We limped away from the encounter fortunate only by comparison.. The Yuengians, who style themselves independently minded but are in fact pirates, suffered what they intended for us and what still might transpire, unable to resume our course as we were.
Our researches yielded a planet nearby which was registered as habitable. We could do no better. The prospect improved upon approach when we detected signs of not just potential but the thing itself: A vast compound existed near an artifically regular lake easily capable of accommodating our entire convoy.
The job of trying to raise the inhabitants devolved to me based on the reasoning that many who closed their doors to regular strangers opened them for correspondents, particularly ones as famous as the captains pretended me to be. My rejoinder that the opposite often pertained did not win me free from the responsibility. I proved, not the respect accorded my profession, but to have some small knowledge of interstellar celebrity when I recognized Herzerd Klobsarn, the genuinely famous gene theorist. Nor was he displeased at the recognition; in that at least I may have aided my fellow survivors a little.
Klobsarn provided hospitality far beyond the most optimistic projection. The many empty furnished rooms, he said, had been used by laborers who had long since departed. He had seen no reason to bother with tearing down the surplus quarters, negligence which seemed to us a miracle. He maintained stores such as sufficed to feed us and effect repairs out of what he described as two excesses, one of caution and the other of curiosity, for his projects demanded resources.
He was happy to show us one. The complex housed an unthinkable menagerie of creatures created by mingled design and serendipity. If I tell you to imagine horns that are not horns and wings that operate according to unconventional mechanisms, you will not understand me, and in that I have succeeded. For I did not understand what I saw there.
"But why?" I asked. More detail seemed a superfluity.
"Across greater humanity, some seventy-six million sports teams are called the Wildcats. Another twelve million are Bears or Bruins, and barely fewer are the Cardinals. Each planet, each continent, each region must have its own species. I leave it to the denizens to name them, but I take it upon myself to make them."
I was impressed more than ever by the benevolent character of Herzerd Klobsarn.
Finis
No comments:
Post a Comment