And, “There is no sin inherent in any mind save the sin of pride in believing one has seen or been taught the absolute truth. The second greatest sin is refusing to search for the truth one must acknowledge one will never absolutely find.”
Her last and greatest commandment was said to be the words she had whispered to her favorite disciple just before she left. “Even when people are well-meaning, do not let them fool with your heads.”
So she taught, this old, old woman, before she got onto her dragon and went away through the Door once more. The first Baidee, the Low Baidee, were those who followed her teachings. That is how the Baidee began, and that is how they thought they had continued, century after century, cleaving always to the teaching of the prophetess. They still began their services with the first words the prophetess had spoken to them as a teaching. “This I say unto you, be not sexist pigs.”
The Primitive, or “Low,” Baidee still clung to the naive prophesy, claiming that Morgori had never meant to prohibit brain surgery and the techniques to cure mental illness, but only psychological manipulation, particularly religious cultism. The High Baidee, however, had carried the word forward, through generations of theological disputation and political manipulation. Over the centuries they had defined meaning and eliminated heresies and had set up a canon against which future innovations might be judged. Where the Low Baidee found a prohibition against sexual discrimination in the words of the prophetess (“be not sexist”), the male Scrutators of the High Baidee found a warning against bestial behavior (“be not pigs”). It was not long until bestial behavior was defined as consorting with the other kind, that is, the Low Baidee. Though the Low Baidee were at first the only people shunned, as a practical matter, the prohibition was soon extended to everyone else as well.
In order to make recognition of the real, or High, Baidee immediate and unfailing, certain distinctive dress and food habits were ordained by the Scrutators assembled, who claimed to find justification for these singularities in the words of the prophetess herself. “Be not pigs” obviously meant “take not into yourself the substance of pigs,” and that obviously meant “eat nothing resembling pigs,” such as anything having four legs or hairy skin or a snout and so on. Since on Bounce there were creatures which resembled pigs but laid eggs, eggs were likewise prohibited. Other such interpretations were used to order the dress of the High Baidee, which included such items as the zettle, a small scarf of precious material hung from the belt, on one side of which were embroidered the words “Stuff happens,” and on the other “Not guilty.”
The Low Baidee had mostly died out or emigrated, though there were sizeable colonies of them left near Chadnarath and Bajasthan, where they maintained Temples of the Original Revelation and held ceremonies notable for the cheerful frenzy of their dancing. As for the High Baidee, they revered the prophetess (who would have been astonished at their interpretation of her teachings), clung to her last and greatest commandment, and considered their own beginning to have been a large and fortunate one. It was from among these folk that the Native Matters Advisory chose the team to do the Ancient Monuments survey.
The three were residents of the capital city, Chowdari, and members of one family, the Damzels. They were two brothers, and a sister: Shanrandinore (Shan) and Bombindinore (Bombi) Damzel, fraternal twins sharing the same progenitor; and Volsalobinag (Volsa) Damzel, their younger sister whose progenitor had been, their mother said, the randomizer on the Baidee sperm bank at the Temple of the Overmind. All three Damzel children had spent the requisite three years of late adolescence in religious and military service. All had attended a prestigious university on Phansure; all had specialized in xenology; all were committed conservationists. Shan’s commitment (or arrogance) was so great that he had gone to Ninfadel to do postgraduate study of the Porsa, and though he spoke of that time frequently and feelingly, he actually remembered the realities as little as possible. He had undergone a ten-day cleansing at the Temple of High Baidee when he returned, and he had learned self-hypnosis to allow him to forget, but he still woke up yelling in the middle of the night.
All three, when advised of the appointment, went immediately to the Temple of the Overmind, to give thanks that they were considered capable of service. In the Sanctuary of the Scrutators they were admitted to a solemn reading of the sayings of the prophetess (two chanters and a dozen intoners), given instruction for those faithful to the Overmind, and supplied with the names of coreligionists on Hobb’s Land. A notable thing about High Baidee was the way it kept young people of breeding age in touch with one another. First among the names they were given was that of Spiggy Fettle.
• • •
• In Settlement One, Jeopardy awoke one off-day morning with a feeling of intense anticipation. That feeling had recently had only one cause: his cousin Saturday. Therefore; when he had dressed himself and eaten and found a small spade in the tool room, he wandered over to the next-door sisterhouse, his aunt’s place, knowing he would find Saturday waiting for him. She was, in fact, leaning on the front stoop with her own spade lying beside her.
“Did you bring film bags?” she asked him.
He shook his head, realizing for the first time that they would need film bags. Of course they would. He just hadn’t thought of it.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got fifteen. That’s enough.”
“We’ll need the Quillow kids,” he said. “Suppose they’ll meet us there?”
She shrugged. They would need the Quillow
