King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (32 page)

“What
was the key?”

“This is strictly between you and me, Miggot. It’s a long poem thing called the Memorizer’s Apothegm. Very long, and pretentious too. It starts off ‘Out of the wombs of the Tin Mothers . . .’ And it gets worse. If I didn’t know better, I’d think my father invented it himself. You know what he’s like. Anyway, it took a long time to learn. But when I’d mastered it—the very first time I was able to repeat it without a mistake—I could suddenly remember all kinds of things, going right back to the spacebat and the kikihuahuas!”

“So,” said the Miggot, now thoroughly interested, “you’re suggesting there might also be an apothegm for filth?”

“I prefer to think of it as a
sexual
apothegm, Miggot, because I’ve never really been able to think of sex as filth. To me filth is what gathers in the corners of the room, and under the bed, and on my father’s shoulders.”

“Well, that’s exactly what sex is like. Sex and your father’s shoulders have a lot in common. But I’ve always been an open-minded gnome, Fang, and I can see what you’re talking about. I just have to make a very difficult mental switch, that’s all.” He screwed up his eyes and concentrated for a moment. “No. It’s no good. I can’t make it.”

“But you will, when you’ve learned the sexual apothegm.”

“Why should I want to learn the sexual apothegm?” asked the Miggot, surprised.

“If every gnome in the forest learned it, our race would be saved! We must multiply or die, Miggot!”

There was a long silence while the Miggot chewed thoughtfully on a lump of charcoal he’d picked from the root. At last he said, “Even if you knew it, Fang … you don’t know it, do you?”

“No, but I intend to search my memory for it. It must be there somewhere.”

“Even if you knew it, I wouldn’t want to learn it. And neither would anyone else. Nobody could be persuaded to learn a poem that would open their minds to unbounded filth.”

“But suppose
they didn’t
know
it would open their minds to unbounded filth? Suppose they thought it was just a poem? Suppose the Memorizer’s Apothegm doesn’t need to be long? Suppose the essence is short, but generations of Memorizers expanded it with their love of ceremony. And to make sure someone didn’t learn it by accident. The original sexual apothegm could be just a few simple words.”

“It might work. It just might work!” The Miggot rubbed his hands together in gathering glee. “Yes! It’s a brilliant idea, Fang! You could make it into a poem yourself, and teach it to everyone at the next Memorizing meeting! Everyone except me, of course.”

“If I can find it in my memory to start with,” said Fang, suddenly doubtful.

“Perhaps it’s just not in there,” said Fang, despairing, returning to the present after yet another exploration within his mind.

“You’ll find it,” said the Princess, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead. “You always succeed in the end. You’re that kind of gnome, Fang.”

“I never found out how to get to the spacebat.”

“Perhaps you weren’t intended to. If a poem can unlock secret memories, then other things could. The sight of a comet. A particular event. The key could be something that hasn’t happened yet. But when it happens, suddenly we’ll know what to do.”

“Perhaps the key to sex hasn’t happened yet.”

“It has. It’s in there somewhere. It must be, because your ancestors and mine discovered it—otherwise we wouldn’t enjoy making love so much.”

“I never thought of that.” He smiled briefly before sinking into gloom again. “No. It can’t be right. You can’t tell me the Gooligog ever enjoyed sex.”

“These things can skip a generation.”

“You’re right!” He cheered up. “Pass me a beer, love, and I’ll try again. Just keep the children quiet for a while, please.”

Once
again Fang dug into his memories.

The witch Avalona was everywhere. At one point in the distant past she had so terrified a gnomish Memorizer called Tremor that subsequent Memorizers had found it almost impossible to educe historical events before Tremor’s time. Fang had conquered that particular fear long ago, however, and slipped easily past.

The events he explored were largely the result of formal Memorizing sessions, although many originated from past Memorizers’ personal recollections. A Memorizer couldn’t help but stamp his mark on gnomish history. The memories tended to be arranged in chains by subject matter. Since the chains naturally moved forward in time, Fang had to go back long before the chain arose, pick a promising subject, then follow it forward. Sometimes the chains simply petered out, leaving him in a void; and sometimes they divided off like happentracks, forcing him to make a choice. It was tedious work.

Occasionally he came upon familiar ground. One ancient Memorizer obviously fancied himself as a teacher, and in addition to Memorizing sessions, he held classes in history.
A group of young gnomes sitting on the ground, looking up attentively, appeared in Fang’s mind’s eye. He’d never seen so many gnome-children together before: it was a strange and moving sight. The teacher was relating the fable of the Bat and the Grasshopper, which Fang remembered hearing from his mother long ago.
For a while Fang followed the teacher’s memory line; then abruptly it ceased.

He educed backward again. He paused during the short period when gnomes spoke the ancient kikihuahua tongue, and listened to Avalona teaching them English for her own purposes. No humans were visible in any of these memories. Their happentrack was far removed.

Then suddenly he found himself in the spacebat, and his memories were those of the kikihuahuas. He’d learned their language some years previously. Monkey-shaped creatures, gnome-sized, they trotted
around busily in the dim interior of their huge organic ship. There was never a clue as to how they transported the gnomes to Earth, or how the gnomes were to be brought back. They chattered and worked their genetic miracles, while others slept the centuries away, lulled into hibernation with batmilk.

Impatient, Fang moved rapidly back to the early days of the spacebat. An incomprehensible number of centuries ago, he stepped onto the kikihuahuas’ home planet.

One again he met the Tin Mothers.

Perfect robots, they were as intelligent as their masters the kikihuahuas, and they could reproduce themselves. The kikihuahuas lay around in luxury while the Tin Mothers looked after them. It was an idyllic existence; but, as always, there were malcontents.

Aoli was tired of machines. He began to experiment in a new field, watched benevolently by the Tin Mothers.

Genetic engineering. It’s the only scientific field where some kind of machine is not the ultimate objective.

What is your ultimate objective, then?

To get rid of machines altogether.

And, lying on his deathbed, Aoli had enunciated the code that became known throughout the galaxy as the Kikihuahua Examples.

I’m not saying it’s possible to live in accordance with these Examples at present, 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 its most precious natural resource is the genes of living cells. We will be teaching perfection.

And a thousand years later, a large number of kikihuahuas left their planet and began to roam the galaxy in spacebats with thousand-mile wingspans, leaving the Tin Mothers on the home planet, wondering where they had gone wrong.

Fang had educed it all before, but it was a fascinating study. He never tired of the interior of the spacebat and the life of the
kikihuahuas; it was in his blood. Moving forward, he eavesdropped on another ancient conversation.

We must now select the characteristics of our initial colonization party.

It was a kikihuahua called Ou-Ou speaking. Fang snapped to attention so quickly that the Princess, watching him, put an arm around his shoulders and eased him into a more relaxed position.

First, the form our colonist will take. Obviously it should be a biped, like this.
An apelike creature appeared in Fang’s mind’s eye.
Although it needn’t be so big. A smaller form would be more economical. It will have an intelligence equal to our own. It must reproduce sexually in order to fit in with the current state of evolution on our new planet. Two sexes. Now, that should provide our designers with something to think about. Of course, the creature will need to be considerably more aggressive than we are.

Aggressive?

There are frightful monsters down there. Our representative must be able to defend himself. To do this he must have certain innate characteristics.

Like what?

Like not submitting himself readily for slaughter when attacked. Like having the ability to make himself a few simple weapons, to beat off predators. Like kindling the Wrath of Agni occasionally, to frighten off night prowlers.

You’re saying that our representative should contravene every single Example.

Or die.

The subsequent argument was heated by kikihuahua standards, and Fang followed it avidly, knowing he was coming close to his goal. An ancient Memorizer named Offo swayed the meeting by recalling several instances when the Examples had been broken in the name of colonization. The discussion became more specific.

A creature so powerful would be in danger of taking over the world. It would create a huge and intricate society, and we would suddenly find that our advance party had become colonists themselves, and would refuse to come back to the bat.

Only if
they are allowed to breed freely.

But that’s exactly what sexual creatures do.

Not if we inhibit them.

Then they would become extinct in a very short time.

Not if we make the sexual act a duty instead of a pleasure. Like all advance parties, their whole lives will be governed by a set of duties, one of which will be occasional reproduction.

That makes sense. But how shall we make sure the inhibition can be removed if their numbers fall dangerously low? It would be pointless if they became extinct down there, and there was nobody left to report back. We wouldn’t know whether they had succeeded or failed.

It will be their duty to recognize such a situation. I suggest that they should also consciously recognize these elements before proceeding further:

•
that they are in real danger of extinction,

•
that their physical form has proved satisfactory,

•
that there is no shortage of habitable land for expansion,

•
that the incentive to procreation is a last resort, and

•
that having used it, they must return to the spacebat within fifteen Earth years, or die.

That last element. That’s a little drastic, isn’t it?

If we did not insist on that, their population could recover exponentially, and we would be faced again with our original dilemma. All we want is that they should prepare the Earth for the eventual colonists, and report back to us when the job is done. Fifteen years of unlimited procreation will be long enough to restore a satisfactory memory pool. It should more than double their population, if I know sexual creatures.

Has it ever occurred to you how lucky we kikihuahuas are, Afah, to have eliminated sexual reproduction from our genetic makeup?

Fang opened
his eyes. “I think I’ve got it,” he said. “It’s just a question of knowing a collection of facts, and thinking about them all at the same time.” The children, released from bondage, began to expend their surplus energy around the burrow. Fang watched them and the Princess for a moment, a deep sadness within him. “But if we go ahead with this, we’ll have to leave Earth fifteen years from now. That’ll mean leaving all this—our home, gnomedom, Nyneve, everything—and going to live in a huge, dark thing with walls made of flesh.”

“But supposing we didn’t? Supposing we refused to go?”

“Then I think there’s some kind of metabolic switch in us that would just click off.”

The Princess was silent for a long time. At last she said, “It’s our duty, Fang.”

“My father was a good gnome!” announced Fang.

“
Is
a good gnome, you mean,” said Elmera. “He’s not dead yet.”

“I mean
was
,” Fang explained, “in the sense that he is no longer our Memorizer. Or a member of our village.”

“The bugger ran out on us!” shouted the Miggot. “Always remember that, Elmera!”

The regular Memorizing meeting was in session and, as usual, was getting offtrack. As a quarrel broke out between the Miggot and his wife, Fang tried again.

“I have the greatest respect for my father and his methods, but you will have noticed that I’ve made some changes to our Memorizing meetings over the years. Our proceedings are less formal. People can speak out more.”

“Why don’t you do the job properly?” Elmera asked.

“Properly?”

“Like your father used to. The robe. The incense. The wand and the mumbo jumbo. It was more of an occasion when your father did it. I like to see a bit of ceremony. A bit of respect for gnomish traditions.”

“You should
respect me for myself,” said Fang.

There was a roar of gnomish laughter.

“Well, anyway,” shouted Fang, becoming annoyed, “I’m making another change. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a Memorizing session should be a two-way exchange. You will continue to give me your items for Memorizing but I, in return, will relate to you interesting events from the past. We all need to know more about our gnomish culture. It’s something the beach gnomes seem to have forgotten entirely.”

There was a buzz of interest.

“I was examining my memory only last night,” said Fang, “and I came across a fascinating story that you may not know. Settle yourselves down, gnomes, and I’ll tell it to you.”

The gnomes relaxed happily against the roots of the blasted oak. They liked being told stories. It was much better than having to think. And so Fang had a receptive audience as he related the fable of the Bat and the Grasshopper.