'But we are not cruel, if we can avoid it, and do not kill without
need. If there was some way we could live in peace and well-fed
contentment, we would throw away our spears and never kill again. But
no one has ever shown us how to do this, if such a way exists.'
A gleam came into his eyes such as Sylviana had not seen for many
months: when he first looked out from the smaller cave, and beheld the
power and majesty of the Mantis. 'Go ahead,' he told them, almost
defiantly. 'Ask me any question. Thank you Kataya, and David
Rawlings. You have made me feel strong and unashamed.'
At this there was another brief space in which the company felt
reluctant to speak. But it did not last. Their desire to know, and to
touch new life, was stronger than their natural timidity.
'Yes, I have a question,' said a woman. 'You say that your
people have no spoken language.' (Sylviana had told the doctor, who
in turn had passed it on to the others). 'And yet you have a name.
How is that?'
'My people all have names, but no sounds to go with them. My name is
a sign made with the hands, or a figure drawn in the dirt, so that I can
be identified to others at need, such as during a hunt. The Machine
called me Kalus, to my mind as well as my ears, just as it gave names to
all the elements of my world. I have always wondered how this was
done.'
Brushing over this last information, which none understood and which
they could always come back to, they asked several more questions about
the hill-people, until one of the younger men produced a greaseboard and
marker, and approached him.
'Your sign, the one that identifies you. Could you draw it?'
Kalus took the board, and after being shown how to use it, drew a
straight line, horizontal, then a long curving tooth like a saber at the
end of it, pointing downward.
'This represents the upper jaw of the hill-cat, one of the greatest
hunters of our world. My first father made it for me, hoping that I
would be as fierce and cunning. All our names our similar. When he was
killed by a bear. . .I drew it in anger on the ground, then with my foot
blurred away the sharp point, to show that I was no great predator, but
only a man. Like this.' He smeared the lower half of the tusk,
leaving only a squarish root. 'That has been my mark ever since.'
'The MANtooth,' said Sylviana suddenly, and much to her own
consternation. But half embarrassed, half proud in spite of herself,
she pushed on. 'The Machine called you the Mantooth.'
'Yes,' he said simply. 'And that is what I am.'
'This machine---' began another.
'No, no, we'll come back to that later,' said Rawlings.
'Your first father', Kalus. What did you mean by that?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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