Not many centaurs had died. This, I think, was not only on account of our advantage in size but also because we had been full of the strength and vitality of madness. Looking around, I saw ovens overturned, barrels smashed, and much other destruction for the sake of destruction. This is not our usual way. It is not the usual way of any decent folk. But when the madness of wine—and, evidently, also the madness of cerevisia—struck us, what was usual was forgotten.
Other centaurs were stirring, rousing, from what had passed the night before, even as was I. By their groans, by the anguish in their voices and on their faces, they knew the same pain I did. Awakening from madness can never be easy, or sweet. You always know what you are and, worse, what you were.
My fellows gazed on the devastation all around as if they could not believe their eyes. Well, how could I blame them, when I had as much trouble believing as the rest of them? Nessus said, “Surely we did no such thing. Surely.” His voice was as hoarse a croak as any that might burst from a raven’s throat. Its very timbre gave his hopeful words the lie.
“Surely we did not,” I said, “except that we did.” I wish I could claim I sounded better than Nessus. In fact, I can. But claiming a thing does not make it true. How I wish it did!
He turned his tail on the chaos, the carnage, the carrion. It was as if he could not bear to see himself mistaken. Again, blaming him is not easy. Who would wish to be reminded of . . . that?
“Did we slay all the mans?” Hylaeus asked.
“I think not.” I shook my head, which sent fresh pangs shooting through it. “No, I know not. Some of them fled off into the night.”
“That is not good,” Nessus said. “They will bring more of their kind here. They will seek vengeance.”
There, he was bound to be right. And the mans would have good reason to hunger for revenge. Not only had we slain their warriors, we had also outraged and slain their shes. Had some other folk assailed us so, we too would have been wild to avenge.
I looked inland. I saw nothing there, but I knew the mans did not yet thickly settle this part of the Tin Isle, the other folk who had lived hereabouts having only recently died out. I also knew this did not mean vengeance would not fall upon us, only that it might be somewhat delayed.
“We would do well not to be here when more mans come,” I said. “We would do well to be on our way back toward the Inner Sea.”
“There is a coward’s counsel!” Oreus exclaimed. “Better we should fight these miserable mans than run from them.”
“Can you fight five mans by yourself ? Can you fight twenty mans by yourself ?” I asked him, trying to plumb the depths of his stupidity.
It ran deeper than I had dreamt, for he said, “We would not be alone. The other folk of this land would fight with us, would fight for us.”
“What other folk?” I inquired of him. “When the other folk of this land meet mans, they perish.” Perhaps the madness of the cerevisia had not worked altogether for ill for us. Mad with drink, we had not fretted over our place in the scheme of things and that of the strange folk who sought to find rules (rules!—it chills me yet) in the gods’ heavens.
Oreus would have argued further, but Nessus kicked him, not too hard, in the flank. “Cheiron is right,” he said. “Maybe one day we can sail back here in greater numbers and try conclusions with these mans. For now, though, we would be better gone.”
The thought that we might return one day mollified the young, fiery he. Nessus knew better than I how to salve Oreus’ pride. “Very well, let us go, then,” Oreus said. “The mans will not soon forget us.”
Nor we them, I thought. But I did not say that aloud. Instead, I helped the rest of us push the Horse of Bronze into the sea, which luckily lay almost under her keel. With all those sacks of tin in her, the work still was not easy, but we managed it. The gods sent us a fair wind out of the east. I ordered the yard raised on the mast and the sail lowered from it. We left the Tin Isle behind.
Our homeward journey was neither easy nor swift. If I speak of it less than I did of the voyage outward, it is because so many of the hazards were the same. For the first two days after we left the Tin Isle, I do admit to anxiously looking back over my tail every now and again. I did not know for a fact whether the mans had mastered the art of shipbuilding. If they had, they might have pursued. But evidently not. We remained alone on the bosom of Ocean the Great, as far as my eyes could tell.
Sailing proved no worse—and possibly better—than it had on our northward leg. We stayed in sight of land when we could, but did not stay so close that we risked being forced onto a lee shore by wind and wave rolling out of the west. And rolling is truly the word, for we saw waves on Ocean the Great that no one who has sailed only the Inner Sea can imagine.
With the Chalcippus more heavily laden than she had been while we were outward bound, I did not like to bring her up on the beach every night. I had learned to respect and to fear the rise and fall of the waters against the land, which seems to happen twice a day in the regions washed by the Ocean. If the waters withdrew too far, we might not be able to get the galley back into the sea. To hold that worry at arm’s length, we dropped anchor offshore most nights.
That too, of course, came with a price. Because we could not let the ship’s timbers dry out of nights, they grew heavy and waterlogged, making the Horse of Bronze a slower and less responsive steed than she would otherwise have been. Had a bad storm blown up, that might have cost us dear. As things were, the gods smiled, or at least did not frown with all the grimness they might have shown, and we came safe to the Inner Sea once more.
As we sailed east past the pillars said to hold up the heavens, I wondered once more about the mans, and how they escaped the gods’ wrath. Most folk—no, all folk I had known up until then—are content to live in the world the gods made, and to thank them for their generous bounty. What the gods will, lesser folk accept, as they must—for, as I have remarked, the essence of godhood is power. Were I as powerful as a god, what would I be? A god myself, nothing else. But I am not so powerful, and so am no god.
Nor are these mans gods. That was plain. In our cerevisia-spawned madness, we slew them easily enough. Yet they have the arrogance, the presumption, to seek out the gods’ secrets. And they have the further arrogance and presumption to believe that, if they find them, they can use them.
Can a folk not given godlike powers arrogate those powers to itself ? The mans seem to think so. How would the gods view such an opinion? If they did take it amiss, as I judged likely, how long would they wait to punish it?
Confident in their own strength, might they wait too long? If a folk did somehow steal godlike power, what need would it have of veritable gods? Such gloomy reflections filled my mind as we made our way across the Inner Sea. I confess to avoiding the sirens’ island on the homeward journey. Their temper was unpleasant, their memories doubtless long. We sailed south of them instead, skirting the coast where the lotus-eaters dwell. I remember little of that part of the voyage; the lotus-eaters, I daresay, remember less.
I do remember the long sail we had up from the land of the lotus-eaters to that of the fauns. The sail seemed the longer because, as I say, we had to keep clear of the island of the sirens. We filled all the water jars as full as we could. This let us anchor well off the coast of their island as we traveled north. We also had the good fortune of a strong southerly breeze. We lowered the sail from the yard, then, and ran before the wind. Our hes were able to rest at the oars, which meant they did not grow thirsty as fast as they would have otherwise. We came to the land of the fauns with water still in the jars—not much, but enough.
That breeze had held for us all the way from the land of the lotus-eaters to that which the fauns call home. From this, I believe—and I certainly hope—the gods favored our cause and not the sirens’. This I believe and hope, yes. But I have not the gall to claim it proves the gods favored us, or to use it to predict that the gods would favor us again in the same way. I am no
t a man. I do not make stone circles. I do not believe a stone circle can measure the deeds and will of the gods.
By what has befallen the other folk on the Tin Isle besides the mans, I may be mistaken.
From the easternmost spit of the fauns’ homeland to ours is but a short sail. Yet the Horse of Bronze came closer to foundering there than anywhere on turbulent Ocean the Great. A storm blew up from nowhere, as it were. The Chalcippus pitched and rolled and yawed. A wave crashed over the bow and threatened to swamp us. We all bailed for our lives, but another wave or two would have stolen them from us.
And then, as abruptly as it had sprung to life, the storm died. What conclusion was I to draw from this? That the gods were trying to frighten me to death but would spare me if they failed? That drawing conclusions about what the gods intend was a risky business, a fool’s game? I had already known as much. I was not a man, to require lessons on the subject.
We came home not only to rejoicing but to astonishment. Most of the hes we left behind on setting sail in the Chalcippus had expected to see us no more. Many of the shes we left behind also expected to see us no more. That led to several surprises and considerable unpleasantness, none of which deserves recounting here.
It often seemed as if the tin we brought home was more welcome than we were. Few cared to listen to our tales of the great stone circle or of the strange mans who had built it. The fauns, the sirens, the lotus-eaters we centaurs already knew. The stay-at-homes were glad enough to hear stories about them.
Certainly the smiths welcomed the tin with glad cries and with caracoles of delight. They fell to work as if made of bronze themselves. We have a sufficiency of copper—more than a sufficiency, for we trade it with folk whose land gives them none. But tin is far less common and far more dear; were it otherwise, we would not have needed to fare so far to lay hold of it.
Spearheads and shields and swords and helms began to pile up, ready for use against the sphinxes or whoever else should presume to trouble us. Now we could match bronze against bronze, rather than being compelled to use the softer copper unalloyed. Some of the younger hes quite looked forward to combat. That far I would not go. I have seen enough to know that combat too often comes whether we look for it or not; what point, then, to seeking it?
The smiths also made no small stock of less warlike gear. I speak of that less not because I esteem it less, but only because, when bronze is not measured against bronze, its hardness as compared to copper’s is of less moment.
Not too long after our return, I learned that we in the Chalcippus were not the only band of centaurs to have set out in search of tin. A he named Pholus had led a band north by land. There are mountains in those parts that yield gold and silver, and Pholus hoped he might happen upon tin as well.
Although those mountains are not far as the raven flies, our folk seldom go there. The folk who live in those parts are strange, and strangely fierce and formidable. They come out only at night, and are often in the habit of drinking the blood of those they kill. And they are persistent of life, though sunlight, curiously enough, is alleged to slay them.
This Pholus affirmed for me, saying, “After we caught a couple of them and staked them out for the sunrise, the others proved less eager to see if they could sneak up and murder us by the light of the moon.”
“Yes, I can see how that might be so,” I told him. “Good for you. But I gather you found no tin?”
“I fear me we did not,” he agreed. “It is a rich country. Were it not for these night skulkers, we could do a great deal of trade with it. They care nothing for bargaining, though. All they want is the taste of blood in their mouths.” His own mouth twisted in disgust.
“Many good-byes to them, then,” I said. “Maybe we ought to send a host up that way, to see how many we could drag out for the sun to destroy.”
“Maybe.” But Pholus did not sound as if he thought that a good idea. “If we did not get rid of them all, they would make us pay. And besides—” He did not go on.
“Besides, what?” I asked when I saw he would not on his own.
He did not answer for a long time. I wondered if he would. At long last, he said, “I swore my hes to secrecy, Cheiron. I did not take the oath myself, for I thought there was no need. I knew I could keep a secret. Perhaps the gods foresaw that I would need to speak one day, and did not want me forsworn. I know you can also hold a secret close at need. The need, I think, is here. I have heard somewhat of your voyage, and of the peculiar folk you met on the Tin Isle.”
“The mans?” I said, and he nodded. “Well, what of them?”
“That is the secret we are keeping,” Pholus replied. “Up in the mountains, we met some of what I think must be the same folk ourselves. They were coming down from the north, as much strangers in those parts as we were. They did not call themselves mans, though; they had another name.”
“Why did you keep them a secret?” I asked.
He shivered. Pholus is bold and swift and strong. I had never thought to see him afraid, and needed a moment to realize that I had. “Because they are . . . what we ought to be,” he answered after another long hesitation. “What we and the satyrs and the sphinxes and those troublesome blood-drinkers ought to be. They are . . . all of a kind, with more of the stuff of the gods and less of the beast in them than we hold.”
I knew what he meant. I knew so well, I had to pretend I knew not. “More of the gall of the gods, if they truly are like the mans I met,” I said.
“And that,” he agreed. The hard, bright look of fear still made his eyes opaque. “But if they are coming down from the north—everywhere from the north—how shall any of the folk around the Inner Sea withstand them?”
I had wondered that about the mans, even on the distant Tin Isle. If they had also reached the mountains north of our own land, though, there were more of them than I had dreamt, and the danger to us all was worse. I tried to make light of it, saying, “Well, the blood-drinkers may bar the way.”
Pholus nodded, but dubiously. “That is the other reason I would not go after the blood-drinkers: because they might shield us. But I do not think they will, or not for long. The new folk have met them, and have plans of their own for revenge. Do you think the night-skulking blood-drinkers can oppose them?”
“Not if they are mans of the same sort I knew,” I said. “Are you sure they are the same? What did they call themselves?”
“Lapiths,” he answered. The name meant nothing to me then. But these days the echoes of the battle of Lapiths and centaurs resound round the Inner Sea. We are scattered to the winds, those few left to us, and the Lapiths dwell in the land ours since the gods made it. And Pholus knew whereof he spoke. The Lapiths are mans. They remain sure to this day that they won simply because they had the right to win, with no other reason needed.
They would.
THE GENETICS LECTURE
This small, silly piece sprang from an e-mail correspondence I got into with the paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, whose work I very much admire. It ran as a “Probability Zero” feature in Analog. I wouldn’t say the probability is zero, exactly, but I doubt it’s very high.
It was lovely outside, too lovely for the student to want to stay cooped up in here listening to a lecture on genetics. The sun shone brightly. Bees buzzed from flower to flower. Butterflies flitted here and there. The air smelled sweet with spring.
And the professor droned on. The student made himself take notes. This stuff would be on the midterm—he was sure of that. Even so, staying interested enough to keep writing wasn’t easy.
If only the prof weren’t so . . . old-fashioned. Oh, he was impressive enough in a way: tall and straight, with big blue eyes. But his suit wouldn’t have been stylish in his father’s day, and those glasses clamped to the bridge of his beak . . . Nobody wore those anymore. Except he did.
“This complex of Hox genes, as they’re called, regulates early bodily development,” he said. The student scribbled. However old-fashioned t
he prof was, he was talking about stuff on the cutting edge. “Like all insects, the fruit fly has eight Hox genes. The amphioxus, a primitive chordate, has ten.”
He picked up a piece of chalk and drew on the blackboard. “The amphioxus is sometimes called a lancelet from its scalpel-like shape, which you see here,” he said. “In reality, the animal is quite small. Now where was I? Oh, yes. Hox genes.
“All animals seem to share them from a long-extinct Proterozoic ancestor. There is a correspondence between the orientation of the gene complex and that of the animal. The first Hox gene in both the fruit fly and the amphioxus is responsible for the head end of each animal, the last for the abdomen and tail, respectively.
“And let me tell you something still more remarkable. We have created, for example, mutant fruit flies that are eyeless. If we transfer this eyeless gene to an amphioxus, its progeny will be born without their usual eye spots. Note that the normal expression of the gene, as we say, is vastly different in the two animals. The amphioxus has only light-sensitive pigment patches at the head end, where the fruit fly has highly evolved compound eyes.”
“What about us, Professor?” another student asked. “Why are we so much more complex than fruit flies and the waddayacallit?”
“The amphioxus?” The professor beamed at her. “I was just coming to that. We’re more complex because our Hox genes are more complex. It’s that simple, really. Instead of a single set of eight or ten Hox genes, we have four separate sets, each with up to thirteen genes in it. The mutations that give rise to this duplication and reduplication took place in Cambrian and Ordovician times, on the order of four hundred million years ago. We are what we are today because our ancient ancestors suddenly found themselves with more genes than they knew what to do with.” He beamed again. “Animal life as we know it today, and especially the development of our own phylum, would have been impossible without these mutations.”
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