The Ultimate Inferior Beings

by Roman, Mark

  “It’s a brick,” said the inventor.

  “And what does this brick of yours do?”

  “Not much,” said the newcomer, putting his brick on the ground. “It just sits there.”

  Alistair watched the brick just sitting there for a few seconds and, indeed, the brick didn’t seem to exhibit any additional behaviour. He glanced from the brick to the inventor and back again, at a loss for words.

  “Er,” he said at last. “Does it roll down hills?”

  “No!” exclaimed the newcomer vehemently, offended by the very suggestion. “I took great care when designing it to prevent it doing just that. See those edges and those corners...?”

  “Ah,” said Alistair, slightly chastened.

  “Here’s another one,” said the inventor.

  “There’s more?”

  “Yes. This one goes on top of the first. Like this.” The Mamm placed the second brick on top of the first. “See?”

  “Wonders never cease.”

  “No,” agreed the proud inventor.

  “Next, please,” said Alistair.

  “But...”

  “Next!”

  The next Mamm stepped forward holding a wheel.

  “And the next, please,” said Alistair.

  “But Alistair,” said the Mamm. “I’ve just invented the wheel.”

  But Alistair was already listening to the next Mamm.

  “Hold on,” said Reginald, suddenly stepping forward and prodding Alistair. “I think he may have had something there!”

  “Pardon?” asked Alistair, turning to face him.

  “I think he may have had something there.”

  “Yes, it was a wheel. I’ve had it up to here with wheels.”

  “No, no. Not that one,” said Reginald. “The one before him. The one with the bricks.”

  “What about him?”

  “I think he could be on to something.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well,” said Reginald slowly. “Did you notice the way he put that second brick on top of the first?”

  “It didn’t entirely escape my attention.”

  “Good, I’m glad you spotted it, too. Well, with even more bricks, laid side by side and on top of one another, he would have a wall!”

  “Amazing.”

  “And we could use such a wall to stop running animals!” said Reginald triumphantly.

  “I see. We’re back to that again, are we?”

  “Yes.”

  Alistair felt a bit of a headache coming on. “Well, look. You go and try it and let me know how you get on.”

  “Alright.”

  *

  Reginald returned the next day looking a trifle depressed.

  Alistair was listening to a Mamm who was explaining his theory of Relativity.

  “Hello,” said Alistair.

  Reginald merely gave a grunt.

  The Relativity Mamm was in full swing. “I’ve been thinking about the Universe and our place in it. It seems to me that, philosophically speaking, it is nonsensical to assume the existence of a unique and absolute inertial frame of reference.”

  “Certainly,” said Alistair, nodding. Then, in a whisper, he said to Reginald, “How’s the brick wall coming along?”

  “The obvious conclusion is that the speed of light should be constant in all frames of reference. When you think about this for a while, like I’ve been doing,...”

  “Not very well,” whispered Reginald back.

  “...you realize the impact this has on the concepts of time synchronization, distance measurement and even simultaneity.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” whispered Alistair.

  “The wall didn’t stop the animals at all,” said Reginald. “They just ran around it, or away from it, or even jumped over it!”

  “I eventually arrived at a set of transformation equations...”

  “What it’s missing is the element of surprise,” continued Reginald. “If we had some mechanism to make a wall jump out of the ground just as an animal was approaching... it would run straight into it and be stopped... dead.”

  Alistair nodded sympathetically. “We don’t have that kind of technology, yet,” he said.

  They both turned to listen to the remainder of the Mamm’s theory.

  A long, long time later, the Mamm finished.

  “Well,” said Alistair, relieved it was finally over. “That was, er, very different. If I find a use for your theory, I’ll let you know. Thank you, and goodbye.”

  The Mamm went off happily, glad to have had such an attentive and appreciative audience. Personally, he thought the theory was rubbish.

  The next Mamm in the queue stepped forward and handed Alistair a heavy, rectangular object.

  “It’s not another brick, is it?” he asked, suspiciously.

  “No. It’s a book,” said the Mamm.

  “What does it do?”

  “It teaches you to read and write. That’s its title: ‘Teach Yourself to Read and Write’.” He pointed at some squiggles on the cover. “Writing’s a brilliant invention – not mine but Alphonse’s. You write things down so you don’t have to remember them. Stories, letters, shopping lists.”

  “Hmm,” said Alistair, not slow to spot the potential of a good invention. “Sounds interesting. And this book will teach me?”

  “It’s so simple, a child could read it.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it a try,” said Alistair with a smile. He took the book and the Mamm went away happy.

  “What do you make of that?” Alistair asked his friend Reginald.

  “A really good idea,” said Reginald.

  “Do you know,” said Alistair, “I think I’ll go off and teach myself to read and write.” Then, speaking loudly to the long line of Mamms before him, he announced, “Come back tomorrow.” He slid off into the shade with his book as the line of Mamms dispersed with various groans and mutterings.

  Reginald followed him into the shade.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly.

  “What about?” asked Alistair, opening his book at the first page. At least, he assumed it to be the first page.

  “The theory of Relativity.”

  “Oh?” said Alistair without looking up from his book.

  “Yes. I think he had something there. Especially that bit about relative motion.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “You see, if I understood correctly, the effect of a moving animal hitting a stationary brick wall is the same as a moving brick wall hitting a stationary animal.”

  “Except that,” pointed out Alistair, “in the case where the animal is stationary, there’s no need to stop it moving. As it is already not moving!”

  “True. But I think you’re missing the point,” said Reginald a little annoyed.

  “Ah, of course. You must be referring to mass increase, time dilation and distance contraction.”

  Reginald gave Alistair a strange look. “No,” he said. “Not exactly. You see, if you hit a stationary animal with a brick wall it is going to remain stationary for a long time! It’s never going to move again. Get it?”

  “Hmm,” said Alistair thoughtfully, though not entirely convinced. “Well look, you go and try it and let me get on with this book.”

  “Right-ho,” said Reginald, turning and sliding off into the distance.

  *

  The next day, Alistair was back listening to suggestions.

  “And what have you invented?” he asked as a Mamm holding a charred stick stepped forward.

  “Fire,” said the Mamm, holding up his stick.

  “Fire?” asked Alistair, looking at the stick. “Is that is?”

  “No,” admitted the Mamm. “I had some on this stick, but I’ve been waiting in the queue for so long that it went out.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Alistair. “Perhaps you can describe what it does?”

  “It burns things!”

  “Burns things?”

  “Yes. It dest
roys them completely, giving off smoke and water vapour and leaving behind a black, charred mass – like the black part of this stick.”

  “I see,” said Alistair. “It destroys things, does it?”

  “Yes, quite rapidly,” said the Mamm.

  Alistair sighed. “Well what use is that??” He felt his time was being wasted yet again.

  The Mamm looked timidly at the ground. “Well, er...”

  “Next!”

  The next Mamm stepped forward. He looked a bit scruffy and worse for wear, as though he’d been in a fight or something.

  “Hello,” said Alistair encouragingly.

  “Hello,” said the Mamm a little dreamily, clearly still a little shaken.

  “Can I help you?”

  “My name’s Gareth. I have invented many, many things. Many things. Many, many.”

  “Go on.”

  “But my last invention destroyed them all.”

  “Oh.”

  “I invented explosives, you see. They are better than the last Mamm’s fire. More effective at destroying things because they blow them up into a thousand pieces.”

  “I see.” Alistair tried to stay calm. “And what, pray, is the use of blowing something up into a thousand pieces?”

  Gareth thought for a bit. “Well, since we need food, we could set traps to blow animals up!” He looked hopefully at Alistair.

  “Good,” said Alistair. “So tell me, what would you eat, once you’d blown this animal up?”

  “Ah,” said Gareth. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Well go away and think about it,” said Alistair.

  He turned to the next Mamm, but then he heard a murmuring further down the queue. All the Mamms were turning and muttering to one another. Alistair turned to see the source of this interest and spotted Reginald slithering towards him. And, behind him, he was dragging the carcass of a dead syphon wolf. (Evolution had converted the syphon rats into far bigger and fiercer creatures that now resembled wolves. Hence their new name).

  “What have you got there?” asked Alistair with interest as Reginald approached.

  “What does it look like?” said Reginald.

  “A syphon wolf.”

  “Close,” said Reginald, letting the carcass drop to the ground. “More accurately, it’s a dead syphon wolf. You’ll notice that it is stationary. Non-moving, non-running and non-escaping. All of which are the qualities that make it ideal for eating.”

  “How did you manage that?” asked Alistair in amazement. All the other Mamms in the queue were staring at the body of the syphon in sheer disbelief.

  “I threw a brick at it.”

  All the Mamms gasped at Reginald’s ingenuity.

  “Originally I thought of throwing a brick wall at it. But I couldn’t lift it. So I thought I’d try throwing it one brick at a time. And, in fact, one brick was enough.”

  “Very good,” said Alistair, completely impressed. “Well done.”

  “I bring this syphon wolf to you, Alistair,” said Reginald. “I give it to you to eat. You deserve it!”

  “Hear, hear,” shouted many Mamms in the queue.

  “No, I couldn’t,” said Alistair.

  “Stop being modest and start eating,” said Reginald.

  “I’m not being modest,” said Alistair. “I can’t eat that! It’s dead.”

  “It’s still warm,” said Reginald. “It’s not been dead long. Besides, this is the way to save the Mamms from starvation, For the Good of the Species.”

  “In the Light of the Dark,” responded the Mamms in the queue. This was in the days before this meaningless expression had dropped out of favour.

  “Now eat!” said Reginald, and several Mamms echoed this order.

  So Alistair ate. It made him feel better and worse – both at the same time. All the Mamms cheered with joy.

  “We’re going to need more syphon wolves,” said Reginald. “I’ll get more bricks. You each take one and then hunt as many animals as you need.”

  The cheering grew in volume.

  So, bricks were issued. The Mamms, hungry after millennia of starvation, went out hunting and feasted until they could eat no more. The syphon wolves nearly became extinct overnight. Of course, there were plenty of other animals to feast on, but the Mamms bore a particularly strong grudge against the syphon wolves from the long-distant past.

  *

  So, with the food shortage crisis over, The Period of Deep Thinking was officially over. Unofficially, it wasn’t. Alistair, out of a warped sense of duty, was determined to see all the Mamms still remaining in the queue. And, as it happened, a number of good ideas resulted.

  “Remember me?” asked the Mamm at the head of the queue.

  “Should I?” asked Alistair.

  “I gave you my book to read, remember?”

  Alistair nodded. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I remember.”

  “Well? What did you think of it?”

  Alistair gave an embarrassed cough. “Well, I think it was a little too deep for me. I’m afraid I didn’t get its profound message. Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t have a profound message,” said the disappointed author. “It’s a Teach Yourself to Read and Write book. It’s meant to teach you to read and write. Did it?”

  Alistair tried to think of a tactful way of answering this question. “No,” he said at last. “It didn’t.”

  “Oh,” said the author. “That means I’ve failed.”

  Alistair felt sorry for him.

  “It’s got a money-back guarantee,” said the author.

  “That’s nice.”

  “But since you didn’t pay for it, I’ll make it up to you by personally teaching you to read and write. Would you like that?”

  Alistair thought for a bit. He looked at the seemingly endless queue in front of him and wondered whether it would be right to leave. Then he noticed Reginald approaching, so he quickly turned to the author. “Okay. Teach me. But let’s go somewhere quiet.”

  Alistair and the Mamm had gone by the time Reginald reached the spot where they had been standing. He looked about him. Seeing nothing but the long queue of Mamms he took it upon himself to listen to their ideas and inventions in Alistair’s absence.

  *

  Alistair returned several days later with the ability to read and write, and with an idea for a novel.

  “How’s it going?” he asked Reginald.

  “Brilliant,” said Reginald. “We’ve now got a planet-wide communication system, an efficient form of transport, and even space travel.”

  “Oh?” asked Alistair, wondering why all the good inventions had come while he had been away.

  “Yes. And, strangely enough, the key ingredient to all these is...”

  “The wheel?”

  “No. The brick.”

  “The brick,” echoed Alistair hollowly.

  “Yes, a marvellous invention, that. I only wish I’d thought of it.” Reginald shook his head in wonder.

  “Alright,” said Alistair impatiently. “Tell me about it.”

  “Right, right. Well, the planet-wide communication system,” started Reginald. “The way it works is this. You write the message you want to send on a piece of paper and tie it to a brick. Then you throw the brick to whoever the message is intended for. And he reads it. (Of course, we’re all going to have to learn to read and write now).”

  “What if the intended recipient is further away than you can throw?”

  “Then you use a special brick projector designed by Giles. It uses fire and explosives to blast the brick to wherever you want. Pretty amazing, eh.”

  “Hmm,” said Alistair, without much conviction.

  “Giles says he’s built an even bigger brick projector that can project a spaceship, made of bricks, into orbit. The spaceship has smaller brick projectors on the outside to allow it to steer. It can carry up to five passengers, although I’m not sure if he’s actually tested it yet.”

  “Hmm,” said Alistair again.
>
  Reginald then described the efficient form of transport. This was the pulseway that could push a Mamm along until a brick wall at the other end brought the traveller to a halt. “Takes a bit of getting used to,” said Reginald. “But it works really well. Except that...”

  “What?”

  “Except that it doesn’t work so well across mountains and seas and things.”

  “So what do you suggest?” asked Alistair.

  “Well, we need to reshape the landscape. Make it perfectly flat.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “Bricks!” said Reginald, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “I should have guessed,” said Alistair, turning to leave.

  “Don’t go,” implored Reginald. “It’s a good idea, really it is. What I propose is that we brick up the entire planet and then pour tar over the top to get a perfectly flat surface.”

  Alistair sighed heavily. “Where would you get all the bricks from?”

  “From Terry. He makes the best. He’s a genius.”

  “Alright, where is he going to get all the bricks from?”

  “Oh,” said Reginald. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Well then you’d better think about it, hadn’t you.”

  *

  Back at the head of the queue a few hours later there was no sign of Reginald. Alistair felt a sense of relief and happily listened to the Mamms in the queue.

  The first Mamm stepped forward and held out a roundish object that seemed full of holes.

  “What’s this?” asked Alistair.

  “It’s a sponge,” answered the Mamm. “I found it at the bottom of the sea.”

  “At the bottom of the sea??”

  “How did you get to the bottom of the sea?”

  “I dived.”

  “And you didn’t dissolve?”

  “No, as you can see.”

  “Well,” said Alistair, clearly impressed by the Mamm’s achievement. “Well, well, well. That’s quite amazing. Well done.”

  The Mamm took a small, thin, reed tube and inserted it into the side of the sponge. Alistair looked on with interest. “What are you doing there?” he asked.

  “Put your finger to the end of the reed tube,” instructed the Mamm.

  Alistair tentatively did so, and immediately felt the slime of his finger being sucked into the tube and then into the sponge.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” he yelled.

  “It’s alright,” said the Mamm reassuringly. “It’s sucking you up by capillary action.”