are easily said. Brenner, of course, did not believe in love, for such, like sexual needs, did not exist. To be sure, one might love a party, or the state, or everything, rather as a rosy, remote, safe, antiseptic, abstract conglomerate. Too, he supposed it was all right to love everyone, and, ideally, everything, including primitive particles. It was only that it was suspect or immoral to love a particular individual, particularly if that entity were of an opposite sex. That was dangerous. For sexuality, as was well known, does not unite men; it divides them.
At a gesture from Rodriguez, the Pons put their small, but cumulatively not inconsiderable, weight to the ropes. The sled moved, over wet leaves and twigs. The trees here, at the edge of the forest were not closely grown. There would be little difficulty in making headway during this part of the journey and, later, hopefully, there would be trails. The mud sled was not wide, only a Commonworld yard in width.
“Those are lantern fruit,” said Rodriguez, pointing to some heavy, gourdlike pods, some half split.
“Are they edible?” asked Brenner.
“No,” said Rodriguez.
“They are not indigenous to this world, are they?” asked Brenner.
“It is thought not,” said Rodriguez.
Most of the Pons were following behind.
Brenner could not, at this point, of course, look back to the tower, to the fence. There was the rise, and there were the trees.
Brenner looked to the Pons drawing the sled. And ahead of them there were some others, strung out, leading the way.
He remembered how rudely Rodriguez had seized up one of the Pons, and removed its hood. Whereas the small creature had squirmed, and struggled, it had not attempted to fight, or defend itself. Too, when Rodriguez had forced open its mouth, it had not resisted. Pons do not bite, thought Brenner. On the other hand, thought Brenner, they do not have very strong teeth either. Perhaps organisms with small, fine teeth are well advised not to bite. At most, they might deliver a small, nasty, unclean wound, one which larger, stronger organisms might find annoying, and punish. Perhaps that was why Pons were good, thought Brenner, because they could not be dangerous. Perhaps morality comes most easily to the weak.
Brenner wondered what was the nature of his own species, and if it had a nature. One theory had it that those of his species were originally filled with a nothingness, and another that they were filled with sunshine. Those who held the “nothingness” theory looked upon this nothingness as an opportunity. If the mind, for example, were a blank tablet, or a blank recording plate, or such, one might then inscribe upon it messages of benignity and beauty. But if the mind were indeed a blank tablet, with no nature of its own, no secrets, no resistances, no internal geodesies, no realities, why might not one, with equal propriety, inscribe upon it messages of terror, of fear and woe, of sickness and hatred? Surely the canvas has no rights with respect to the pictures one chooses to paint upon it. Who decides the plans from which man is to be manufactured? If men had no nature of their own, then they are only putty in the hands of others, whether in the white fingers of angels or the paws of beasts. And where must one stand, outside the domain of man, to see value? Where will he find his patterns and possibilities if not within himself? Where will those who so complacently, so innocently, arrogate to themselves the right to write these messages find their models? Are there plates of graven brass hung between the stars? The stars are silent, burning in space. They are alone, like men. And if such plates were there, who will decipher them, who will read them, and who will ask from whence they came, and if they are true? No, thought Brenner, the theory of emptiness is not a happy one. If true, it is not that man is lost, or that he has not yet been found. Rather it is that he does not exist, has never existed, and can never exist. Rather he would be nothing in himself, not even a material, but rather only a temporary, arbitrary form, only an artifact, meaningless, and perishable. But what of the theory that man is filled with sunshine, thought Brenner. That is a theory, so to speak, of original virtue. Perhaps it is naive, and less plausible than an older, more pessimistic myth,