And Having Writ . . .

by Donald R. Bensen

  "Whatever did you do, Raf?" Ari asked as we were trotted down the street. I explained.

  "Well, at least," Dark said with a noticeable bite in his voice, "we have learned that ritual politeness to strangers is not a constant rule in this culture. Useful knowledge, Recorder, if hard won."

  "What was it the captain actually said, do you suppose, Raf?" Valmis asked.

  Dark answered, "Probably 'Where did you drop from, you ugly-looking freaks, and what do you think you're playing at?' Plus whatever they use for insulting expletives here. Those sailors looked like a crude lot."

  I suspected that Dark's interpretation was based on what his own reactions might have been—he was never a very patient man—but had to admit that the effect of my playback made it probable. My own guess, I felt, had been the logical one, but it appeared that these natives' habits did not necessarily conform to logic.

  We soon arrived at a large, substantially constructed building, and after what appeared to be official formalities—including, to our dismay, the removal of my Communicator and Dark's and Ari's equipment—we were thrust into a small room with bars at the door and window. It was dimly lit, and we did not at first notice a native already in the room; he was stretched out on a shelf against the wall, apparently asleep.

  "Fascinating," Ari said. "Absolutely fits in with Level Four and lower. Special facilities for storing undesirable or dangerous individuals. It's really rather elegantly simple and efficient; they combine keeping people where they can't do whatever it is that got them disliked, with sufficient unpleasantness to deter others who might be inclined that way. Ingenious, for a primitive culture."

  "What sort of unpleasantness?" Dark said, looking around the chamber with distaste. The native on the shelf was now sitting up, looking at us with an expression which was new to me, but which, if I could still trust logic, was very likely fear. In the gloom of the place, our one-piece coveralls had their characteristic glow, and that, combined with our small but distinct difference in height and proportion from the natives and our easy conversation in a tongue unknown to them, must have produced a powerful impression on his unsophisticated mind.

  Ari shrugged. "It varies. Sometimes nothing special—one is just kept there. In other cultures, there may be punishment or torture administered"—we glanced quickly around for anything that might be used for such a purpose, but saw nothing—"or such a place may merely be for temporary detention until something definite is decided. Ah!" He brightened. "There was a most interesting report from Drifter, several Explorations back. Much the same arrangement as this, with the function of keeping assembled those individuals chosen to contribute to the food supply."

  None of us seemed to want this made any clearer, but I felt I should ask. "You mean slave labor for farming?"

  "No, no," Ari said good-humoredly. "A direct contribution. Such persons were confined, fed well, kept in good health, and then, um, processed as foodstuffs. Given a society unstable enough to produce conflicts and intolerable behavior, it is really an economical way of handling things."

  "Elegantly simple, you might say," Dark said heavily.

  "Precisely."

  "Would you say," Dark asked after he had looked at Ari for a moment with silent loathing, "that there is much chance of that being what we are in for?"

  "Oh, no, no, no." Ari was amused. "That was a Level Two culture! Very far behind this one. Among human races, at least, you hardly ever get cannibalism much past midway through Three. Once they're into Four to any extent, the primitive community spirit required for ritual cannibalism is lost."

  "What a pity." For once. Dark and I spoke at the same time and said the same thing.

  The native who shared the room with us now seemed to have lost his fear. He pointed and laughed at us. He said some things in what I took to be a friendly tone, and I decided to pass the time with some practical "freehand" communicating.

  It must not be thought that we Recorders are totally dependent on the Communicator; before being allowed to use it, we are trained in establishing contact with no aids whatever, thus getting the most solid grounding in basic principles. I had done especially well in training, and I rather looked forward to the opportunity of reawakening my old skill and of demonstrating to my colleagues the difference between my own expert approach and their amateurish efforts on the street, in which I had participated only out of momentary lack of another idea.

  I pointed at myself and said, "Raf." He nodded his head up and down—I registered this as some sort of affirmative gesture—then pointed at me and said, "Raf," then at each of the others, saying "Raf, Raf, Raf."

  At this point Dark shouldered me aside and confronted the native, who said, "Raf!" to him. He seemed to find the sound amusing.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "I want to find out what's in store for us!" Dark snapped. "If there's any prospect of us being eaten, I don't want it to come as a surprise!"

  "That is just the sort of thing I should think one would prefer to be surprised by," Ari said. "That way, one is spared thinking about it, which is probably as bad as having it happen. Or, if not as bad, it lasts longer."

  Dark ignored him and pointed vigorously at himself and the rest of us, then at his mouth, which he opened and shut as if chewing something. The native looked at him, then nodded his head up and down, smiled broadly, and, lifting his hands in front of him, palms inward, brought them almost together.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Dark asked uneasily, very much as if he were hoping he had not understood.

  "Our native has done a very capable job of signing 'yes' and 'soon,' " I said.

  "They're going to eat us!" Dark howled. "And I suppose that means this fellow gets spared for a while because of us—that's why he's so cheerful about it!" He glowered at the native, who backed away from him.

  "It is a curious idea," Valmis said. "By ingesting the substance of individuals, they expect to take on some of their qualities; in a limited way, a striking recognition of the unity of all existence."

  "I would be inclined to consider it more in the light of a political and economic manifestation," Ari said with the bright interest that always came to him when he had the chance of a good theoretical argument. "Though it is, of course, remarkable to find it in a Level Four culture. I am afraid I was rather dogmatic on that point a moment ago!" He chuckled ruefully, as at a good joke on himself. Dark's hand twitched, giving the impression that it wished, independently of its owner, to strike Ari.

  "Consider: they hardly know enough about us to decide whether they would want to share our qualities, so we must dismiss Valmis's suggestion. The little we have seen of these people and their works inclines me to the view that they are mechanistic pragmatists—note for example the complete absence of awe at our mysterious appearance; the lack of ritual greeting formulas (as Rafs ill-advised experiment demonstrates!); their crass perception of us as street entertainers. I would say it is a matter of a combination of limited food supply, perhaps with a growing population, which can be expected, no matter what the cultural level, to produce aberrant—I might even say brutal—behavior."

  "It's nice to know that you think it's aberrant of them to eat us," Dark said. "I don't think I could bear to feel you approved of it."

  "No," Ari said seriously. "While it is my task to understand the dynamics of any culture and their relationship to the fundamentals of Metahistory, I admit that I cannot be objective in considering every manifestation of such a culture. Though dispassionate in observation, I would feel obliged to add my own opinion in a final report—"

  Dark slammed his fist against the stone wall of the room. "Final report! Your final report'll be a hearty belch from some savage while he's picking fragments of you out of his teeth!"

  Ari bridled, and I intervened. "The problem, Dark, may be one of communication. The native apparently understood the concepts of 'eat' and 'us' as you conveyed them, and rather neatly gave you his 'yes—soon' answer, but the whole thing was
very sketchy around the operants. You really ought to leave that sort of thing to me; I am trained for it."

  Dark ground his teeth. I continued, looking past him through the barred door to the corridor beyond to verify my conclusion. "For instance, may he not have understood you to mean 'Do we eat?' rather than 'Are we to be eaten?' If so, the reply 'soon,' together with an expression of cheerfulness, becomes logical and friendly rather than a piece of heartless barbarity."

  "A bit far-fetched," said Ari, clearly reluctant to abandon his unique discovery of industrialized cannibals.

  "I think not. If you will look into the corridor, you will see one of the attendants bringing along dishes of something and placing them in the rooms—if not food, what?"

  "Fattening us for the slaughter, then," Dark grumbled, though he did seem relieved.

  In a moment the native was at our door, opened it, and slid in five bowls heaped with an unfamiliar but pungent-smelling substance, and closed the door again in a practiced series of motions.

  "Our" native took one of the bowls, lifted a utensil inserted in the stuff, and began to eat it, after waving at us and the remaining bowls.

  Dark, Ari, Valmis and I picked them up, fished out the utensils, and sampled the food. After a mouthful, by common consent we laid the bowls down and opened and ate a unit of food concentrate each. I signed to the native that he might have our bowls, but he seemed to find his own fairly hard going after the first pangs of hunger were stayed, and did not take the offer.

  "Well," Dark said thoughtfully, "I suppose we're safe from being eaten. Whatever that stuff is, it can't be meant to fatten anything up!"

  4

  We were now well if not enjoyably fed, and as we could see through the small window that we were now well into the planet's night cycle, there seemed little to do but compose ourselves for sleep on the shelves along the walls. Ari wished to discuss our plight and what to do about it, but the events of the day had left us all exhausted.

  "I have the feeling we'll have plenty of time to figure things out while we're here," Dark said. "I somehow don't see a delegation of local dignitaries coming to fetch us in the morning and wanting to know what they can do for us." He nodded at the native, who, after eating his meal, had yawned, wrapped himself in some pieces of cloth, and fallen asleep. "That chap looks as if he's not expecting anything to happen for quite a while." Dark looked almost savagely gloomy, and I could sense that he, most of all, wanted to be finally done with the day that had seen the loss of his beloved Wanderer.

  As Valmis settled onto his shelf, he muttered, "This would be quite uncomfortable, if it were real." Dark and I exchanged glances. It would be too bad if Valmis suffered a breakdown at a time when our only hope lay in functioning as effectively as any Explorer team had ever done. I fell asleep resolving that first thing in the morning I at least would set about my own duty, Communication, in spite of the absence of my equipment.

  Nobody in the cell was at all cheerful when we awoke. We four Explorers each experienced the dreadful moment of coming back to consciousness with the realization that we were marooned on an alien world, after a comforting split-second of thinking ourselves in our quarters on Wanderer; the native, sitting bolt upright on his shelf, looked at us with alarm and incredulity, as if he had not seen us before. He shook his head several times, then finally shrugged.

  Mindful of my decision of the previous night, I approached him; while he pressed himself against the wall, he did not actually flee from me. I considered asking the others to help me establish Communication with him, but recalled the less than satisfactory results of our performance on the street the day before, and decided to handle it on my own.

  It seemed to me that the most important thing was to get across to him the idea that we did not come from his planet. Anything we might wish to accomplish with any of the natives had to start from that fact. I also hoped to determine from his reaction whether our reception as off-worlders would be more likely to be respectful or hostile.

  I squatted on the dusty floor in front of him and sketched a circle with my forefinger, to represent his planet. I then pointed at him and rapidly sketched in a stick figure standing on the border of the circle: you belong to this world. He looked at it blankly, then at me. I studied the lines in the dust and had to admit that they appeared to form the picture of a man balancing himself on a ball, like an acrobatic performer.

  I brushed it away and moved to a clear space. This time I drew a larger circle and, inside it, an irregular line resembling what I could remember of the nearby coastline as seen from the air; I had not paid all that much attention to it, but there were some distinctive inlets and promontories that I was able to dredge from my memory, which apparently registered with the native, who narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. At about the position of the port, I made a smudge with my thumb, pointed once again at the native, and sketched a diminutive figure near the smudge. He nodded vigorously.

  I moved some distance away across the floor and drew another circle, then pointed at myself, Ari, Dark and Valmis, and drew four rudimentary figures on the border of that circle: we belong to that world.

  The native looked at the farther circle and at us, nodded once again, and muttered something aloud.

  Moving with some difficulty, he levered himself up off his shelf and walked to the circle representing our home world. He bent over, placed his hand on the sketched figures representing us, then raised it, walked over to the drawing of his planet, and laid it down with an explosive noise: you have traveled from your world to mine and impacted on it?

  I nodded, and he sat back on his shelf, looking at us thoughtfully. I was anticipating the next information I would try to get across to him—the need for us to meet with someone of importance—when, to my surprise, he jumped up, ran for the door, and began yelling urgently.

  In a moment, one of the uniformed natives appeared, and, after an exchange of shouts, our fellow tenant was marched away and out of sight.

  "What was that all about?" Dark asked.

  "As soon as I managed to convey to the native that we were from another world, he started raising that fuss," I said uneasily. I could not see why he had done so, but it was an unexpected and therefore disturbing reaction.

  "Level Four cultures are rarely geared to deal comfortably with alien contact," Ari said. "Industrialization promotes a world view that places great reliance on mechanics and simple physics, hence denies the unfamiliar as a matter of principle, and the idea of voyagers through space is bound to be the most unfamiliar one possible. Some such cultures retain Level Three (and lower, of course) characteristics of superstition, and begin by treating alien visitors as supernatural beings, which often has amusing results."

  Dark started. "Amusing? I'll bet that fellow has gone off to denounce us as demons and suggest that we be burned or something!"

  "That would probably be only fair," Valmis said.

  I forestalled Dark's violent response by saying, "Look, Valmis, I know you're brooding over that business of switching universes about, or whatever you think you did, and I'm sorry if it's weighing on you. But it's done, and we're here, and I don't think it matters whether this universe is an alternate that you've somehow called into being, or the real one. It seems to work the same way the one we were in yesterday did, and we are in just as bad a spot as if it were real—we've got to do everything we can, use all of our abilities to the utmost, to get out of it! So leave off that stuff about wrenching the cosmos, and act like an Explorer!"

  I think that Valmis was as much impressed by Dark's and Ari's respectful response to my brief harangue as by the words themselves; none of them were used to my being at all forceful, since Recorders usually look upon themselves as being, however vital to the success of any mission, rather passive instruments, or machines in human form, with the decision and action left to the others. However, this was a new and, so far as we knew, unprecedented situation, even aside from Valmis's notions, and a new approach seemed called
for.

  "Well, then," said Dark, "let's get to it. What sort of plan had you in mind?"

  Unhappily, even my un-Recorderlike behavior did not seem to affect our situation, which was that we were locked up.

  We discussed several possible approaches, with even Valmis shedding his philosophical gloom and guilt and joining in, but none of them seemed at all productive. Without an improved attitude on the part of the natives or, at the very least, access to my Communicator so that we might make a beginning at explaining ourselves, there seemed no place to start. I own that I felt a certain pride at my fellow Explorers' clear acknowledgment that my specialty was the necessary starting point for any of them to employ theirs, but this gratification was considerably diminished by the fact that I wasn't able to do anything at all in my line under these conditions, and what I had done in making our origins evident to the native who had shared our chamber appeared to be of distinctly two-edged significance.

  We had pretty well exhausted our fund of ideas when a crowd of natives boiled into our corridor, and one of them unlocked and opened the door. Our former companion was among them, though he did not now seem to be in the custody of any one of them, and made urgent beckoning gestures to us. We were surrounded and hustled down the corridor to the room where our equipment had been taken away from us, and to my surprise it was handed back to us. Our native friend, now seeming, for reasons I could not understand, to exercise some authority, superintended its return.

  A great wash of relief and, I confess, comfort flooded me as I felt once again the familiar shape and bulk of my Communicator. And I daresay Ari and Dark felt the same way about their own equipment. A specialist can accomplish much by relying solely on his training, but it is undeniable that the machinery we use amplifies our abilities enormously.

  Our native, unaccompanied, I was relieved to see, by the others, led us outside the building and into a vehicle, which started off with a roaring noise as soon as we were inside. I did not take much note of its nature, my interest not being in that direction, and in any case I was absorbed with the Communicator. Dark and Ari were exclaiming at the curious spectacle of the city we were passing through; Valmis was looking at the view with a detached expression; and the native, who now seemed to be effectively in charge of us, was regarding us with an air of speculation.