right questions to ask the answers practically hit you in the face. I’ve even said as much to students in that other life of mine. (Space travel is a great cure for smugness. I feel pretty damned ignorant out here. I wonder if I wasn’t getting a mite cocky, back home?)
Well, I think I know some of the right questions. Here are the obvious ones:
What was that man we chased doing in the forest by himself? And, if he lives in that hollow tree, does he live there alone? Wherever you find him, man is a social animal—he lives in groups. Families, clans, bands, tribes, nations—the names don’t matter. But a man alone is a very strange thing. And he isn’t the only one, either; we’ve seen others. Where is the group he belongs to? And what kind of a group is it?
What are these people afraid of? The first expedition did nothing to alarm them. Presumably, they have never seen men like us before—we have given them no reason to believe that we’re dangerous. I’m sure that old man wanted to talk to us—but he just couldn’t make himself do it. Why not? Most primitive peoples, when they meet a new kind of men for the first time, either trot out the gals for a welcome or open up with spears and arrows. These natives don’t do anything at all. Am I missing something here? Or are they just shy? Or what?
Why don’t these people have any artifacts? I haven’t seen a single tool or weapon of any sort. Don King hasn’t been able to find any artifacts in archeological deposits. What’s the answer? Are they so simple that they don’t even know how to chip flint? If so, they are more technologically primitive than the men who lived on Earth a million years ago.
Why have they retained the long, ape-like arms of brachiators? Why do they swing through the trees when they can walk reasonably well on the ground? Is this connected in some way with their lack of tools? Are we really dealing here with a bright bunch of apes? And if we are, then how about the language? (Question: Is a bright ape with a language a man? Where do you draw the line? Or do we have to get metaphysical about it?
And if they are apes, how are we supposed to contact them for the United Nations?)
What’s the significance of that wolf-thing we saw? Charlie and I saw the man call Rover with a whistle. We saw Rover pick up the meat and carry it off. Later, we saw the meat inside the hollow tree. (Problem: Was the man going to eat it, or was Rover? Apes don’t eat meat under natural conditions.) The man certainly seemed to control Rover. So is Rover a domesticated animal, or what? On Earth, man didn’t domesticate the dog until after he’d used tools for close to a million years. Are there other animals they have domesticated?
How about that hollow tree? Is it natural, or do the natives shape the growth in some way? If they do, isn’t this an artifact? If they can do that, why don’t they have agriculture?
Those are some of the right questions.
I’m waiting for the answers to hit me in the face—but I’m not holding my breath.
Two days later, the watched pot began to boil.
First, the old man returned to the hollow tree and found the steel knife.
Then Ralph Gottschalk and Don King spotted a tree burial.
And, finally, Tom Stein—who was cruising around with Ace in the reconnaissance sphere—located an entire village that contained at least one hundred natives.
Monte didn’t know exactly what he had expected the man to do with the knife; he would hardly have been surprised if he had swallowed it. He and Louise stood by the scanner screen and watched intently as the man entered the hollow tree for the first time since Monte and Charlie had left.
The tree chamber was as Spartan as ever; nothing had changed. The knife was still on the ledge by the meat and the berries. Considering the probable condition of the meat by now, Monte was just as glad that the scanner did not transmit smells.
The old man stood in the center of the room, his dark
Well, I think I know some of the right questions. Here are the obvious ones:
What was that man we chased doing in the forest by himself? And, if he lives in that hollow tree, does he live there alone? Wherever you find him, man is a social animal—he lives in groups. Families, clans, bands, tribes, nations—the names don’t matter. But a man alone is a very strange thing. And he isn’t the only one, either; we’ve seen others. Where is the group he belongs to? And what kind of a group is it?
What are these people afraid of? The first expedition did nothing to alarm them. Presumably, they have never seen men like us before—we have given them no reason to believe that we’re dangerous. I’m sure that old man wanted to talk to us—but he just couldn’t make himself do it. Why not? Most primitive peoples, when they meet a new kind of men for the first time, either trot out the gals for a welcome or open up with spears and arrows. These natives don’t do anything at all. Am I missing something here? Or are they just shy? Or what?
Why don’t these people have any artifacts? I haven’t seen a single tool or weapon of any sort. Don King hasn’t been able to find any artifacts in archeological deposits. What’s the answer? Are they so simple that they don’t even know how to chip flint? If so, they are more technologically primitive than the men who lived on Earth a million years ago.
Why have they retained the long, ape-like arms of brachiators? Why do they swing through the trees when they can walk reasonably well on the ground? Is this connected in some way with their lack of tools? Are we really dealing here with a bright bunch of apes? And if we are, then how about the language? (Question: Is a bright ape with a language a man? Where do you draw the line? Or do we have to get metaphysical about it?
And if they are apes, how are we supposed to contact them for the United Nations?)
What’s the significance of that wolf-thing we saw? Charlie and I saw the man call Rover with a whistle. We saw Rover pick up the meat and carry it off. Later, we saw the meat inside the hollow tree. (Problem: Was the man going to eat it, or was Rover? Apes don’t eat meat under natural conditions.) The man certainly seemed to control Rover. So is Rover a domesticated animal, or what? On Earth, man didn’t domesticate the dog until after he’d used tools for close to a million years. Are there other animals they have domesticated?
How about that hollow tree? Is it natural, or do the natives shape the growth in some way? If they do, isn’t this an artifact? If they can do that, why don’t they have agriculture?
Those are some of the right questions.
I’m waiting for the answers to hit me in the face—but I’m not holding my breath.
Two days later, the watched pot began to boil.
First, the old man returned to the hollow tree and found the steel knife.
Then Ralph Gottschalk and Don King spotted a tree burial.
And, finally, Tom Stein—who was cruising around with Ace in the reconnaissance sphere—located an entire village that contained at least one hundred natives.
Monte didn’t know exactly what he had expected the man to do with the knife; he would hardly have been surprised if he had swallowed it. He and Louise stood by the scanner screen and watched intently as the man entered the hollow tree for the first time since Monte and Charlie had left.
The tree chamber was as Spartan as ever; nothing had changed. The knife was still on the ledge by the meat and the berries. Considering the probable condition of the meat by now, Monte was just as glad that the scanner did not transmit smells.
The old man stood in the center of the room, his dark
Similar Books
