speak to it for a few moments as it ate its meal. Afterwards, the emissary would take the empty pail and return to the ship.
I made it a practice to speak with the captive immediately after these visits, hoping to glean some information of substance about the intentions of our visitors and to probe the depths of the creature’s understanding of its own environment.
Ttch*lok, the captive’s own name, I learned, proved quite willing to converse with me, as anxious to learn about our ways as we of theirs. Ttch*lok told me a few things about his place in their society.
For one thing I learned that he was not a member of the ship’s crew but was merely a tool—a translating animal that had been trained for one and only one purpose.
“And what,” I asked, “is your destiny when that purpose is fulfilled? Will you then be permitted to be a citizen and recognized as an individual?”
Ttch*lok seemed horrified at my question. “Animals have no destiny,” he responded calmly, without a trace of fatalism. “I will die when my work is done.”
I wondered at his answer the rest of that day. Isn’t it reasonable that when a being achieves enough intelligence to understand its own death then it can also understand the concept of its own immortal soul?
I decided to discover the truth.
“We have been traveling for three crews,” the emissaries explained once Ttch*lok had mastered the rudiments of Italian enough to act as translator. Three crews would be nearly one hundred individual deaths. I shuddered at the thought of so many sacrificed merely to propel this ship to us and the casual way they used these losses to measure their voyage.
They’d started our way soon after hearing of our landing from their scouts, within a month of the arrival at least. “Quick reaction,” Al said in a worried aside.
“The Great Ones send their greetings to you,” the gold and black one continued. “They wish to know more of you and your ways. We few are their representatives and have been sent to grow in knowledge.”
The Great Ones, we learned through painful dialogue rife with misunderstandings on both sides, were apparently a group of ancient homaroids who had managed to survive long enough to amass great intellect and a large storehouse of knowledge. If only 20 percent was retained with each of their sheddings I wondered at the precious cultural knowledge that must be lost whenever they shed.
These intellectuals were, of necessity, highly reclusive. This characteristic would limit the amount of new things they would be exposed to, and reduce the need for frequent sloughing that would result from additional knowledge.
Another probable reason for their secretive ways was, I suspected, to protect themselves from becoming a feast of knowledge for some ambitious competitor.
The horrid prospect of knowing that others could gain a portion of your hard-won knowledge by eating your flesh as you slumbered awakened every horror story of wraiths and vampires that I had ever heard. How pitiable and constricted their lives, I thought, to always live in fear of those around you, afraid to challenge your mind or grow in knowledge because it would make you even more vulnerable. The thoughts of homaroid intellectuals gathering on the Via di Vita to discuss philosophy vanished like soap bubbles in the sunlight.
Because of their intellect the Great Ones also commanded vast resources and a coterie of lesser beings who provided protection and brought information to them. It would be the envoys’ purpose, I suddenly realized, to reduce this journey and knowledge of ourselves to digestible portions for their masters. I shuddered at the thought.
After a short debate when learning of our arrival, the Great Ones decided that contacting these strangers who had appeared on their world was worth the cost of growth.
Their ship had been dispatched within the week.
We watched with some curiosity as the crew of the ship rounded up a few of the smaller
The other units had been unleashed from the ship and tossed into the enclosure with the new victims. Whether as trainers for the others or as a food supply I could not imagine. Time would tell, I supposed with some sorrow, and said a blessing for their souls.
Each of the young homaroids had a line tied to one of their feelers and was led into the water. The crew would tug on the line as soon as the tail started to wiggle. Another tug and the other crew member would grab the tail to hold it still. This went on day after day, fifteen minutes per individual.
The mutilated ones meantime were searching the pen, learning their way about with their one feeler until they knew the boundaries of their enclosure. In time each began seeking a quiet place of refuge, usually one of the corners, to begin the process of softening and renewal.
I watched with gorge rising as each was quickly eaten by the others no sooner than the shell had softened.
“Fascinating adaptation,” Ed remarked as he leaned forward to observe the process better. “Not only are the originals a good source of food, but the ones eating them also gain some of the training as they eat, which makes their own training go faster. I would wager that the crew doubles the speed of teaching the new ones this way.”
“But why do they leave the new ones alone otherwise? They have not mutilated their sensory apparatus as yet.”
“ ‘Edited’ is the word to use, padre. And to answer your question—No, they probably won’t edit them until they’re the right size. I would guess that they do that during the hibernation of the softening so that the newly awakened ones know only the reins.” Ed thought for a moment, scratching his chin absently “Pretty clever, eh?”
Clever? I could think of other words to be used; words such as barbaric, gruesome, despicable, odious, atrocious, and unthinkable! Not to mention predatory and abominable. Yet none of these could adequately define the depth of the emotional reaction that I had for these hateful creatures and their vile practices.
III
Our sessions with the envoys had given us some insight into the workings of their society. They had no great aggregations that could be termed cities, for why should creatures who are so vulnerable choose to live close to their potential predators? Instead, each one who grew to adulthood built a secretive cave whose entrance was carefully hidden. Here they could shed their shells in security when the time came. Here they could hide from those who would use them.
With some shock I discovered that none of the envoys knew of their parentage. Sex for them was a spurt of eggs or semen in the springtime response to the tides. They had no emotional attachment to the free-swimming young homaroids that they used so abominably. Only those young who had achieved an educatable size and proven intelligence were brought into servitude.
It was likely then that these civilized beings preyed equally upon their own genetic heirs as well as others, using them as beasts and as food. It was Bentham’s worst nightmare come to life.
I also discovered that they had no concept of religion, no spiritual center to their life. My dialogue with Ttch*lok each evening became a ritual that followed his feeding. But now there was a purpose in my discussions, for, through him, I believed that I could regain the faith that I had lost. If I could have God speak to this creature then there was still grace in the Universe. And there was still hope for me.
I began to tell Ttch*lok of a spirituality through which he could hope to surmount the tether that bound him. I spoke of the virtues of a faultless life, and the certain rewards of the afterlife after the release of his soul. I spoke of a kind God and how he would reward those whose life was free from sin.
In time I believed that Ttch*lok began to comprehend and understand the possibility of his own salvation. I baptized him one night with a cupful of water from the nearby sea, as seemed appropriate at that time and place.
