to one side, then began to circle one another, baring their small teeth. The females, the two of them now, together, cowered to one side. The two males, suddenly, as with one accord, with shrill, angry shrieks, flung themselves at one another, and, with hands and feet, and teeth, fought, grappling, rolling about, twisting, tearing, and biting. Other such altercations, too, began to break out. One fight was apparently over the possession of a given scarp. Brenner heard a cry, and saw a hand drawn back, suddenly bright with blood. He moaned. He sank down on his knees, before the platform. Before him, on the floor, were parts of his friend. Above, on the platform, the beast was dead. Its blood, spilled on the platform, ran to the floor. Brenner’s knees were soaked with it. He could see, about himself, tiny, bloody footprints, those of riotous Pons who had walked in it, run in it, or danced in it. All about him rang a bedlam, a madness, of shrieks, exultant and wild. At the periphery of his vision was a whirling flurry of robes, of brandished polished scarps, flashing, reflecting torchlight, and, here and there, of tiny, naked, hairy, spiderlike bodies, with receding foreheads, with small, closely set eyes. Brenner put down his head then, and covered his ears, and closed his eyes. It is festival, he thought. It is carnival, it is holiday. They are glad the father is dead. They wanted him dead. Now they have what they wanted. Brenner shuddered. Had the beast spoken to him? How could that be? He must, somehow, have imagined that. He stood up, shaking, and looked at the beast, dead, on the platform. It could not have spoken. Such things did not speak. Such things could not speak.
Sick, he decided he must leave the place. He turned about, and cried out, with horror.
A few feet from him, on a pedestal, where the floor became level, near the base of the aisle, was a transparent, lidded vat, or large jar, into which various tubes led. In the vat, facing forward, its eyes closed, was the head of Rodriguez.
Brenner spun about, to avoid seeing the object. It must be some form of burial, he thought. Doubtless the Pons are kindly. Their intentions are doubtless benign. They think I must appreciate this! I should not express horror, or disapproval. I would not wish to hurt their feelings. But he sank down again, now to his hands and knees, and threw up, to the side.
The beast could not have spoken.
When Brenner opened his eyes he looked again on the parts of his friend before him.
I must not be impolite to the Pons, he thought. I must not hurt their feelings.
But the Pons seemed to be paying him no attention. Their glee, their cries, their dancing, continued unabated.
As Brenner looked upon the pieces of flesh before him, he wondered what must be the horror of finding oneself the victim of such an attack, or would it be over so quickly that one would not realize what had happened? But if one did realize, Brenner thought, how horrifying that must be, the sudden blow of the paw, the raking of the claws, like hooks, the biting, the marks of the teeth, the being grasped in such jaws, perhaps the pain of being held down, and toyed with, bitten here and there, licked, clawed, until one could move no longer, squirm no longer, and then the thing might feed. But Brenner, as he forced himself to look at the limbs before him, did not detect the signs of such an attack. There seemed no claw marks, no marks of teeth. The limbs did not seem to have been torn, as in feeding, from the body.
Suddenly Brenner felt very cold.
The beast had not killed Rodriguez. Something else had killed him.
They could not kill the totem themselves, he said to himself. It had to be done by another.
“Emilio!” wept Brenner. “Emilio!”
Another must be brought to kill the beast, he thought, another! And another had done it, another!
The shrieks of Pons continued about him. He heard cries, too, amongst them, of anger, of dissension.
He rose up, tottering, he must flee, he must get away from this place, anything.
He turned about again. He did not want to look at the head, mounted in the jar, on the pedestal. But he did, of course, look, and then, once more, he cried out with horror. The eyes in the head were now open.
Brenner spun