The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fool, by David Mason

Title: The Fool

Author: David Mason

Release Date: February 25, 2022 [eBook #67497]

Language: English

Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Duncan? No, he wasn't the Agent just before you. He was here in 2180—oh, a good thirty years back, Earth-time. The natives say hundreds of years, but they're a short-lived lot. The way they cut each other's throats, it's a wonder any of them live out the life span they've got, anyway.

I came out when Duncan did—knew him pretty well, as well as anybody could. A perfect fool. Knowing him was a real education. Do anything the other way from the way Duncan did it, and you'd be all right.

You wouldn't think it to look at him. Well set-up man, around thirty when he got here, intelligent face, good talker, had a degree—but a fool. Seemed as if he couldn't do anything right. He told me once that he'd been married, and that it had broken up. He more or less implied that his wife had gotten sick of little things—broken dishes, tactless remarks, carelessness. You wouldn't think that would be enough to break up a marriage, but you've got no idea how that sort of thing can add up.

I was clerking for him then. I swear I did all the work. I had to. He couldn't add, couldn't file a record, and couldn't have found one if he'd managed somehow to put it away. I took Agent's inventories, I did most of the trading with the native chiefs, I did everything. Duncan just bumbled around the post, or listened to records, or wrote those silly, hopeless, letters to his ex-wife. He was trying to get her to come back to him. How do I know? Well, who do you think worked the subspace transmitter, as well as doing everything else?

The native thing really annoyed me, though, because it was dangerous. You know the Tarchiki. They look human enough, except for minor details. When it comes to a Tarchik female I'll overlook the green skin and the pointed ears every time. But they aren't entirely like us. They have a liking for war and torture that's really sickening.

Our ancestors? Oh, now, really ... you're talking just like Duncan. That was always his apology for them. He said our own ancestors were pretty bad, too. Certainly they were, but I can't see any ancestor of mine acting the way a Tarchik does with a captured enemy. And they haven't the slightest sense of sportsmanship, either. They'd rather jump you from ambush than fight in the open, and they won't fight at all if the enemy's stronger than they are. That's why they've never made any serious attempt to do in all the Earthmen on their world. That, and greed; they get very good deals from us, and they know it.

Anyway, I'm sure none of my ancestors ever acted like that.

But Duncan was always ready to forgive a Tarchik anything. That used to upset the hell out of them, too, because they expect to be punished when they're caught at anything. They don't understand our reluctance to kill, but they respect a Patrolman's shock gun, and when they get caught stealing or taking each other's tails they know they're going to get a few months in quod, or what they hate much worse, a public flogging. If they didn't get punished, they'd assume it was weakness on our part. Just like kids.

Anyway, there was Duncan, holding long confabs with the Tarchiki, trying to teach them some sort of elementary ethics. Naturally, it didn't take at all. They listened, because they love long speeches, but they never acted on what he said.

He used to tell them that if they stopped chopping each other up and hanging up the rows of tails as war trophies, their lives would be a lot pleasanter. They used to nod and applaud, but Duncan never caught on to the simple fact that they thought this was meant to be a joke. They didn't think their lives weren't pleasant enough. After all, look at their situation. They've got plenty to eat, without working hard for it, plenty of time on their hands—why shouldn't they keep down their surplus population? They don't know any other way, except breaking up their eggs, and they only do that to enemy tribes.

While he was at it, Duncan tried to tell them all about love and things like that. Oh, no, not sex. If there's anything a Tarchik doesn't know about that, there's no Earthman going to teach him. I mean the way they treat their women. A Tarchik woman's nothing but a piece of property as far as sex goes, but there's some kind of curious maternal inheritance thing—anyway, it's as funny as hell to see a big Tarchik buck get down and bump his head in front of his mother, and his aunts, and all his other female ancestors. That's the one thing he's really afraid of. But, till she gets to be a mother, a woman leads a fairly rough life, getting passed around as a kind of prize of war, working harder than the men, all that.

So Duncan wanted them to be a bit chivalrous to their women. Share the work, all kinds of things like that. You know what they thought of that idea—another Earthman's joke.

But the funniest thing of all, to them, was his idea about the kids. Naturally, a Tarchik pup's no use to its father till it's a bit grown. Then, if it's a boy, the old man teaches it to drink smassi and file its teeth, and go out ambushing and cutting tails with the other noble savages. If it's a girl, the father looks around for a suitable buyer as soon as its breasts are grown, and hopes for the best price possible.

To the mothers, though, the kids represent a kind of investment, since custom directs the first loyalties to the mother's clan. So they treat them pretty well, although a bit casually, since they litter by twos and at least once a year.

Anyway, Duncan seemed to think highly of kids. Can't imagine why, since he never had any of his own. He used to run a kind of school for them. Taught them all kinds of things a Tarchik's got no use for at all, made toys for them—badly, naturally; he couldn't have cut his initials in a tree without slicing his thumb. But what he couldn't make in the way of school stuff, he imported from Earth. Cost him his entire salary, except for what he spent on those futile letters to his wife.

Those kids were fond of him, I suppose—as fond of him as a Tarchik ever gets of anything. They even kept the school foolishness going awhile afterward, but I think it's gone now.

Anything that fool Duncan said, the Tarchiki thought was a great joke. They wouldn't have hurt his feelings for anything, for fear he'd quit telling them tall stories. They told him quite a few things, too. He wrote it all down, in dead earnest, as if their fairy tales and drum poems had any value. I sent the whole lot off to his wife, after it happened. I think it got lost in transit—I never heard from her, anyway. Or she may have thrown it all away. I can't imagine what else you could do with such a pile of nonsense.

As a matter of fact, that's what led up to it—those damned legends. Duncan got interested in their religion. Never do that, boy. Let 'em all have their ghost stories and wooden gods, and never fool around with their idea of what makes the planet go round.

The Tarchiks have a lot of small time fetishes, but they also have one big god, a fat one made out of stone, out in the jungle over near Mount Clarke. Every so often they all go up in a body and pay him a visit, and they take along any spare pups, usually extra girl children or prisoners from other tribes. This god—Kachan, his name is, I think—likes children too. He likes them best roasted, like birds on a spit. Charming deity.

Anyway, when Duncan found out about Kachan, he got very upset. He went blazing out there to Mount Clarke, and he blew Kachan all to bits with a grenade. The Tarchiki didn't care for that, naturally.

About a week later, Duncan was on his way over to the big village near here, to give his Tarchik kids another arithmetic lesson, I suppose. Old Stancha—he was the local religious big shot, a kind of High Priest—threw a spear from the bushes, Tarchik fashion, and nailed Duncan very neatly. Nailed, yes. That's the way we found him, with his back against a tree.

Just another case of a man's foolishness catching up with him. But Duncan hasn't stopped giving us trouble yet, dead or not. First thing that happened was that old Stancha came in to the post, demanding to be executed. He claimed he'd made a big mistake killing Duncan, the biggest mistake of his life. I never could figure out what he meant—it seemed to have something to do with what Duncan said to him just before he died.

Well, if Stancha had kept his mouth shut, we'd have had no case at all, which would have been just fine with me. I was Agent, in Duncan's place, and I was out to see to it that business stayed good and got better. Can't annoy the natives by executing their high priest and expect good trade. But I couldn't very well let Stancha go, either, once he'd confessed. So I had him tried, all proper and correct, and executed him in due form.

Next thing I knew, the Tarchiks were putting Kachan back together again. They were all up there, building a great big new version, and having a first class party at the same time. These parties generally lead to a tail-hunting expedition, so I expected some trouble. But it didn't, this time.

There was plenty of noise, though. The Tarchiki never do anything quietly, and this seemed to be an occasion. What with drums, bagpipes, wailing and howling, there wasn't a bird would roost for twenty miles around.

When they got all through, I went up to look over the new statue, out of curiosity, and because I'd heard that they hadn't sacrificed a single pup. I thought there must be something queer about Kachan Number Two. There was.

It was Duncan. They'd given him a tail, and he looked more like a Tarchik than an Earthman, but the face was unmistakable. They aren't half bad carvers, you know; and they'd really spread themselves this time. The thing was forty feet tall, and it stood on a rock platform, with some words carved in that lettering Duncan had taught them to use. The words were something Duncan was supposed to have said as he was dying.

I never could read that stuff really well; all I got out of the thing was that Duncan was forgiving the old murderer, because he didn't know what he was doing. Pure nonsense, of course, but you don't expect a dying man to make sense, and particularly not Duncan. But it seems those words were what had caused all the to-do.

I found the story in one of those ballads Duncan had collected. Seems that the Tarchiki had been expecting a great teacher to show up, who'd do all sorts of wonderful things for them. Nothing unusual; all primitives have some story like that. But there was something else.

The idea was that if the Tarchiki listened to this teacher, he'd make them the most important people in the whole world; in the universe, in fact, from the way the thing sounded. Just how, wasn't specified. But if they should let him be killed, they would know who he had been because of his last words, forgiving them. Naturally, they fitted Duncan right in; forgiving anybody would be the least likely idea in any Tarchik's mind if he were being speared.

So the Tarchiki think they've made a terrible mistake, and they seem bent on spending the rest of time making up for it. It's the leading religion now, and it's the biggest joke I've ever come across. Poor Duncan, wrong-headed as he was about nearly everything else, had a bit of sense in that department; he never had any religious nonsense in him.

Anyway, it shows you, doesn't it? I've always said you can learn a little from practically anything. You keep Duncan in mind, any time you get to feeling too soft on these natives. He might be a god to these Tarchiki, but I'll tell you the real test of whether a man's got any sense; he's dead, I'm alive, and you're alive. That's enough proof for me.