“It’s the only scientific field where some kind of machine is not the ultimate objective,” said their leader, Aoli.
“What is the objective, then?” one of the more indolent kikihuahuas asked.
“To get rid of machines altogether,” said Aoli.
At first it seemed to be an impossible objective, and quite soon the Tin Mothers, metaphorically shrugging their shoulders, left them alone. The pursuit seemed harmless enough. Harmlessness was what the Tin Mothers strove for, and the kikihuahuas in their care had been discouraged from any active or adventurous pursuits.
“Our race has become effete,” Aoli observed.
Gradually Aoli’s group discarded their machines as they gained the ability to replace cameras with eyes, vats with wombs. Shortly before Aoli died, he enunciated the three Examples.
“I’m not saying it is possible to live in accordance with these Examples at present,” he said, lying in the pouch of a marsupial bed which drew its nourishment from his body wastes, “but they do represent an ideal for us to strive for. When we succeed, we will be qualified to teach others, all over the galaxy. We will be teaching harmony. We will be teaching the galaxy that the most useful natural resource is the genes of living cells. We will be teaching perfection.”
Inspired by this objective, Aoli’s group became a small army; but meanwhile the rest of the Home Planet’s population had dwindled as the kikihuahuas in the Domes, tended night and day by the Tin Mothers, lost the will to live.
The most difficult aspect of Aoli’s plan was the method of leaving the Home Planet without the help of machines. The next most difficult was space travel itself. Both problems were solved, and in the spring of one unnumbered year large numbers of kikihuahuas left the Home Planet to the bewilderment of the Tin Mothers who stood staring blankly into the sky for many days, before turning back to look after the sickly remainder of the kikihuahua race. …
Thousands of years after the second coming of the kikihuahuas to Earth, a sceptical Specialist involved in genetic engineering questioned the Kikihuahua Examples. He was a horse-man, and his ancestors had been created under the direction of the legendary Mordecai N. Whirst. He looked around his chamber of vats, refrigerators and equipment, and asked the question which had puzzled mankind for a long time.
“If the kikihuahuas don’t kill, or use metal or fire, how did they make the creatures who serve them? How can you create a spacebat, or a spacehopper, or even a gnome, without a laboratory and machinery?”
There was a kikihuahua present at the time, and he knew the answer. His reply was picked up by a monitor of the Rainbow and passed into its memory banks, and eventually became a part of the Song of Earth. The basis for his reply had come from an unguessable time in the past, through the mouths of a chain of kikihuahua Memorizers. It went like this:
It is remembered that the Sa was a little creature the kikihuahuas had brought back from one of their early planetary explorations because it had a survival mechanism which they thought might be useful one day. When threatened, it projected into the mind of its attacker a frightening image. The principle was similar to some Earth animals that puff themselves up to look larger and more terrifying, except that the Sa’s image was purely mental, like the chaiga’s pakapata. The attacker, suddenly faced with a monster, would retreat.
“You need my help,” said the Sa to Aoli one day. It was telepathic and had noted his approach from afar.
“Are we making a mistake?” asked Aoli.
“I don’t think so. Your own thoughts, and those of your fellow kikihuahuas, convince me you think it is right to be gentle and kind, and not to kill, or work metal, or light fires. You are working toward what you believe is right, and there is no mistake in that.”
“So why do I need you tonight?”
“Every intelligent race needs excitement from time to time.”
“I am ashamed.… But tonight, give me a dream, Sa.”
“What would you like? I can give you a four-legged beast with cloven hooves, which you can ride across the wastes of a barren planet. There is excitement in that.”
“You know what I want.”
The Sa sighed. “I know. I will give you a monster the like of which you have never seen. I will terrify you so that you will awaken, hoarse from screaming, and still see the creature in the shadows, watching you. You want that—you, the pacifist. You shall have it.”
“Thank you, Sa,” said Aoli. “And can I fight the monster, and conquer it?”
“If you wish.”
“I will go to sleep now. Thank you for your help, Sa. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
The Sa said, “I am dying.”
There was a silence. Aoli was unable to speak and the Sa said, helping him, “In about seven million of my heartbeats.”
“That’s not long! Go into hibernation, Sa!”
“It makes no difference, and I’d rather be awake right to the end.”
Aoli looked at him for a long time. At last he said, “You and me both, Sa. But what am I going to do without you? You keep me sane.”
“I know.”
The Sa projected soothing thoughts, and presently Aoli’s eyes closed and he fell into a natural sleep. Then the Sa sent the monsters and Aoli screamed and fought and won, and in the morning awakened refreshed.
It is remembered that the kikihuahuas had also discovered a strange creature on the planet Ach.
Earlier parties reported it as a deerlike thing—a timorous animal which fled at a sound, yet had the disgusting habit of eating carrion when the opportunity arose. Also strange was the fact that it had two mouths—one in the usual place, the other in the throat. This second mouth was toothless and pulpy, and used solely for ingesting the softer parts of carrion.
The deer-thing was reported at the debriefing.
“That’s odd,” said another member of the group. “There was a two-mouthed animal in my sector too, but it sounds like a different species. The creature I studied had a feline appearance. It was a fearsome brute.”
The Memorizer who was collating the work of the teams said, “It seems as though the creatures on this planet are of two basic types. There are one-mouthed animals, which reproduce sexually. And there are two-mouthed animals—has anyone seen them reproduce?”
Nobody had. The next team took the puzzle back to the lands of Ach. One thing they had noticed: the one-mouthed animals tended to gather in herds, whereas the two-mouthed animals were solitary in their habits, and greatly varied in appearance.
The puzzle was solved one day by a kikihuahua called Hohi. For days he’d been following a low-slung, padding beast with two mouths. It had first attracted his attention when it had stalked, attacked and finally killed a dragonlike, one-mouthed predator twice its own size. The struggle had been bitter and protracted. The dragon had lost only because it was old and enfeebled. Hohi had wondered why the two-mouthed animal had taken the chance of attacking such a terrible creature when the nearby plains abounded in gentle ungulates. What was so special about the dragon? Was it a territorial rival? Meanwhile, the victor stayed with its prey, eating it with both mouths.
Then it lay in the sun for many days, watching the herds which grazed on ground-mosquitoes, but making no attempt to attack. Hohi was on the verge of leaving it, to seek more interesting specimens, when he noticed something.
The creature was pregnant.
It swelled rapidly over the days that followed. Hohi watched from his hiding place, wondering when it had been fertilized. Certainly not during his period of observation. He’d seen no similar creature nearby. How long was its gestation period? Did it reproduce asexually, as some people had supposed? Hohi waited and pondered.
When the birth came, it was quick. The animal roared once, a great rattling cry of pain and triumph which sent the bird-reptiles skittering into the sky and scared the ground-mosquitoes into dense black clouds. Then it was quiet, curled around its newborn young protectively, licking it. When it raised it
s head, Hohi got a clear view of the cub.
He found it difficult to believe what he saw. The cub had a long neck and long, pointed jaw, and the feet were almost reptilian in appearance. The body was bulky and the tail thick. All in all, the little creature bore little resemblance to its parent.
In fact, it looked much more like the dragon.
It is remembered that the final pieces of the puzzle were fitted together during the next planetary year. The two-mouthed creatures all belonged to the same species, although in appearance they were dissimilar. They were asexual; the kikihuahuas named them the Hua-hi—being the possessive form of Hohi, who witnessed the first birth.
The Hua-hi were well on the way to becoming the dominant species on the planet Ach. This was because the) absorbed through their second mouth—or “maga,” as the kikihuahuas called it—genetic material from other creatures which passed directly into an organ which had no counterpart elsewhere in the galaxy.
This organ was able to assess the genetic possibilities of the ingested material, and select from it the best survival characteristics based on the observations of the Hua-hi. The favorable genes were then passed through to the womb in company with the Hua-hi’s own genes, and conception took place. The offspring would thus be molded by the Hua-hi’s mind, out of its parent’s flesh and the flesh of whatever creature the Hua-hi saw fit to ingest through its maga.
It is remembered that a Hua-hi was taken to the Home Planet for observation. …
* * *
A thousand years later, Aoli found the Hua-hi in a forgotten zoo, fed dutifully by a Tin Mother. He visited the Sa.
“You wish more dreams?” the creature asked. Then it entered the kikihuahua’s mind. “Oh, no. I see. …” It thought for a while, then asked a rhetorical question. “It is immortal, this creature? Yes. …”
“Will you come and meet the Hua-hi?”
“So long as it is well drugged. You must remember, I’ve been exposed to nothing more savage than kikihuahua thoughts for a long time now. To look into a mind like the Hua-hi’s …” The Sa fluttered its ears, a sign of distress. “The dreams I give you will be nothing in comparison.”
Aoli took the Sa to the Hua-hi, and the Sa aimed a dream at it. The Hua-hi’s movements became violent as it imagined a mountain on which a powerful spider-thing lived. The Hua-hi was trapped on the mountain and would starve there because it could not spin webs to catch the birds, unless … The Hua-hi’s mouth closed with a snap. In its throat, the maga opened, glistening expectantly.
“I can give it dreams,” said the Sa.
It is remembered that the Sa caused the Hua-hi to give birth to a manageable cub, and there was much rejoicing. It seemed that the kikihuahua’s dependence on machines was finally ended.
Then somebody said, “But the Sa is dying.”
Aoli gave the kikihuahua equivalent of a smile.
The Sa said, “Of course I will do it, Aoli.”
It is remembered that the Sa projected an image of itself into the mind of the Hua-hi and, when the maga began to drool, stepped forward and allowed itself to be absorbed.
It is remembered that some time later the Hua-hi gave birth to a young creature with all the abilities of the Sa. And it is remembered that a short time later Aoli, having waited as long as he could, approached this new Sa tentatively.
He said, “I wonder … could you give me a dream …?”
When Afah, Phu and Ou-Ou arrived at the bat’s stomach, they found the Sa-Hua-hi engaged in mutual grooming. The inseparable creatures spun slowly in the middle of the vast chamber, scratching each other. Taking advantage of the minimal gravity, Afah leaped into the void and soon came within reach of the Sa, who caught his arm and saved him the embarrassment of having to leap again from the opposite side of the chamber.
“Thank you,” said Afah.
“Our leader must retain his dignity,” replied the Sa gravely. “I understand you have a job for us.”
“That’s right. We need a creature. I will give you the specifications.”
“You don’t have to,” the Sa reminded him. “I already know them.”
Although a generalized sensitive himself, Afah found the Sa’s mind-reading tricks unsettling. “There’s a proper way to do things,” he said stiffly. “I am our leader-emote, and I must relay our decisions to you verbally, so the others can hear. Remember the Baska.”
This was the formal rebuke from a kikihuahua to a Sa. It referred to an ancient occasion when the Sa on the bat Baska had become crazed with ambition and had caused his Hua-hi to create an army of fearsome warriors, who took over the bat. The Galaxy was informed of this bizarre mutiny by a fastcall shortly before he was silenced and eaten by the Sa’s crocodilian hordes. The Sa’s dreams of power came to an end, however, when the warriors—having eaten their way through the inhabitants of the hibe chamber—conceived a liking for bat meat. By the time another bat containing an investigation party winged its slow way alongside, the Baska was a lifeless, drifting hulk of skin and bones, its remaining passengers mummified.
“As you wish,” said the Sa.
“We propose to colonize a nearby planet,” said Afah. “Ou-Ou will give you the details.”
Ou-Ou arrived and went through the charade of describing the world he had visited, while the Sa turned a deaf ear and picked a far more accurate description directly from the kikihuahua’s mind.
During this period Phu joined the group. When Ou-Ou had finished, Phu said, “I will give the specifications for the creature.”
Afah, shocked, said, “That’s my job.”
“I know you’re sincere, Afah, but we are going to bend the Examples. You may say the right words to the Sa, but your thoughts may influence it further. If I handle the matter, we can be sure the Examples will not be bent any more than necessary.”
Afah, recovering, saw the sense in this. “All right.”
Phu addressed the Sa. “We require an intelligent biped which reproduces sexually, with a disposition just sufficiently aggressive to allow it to defend itself against predators, but not so aggressive that it would attack, or …”
“Eat meat.” The Sa plucked the revolting image from Phu’s mind.
“Exactly.”
“I know what you want. Let me communicate with the Hua-hi.”
The Sa was silent and the kikihuahuas waited. Other kikihuahuas appeared in the tunnel mouths, watching. The Sa gave the Hua-hi a dream world and the Hua-hi walked through it, meeting imaginary dangers, crossing phantom rivers, spending quiet nights on open plains, evaluating, thinking, planning the perfect offspring—but needing the raw materials.
At last the Sa said, “Bring the chromosome supply.”
In the distant tunnels the ritual prayer began which would be carried through eons by the Memorizers. It was a long prayer and a complex one, and it used words and phrases which had long disappeared from common usage. It was summed up in the coda which was hummed on a sustained note while the combined thoughts of the kikihuahuas were voiced by Afah, who by now was in a trancelike state.
Forgive us for our transgression;
We think we are right but have no way of knowing. …
If we are wrong we beg your forgiveness.
Descendants, know that we tried in good faith.
Four kikihuahuas with cowls over their heads rose from a tunnel mouth, guiding the captive biped, still drugged, to telepathic directions from the Sa. The remainder of the kikihuahuas lay face down, except Afah, Phu and Ou-Ou who hid their eyes. Beads of fluid drifted from the maga as Hua-hi dwelt in its dream world. The sacrifice brushed against the lips of maga and was drawn smoothly in. The bearers snatched off their cowls and drifted spread-eagled, kicking themselves off the maga’s hide, mindful of the legendary occasion when a bearer had accidentally followed the sacrifice into the maga, and been absorbed—and of the strange birth which had resulted. …
“It is over,” said the Sa.
“Will it be successful?” asked Afah.
>
“Certainly. The creature you gave to the Hua-hi already had a native cunning and a sense of identity.”
“But not intelligence?” asked Afah anxiously.
“Probably not, by your standards.”
Afah was still consumed by the sense of guilt which inevitably followed the creation ceremony. “What do you mean, a sense of identity?”
“It had a name for itself and its species. It called itself the chaiga,” said the Sa.
Many thousands of years later, on the occasion which became celebrated in the Song of Earth as the kikihuahuas’ Second Coming, they awakened Afah, as he had known they would.
The fear was still with him, and he had no sensation of the passage of time. “Is it my watch?” he asked Ou-Ou, who was bending over him and shaking him gently.
“No, Afah. I am waking you because the observer has reported that Earth is dead.”
“So this is it. The gnomes must return to Earth again and it is my duty to go with them this time. Ou-Ou … I’m older than my body tells me, and I frighten easily. Sometimes I wonder if I’m becoming like the degenerate hordes of Yub. Are they still sleeping, by the way?”
Ou-Ou watched him closely. “You know very well they are sleeping. There’s something I’ve always wanted to know, Afah, and I’ve tried every way I can to find the answer. You’re a Memorizer. Maybe you can help.”
“If I can.”
“Why couldn’t they awaken the Yub people?”
Afah sighed. “It’s all a long time ago.”
“You cannot lie to me, Afah.”
Trapped, Afah explained. “I saw the Sa, and told it to persuade the bat that we were setting off on a long journey. The bat believed this easily, being a simple creature, and for a short while produced a milk with unusually soporific qualities. So the Yub people slept deeply.”
“And were unable to vote against colonization of Earth.”
“That’s right.”
Ou-Ou said, “But Afah—you did not want to colonize either.”
Fang, the Gnome (Song of Earth) Page 31
