Nidorian 02a
(1956)*
Astounding Science Fiction – June 1956
Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg
(as Robert Randall)
The shortfiction stories The Chosen People, The Promised Land, and False Prophet were expanded in a fix-up titled The Shrouded Planet(1957)
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The essential trick in getting a puppet to stand on its own feet is to pull the strings so delicately it never learns it isn't!
THE hard, savage mandibles of the hugl slashed at Kiv peGanz Brajjyd and missed. Kiv jerked his hand out of the beast's way just in time. Again the hugl lashed out—and this time, it connected. The powerful jaws came together, and Kiv's blood spurted down over the monster's head.
"Damn!" Kiv snapped, irritated.
The animal's little teeth had taken a nasty bite out of the ball of Kiv's thumb. Before it could snap again, Kiv dropped the animal into the little wooden box he usually carried with him for just this purpose and clicked the lid shut.
"Bite you?" Narla asked.
"Yes. Nasty little beast," Kiv said without rancor. "I should have learned how to handle them by now. If they're all as hungry as this one, I can see why they're having so much trouble with them on the northern farms."
He turned the box over. The bottom, which was made of glass, permitted him to see the hugl. Clashing its jaws, the inch long creature scrambled madly around the inside of the hard, plastic-impregnated box.
Narla iKiv geFulda Sesom, who had only recently been privileged to add the "iKiv" to her name, looked with interest at the little box in her husband's band.
"What's so different about it, Kiv?" she asked.
"The armor," he told her. "It's black. I've never seen a black one before. All of the specimens I have at the School are brown." He wrapped his pocket kerchief around the nipped thumb and tied it.
"Take this, will you?" Kiv handed the box up to her, and she stared at it curiously. He dug his high-heeled riding boot into the stirrup and pulled himself up to the saddle.
"Jones will be interested in that specimen," Kiv said, as they guided their deests out of the roadside thicket where they had paused for midmeal. "Put it in the saddlebag," he told her. "And be sure to remind me to show it to Jones as soon as we're back at the School.
She nodded and reached back obediently to stow the box in the leather pouch. Kiv felt a glow of pure pleasure as he watched the smooth play of her muscles under the fine golden down that covered her skin. Since she was clad as she was, in the traditional Nidorian dress—sleeveless vest and thigh-length shorts—he had no thought about the beauty of her clothing; it was her own beauty he saw. She might not be the most beautiful girl on Nidor, but she approached Kiv's ideal so closely as to be almost indistinguishable from it
He tipped his head back and squinted at the eternally clouded sky. The Great Light was almost at His brightest, spreading His effulgence magnificently over the green countryside. It was little after midday.
The Earthman, Jones, said that the Great Light was a "blue-white star." Just what a star was, Kiv didn't know; they were supposed to be above the cloud layer. Some of the things Jones said didn't make much sense, Kiv thought.
"We've got about an hour's ride ahead of us," he said. "We should be getting along. I can't wait to see the School again; this vacation seemed to last forever."
"You've been terribly anxious to get back to work, haven't you, Kiv? I felt it all the time you were home. You seemed so anxious to leave that I almost apologized to your parents."
"The School is very important to me, Narla; you know that. It's a great honor to be chosen to study with the Earthmen."
"Of course, silly. I know."
He snapped the reins, and his deest broke into a smooth trot. Narla's mount kept pace easily with him.
"How long will it be before you write your book?" she asked. "I mean, do you think you'll be able to get the rest of your information during the next term? It seems to me that you've covered all there is to cover on the hugl already."
Kiv nodded. "I think I'm nearly done. It's going to be a rather scholarly thing, I'm afraid; no one is too interested in the life cycle of the hugl. If anyone were, he would have done the job years ago."
"I know. But even if your work isn't terribly consequential, it's still good training for you," Narla said. "As the Scripture says, 'The observation of life permits one to attain an inner peace.'
Kiv frowned. "I'm not sure the Scripture means that. I don't think it means lower forms of life.
"Don't be silly, Kiv. It says 'life,' doesn't it? And if a hugl isn't alive, I don't know what it is."
Kiv was silent for a while, resting easily in the saddle while the swift pace of the deest carried him over the matted turf of the road.
"It may be so," he said finally. "Certainly Jones was all in favor of my studying the hugl for my book. And I don't think Jones would permit anything that violated the Word of the Scripture. Hoy! What's that?"
Narla, startled by his sudden change of tone, glanced quickly at him. Kiv was pointing down the road with one golden arm outstretched.
Someone was standing in the middle of the road, just where it forked. As their deests drew nearer, they saw that it was a man in the familiar blue tunic of a priest. He held up his hand as Kiv and his wife approached. The two riders pulled their animals to a halt and bowed their heads reverently.
"The peace of your Ancestors be with you always," said the priest ritually.
"And may the Great Light illumine your mind as He does the world, Grandfather," Kiv and Narla chanted together.
"How may we serve you, Grandfather?" Kiv asked.
"Did you intend to cross the Bridge of Klid?" the priest inquired.
Kiv nodded. He took careful notice of the other man. The priest was not much older than Kiv himself, but his bearing had all the dignity that was proper to his office.
"We were going to use the bridge, yes," Kiv confirmed.
The Grandfather shook his head. "I'm afraid you'll have to use the Bridge of Gon and go through the city, my son. The Bridge of Klid is being repaired.
Kiv barely managed to conceal a frown. Another delay! And, of course, the proper thing for him to do would be to offer his services in the repair work. He began to think he would never get back to the School.
"If you would do so," the priest said, "it would be appreciated if you could go to the nearest communicator and tell the City Fathers that we need more men to help repair the bridge. Give them my name: Dom peBril Sesom."
"I'll be glad to. What happened, Grandfather?"
"A section of the roadbed near the center has collapsed. We want to get the job done before the evening traffic begins."
"I see," said Kiv. "Very well, Grandfather. My wife and I will go on to the city and get hold of a communicator. Then I'll come back and help you build. My wife can go on to the School."
"The School?" The Grandfather looked politely astonished. "Are you, then, students at the Bel-rogas School?"
"We are, Grandfather."
"Then I cannot permit you to work on the bridge," he said. "Your studies are of greater importance. Any man can work on a bridge; only a few can assimilate the Scriptures and the Law—and even fewer are worthy of studying at Bel-rogas. Go and give my message to the City Fathers and then go on to the School."
"Very well, Grandfather," Kiv agreed.
The priest raised his hand in benediction. "Go, with the blessings of the Great Light, and Those Who have passed on to His realm."
Kiv and Narla turned their deests and took the southern branch of the road toward the great city of Gelusar, a long ribbon of road curling through the gray-green farmlands.
"Nuisance," Narla said.
"What is?" Kiv asked pleasantly.
"This business of treating us as if we were likely to melt in the first rainfall. Did you see the way he looked at you when you said we were from the School? 'Your studies are of greater importance,'" she mimicked. " 'I cannot permit you to work on the bridge.' And I'll wager that's what you wanted him to say, too. You didn't want to work on that bridge, but you had to offer for the sake of courtesy. You just want to get back to Jones and the School."
"Narla!" He speared her with an angry glance. "When a Grandfather tells you something—"
"I know," she said, crestfallen. "I'm sorry."
They rode on in silence for a while. The road to the Bridge of Gon was a narrow, winding one, and Kiv's deest required considerable guiding at each turn. A stupid animal, Kiv reflected, as for what seemed the twentieth time in the last ten minutes he put pressure on the reins to turn the deest.
"Narla?" he said after a while. "Narla, that's the second time I've heard you question a Grandfather's instructions since we left my parents. And I don't like it—not at all."
"I'm sorry, I told you. Why can't you leave it at that?"
"But the tone of your voice when you mimicked him," Kiv protested. "Don't you know what respect means, Narla?"
"All I wanted to know was why we're so sacred, that's all," she said impatiently. "As soon as he found out we were from the School, we were suddenly too important to help repair the bridge. Why?"
"Because we've been chosen, Narla. Jones and the other Earthmen have come from the sky—from the stars, Jones says, whatever they are—from the Great Light Himself, for all we know. They're here to teach, and we must learn. Only a few are chosen. And the Law, Narla—that's what's important. Grandfather told you: anyone can fix a bridge. We're special."
"I'm sorry," she said a third time. "I'm only a woman. I don't understand these things."
Be patient, Kiv thought. Patience and understanding, that's what a woman needs.
After a long spell of hard riding, they eased up on their tired deests to rest them for the final lap of the journey.
Narla had said nothing all this time. Finally she asked: "Is Jones really from the sky? I mean, is it true that the Earthmen come from the Great Light?"
She keeps asking questions like a small child who's too impatient to sit still, Kiv thought. It's been a long trip; she's tired.
"I don't know," he said, keeping his voice quiet and matter-of-fact. "I don't see how they could come from Nidor, and the Grandfathers tell us that the Earthmen do not lie. The Grandfathers have accepted the Earthmen."
"And there, we accept them," Narla completed.
"Of course," said Kiv.
And then the first scattered outskirts of the City of Gelusar came into sight.
They rode into Holy Gelusar—founded by the Great Light Himself! The vast, sprawling city was the center of all Nidorian culture. For two thousand and more years, it had stood almost unchanged, spreading out radially from its center, the Grand Temple, where the mighty Council of Sixteen Elders ruled the world of Nidor according to the Scripture and the Law.
Kiv and Narla guided their deests through a crowded thoroughfare that led toward the heart of the city, looking for a public communicator. They finally found one near a shabby little side street that shot off toward the river. Kiv dismounted and went in.
There was a chubby little man behind the counter who took Kiv's request.
"This is a local call, then, not long distance." The little man was talking to himself more than to Kiv. "That will be three weights and four."
Kiv paid the attendant, walked over to the booth, and closed the door. Then he picked up the microphone and flipped the switch. ;
"Communications central," said a voice from the speaker.
"This is Kiv peGanz Brajjyd. I want to give a message to the Uncle of Public Works."
"One moment." Kiv heard a series of clicks over the speaker, and then a new voice spoke.
"Office of Public Works. What is it, please?"
...
allforjesus2001