"Limitation of materials," said Dreyer. "The moon obviously is
lacking in mineral resources, being composed chiefly of nonmetallic
silicates. The glass knife our friend used on the corpse indicates
metal starvation; this highway clinches it because it shows they
have a highly developed technology of glass-working. Therefore, we
are very definitely not in the presence of a primitive civilization
as we supposed. We'd better watch our step because our friend seemed
disillusioned about our failure to save his injured companion."
They chose a direction along the highway and pursued it a few feet
above the surface. They traveled for twenty minutes or so with no break
in the forest about them or the shining highway below.
Then abruptly a figure came into view in the distance. It was moving
rapidly. Terry squinted and suddenly exclaimed, "We come how many light
years to find a super-civilization, and we find bike riders!"
Phyfe said, "I don't see anything strange in it. Certainly the bicycle
is an obvious mode of locomotion in a moderately mechanical culture. It
may or may not imply a lack of self-propelled mechanisms."
"Recognize that fellow?" asked Underwood.
They drifted forward as the rider approached rapidly. Finally they
could see his features plainly and recognized him as the rebellious one
of their morning encounter.
"I wonder if he is on his way back to see us again," said Terry.
"Our meeting is fortunate," said Dreyer. "I want to know what he did
with that organ he removed from the corpse. I've never come across
anything quite like that in all my ethnological studies. I suspect it
may be some rite associated with the belief in that organ as the seat
of life, just as the heart was once regarded among us."
They slowed as they came to the man--for so they had come to think of
him in their own minds. He halted also and regarded them balefully.
Then furious speech came to his lips. "_Shazer na jourli!_"
Dreyer frowned and muttered a few syllables slowly. The stranger
repeated the furious assertion.
* * * * *
"He says that we are not gods," said Dreyer.
"We could have told him that much," said Underwood drily.
The conversation in the unknown tongue continued until Dreyer turned
again to his companions. "The fellow calls himself Jandro, and the fact
that we have metals still doesn't convince him that we are gods, an
opinion which contradicts those of his fellows. Does that make sense to
you?"
Phyfe exclaimed, "It makes wonderful sense! A planet devoid of metals,
yet inhabited by a highly intelligent race. They make the best possible
technological use of materials at their command, but they know somehow
of the existence and properties of metals. What is more natural than
for them to build a religion about the more fortunate metal-using
gods?"
Dreyer said to Jandro, "We are not gods. We did not come to you as
gods, but as visitors. We are from a place called Earth."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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