Edward Hoch - Isaac Asimov's Worlds of Fantasy. Book 6 - Mythical Beasties

After the meeting Meth Cagno took Sklar Hast aside.

"When you captured Barquan Blasdel, you brought his books."

"True."

"I have been examining these books. They are a set of me Ancient Dicta."

"So I understand."

"This is a source of great satisfaction to me. No one except the Scrivener reads tile Dicta nowadays, though everyone professes familiarity. As the generations proceed, the lives of our ancestors and the fantastic environment from which they came seem more like myth than reality."

"I suppose this is true enough- I am a Hoodwink by trade and only know Hoodwink configurations. The Dicta are written in ancient calligraph, which puzzles me."

"It is difficult to read, that I grant," said Cagno. "However, a patient examination of the Dicta can be profitable.

Each volume represents the knowledge of one of our ancestors, to the extent that he was able to organize it. There is also a great deal of repetition and dullness; our ancestors, whatever their talents, had a few literary skills. Some are vainglorious and devote pages to self-encomium. Others are anxious to explain in voluminous detail the vicissitudes which led to their presence on the Ship of Space. They seem to have been a very mixed group, from various levels of society.

There are hints here and there which I, for one. do not understand. Some describe the Home World as a place of maniacs. Others seem to have held respected places in this society until, as they explain it, the persons in authority turned on them and instituted a savage persecution, ending, as we know. in our ancestors seizing control of the Ship of Space and fleeing to this planet."

"It is all very confusing," said Sklar Hast, "and none of it seems to have much contemporary application. For instance, they do not tell us how they boiled varnish on the Home World, or how they propelled their coracles. Do creatures like the kragen infest the Home World? If so, how do the Home Folk deal with them? Do they kill them or feed them sponges? Our ancestors are silent on these points."

Meth Cagno shrugged. "Evidently they were not overly concerned, or they would have dealt with these matters at length. But I agree that there is much they fail to make clear.

As in our own case, the various castes seemed trained to explicit trades. Especially interesting are the memoirs of James Brunei. His caste, that of Counterfeiter, is now extinct among us. Most of his Dicta are rather conventional exhortations to virtue, but toward the middle of the book he says this."

Here Cagno opened a book and read: *' 'To those who follow us, to our children and grandchil174 Jack Vtince dren, we can leave no tangible objects of value. We brought nothing to the world but ourselves and the wreckage of our lives. We will undoubtedly die here-a fate probably preferable to New Ossining, but by no means the destiny any of us had planned for ourselves. There is no way to escape. Of the entire group I alone have a technical education, most of which i have forgotten. And to what end could 1 turn it? This is a soft world. It consists of ocean and seaweed. There is land nowhere. To escape-even if we had the craft to build a new ship, which we do not-we need metal and metal there is none. Even to broadcast a radio signal we need metal.

None… No clay to make pottery, no silica for glass, no limestone for concrete, no ore from which to smelt metal.

Presumably the ocean carries various salts, but how to extract the metal without electricity? There is iron in our blood: how to extract it? A strange helpless sensation to live on this world where tfie hardest substance is our own bone! We have, during our lives, taken so many things for granted, and now it seems that no one can evoke something from nothing…

This is a problem on which I must think. An ingenious man can work wonders, and I, a successful counterfeiter-or, rather, almost successful-am certainly ingenious.' "

Meth Cagno paused in his reading. "This is the end of the chapter."

"He seems to be a man of no great force," mused Sklar Hast. "It is true mat metal can be found nowhere." He took the bit of metal from his pocket which had once graced the workroom of Barquan Blasdel. "This is obdurate stuff indeed, and perhaps it is what we need to kill King Kragen."

Meth Cagno returned to the book. "He writes his next chapter after a lapse of months:

" 'I have considered the matter at length. But before 1 proceed I must provide as best I can a picture of the way the universe works, for it is clear that none of my colleagues are in any position to do so, excellent fellows though they are.

Please do not suspect me of whimsy: our personalities and social worth undoubtedly vary with the context in which we live.' "

Here Cagno looked up. "I don't completely understand his THE KRAGEfrf 175 meaning here. But I suppose that the matter is unimportant."

He turned the pages. "He now goes into an elaborate set of theorizations regarding the nature of the world, which, I confess, I don't understand. There is small consistency to his beliefs. Either he knows nothing, or is confused, or the world essentially is inconsistent. He claims that all matter is composed of less than a hundred 'elements,' joined together in 'compounds,' The elements are constructed of smaller entities: 'electrons,' 'protons,' 'neutrons,' which are not necessarily matter, but forces, depending on your point of view.

When electrons move the result is an electric current: a substance or condition-he is not clear here-of great energy and many capabilities. Too much electricity is fatal; in smaller quantities we use it to control our bodies. According to Brunei all sorts of remarkable things can be achieved with electricity."

"Let us provide ourselves an electric current then," said Sklar Hast. "This may become our weapon against the kragen."

"The matter is not so simple. In me first place the electricity must be channeled through metal wires,"

"Here is metal," said Sklar Hast, tossing to Meth Cagno the bit of metal he had taken from Blasdel, "though it is hardly likely to be enough."

"The electricity must also be generated," said Cagno,

"which on the Home Planet seems to be a complicated process, requiring a great deal of metal."

"Then how do we get metal?"

"On other planets there seems to be no problem. Ore is refined and shaped into a great variety of tools. Here we have no ore. In other cases, metals are extracted from the sea, once again using electricity."

"Hmph," said Sklar Hast. "To procure metal, one needs electricity. To obtain the electricity, metal is required. It seems a closed circle, into which we are unable to break."

Cagno made a dubious face. "It may well be. Brunei mentions various means to generate electricity. There is me 'voltaic cell'-in which two metals are immersed in acid, and be describes a means to generate the acid, using water, brine, and electricity. Then there is thermo-electricity, photo electricity, chemical electricity, electricity produced by the Rous effect, electricity generated by moving a wire near another wire in which electricity flows. He states that all living creatures produce small quantities of electricity."

"Electricity seems rather a difficult substance to obtain," mused Sklar Hast. "Are there no simple methods to secure metal?"

"Brunei mentions that blood contains a small quantity of iron. He suggests a method for extracting it, by using a high degree of heat. But he also points out that there is at hand no substance capable of serving as a receptacle under such extremes of heat. He states that on the Home World many plants concentrate metallic compounds, and suggests that certain of the sea-plants might do me same. But again either heat or electricity are needed to secure the pure metal."

Sklar Hast ruminated. "Our first and basic problem, as I see it, is self-protection. In short, we need a weapon to kill King Kragen. It might be a device of metal-or it might be a larger and more savage kragen. if such exist…" He considered. "Perhaps you should make production of metal and electricity your goal, and let no other pursuits distract you. I am sure that the council will agree, and put at your disposal such helpers as you may need."