The Totems of Abydos Read Online Free Page B

said Brenner.
    “True,” said Rodriguez. “All are the same size, by fiat. No one is small, no one is weak, no one is stupid, no one is petty, no one is futile, no one is failed, all are marvelous, and wonderful, and precious, and, a statistical anomaly, all are the same size, except that the smallest are the best, the noblest, and the largest.”
    “Do not be bitter,” said Brenner. Difficulties of the sort to which Rodriguez might be alluding had been resolved on certain worlds by court rulings long ago, in particular, those having to do with the oneness and brotherhood of life, in which all life forms on a planet, without discrimination with respect to arbitrary placement on a phylogenetic scale, became citizens of the planet, their votes, in many cases, being cast by proxies. Needless to say, severe political conflicts had occurred over the control of these proxies.
    “Do you realize that most of the people you meet are dead?” asked Rodriquez.
    “Come now,” said Brenner.
    “Yes!” said Rodriguez.
    “I never noticed,” Brenner admitted.
    “They have never been alive,” said Rodriguez, wiping his face. An escaped droplet of Heimat, like a small, luminescent world floated toward the steel ceiling of the lounge. “And that is the same thing. Then, eventually, their bodies will cease to function and they will never even find out they were never alive. They will never have discovered they were never alive!”
    “They are alive,” said Brenner, moodily.
    “Yes, I suppose so, in a way,” said Rodriguez.
    “Certainly,” said Brenner.
    “Chemically,” said Rodriguez.
    “More than that,” said Brenner.
    “You are a humanist,” said Rodriguez.
    “A lifest,” said Brenner. The current conditioning programs instituted in most school systems had rendered the term ‘humanist’ odious, because of its ethnocentric connotations.
    “Yes,” said Rodriguez, thoughtfully. “They have their small glow.”
    “Certainly,” said Brenner.
    “Like the grub, and the flea,” he said.
    “Not at all,” said Brenner.
    “At one time,” said Brenner, “I courted death, for I thought to find her hand in hand with life. But I do so no longer now, for I am come to Abydos.”
    Brenner, who was young and blond, and innocent, and perhaps bright, regarded Rodriguez, puzzled.
    “In the end,” said Rodriguez, “do we not all come to Abydos?”
    “I have read your writings,” said Brenner.
    At this point in their conversation one of the panels in the lounge, some feet from the floor, slid back, it opening to the network of access spaces outside, leading even to the vast hold spaces, some of which were closed, and some open, with the cargo floating in its nets, and the engines, and the captain entered, unblinking, the long digits of his appendages spread, open, climbing across, adhering to it with a secretory fluid, what was to Rodriguez and Brenner, relative to their position and the placement of their webbing, the ceiling, and then down one wall until he rather squatted before them, his hind legs outstretched, only their nails in contact with the floor, the nails of the forward appendages, the digits widely spread, hovering in space. He exchanged pleasantries with the two passengers, who were his only passengers. He seldom had passengers and his ship, a medium-class freighter of the R-series, registry Noton II, with barges in tow, was designed neither for the accommodation or comfort of such and its route was one not likely be taken except by those who did so in the line of business. To be sure, these were not his first passengers. He had occasionally had Ellits, Bellarians, and the tiny Zevets aboard, generally prospectors and mining engineers. Also, he had sometimes had organisms of the sort of Rodriguez and Brenner. It was for such as these that four cabins had been welded onto the girderwork abutting certain closed holds and the small lounge, with its now-closed, shielded port, installed. The conversation, brief