absorption. They are small creatures, both the ground and tree git, and might be held in one of Rodriguez’ or Brenner’s hands, usually weighing between one hundred and one hundred and fifty grams.
“Have you kept up with your exercises?” asked Rodriguez.
“Yes,” said Brenner. The ship did not, like some of the more impressive ships, sphere, wheel and cylinder ships, provide an artificial gravity in virtue of rotation. At certain points on such ships, for example, on the equatorial deck of a simple sphere ship, or at the circumference of a simple wheel or cylinder ship, one might think oneself, in a careless moment, on one’s native world. The force of the artificial gravity, of course, by means of controlling the rotational speed, could be indexed to a diversity of home-world masses. On this ship, however, Brenner had attempted to resist the deconditioning which was such a natural concomitant of long-term exposure to low-gravity conditions by more direct and mechanical means, by recourse to special apparatus integral to his cabin, an apparatus consisting of harnesses, hand grips, pedals and such, attached to resistant springs. The captain, and his crew, in their own quarters, incidentally, had similar devices, adapted to their particular physiques. Even so, an adjustment was almost always required after debarkation.
“I am puzzled to know how this contact came about,” said Brenner. “That was never explained to me.”
“That is an excellent question,” said Rodriguez. “I shall tell you what I know. We, of the home world, you understand, have known obscurely of the Pons for hundreds of years. They were often thought extinct. Company Station, built on the sites of previous camps, exploration base camps, navigational beacons, outposts for early-warning systems, neutral trading points agreed upon by diverse systems not wishing to risk contamination of their own worlds, and such, is itself, as you know, more than four hundred years old. Indeed, the Pons are well hidden in their forest. The agents at Company Station did not even learn of their existence until more than a hundred years after the founding of the town. The second contact occurred some one hundred years later. In the meantime it had been conjectured the Pons had perished. Recently, however, in the last hundred years, there have been more recent contacts, perhaps as many as two dozen in that time.”
“What of scientific and cultural contacts?” asked Brenner.
“The first was made, apparently, or the first we know of, given the records of Naxos, when they became available to us, more than two thousand years ago. And then, following the records of Eos, another was made something like a thousand years later.”
This was interesting, thought Brenner, as his own species was common on both Naxos and Eos.
“You are speaking in very general terms, of course,” said Brenner.
“Not really,” said Rodriguez. “If we adjust for the revolutionary period of Abydos herself, the time she takes to complete her orbit about her star, these two contacts occurred exactly one thousand revolutions, or years apart, in Abydian time, so to speak.”
“These were both contacts invited by the Pons?” asked Brenner.
“It seems so,” said Rodriguez.
“And now,” said Brenner, “it is a thousand Abydian years later?”
“Precisely,” said Rodriguez. “In about two Commonworld months.”
“You accept this as an unusual coincidence, of course,” said Brenner.
“Consider the probabilities,” said Rodriguez.
“I do not care to,” said Brenner.
“There is a cycle here,” said Rodriguez. “It is not necessary that there is a cycle here, of course, but I think there is one. I really do.”
“The Pons are primitive,” said Brenner. “They do not even have kings, or chieftains.”
“Many primitive peoples are sophisticated with respect to calendars,” said Rodriguez, “particularly peoples who depend on agriculture. It is only necessary to mark out the exact point of the rising of a given star on a given day. One can even use the mother star for this purpose, but it is better not to do so, because of its apparent dimension at the horizon. When the star, preferably not the mother star, rises in exactly the same place a second time a year, or a revolution, has occurred. One may mark this place with a portal, an altar, an obelisk. One may count the days between the risings, and divide the year into smaller or larger units, say, weeks and months, or whatever units will serve. Leftover units, say, days, or hours, may be intercalated. From the thousand-years cycle I think we may conjecture the Pons have a base-ten mathematics.”