Watson asked, “Why don't they have a civilization, then?"
“I've just told you that they do."
“I mean cities, machines, books—"
“They're not physically equipped for writing, for building things, for any small manipulations,” Gundersen said. “Don't you see, they have no hands? A race with hands makes one kind of society. A race built like elephants makes another.” He was drenched in sweat and his appetite was suddenly insatiable. The women, he noticed, were staring at him strangely. He realized why: he was cleaning up all the food in sight, compulsively stuffing it into his mouth. Abruptly his patience shattered and he felt that his skull would explode if he did not instantly drop all barriers and admit the one great guilt that by stabbing his soul had spurred him into strange odysseys. It did not matter that these were not the right people from whom to seek absolution. The words rushed uncontrollably upward to his lips and he said, “When I came here I was just like you. I underestimated the nildoror. Which led me into a grievous sin that I have to explain to you. You know, I was a sector administrator for a while, and one of my jobs was arranging the efficient deployment of native labor. Since we didn't fully understand that the nildoror were intelligent autonomous beings, we used them, we put them to work on heavy construction jobs, lifting girders with their trunks, anything we thought they were capable of handling on sheer muscle alone. We just ordered them around as if they were machines.” Gundersen closed his eyes and felt the past roaring toward him, inexorably, a black cloud of memory that enveloped and overwhelmed him, “The nildoror let us use them, God knows why. I guess we were the crucible in which their race had to be purged. Well, one day a dam broke, out in Monroe District up in the north, not far from where the mist country begins, and a whole thornbush plantation was in danger of flooding, at a loss to the Company of who knows how many millions. And the main power plant of the district was endangered too, along with our station head-quarters and—let's just say that if we didn't react fast, we'd lose our entire investment in the north. My responsibility. I began conscripting nildoror to build a secondary line of dikes. We threw every robot we had into the job, but we didn't have enough, so we got the nildoror too, long lines of them plodding in from every part of the jungle, and we worked day and night until we were all ready to fall down dead. We were beating the flood, but I couldn't be sure of it. And on the sixth morning I drove out to the dike site to see if the next crest would break through, and there were seven nildoror I hadn't ever seen before, marching along a path going north. I told them to follow me. They refused, very gently. They said, no, they were on their way to the mist country for the rebirth ceremony, and they couldn't stop. Rebirth? What did I care about rebirth? I wasn't going to take that excuse from them, not when it looked like I might lose my whole district. Without thinking I ordered them to report for dike duty or I'd execute them on the spot. Rebirth can wait, I said. Get reborn some other time. This is serious business. They put their heads down and pushed the tips of their tusks into the ground. That's a sign of great sadness among them. Their spines drooped. Sad. Sad. We pity you, one of them said to me, and I got angry and told him what he could do with his pity. Where did he get the right to pity me? Then I pulled my fusion torch. Go on, get moving, there's a work crew that needs you. Sad. Big eyes looking pity at me. Tusks in the ground. Two or three of the nildoror said they were very sorry, they couldn't do any work for me now, it was impossible for them to break their journey. But they were ready to die right there, if I insisted on it. They didn't want to hurt my prestige by defying me, but they had to defy me, and so they were willing to pay the price. I was about to fry one, as an example to the others, and then I stopped and said to myself, what the hell am I doing, and the nildoror waited, and my aides were watching and so were some of our other nildoror, and I lifted the fusion torch again, telling myself that I'd kill one of them, the one who said he pitied me, and hoping that then the others would come to their senses. They just waited. Calling my bluff. How could I fry seven pilgrims even if they were defying a sector chief's direct order? But my authority was at stake. So I pushed the trigger. I just gave him a slow burn, not deep, enough to scar the hide, that was all, but the nildor stood there taking it, and in another few minutes I would have burned right through to a vital organ. And so I soiled myself in front of them by using force. It was what they had been waiting for. Then a couple of the nildoror who looked older than the others said, Stop it, we wish to reconsider, and I turned off the torch, and they went aside for a conference. The one I had burned was hobbling a little, and looked hurt, but he wasn't badly wounded, not nearly as badly as I was. The one who pushes the trigger can get hurt worse than his target, do you know that? And in the end the nildoror all agreed to do as I asked. So instead of going north for rebirth they went to work on the dike, even the burned one, and nine days later the flood crest subsided and the plantation and the power plant and all the rest were saved and we lived happily ever after.” Gundersen's voice trailed off. He had made his confession, and now he could not face these people any longer. He picked up the shell of the one remaining crab and explored it for some scrap of jelly, feeling depleted and drained. There was an endless span of silence.
Then Mrs. Christopher said, “So what happened then?"
Gundersen looked up, blinking. He thought he had told it all.
“Nothing happened then,” he said. “The flood crest subsided."
“But what was the point of the story?"
He wanted to hurl the empty crab in her tensely smiling face. “The point?” he said. “The point? Why—” He was dizzy, now. He said, “Seven intelligent beings were journeying toward the holiest rite of their religion, and at gunpoint I requisitioned their services on a construction job to save property that meant nothing to them, and they came and hauled logs for me. Isn't the point obvious enough? Who was spiritually superior there? When you treat a rational autonomous creature as though he's a mere beast, what does that make you?"
“But it was an emergency,” said Watson. “You needed all the help you could get. Surely other considerations could be laid aside at a time like that. So they were nine days late getting to their rebirth. Is that so bad?"
Gundersen said hollowly, “A nildor goes to rebirth only when the time is ripe, and I can't tell you how they know the time is ripe, but perhaps it's astrological, something to do with the conjunction of the moons. A nildor has to get to the place of rebirth at the propitious time, and if he doesn't make it in time, he isn't reborn just then. Those seven nildoror were already late, because the heavy rains had washed out the roads in the south. The nine days more that I tacked on made them too late. When they were finished building dikes for me, they simply went back south to rejoin their tribe. I didn't understand why. It wasn't until much later that I found out that I had cost them their chance at rebirth and they might have to wait ten or twenty years until they could go again. Or maybe never get another chance.” Gundersen did not feel like talking any more. His throat was dry. His temples throbbed. How cleansing it would be, he thought, to dive into the steaming lake. He got stiffly to his feet, and as he did so he noticed that Srin'gahar had returned and was standing motionless a few hundred meters away, beneath a mighty swordflower tree.
He said to the tourists, “The point is that the nildoror have religion and souls, and that they are people; and that if you can buy the concept of relinquishment at all, you can't object to relinquishing this planet. The point is also that when Earthmen collide with an alien species they usually do so with maximum misunderstanding. The point is furthermore that I'm not surprised you think of the nildoror the way you do, because I did too, and learned a little better when it was too late to matter, and even so I didn't learn enough to do me any real good, which is one of the reasons why I came back to this planet. And I'd like you to excuse me now, because this is the propitious time for me to move on, and I have to go.” He walked quickly away from them.
Approaching Srin'gahar, he sai
d, “I'm ready to leave now."
The nildor knelt. Gundersen remounted.
“Where did you go?” the Earthman asked. “I was worried when you disappeared."
“I felt that I should leave you alone with your friends,” said Srin'gahar. “Why did you worry? There is an obligation on me to bring you safely to the country of the mist."
Eight
THE QUALITY OF the land was undoubtedly changing. They were leaving the heart of the equatorial jungle behind, and starting to enter the highlands that led into the mist zone. The climate here was still tropical, but the humidity was not so intense; the atmosphere, instead of holding everything in a constant clammy embrace, released its moisture periodically in rain, and after the rain the texture of the air was clear and light until its wetness was renewed. There was different vegetation in this region: harsh-looking angular stuff, with stiff leaves sharp as blades. Many of the trees had luminous foliage that cast a cold light over the forest by night. There were fewer vines here, and the treetops no longer formed a continuous canopy shutting out most of the sunlight; splashes of brightness dappled the forest floor, in some places extending across broad open plazas and meadows. The soil, leached by the frequent rains, was a pale yellowish hue, not the rich black of the jungle. Small animals frequently sped through the underbrush. At a slower pace moved solemn slug-like creatures, blue-green with ebony mantles, which Gundersen recognized as the mobile fungoids of the highlands—plants that crawled from place to place in quest of fallen boughs or a lightning-shattered tree-trunk. Both nildoror and men considered their taste a great delicacy.
On the evening of the third day northward from the place of the boiling lake Srin'gahar and Gundersen came upon the other four nildoror, who had marched on ahead. They were camped at the foot of a jagged crescent-shaped hill, and evidently had been there at least a day, judging by the destruction they had worked upon the foliage all around their resting-place. Their trunks and faces, smeared and stained with luminous juices, glowed brightly. With them was a sulidor, by far the largest one Gundersen had ever seen, almost twice Gundersen's own height, with a pendulous snout the length of a man's forearm. The sulidor stood erect beside a boulder encrusted with blue moss, his legs spread wide and his tail, tripod fashion, bracing his mighty weight. Narrowed eyes surveyed Gundersen from beneath shadowy hoods. His long arms, tipped with terrifying curved claws, hung at rest. The fur of the sulidor was the color of old bronze, and unusually thick.
One of the candidates for rebirth, a female nildor called Luu'khamin, said to Gundersen, “The sulidor's name is Na-sinisul. He wishes to speak with you."
“Let him speak, then."
“He prefers that you know, first, that he is not a sulidor of the ordinary kind. He is one of those who administers the ceremony of rebirth, and we will see him again when we approach the mist country. He is a sulidor of rank and merit, and his words are not to be taken lightly. Will you bear that in mind as you listen to him?"
“I will. I take no one's words lightly on this world, but I will give him a careful hearing beyond any doubt. Let him speak."
The sulidor strode a short distance forward and once again planted himself firmly, digging his great spurred feet deep into the resilient soil. When he spoke, it was in nildororu stamped with the accent of the north: thick-tongued, slow, positive.
“I have been on a journey,” said Na-sinisul, “to the Sea of Dust, and now I am returning to my own land to aid in the preparations for the event of rebirth in which these five travelers are to take part. My presence here is purely accidental. Do you understand that I am not in this place for any particular purpose involving you or your companions?"
“I understand,” said Gundersen, astounded by the precise and emphatic manner of the sulidor's speech. He had known the sulidoror only as dark, savage, ferocious-looking figures lurking in mysterious glades.
Na-sinisul continued, “As I passed near here yesterday, I came by chance to the site of a former station of your Company. Again by chance, I chose to look within, though it was no business of mine to enter that place. Within I found two Earthmen whose bodies had ceased to serve them. They were unable to move and could barely talk. They requested me to send them from this world, but I could not do such a thing on my own authority. Therefore I ask you to follow me to this station and to give me instructions. My time is short here, so it must be done at once."
“How far is it?"
“We could be there before the rising of the third moon."
Gundersen said to Srin'gahar, “I don't remember a Company station here. There should be one a couple of days north of here, but—"
“This is the place where the food that crawls was collected and shipped downriver,” said the nildor.
“Here?” Gundersen shrugged. “I guess I've lost my bearings again. All right, I'll go there.” To Na-sinisul he said, “Lead and I'll follow."
The sulidor moved swiftly through the glowing forest, and Gundersen, atop Srin'gahar, rode just to his rear. They seemed to be descending, and the air grew warm and murky. The landscape also changed, for the trees here had aerial roots that looped up like immense scraggy elbows, and the fine tendrils sprouting from the roots emitted a harsh green radiance. The soil was loose and rocky; Gundersen could hear it crunching under Srin'gahar's tread. Bird-like things were perched on many of the roots. They were owlish creatures that appeared to lack all color; some were black, some white, some a mottled black and white. He could not tell if that was their true hue or if the luminosity of the vegetation simply robbed them of color. A sickly fragrance came from vast, pallid parasitic flowers sprouting from the trunks of the trees.
By an outcropping of naked, weathered yellow rock lay the remains of the Company station. It seemed even more thoroughly ruined than the serpent station far to the south; the dome of its roof had collapsed and coils of wiry-stemmed saprophytes were clinging to its sides, perhaps feeding on the decomposition products that the rain eroded from the abrasions in the plastic walls. Srin'gahar allowed Gundersen to dismount. The Earthman hesitated outside the building, waiting for the sulidor to take the lead. A fine warm rain began to fall; the tang of the forest changed at once, becoming sweet where it had been sour. But it was the sweetness of decay.
“The Earthmen are inside,” said Na-sinisul. “You may go in. I await your instructions."
Gundersen entered the building. The reek of rot was far more intense here, concentrated, perhaps, by the curve of the shattered dome. The dampness was all-pervasive. He wondered what sort of virulent spores he sucked into his nostrils with every breath. Something dripped in the darkness, making a loud tocking sound against the lighter patter of the rain coming through the gaping roof. To give himself light, Gundersen drew his fusion torch and kindled it at the lowest beam. The warm white glow spread through the station. At once he felt a flapping about his face as some thermotropic creature, aroused and attracted by the heat of the torch, rose up toward it. Gundersen brushed it away; there was slime on his fingertips afterward.
Where were the Earthmen?
Cautiously he made a circuit of the building. He remembered it vaguely, now—one of the innumerable bush stations the Company once had scattered across Holman's World. The floor was split and warped, requiring him to climb over the buckled, sundered sections. The mobile fungoids crawled everywhere, devouring the scum that covered all interior surfaces of the building and leaving narrow glistening tracks behind. Gundersen had to step carefully to avoid putting his feet on the creatures, and he was not always successful. Now he came to a place where the building widened, puckering outward; he flashed his torch around and caught sight of a blackened wharf, overlooking the bank of a swift river. Yes, he remembered. The fungoids were wrapped and baled here and sent downriver on their voyage toward the market. But the Company's barges no longer stopped here, and the tasty pale slugs now wandered unmolested over the mossy relics of furniture and equipment.
“Hello?” Gundersen called. “Hello, hello
, hello?"
He received a moan by way of answer. Stumbling and slipping in the dimness, fighting a swelling nausea, he forced his way onward through a maze of unseen obstacles. He came to the source of the loud dripping sound. Something bright red and basket-shaped and about the size of a man's chest had established itself high on the wall, perpendicular to the floor. Through large pores in its spongy surface a thick black fluid exuded, falling in a continuous greasy splash. As the light of Gundersen's torch probed it, the exudation increased, becoming almost a cataract of tallowy liquid. When he moved the light away the flow became less copious, though still heavy.
The floor sloped here so that whatever dripped from the spongy basket flowed quickly down, collecting at the far side of the room in the angle between the floor and the wall. Here Gundersen found the Earthmen. They lay side by side on a low mattress; fluid from the dripping thing had formed a dark pool around them, completely covering the mattress and welling up over the bodies. One of the Earthmen, head lolling to the side, had his face totally immersed in the stuff. From the other one came the moans.
They both were naked. One was a man, one a woman, though Gundersen had some difficulty telling that at first; both were so shrunken and emaciated that the sexual characteristics were obscured. They had no hair, not even eyebrows. Bones protruded through parchment-like skin. The eyes of both were open, but were fixed in a rigid, seemingly sightless stare, unblinking, glassy. Lips were drawn back from teeth. Grayish algae sprouted in the furrows of their skins, and the mobile fungoids roamed their bodies, feeding on this growth. With a quick automatic gesture of revulsion Gundersen plucked two of the slug-like creatures from the woman's empty breasts. She stirred; she moaned again. In the language of the nildoror she murmured, “Is it over yet?” Her voice was like a flute played by a sullen desert breeze.