James Blish by Midsummer Century

Author:Midsummer Century
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-08-12T14:39:30+00:00

The night came rapidly--evidently it was technically winter in these high- southern latitudes--and with it came the suspicion that the Birds were not going to provide any food or water. A change of guard brought Martels no relief, unless he counted a large, limey dropping left by the first sentinel, evidently in contempt, since the floor of the drum was otherwise clean.

He scarcely worried; he had too much else to think about. Some of the new knowledge seemed quite useless: For example, it was now confirmed that "Qvant" was a title, not a name, but unless name-magic also counted for something in this millennium, the confirmation left him no better off than before. On the other hand, Martels' impression that the Bird King's mention of "the Talons" implied physical torture had been instantly and dramatically confirmed by a prolonged mental shudder from Qvant (no, the Qvant, never assume that any fact is useless until it is so proven)--which in turn at least suggested that Martels' original guess that pain might prove to be a useful weapon against the Autarch was probably right. Good; put that one in the active file.

The moon began to rise. Even low on the horizon, it was smaller than he had ever seen it before. Of course; tidal forces had been increasing its angular momentum for more than twenty-three thousand years since he had seen it last. He had not really been in any doubt of what century he was in now, but this confirmation gave him a small chill nonetheless. The pole star, it occurred to him, should now be back at the withers end of Charles' Wain. That surely was useless knowledge, this far south.

Now, what about the Birds? He thought he now had a fair idea of just how dangerous they were. They had retained all their nonrational gifts, such as flight and orientation, and their fast, high-temperature metabolism, both of which now served to implement their dawning intelligence. That their old instinctive craftsmanship, as evidenced in the basket-weavers and the bower-birds, had been greatly augmented was evident in the very Tower on the top of which Martels now turned restlessly like a jumping-bean upon a drumhead. They were now coming to parity with man, as man, perhaps through the discovery of what the Qvant had called "juganity," slid gradually back toward what they once had been in esse-- and without their undergoing any drastic change. Under the pressure of evolution, they had simply become more and more what they had always been in posse: Proud, territorily jealous, and implacably cruel--to which had been added, simply by bringing it forward, the serpent wisdom of their remotest ancestors.

Yet a human brain at its best--say, that of the Qvant-- could probably overmatch them even now. What was the Qvant playing for, anyhow? Had he actually tried to provoke the King into killing Tiam/Martels out of hand, thus promoting the Qvant to the dubious rank of a fading ancestor? Again, was he in Tiam's skull, or still in the case? More and more, that was beginning to seem like the central mystery of them all.

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