9
Rei was on the mound and four withered old yetis, the council of elders, sat facing him. There was a large audience for his report, and Mawei had to push her way to the front to see what was going on. It was early and she’d left her father asleep under the tree. She’d almost overslept, but a little red bird had started chirping close to where she and her father were curled up together against the cold. Usually the council of elders meeting was only attended by those with a direct interest in what was being discussed, but there was a lot of curiosity about Rei’s adventure among the humans. By the time Mawei had pushed her way to the edge of the clearing for a better view, Rei had already gotten through his preliminaries and had been addressing the elders and the crowd for a few minutes.
“…human beings live in a world of light.” He said. “They have many varieties of artificial light. Even during the daytime they stay in their cave-like dwellings with artificial light shining. This is why their vision is limited. They are so accustomed to light that if you take it away they can’t see anything at all. On a moonless night in the forest they would be practically blind. Their vision is also bad at long distances. They create environments for themselves where everything that there is to see is within twenty feet or so. Even outside of their dwellings they never have to see anything more than a mile or two away. I believe that they could improve with practice, but in their villages they have no reason to stretch their eyes out…”
Rachim, the night-yeti elder, stood to ask a question, interrupting Rei. “Is their poor vision the reason you were able to live in their village undetected for so long?”
“Yes.” Rei said. “There are places within a village that are created to appear natural. The humans enjoy running as fast as possible through a place with trees in it before going back into their dwellings where they spend most of their time. I hid myself in such a place and the human’s poor vision let me move around freely at nighttime. When it was dark I could look into their dwellings because all human dwellings have rectangular openings in their walls, covered with transparent panels. At night I was free to look in and see what the odd creatures were up to.”
“And what did you find?” Rachim asked.
“Humans, as I have said, are obsessed with light, and in their dwellings are strange surfaces that emit a flickering light designed to put them into a low-level trance. They will stare at this flickering light for many hours. Some even carry miniature light boxes around with them, and they walk around the village staring into them, entranced.”
“That’s very silly.” The old night-yeti said.
“Sure, but many of the yetis gathered here today might spend hours staring at clouds or at a river, and maybe that would seem silly to the humans. I’ve tried to avoid making judgments about human behavior. They’re just different.”
Rinser, the highland-yeti elder and the only female on the council, stood next to Rachim in an aggravated posture. “Perhaps you’ve stared into the flickering light of the humans too long,” she said, “I have no problem judging the humans because I see them for what they are: vile, unclean creatures.”
“Forgive me, but that’s not true,” Rei said, “in fact they are constantly cleaning and grooming themselves.”
“Then how do you account for their horrid smell?” She asked.
“They’re hard-of-smelling. They cover themselves in smells that they consider to be clean. They can’t discern the aspects of these smells that repel us. They wash away their natural odor and replace it with balms that smell of rotten sap and pustulent flowers. It smells good to them, I assure you.”
Rinser sat down, and Rachim, the night-yeti elder, spoke again. “You say their vision and smelling is bad, how is their hearing?”
“I can’t say.” Rei answered. “The village is filled with vibrations that never cease. There are lines that crisscross through the air that never stop buzzing loudly, and then there are the cars that are quite loud. There are also many boxes and contraptions of indeterminate purpose that constantly produce low frequency vibrations. Living in a human village is like living next to a waterfall, after a while you become so used to the noise that you don’t even hear it anymore.”
“And their biting power?” Rachim asked.
“Very poor.” Rei said. “They can only eat the softest foods you can think of. They eat meat, but they burn the toughness out of it first.”
“And their claws?” He asked.
“They have none.” Rei answered. “Just a thin gloss on the ends of their fingers. I’ve never seen a human rip into anything.”
“And what about their strength? Can they lift a great deal of weight?” The old yeti asked.
“No.” Rei said. “Aside from lifting their young or small containers it was very rare that I saw them lift or push anything.”
Again Rinser stood next to Rachim, this time in an even more aggravated posture than before. “These creatures have poor vision and little sense of smell,” she said, “they can’t bite, scratch or crush, and yet they are excellent murderers. Can you explain this?”
“Yes.” Rei said. “The reports are true. The humans can kill instantly at great distances but it’s not magic. The humans are very good at transfiguring objects and materials to suit their own needs. They use a loud contraption that spits teeth. It looks like a straight branch, and I’ve seen it spit with enough force to rip through the flesh and bone of a deer, killing it instantly. The humans make these things for this very purpose. They are skillful in that regard -if you don’t believe me just look at how a human travels. I’ve heard it said that cars are also a kind of magic, but I don’t believe it. I believe that cars are constructed by the humans out of other things. The humans build them…”
“You saw them build a car?”
“No,” Rei admitted, “but everything in their world is something that they have transfigured out of something else. Cars are no different.”
“They could be tulpas.” She said.
“But the humans themselves are tulpas.” Rachim said. “Is it possible for a thought-form to create another thought-form?”
Sonna, the snow-yeti elder, being the most well-versed in metaphysics, answered the question. “Yes,” he said, “if the thought-form has reached maturity it can create other thought-forms.”
Having settled this, Rinser and Rachim sat down and waited for Rei’s response. “I witnessed the humans creating a dwelling.” He said. “They were using wood from a forest that must’ve been very far away judging by its scent. I saw them put the whole thing together over four or five cycles of the moon.”
“No one suggested that their dwellings were tulpas.” Monchier, the forest-yeti elder said. “Just their cars and killing sticks. Did you see them create either of those things?”
“No.” Rei said.
“So we just don’t know.” Monchier said. “Some things the humans use may be transfigured from other materials, and others may be thought-forms.”
“I suppose so.” Rei said.
“What else have you learned about the humans?” Rachim asked.
Rei thought for a moment, unsure of where to get back into his report after so many distracting questions from the council. The elders waited patiently for him to continue. “Their language is made up of sounds that they make by contorting their mouths and licking their teeth.” Rei said. “If you were to cover a human’s mouth or ears they would be unable to communicate…”
“If it’s based on mouth-noises I’m not sure you should call it a language.” Rinser said.
Rei thought for a moment. “It’s primitive,” he said, “but humans can communicate with each other while looking in opposite directions. Yetis have to be able to see each other to communicate…”
Sonna, the snow-yeti elder, stood up, cutting him off. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but that’s the second time you’ve compared the human’s culture to our own. I must ask you to stop doing that. You risk offending our ancestors.”
&nbs
p; “But sir,” Rei said, “I’m a yeti. What else do I have to compare it to?”
“I think what my brother elder is saying,” said Rinser, the highland-yeti elder who had never lost her posture of antipathy toward Rei, “is that you shouldn’t compare the two on equal terms. You must remember the type of creature we’re discussing here.”
Rei seemed at a loss for a moment. “I come to my work with a balanced perspective,” he said finally. “I study the humans as if they were a foreign yeti tribe, or as if they were a lost tribe.”
This set the entire crowd watching in motion. A yeti near Mawei told his companion that Rei must’ve gone mad to say such a thing. Rinser was on her feet. “I suppose I have to remind you that there is in fact a lost yeti tribe,” she said, “lost because they were slaughtered by the humans! You’ve certainly given offense to the ancestors. The reptiles that you would elevate to our level are little murderers who would kill every yeti here if they weren’t deaf, blind, hard-of-smelling and stupid.” The crowd settled down to watch with satisfaction as the elder reprimanded Rei. “Why do you think we granted your request to study them?” She asked.
Rei looked out at the audience and his eyes briefly met Mawei’s before he looked back down at the elders. “You told me you wanted to know more about humans.”
“Because they constantly make incursions onto our sacred lands.” She said. “And because we must know as much about them as possible if we’re going to allow an active defense against them.”
“Forgive me,” Rei said, “but what do you mean by ‘active defense?’”
“Human beings are extremely dangerous.” Sonna said. “It is only a matter of time before they spill yeti blood again. We’re not advocating aggression against them, just self-defense. They’re so dangerous that their mere presence should be viewed as an attack. If a human enters a yeti’s wild, that yeti has the right to defend himself up to and including the destruction of the human. This has been agreed to by the council unanimously, and it will be law at the conclusion of this Gather.”
Rei looked like he wanted to choose his next words carefully. “You advocate murder,” he said, “the same crime that you condemn the humans for.”
“Tell me,” said Monchier, the forest-yeti elder, “the deer that you saw the humans kill, had it intruded onto the human’s sacred land?”
“No,” Rei said, “but a human would eat a deer. It’s a food source for them. We kill fish without a second thought.”
“Fish lay eggs.” The old forest-yeti said. “The fact that a human would eat something milk-fed only proves how dangerous they really are. They’re practically cannibals.”
At this Rei took the position of someone backing down from an argument. Clouds had rolled in and a cold wind was blowing. “What if we could communicate with humans?” Rei asked. “Surely that would change your minds.”
The council of elders and many viewers laughed at the suggestion. “Should we walk into a human village and start grunting?” Rinser asked.
Rei looked at Mawei again and she could see that he was trying to control his anger. “I suppose the notion that a human might be able to speak yeti is ridiculous to you.”
“Yes it is,” Sonna said, “and consorting with a human would put us all at risk. It would be an unforgivable crime that I’m sure none would dare commit, not even you. Go on with your report. Tell us more of what you’ve learned.”
“I’ve learned a great deal but I’m not going to speak another word.” Rei said. “I thought my investigation was for furthering our knowledge of the humans. I have no intention of giving you information to use in a war against them.”
“Very well,” Monchier said, “we’ll move on to other business.”
Rei turned and stepped off the mound and began walking in Mawei’s direction. He made a slight indication for her to follow him, disguised in a flamboyant gesture of disgust so that no one watching would notice it. He went into the woods and Mawei followed. He was moving fast but she finally chased him down on a muddy incline a half mile from the clearing. “Uncle,” she said, grabbing his arm, “wait.”
He stopped and looked around and then pulled Mawei close. “There are two yetis following me right now,” he said with his eyes. “I’m going to lose them up in the foothills and come back down this afternoon, I should have some help from the weather. I’ll meet you in the giant pine forest south of the creek -you must go get the little bird and wait for me there. She’s in more danger than I ever imagined.”
“You brought her here?”
“She’s far from where anyone would find her. I left her high up in a tree down by the creek. If you head south you’ll see her halfway up the highest tree after you come down the second hill, now go before they see us talking.” He turned and moved away from her before she could ask why he hadn’t taken the child to a village.
She made her way up a rocky slope and had started toward the creek when she ran into Ruffer. He stood in her way without the slightest idea that she might not want to stop. “Hi,” he said, “I’m glad I bumped into you. I just saw Rei’s report, he’s your uncle, right? Do you know which way he went? I was hoping to talk to him.”
“About what?” Mawei asked.
“Humans.” He said. “Do you know where he went?”
“I just saw him a moment ago, he was heading southwest.” Mawei said, giving Ruffer the wrong direction. “You’d better hurry if you want to catch up with him.”
“Thanks.” Ruffer said. Mawei started to leave but he stopped her. “Wait, I forgot your name.”
“I’m Mawei.”
“Oh right, Mawei. I’m Ruffer.”
“You’ll have to run to catch him.” Mawei said. “Just head that way.” She pointed southwest and he thanked her again and ran off. She started running too, south toward Helena. Her uncle, who was often praised for his intelligence, had brought the little human to a Gather and left her high up in a tree, all alone. Mawei wondered how someone could be highly intelligent in their thoughts and words, and at the same time incredibly stupid in their actions.