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I traveled much
faster, conversation would be difficult above the wind noise. My brothers and I are
enjoying this talk.”
“Yah. I guess I
am talking to all of you,” Guibedo said. “What are they saying?”
“My brothers are
mostly picking names for themselves, my lord.”
“Anybody got
Black Bart yet?”
“No, my lord. Thus far, each of my
brothers has wanted to be named after a
weapon.”
Kids! Guibedo thought.
“You keep calling them ‘brothers.’ Ain’t you got no girls?”
“No, my lord. We
don’t have sex.”
“Such a pity. So
how do you reproduce?”
“In the strictest
sense of the word, we don’t, my lord.”
“Then how do you
get little LDUs?” Guibedo asked.
“Lord Copernick worried that an
opponent might breed us for his own needs,
my lord, so he caused our eggs to
grow from a nonsentient mother being which lives on the ceiling of a vault below his tree house.”
“I wondered why
Heiny wanted so much room,” said Guibedo. “How many eggs you got growing
down there?”
“Approximately
three hundred thousand, my lord, a third of which are now available for
hatching.”
“Why so
many?” Talking in a windstorm was making Guibedo hoarse.
“My Lord
Copernick calls it his insurance policy,” Dirk said. “And, of course, the
large numbers don’t cost him anything in time or money.”
So Heiny figures
things are gonna get real rough! Ach! The kid oughta know that it’s safer to
hide than to fight. Still, maybe it’s safer yet to be able to fight while you’re hiding.
“You know, Dirk,
I can see how it could be kinda rough, being an LDU. No girls, no father, no
mother, no sisters—”
“But a lot of
brothers, my lord. We feel rather sorry for you humans. You take so long to grow,
then die so soon.”
“You guys don’t
die?”
“We can die if
sufficiently injured, but we aren’t trou bled with diseases. We don’t age or have a
finite lifespan.
“But you humans
die without ever being able to communicate, except with your clumsy language.
How do you
fight the loneliness?”
“It ain’t so bad
like you make it out. We humans have bonds with each other, but maybe you
wouldn’t understand. Friendship, love, kinship with other individuals. And a man who is wise
knows that there is a bond between all men. All men are brothers, Dirk, even if we don’t act like it.
Everybody counts, nobody should be forgotten.” Actually, Guibedo treasured
bis solitude as much as any other hermit did, but he was not sufficiently introspective to
notice his own hyprocisy.
“And we got
other ways of communication besides words. Actions talk, and we have our
ceremonies.”
“Ceremonies, my
lord? Could you describe them?”
“Sure. I can see
you’re a sociology minor. Whenever something happens to a human that’s
important to him, he’s got to have a ceremony. There’s simple ones like shaking hands. Two
people meet and want to be friendly, they shake hands. And there’s more complicated ones—”
For the next quarter
hour, at Dirk’s prodding, Guibedo talked on about the human ceremonies connected with Birth,
Friendship, Love, Hate, Marriage, and Death. Dirk seemed especially interested in
burial ceremonies, a
fascination that Guibedo ascribed to Dirk’s own
deathlessness.
They left the tunnel
and entered a starlit abandoned gravel pit. Dirk stopped in front of a
seven-foot-tall man. He was magnificently muscled, and his head was large for his body.
“Uncle Martin!” Heinrich Copernick stepped away from his battered van.
“I see you got out in one piece.”
“Yah, that you,
Heiny? That was one hell of a tunnel your boys dug.”
“We figured you
were worth it.”
“But why such a
long tunnel, Heiny?”
“Logistics,
Uncle Martin. For one thing, I needed someplace to put five million cubic feet
of dirt. For another thing, there was the problem of feeding ten thou sand LDUs. They only
eat a fluid that your tree houses produce. There’s a community of
faster, conversation would be difficult above the wind noise. My brothers and I are
enjoying this talk.”
“Yah. I guess I
am talking to all of you,” Guibedo said. “What are they saying?”
“My brothers are
mostly picking names for themselves, my lord.”
“Anybody got
Black Bart yet?”
“No, my lord. Thus far, each of my
brothers has wanted to be named after a
weapon.”
Kids! Guibedo thought.
“You keep calling them ‘brothers.’ Ain’t you got no girls?”
“No, my lord. We
don’t have sex.”
“Such a pity. So
how do you reproduce?”
“In the strictest
sense of the word, we don’t, my lord.”
“Then how do you
get little LDUs?” Guibedo asked.
“Lord Copernick worried that an
opponent might breed us for his own needs,
my lord, so he caused our eggs to
grow from a nonsentient mother being which lives on the ceiling of a vault below his tree house.”
“I wondered why
Heiny wanted so much room,” said Guibedo. “How many eggs you got growing
down there?”
“Approximately
three hundred thousand, my lord, a third of which are now available for
hatching.”
“Why so
many?” Talking in a windstorm was making Guibedo hoarse.
“My Lord
Copernick calls it his insurance policy,” Dirk said. “And, of course, the
large numbers don’t cost him anything in time or money.”
So Heiny figures
things are gonna get real rough! Ach! The kid oughta know that it’s safer to
hide than to fight. Still, maybe it’s safer yet to be able to fight while you’re hiding.
“You know, Dirk,
I can see how it could be kinda rough, being an LDU. No girls, no father, no
mother, no sisters—”
“But a lot of
brothers, my lord. We feel rather sorry for you humans. You take so long to grow,
then die so soon.”
“You guys don’t
die?”
“We can die if
sufficiently injured, but we aren’t trou bled with diseases. We don’t age or have a
finite lifespan.
“But you humans
die without ever being able to communicate, except with your clumsy language.
How do you
fight the loneliness?”
“It ain’t so bad
like you make it out. We humans have bonds with each other, but maybe you
wouldn’t understand. Friendship, love, kinship with other individuals. And a man who is wise
knows that there is a bond between all men. All men are brothers, Dirk, even if we don’t act like it.
Everybody counts, nobody should be forgotten.” Actually, Guibedo treasured
bis solitude as much as any other hermit did, but he was not sufficiently introspective to
notice his own hyprocisy.
“And we got
other ways of communication besides words. Actions talk, and we have our
ceremonies.”
“Ceremonies, my
lord? Could you describe them?”
“Sure. I can see
you’re a sociology minor. Whenever something happens to a human that’s
important to him, he’s got to have a ceremony. There’s simple ones like shaking hands. Two
people meet and want to be friendly, they shake hands. And there’s more complicated ones—”
For the next quarter
hour, at Dirk’s prodding, Guibedo talked on about the human ceremonies connected with Birth,
Friendship, Love, Hate, Marriage, and Death. Dirk seemed especially interested in
burial ceremonies, a
fascination that Guibedo ascribed to Dirk’s own
deathlessness.
They left the tunnel
and entered a starlit abandoned gravel pit. Dirk stopped in front of a
seven-foot-tall man. He was magnificently muscled, and his head was large for his body.
“Uncle Martin!” Heinrich Copernick stepped away from his battered van.
“I see you got out in one piece.”
“Yah, that you,
Heiny? That was one hell of a tunnel your boys dug.”
“We figured you
were worth it.”
“But why such a
long tunnel, Heiny?”
“Logistics,
Uncle Martin. For one thing, I needed someplace to put five million cubic feet
of dirt. For another thing, there was the problem of feeding ten thou sand LDUs. They only
eat a fluid that your tree houses produce. There’s a community of
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