Moved in and ate.
If this wasn’t a prayer of thanksgiving, a saying of grace, then what was it? And if they’re advanced enough spiritually to say grace, are we not therefore committing genocide here? Do chimpanzees say grace? Christ, we wouldn’t even wipe out chimps the way we’re cleaning out the Eaters! Of course, chimps don’t interfere with human crops, and some kind of coexistence would be possible, whereas Eaters and human agriculturalists simply can’t function on the same planet. Nevertheless, there’s a moral issue here. The liquidation effort is predicated on the assumption that the intelligence level of the Eaters is about on par with that of oysters, or, at best, sheep. Our consciences stay clear because our poison is quick and painless and because the Eaters thoughtfully dissolve upon dying, sparing us the mess of incinerating millions of corpses. But if they pray—
I won’t say anything to the others just yet. I want more evidence, hard, objective. Films, tapes, record cubes. Then we’ll see. What if I can show that we’re exterminating intelligent beings? My family knows a little about genocide, after all, having been on the receiving end just a few centuries back. I doubt that I could halt what’s going on here. But at the very least I could withdraw from the operation. Head back to Earth and stir up public outcries.
I hope I’m imagining this.
I’m not imagining a thing. They gather in circles; they look to the sun; they neigh and pray. They’re only balls of jelly on chicken-legs, but they give thanks for their food. Those big round eyes now seem to stare accusingly at me. Our tame herd here knows what’s going on: that we have descended from the stars to eradicate their kind, and that they alone will be spared. They have no way of fighting back or even of communicating their displeasure, but they know. And hate us. Jesus, we have killed two million of them since we got here, and in a metaphorical sense I’m stained with blood, and what will I do, what can I do?
I must move very carefully, or I’ll end up drugged and edited.
I can’t let myself seem like a crank, a quack, an agitator. I can’t stand up and denounce! I have to find allies. Herndon, first. He surely is onto the truth; he’s the one who nudged me to it, that day we dropped pellets. And I thought he was merely being vicious in his usual way!
I’ll talk to him tonight.
He says, “I’ve been thinking about that suggestion you made. About the Eaters. Perhaps we haven’t made sufficiently close psychological studies. I mean, if they really are intelligent—”
Herndon blinks. He is a tall man with glossy dark hair, a heavy beard, sharp cheekbones. “Who says they are, Tom?”
“You did. On the far side of the Forked River, you said—”
“It was just a speculative hypothesis. To make conversation.”
“No, I think it was more than that. You really believed it.”
Herndon looks troubled. “Tom, I don’t know what you’re trying to start, but don’t start it. If I for a moment believed we were killing intelligent creatures, I’d run for an editor so fast I’d start an implosion wave.”
“Why did you ask me that thing, then?” Tom Two Ribbons says.
“Idle chatter.”
“Amusing yourself by kindling guilts in somebody else? You’re a bastard, Herndon. I mean it.”
“Well, look, Tom, if I had any idea that you’d get so worked up about a hypothetical suggestion—” Herndon shakes his head. “The Eaters aren’t intelligent beings. Obviously. Otherwise we wouldn’t be under orders to liquidate them.”
“Obviously,” says Tom Two Ribbons.
Ellen said, “No, I don’t know what Tom’s up to. But I’m pretty sure he needs a rest. It’s only a year and a half since his personality reconstruct, and he had a pretty bad breakdown back then.”
Michaelson consulted a chart. “He’s refused three times in a row to make his pellet-dropping run. Claiming he can’t take time away from his research. Hell, we can fill in for him, but it’s the idea that he’s ducking chores that bothers me.”
“What kind of research is he doing?” Nichols wanted to know.
“Not biological,” said Julia. “He’s with the Eaters in the compound all the time, but I don’t see him making any tests on them. He just watches them.”
“And talks to them,” Chang observed.
“And talks, yes,” Julia said.
“About what?” Nichols asked.
“Who knows?”
Everyone looked at Ellen. “You’re closest to him,” Michaelson said. “Can’t you bring him out of it?”
“I’ve got to know what he’s in, first,” Ellen said. “He isn’t saying a thing.”
You know that you must be very careful, for they outnumber you, and their concern for your welfare can be deadly. Already they realize you are disturbed, and Ellen has begun to probe for the source of the disturbance. Last night you lay in her arms and she questioned you, obliquely, skillfully, and you knew what she is trying to find out. When the moons appeared she suggested that you and she stroll in the compound, among the sleeping Eaters. You declined, but she sees that you have become involved with the creatures.
You have done probing of your own—subtly, you hope. And you are aware that you can do nothing to save the Eaters. An irrevocable commitment has been made. It is 1876 all over again; these are the bison, these are the Sioux, and they must be destroyed, for the railroad is on its way. If you speak out here, your friends will calm you and pacify you and edit you, for they do not see what you see. If you return to Earth to agitate, you will be mocked and recommended for another reconstruct. You can do nothing. You can do nothing.
You cannot save, but perhaps you can record.
Go out into the prairie. Live with the Eaters; make yourself their friend; learn their ways. Set it down, a full account of their culture, so that at least that much will not be lost. You know the techniques of field anthropology. As was done for your people in the old days, do now for the Eaters.
He finds Michaelson. “Can you spare me for a few weeks?” he asks.
“Spare you, Tom? What do you mean?”
“I’ve got some field studies to do. I’d like to leave the base and work with Eaters in the wild.”
“What’s wrong with the ones in the compound?”
“It’s the last chance with wild ones, Mike. I’ve got to go.”
“Alone, or with Ellen?”
“Alone.”
Michaelson nods slowly. “All right, Tom. Whatever you want. Go. I won’t hold you here.”
I dance in the prairie under the green-gold sun. About me the Eaters gather. I am stripped; sweat makes my skin glisten; my heart pounds. I talk to them with my feet, and they understand.
They understand.
They have a language of soft sounds. They have a god. They know love and awe and rapture. They have rites. They have names. They have a history. Of all this I am convinced.
I dance on thick grass.
How can I reach them? With my feet, with my hands, with my grunts, with my sweat. They gather by the hundreds, by the thousands, and I dance. I must not stop. They cluster about me and make their sounds. I am a conduit for strange forces. My great-grandfather should see me now! Sitting on his porch in Wyoming, the firewater in his hand, his brain rotting—see me now, old one! See the dance of Tom Two Ribbons! I talk to these strange ones with my feet under a sun that is the wrong color. I dance. I dance.
“Listen to me,” I say. “I am your friend, I alone, the only one you can trust. Trust me, talk to me, teach me. Let me preserve your ways, for soon the destruction will come.”
I dance, and the sun climbs, and the Eaters murmur.
There is the chief. I dance toward him, back, toward, I bow, I point to the sun, I imagine the being that lives in that ball of flame, I imitate the sounds of these people, I kneel, I rise, I dance. Tom Two Ribbons dances for you.