The Totems of Abydos

by John Norman

  “You seem to be good at telling them apart,” said Rodriguez. “What do you think the ratio of males to females is?”

  “About half and half,” said Brenner.

  “You have noted, of course,” said Rodriguez, “that the males and females live separately.”

  “That makes little sense to me,” said Brenner, “as there must be females from other clans, from other totems, in the village. It is only within the same totem that the males may not touch the females.”

  “You saw no evidence of families?”

  “No,” admitted Brenner.

  “I made every effort this afternoon,” said Rodriguez, “where I could tell a female, to ascertain her totem.”

  “All here are of the gits, so to speak,” said Brenner.

  “As nearly as I can tell,” said Rodriguez.

  “That makes no sense at all,” said Brenner.

  “Where are the other clans, the people of other totems?” asked Rodriguez.

  “They must be somewhere,” said Brenner. “In other villages? In the hills in the distance?”

  “Yes, there must be others, somewhere,” said Rodriguez.

  “There would have to be,” said Brenner.

  “Did you see any children?” asked Rodriguez.

  “No,” said Brenner.

  “Nor did I,” said Rodriguez.

  “That is interesting,” said Brenner.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez.

  “There must be children,” said Brenner.

  “Hidden away?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Of course,” said Brenner.

  “Outside the palisade, in the forest?”

  Brenner shrugged. That did not seem likely.

  “I looked about, as carefully as I could,” said Rodriguez. “I could find no evidence of children, no representations, no small furniture, no carrying boards, no cradles, no toys, no tiny clothing, nothing of that sort.”

  “Interesting,” said Brenner.

  “Amongst fifty or so females, in a primitive culture,” said Rodriguez, “it is almost a certainty that some would be pregnant.”

  “But you did not detect any evidence of this?”

  “No,” said Rodriguez.

  “They, too, could have been hidden away,” said Brenner.

  “Outside, in the forest?”

  “You still think there is something out there?” asked Brenner.

  “I think there are many things out there,” said Rodriguez.

  Chapter 14

  “By the gods of ten worlds,” exclaimed Rodriguez, in fury, rummaging through his things.

  “What is missing now?” asked Brenner, looking up.

  “The walnut-brained, grapefruit-headed, thieving little monkeys!” said Rodriguez.

  “Do not blame them,” said Brenner. “They are curious, they like things, they pick them up, they steal them away. It is their nature.”

  “Inoffensiveness and innocence are apparently no guarantee of honesty,” said Rodriguez.

  “No more than in a child,” said Brenner. “What is missing now? “

  “My shaving mirror,” said Rodriguez.

  The Pons could indeed be nuisances, thought Brenner. But the shaving mirror was certainly less of a loss than that of certain other items which had similarly vanished, usually when he and Rodriguez were out of their hut.

  They had now been in the village for several weeks.

  The map in which Rodriguez had been recording their journey, and the compass he had used, had been amongst the first items missing. To be sure, they had disappeared in the journey itself, possibly lost in the fording of a small stream. More serious, since the white guide rocks were still visible, like a necklace connecting the village with the vicinity of Company Station, was the loss of the two radios. That had occurred on the eleventh day in the village. Without them there was no way to expeditiously contact Company Station. Similarly, its air cars, and air trucks, would not have a signal on which to home, in case of emergency.

  In the beginning Brenner had been somewhat alarmed by these losses, for it had seemed to him that there might be something of a methodicality in them, as the Pons might, at least in some dim way, understand the meaning of the compass and map, and the radios. They had not taken the rifle, but then it was apparently a mere optical instrument, of no more intrinsic potency than field glasses. Perhaps they had not taken it because they did not understand what it was? But later Brenner’s suspicions, absurd as they were, had been fully allayed, when trinkets like a watch, a ring of keys, thimbles from a sewing kit, and, now, a shaving mirror, had also disappeared. In this way he understood that the losses were no more meaningful than what might be attributed to the furtive predations of the home-world’s burglar rat or the tiny bandit bird of Chios.

  “You can use mine, my shaving mirror,” said Brenner.

  Chapter 15

  “Rodriguez,” whispered Brenner, tensely.

  The hut was dark. It was late at night.

  “Wake up,” whispered Brenner.

  There was no sound from his companion.

  “Wake up!” whispered Brenner.

  “What is it?” said Rodriguez, sleepily.

  “There is something outside,” said Brenner.

  Brenner heard the sliding of metal. Rodriguez, in the darkness, had armed the rifle.

  “Get the torch,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner reached out and put his hands on the device. It was a camper’s torch, based on a Naxian military model, its pack manually rechargeable, the recharging requiring only a few turns of the crank. Such devices functioned under a variety of conditions and would normally last for years. They were outlawed on several worlds because of the threat they posed to certain segments of the economy.

  Brenner stood up, and was conscious that Rodriguez, too, had gained his feet.

  They went to the opening of the hut.

  They stood there, very quietly, listening.

  “I do not hear anything,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner was silent.

  “Do you?” asked Rodriguez.

  “No,” said Brenner.

  “Turn the torch on,” said Rodriguez.

  Instantly the beam shot forth, throwing a circle of light before it, bright in the darkness, illuminating the cleared area, even huts across the way.

  The light swept back and forth.

  “Apparently I was mistaken,” said Brenner.

  “Give me the torch,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner handed the torch to Rodriguez.

  Rodriguez focused it on the ground.

  “The soil is hard here,” said Rodriguez. “It is muchly packed down.”

  Brenner watched the pool of light moving about. The circle of its illumination was intensely bright at that range. The ground seemed white under it.

  “It would be hard to find sign here,” said Rodriguez.

  “I was probably dreaming,” said Brenner.

  “Ah!” said Rodriguez, suddenly.

  “What is it?” asked Brenner.

  “Look,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner came to stand beside Rodriguez.

  “Here is your dream,” said Rodriguez. “It left a footprint.”

  “That is a print?” asked Brenner.

  “I am sure of it,” said Rodriguez. “See this scratch here, and this gouge here.”

  “It is too large,” said Brenner.

  “I think it is a print,” said Rodriguez.

  “The ground is hard,” said Brenner.

  “I think it is a print,” averred Rodriguez.

  “You can’t be sure,” said Brenner.

  “It walks very softly,” said Rodriguez.

  He shone the light about.

  “Here is another,” said he.

  “They are too far apart,” said Brenner.

  “That would depend on the size of the object that made the prints,” said Rodriguez.

  “You are not going to follow them?” said Brenner, uneasily.
r />   “Would you prefer to go back to sleep?” asked Rodriguez. “Surely you understand this thing may be within the palisade.”

  “I’ll take the light,” said Brenner. That would free Rodriguez to use the weapon.

  “They lead in this direction,” said Rodriguez.

  Their figures were dark, like shadows behind the light.

  “Let us proceed,” said Rodriguez.

  Sometimes the light ranged forth, striking ahead of them; sometimes it illuminated the ground, darting here and there, as Rodriguez directed, almost as though taking scent.

  “The idiots!” hissed Rodriguez.

  The gate to the palisade was open.

  “They lead outward,” said Rodriguez, in relief. Then he set the rifle inside the palisade, against a pale. “Help me shut the gate,” he said. “Quickly! Quickly!”

  In a moment he and Brenner, the light put aside, had closed and barred the gate.

  “At night,” said Rodriguez, “we had best check the gate.”

  “Right,” agreed Brenner. He was shaking and sweating. He did not think that Rodriguez was in much better condition.

  “We will examine the tracks in the morning,” said Rodriguez. “The light will be much better.”

  “They may not be tracks,” said Brenner.

  Rodriguez was silent.

  “That is surely possible,” said Brenner.

  “It will be easier to make a determination on that in the morning.”

  Rodriguez and Brenner then returned to their hut.

  Interestingly, in the morning, they could find nothing. No longer could they detect even the traces which they had seen, or thought that they had seen, the night before. It was as though such things might have been swept away. The Pons, questioned, proved to be of little, or no, assistance.

  “We were overwrought,” said Brenner. “In the uncertain light, we misinterpreted a mark here and a mark there, certain marks on the ground, meaningless scratches, organizing them, seeing them, in a certain way, which marks, now, scattered and isolated from one another, we aren’t even aware of, or at least in no sense different from countless other such marks.”

  “That is possible,” said Rodriguez.

  “A reason for thinking that,” said Brenner, “would be the width of the marks, and the lightness of them, for the width. That would suggest an animal of unusual size and stealth.”

  “True,” said Rodriguez.

  “Did you recognize the prints?” asked Brenner.

  Rodriguez did not respond.

  “Rodriguez,” said Brenner.

  “I thought I did,” said Rodriguez.

  “You had seen such things before?”

  “Once,” said Rodriguez.

  “What sort of animal did you think it might be?” asked Brenner.

  “No,” said Rodriguez. “It makes no sense.”

  “What shall we do today?” asked Brenner.

  “They do not want us to explore the temple,” said Rodriguez.

  They had tried to do this unsuccessfully before. Naturally they did not wish to force their way in. The temple was a long, narrow, wooden building whose entryway was of heavy timbers, ornately worked and fitted, and colored, with double doors. About the sides of the temple, on the outside, and over it, earth had been packed. The impression was much like a wooden structure built within a small hill.

  “No,” said Brenner.

  “Let us examine the fields about,” said Rodriguez.

  “Bring the rifle,” said Brenner.

  “I shall,” Rodriguez smiled.

  “Do you think the Pons understand that that is a weapon?” asked Brenner.

  “No,” said Rodriguez.

  “They think it is a telescope?”

  “For all a Pon knows it holds Heimat,” said Rodriguez.

  “Did you mention to the Pons about the gate being left open last night?” asked Brenner.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez.

  “And what did they say?”

  “They said that the gate was not left open, that it was closed, as usual,” said Rodriguez.

  Chapter 16

  One afternoon, as Brenner and Rodriguez were returning to their hut, they noticed, behind the hut, two Pons. These two individuals, seeing Brenner and Rodriguez, suddenly moved away from one another, each hurrying off in a different direction.

  “One of those Pons was the fellow who struck at you the first day here, wasn’t it?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Yes,” said Brenner.

  “I wonder what he was doing there,” said Rodriguez.

  “You noticed the distance between the two?” said Brenner.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez. They had been about five feet apart. They were thus farther apart than one would expect for two males together or two females together, but not nearly as far apart as one would have expected between individuals of opposite sexes.

  “That is what they were doing there,” smiled Brenner.

  “I don’t like it,” said Rodriguez.

  “The Pons would not hurt a fly,” said Brenner.

  “The members of their own group are not flies,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner looked at him.

  “Primitive peoples do not look lightly upon the violation of taboos,” said Rodriguez. “And the Pons are subprimitive. They are even subrational. They are simian, at best.”

  “I understand,” said Brenner.

  “Say nothing to anyone about what we saw,” said Rodriguez.

  “I will not, of course,” said Brenner.

  Chapter 17

  “Apparently something called the Festival of the Harvesting of Seed is to take place shortly,” said Rodriguez.

  “It is fall,” said Brenner. “That makes sense, to gather in seed for the planting in the spring.”

  They were standing in the clearing, in the center of the village. In this clearing, on a table, in a small, open-sided shelter, its thatched roof supported by four pillars, was a tiny, wire-barred cage, presumably obtained in trade from Company Station. In this cage was a tiny, gray git, not the one which had been captured in the forest, which had been released after the ceremony, with elaborate apologies, but another.

  “Greetings, little fellow,” said Brenner to the git.

  It was large for a git. It crouched on one side of the cage, on some crumbled leaves. Its fur was oily. Its eyes were like bright spots.

  Brenner tapped the cage, a little.

  “Do not put your finger too close to it,” said Rodriguez. “They are wild.”

  “It should be fed by now,” said Brenner.

  “There are many varieties of totemism,” said Rodriguez, looking down at the git. “Even the concept of the totem animal is interesting, and varies from group to group. I assume the Pons are typical, but it is difficult to get clear on the matter. Certainly the totem animal is seldom identified with a particular animal, which might die or be killed. But, too, it is seldom understood as a species of animal, at least in the scientific sense. It is too real for that. The concept seems to be primitive, substantial, and mystical. It is alien to civilized understanding. The totem is an individual, and alive, as alive as that git, but it is somehow present in many places. It is one in many, so to speak. It lives in many houses. It is neither, say, the git as a species nor that git alone. It is more than both, and beyond both. It sees through both.”

  The tiny animal in the cage lifted its head, and those tiny, bright eyes regarded Brenner.

  “Let us return to the hut,” said Brenner.

  “The keeper should be along soon,” said Rodriguez.

  “Let us return to the hut,” said Brenner.

  But Rodriguez was looking down, at the git.

  “Totemism is an insanity,” said Brenner, suddenly, angrily.

  “It is too widespread for that, in too many cultures, on too many worlds,” said Rodriguez.

  “We have been here for weeks,” said Brenner. “We know little more about the Pons now than we did when we first
came through the gate.”

  “We have gathered a great deal of data,” said Rodriguez.

  “But it does not fit together,” said Brenner. “There is no unity in it, no sense, no meaning.”

  “There is a meaning in it,” said Rodriguez. “It is only that we have not yet detected it.”

  “There is something about these little beasts which frightens me,” said Brenner.

  “The Pons?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Yes,” said Brenner.

  “What?” asked Rodriguez.

  “I do not know,” said Brenner. “They are too simple, too kindly, too inoffensive, too innocent, too good.”

  “You should be pleased,” said Rodriguez. “They confirm all the theories which are so important to you.”

  Brenner was silent. The git seemed to be looking at him.

  “They are the beginning,” said Rodriguez. “They are the proof you have always desired, that the rational races did not begin in crime, that they did not emerge bloodily from the wars of nature in virtue of an uncompromising and superior ruthlessness, that they did not survive, and surpass, their competition in virtue of a more tenacious will and greater savagery, that their success is not to be attributed to the darkness of a heart which, in pride and mercilessness, will proclaim itself chieftain and king. The club, you see, is for pounding grain. It is not a heavier, crueler paw. The knife is for the gathering of fruit. It is not a more efficient fang.”

  “Do you believe these things?” asked Brenner.

  “It seems I must,” said Rodriguez.

  “I am not at ease with the Pons,” said Brenner.

  “You could not ask for a more harmless form of life,” said Rodriguez.

  “I am not sure what it is,” said Brenner. “Something about them seems familiar. It is almost as if I knew them, as if I had been here before.”

  “But you have not been,” said Rodriguez.

  “No,” said Brenner.

  “Presumably what you sense are affinities,” said Rodriguez. “They exist amongst many species, of diverse sorts. Such affinities make comparative studies possible, and occasionally illuminating. Indeed, it is precisely because of such hypothetical affinities that we have come to Abydos. Naturally they might be occasionally sensed, particularly by a sensitive individual, as a bit eerie, or familiar. Indeed, is it not hoped that the Pons will constitute a lens of sorts, with which to look back, into the past of our own species?”