to you?” asked Brenner.
“No,” said Rodriguez. “I have found out what I came here to find out.”
“I do not understand,” said Brenner.
“Incidentally,” said Rodriguez, “I have heard them speak of a feast of gathering eggs. Does that make any sense to you?”
“No,” said Brenner.
“Nor to me,” said Rodriguez.
“Perhaps they are going to raise domestic fowl,” said Brenner.
“That would seem rather unlike Pons, would it not?” asked Rodriguez.
“Yes,” said Brenner. It did not seem in accord with the ways of the Pons. Meat, for example, and eggs, and such things, were not common constituents in their diet. To be sure, they did not object to being protected by creatures which might require flesh, and such things. But such inconsistencies were not unprecedented. The sweetness, the softness, the gentleness, the innocence, the loveliness of the Pons, and their way of life, was possible only because of the vigilance, the readiness to act, the severity, the ferocity of creatures quite other than themselves. Some gardens cannot grow unless sheltered within rings of iron. Some worlds cannot exist unless nestled within the territory of carnivores. To be sure, the Pons might change their ways.
“I think that in some subtle way,” said Rodriguez, “the Pons have become different over the past months.”
“How is that?” asked Brenner.
“The other father,” said Rodriguez, “saved your life in the forest.”
“I killed him,” said Brenner.
“He must have understood what you were doing here,” said Rodriguez.
“Yes,” said Brenner.
“And yet he protected you, and saved your life. That said something to the Pons of love.”
“He came to the temple,” said Brenner.
“To die,” said Rodriguez.
“He died well,” said Brenner. He recalled the sudden, startling, arresting regalness of the beast, drawn up, proudly, awaiting the blast from the rifle.
“He was the father,” said Rodriguez.
“Yes,” said Brenner, “he was the father.”
“And, too, the Pons, who have been concerned with little, really, but survival, a mere clinging to the thread of life, pretending it is important in itself, and not because of what may be done with it, were moved when you returned me to the village. In this, you, too, you see, taught them something of love, more than survival, more even than the pursuit of truth.”
“I did not want you to die,” said Brenner.
“Put down your head,” said Rodriguez, putting out his hands.
Brenner put down his great, broad, shaggy head and Rodriguez, with great tenderness, embraced it, and placed his own head against it. Then Rodriguez drew back. “I am going now,” he said.
“Will you not wait for the others?”
“No,” said Rodriguez.
“I will accompany you,” said Brenner.
“No,” said Rodriguez.
“Are you sorrowful?” asked Brenner. Rodriguez did not seem as he usually did.
“No,” said Rodriguez.
“You do not regret what has occurred?”
“Certainly not,” said Rodriguez. “I have found out what I came here to learn.”
“The fate of the theory?”
“Yes,” said Rodriguez.
“Are you sorry that it was false?” asked Brenner.
“‘False’?” asked Rodriguez.
“Of course,” said Brenner. “The graves were empty.”
“So?” said Rodriguez.
“If the theory was true, the body of the father, the first father, a Pon, would have been found in the oldest grave.”
“That the grave was empty,” said Rodriguez, “does not refute the theory. It is rather the strongest possible evidence of the truth of the theory. Indeed, it is precisely what the theory in its fullest and most exact form, in its most perfect form, would call for, a form in which I had not even anticipated it might be corroborated.”
“I do not understand,” said Brenner, in consternation.
“Why would the body not be in the grave?” asked Rodriguez.
“I do not know,” said Brenner.
“It was eaten,” said Rodriguez.
Brenner shuddered.
“You are dealing here with something extremely childlike, extremely primitive, something with a very powerful appeal on a very deep emotional level. The rationale here is, or is similar to, that of cannibalism or ritualistic omophagia, as in the mystical eating of a god, usually under the form of a beast, or such, the devouring of the divine, so to speak, to take into oneself the courage, the power, the mana, the traits, the spirit of the other, to make its substance yours, to add to yourself by its consumption. Obviously every day one gains strength by eating, by making the substance of others yours. It is only natural then for the primitive or childlike mind, or even for a more sophisticated mind functioning in this respect, perhaps unconsciously, on a childlike or primitive level, to conceive of the eating of the god, or of the enemy, or the father, as a way of identifying with them, of making their