The Totems of Abydos (63 page)

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.