The Totems of Abydos (8 page)

Brenner did not respond to Rodriguez. He was familiar with such matters, and speculations, of course. Rather he was enrapt with the vistas before him, and reminded himself that he was, in a sense, looking backward into the past, and that many of the lights which he saw, as those which he had seen from the surface of the home world, had begun their journeys thousands upon thousands of years ago. The light of the sun of Abydos, on the other hand, had begun its journey but a moment past. Astronomically, on standardized star charts, the sun of Abydos was identified by its catalog number, and the identificatory numbers of Abydos and its satellites, if it had had them, would have been indexed to this same number. For example, although the number of the sun of Abydos had several digits, let us suppose that its number was as simple as 17. The number of Abydos, then, would have been 17.3. You would then know that Abydos was the third planet from its star. If Abydos had had satellites, say, three of them, and we wished to refer to the second of them, figuring outward from the parent body, in this case Abydos herself, it would have been identified as 17.3.2. Abydos, on the other hand, as we have mentioned, had no satellites. It had once, incidentally, had a satellite but it, a long time ago, had been fragmented and removed from its orbit, in connection with a mining operation conducted by an advanced star world, which had need of its materials. The operation was a legitimate one, unlike certain shadowy operations conducted here and there in the galaxy, having been cleared with, and approved by, appropriate authorities.

“How glorious are the suns, and worlds!” exclaimed Rodriguez.

“Yes,” said Brenner.

There was something awesome, and beautiful, and terrible, about the universe, about space, the stars, the worlds, the grandness of it, the mystery of it.

In this portion of the galaxy, with the naked eye, from the perspective of the port, one could see several thousand stars.

The night of space blazed with the light of these myriads of far-flung mornings.

Some sixty-two percent, or so, statistically, of the visible stars in this portion of the galaxy controlled the orbit of one or more habitable worlds, on most of which, given customary interactions, life had actually developed, expressing itself in one set of forms or another. And Abydos, it might be added, did not lie near the populous center of the galaxy. Its location, rather, was somewhat more toward the periphery.

“What do you know about the Pons?” asked Rodriguez.

“Very little is known about them, as far as I have been able to determine,” said Brenner. “They are extremely simple, extremely primitive. They lack even pottery. They are small, timid, furtive, isolated, few in number, and given to secrecy. We may expect, of course, the usual features of a totemic complexus, in particular, the reverencing of the totemic animal and exogamy.”

“Company records provide further information,” said Rodriguez, “but nothing much of scientific interest. Pons occasionally, individually, or in small delegations, have in the past, at certain intervals, made contact with company employees, usually at Company Station, for purposes of trade, exchanging gathered forest products, commonly pods of various sorts, for diverse manufactured articles, in particular, a small metallic tool manufactured to their specifications, called a scarp, used for a variety of purposes.”

“They do not have any native metallurgical capability?” asked Brenner.

“One gathers not,” said Rodriguez.

“They live near Company Station?” said Brenner.

“No,” said Rodriguez. “They live somewhere back in the forests.”

Brenner looked at him, startled.

Rodriguez nodded, and returned his attention to the stars.

“You are familiar with the eco-profiles of the forests?” said Brenner.

“Of course,” said Rodriguez.

Even surveying crews from Company Station, it seems, had seldom penetrated far into the adjacent forests. To be sure, parts of them had been flown over in various cars, rovers, vans and such. And they had been extensively surveyed from orbit. The probes however had revealed little of mineralogical interest. The temperate latitudes of Abydos, in both hemispheres, were heavily forested, usually with varieties of deeply rooted, seasonally foliaged trees. Brenner’s surprise was occasioned primarily by his recollection of the eco-profiles of the forested areas, which suggested a rich variety of fauna, several of which, given their natural camouflage and predatory habits, might be supposed to be distinctly unpleasant.

“And,” added Rodriguez, “the Pons eschew weapons.”

“I find that hard to believe,” said Brenner.

“You will like them,” said Rodriguez. “They are your sort of people. They are amongst the most innocent, kindly, humble, harmless, and inoffensive creatures in the galaxy.”

“How do they live in the forest?” asked Brenner.

“They have apparently done so for thousands of years,” said Rodriguez.

“Apparently there is something to totemism,” said Brenner.

“One gathers so,” laughed Rodriguez.

As this was a joke which is likely to be obscure to those not of Rodriguez’ and Brenner’s field, I shall, with your permission, explain it. The relation between the totem and the totemic group is complex but it is usually understood that the totemic animal, perhaps in exchange for certain considerations, such as veneration and honor, and in the light of the special relation in which it stands to the group, understood as that of father and ancestor, will provide certain services to the totemic group, its children, for example, that it will look after their welfare, that it may be inform them of the future, and so on.

“What is the totemic animal of the Pons?” asked Brenner.

“A very fitting one,” said Rodriguez. “The Abydian mouse.”

“That?” asked Brenner. We may think of the Abydian ground git, or as it sometimes referred to, the Abydian mouse, as a small, stub-tailed rodent. That seems reasonable, given its habits and the nature of its incisors, which continue to grow during its lifetime, necessitating their reduction by gnawing. The git is primarily herbivorous, but is not above scavenging, and often cleans the bones of prey abandoned by larger animals, bones which it can climb, and cling to, with its tiny, clawed feet; the ground git, incidentally, is not to be confused with the tree git, a similar sort of animal, but one which has skin stretched between the front and hind legs on each side, which enables it to glide from tree to tree, and swoop down on food sites; sometimes there is an sudden, small, dry sound, like a tiny, firm clack, and one turns about and finds one clinging to, say, the exposed rib of a fallen animal; the tree gits usually nest in dead trees, and the ground gits usually nest in burrows; both are almost always black in color, which coloration blends in with the dark “greenery” of Abydos, so efficient in light-energy absorption. They are small creatures, both the ground and tree git, and might be held in one of Rodriguez’ or Brenner’s hands, usually weighing between one hundred and one hundred and fifty grams.

“Have you kept up with your exercises?” asked Rodriguez.

“Yes,” said Brenner. The ship did not, like some of the more impressive ships, sphere, wheel and cylinder ships, provide an artificial gravity in virtue of rotation. At certain points on such ships, for example, on the equatorial deck of a simple sphere ship, or at the circumference of a simple wheel or cylinder ship, one might think oneself, in a careless moment, on one’s native world. The force of the artificial gravity, of course, by means of controlling the rotational speed, could be indexed to a diversity of home-world masses. On this ship, however, Brenner had attempted to resist the deconditioning which was such a natural concomitant of long-term exposure to low-gravity conditions by more direct and mechanical means, by recourse to special apparatus integral to his cabin, an apparatus consisting of harnesses, hand grips, pedals and such, attached to resistant springs. The captain, and his crew, in their own quarters, incidentally, had similar devices, adapted to their particular physiques. Even so, an adjustment was almost always required after debarkation.

“I am puzzled to know how this contact came about,” said Brenner. “That was never explained to me.”

“That is an excellent question,” said Rodriguez. “I shall tell you what I know. We, of the home world, you understand, have known obscurely of the Pons for hundreds of years. They were often thought extinct. Company Station, built on the sites of previous camps, exploration base camps, navigational beacons, outposts for early-warning systems, neutral trading points agreed upon by diverse systems not wishing to risk contamination of their own worlds, and such, is itself, as you know, more than four hundred years old. Indeed, the Pons are well hidden in their forest. The agents at Company Station did not even learn of their existence until more than a hundred years after the founding of the town. The second contact occurred some one hundred years later. In the meantime it had been conjectured the Pons had perished. Recently, however, in the last hundred years, there have been more recent contacts, perhaps as many as two dozen in that time.”

“What of scientific and cultural contacts?” asked Brenner.

“The first was made, apparently, or the first we know of, given the records of Naxos, when they became available to us, more than two thousand years ago. And then, following the records of Eos, another was made something like a thousand years later.”

This was interesting, thought Brenner, as his own species was common on both Naxos and Eos.

“You are speaking in very general terms, of course,” said Brenner.

“Not really,” said Rodriguez. “If we adjust for the revolutionary period of Abydos herself, the time she takes to complete her orbit about her star, these two contacts occurred exactly one thousand revolutions, or years apart, in Abydian time, so to speak.”

“These were both contacts invited by the Pons?” asked Brenner.

“It seems so,” said Rodriguez.

“And now,” said Brenner, “it is a thousand Abydian years later?”

“Precisely,” said Rodriguez. “In about two Commonworld months.”

“You accept this as an unusual coincidence, of course,” said Brenner.

“Consider the probabilities,” said Rodriguez.

“I do not care to,” said Brenner.

“There is a cycle here,” said Rodriguez. “It is not necessary that there is a cycle here, of course, but I think there is one. I really do.”

“The Pons are primitive,” said Brenner. “They do not even have kings, or chieftains.”

“Many primitive peoples are sophisticated with respect to calendars,” said Rodriguez, “particularly peoples who depend on agriculture. It is only necessary to mark out the exact point of the rising of a given star on a given day. One can even use the mother star for this purpose, but it is better not to do so, because of its apparent dimension at the horizon. When the star, preferably not the mother star, rises in exactly the same place a second time a year, or a revolution, has occurred. One may mark this place with a portal, an altar, an obelisk. One may count the days between the risings, and divide the year into smaller or larger units, say, weeks and months, or whatever units will serve. Leftover units, say, days, or hours, may be intercalated. From the thousand-years cycle I think we may conjecture the Pons have a base-ten mathematics.”

“And a five-digited hand,” said Brenner.

“We know they have that,” said Rodriguez.

“They do not even have pottery,” said Brenner.

“If I am right,” said Rodriguez, “they can at least count to a thousand. That is not so complicated. It is a convenient multiple of ten digits. Ten digits times ten digits, two hands times two hands, so to speak, is one hundred digits, and then if one again multiplies this by the base, by two hands, or, better, by ten digits, one arrives at a thousand. This can also be done by addition, of course. The whole calculation might well, to a primitive mind, seem to have a certain naturalness, or mystic rightness, about it.”

“One thousand is a nice round number,” said Brenner.

“More so than two hundred and sixteen, or one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-eight, or two thousand, seven hundred and forty-four?” asked Rodriguez.

Brenner regarded him.

“You have a five-digited hand,” said Rodriguez, “not one with three digits, or six digits, or seven digits.”

“And I am a primitive mind?” inquired Brenner.

“Possibly,” said Rodriguez. “On the other hand, you are probably capable of making a distinction, at least intellectually, between a felt aptness, one particular to a given species, and a key to the universe.”

“One thousand is a nice, round number,” said Brenner.

“I agree,” said Rodriguez, “but I do not know if the captain would. He might prefer five hundred and twelve.” The captain, it might be mentioned, had four digits on the forward appendages. The six-digited rear appendages were not used for precision gripping. “The Pons, of course, would presumably side with us,”

“You are doing these calculations in your head?” asked Brenner.

“Of course,” said Rodriguez. “They are simple multiples.”

Brenner then began to understand why Rodriguez was so unpopular with many of his colleagues, why they scrutinized his works for the tiniest of errors, why they pounced like Chian zibits on sentences which did not seek to conceal their power, their significance, and passion, why they disdained his affection for the odd, the real, the ancient, and the beautiful, as though orchards and roses, and old clocks, might be less perfect than subway stations and plastic cups, why they were eager to disparage what they could not equal, why they were eager to denounce as execrable insights of which they were incapable. To be sure, Brenner was well aware that these casual calculations were little more than parlor tricks, such things, and many more of their sort, far more complex, being well within the reach of many idiot savants.