Fish Tails (92 page)

Xulai cried, “Oh, I'd love to have one of those camps. Think how much easier it would make our job, Abasio. Hot water! And the children could stay clean! And so could I.”

Abasio said, “And we could really sleep at night without keeping one ear open for assassins. Unfortunately, I don't know what we've got that we don't need that we could pay with, sweetheart.”

Fixit murmured, “Leave that question for now. We will think of something. At moment I am interested in tying up loose ends. Are you familiar with resolution adopted by Galactic Supreme Council concerning extermination of mankind?”

“You mean the reason why we're being flooded,” said Abasio.

“No, no. Flooding was informal decision made by World Spirit of Earth, and assisted by two other world spirits. Resolution of Galactic Supreme Council was as follows: ‘Present mankind with problem they cannot evade; see if they will respond adequately, properly, and with bao. If not, then mankind will be mercifully expunged. If they respond sensibly, the council will work with them to improve their species.' World Spirit pulled . . . REFERENCE needed! . . . carpet from beneath pedal extremities of council, but we have already discussed this. I am interested in knowing about this bao. Are you knowing what is bao?”

As though I have not known about bao since I was a becoming-­person. First lesson ever taught to Balytaniwassinot, long before it became Fixit, first lesson taught any of our ­people is always about bao.

“There's that word again,” cried Arakny. “What is bao?”

“Grandma knows,” said Needly. “She told me.”

“So you can tell them,” said Grandma. “I've done enough telling.”

For a moment Needly stared into the distance, arranging her thoughts. Abasio and Fixit took advantage of the pause to raid the cookie plates on the table. When quiet came and everyone seemed settled, Needly folded her hands in her lap and began.

“Early mankind evolved sufficiently to create language, and this set them apart from other living creatures, so far as they knew, for while they were not the only creature with language, they were the only ones whose language they understood. They knew the earth was flat. They saw the sun rise in the east and sink in the west, so they knew it went around them each day. They saw the moon and stars do the same thing. It was obvious to them that they, humans, were at the center of everything, and since they were at the center, they assumed themselves to be the purpose for which sun and moon were made.” She stopped, taking a sip from her almost empty cup. Arakny, who had left the pot warmer on the table, refilled it for her.

“Everything they saw reinforced their idea that man was at the center of everything. Stone was there for him to use as axes and pounders and spearheads. Animals and fish were there for him to eat. Shells found along the shore were good for making needles and beads. Fire was there to keep man warm and scare predators away. Women were there for pleasure and to make babies.

“At night, around the fire, they listened to the old men, those who had lived many summers, tell the stories they had learned from their old ones. Those first old ones knew the list of names. First name was his father—­or perhaps the chief's name. Next name was the father or chief before him. Next name was the one before that, and the one before that. They memorized the list of names and recited it around the fire, all the way back to the first man. The first man was the one who had started the list. Maybe there were eight names, or fifteen, or twenty, but the first name was the first man who ever was, the one the Creator had made. They recited this list of names and taught it to their sons, and when they learned to count, they even assigned these old ones a certain number of years of life. And because man was a maker of things, they knew everything had to have been made by something, the Great Maker
.

“Those who lived in the northern hemisphere watched the sun rise and saw that it came up in places that moved along the horizon from north to south. They learned the farther north the sun went, the warmer and longer the days were; the farther south it went, the colder and shorter the days were. They made a mark on the cave wall, one mark for each day as the sun moved back and forth, learning how many days it was from the longest day until the longest day came again. It was always the same number of days. The Great Maker had made it that way for man. Sometimes, however, the cold time went on past the proper line on the wall. The old men talked it over and decided the Maker might have gone to sleep and forgotten to put more fuel on the sun to make it hotter, so they built a big fire and danced around it, yelling, to wake up the Maker and get him to heat up the sun. It seemed like a good idea to do it every year when the temperature change was supposed to happen, just to remind the Maker they were there.

“The old men were the ones who remembered all this. They were too old to go hunting, too old to fight off the lions, but they were the ones who remembered: they remembered the list of names, back to the first man, the way to mark off the year, the way to build the fire, and the right words to use when they reminded the Maker to send the sun back, the way they had fixed the wounds that healed well, the way the fever came and how it went away when they chewed willow bark, the way to the northern valleys where they went in summer to hunt deer. And gradually, over the centuries, the old men became a separate kind of being. They became a separate caste with knowledge of law and healing and dealing with the Maker. They were not all old. Perhaps a young man had been crippled in the hunting, he could join them to learn. There was so much to learn. They learned revelation, invocation, and nomination—­the laws by revelation, healing by invocation, and leaders by nomination. They became the shamans, the witch doctors, the priests . . .” She paused for a sip of water.

Arakny asked, “Were there no women among them? No wise women?”

“There were,” said Grandma, “but they were individuals, almost always. Loners. The men formed clubs, societies, often
secret
societies, passing the
secret knowledge
on to their sons. The women mostly stayed close to the earth, herbs, planting, animals. The men grew away from it. They forgot the actuality of creation and began to populate their visions with gods and spirits and demons. They became the first professionals by owning the three great professions. Law. Medicine. Religion. Interestingly enough, these fields at one time were held to be the only three in which highborn men—­that is, gentlemen—­could engage without polluting themselves with physical labor.” She turned toward her granddaughter. “Go on, Needly.”

“When men invented writing, they finally had a way to preserve the knowledge of the old men by writing it down. They wrote the stories of their ancestors, of their histories, of their lineage. They wrote down the proper way to summon the Maker and remind him of his duty toward his ­people. They wrote down how man was at the center of everything, a particular favorite of the Maker. When they had finished, if anyone questioned the writings, they said the Maker himself had dictated what they had written down.”

Grandma interrupted. “We must remember that all during these thousands of years before writing was invented, the stories were retold thousands of times, and the tribes separated and the stories were not remembered precisely the same by all of them, so the northern man might tell the story differently from the southern man, and so on. Even after writing came, there were differences.”

Needly took a deep breath. “All the generations of life before that first-­remembered father were forgotten. All the generations of living without language, all the generations while language slowly emerged, all those generations before they learned to make fire, all the generations while they learned to make spears and clothing. All those forgotten generations were as if they had never been, but some things remained constant, the guiding beliefs of mankind: historic man had speech and writing; the universe had been created for historic man; everything had been created for him.” She paused, reaching for her cup, for her throat was dry.

“May I help tell the story?” asked Arakny. Both Needly and Grandma nodded. “Once the old men had decided on something, it was hard for them to let go of it. When ­people learned the world was round, not flat, when ­people learned the earth went around the sun, not the sun around the earth, the old men owed their allegiance to the story rather than to the truth. Wise ­people, good ­people, tried to change the old men, but by that time the old men were powerful. They were kings with armies. They were religious leaders with their own kinds of armies, and they taught that the false was true and the truth was false. The world was flat. Their book said so. The sun went around the earth. The book said so. The world was four thousand years old. Look, count up the generations of men listed in the book, the book says so. The first man's name was so and so. Their book said so. Women were the cause of sin and imperfection. The book said so. Truth was unimportant. Believe what's in the book. Most ­people could not read in those times, and the important men didn't want them to learn to read. They might not understand it. They might get the story wrong. They would read it themselves and tell men what to believe.”

“Aha,” said Fixit, who had listened to all this with great attention. “But why was this believed? Did not all men have eyes, ears, senses? Could not all men think and measure?”

Grandma said, “Of course they could. But the old men were in power. They had authority. They determined that everyone had to believe what they said, and if you didn't believe it, they would torture you until you did, and if you still didn't believe, they burned you to death. And if someone wrote a book that contradicted THE book, then they burned the book. They said no one should read any books but the ones they approved. Better yet, men shouldn't bother learning to read, or shouldn't bother reading if they already knew how: the old men would tell them what to think.”

Arakny said grimly, “The old men had to build fences and gates around what ­people could think and read and believe so they wouldn't stray. One gate was called ‘hell,' for ­people who disobeyed them, and another gate was called ‘heaven,' a reward for ­people who behaved properly and didn't ask questions.”

Grandma said grimly, “And the old men fought every new thing that was learned. If new discoveries were made, ­people must not be allowed to listen. They must not listen to the age of the earth, they must not listen to how man evolved, they must not listen to equality of women, they must not listen to restricting population. They must not listen to the truth, because the old men who ran things liked things just the way they were
. With them in power
. With riches and power coming from a steadily growing population, for the old men urged that man procreate without cease to build their armies.”

The door had opened across the room. Wide Mountain Mother stood there. Both Needly and Arakny nodded to her, and Mother said very loudly: “And finally they did the very worst thing. They said, ‘Don't pay attention to the evidence, don't look at the numbers, don't believe the science.
The Maker put all that evidence there just to fool you and test your faith, and if you fall for it, you'll go to hell.
' ”

“Aha,” cried Fixit. “So they say, in other words, that their Creator is a liar and a trickster and a . . . what is word for ‘pain lover' . . . REFERENCE needed! . . . ah, yes,
sadist
.”

“Yes.” Grandma nodded. “Only a sadist would create hell. Only a sadist would create a god who would create hell, and that is one of the keys to bao. Those without bao accept the existence of a god who is a liar, a trickster, and a sadist. The god of selfish humanity, the god of me-­first humanity, the ‘Crawl on bloody knees and offer your pain to me' god. The god of ‘Build more prisons.' The wee, tiny ‘Sit on my shoulder' God of use-­it-­up-­and-­worry-­about-­it-­later. Monkey-­brain willy-­wagger humanity. The God of Mobwows.”

“But those who have bao,” Needly went on, leaping up from her chair, “they know the Creator never lies or tricks or tortures anyone. Pain was given to all living things by the Creator, not as punishment but so they can be warned of danger: it warns us that the fire burns, the sharp edge cuts, the sickness must be treated quickly to be cured. The Creator who gave us that warning is no sadist.”

Fixit gave her a smiling glance. “Your grandma is teaching you this?”

“Yes,” Needly said. “And I believe it.”

There was a long silence, broken at last when Wide Mountain Mother said, “The rule of the old men was the way most of mankind lost bao. Or perhaps was never allowed to find it.”

Fixit cocked its head and asked, “And what does ‘bao' mean?”

Grandma and Mother shared a long look. It was Mother who answered.
“Bao is the acceptance that mankind is part of the fabric of the universe, not the purpose of it. Humanity is meant to live as part of creation, not as the owner of it or to make war against it.”

Grandma said, “To accuse the Creator of planting lies in the universe in order to trick mankind into hell is the worst obscenity man can commit, for intelligence cannot evolve in a universe that lies. The universe changes and evolves over aeons, but it does not lie. It may be misinterpreted, and often is, but
it does not lie.
Men may lie, doctrines may lie, books may lie, kings and princes and priests may lie . . . the universe does not.”

There was a thoughtful silence. Balytaniwassinot was busily adding to its notes as it muttered to its personal log.
(“See, see galactic dates on note leaf. Oh, why am just now learning how mankinds were misled? New information! Why have I never heard it before! Both lateral hearts are pounding at how surprised and amazed I am! Be sure to note, log, how hearts are pounding!”)