Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 2)

by Anthology

  * * * *

  "The last absolute ruler of the 43rd Dynasty has been dust for almost three thousand years," I explain. "Since then we have been governed by a series of conquerers, each alien race superceding the last."

  "Thank goodness they didn't destroy your buildings," says the woman, turning to admire a water fountain, which for some reason appears to her to be a mystical alien artifact. She is about to take a holo when the child restrains her.

  "It's just a goddamned water bubbler, Ma," he says.

  "But it's fascinating," she says. "Imagine what kind of beings used it in ages past."

  "Thirsty ones," says the bored child.

  She ignores him and turns back to me. "As I was saying, it must be criminal to rob the galaxy of such treasures."

  "Yeah, well somebody destroyed some buildings around here," interjects the child, who seems intent on proving someone wrong about something. "Remember the hole in the ground we saw over that way?" He points in the direction of the Footprint. "Looks like a bomb crater to me."

  "You are mistaken," I explain, leading them over to it. "It has always been there."

  "It's just a big sinkhole," says the man, totally unimpressed.

  "It is worshipped by my people as the Footprint of God," I explain. "Once, many eons ago, Kalimetra was in the throes of a years-long drought. Finally Jorvash, our greatest priest, offered his own life if God would bring the rains. God replied that it would not rain until He wept again, and we had not yet suffered enough to bring forth His tears of compassion. But He promised that He would strike a bargain with Jorvash." I pause for effect, but the man is lighting another cigar and the child is concentrating on his pocket computer. "The next morning Jorvash was found dead inside his temple, while God had created this depression with His foot and filled it with water. It sustained us until He finally wept again."

  The woman seems flustered. "Um...I hate to ask," she finally says, "but could you repeat that story? My recorder wasn't on."

  The man looks uncomfortable. "She's always forgetting to turn the damned thing on," he explains, and flips me a coin. "For your trouble."

  * * * *

  Lobilia was the greatest poet in the history of Antares III. Although he died during the 23rd Dynasty, most of his work survived him. But his masterpiece, "The Long Night of the Exile" -- the epic of Bagata's Exile and his triumphant Return -- was lost forever.

  Though he was his race's most famous bard, Lobilia himself was illiterate, unable even to write his own name. He created his poetry extemporaneously, embellishing upon it with each retelling. He recited his epic just once, and was so satisfied with its form that he refused to repeat it for the scribes who were waiting for a final version and hadn't written it down.

  * * * *

  "Thank you," says the woman, deactivating the recorder after I finish. She pauses. "Can I buy a book with some more of your quaint folk legends?"

  I decide not to explain the difference between a folk legend and an article of belief. "They are for sale in the gift shop of your hotel," I reply.

  "You don't have enough books?" mutters the man.

  She glares at him, but says nothing, and I lead them to the Tomb, which always impresses visitors.

  "This is the Tomb of Bedorian V, the greatest ruler of the 37th Dynasty," I say. "Bedorian was a commoner, a simple farmer who deposed the notorious Maelastri XII, himself a mighty warrior who was the last ruler of the 36th Dynasty. It was Bedorian who decreed universal education for all Antareans."

  "What did you have before that?"

  "Our females were not allowed the privilege of literacy until Bedorian's reign."

  "How did this guy finally die?" asks the man, who doesn't really care but is unwilling to let the woman ask all the questions.

  "Bedorian was assassinated by one of his followers," I reply.

  "A male, no doubt," says the woman wryly.

  "Before he died," I continue, "he united three warring states without fighting a single battle, decreed that all Antareans should use a common language, and outlawed the worship of kreneks."

  "What are kreneks?"

  "They are poisonous reptiles. They killed many worshippers in nameless, obscene ceremonies before Bedorian IV came to power."

  "Yeah?" says the child, alert again. "What were they like?"

  "What is obscene to one being is simply boring to another," I say. "Terrans find them dull." Which is not true, but I have no desire to watch the child snicker as I describe the rituals.

  "What a shame," says the woman, though her voice sounds relieved. "Still, you certainly seem to know your history."

  I want to answer that I just make up the stories. But I am afraid if I say it, she will believe it.

  "Where did you learn all this stuff?" she continues.

  "To become a licensed guide," I reply, "an Antarean must undergo fourteen years of study, and must also speak a minimum of four alien languages fluently. Terran is always one of the four."

  "That's some set of credentials," comments the man. "I made it through one year of dental school and quit."

  And yet, it is you who are paying me.

  "I'm surprised you don't work at one of the local universities," he continues.

  "I did once."

  Which is true. But I have my family to feed -- and tourists' tips, however small and grudgingly given, are still greater than my salary as a teacher.

  A rapu -- an Antarean child -- insinuates his way between myself and my clients. Scarcely more than an infant, he is dressed in rags, and his face is smudged with dirt. There are open sores on the reticulated plates of his skin, and his golden eyes water constantly. He begs plaintively for credits in his native tongue. When there is no response, he extends his hand in what has become a universal gesture that says: You are rich. I am poor and hungry. Give me money.

  "Yours?" asks the man, frowning, as his wife takes half a dozen holos in quick succession.

  "No, he is not mine."

  "What is he doing here?"

  "He lives in the street," I answer, my compassion for the rapu alternating with my humilation at having to explain his presence and situation. "He is asking for coins so that he and his mother will not go hungry tonight."

  I look at the rapu and think sadly: Timing is everything. Once, long ago, we strode across our world like gods. You would not have gone hungry in any of the 43 Dynasties.

  The human child looks at his Antarean counterpart. I wonder if he realizes how fortunate he is. His face gives no reflection of his thoughts; perhaps he has none. Finally he picks his nose and goes back to manipulating his computer.

  The man stares at the rapu for a moment, then flips him a two-credit coin. The rapu catches it, bows and blesses the man, and runs off. We watch him go. He raises the coin above his head, yelling happily -- and a moment later, we are surrounded by twenty more street urchins, all filthy, all hungry, all begging for coins.

  "Enough's enough!" says the man irritably. "Tell them to get the hell out of here and go home, Herman."

  "They live here," I explain gently.

  "Right here?" demands the man. He stomps the ground with his foot, and the nearest rapus jump back in fright. "On this spot? Okay, then tell them to stay here where they live and not follow us."

  I explain to the rapus in our own tongue that these tourists will not give them coins.

  "Then we will go to the ugly pink hotel where all the Men stay and rob their rooms."

  "That is none of my concern," I say. "But if you are caught, it will go hard with you."

  The oldest of the urchins smiles at my warning.

  "If we are caught, they will lock us up, and because it is a jail they will have to feed us, and we will be protected from the rain and the cold -- it is far better than being here."

  I have no answer for rapus whose only ambition is to be warm and dry and well-fed, but merely shrug. They run off, laughing and singing, as if they are human children off to play some game.

 
"Damned aliens!" mutters the man.

  "That is incorrect," I say.

  "Oh?" "A matter of semantics," I point out gently. "They are indigenous. You are the aliens."

  "Well, they could do with some lessons in behavior from us aliens, then," he growls.

  We walk up the long ramp to the Tomb and are about to enter it, when the woman stops.

  "I'd like a holo of the three of you standing in the entrance," she announces. She smiles at me. "Just to prove to our friends we were here, and that we met a real Antarean."

  The man walks over and stands on one side of me. The child reluctantly moves to my other side.

  "Now put your arm around Herman," says the woman.

  The child steps back, and I see a mixture of contempt and disgust on his face. "I'll pose with it, but I won't touch it!"

  "You do what your mother says!" snaps the man.

  "No way!" says the child, stalking sulkily back down the ramp. "You want to hug him, you go ahead!"

  "You listen to me, young man!" says the man, but the child does not stop or give any indication that he has heard, and soon he disappears behind a temple.

  * * * *

  It was Tcharock, the founder of the 30th Dynasty, who decreed that the person of the Emperor was sacrosanct and could not be touched by any being other than his medics and his concubines, and then only with his consent.

  His greatest advisor was Chaluba, who extended Tcharock's rule to more than 80% of the planet and halted the hyper-inflation that had been the 29th Dynasty's legacy to him.

  One night, during a state function, Chaluba inadvertantly brushed against Tcharock while introducing him to the Ambassador from far Domar.

  The next morning Tcharock regretfully gave the signal to the executioner, and Chaluba was beheaded. Despite this unfortunate beginning, the 30th Dynasty survived for 1,062 Standard years.

  * * * *

  The woman, embarrassed, begins apologizing to me. But I notice that she, too, avoids touching me. The man goes off after the child, and a few moments later the two of them return -- which is just as well, for the woman has begun repeating herself.

  The man pushes the child toward me, and he sullenly utters an apology. The man takes an ominous step toward him, and he reluctantly reaches out his hand. I take it briefly -- the contact is no more pleasant for me than for him -- and then we enter the Tomb. Two other groups are there, but they are hundreds of meters away, and we cannot hear what their guides are saying.

  "How high is the ceiling?" asks the woman, training her camera on the exquisite carvings overhead.

  "38 meters," I say. "The Tomb itself is 203 meters long and 67 meters wide. The body of Beldorian V is in a large vault beneath the floor." I pause, thinking as always of past glories. "On the Day of Mourning, the day the Tomb was completed, a million Antareans stood patiently in line outside the Tomb to pay their last respects."

  "I don't mean to ask a silly question," says the woman, "but why are all the buildings so enormous?"

  "Ego," suggests the man, confident in his wisdom.

  "The Maker Of All Things is huge," I explain. "So my people felt that any monuments to Him should be as large as possible, so that He might be comfortable inside them."

  "You think your God can't find or fit into a small building?" asks the man with a condescending smile.

  "He is everyone's God," I answer. "And while He can of course find a small temple, why should we force Him to live in one?"

  "Did Beldorian have a wife?" asks the woman, her mind back to smaller considerations.

  "He had five of them," I answer. "The tomb next to this one is known as The Place of Beldorian's Queens."

  "He was a polygamist?"

  I shake my head. "No. Beldorian simply outlived his first four queens."

  "He must have died a very old man," says the woman.

  "He did not," I answer. "There is a belief among my people that those who achieve public greatness are doomed to private misery. Such was Beldorian's fate." I turn to the child, who has been silent since returning, and ask him if he has any questions, but he merely glares at me without speaking.

  "How long ago was this place built?" asks the man.

  "Beldorian V died 6,302 Standard years ago. It took another 17 years to build and prepare the Tomb."

  "6,302 years," he muses. "That's a long time."

  "We are an ancient race," I reply proudly. "A human anthropologist has suggested that our 3rd Dynasty commenced before your ancestors crossed over the evolutionary barrier into sentience."

  "Maybe we spent a long time living in the trees," says the man, clearly unimpressed and just a bit defensive. "But look how quickly we passed you once we climbed down."

  "If you say so," I answer noncommittally.

  "In fact, everybody passed you," he persists. "Look at the record: How many times has Antares been conquered?"

  "I am not sure," I lie, for I find it humiliating to speak of it.

  * * * *

  When the Antareans learned that Man's Republic wish to annex their world, they gathered their army in Zanthu and then marched out onto the battlefield, 300,000 strong. They were the cream of the planet's young warriors, gold of eye, the reticulated plates of their skin glistening in the morning sun, prepared to defend their homeworld.

  The Republic sent a single ship that flew high overhead and dropped a single bomb, and in less than a second there was no longer an Antarean army, or a city of Zanthu, or a Great Library of Cthstoka.

  Over the millennia Antares was conquered four times by Man, twice by the Canphor Twins, and once each by Lodin XI, Emra, Ramor, and the Sett Empire. It was said that the parched ground had finally quenched its thirst by drinking a lake of Antarean blood.

  * * * *

  As we leave the Tomb, we come to a small, skinny rapu. He sits on a rock, staring at us with his large, golden eyes, his expression rapt in contemplation.

  The human child pointedly ignores him and continues walking toward the next temple, but the adults stop.

  "What a cute little thing!" enthuses the woman. "And he looks so hungry." She digs into her shoulder bag and withdraws a sweet that she has kept from breakfast. "Here," she says, holding it up. "Would you like it?"

  The rapu never moves. This is unique not only in the woman's experience, but also in mine, for he is obviously undernourished.

  "Maybe he can't metabolize it," suggests the man. He pulls a coin out, steps over to the rapu, and extends his hand. "Here you go, kid."

  The rapu, his face frozen in contemplation, makes no attempt to grab the coin.

  And suddenly I am thinking excitedly: You disdain their food when you are hungry, and their money when you are poor. Could you possibly be the One we have awaited for so many millennia, the One who will give us back our former glory and initiate the 44th Dynasty?

  I study him intently, and my excitement fades just as quickly as it came upon me. The rapu does not disdain their food and their money. His golden eyes are clouded over. Life in the streets has so weakened him that he has become blind, and of course he does not understand what they are saying. His seeming arrogance comes not from pride or some inner light, but because he is not aware of their offerings.

  "Please," I say, gently taking the sweet from the woman without coming into actual contact with her fingers. I walk over and place it in the rapu's hand. He sniffs it, then gulps it down hungrily and extends his hand, blindly begging for more.

  "It breaks your heart," says the woman.

  "Oh, it's no worse than what we saw on Bareimus V," responds the man. "They were every bit as poor -- and remember that awful skin disease that they all had?"

  The woman considers, and her face reflects the unpleasantness of the memory. "I suppose you're right at that." She shrugs, and I can tell that even though the child is still in front of us, hand outstretched, she has already put him from her mind.

  I lead them through the Garden of the Vanished Princes, with its tormented history of sacri
fice and intrigue, and suddenly the man stops.

  "What happened here?" he asks, pointing to a number of empty pedestals.

  "History happened," I explain. "Or avarice, for sometimes they are the same thing." He seems confused, so I continue: "If any of our conquerers could find a way to transport a treasure back to his home planet, he did. Anything small enough to be plundered was plundered."

  "And these statues that have been defaced?" he says, pointing to them. "Did you do it yourselves so they would be worthless to occupying armies?"

  "No," I answer.

  "Well, whoever did that" -- he points to a headless statue -- "ought to be strung up and whipped."

  "What's the fuss?" asks the child in a bored voice. "They're just statues of aliens."

  "Actually, the human who did that was rewarded with the governorship of Antares III," I inform them.

  "What are you talking about?" says the man.

  "The second human conquest of the Antares system was led by Commander Lois Kiboko," I begin. "She defaced or destroyed more than 3,000 statues. Many were physical representations of our deity, and since she and her crew were devout believers in one of your religions, she felt that these were false idols and must be destroyed."

  "Well," the man replies with a shrug, "it's a small price to pay for her saving you from the Lodinites."

  "Perhaps," I say. "The problem is that we had to pay a greater price for each successive savior."

  He stares at me, and there is an awkward silence. Finally I suggest that we visit the Palace of the Supreme Tyrant.

  "You seem such a docile race," she says awkwardly. "I mean, so civilized and unaggressive. How did your gene pool ever create a real, honest-to-goodness tyrant?"

  The truth is that our gene pool was considerably more aggressive before a seemingly endless series of alien conquests decimated it. But I know that this answer would make them uncomfortable, and could affect the size of my tip, so I lie to them instead. (I am ashamed to admit that lying to aliens becomes easier with each passing day. Indeed, I am sometimes amazed at the facility with which I can create falsehoods.)