about, again, and then, slowly, in horror, sank to his knees once more, before the platform. He did not know if the head had seen him. Does it know it has been cut off, wondered Brenner.
The dancing and exultant shrieks of the Pons continued.
Brenner looked about, on the floor, to where he had dropped the rifle. It was gone. The pointed stick, too, was gone, of course. It had been taken from him, gently, by the git keeper.
It sees, thought Brenner. It sees! It knows it has been cut off. He turned about, on his knees, to again look at the head. Once more the eyes were closed.
The beast did not speak, thought Brenner.
The eyes could not have opened, thought Brenner.
I have gone mad, he thought.
He looked again to the remains before him. Then he looked again, upward, to the platform.
He was seized with a wild fear, and tensed to leap up, and flee from this place.
It was then that the nets, several, and weighted, fell about him. He could not rise. He could scarcely see through the toils. Ropes were secured, well fastening the nets. Pons clustered about him. He struggled, but his struggles were unavailing. He was now before the platform, on his knees. He could scarcely move his arms or legs. He knelt there, then, caught in the toils, enmeshed, secured. He was totally helpless, trapped as effectively as might have been an animal.
“You killed Emilio!” he screamed to the git keeper.
The small creature, its tiny hands hidden in the sleeves of its robes, did not respond to him.
“You are evil!” cried Brenner.
“I do not understand that expression,” said the git keeper.
“Are you all mad, all evil?” wept Brenner.
The git keeper looked at him, puzzled. There had been a pause in the revels.
“Who decides such things?” asked the git keeper. “Is it the lion who is evil, or the fleet one whose selfishness would deny the king its meal?”
“Such things are only as they are!” said Brenner.
“And thus, so, too, are we,” said the git keeper.
“Your kindness, your benignity, your lovingness, your innocence, is a mockery,” said Brenner.
“No,” said the git keeper, “but it has its price.”
“Why cannot you be more like Archimedes,” said Brenner, “who was truly innocent, and kind, and loving.”
“Archimedes could not have lived without us,” said the git keeper.
“Be as was Archimedes,” said Brenner.
“Archimedes, or he whom you chose to call such,” said the git keeper, “was retarded.”
Then the git keeper turned to the Pons. He raised a scarp. “We are free, my brothers!” he cried out. “The father is dead!”
This announcement was met with glee from the assembled Pons. Brenner struggled in the net, but could not free himself. He was utterly helpless.
The git keeper then went behind the platform and, on steps there, climbed to its surface, and then came forward, toward its front edge, where he stood beside the slain beast.
“Come, my brothers,” called the git keeper. “Let us take onto ourselves the power, the majesty, of the father. He was cruel. He was the tyrant. But now the tyrant is dead. Now we are free, my brothers! We may now do as we wish. We will all become as was the father! We will take his flesh into ourselves, that it become our own flesh. We will drink his blood, that it become our own blood. We will make his substance ours! We will become, through him, him!”
Then the git keeper turned about and, the first of all, dug his tiny, sharp, polished scarp into the great shaggy body that lay on the platform. He crouched on the body, and thrust the tiny bit of meat he had cut free into his mouth. The male Pons then, those clothed and unclothed, swarmed upon the platform and, like flies, or small scavenging rodents, attacked the great carcass with their scarps. Some fed the pieces of meat they cut to others. Brenner was ill. The females, he noted, did not participate in this ritual, or feeding. They hung back. When one of them approached too closely, she was snapped at, and she fled back, to crouch down, to wait with the others. The females looked at one another, apprehensively, while the males fed.
Brenner turned, as he could, to look at the jar. The eyes on the head in the jar were again open. It was regarding the feast. On its face was an expression of horror. Then it, again, closed its eyes.
The eyes did open, said Brenner, wildly, to himself. I