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CHAPTER TEN

FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
BUT CONCERNING EVENTS OF UP TO
2000 YEARS EARLIER

Bargains Kept 

The next day, Sava stayed to help Bronki on her book, and Zoda, lacking anything better to do, stayed too. Bronki's retreat had two studies, each with a computer. Zoda wanted to get involved and help out, but was stymied for lack of equipment.

Frustrated, she asked Kren to walk with her back to her house and to help her to bring her computer to Bronki's place. Since he was sick of trying to comprehend even the coarse points of mathematics, he agreed.

It was a pleasant two-hour walk there, and a strenuous three-hour walk back. Zoda's computer weighed close to two gross pounds. Mitchegai computer technology was vastly inferior to that of late twentieth-century Earth, even after a million years of development.

Creativity is the domain of the young. Since Mitchegai are normally thousands of years old before they have brains enough to do anything technical, they are often very intelligent and extremely learned, but not very creative.

Electronics was also held back because over a million years before, a prominent academician had written a flawless paper absolutely proving that anything like an integrated circuit was totally impossible to make or use. Thereafter, anyone who suggested such a thing was simply regarded as being uneducated, and was treated the way that humans would treat someone who wanted to build a perpetual motion machine.

Kren and Zoda had the computer slung on the same aluminum carrying pole that had been used for bringing in last night's party snack. Zoda bounced along, carrying her end without apparent difficulty, and Kren was ashamed to admit that he was tired in front of a mere academician. He followed behind her without voicing his complaints.

They were almost back before Zoda explained that the trick of using a carrying pole was to adjust your step to the natural frequency of the weight and the pole. With just the right bounce and timing, the job became much easier.

Kren thanked her for the useful, if belated, information.

Zoda set her equipment up in the last bedroom, and Kren, interested, followed her instructions to connect the components with each other, and with the two other computers. Soon all three academics were working smoothly together, and Kren went back to trying to master elementary mathematics.

The next afternoon, frustrated with his lack of accomplishment, Kren went out and brought back another party snack, as similar as possible to the one the others had admired a couple of days before.

That night, Kren won the finger game and got to eat the brain. The day after, his studies went much better, and this got him to thinking. Perhaps to learn new things, he needed new brain cells. Perhaps the ones he had were already committed to other things.

The next day, he went out with his spear, and killed four juvenals, eating their brains on the spot, and leaving the bodies to be eaten by other juvenals. On any planet, herbivores will eagerly eat meat, if they don't have to kill it first.

His studies improved considerably.

Soon they fell into a pattern, with a party every other night, but no major meals, since time was pressing and Bronki couldn't afford to take the time off for a proper stupor. Kren always provided the party snacks.

And four times a day, he ate a juvenal brain.

Mitchegai juvenals are not herding animals, and they are not territorial. They drift and wander as individuals, constantly seeking out new and better pastures.

Nonetheless, Kren's excessive slaughter was thinning out the herbivores in the area. More were being killed than drifted in. Furthermore, the few that were left were being sated on meat rather than the much less nutritious grass. The fields around the retreat were becoming rank.

After three weeks of nonstop work, the academics went outside for a break, and they noticed it immediately.

"Just look at this mess!" Sava said.

"Kren, this is your work, isn't it," Zoda said. "Just how many juvenals have you been eating? Ten a day?"

"Only four," he admitted. "And only the brains. The rest of the bodies are eaten by other juvenals, so the biomass stays the same."

"It does no such thing," Sava said. "The conversion rate is only five dozen ten per gross. You are ruining the grass. Worse, you are breaking the duke's law. Adults are permitted to take what they need to eat. Wasting food is punished with death by fire. If they catch you, they'll burn you at the stake in some public square! And doing anything that degrades the quality of the grass carries the same penalty!"

Mitchegai criminals are not actually burned at the stake with a fire at their feet. That was just a saying left over from the distant, barbaric past. In more progressive, modern times, they use a ceramic, temperature controlled, electrically heated stake, which permits the sufferer to remain alive much longer, and thus provides more amusement for the crowd.

"I know military regulations. I am less familiar with civilian law."

"You are ignorant of a lot of things," Bronki said. "Small additions of fresh brain cells can improve your learning abilities. But the maximum that is useful for academic purposes is one juvenal every other day. Four a day is simply ignorant!"

"I apologize and stand corrected," Kren said.

"You will do more than that!" Bronki shouted. "You will cease hunting anywhere within a dozen miles of here for the next six weeks at least. Maybe enough juvenals will drift in to correct the problem here by then. With any luck, the grass will look proper again before anyone in authority notices the problem. Because if they do notice this mess, or if anybody calls it to their attention, you'll have the whole army out after you."

"I said I was sorry."

"That's not enough," Zoda said. "We're all too busy to make any extended hunting trips right now, so you have to feed the whole group."

"And if you can't bring in enough food from more than a dozen miles away, you'll go hungry before the rest of us do," Sava added. "Is that understood?"

"With the alternative of death by fire, I will comply with your requests," Kren said, thinking that they were quite serious about perhaps turning him in. Certainly, no Mitchegai would take the personal risk of attempting to protect someone else from the duke's forces.

Bronki said, "You certainly will. And after this area is back in proper shape, I will give you a list of the poor indigents in this neighborhood, starting with my housekeeper. Many of them are crippled, and have difficulty getting enough to eat. You will give the body of the child you kill every other day to one of them. That qualifies as an act of charity, and will satisfy the duke's law."

"Yes, madam."

Two weeks later, the academics announced that they had completed Bronki's book slightly ahead of the deadline, and had E-mailed it to the publisher. The party that night was a particularly good one.

At one point, Bronki announced, "Kren, you will be pleased to learn that I have heard from the athletic director at my university. He has said that if you can repeat your spear-chucking performance for him on a regular basis, he can guarantee you a five-year athletic scholarship!"

Sava and Zoda applauded wildly, while the party snack moaned pleasantly.

"This is wonderful," Kren said. "Now I must make inquiries with my superiors to see if I can take advantage of this excellent offer."

"I'm sure that we can help you with that," Zoda said.

"Thank you, but I think it best if I handled this one on my own. The protocols of the military are much different from those of your world," Kren said, helping himself to a nice bit of tail. "Still, if I need help, I will not hesitate asking it of you."

"Next, have you had a chance to read that novel I lent you, A Soldier's Life?" Bronki asked.

"Yes, and I found it to be simply silly. The book's heroes see a dozen times as much action as any normal combat troops could possibly survive, without having any of them killed. Their use of weapons ranges from awkward through foolish and on to absolutely stupid. They all go into battle shouting patriotic slogans, they all respect all of their officers, and they all feel an unrelenting reverence for their commanding general. In short, they have absolutely nothing in common with real soldiers in a real army. Intelligent warriors might enjoy the humor of it, as a satire, but relatively few soldiers have that level of intelligence. It might be useful as enlistment propaganda, except that it would probably attract the wrong sort of recruit. In short, I can see no possible use for this book."

"Yet it is well liked by many intellectuals," Bronki said.

"Then that is its apparent purpose. To fulfill the aggressive fantasies of intellectual armchair soldiers. Treated as such, it might have merit. As a description of military life, it is fraudulent."

This left a lull in the conversation that was soon filled by everyone having another bite to eat, with suitable verbal accompaniment by the party snack.

"I notice that the grass is recovering nicely, much faster than I thought it would," Sava said.

Kren said, "Besides providing all of the party snacks, I have also hauled in over a dozen juvenals from points over a dozen miles from here, and released them around the house. The program seems to be working."

"Then I think that we can cease worrying about intervention by the authorities," Zoda said. "Now all we have to worry about is Sava's book."

"We'll start on that in the morning," Bronki said. "We work very well together as a team, much more productively than we do as individuals. Perhaps we should consider some sort of a partnership."

"I like that idea," Zoda said. "It's been too long since I've seen my name on anything."

"Then see what you can do about getting yourself a suitable book contract, and we'll work on it next summer. I'll have to go back to the university in a few weeks, and there are some course outlines I have to do, besides getting Sava's book back on track, but I'll be free all next summer."

"It's settled, then. We're a three-way partnership," Sava said.

They all ate to that, tapping their meat together over their snack in the time honored fashion.

The next day, while the others worked at their computers, Kren decided to give up on mathematics, and to start on the sciences. Things progressed well for a while, but he soon found that his progress was slowed by his deficiencies in math. Grumbling, he went hunting the day after.

He found that if he tied six large juvenals by the neck and connected all of the ropes to a central knot, he could get them home without too much difficulty. Since they all tended to run in random directions, they averaged each other out, and holding on to the knot, he could control them, and keep them moving in the desired direction.

If they had all pulled together in the same direction at the same time, he might have been in trouble, but they weren't smart enough to do that.

Five of them were released alive near the house to improve the grass, and the last became a party snack.

After two more weeks, Sava's book was half completed, and the rest of it was completely outlined. After a last, rollicking party, the two old academics packed up Zoda's computer, slung it over their shoulders, and, after many good-byes, went bouncing home.

Once they were gone, Bronki sat at the stool in front of her computer, working on her course outlines.

Kren came quietly into her study and thrust his spear into the flesh under her leg bones, just behind the knees. This cut most of the tendons to her lower legs, crippling her.

She screamed in pain, and fell to the floor.

"Why did you do this to me?" she yelled.

"To immobilize you, and thus make you easier to eat," Kren said.

"Are you crazy? Why would you want to eat an old body like this one when there are plenty of tender young ones around?"

"Because I am not interested in eating your body. I am interested in eating your brain."

"That, too, is madness! My brain is at least three times as big as yours is. If you ate it, you would not be providing yourself with my brain, you would be providing me with your body, which I could certainly use at this point! I think you've crippled me for life," she said, angrily.

"That would happen only if I ate all of your brain, which I do not intend to do. I want your mathematical abilities, and your knowledge of the computer arts."

"Your slow progress in math bothered you that much? I knew that I should have given you some tutoring! Anyway, do you know how to do that?"

"Certainly," Kren said. "One of my earlier meals was a medic who was very knowledgeable in anatomy."

"So you've done this before?"

"Five times. This really was the body of a mining slave, but what I didn't tell you was that I was that slave."

"That's quite a bit of personal advancement! Would you like to tell me the whole story?" Bronki asked, still lying on the floor.

Kren did so, simply because he enjoyed talking to Bronki, and there was no rush. He told his life's story completely and accurately, with none of the self-aggrandizement or face-saving lies that a human criminal would have used. Shame has no place in the Mitchegai character.

Hours later, when he had finished, Bronki said, "Okay, I suppose that if I had been in your position, I might well have done the same thing that you did, at each step of the way. Certainly, I can't hate you for it, except that in one way it certainly galls me! Here I am, one of the most intelligent professors at the university, and now I find that I was stupid enough to invite a vampire into my own home! I hope that nobody ever finds out about this. I'd be a laughingstock!"

"A vampire?"

"Yes, of course, that's what you are, you know. Did you think that you were the first person to come up with this method of self-improvement?"

"I didn't know," Kren said.

"There are so many things that you are ignorant of. You really must get a proper, university education, you know. I'll do what I can to help you accomplish that."

"I don't see how. You won't be alive."

"Of course I will," Bronki said. "There's no need for me to die, and at this point, I need a new body in any event. I would have done it in a year or two, anyway, even if you hadn't crippled this one. We'll just agree on exactly what you'll take for yourself, and feed the rest to a recently metamorphosed adult."

"And you expect me to commit what must surely be a crime by civilian laws, and then leave you alive to testify against me in court?"

"Yes, I do. For one thing, I would be willing to sign a contract that I would never bring charges against you, and never testify against you in court. If I broke such a contract, I would be punished right along with you. For another, if it was learned that I had lost some of my intellectual abilities, it could very well cost me my job at the university. For a third, I would be willing to pay you very well to not kill me."

"Pay me? How much?"

"How does twelve thousand Ke sound? It's all that I have in my savings." Bronki had a dozen times that much in the bank, and many times more in other investments besides, but she felt no need to be scrupulously honest.

"It does not sound bad, but I have often admired this retreat of yours. Would you throw it in as well, with all of its contents?"

"If I must, yes, although I am very attached to it. May I borrow it occasionally when you have no need of it?"

"If you will throw in your servant and her house, yes," Kren said.

"Done. We have an agreement." Bronki thought that if she still had the use of the house, and someone else had to pay the taxes and utilities, here and for her housekeeper, she had just made a profit. If her servant had to work a little harder, taking care of two masters now, well, so what?

"Okay. So what do we do now? Must I go out in search of a suitably mature juvenal, and then wait around until she is ready to metamorphose?"

"Of course not! There are dozens of companies that provide suitable, well-selected bodies, at competitive prices, with all of the proper shoulder brands that an academic requires. Help me back up to my stool, and I'll E-mail the one that I used last time," Bronki said.

"How can you afford to pay for her if you are giving me all of your money?"

"My money may be gone, but my credit is very good. I'll charge it on my credit card."

"And the rest of our bargain?" Kren asked.

"I'll do the contract, the bank transfer, and the deed on the property next. Look, I'll need your help getting installed in my new body, won't I? I'm in no position to cheat you now."

"But I'm in a position to cheat you."

"True, but it would be stupid for you to do so. If you stay with our deal, you will come out quite well. Besides getting the knowledge that you want, you will have the money, a nice home, and a trained servant. If I'm dead, my money and property would end up in probate, and you'll be years getting it, if ever."

"Yes, I see. Well then, let's get on with it," Kren said.

 

 

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