The Totems of Abydos Read Online Free PDF

scratching of claws on steel, and the hurling of a body with its mass and weight against bolted plates. It did this again and again, but, of course the plates held. It could only hurt itself by doing this, but it did not stop. But there would be no mistaking, either in Rodriguez’ cabin, or elsewhere on that ship, containing more than three cubic acres of interior space, the screams of the animal, or its howlings, or those thunderous roars, those challenges to steel, those protests against a fate not understood but resented, those utterances which came angrily, unresigned, unforgiving, unreconciled, from its dark beast’s heart. Brenner was pleased that there were no pacifiers about, to release the beast, pledged to be the first to die that it might be free. Such things would dominate most food chains. It was for that reason he suspected that the beast was not bound for the gardens of Habitat or Freeworld. He did not think that even the zoologists would care to share their world with it. Only in more natural places, in darker, crueler jungles, could such a thing find its throne.
    “In the morning, at ten, we will enter orbit at Abydos,” said the captain. This would be ship time, in this case, commercial time, indexed to Commonworld. The ship would not dock at Abydos, of course, but would, so to speak, lie off the reefs, and be served by lighters. Abydos was not an outpost planet, not one lying at the fringes of known life forms, but a backward planet, in its way. It had, in effect, been noted, charted, cataloged, and then left behind in the march of a thousand life forms across the galaxy, with whom folk such as Rodriguez and Brenner had come along, more as passengers than explorers or frontiersmen. Their own world, long ago, had turned inward on itself. It had, as a world, long ago, forgotten to look at the stars. It had turned rather toward comfort, obedience, law, sameness. It was now one of the homogenized worlds which prided itself on its superiority to more ambitious, curious, aggressive worlds, habitats to more ambitious, curious, aggressive species. The promise of the world of Rodriguez and Brenner had never been fulfilled. After all, the stars are far away, and not everyone could reach them. And the long, painful climb toward the stars requires not only strength, but sternness, and will, and hardness, and power, vices of a troubled youth now happily outgrown in the maturity of a species. And so the promise of the world of Rodriguez and Brenner, were it ever truly a promise, had never been fulfilled. Their world had made its decision, cloaked as all such decisions are, and must be, else their pathetic horror might be more easily detected, in moral fervor, and a righteous vocabulary: It had become not great, but nice, not hot and needful, but tame and warm.
    “At ten,” repeated the captain.
    Rodriguez nodded.
    There was little of interest on Abydos to the rest of the galaxy other than its fueling station, one of the several such between certain mining worlds, the charters to which were held by various corporations. To be sure, beyond this, at least in the area of the depot, there were some company dormitories, a parts warehouse, a few muddy streets, some bars, a few small businesses, a barber shop, such things. It did have an atmosphere which might be breathed by both the captain, and his sort, and Rodriguez, and his sort. It was not one of those worlds to which one must take oneself in a bottle, so to speak, enclosing oneself in a surrogate of one’s home world, without which appurtenances an unpleasant death would promptly ensue. If there were difficulties to be met with on Abydos they were not such as to require the encapsulation of visitors in friendly gases and temperatures. Rodriguez and Brenner could walk on Abydos without fear. Its atmosphere was benign, its surface temperatures were within tolerable limits, its water was drinkable, its soil, though thin, was not poisonous, its rain was not lethal, its