Case and the Dreamer (35 page)

He saw courtship, and the choosings—a far cry from the coarse brutality of the couplings of the primitives; and once he was aware of those, he had to notice that only six-legged females were so wooed.

He began to recognize something akin to a family grouping; a centaur-like male, a six-legged female, an infant. Sometimes there were two males, one invariably older than the other.

When familiarity began to replace curiosity and confusion, Dom Felix was introduced to the more intimate and—could one say “sacred?”—aspects of the city’s life.

He saw the metamorphoses, each surrounded by gentle ritual: the first birthing, which apparently changed the child into the marriageable female, and its two phases, the parting of the last body-segment, and the care and guarding it went through until its moment came and it delivered, witnessed in joy by the entire “family,” and
(ritual echoing of a far-past biology) the delivery of the afterbirth to the male. Then the second birthing, which changed bride into male centaur, and the delivery of this afterbirth to the father of the new child.

Then the ritual of departure for the new centaur, no longer wife and mother, now single and free and male and ready to seek a wife.

And at last the ordeal of final metamorphosis—the separation of the male segment of the centaur, and the appearance of the Arcan bipeds known to Terrans—the totally mature, the completed.

It crossed Dom Felix’s mind that this was a treasure trove—that the likes of Altair II, anthropologists, comparative culturologists, would give anything in life to be able to study these people. The word “confidence” intruded so immediately and so forcefully on his reverie that he was snapped back to his presence in Arca, with Aquare beside him, and it frightened him. He looked at the impassive figure, fervently wishing that the Medean was capable of some sort of expression, of body language, of some way of coloring his flat messages, but there was none except for the feeling within Dom Felix that the creature was angry—angry at even the beginnings of the thought that the confidence might be violated.

No words passed at that point; Dom Felix’s regret at his own half-formed thought, and the devout renewal of his promise, were sufficient. Or—perhaps Aquare needed the reinforcement, not because of the wayward thought, but for the revelations he was about to make.

The visions resumed.

There was a gathering of the bipeds, the Arcans he had known, and how the population watched the procession toward the place Dom Felix had called Entry. The bipeds filed through the entire city, with their arms strangely held with the forearms resting on their heads (where had he seen that before?) until they emerged on their way to the shrine, when they took them down.

There was the first copulation, performed on the maturing child by the head of the household, the centaur.

There was the solemn ingestion, after the first child was born, of the afterbirth by the father.

There was a similar ritual by the female’s mate after the second birth.

And then, and then … and then there was the return pilgrimage to the city.…

Dom Felix once read an account of the Parsis, or Parsees, an East Indian sect, written toward the end of the first millennium. They were a highly cultured people, and many of them traveled to other countries and achieved high places in government and industry. And no Orthodox Parsi failed to plan his life and his affairs otherwise than to return home to die, or failed to make arrangements to have his body return should he die abroad. No Parsi escaped the curious, the intrusive, the impolite, the polite questioning about the details of a Parsi funeral, nor was unaware of the distaste, even horror, that these details evoked in other lands. No Parsi was so cultured, so civilized, so excellent in all his accomplishments nor so polished in his manners that he could eliminate this pall on his presence; the matter was certain to emerge soon or later, and certainly more than once.

And this was the manner of a Parsi funeral: after the final services, the body was wrapped in cloth and laid on a litter and born to a great stone tower, cylindrical, with no roof. The bearers would unlock and open a door at the bottom, carry their burden through a welter of broken dry bones to center of the enclosure, set it down and leave as quickly as they possibly could.

At the approach of the funeral procession, the vultures began to clutter the sky, coming from everywhere to the tower, where they perched on the wall, more and more of them, fighting for places, wheeling and darting when at last there were none. And when the bearers left, the signal of the slam of the lower door sent the birds out, scores of them, sometimes hundreds, plummeting down the stone chimney in a screaming storm, to tear and devour the corpse in minutes.

Witnessing the procession of returning pilgrims from Arca, and the waiting population that silently met them, Dom Felix was forcefully reminded of the Parsi rites. For when they were all within the city, walking steadily and sedately in single file, this time without the strangely defensive placement of forearms on heads, there was—must
have been—some silent signal, for the Medeans, one and all, of all ages and degrees of maturity, surged forward and fell on the pilgrims; but for the silence, it was, to Dom Felix’s mind, the same as the swoop of the Parsi’s vultures. In moments the pilgrims were struck down, their heads cracked, their skulls torn open, and their brains scooped out and gulped down. The larger and stronger brought dripping handfuls to the smaller and weaker, until every individual had had some part. Then the corpses were taken up and carried away to be mulched and returned to the soil of the agricultural sections.

“God! Oh, my dear God …” Dom Felix fell back on an old chant, to keep his feelings under rein until he could control them again. How much of them could be divined by the impassive Medean, he could not know.

“Can Acceptance accept,” said Aquare at length. Clearly, a question.

“Well, of course. Acceptance makes no judgments, especially on ani—I mean, other-species behavior.… Aquare, why do you—did they kill the pilgrims, the old ones?”

“For last sharing.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“You have see now all of us life, what we do, how we do.”

“But not why, Aquare.”

“Could be you not want why. Could be you know why, not want know.”

“There is nothing I don’t want to know!” Said Dom Felix, heatedly. “Now tell me: why were the old ones killed like that? What is the last sharing?”

To make later the—” (Flash of high flight, flash of red leaves under white sky.) “also the—” (Flash of reverent removal of an afterbirth, raising it to the lips of a centaur.) “together, give the seeing.”

“I’m trying hard to understand. Are you telling me that by eating the brains of your own kind, and by doing the same with an afterbirth, you can gain that power—to project visions, to see anywhere faster than light can go?”

“That is how. You also.”

“What you mean, me also?”

“Not so well perhaps. But can share from others.” Apparently sensing Dom Felix’s perplexity, Aquare went on: “You eat brain of music man, you make better music. You eat afterbirth painter woman, you paint more good.”

“Nonsense!”

“Not nonsense. I talked Terrans many-much, long time, little with one, little another, much much Altair. Terran can have see-far like Arcan, like many more many else place. Terran always say no, turn away. Terran see
sadhu
—is right,
sadhu?
”

“Holy man,” nodded Dom Felix.

“Terran see
sadhu, sadhu
have see-far, Terran say nonsense. Terran make medicine, medicine give see-far, Terran forbid take medicine, make medicine, study-learned medicine.”

“You’ve been talking to Altair, all right. I think you mean drugs, especially mind-altering drugs. They were regarded as dangerous—well, they
were
dangerous. So they were withdrawn, and research was stopped. But I don’t see—”

“Terran find other Terran eat Terran. Make stop.”

“Cannibalism! Of course we stop it!”

“No animal Medea, no animal Terra stop it. All eat kind but you kind. You breed sister.”

Dom Felix did not have a sister, almost said so, then realize Aquare’s words were not a statement, but a question. “Would I mate with my sister? Certainly not.”

“All animal Terra, all Medea, mate sister, daughter. All animal Terrans make for eat, make for work, Terrans breed sister-brother, father-daughter.”

“And you are telling me that if Terrans committed incest and cannibalism, they would have the—the see-far?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Dom Felix triumphantly, “why don’t our pigs and horses and tropical fish and cats and dogs have it?”

And Aquare intoned, “Many do.”

How to dead-end an argument, thought Dom Felix. He tried another tack. “Aquare, you haven’t answered my question. About the old pilgrims.”

“Yes I answer. You want answer more. Yes. You see Arcan born, eight legs, two arms. Is female. Make one young, drop last legs. Make one more young. Drop two legs. Is male. Soon mate, one, two, more times. Drop two legs. Is no more male. Is no more female. Is Arcan. In brain is self of all life, female self, mother self, woman-love self, male self, male-love self. In brain is all selfs of past Medean before. Now is Arcan, come to time of reward. Come Arca. Now after life of change, change, now no change, now rest. Now stay still, see-far to here-place, there-place. Each Arcan sometime find new place, share, share. Time comes to die. Old now. One more share to do. Go home. Last share.”

“Do they always make it back, the old ones? Suppose they die on the way?”

“All share.”

All share. Dom Felix could imagine it—the old Arcans gathering around a dying one on the trail, cracking the skull, slurping the brains, throwing the carcass off the trail.

“Acceptance.”

“If that was a question—of course Acceptance applies—acceptance of all you are and what you do. Do you doubt it?”

“Acceptance accepts Medean.”

Dom Felix understood completely, and deliberately refused to respond to it. With great precision, Aquare had nailed the fact that Terra would not, probably could not, accept these practices for itself, no matter what the reward.

He had forgotten that speech was his convenience, not Aquare’s, and was not necessary to the Medean, who knew perfectly well what he thought and felt.

Aquare rose, and Dom Felix rose with them. Aquare said, “Arca here to be near Terrans. Be near, Aquare go to Terrans. Hope join Terrans in the see-far, hope Terrans learn joint sentience everywhere. No hope. No hope. Then come you. Is hope. Acceptance say all learn feel like all. I be you. I be you young old male female big little, anything. Is hope. Is hope. I bring you Arca, tell everything. You not most great Terran. You not great Terran. You only one more Terran. Is no hope. No hope.”

“Ask Altair why dolphins never bite.” And he took off his translator and threw it on the floor.

And Dom Felix stood for a long time after Aquare sat down against the wall, and spoke to him, and shouted at him, and picked up the translator and thrust it at him, but none of it made a difference; Aquare, like the rest of the Arcans, just sat. So Dom Felix returned to the enclave alone, to discover Wallich was pregnant with his child.

Altair II was a very old man to when the transfax writer got him by receiver from Terra. The historian was quavery and rambly, with occasional flashes of his wit and his ability to flip out aphorisms, but the writer, named Trudi, had him on hold for more than a week and got an amusing, though possibly inaccurate story out of him. Since entertainment scores higher than accuracy, however, there was no permanent harm from that; there seldom has been in the writing of history. Which actually is one of old Altair’s own aphorisms.

The reason Trudi made the effort to find Altair to and speak to him is that she had learned somewhere that he was the only man still alive who had actually known Dom Felix. How he had survived so very long had a great deal to do with Dom Felix; he, Altair, was a Double Tripper. Double Tripping was a privilege accorded long-term Terran settlers or their immediate children, should they wish to cease their subjective lives at a certain point and resume them a century or so later. This was done, if there was available space, by Tripping back to Terra in biostasis, but instead of being defrosted there, being stored until the next ships departed, and returning to Medea. Which Altair did, and lived a long life afterward.

Why? It had a lot to do with Dom Felix. There are other reasons, of course, but even those lead to Dom Felix. “Funny little fellow,” he told Trudi. “Crazy, of course. Not crazy, maybe—obsessed. Nothing wrong with that. All the movers and shakers of history have been obsessives. Reasonable people who can see both sides of questions cancel themselves out. One thing he did for me—he straightened me out. I’d been soaking myself for so long in the past that I had forgotten that the present is history too, and it pays to keep your
eye on it. Now I’m a Double Tripper with a lot of years to boot and the present I had is now everybody’s history, even mine. Heh!”

“About Dom Felix—” Trudi nudged gently.

“Well, you see, he’s why I Double-Tripped. I mean, I had to know—you see that, don’t you? How could a historian not know a thing like that?”

“A thing like what?”

“What happened to him! I mean, a man comes to the planet, solves an insoluble social problem, solves an insoluble technical problem, changes the history of the whole human species and probably a lot of others along with it, then goes back to Terra and what? And what? Never another word about him, anywhere. A historian can’t hold still for that!”

“All right,” said Trudi to get this out of the way, to get on with her main thrust. “All right then, what did happen to him?”

“According to the transcript I had tucked into my freeze-bottle when I went back, very little. I mean, a lot, but very little that explains anything. He joined the Brothers of Shame.”

“What is ‘shame’?” Trudi wondered.

“It’s like guilt. He took an oath of silence and never wrote or said another word. The Brothers devote themselves to meditating on their sinfulness. Spend their lives at it and die inside the walls without even a death record. That’s what he did and I’ll never know why.”