The Totems of Abydos

CHAPTER 29





Brenner proceeded down the corridor.

The last time he had been in this corridor he had been with Rodriguez.

The torches behind him made his shadow seem long and before him.

He was descending now, and must, by this time, be outside the perimeter of the palisade.

Before him he could see two torches, one on each side of the double doors, within which was the hall of the temple, which he had, only last night, discovered with Rodriguez.

To his surprise there were several Pons at these doors.

The beast, if it is here, must be trapped inside, somehow, thought Brenner. It might have come in here, through the village, frightened by torches within the ring of the palisade, the portal would be large enough. Perhaps it thought the opening was like a den mouth, or a cave, a place to hide. But there seemed no marks in the corridor, the print of moist pads on the floor, strands of hair caught against the wooden walls, to suggest such a journey. Or it might have come in, somehow, from the rear, through the tunnel, that which last night had been blocked by the great gate of logs, with the sharpened spikes, pointing outward. Perhaps that gate had been opened, and then closed behind the beast.

The Pons at the hall doors began to swing them open.

“No!” said Brenner, putting his hand out. “Do not open them widely!”

A beast like that which had taken Archimedes could force its way, fierce head first, then shoulders and haunches, through such an opening with the ease of quicksilver.

But the Pons, nonetheless, swung open the doors.

Within, Brenner surveyed the great hall of the temple. It was bright with the light of more than a hundred torches. Within there were many Pons. Counting those behind him the entire population of the village must be here.

Brenner stood within the double doors, at the height of the aisle leading downward toward the platform.

This was not what he had expected to see.

He had thought there would be nothing here but a frenzied, restless, furious, frightened beast, perhaps in one corner, or at the back, crouching, waiting, eyeing the door, ready to rush forward, or perhaps one prowling back and forth, or circumambulating the walls, tail lashing, confused, snarling, seeking egress, or perhaps one held at bay, snarling, baring its fangs, lifting a threatening paw, one ringed with jabbing, thrusting torches, held in the hands of tiny, terrified Pons.

But it was not like that at all.

The beast, and it was, indeed, the totem beast, as Brenner had feared, sat upon the platform, back on its haunches. Its head, on that long neck, was perhaps twenty feet above the surface of the platform. Its pointed ears were erected. The roof of the hall was not more than a few feet over its head.

The Pons in the hall were in white robes. They turned and looked at him, as he stood there, at the height of the aisle leading down toward the platform. Several of them held lighted candles. Brenner had never seen candles before in the village. He had not realized that the Pons were familiar with such objects, let alone that they might possess them. At the belts of the Pons hung small, polished scarps. They did not appear to be the same sort of scarps as were used for commonplace purposes, such as the digging of tubers. The distance between males and females, he noted, was being maintained, but, presumably because of the number of Pons in the hall, in a somewhat unusual manner. The males and females were now separated as groups, rather than as individuals; the female group, which was on a higher level in the hall, and farther from the beast, was some ten to twelve feet from the male group, which was lower, and was closer to the beast.

Brenner turned his attention again to the beast.

Yes, thought Brenner, it is old. I am sure it is old. Rodriguez had thought so. He had said so. Brenner now, too, thought so. This was suggested, somehow, more by its general appearance, by its general cast, than by specific indications such as a drab pelt, a grayness about the jaws and muzzle. Yes, thought Brenner, it is old.

The beast did not move.

Perhaps it is dead, thought Brenner, suddenly. It is so quiet.

Its fur moved a little, in some draft, perhaps from the tunnel behind it, moving toward the open doors behind Brenner. But the smoke, too, from the torches, Brenner noted, seemed to be drawn away, mostly upward, somehow. The hall was not close. It was not difficult to breathe here, even with the Pons, the torches, and the candles. The hall is ventilated, somehow, Brenner realized.

He looked again at the beast.

Perhaps it is dead, Brenner thought.

Its pupils, like vertical slits, regarded him.

No, thought Brenner, it is not dead.

Suddenly the Pons behind Brenner, those who had conducted him hither, and those who had opened the various doors, and had then followed him, began to chant:



We will kill.

We will dread.

We will fear.

We will kill.

We will mourn.

We will love.

We will love.



This chant was then taken up by the other Pons. This chant was not done loudly, rather, almost in whispers. It was soft, repetitious, insistent.

Brenner took a step down the aisle toward the platform. He grasped the pointed stick he had brought with him. The stick seemed futile to him. He did not know that he could drive it to the heart of such a beast. He might not be able to reach the heart. He was not even certain of the location of the heart of such an animal.

“We will kill, we will kill,” whispered Pons.

“We will mourn, we will love,” whispered others.

This is madness, thought Brenner. I cannot kill this thing. It is too large. It is too terrible. In the arenas of Megara, Rodriguez had told him that a hundred men with spears were pitted against one such beast.

But it must be killed. It had tasted flesh.

It was old. Perhaps that was why it had seized Rodriguez. It could not find fleeter game.

It must be killed, Brenner thought.

“We will kill, we will kill,” whispered Pons.

“We will mourn, we will love,” whispered others.

What is it doing here, Brenner asked himself. Why is it here? Why is it just sitting there?

He approached the beast more closely. He was now some seven yards from it.

“We will kill, we will kill,” whispered Pons.

“We will mourn, we will love,” whispered others.

How did it get in here, Brenner asked himself. How did it find its way in? Why doesn’t it move?

Then, at the foot of the platform, on the floor, where he had not seen it before, his attention so taken with the torches, the Pons, the beast, he saw some objects, gathered together.

Brenner cried out with sorrow.

They were limbs, broken and torn, and a part of a torso, an arm here, a foot there.

The floor was dark with stains beneath them.

Brenner, tears in his eyes, looked up with fury at the beast.

The Pons had doubtless done the best they could. How they had managed to collect, and at what risk, even so many of the remains was remarkable. There was no mistaking parts of the body of his friend, those that were here. He recognized a scar on an arm, the watch on a wrist. The head was gone.

The Pons, in their love, and loyalty, had gathered these things together, and brought them here, and, to the extent that they were capable of such things, had put them here, in state. But above them, on its platform, like a god, was the beast, the totem itself.

“Kill, kill,” whispered the Pons.

Of course, thought Brenner. They cannot harm the totem themselves, even if they had the capability of doing so. It is the totem. It is I who must do this. But who better than I, whose friend has been taken from him by this fiend? Who else would I, in suitable vengeance, permit to perform this act? But how can I kill such a thing?

“I hate you!” cried Brenner, in tears, at the beast.

It looked down upon him, but did not move.

It could leave this place, thought Brenner. There is nothing, really, to hold it here. It could kill us all, breaking us with the blows of its paws, tearing us in two with those jaws.

Brenner looked at the makeshift spear, the pointed stick, he held. A hundred men, Rodriguez had told him, were pitted against such beasts in the arenas of Megara.

He would have to climb to the platform, even to reach the beast.

Then, from somewhere behind him, Brenner heard the voice of a Pon:



We love you, father.

Forgive us, father, for what we will do.



This was answered, or followed, by another Pon:



We will be 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 will do.



A third voice then called out:



Forgive us, father.

Love us!

Cherish us!

Protect us!



After a time another voice, high-pitched, called out:



Oh, I could get me in.

I could lay them waste.

But I will not do so,

for they are my children.

I am the father.



Brenner then looked down, to his right. The git keeper was there. Gently, the git keeper removed the makeshift spear from Brenner’s hands. Then he turned about and, from a pillow, carried by another Pon, removed the shining brass tube. It had been opened. The rifle was freed. He put it in Brenner’s hands. Brenner looked down at it, stunned. The weapon was ready. He was sure of it. He could even see the particular alignment of switches. He was sure, as he now examined it, that they were what he had once seen when Rodriguez had armed the rifle. Somehow, he was sure they would be. The safety, too, doubtless, had been released. Brenner slid back the bolt a little, looking in the breach, then let the bolt move back, automatically. One of the charges, cylinderlike, was in place, its red-capped end forward. The trigger, within its guard, was in evidence, the guard having descended from the barrel. At this distance, standing below the platform, looking up, Brenner could not miss.

The beast was cleaning itself, licking at the fur on its left shoulder.

Brenner grasped the weapon firmly.

The beast looked down at Brenner. It stopped grooming itself.

Brenner lifted the weapon.

The beast’s long tail lashed a little, moving back and forth, and then was still.

Thanks to the gods of ten worlds, thought Brenner, echoing a phrase of Rodriguez’, that it does not understand this thing, that it does not understand what it can do, that it does not know the danger in which it stands.

With this, I can kill it.

He steadied the weapon, aiming it carefully upward, at the center of the beast’s chest.

The beast then, oddly, as it sat there, not really moving much, lifted, and straightened, its body. In that moment it seemed quite vital. It now held its body as might have an animal in its youth or prime. It did not seem old then. It was almost as though it has pride, thought Brenner.

Then he pressed the trigger.

The path from the muzzle of the weapon to its target was quite short, only a few feet.

A sudden, black, startling, seared, cavelike hole appeared, as if by magic, in the beast’s chest. This hole seemed ringed in the first instant in a blastlike blaze of fire and light, roaring, incandescent, and torrential. Rocks were gouged out of the ceiling, and showered down behind the platform.

Brenner looked up at the beast. It had not yet fallen. It seemed very still. It was slumped down a bit but, on the whole, retained its sitting position. Perhaps it does not even know, or understand, that it has been hit, thought Brenner. The strike had been made quickly, in a sudden, brief stream of fire, almost a flash of light. It may not understand what has occurred, thought Brenner. It seemed to sit there, the hole smoking, the hair about it burnt away, in its chest. The opening had been made so quickly, so cleanly, that it seemed possible, for a wild instant, to Brenner, that the charge, in its heat, might have cauterized the very wound it made. But then, a moment later, its fur was drenched with blood.

Fall, die, die, thought Brenner. Die, he thought, die!

For a moment he was afraid of it, that it might move toward him. Even in its moments of death such a thing could be terrible.

But it did not move toward him.

It was no longer dangerous.

Brenner, sick, let the rifle slip from his fingers.

The beast lowered its head. It half rose. Its legs seemed uncertain beneath it.

It must fall, thought Brenner. It must die! Are you so hard to kill, mighty beast? Are you so unwilling to die? Do you cling to life with such force, with such tenacity?

Blood then came from about the jaws of the beast. It licked it, running its tongue about its jaws.

Its belly was now almost on the platform.

It looked at Brenner.

“Who are you?” suddenly cried Brenner. “What are you?”

“I am the father,” it said.

“He is dead!” squealed a Pon.

“He is dead! He is dead!” cried others.

Suddenly, then, from all about Brenner, there were howls, and leapings about, and shrieks of glee. The Pons, in their white robes, and those in the gray robes, were suddenly intermixed, jostling one another, striking and pulling at one another. Yes, thought Brenner, those raucous, pleased sounds, they must be laughter, or triumph. But how chilling, how maniacal, now seemed what might once have been a mere ventilation of emotion or tension. Brenner saw several Pons tearing off their robes. Some Pons were leaping about now, naked, making menacing sounds, presumably imitative of those of the totem beast. Others were making such sounds, but were moving about, too, in a sort of dance, imitating the movements of the totem beast, its prowlings, it climbings, its charges, even its stretchings and yawns. Many others, dancing about, whirling in their robes, in frenzy, brandished the tiny, polished, wicked scarps in their hands. Brenner would not have cared to walk too close to one.

Brenner felt sick.

The beast was dead. It lay now in its blood on the platform. The blood ran from the platform, and over the floor. In such a thing was much blood. The beast was dead. Brenner had killed it. It was dead, the beast, the ancestor, the primal father, the father, the totem.

Brenner saw one of the male Pons seize a female and pull off her robes. Others, males and females, shrieked with delight. Brenner wondered if this were because the female was not popular, or because she was, to a Pon, attractive, or, perhaps, that it was merely that she was a female, and at hand. The female tried to pull away but the male gave her a sharp bite on the back of the neck and, immediately, with a cry of pain, she crouched down at his feet, whimpering, in a cowering posture. When he turned away from her, she hurried to follow him. He treated another female in the same way, but this one, perhaps more intelligent, or not desiring to be so painfully served as had been her sister, instantly performed the submission behavior. And then the two of them crept after the male, sometimes baring their tiny teeth at one another. Then another male came and seized one of them by the hand and pulled her toward him. She shrieked. The original male and the new male, thrusting the female to one side, then began to circle one another, baring their small teeth. The females, the two of them now, together, cowered to one side. The two males, suddenly, as with one accord, with shrill, angry shrieks, flung themselves at one another, and, with hands and feet, and teeth, fought, grappling, rolling about, twisting, tearing, and biting. Other such altercations, too, began to break out. One fight was apparently over the possession of a given scarp. Brenner heard a cry, and saw a hand drawn back, suddenly bright with blood. He moaned. He sank down on his knees, before the platform. Before him, on the floor, were parts of his friend. Above, on the platform, the beast was dead. Its blood, spilled on the platform, ran to the floor. Brenner’s knees were soaked with it. He could see, about himself, tiny, bloody footprints, those of riotous Pons who had walked in it, run in it, or danced in it. All about him rang a bedlam, a madness, of shrieks, exultant and wild. At the periphery of his vision was a whirling flurry of robes, of brandished polished scarps, flashing, reflecting torchlight, and, here and there, of tiny, naked, hairy, spiderlike bodies, with receding foreheads, with small, closely set eyes. Brenner put down his head then, and covered his ears, and closed his eyes. It is festival, he thought. It is carnival, it is holiday. They are glad the father is dead. They wanted him dead. Now they have what they wanted. Brenner shuddered. Had the beast spoken to him? How could that be? He must, somehow, have imagined that. He stood up, shaking, and looked at the beast, dead, on the platform. It could not have spoken. Such things did not speak. Such things could not speak.

Sick, he decided he must leave the place. He turned about, and cried out, with horror.

A few feet from him, on a pedestal, where the floor became level, near the base of the aisle, was a transparent, lidded vat, or large jar, into which various tubes led. In the vat, facing forward, its eyes closed, was the head of Rodriguez.

Brenner spun about, to avoid seeing the object. It must be some form of burial, he thought. Doubtless the Pons are kindly. Their intentions are doubtless benign. They think I must appreciate this! I should not express horror, or disapproval. I would not wish to hurt their feelings. But he sank down again, now to his hands and knees, and threw up, to the side.

The beast could not have spoken.

When Brenner opened his eyes he looked again on the parts of his friend before him.

I must not be impolite to the Pons, he thought. I must not hurt their feelings.

But the Pons seemed to be paying him no attention. Their glee, their cries, their dancing, continued unabated.

As Brenner looked upon the pieces of flesh before him, he wondered what must be the horror of finding oneself the victim of such an attack, or would it be over so quickly that one would not realize what had happened? But if one did realize, Brenner thought, how horrifying that must be, the sudden blow of the paw, the raking of the claws, like hooks, the biting, the marks of the teeth, the being grasped in such jaws, perhaps the pain of being held down, and toyed with, bitten here and there, licked, clawed, until one could move no longer, squirm no longer, and then the thing might feed. But Brenner, as he forced himself to look at the limbs before him, did not detect the signs of such an attack. There seemed no claw marks, no marks of teeth. The limbs did not seem to have been torn, as in feeding, from the body.

Suddenly Brenner felt very cold.

The beast had not killed Rodriguez. Something else had killed him.

They could not kill the totem themselves, he said to himself. It had to be done by another.

“Emilio!” wept Brenner. “Emilio!”

Another must be brought to kill the beast, he thought, another! And another had done it, another!

The shrieks of Pons continued about him. He heard cries, too, amongst them, of anger, of dissension.

He rose up, tottering, he must flee, he must get away from this place, anything.

He turned about again. He did not want to look at the head, mounted in the jar, on the pedestal. But he did, of course, look, and then, once more, he cried out with horror. The eyes in the head were now open.

Brenner spun about, again, and then, slowly, in horror, sank to his knees once more, before the platform. He did not know if the head had seen him. Does it know it has been cut off, wondered Brenner.

The dancing and exultant shrieks of the Pons continued.

Brenner looked about, on the floor, to where he had dropped the rifle. It was gone. The pointed stick, too, was gone, of course. It had been taken from him, gently, by the git keeper.

It sees, thought Brenner. It sees! It knows it has been cut off. He turned about, on his knees, to again look at the head. Once more the eyes were closed.

The beast did not speak, thought Brenner.

The eyes could not have opened, thought Brenner.

I have gone mad, he thought.

He looked again to the remains before him. Then he looked again, upward, to the platform.

He was seized with a wild fear, and tensed to leap up, and flee from this place.

It was then that the nets, several, and weighted, fell about him. He could not rise. He could scarcely see through the toils. Ropes were secured, well fastening the nets. Pons clustered about him. He struggled, but his struggles were unavailing. He was now before the platform, on his knees. He could scarcely move his arms or legs. He knelt there, then, caught in the toils, enmeshed, secured. He was totally helpless, trapped as effectively as might have been an animal.

“You killed Emilio!” he screamed to the git keeper.

The small creature, its tiny hands hidden in the sleeves of its robes, did not respond to him.

“You are evil!” cried Brenner.

“I do not understand that expression,” said the git keeper.

“Are you all mad, all evil?” wept Brenner.

The git keeper looked at him, puzzled. There had been a pause in the revels.

“Who decides such things?” asked the git keeper. “Is it the lion who is evil, or the fleet one whose selfishness would deny the king its meal?”

“Such things are only as they are!” said Brenner.

“And thus, so, too, are we,” said the git keeper.

“Your kindness, your benignity, your lovingness, your innocence, is a mockery,” said Brenner.

“No,” said the git keeper, “but it has its price.”

“Why cannot you be more like Archimedes,” said Brenner, “who was truly innocent, and kind, and loving.”

“Archimedes could not have lived without us,” said the git keeper.

“Be as was Archimedes,” said Brenner.

“Archimedes, or he whom you chose to call such,” said the git keeper, “was retarded.”

Then the git keeper turned to the Pons. He raised a scarp. “We are free, my brothers!” he cried out. “The father is dead!”

This announcement was met with glee from the assembled Pons. Brenner struggled in the net, but could not free himself. He was utterly helpless.

The git keeper then went behind the platform and, on steps there, climbed to its surface, and then came forward, toward its front edge, where he stood beside the slain beast.

“Come, my brothers,” called the git keeper. “Let us take onto ourselves the power, the majesty, of the father. He was cruel. He was the tyrant. But now the tyrant is dead. Now we are free, my brothers! We may now do as we wish. We will all become as was the father! We will take his flesh into ourselves, that it become our own flesh. We will drink his blood, that it become our own blood. We will make his substance ours! We will become, through him, him!”

Then the git keeper turned about and, the first of all, dug his tiny, sharp, polished scarp into the great shaggy body that lay on the platform. He crouched on the body, and thrust the tiny bit of meat he had cut free into his mouth. The male Pons then, those clothed and unclothed, swarmed upon the platform and, like flies, or small scavenging rodents, attacked the great carcass with their scarps. Some fed the pieces of meat they cut to others. Brenner was ill. The females, he noted, did not participate in this ritual, or feeding. They hung back. When one of them approached too closely, she was snapped at, and she fled back, to crouch down, to wait with the others. The females looked at one another, apprehensively, while the males fed.

Brenner turned, as he could, to look at the jar. The eyes on the head in the jar were again open. It was regarding the feast. On its face was an expression of horror. Then it, again, closed its eyes.

The eyes did open, said Brenner, wildly, to himself. I saw it.

The mouths of the Pons at the carcass were red with blood. Some of the tiny creatures were half buried in the animal, gouging, feeding. The robes of those who had retained them were spattered with blood. The hair of those who had discarded their robes was similarly spattered. The feet of many, to the ankles, and the hands of many, to the wrists, were soaked with blood.

Trickles of blood ran from the tiny scarps.

Far off, it seemed, from somewhere back, perhaps within, or near, the palisade, Brenner heard the enraged howling of an animal. It reminded him of the sounds he had heard, so long ago, on the ship, from somewhere in its cargo area, before Rodriguez and he had come down to the surface of Abydos. Such beasts, he had understood, like many others, captured on various worlds, brought from various worlds, were transported to diverse destinations throughout the galaxy, such as menageries and zoological gardens, in which they constituted fearsome prizes. Too, as Brenner understood, it was not uncommon to bring them to worlds such as Megara and Sybaris, for use in the games. Brenner heard again the howling. He had never seen the beast in the ship. He had heard it tearing and raking at the steel walls of its confinement; he had heard it roaring, the sound reverberating throughout the ship; he had often heard, when he had lain buckled in his webbing, during his rest periods, its steady, restless, repetitious tread as it moved back and forth in its confinement, sometimes for hours at a time. Brenner did not think the thing he heard now was loose. It did not sound like that. It was probably caged. It could have been brought in, its cage suspended on chains from an air truck, from Company Station, where it might have been landed from a freighter in orbit, brought down in a lighter. Its delivery might have been arranged by Pons at Company Station, even months ago, or perhaps more recently, even by radio. The air truck, if it had brought such a thing in, might have been homing on a signal from the village.

“I have eaten of the father!” screamed a Pon. “I am the father!”

“No,” cried another, crouching on the carcass, “it is I who am the father!”

Brenner saw a Pon lash out with his scarp and another Pon draw back, its shoulder bloody. It, too, crouched on the carcass, baring its teeth, lifting its scarp, at the other.

“Peace, brothers!” cried the git keeper. “Peace, my brothers!”

“I am the father!” cried another, back farther on the carcass.

“No,” shrilled another. “I am the father!” One could only see its upper body, as its lower body was muchly concealed, it standing within the bodily cavity of the beast. It lifted up something red, and bloody, in one hand. It must be part of the heart, thought Brenner. In the other hand, it brandished a scarp.

“I am!” screamed another.

One of the Pons, its feet bloody, leaped from the platform and ran back toward the females. They shrank back before him, and crouched low. He seized one by the hand, and pulled her away from the others.

“Stop!” cried a Pon from the platform.

But then several of the other Pons, too, some seven or eight of them, as though they feared they might lose their chance, leaped from the platform. These were followed, almost immediately, by several others. The females shrieked, seeing them coming. The males made choices from amongstst them. Sometimes they tore away the white robes, and then made their choices. Some of the females they led away by the hand. Other females were drawn forcibly from the group, their right wrists helplessly in the grip of a male. Some others crept fearfully to indicated places, at so little as an imperious gesture. Some others were literally dragged from the group by an ankle, their robes about their upper bodies, or heads, their tiny fingers trying to catch at the floor of the temple, but gaining no purchase there. Several females, not yet selected, crowded together, crouching down. They were wide-eyed, looking about themselves in terror. They clung to one another. Some tried to hide amongst the others. But other males, circling this group, seized out several of them, too, sometimes reaching into the midst of them, to choose this one or that, one which might strike their fancy, pulling them away from the group. The males isolated their catches, and some had more than one. They then looked about, fearfully, defensively, baring their tiny teeth. There was an occasional dispute as to territory, perhaps as small as a square yard. Teeth were bared. Sometimes scarps were raised. More than one Pon was cut. More than once a female, sometimes more than one, changed hands. The females crouched down at the feet of the males. They stayed very close to the males who had selected them. Most kept their eyes down. Others, warned, did so. In these moments none looked into the eyes of the males. One female, Brenner noted, tried to creep to another male, but she was seen, and bitten at the back of the neck. Quickly she hurried back to her place, where the first had put her. Then the other male, he to whom she had dared to crawl, bared his teeth at the first. They circled one another. They both held scarps.

“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.”

“Absurd,” said Brenner. To be sure, he himself had sensed, or imagined, a profound, latent sexuality in the directress.

“She is female enough, it seems,” said the git keeper, “to have been fascinated by a handful of Chian diamonds.”

Brenner looked up at the git keeper. If pure, and well cut, such diamonds are quite valuable.

“I have heard the cries of a beast outside, from somewhere beyond the temple,” said Brenner. “What is it? What is its meaning?”

“That is not important for you to understand now,” said the git keeper.

“Is it caged?”

“Of course,” said the git keeper. “But do not fear. The bars are so closely set that it could not even thrust a part of its muzzle through them.”

“How could it have been brought here?” asked Brenner.

“By air truck,” said the git keeper.

“The drivers will know of this place.”

“The truck will fail to return to Company Station,” said the git keeper. “It will crash in the forests.”

“There will be a search,” said Brenner.

“The remains of the crash will be found,” said the git keeper.

“I see,” said Brenner. He suddenly felt cold, and began to sweat.

“Do not concern yourself,” said the git keeper.

“What of the directress?” he asked.

“What of her?” asked the git keeper.

“She is high in a party,” said Brenner, “perhaps in the metaparty, the party which controls the others!”

“No,” said the git keeper. “She was not in the metaparty.”

“She is high in her party!” said Brenner.

“No,” said the git keeper. “She was a low-level functionary.”

“She is, at least, in a party!” said Brenner.

“No more,” said the git keeper. “She does not now even have a name, unless someone has given her one.”

“I do not understand,” said Brenner.

“Not more than ten days after your departure from your home world she was in the hold of a slave ship, bound for Basra. Later, she was transported to, and sold on, Bokara.”

Brenner regarded the git keeper in astonishment.

“The directress’ battles with her femininity are at an end,” said the git keeper. “She will learn to obey, encouraged by instruments as inexpensive and simple as the lash and chain. She will learn her ecstasy in the arms of a master, and find her fulfillment in selfless service.”

“But, as what!” demanded Brenner.

“As a slave, of course,” said the git keeper.

“I see,” said Brenner.

“It is what she has always been,” said the git keeper. “The only difference is that that condition is now no longer deniable, not without absurdity, nor are its appropriate consequences avoidable. It is now overt, satisfying, explicit, and legal.”

“And what of the diamonds?” asked Brenner.

“They have been returned to us,” said the git keeper, “concealed in trade goods, from that enclave you refer to as “Company Station.””

“Of course,” said Brenner.

“If her master chooses to put her in diamonds,” said the git keeper, “she will wear them, of course, but I suspect that it will be a long time before she becomes such a slave. In any event, she owns nothing, not even a slave strip, if one is permitted to her. Rather it is she, who is owned.”

Brenner wept.

“What is wrong?” asked the git keeper.

“It is madness,” he said. “It is all madness!”

“No,” said the git keeper.

“What are you going to do with me?”

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

“Kill me with your scarps and sticks,” said Brenner. “Or kill me with the rifle!”

“It is wrong to kill the father,” said the git keeper. “And the rifle, with its charges, will be destroyed. We disavow such instruments of violence. We disapprove of such things. They are not within our ways.”

“You are stinking hypocrites!” screamed Brenner. “You killed Rodriguez!”

“He is not dead,” said the git keeper. “We did need his body, to motivate you to dispose of the father.”

Brenner felt sick.

“We will give him a less dangerous body,” said the git keeper. “We have a use for such as he.”

“Release me!” said Brenner.

“Do not fear,” said the git keeper. “You will be released.”

“I demand to be freed!” said Brenner.

“You will be freed,” said another of the Pons, one with his hands on a rope.

“Yes,” said another.

“The father must be free,” said another.

“Of course,” said another.

“How could it be otherwise?” said another.

“I understand nothing of what is going on,” wept Brenner.

The git keeper motioned to the other Pons and they, putting their small individual weights collectively to the ropes, began to draw Brenner, on his side, from the temple.

Brenner noted, as he was drawn away, that the pedestal and the vat, or jar, which had been upon it, that in which he had seen the head of Rodriguez, were missing. They had been removed. So, too, had been the body of the slain Pon. Brenner refused to believe, now, that he had seen the eyes in the face open, or that the expression might have changed. Such things were not possible. He wept.

“Why do you weep?” asked the git keeper, indicating that his fellows should pause for a moment in their labors.

“Only one person, my friend, has ever cared for me,” said Brenner. “And now he is gone. And this has happened to me, and I have never been loved.”

“We love you,” said the git keeper.

“We always love the father,” said another.

They then drew Brenner from the temple.

When they were in the corridor Brenner heard again, from somewhere outside, the roaring of the beast. The sound was then, naturally, much louder.

They passed, in the corridor, the small figure of a Pon, one which was very small, even for a Pon, and frail. A hood muchly concealed its features. The git keeper and the other Pons, those at the ropes, did not pay it any attention, and it, of course, saw nothing, as it was blind.

At the threshold of the temple, before exiting, the Pons stopped. Brenner tried to pull back his head but, trapped as he was in the net, he could not do so. Then, pressed down over the netting, and held over Brenner’s nose and mouth, there was a soft cloth, which had been soaked in chemicals. Brenner was not aware, a moment or two later, that he was taken from the temple.