Day of the Dragonstar (29 page)

“. . . AND SO WE
atook our clothes off,” Becky said, lounging casually on a mound of leaf-stuffed pillows.

Kemp choked on his strong, lukewarm tea. “What did you do that for?” He looked over to Ian Coopersmith, sitting with a fat smug grin on his face. He had to hold back the irrational feelings of jealousy that still flooded him at the thought of Coopersmith and Becky together. Even his warm feelings for Mikaela provided scant comfort in this situation.

“It was Becky’s suggestion,” Coopersmith said, “and quite a brilliant one, I must say.”

“Why, Becky? To show you were discarding your weapons?”

“No. Principally to show the saurian that we were intelligent beings, that the stuff we wore
wasn’t
skin. As it turned out, Ian had the common sense later on to realize that we’d better put the clothes back on, and
fast,
or they’d club us senseless.”

Kemp blinked. “But why? I don’t understand. Surely all this, around us”—he swept his hands around, indicating the room they sat in, with its rugs and its intricate mosaics, the scattered manuscripts on the floor, the windows offering views of other buildings— “surely this suggests rational minds.”

“You forget, Phineas,” Mikaela said, “that we’re not dealing here with human beings. The rationality of these creatures is most likely based on an entirely different set of circumstances, to say nothing of environment and bio-social necessities.”

Phineas shook his head, confused. “So continue, Coopersmith. What happened then?”

“Well, they dragged us to what we thought was a prison and locked us in separate cubicles. Previously, we’d seen really bizarre behavior. One of the saurians accidentally got his shirt tom off—that’s all the middle class of the society wears, you know—and the others just clubbed him into unconsciousness, as though it was an automatic response. They’re evidently not exactly gentle with one another here in Saurian Land. So they stuck me in my cubicle, manacled me—”

“Me too,” Becky said, “only they clubbed the previous occupant of my cell, who’d been in a real lather.”

“Right. But the occupant of my cell was asleep in the comer.”

“Pleasant,” Kemp said, wishing they could go outside. The reptilian musk of this place was getting to him.

“Yes. But you know, when this particular chap woke up, all he seemed to do was scream to get out. And they
let
him out. All calm and civilized as you please when he exited. Well, to make a short story shorter, they kept us there for a few hours. Then they brought us here and introduced us to Thesaurus, who’s become quite a friend. Near as we can reckon, Thesaurus belongs to the upper class. The priests. Or the philosopher-kings, if you will. Plato would love it here. Evidently, they’ve got three classes, just like in his
Republic.
They’ve got a warrior-class, a worker class”—he nodded over to the guards—“a sample of which you see yonder. And the priests, who serve as religious and community organizers as well as governors. But this is not a political system, Phineas. It’s more a
biological
system. In the days that we’ve been here, Becky and I have been pretty much able to sketch out the scope of this civilization. Of course, there are details and nuances we’ll
never
be able to understand, unless we could know what it’s like to
be
a saurian. We think, though, we’ve got the basis.”

Mikaela said, “What about families? They wouldn’t have families, would they? Being reptiles.”

“You put your finger on one of the keys,” Becky said.

“Let me guess the other one,” Mikaela interrupted with great excitement. “They probably don’t have any limbic system in their brains. Just the R-complex, blending into their version of the neo-cortex.”

Becky raised an eyebrow at Ian. “It took us
days.”

Ian snorted playfully. “Yes, well she’s a paleontologist, isn’t she? We’re just laymen on that subject!”

“Hey! Wait a moment,” Kemp said with irritation. “You’re leaving
this
layman way behind. Fill me in.”

“Okay,” Mikaela said. She turned to Coopersmith and Thalberg. “Do you mind?”

“You’re the authority,” said Coopersmith, smiling.

“Deep down, we’ve still got a reptilian heritage,” Mikaela said. “Mammals are descended from reptiles. The part of the human brain that is still reptilian is a group of massive ganglia. The corpus striatum, the globus pallidus—”

“You don’t have to get so technical. Just the essentials, okay?” Kemp said.

“Ah. Very well. Essentially, there are three parts of the human brain. From bottom up, there is the R-complex , which plays a vital part, in our instincts. Aggression, ritual, and territoriality—these are all things that are controlled by the serpent inside of us. Including sexual display, I might add. Now, atop this, with an entirely different chemical system, is the Limbic system, our mammalian heritage. This might be called the seat of our emotions, our tendency to form social groups, to be angry, to despair, to love, to nurture, and to continue the species and the culture. Quite a bit more complex than our reptilian natures. Following that is the neo-cortex, which is the home of reason. This is where we think. Again, an entirely separate system. Current psychotherapeutic thought is that if you can get all these systems into harmony, you’ve got a well-adjusted human being. But if any of them gets out of control—which they often do—you’ve got trouble.” She turned to Coopersmith and Thalberg. “I presume that you’ve supposed this by the behavior of the saurians.”

“Yes,” Coopersmith said. “From what we can tell, the system is this. The warrior class does not actually live within these walls. Apparently, whatever serves for their version of a neocortex is only used occasionally, most likely in times of danger for the species. How they know about danger, I’ve no idea. Some kind of ESP? God knows. At any rate, the others don’t want them around, anyway. Too dangerous. Now, the middle-class, the
workers,
are a pretty strange bunch. In their normal, shall we say, ‘waking’ stage, they are perfectly rational individuals, easily organized by the leaders and by traditional social dictates. In short, good citizens. The good citizens wear that little shirt, for a very good reason. You see, they’ve not developed the same kind of sleep system we have. When their neo-cortex—or the analog for that in their brain—turns off to do its data storage and processing, this allows the R-complex to take over. Since the actual body and brain need only a couple of hours to actually sleep, these middle-classers are essentially schizoid beings. You never know if your neighbor is going to kill and eat you. Not quite so drastic, but harmful. Jekyll and Hyde, don’t you know? So, the system is simple. From infancy, just before the individual realizes he’s falling asleep, he or she is trained to tear off his or her shirt, thus signaling others to get the individual in check if there’s trouble. Generally, though, when the saurians get tired, they check into one of the cubicles we were thrown into. When mating time comes, they just throw a male and a female in the same cubicle together just before their bedtime.”

“Only it’s a public spectacle! We were shown one. It’s supposed to be a mystical as well as biological ceremony. I’m struggling to try to figure out their religion now.”

“What about the philosopher-kings?” Kemp wanted to know.

“Evolution at work. Apparently, at some stage in evolution, saurians who were better integrated began to emerge,” Coopersmith continued. “These became the organizers, the leaders, the thinkers. Through intellect, these few began to organize a viable society. Apparently, it’s quite a history. Absolutely incredible. For example, you might have noticed ruins on the way here.”

“Yes, we did,” Kemp said.

“Right. Relics of the civilization before the leaders got together and said, “Hey. Let’s build a wall to keep the bad critters that want to eat us
out.
Voila. The great wall. Towers. Guards. Systems of defense that include some really marvelous manipulations of symbiosis. I could go on for hours. Specially bred reptiles raised for the sole purpose of being
weapons.
Then there are the Watch Beasts, a species of carnivores they’ve just recently been developing to patrol the perimeter of the wall!”

“Wait a moment now. You say there’s no family. How are the creatures raised?” Kemp asked.

“That was one of the areas that I explored,” Becky said. “The female lays her eggs in special heat-controlled huts
outside
the wall, oh, a kilometer or so. Then she goes back to normal life in society. The eggs hatch. The more intelligent hatchlings manage to survive and find their way back to civilization, where they are welcomed with much ritual. A board of review composed of the priest-kings decides exactly what state of being these youngsters are. The warriors are given rigid instruction—almost behaviorally conditioned, as a matter of fact—and then kicked back out into the jungle. The ones judged sufficiently advanced to belong to the workers are trained, and then allowed to join society. Very rarely, a new priest-king candidate arrives, which is the occasion for great joy. The system is by no means smooth, or so well-divided. For example, there are stories of the occasional supposed philosopher who ‘falls asleep’ and commits some dreadful act. And there are those priest-kings whose R-complexes are used to further their own political ends. Apparently, this
can
be a kind of Machiavellian heaven. There are whole intricate structures of deceit.”

“I can imagine,” said Mikaela. “With no family network to work within, each individual owes allegiance only to the social fabric—and himself.”

“Gaming appears to be a way of life, here,” Becky said.

“To say nothing of ritual.
Unbelievable.
Incredibly complicated. You know, there’s even a ritual method of smashing a rogue saurian’s head. One of the great jokes you can play on a friend, for example, is to trick him into ‘falling asleep’ outside of a cubicle. If you can get a pair of handcuffs on him so that he can’t do any harm, it’s great sport.”

“And quite embarrassing for the friend when he wakes up, I dare say,” Kemp commented. He licked his lips and studied the two. “It looks like you’ve been enjoying yourselves. I’m sorry to break up the party with my bad news.” He nodded at their dress. “I can imagine that Thesaurus was pretty excited to find that you don’t have a reptilian stage.”

“Yes. He identifies with us, as do his fellows. The curious thing about him is that he seemed to
expect
us.”

“Something to do with whatever is inside that opening you describe at the temple by the wall. These things may well be a deceitful lot. How do we know we can trust them?” Kemp said, glancing at Thesaurus and his group of priests, still involved in their heated discussion.

“Well, my friend, if you’re correct about the TWC being on their way, let’s hope that you can make friends with them,” Ian Coopersmith said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get. Oh, and Phineas . . .”

Kemp wished the man wouldn’t be so familiar with him. The situation was grating on him.

“The indications I’ve received from Thesaurus and these manuscripts from the temple are that this culture is aware of . . . I guess you would call them beings . . . or
gods
who ‘created’ their world. The pictographic tapestries show lots of primitive creation-myth scenarios that back this up. They also appear to have a messianic myth that—”

“That says the gods will be coming
back
someday?” asked Mikaela, cutting him off.

Kemp looked at her, unable to hide his surprise. Coopersmith and Becky smiled lightly.

“That’s right,” said Ian. “And guess who I think
they
think these god-creators are?”

Kemp shook his head. “This is incredible. Are you sure, Ian?”

“Of course I’m not
sure,
but there is a lot of evidence which points to this, and I’m no trained archeologist. I think it would be wise to let Doctor Lindstrom have a look at the depositories.”

“I’d love to!”

“Just exactly how well are you able ·to communicate with them?” asked Kemp.

Ian shrugged. “Not much, really. I started out by noticing that their numbering system is based on the number eight—to be expected since they have eight digits on their hands, right?—and I tried to establish some of their letter symbols and number signs by describing some basic mathematical concepts—you know, geometric formulae, good old pi and the circumference of the circle, that sort of thing.”

“And did it work?” asked Kemp.

“Yes, after a lot of trial and error, of course. Thesaurus worked very hard with me. He’s got the personality of a true scientist, Colonel. He’s like a kid playing with a new toy. We seem to get on fairly well communicating, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“You’re actually making progress?” asked Mikaela.

“Very little, actually, but it’s a start. I think we’re going to need a team of linguists in here to do the job right.”

“That will be some time off, I’m afraid,” said Phineas.