Read Online The Totems of Abydos by John Norman - Free Book Online Page A

various directions. To be sure, the matter was complex. There was a sense, of course, in which some still thought of “anthropology” as being the “science of Man,” and that was the sense in which many now used the expression ‘man’ to refer to many sorts of creatures which would not have originally been regarded as “men” or, say, “human,” in the archaic sense of the word. For example, the captain of the star freighter, who had paid his respects earlier to Rodriguez and Brenner, might, in that extended sense, have been regarded as a “man.” You have probably been assuming, incidentally, that Rodriguez and Brenner are men. I shall not challenge this assumption, but, given the broad sense of the term, as it is now used, I think it only fair to point out that it is, on your part, an assumption. For example, you have not really seen Rodriguez and Brenner. If you were to see them, of course, you might more easily then decide whether or not you felt comfortable in calling them men, and, if so, in what sense.
    At this point Rodriguez finished his Heimat with a noise for which even Brenner would have been hard put to find an epithet more accurate than ‘disgusting’. Rodriguez then thrust the emptied stein, which was his own, into which earlier in the commissary, open between certain ship hours, had been drawn a specified quantity of Heimat, into a pack at his belt, unbuckled his webbing, and, leaning forward, and with a small push away from the webbing stocks, moved toward the wall. There, arresting his progress with his finger tips, he reached for, and grasped, a wall bar and, with his other hand, his feet a few inches off the floor, pressed in sequence two buttons, both recessed in the plating, in response to the signal of the first of which the illumination in the lounge was extinguished, and in response to the signal of the second of which the shielding of the observation port slid to one side.
    Brenner eagerly unbuckled his own webbing and, in a moment, had joined Rodriguez at the port.
    Some said it was the only way to see the stars, from such a perspective, within deep space, outside the distorting effects of an atmosphere, preferably at a sublight velocity. They were now at such a velocity, of course, having been decelerating for more than three Commonworld rotations, or Commonworld days. They were on their approach to Abydos.
    “There it is,” said Rodriguez, pointing.
    “Abydos?” asked Brenner.
    “Her sun,” said Rodriguez, patiently.
    Of course,” said Brenner.
    It was natural for Rodriguez to have spoken of the star whose satellite was Abydos as “her sun.” Both Rodriguez and Brenner, and many of their kind, particularly those who had undertaken long voyages on dark, empty seas, tended to think of worlds in the feminine gender. Even some of their species whose archaic languages might have prescribed differently in this respect, as they had entered space, had adopted this custom. The world, far off, gleaming, beckoning, was the hearth against cold, the shelter against storms and loneliness, the haven, the home, the harbor, the precious thing, the womb of life, the platform of her strivings or ineffectualities, of her choices, of histories, and of refusals of history. It was in this sense then, as the light in the window, as the harbor, as the home, arrival at which betokened the end of long journeys, as the vast mysterious matrix from which consciousness and curiosity, and meaningfulness, had emerged, that one might think of the world in the feminine gender, or, more simply, as the mother. To those who might think of worlds as mineralogical curiosities, consequent upon remote condensations, living upon their familiar surfaces, but not really seeing them, they might continue to be “it.” To those who viewed them from space, however, they would remain “she.”
    “It is on Abydos,” said Rodriguez, “that I hope to find out something.”
    Brenner looked into the night.
    “It is not