less heatable, less excitable, mate for you?” she asked.
Brenner licked his chops. There was no doubt that she was an eager, hot female. To be sure, she had also been such a one before, and extremely so, in her former form, at Company Station. Indeed, so hot had she been that she would have undoubtedly brought an excellent price in a market. Yes, so hot she had been that he had regarded her as fit, even, for the collar.
“Doubtless,” he said. “But we are looking at this from the point of view of the Pons.
“In any event,” she said, “obviously it was not done.”
Brenner considered the matter. The beast at least once had to have been completely at the Pons’ mercy. And surely the Pons must have realized that its fertility might jeopardize the stewardship, the guardianship, the pact! Even if they did not expect her to prey upon Pons, they surely could not guarantee that of the fruit of her body. Surely the Pons, as calculating and efficient as they were, would have protected themselves against such perilous eventualities! Doubtless, he would have supposed, that that lovely, fierce, sinuous, feline body, having fallen into the hands of Pons, would be incapable of its own replication, that that would have been surgically assured. But obviously, it had not been.
“No,” said Brenner. “Obviously it was not done.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Brenner. “Why?”
“Do you think the Pons are stupid?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I do not think that they are stupid.”
“I am hungry,” she said.
“I will hunt,” he said. “Do you wish to accompany me?”
“Certainly,” she said.
“You could remain here,” he said. “I could bring something back.”
“I will come with you,” she said.
“You are hungry?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“I see,” he said.
“You must remember,” she said, nuzzling him, pushing playfully against him, “I am now eating for several.”
In a few minutes they were in the forest. They stopped near the village, but stayed back, concealed by the trees.
“Why do you think the Pons have done what they have done?” she asked.
“That they are putting themselves at risk?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I think,” said Brenner, “that they are willing to try. I think that they want to begin again.”
Their hunt was successful. On the way back to their lair they stopped again, their jaws bloody, near the village. They listened closely.
“Do you hear it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Within the village, tiny, and as though far off, they could hear the sounds of new life.
Chapter 42
And so, from time to time, Pons, and others, came to gather at the platform, to gaze upward at a shaggy beast who, at times, was silent, letting its presence be its message, and, at other times, when so moved, would speak to them. Beside this beast, usually recumbent, was another. And, here and there, upon occasion, there were other beasts about, too, sometimes on the platform, sometimes playing behind it. Some of these beasts would accompany the Pons, and the others, back to the village. The string remained where it was but, after a time, the Pons, and the others, did not pay so much attention to it. With their small weapons, made by themselves, the string, and even the guardianship, and the pact, was not so important. Indeed, sometimes, some of them, over the years, left the string altogether, and went away, to various places in the woods, to make their own villages. Often these were accompanied by a beast or two. These sorts of things were little noted at Company Station, where the lighters continued to lift off from, and later return to, their launching pads, servicing the freighters, and, later, sometimes, the liners, paused above the station, so high as to be invisible. A thousand years later an expedition to the Pons was disappointed to learn that they were no longer totemistic, but had rather, it seemed, moved to a different cultural level, perhaps that of gods and heroes. One of these gods, or heroes, as the case might be, had the unlikely name ‘Rodriguez’. To be sure, the Pons were an interesting life form in various ways. For one thing they appeared to have become involved in an interesting symbiotic development, an unusual relationship with beasts. This was not investigated in any detail because of the dangers of doing so. It was mostly remarked upon from a distance. As it was said, the children of the Pons walked with beasts, and had become, in some ways, like unto their brothers, the lions. In another thousand years some of these unusual groupings, those of Pons and beasts, departed from Abydos, to settle upon and, some said, even to claim, far-flung worlds.