The Totems of Abydos Read online

  Brenner eagerly unbuckled his own webbing and, in a moment, had joined Rodriguez at the port.

  Some said it was the only way to see the stars, from such a perspective, within deep space, outside the distorting effects of an atmosphere, preferably at a sublight velocity. They were now at such a velocity, of course, having been decelerating for more than three Commonworld rotations, or Commonworld days. They were on their approach to Abydos.

  “There it is,” said Rodriguez, pointing.

  “Abydos?” asked Brenner.

  “Her sun,” said Rodriguez, patiently.

  Of course,” said Brenner.

  It was natural for Rodriguez to have spoken of the star whose satellite was Abydos as “her sun.” Both Rodriguez and Brenner, and many of their kind, particularly those who had undertaken long voyages on dark, empty seas, tended to think of worlds in the feminine gender. Even some of their species whose archaic languages might have prescribed differently in this respect, as they had entered space, had adopted this custom. The world, far off, gleaming, beckoning, was the hearth against cold, the shelter against storms and loneliness, the haven, the home, the harbor, the precious thing, the womb of life, the platform of her strivings or ineffectualities, of her choices, of histories, and of refusals of history. It was in this sense then, as the light in the window, as the harbor, as the home, arrival at which betokened the end of long journeys, as the vast mysterious matrix from which consciousness and curiosity, and meaningfulness, had emerged, that one might think of the world in the feminine gender, or, more simply, as the mother. To those who might think of worlds as mineralogical curiosities, consequent upon remote condensations, living upon their familiar surfaces, but not really seeing them, they might continue to be “it.” To those who viewed them from space, however, they would remain “she.”

  “It is on Abydos,” said Rodriguez, “that I hope to find out something.”

  Brenner looked into the night.

  “It is not much, of course,” said Rodriguez. “It is not the key to the universe, or anything. It is only a little something that I have been curious about, for a long time.”

  “The beginning?” asked Brenner, recollecting something from earlier, not clearly grasped.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez. “How it started, what it all means, what it is all about, so to speak.”

  “You should have gone into cosmology,” said Brenner.

  “Oh, no,” said Rodriguez. “I am not talking about those walls, against which so many heads have been bloodied, about the worlds, the metaworlds, the metatimes, and, at the end, the mystery met with once more, concealed beneath yet another mask. No, no. I am talking about a small problem, about something which may well have an answer, even a discoverable one.”

  “Perhaps in the end there is no answer,” said Brenner. “Perhaps in the end there is nothing.”

  “I will not accept that,” said Rodriguez.

  “You have considered the possibility, I trust,” said Brenner, not pleasantly, “that reality may not be much concerned about what you are or are not willing to accept.”

  “I only want to know a little thing,” said Rodriguez. “I am not an ambitious man.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I would like to understand myself,” said Rodriguez, “who I am, who we are, how we came to be as we are, what my species is, how it came to be as it is, what it is all about.”

  Brenner thought it possible that there might an answer to that question, at least if it were subjected to certain clarifications. It was another question, of course, as to whether such an answer could be found. It was, he speculated, much like trying to discover the origin of a custom, or a practice, what it meant, or what it used to mean, or what it might mean now. Certainly anthropologists could speculate on such matters, and might, indeed, hit upon correct answers, even if they would never be able to demonstrate their correctness. To be sure, it seemed as if Rodriguez might have something in mind which was more primitive, more fundamental, than a given custom or practice, or even a constellation of such.

  “Hitherto,” said Rodriguez, “as it is said, we have only been picking up shells on the beach.”

  “That is worthwhile,” said Brenner.

  “But where have the shells come from?” asked Rodriguez. “Surely you have wondered about that. What lies behind them?”

  “You wish to see the sea?” smiled Brenner.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez. “I wish to see the sea.”

  “Perhaps the origin is not the sea,” said Brenner, “but an artifact, or a deed.”

  “The first firebrand, snatched from a flaming forest, the stone knife, the social compact?” said Rodriguez.

  “Let us be content to pick up shells, and describe them,” said Brenner.

  Rodriguez was silent.

  “Surely you do not think to find what you seek on Abydos,” said Brenner.

  “What I seek lies everywhere, I think, but it is feared, and lies well hidden,” said Rodriguez.

  “And you hope to find it on Abydos?”

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez. “I hope to find it on Abydos.”

  “It would be less hidden there?” asked Brenner.

  “I think so,” said Rodriguez.

  “That seems a strange place to search for a secret local to our species,” said Brenner.

  “I am interested in this, of course, for its pertinence to our species,” said Rodriguez. “That is my personal motivation, self-regarding as you might expect. But I think it lies at the root not only of our species, but perhaps at the root of a billion others, perhaps, in one form or another, at the root of all.”

  “All?” asked Brenner.

  “Those of interest to our science,” said Rodriguez.

  “Those who have attained some form of culture?” said Brenner.

  “Yes,” said Rodriguez, “those capable of standing at crossroads, those who have sundered the bonds of elementary circuitries, those who are no longer simple, who are no longer like rain and wind, those who have put behind them the innocence of the barracuda, those who have discovered choice, and questions.”

  “There is nothing important on Abydos,” said Brenner.

  “Why did you come?” asked Rodriguez. “Why did you not protest your assignment? Surely you had not expended your set of refusal rights.”

  “It gave me an opportunity to step off the porch,” said Brenner, “to see the stars.”

  “You should not have come,” said Rodriguez. “There is nothing for you on Abydos.”

  “I might find a shell or two,” said Brenner.

  “I am intrigued by Abydos,” said Rodriguez. “On Abydos is to be found one of the few remaining, and perhaps the most pure, of the totemic cultures.”

  “It is known only by a footnote in old texts,” said Brenner. He had, of course, as far as he could, in the university retrieval system, researched the matter.

  “Also in company records, of course,” said Rodriguez.

  Brenner’s visage clouded. Such records, of course, would not be in the university’s library. Indeed, most of the corporations were rather secretive about records, or at least their personal records, as opposed to their official records, readily available for public review.

  “The totemic cultures,” said Rodriguez, “are the oldest known to our species. They lie not only before civilizations as we know them today, but even before earlier civilizations. They are older even than the gods and the heroes. They may be at the beginning itself.”

  The theme here, of course, was a common one to anthropology, the thesis that the earlier stages of more complex civilizations may be discovered in more primitive cultures. In the examination of such cultures, for example, in a consideration of their customs and beliefs, their monuments and tools, their works, ways, and traditions, their stories, their songs, their drawings, their legends and myths, their religions and sciences, their feelings, there might be found, in such rubble, so to speak, the origins and meanings, perhaps elab
orated or distorted, of more complex modern forms. And, to be sure, there seemed little doubt that many such remnants, or relics, of one sort or another, sometimes primitive, if not actually embarrassing, lingered into more enlightened eras. To be frank, of course, much of this was controversial, for a number of reasons, and it must be pointed out, as well, that it was not always clear as to whether a culture was truly primitive or not. For example, a culture which had achieved no technology other than what might be attained with a hammer and a blade might be as old in its way, and have a history, however quiescent, behind it as ancient as that of the most advanced star world, routinely exploiting triumphs in hyperspace navigation. Too, of course, even totemic institutions might develop, undergoing various refinements and elaborations. Accordingly, one might even distinguish between, say, primitive totemisms and, so to speak, developed, or advanced, totemisms.

  Brenner did not respond to Rodriguez. He was familiar with such matters, and speculations, of course. Rather he was enrapt with the vistas before him, and reminded himself that he was, in a sense, looking backward into the past, and that many of the lights which he saw, as those which he had seen from the surface of the home world, had begun their journeys thousands upon thousands of years ago. The light of the sun of Abydos, on the other hand, had begun its journey but a moment past. Astronomically, on standardized star charts, the sun of Abydos was identified by its catalog number, and the identificatory numbers of Abydos and its satellites, if it had had them, would have been indexed to this same number. For example, although the number of the sun of Abydos had several digits, let us suppose that its number was as simple as 17. The number of Abydos, then, would have been 17.3. You would then know that Abydos was the third planet from its star. If Abydos had had satellites, say, three of them, and we wished to refer to the second of them, figuring outward from the parent body, in this case Abydos herself, it would have been identified as 17.3.2. Abydos, on the other hand, as we have mentioned, had no satellites. It had once, incidentally, had a satellite but it, a long time ago, had been fragmented and removed from its orbit, in connection with a mining operation conducted by an advanced star world, which had need of its materials. The operation was a legitimate one, unlike certain shadowy operations conducted here and there in the galaxy, having been cleared with, and approved by, appropriate authorities.

  “How glorious are the suns, and worlds!” exclaimed Rodriguez.

  “Yes,” said Brenner.

  There was something awesome, and beautiful, and terrible, about the universe, about space, the stars, the worlds, the grandness of it, the mystery of it.

  In this portion of the galaxy, with the naked eye, from the perspective of the port, one could see several thousand stars.

  The night of space blazed with the light of these myriads of far-flung mornings.

  Some sixty-two percent, or so, statistically, of the visible stars in this portion of the galaxy controlled the orbit of one or more habitable worlds, on most of which, given customary interactions, life had actually developed, expressing itself in one set of forms or another. And Abydos, it might be added, did not lie near the populous center of the galaxy. Its location, rather, was somewhat more toward the periphery.

  “What do you know about the Pons?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Very little is known about them, as far as I have been able to determine,” said Brenner. “They are extremely simple, extremely primitive. They lack even pottery. They are small, timid, furtive, isolated, few in number, and given to secrecy. We may expect, of course, the usual features of a totemic complexus, in particular, the reverencing of the totemic animal and exogamy.”

  “Company records provide further information,” said Rodriguez, “but nothing much of scientific interest. Pons occasionally, individually, or in small delegations, have in the past, at certain intervals, made contact with company employees, usually at Company Station, for purposes of trade, exchanging gathered forest products, commonly pods of various sorts, for diverse manufactured articles, in particular, a small metallic tool manufactured to their specifications, called a scarp, used for a variety of purposes.”

  “They do not have any native metallurgical capability?” asked Brenner.

  “One gathers not,” said Rodriguez.

  “They live near Company Station?” said Brenner.

  “No,” said Rodriguez. “They live somewhere back in the forests.”

  Brenner looked at him, startled.

  Rodriguez nodded, and returned his attention to the stars.

  “You are familiar with the eco-profiles of the forests?” said Brenner.

  “Of course,” said Rodriguez.

  Even surveying crews from Company Station, it seems, had seldom penetrated far into the adjacent forests. To be sure, parts of them had been flown over in various cars, rovers, vans and such. And they had been extensively surveyed from orbit. The probes however had revealed little of mineralogical interest. The temperate latitudes of Abydos, in both hemispheres, were heavily forested, usually with varieties of deeply rooted, seasonally foliaged trees. Brenner’s surprise was occasioned primarily by his recollection of the eco-profiles of the forested areas, which suggested a rich variety of fauna, several of which, given their natural camouflage and predatory habits, might be supposed to be distinctly unpleasant.

  “And,” added Rodriguez, “the Pons eschew weapons.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” said Brenner.

  “You will like them,” said Rodriguez. “They are your sort of people. They are amongst the most innocent, kindly, humble, harmless, and inoffensive creatures in the galaxy.”

  “How do they live in the forest?” asked Brenner.

  “They have apparently done so for thousands of years,” said Rodriguez.

  “Apparently there is something to totemism,” said Brenner.

  “One gathers so,” laughed Rodriguez.

  As this was a joke which is likely to be obscure to those not of Rodriguez’ and Brenner’s field, I shall, with your permission, explain it. The relation between the totem and the totemic group is complex but it is usually understood that the totemic animal, perhaps in exchange for certain considerations, such as veneration and honor, and in the light of the special relation in which it stands to the group, understood as that of father and ancestor, will provide certain services to the totemic group, its children, for example, that it will look after their welfare, that it may be inform them of the future, and so on.

  “What is the totemic animal of the Pons?” asked Brenner.

  “A very fitting one,” said Rodriguez. “The Abydian mouse.”

  “That?” asked Brenner. We may think of the Abydian ground git, or as it sometimes referred to, the Abydian mouse, as a small, stub-tailed rodent. That seems reasonable, given its habits and the nature of its incisors, which continue to grow during its lifetime, necessitating their reduction by gnawing. The git is primarily herbivorous, but is not above scavenging, and often cleans the bones of prey abandoned by larger animals, bones which it can climb, and cling to, with its tiny, clawed feet; the ground git, incidentally, is not to be confused with the tree git, a similar sort of animal, but one which has skin stretched between the front and hind legs on each side, which enables it to glide from tree to tree, and swoop down on food sites; sometimes there is an sudden, small, dry sound, like a tiny, firm clack, and one turns about and finds one clinging to, say, the exposed rib of a fallen animal; the tree gits usually nest in dead trees, and the ground gits usually nest in burrows; both are almost always black in color, which coloration blends in with the dark “greenery” of Abydos, so efficient in light-energy absorption. They are small creatures, both the ground and tree git, and might be held in one of Rodriguez’ or Brenner’s hands, usually weighing between one hundred and one hundred and fifty grams.

  “Have you kept up with your exercises?” asked Rodriguez.

  “Yes,” said Brenner. The ship did not, like some of the more impressive ships, sphere, wheel and
cylinder ships, provide an artificial gravity in virtue of rotation. At certain points on such ships, for example, on the equatorial deck of a simple sphere ship, or at the circumference of a simple wheel or cylinder ship, one might think oneself, in a careless moment, on one’s native world. The force of the artificial gravity, of course, by means of controlling the rotational speed, could be indexed to a diversity of home-world masses. On this ship, however, Brenner had attempted to resist the deconditioning which was such a natural concomitant of long-term exposure to low-gravity conditions by more direct and mechanical means, by recourse to special apparatus integral to his cabin, an apparatus consisting of harnesses, hand grips, pedals and such, attached to resistant springs. The captain, and his crew, in their own quarters, incidentally, had similar devices, adapted to their particular physiques. Even so, an adjustment was almost always required after debarkation.

  “I am puzzled to know how this contact came about,” said Brenner. “That was never explained to me.”

  “That is an excellent question,” said Rodriguez. “I shall tell you what I know. We, of the home world, you understand, have known obscurely of the Pons for hundreds of years. They were often thought extinct. Company Station, built on the sites of previous camps, exploration base camps, navigational beacons, outposts for early-warning systems, neutral trading points agreed upon by diverse systems not wishing to risk contamination of their own worlds, and such, is itself, as you know, more than four hundred years old. Indeed, the Pons are well hidden in their forest. The agents at Company Station did not even learn of their existence until more than a hundred years after the founding of the town. The second contact occurred some one hundred years later. In the meantime it had been conjectured the Pons had perished. Recently, however, in the last hundred years, there have been more recent contacts, perhaps as many as two dozen in that time.”