The Totems of Abydos (59 page)

“The fool will not believe it is mere luck, of course,” said Brenner.

“No,” said Rodriguez. “He is a fool.”

“What was this theory?” asked Brenner.

“Which may be false?”

“Yes,” said Brenner.

“We are in the process of inquiring into its plausibility now,” said Rodriguez.

“Here, on Abydos?” asked Brenner.

“Yes,” said Rodriguez.

“You are not being very clear about its nature,” said Brenner.

“You might not find it agreeable,” said Rodriguez.

“Then it must be false,” said Brenner.

“Of course,” said Rodriguez.

“Of course,” said Brenner, bitterly.

“It is not flattering to the rational species,” said Rodriguez. “It does not seem to fit in well with their vanity and self-image. Indeed, perhaps it is too horrifying to be true.”

“I see,” said Brenner.

“It is sometimes referred to as the “forbidden theory,”” said Rodriguez.

“Quite scientific,” commented Brenner.

“Truth is under no obligation to be congenial or appealing, of course,” said Rodriguez, “any more than it is under an obligation to be uncongenial or unappealing. It is just what it is. Congeniality and appealingness are predicates more appropriate to our responses to truth than to truth itself. Too, there are those whom truth crushes and those whom it exalts. Truth is what it is. Whether it kills us, or makes us kings, is largely up to us.”

“I do not think I am familiar with this theory,” said Brenner.

“It is perhaps just as well,” said Rodriguez.

“I cannot be of much help to you, if I do not know what it is,” said Brenner.

“Whereas it is a real theory, and is true or false,” said Rodriguez, “there is no sure way to test it, as the events to which it pertains must, in their nature, belong to a remote past, one which, if the theory is correct, as it pertains to the origins of culture, must antedate culture, at least as we know it.”

“And antedate language?”

“Presumably,” said Rodriguez.

“But evidence must be pertinent to it, if it is a genuine theory,” said Brenner.

“Evidence is obviously pertinent to it,” said Rodriguez, “but the evidence which would show it true or false may not be available. For example, we might have a theory as to the first well-formed sentence you uttered, and it is obvious the sorts of evidence which would be pertinent to that, but the evidence just might not be available any longer. The visible and auditory aspects of the event no longer exist. No one may remember, no one may have been paying attention, no records may have been kept, and so on. This is often the case. We then have a theory which is more or less plausible, but can never be shown to be absolutely true or false. This is a merely contingent imperviousness to testability, which is quite different from the imperviousness to testability of a theory-surrogate or pseudotheory.”

“There are also considerations of plausibility, of comparative adequacies of explanation, relative to a given set of data, and such,” said Brenner.

“And they are quite important,” said Rodriguez, “particularly in a case of this sort.”

“But you would like harder evidence,” said Brenner.

“Of course,” said Rodriguez.

“I do not think you would have come to Abydos,” said Brenner, “if you had despaired of the acquisition of harder evidence.”

“Perhaps not,” smiled Rodriguez.

“Legend, myth, custom, practices, ritual, tradition?” suggested Brenner.

“Of course,” said Rodriguez.

“And perhaps evidence more fixed and real even than such things.”

“Yes,” said Rodriguez, shining his light about.

“Physical evidence?”

“Yes,” said Rodriguez.

“What is it that you are really looking for here?” asked Brenner.

“The earliest grave,” said Rodriguez.

* * *

“Did you hear something, back there?” asked Brenner.

“No,” said Rodriguez.

“There may be something behind us,” said Brenner.

“That is unlikely,” said Rodriguez. “Consider the depth of the dust, its undisturbed state.”

“Behind us,” said Brenner.

“But nothing walked there, for a thousand years,” said Rodriguez.

“It might now,” said Brenner.

“Unlikely,” said Rodriguez. “Listen.”

“No,” said Brenner, “I do not hear anything now.”

“I am going ahead,” said Rodriguez. “If you wish, you may go back and investigate.”

“I do not hear it now,” said Brenner.

“Come along,” said Rodriguez.

“Wait a moment,” said Brenner.

“Take the light then,” said Rodriguez.

Brenner took the light and retraced his steps, for perhaps a hundred yards in the passages.

“Do not get lost,” called Rodriguez, his voice echoing through the passages.

In time, Brenner, sometimes calling out to Rodriguez, and being answered, and being guided by t is, rejoined his senior colleague.

“Anything?” asked Rodriguez.

“No,” said Brenner. The only tracks which Brenner had discerned were those of Rodriguez and himself.

“I could not examine all the passages,” said Brenner.

“If anything was following us, it would use the same passages,” said Rodriguez.

“Anything simple,” said Brenner.

“I do not think there is anything else in here,” said Rodriguez.

“It might just be in here, for its own reasons,” said Brenner. “I do not think I would care to meet it.”

“The wind plays tricks on the hearing, in passages such as these,” said Rodriguez.

“I do not hear anything now,” said Brenner.

“In any event,” said Rodriguez, “we are safe.”

“Of course,” said Brenner.

“The totem will protect us,” smiled Rodriguez.

“Of course,” said Brenner.

“Seriously,” said Rodriguez.

“Perhaps,” said Brenner.

Rodriguez had such confidence in his theories! This morning, though no love was lost between Rodriguez and the Pons, whom he despised, he had seized up the first Pon, a small male, he could get his hands on, pressed him to his chest, and squeezed him in an endearing fashion. He had also then made certain, following this unusual demonstration of affection, to rub the small body considerably against himself. He had then, as the tiny beast squeaked and jabbered, removed its smocklike garment, it fleeing, shrieking, into a nearby hut, and put it around his neck, rather like a scarf. He had, further, insisted that Brenner, to Brenner’s dismay, wear the same filthy shirt he had worn yesterday in the forest, that which doubtless bore on it the scent of Pon. Too, it seemed probable that because of the village, their living in it, the proximity of the Pons, and such, that they would, by this time, have acquired something in the nature of a nest odor or pack odor, or, in this case, perhaps a village odor, so to speak. Accordingly, thusly armed, thusly prepared, they had taken their leave of the village. It was in virtue of these considerations that Rodriguez now regarded them both as having included themselves within the pact of the totem. The point of this sort of thing, of course, was that the pact would protect them from the totem, and the totem, in virtue of the pact, would protect them from other things. To be sure, although Rodriguez had great faith in this theory, he did admit, upon being pressed by Brenner, that he would have preferred the rifle. But the rifle, as we have previously noted, was no longer available. It had disappeared.

* * *

“Look at that,” said Rodriguez.

“It frightens me,” said Brenner.

“These are very old representations,” said Rodriguez.

The large, carved head, roughly hewn, looked white, and awesome, in the light of Rodriguez’ torch.

“These are surely the earliest passages,” whispered Rodriguez.

Brenner regarded the massive head, hewn of limestone. It seemed primitively executed, but, somehow, the hand of the artist, and his terror, had captured something of what the thing must once have been. Even in the ancient stone, even given the roughness of the work, even given the obvious antiquity of the object, the remoteness of it in time from the present of Rodriguez and Brenner, there was communicated an undeniable, fierce vitality, the savagery, the arrogance, the might, the lordliness of a king of its kind.

“That is unmistakably simian,” said Brenner.

“Anthropoidal, primate,” said Rodriguez, in awe.

“What do you suppose its size actually was?” said Brenner.

“Consider the size of the sarcophagus,” said Rodriguez.

“It could uproot trees,” said Brenner.

“I wonder what its intelligence might have been,” said Rodriguez.

“The forehead slopes back,” said Brenner. “The eyes seem small, and closely set.”

“You do not think that Pons could have once been such things?” asked Brenner.

“No,” said Rodriguez.

“Have you seen such a thing before?”

“Such things do exist here and there in the galaxy,” said Rodriguez. “They may once have existed on Abydos. I do not know.”

“That is Ponlike,” said Brenner.

“In the sense of being simian, in a general sense,” said Rodriguez.

“Yes,” said Brenner.

“We have seen similar things in the older passages,” said Rodriguez, “but none quite this fearsome.”

“The oldest passages have contained representations of other forms of beast, too,” said Brenner, “not all of them Ponlike.”

“True,” said Rodriguez. “But more have been simian in nature.”

“It is as though the Pons could not decide on the desiderated nature of the totem,” said Brenner.

“Or made use of what beasts might be available,” said Rodriguez.

“This is not typical in totemism,” said Brenner.

“Certainly not,” said Rodriguez.

“Do you think that this is the earliest grave?” asked Brenner.

“No,” said Rodriguez.

“But it is early?”

“If we may speak of an early period, and a middle period, and a new period, and recent times, so to speak,” said Rodriguez, “I would think this would be late early period.”

“And the Persian lion would be relatively recent?”

“Very recent,” said Rodriguez, “dating back no more than two or three thousand years.”

“These are surely the oldest passages,” said Brenner.

“The earliest grave may not even be in these passages,” said Rodriguez. “It may be outside them, before the Pons could work stone. It may even be unmarked, or concealed.”

“What do you expect to find in it?” asked Brenner.

“The father,” said Rodriguez.

Chapter 26

“Yes!” cried Rodriguez, excitedly, scrambling down the slope, leaving the passages in the stone, to descend to a shallow valley, not more than fifty yards in width, nestled at the exit, or what might be better thought of perhaps as the first, and perhaps oldest, entrance to the passages. There would presumably have seemed nothing particularly significant about this small valley to an untrained eye, but the spacing of certain grass-grown hillocks, or mounds, or barrows, within it, suggested to Rodriguez that he had here at last discovered the object of his quest.

“There!” said Rodriguez. “And there!”

Brenner, by now, gasping, his boots dusty, had slipped down the descent from the passages and joined Rodriguez.

“The first would be at the center, or in one corner, or at the edge of the place!” said Rodriguez. “Look for that most worn down, the most ancient!”

“What are you seeing here?” asked Brenner. He blinked against the sun, which seemed painfully bright after his emergence from the passages.

“This is a graveyard,” said Rodriguez.

“How can you tell?” asked Brenner. There were no visible, or obvious, markers. There was no fence, or gate, or barrier, or such.

“See the nature of the mounds, their height, their uniformity, their spacing!” cried Rodriguez.

“They are covered with grass,” said Brenner.

“Look for rocks,” said Rodriguez. “Anything that looks like a marker, or an encircling ring of stones, or a blocked entrance. And look for those most weathered!”

“Very well,” said Brenner.

“Of course, there may not be such,” said Rodriguez.

Brenner’s training was in cultural anthropology, and primarily in its academic, as opposed to its field, aspects. He was not an archeologist, and was not sensitive to tiny signs which might, to one who could read them, relate narratives of remote histories, a pin, a buckle, a beam of wood, a handful of beads revealing an unsuspected relationship between kingdoms, a shard of pottery marking the path of a migration, an oddity of terrain suggesting the location of a buried city.