The Best of by John Campbell

Author:John Campbell [Campbell, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-31T12:36:34.436000+00:00

Out of Night

THE SAKN MOTHER looked down at Grayth with unblinking, golden eyes. "You administer the laws under the Sarn," she clicked waspishly. "The Sarn makes the laws. Men obey them. That was settled once and for all time four thousand years ago. The Sarn Mother has determined that this thing is the way of progress that is most desirable. It is clear?"

Grayth looked up at her, his slow-moving eyes following from the toe pads, up the strange, rope-flexible legs, up the rounded, golden body to the four twined arms, his lips silent. His steel-gray eyes alone conveyed his thought complete. The Sarn Mother, on her inlaid throne of state, clicked softly in annoyance.

"Aye, different races we are; the Sarn are the ruling race. The Sarn Mother will be obeyed by the slaves of her people no less than by her people. For many centuries the crazy patchwork has persisted-that the men have had freedoms that the masters have denied themselves. Henceforth men shall be ruled as the Sarn. The Sarn have been just masters; this is no more than justice. But be warned, you will see that this thing is administered at once-or the Sarn will administer it themselves."

Grayth spoke for the first time, his voice deep and powerful. "Four thousand years ago your people came to Earth and conquered our people, enslaved them, destroyed all our leaders, setting up a rabble of unintelligent slaves. Since your atomic energy, your synthetic foods, your automatic production machinery, and the enormous decrease in human population you had brought about made more of goods for each man, it worked no great hardship.

"Before ever the Sarn came to this world, your race was ruled by a matriarchy, as it is today, and must always be. To your people it is natural, for among you the females born in a generation outnumber the males five to one. You stand near seven feet tall, while the Sarn Father-as the other males of your race-is but four feet tall, but a quarter as powerful physically. Matriarchy is the inevitable heritage of your race.

"You differ from us in this fundamental of sex distribution. By pure chance our two races resemble each other superficially-two eyes, two ears, rounded heads. Your race has two, wide-separated nostrils, four arms in place of two. But internally there is no resemblance. No bone of your body is three inches long; your arms, your legs are made as a human spine, of many small bones. Your copper-bearing foods are deadly poison to us. Your strath, though it seems like human hair, is a sensory organ sensitive to radio waves, and a radiator of those waves. We are two races apart, fundamentally different.

"Now, like your own matriarchy, you wish to establish upon us a matriarchal government; for this reason alone, you state, the number of males to be allowed in succeeding generations is to be reduced.

"What is natural for your race is an unnatural crime upon ours. Would you insist that we should eat

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