, as it was blind.
At the threshold of the temple, before exiting, the Pons stopped. Brenner tried to pull back his head but, trapped as he was in the net, he could not do so. Then, pressed down over the netting, and held over Brenner’s nose and mouth, there was a soft cloth, which had been soaked in chemicals. Brenner was not aware, a moment or two later, that he was taken from the temple.
Chapter 30
The lion, for we may call it that, awakened on the cliffs, in the autumn, on a rather wide ledge.
It was not used to this habitat and, after stretching, climbed, with the agility of its kind, to the summit of these cliffs. There, on the height of the cliffs, it surveyed a domain of dark forests. Behind it was a stony valley, and, on t
he other side of that valley, were more cliffs. In these cliffs were openings, which might serve as lairs. Before it, and about it, and behind it, beyond the other cliffs, seemingly endlessly, stretched the dark forests. Before it, slightly toward the right, in the distance, was a clearing, and, in the center of this clearing, oddly, there was a circle of upright sticks, and, within these sticks, what appeared to be conical heaps of dried vegetation. Such things seemed anomalous to it, but they did not seem to require attention either. It erected its large, pointed ears and drank in the ten thousand tiny sounds of the forest, the rustling of wind in the leaves, the cries of small birds, even the scratchings of a small rodent, of the sort called a git, more than a hundred feet below, off to one side of a large, flat, wooden structure. It lifted its head and attended then to the circumambient symphony of scent, in its ten thousand interwoven traces, as clear, and detectable, and locatable, in their own modality, as would have been individual threads in the pattern of a tapestry. Some of these scents were similar to those with which it was familiar. Others were unfamiliar. Some of these scents it did not care for. Others it found intriguing. Others, subtly, stirringly, spoke to it of warm flesh, and food. Then, when, in a shifting of wind, a grayish whisper of fog, the dry fog that chokes the throat and nostrils, and stings the eyes, was borne to it, from the circle of sticks in the distance, it uttered a low, disapproving, menacing growl. It shook its head and fur, disturbed. Somewhere in the labyrinths of its mind it recalled such ugly fog, not soft with moisture, holding scent close to the ground, but painfully bright, and glaring, or loud, and deafening, in its sensory modality, concealing, or drowning out, a thousand subtler scents. This smell, too, agitated it, and it lifted its head, for, vaguely, it recollected then humming, throbbing sounds, flashings, like lightning, the movement of objects through the air, like birds, the stinging like hail, and closed caves with shining walls, regular and cruel, and rounded trees, in alignments, through which one could not bite or tear. It looked upward, and growled, threateningly. Fragments of memory, bursting shards of memory, recollections of an incomprehensible nightmare, exploded in its brain. And then it crouched down, belly low, on the cliffs, looking about itself. But all seemed quiet here. It did not know this place, but it was not unlike the place it knew. And it could smell food. There was no dearth of food here, that was clear. This was not a familiar place, but it seemed suitable. It could make it its own.
Chapter 31
It could tell the feel of oncoming winter, the sharpness in the air. But, too, there were many other signs. Certain small animals, not worth tracking, were storing food. Some others had disappeared, to hide until spring. There were flockings of small birds, anticipatory to departures. And overhead, already, regularly in the late afternoon and evening, and on into the night, calling out to one another, could be marked the flights of others. There were many signs. Even the increasing thickness of its own coat could inform it of the approach of winter.
Things were not, of course, the same here as they had been at home.
Many times it had come to the height of this cliff, as though drawn here.
Often, for hours at a time, perplexed, it would look off toward the circle of sticks in the distance. In one part of its brain, it found such a thing anomalous. But then such things did not matter, really. They did not require attention. They did not impede its movement, they were not edible. They could be accepted as another part of its world, as merely given, and not to be questioned, accepted as facts, like stones, and trees, and the bright spots in the sky, at night. But in another part of its brain, for whatever reason, it found the circle of sticks vaguely familiar, and somehow disturbing. As it gazed upon it, it seemed that something, insistent, but no more than a whisper, struggled to make itself heard.
And then one night, it thought a thought quite unusual for such a beast, which was, “What am I?”
In all its memory there had never been such a question raised, and in such a way. It is not that it had never been perplexed before, for it had often been perplexed, or curious, and had, in its way, investigated one thing or another. But it is one thing to ask, so to speak, “What is that,” and another to ask, “What am I?” This sort of thing, as you can see, represents an attitude of inquiry quite other than that expressed in questions, so to speak, such as “Is it good to eat,” “Where is it hiding,” and “Can I catch it?”
The beast, you see, for the first time, at least as far as it could determine from its memories, had become conscious of its own mystery, its own inexplicable reality, its own unaccountability. That it should be, or that anything should be, had suddenly seemed very interesting to it. It could not recall having concerned itself with such matters before.
One of the very odd things about such questions, and this oddity much disturbed the beast, sometimes making it shudder, was that it seemed to hear these questions in its mind, and understand them. To attempt to make this clear we might point out that it was familiar to the beast that sounds might have meanings, for example, that the breaking of a twig or the dislodgment of a pebble might be pregnant with import, but there was a very different sort of meaning involved here. There seemed no obvious connection or relationship between the sound and what it meant.
From one point of view this seemed preposterous but, from another, it seemed frightfully mysterious, and grand. It was as though a world had suddenly opened up before it, a thrilling world, a world awesome in its possibilities. It grasped, dimly at first, and then with terror, what to you may seem simple, and obvious, namely, that a noise could mean. In a sense, you see, it had come to grasp the concept of a word. In considering the greatest inventions of various rational species, on various worlds, it is common to think of such things as a knife or lever. On the other hand, one might also consider the possibility that the most fecund, basic, significant invention of these species is commonly overlooked, perhaps because it is too familiar, or because it is invisible, the word. That a noise can mean, in this remote, mysterious, awesome, almost magical sense, is perhaps the most basic and important discovery of a species. Indeed, in that discovery, some might see the quantum leap to a new level of existence. In the beginning, so to speak, may have been the word.
But the beast did not truly believe that it had invented the word. It was rather that it seemed clear to it that there were such things and that, somehow, it understood them. That, in itself, was quite enough for the beast, and surely impressive enough.
It began, over time, to become obsessed with the conviction that the answers to many of the riddles with which it was concerned might be found within that circle of sticks, far off, visible from the cliffs. It was familiar, of course, with the string which ran from the vicinity of the platform toward the circle of sticks. It also read, along the track of the string, now faint, but still detectable, the odors of a beast not unlike itself. Against such a beast it stood ready to defend this territory but the beast did not appear. It had, it seemed, gone away.
The new beast, in claimancy and challenge, with its tread, and the rubbing of its oily fur on trees, and, more explicitly, in the way of its kind, with its feces, and urine, here and there, had marked out its territory. It did not confine itself to this territory, of course. Such markers were not intended to restrict its own peregrinations, which tended to be extensive, but rather to limit the possible intrusions of others. They marked out, primarily, that country it would defend, within which it would regard the passage of certain others as trespass. These borders, to a large extent, followed the lines, and claims, of its unknown predecessor. It was a territory of a nature and range suitable to its kind. The borders of such territories, of course, are somewhat flexible, depending on a number of factors, such as the beast in question, its youth and vigor, the terrain, the game, and the competition from other members of the same species. Within the territory, of course, the beast, following the predilection of its kind, tended to conceal its presence, burying feces, and such. The warnings at the borders, of course, were directed prima
rily against other predators, and, in particular, against those of its own kind, should they exist, external visitants, possible intruders. A subsidiary advantage of them, however, was that wandering fleet ones within the territory, encountering them, might turn back, thus remaining within the territory. It might be mentioned that the circle of sticks, with its assemblage of dried vegetations, or, as we might say, the village, was close to the heartland of this territory. The absolute heartland, in the sense of being the lair of the beast itself, was a cave in the cliffs, a long, tunnel-like cave which led back, under the cliffs, toward the village.
Often the beast followed the string toward the village, and then followed it back, to its lair. In this fashion, of course, subtle signs of its presence, oil from the pads of paws left on leaves, pelt oil on brush, and tree trunks, a few stray hairs, here and there, the prints of its feet, and such, tended to follow the track of the string. Stealthy ones, wise in their own ways, avoided this area.
The beast’s time, of course, was not all spent in subtle, sometimes troublesome, ruminations. Indeed, at times, in the hunt, and in the kill, and in the eager, grisly feeding, and, later, in lying down, sated, sleepy, its consciousness was not other than it had been in the old home. But then, later, the strange thoughts would come. Too, like all beasts it would dream, but it was sometimes puzzled by these dreams, and did not understand them. The beast dreams posed no problems, of course, the running in the forest, the delicious smell of the fleet one, recollections of a successful defense of territory the preceding winter in the old home, against an animal larger even than itself, the feel of wet leaves beneath its paws, the sound of water rushing over stones, where one might drink, such things. In these dreams its legs would twitch, and move, and it would growl. In these dreams there were no words, only things, and doings. But there were other dreams, too, which it did not understand, dreams of places it could not have been, and of other creatures, to whom it, in another form, spoke. It even remembered tastes of a sort which must be impossible, as it could not feed on such things. And it remembered a white softness, supine, trembling, regarding him, frightened, moving, squirming. And then it was again itself and it thrust its snout against that softness, and thrust its head between its legs, forcing them far apart, smelling it, understanding it in its needful, helpless, beast sense. It then drew back and looked at the animal, so white, so soft, so curved. It was before him, supine, in its way, tethered. It was helpless. It would be easy, it thought, to eat it. Perhaps, it thought, that is why it is tethered here, to be eaten. But it licked it, slowly, carefully, with his long, rough tongue. It could not draw away. What strange sounds those tethers made. They seemed excellent tethers. Then it seemed it was again in another form, one recalled from former dreams, one which had appeared even in vagrant memories, and it felt strange sensations, which it did not understand, like promptings in the blood of something not itself, another creature, inexplicable feelings, and there were inexplicable recollections, and it awakened, abruptly, unaccountably furious, and made its way to the summit of the cliff, above the platform, and recollected a distant world, and a broad head, eyes with pupils like knives, a sinuous, agile body, and a maddening, luring odor, and it put back its head, and howled, and howled.