The Totems of Abydos (64 page)

“Peace, brothers!” called the git keeper from the platform. There were still several males on the carcass, feeding, looking up, then feeding again.

“We are all the father!” screamed one of the Pons on the carcass, its mouth bloody.

“We may all do as we please!” cried another.

“We may all do as we wish!” screamed another.

There was a cry of pain from Brenner’s right and, turning, he saw the Pon who had been challenged for the female, he from whom she had attempted to creep away, who had brought her back to her place, clutch at his throat. Blood ran between his fingers. His eyes were wide. He sank down, on the temple floor.

The Pon who had struck him, he who had challenged for the female, himself bloodied, knelt down beside him. He put the scarp to one side.

The female put back her head and uttered a long, keening wail.

There was then silence.

The Pons quietly separated from one another.

“The father is dead!” called one of the Pons from the platform. This, however, was no cry of triumph, no utterance of exultation, but a lament.

“We will mourn!” called another from the platform.

“We will love,” said another.

Brenner saw the females gather to one side.

“The father will be angry!” called a Pon.

“We will fear!” called a Pon.

“We will dread!” called another.

“We will mourn!”

“We will love!”

Those Pons who had discarded their robes drew them on again. The females, too, whose robes might have been removed from them, found them and donned them once more, even torn as they might be. Brenner noted a restoration of the distances.

Basins of water were brought forth and Pons began to wash their hands, drying them on white towels.

Brenner then heard, from somewhere, the voice of another Pon:

We love you, father.

Forgive us, father, for what we have done.

This was then answered, or followed, by another voice:

We are contrite!

Show us forbearance!

Be kind to us!

Cherish us!

Protect us!

We will refrain from touching the soft ones!

We beg your forgiveness, father, for what we have done!

A third voice then called out:

Forgive us, father.

Love us!

Cherish us!

Protect us!

“The father is dead!” wailed a Pon.

“The father is dead,” called out the git keeper.

“Long live the father!” cried a Pon.

“Long live the father!” called out the git keeper.

“Long live the father!” called out the Pons.

Candles, which had been extinguished in the riotous moments following the demise of the totem, were rekindled. Many of the Pons then, in their robes, several of these garments spattered with blood, began, maintaining the distances, to file from the hall.

Some Pons began, one by one, to extinguish the torches in the hall. The git keeper left the platform, by the rear stairs, and came about the platform, to where Brenner knelt, unable to rise, the netting wrapped about him, and secured.

“Long live the father,” said the git keeper, looking at Brenner.

“The father is dead!” said Brenner to the git keeper.

“No,” said the git keeper.

“He is dead!” screamed Brenner.

“No,” said the git keeper.

“I killed him!” said Brenner.

“The father lives,” said the git keeper.

“Where is he?” asked Brenner.

“Here,” said the git keeper.

“I do not see him,” said Brenner. “Where is he?”

“Here,” said the git keeper.

“Which one is the father?” asked Brenner, looking about.

“He is here,” said the git keeper.

“Who is the father?” said Brenner.

“You are the father,” said the git keeper.

“You are insane!” cried Brenner.

He was then put on his side, and his knees were thrust up, before him, almost under his chin, and the net was closed, tightened and tied shut. Ropes were then attached to it.

“Wait!” cried Brenner.

The git keeper gestured that the several Pons in gray robes, those at the ropes, should not yet draw upon them.

“I do not understand what is going on here!” begged Brenner.

“You are the father,” said the git keeper.

“That is absurd!” wept Brenner.

“Our males,” said the git keeper, “have been unable to procreate for thousands of years. This began as a functional inadequacy correlated, as we now realize, with the repudiation of, the neglect of, and the eventual destruction of, natural relationships. We denied the biotruths of our species. We betrayed our form of life. Once we were a hardy race. Of that you see now only degenerate remnants, clinging to a life, and a bit of technology, in a wilderness.”

Brenner shook his head. He looked up, wildly at the git keeper.

“We once lived between angels and fish, where we belonged, but then it was decided by our ancestors, as they grew stupider and weaker, and the quality of their gene pool declined, and the strength of pernicious conditioning programs increased, that this was a mistake, and that we should not be what we were, but that we should be other than we were, that we should be not animals, but angels, that we should deny ourselves and pretend to be what we were not. Weakness soon wore mask of virtue. The least virile were favored for replication, when it was allowed. Worth was assessed in virtue of glandular inferiority. Value was determined by conformance to antibiological desiderata. Our males were forbidden to be males. Our females were forbidden to be females. We could not be ourselves. We must pretend to be other than ourselves. Suffice it to say that what began as a mere functional impotence, prescribed by society, lest our males revert to more primitive forms of life, eventually became, or was replaced by, through selections, a congenital impotence, and, later, over a thousand generations, through similar selections, a complete sterility. Our females, too, suffered. Most are barren, but, some remain capable of conception. Several of these, which ones you need not know, now carry your seed.”

“My seed?” said Brenner.

“It was taken during the feast of the harvesting of seed,” said the git keeper.

Brenner looked up at him, wildly.

“You are the father, you see,” said the git keeper.

“You are an alien life form,” said Brenner. “We could not be crossfertile.”

“We are,” said the git keeper. The trace of a smile seemed to play about that small mouth. “It is not, really, as strange as you think.”

“It is impossible,” said Brenner.

“This is how we survive,” said the git keeper, “and have survived, for thousands of generations. This is how we remain angels, you see, in effect, a travesty,, a joke in nature, in effect, bodiless creatures, glandless spirits, simple and loving, benignant and kindly, soft, benevolent, gentle, and such. To be sure, we must be protected by lions. Others must do our killing. Others must supply the seed for our females.”

“That is why there are no other clans about, with other totems,” said Brenner. “That is why there are no children.”

“Every thousand years,” said the git keeper, “there are children.”

“You are so long lived?” said Brenner.

“Not originally,” said the git keeper.

“I do not understand,” said Brenner.

“We have retained, in the sacred books,” said the git keeper, “some of the advances of our race.”

“Do all the Pons know these things?” asked Brenner.

“It is not needful for them all to know,” said the git keeper. “It is a heavy burden, and best borne by few.”

Brenner moaned.

The git keeper made a small motion, and the Pons about prepared to draw on the ropes.

“Wait, I beg you!” said Brenner.

Another gesture from the git keeper resulted in the ropes slackening.

“I was brought here,” said Brenner. “All this has been planned. You had such things in mind, even from before we landed on Abydos!”

“Of course,” said the git keeper.

“Why?” asked Brenner.

“That there be a father,” said the git keeper.

“But why me, of all?”

“You are fitted for the function,” said the git keeper.

“Others might have served as well!”

“Doubtless,” said the git keeper. “But your genetic materials are of special interest. They are atavistic, dating from a sterner, hardier time. Also, they represent, although you do not understand this, and might be horrified to learn it, an unusually interesting genotype, one which might not only survive, but might thrive, even flourish, in a natural world, or within a civilization which is an extension and outgrowth of nature, rather than a repudiation of her.”

“No!” cried Brenner.

“Would you be so disturbed to own land, to command men, to have women at your feet?” asked the git keeper.

Brenner moaned.

“It is no accident that you are here,” said the git keeper.

“More so than you know,” said Brenner, bitterly. “The contents of the experimental vats, in one of which I was nurtured, were ordered destroyed, that such genes, putatively dangerous to the security of the regime on the home world, be removed from the gene pool. I was the only one saved, rescued by an attendant technician.”

“Does that seem so mysterious to you, or such a coincidence?” asked the git keeper.

“Yes!” said Brenner.

“That it should be you, alone, of all the others, who was saved?”

“Yes,” said Brenner, faltering.

“Why?” asked the git keeper.

“I do not know,” said Brenner.

“Your genetic materials were selected, thousands of years ago, as being suited for our purposes,” said the git keeper. “Their location, condition, treatment, and such, were carefully monitored.”

“It was no accident then that I, alone, was spared?”

“No,” said the git keeper.

Brenner looked up at him, in consternation, through the heavy netting.

“You have been prepared, so to speak, chosen, if you will, for our purposes,” said the git keeper.

“I see,” said Brenner.

“The technician was well rewarded,” said the git keeper.

“Of course,” said Brenner, bitterly. No one, then, it seemed, had cared for him, or loved him. Only Rodriguez, in his rough, unpolished fashion, had seemed to care for him, if only begrudgingly. Tears sprang into Brenner’s eyes, as he thought of his friend.

“There must be records kept,” said Brenner. “There must be traces of your work, here and there. Some must understand, or suspect, what you are doing!” To be sure, Brenner had wondered, long ago, about the sparsity of records, and reports, and such, pertaining to Pons. On the whole, saving for some obscure monographs, there were little more than fragments, often no more than notes in old texts, and, apparently, some references in company records.

“Did you?” asked the git keeper.

“No,” said Brenner.

“The university will have records of our expedition.”

“They have been misplaced,” said the git keeper.

“The directress?”

“Of course,” said the git keeper.

“She was influenced?”

“Yes,” said the git keeper.

“It was no accident then that she brought the expedition to my attention, and such.”

“No,” said the git keeper.

“I might have refused to come,” said Brenner.

“Other pressures would then have been brought to bear,” said the git keeper. “In one fashion or another you would have arrived here in autumn, before the feast of the harvesting of seed.”

“What difference would it have made?” said Brenner.

“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.”