The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo

Author:Paul Di Filippo [Filippo, Paul Di]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781568580289
Google: NDIfnwEACAAJ
Amazon: B00KHE3A0G
Goodreads: 326917
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 1994-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

8

A FISH’S STORY

THE DELICATE CALIPERS looked like toothpicks in the ursine paws of Jacob Cezar. The tips of the measuring instrument disappeared into the woolly curls atop Dottie Cezar’s pate. Chewing on a willow stick to clean her teeth, swigging some native drink from a hollowed-out ostrich egg carried from home, the Hottentot sat patiently submitting to the examination. To pass the time she perused Balzac’s Nana in the original French, occasionally giggling.

Cezar called out the readings, just like a Mississippi riverboat sailor sounding the depths and yelling out, “Mark twain!”

“Dhree point zix, five point nine, den point dwelve. . . .”

Agassiz, seated at his work table, plotted the figures on an intricate graph, whilst simultaneously recording them in several rows and columns. At last, he held up his hand to signal that he had enough data.

“There,” said the scientist, “it’s just as I suspected. Craniometrically and phrenologically speaking, your Hottentot mate does not possess sufficient cerebral development to be classified as fully sentient. Like the rest of her race, she falls closer to a chimp in her mental development.”

“ Vot der hell are you jabbering about?”

Agassiz grew irritated. “Look, man, it’s all right here in black and white, mathematically incontrovertible. Why, her Bump of Sagacity is practically concave! Not to mention the distortion along her Node of Intellection, and her hypertrophied Curve of Amativeness. And the overall volume of her brainpan is clearly deficient. If Sam Morton were to get hold of her prepared skull, I wager he’d be able to fill it with only a few ounces of buckshot.”

Cezar threw the calipers across the room in disgust. One pointy leg embedded itself in the painting of Agassiz’s birthplace. “You’re der vun vit der head full of buckshot, Louie! Not zentient. . . . How can you zay zuch a ding, after practically living in Dottie’s lap for a month?”

Agassiz shuddered at the metaphor. “There’s no personal animosity involved, Jacob. It’s strictly a scientific finding. And you can’t argue with science! To be sure, your mate does exhibit certain instinctive qualities which might fool the layman into thinking she can reason like a human. But a closer analysis will reveal that she comes no closer to true ratiocination than, than”—Agassiz struggled to find a suitably unlikely point of comparison—“than Tursiops truncatus, the bottle-nosed dolphin!”

Putting down her book, Dottie now spoke up. Agassiz was forced to admit that her English, though still rudimentary, had improved considerably since her arrival.

“Professor Agassiz, suppose I agree with you that I am inferior to the representatives of your white race? Suppose I call myself an animal? Do you not think that even animals deserve moral treatment?”

“Well, yes, within bounds. . . . Unless some benefit to humanity is at stake, that is.”

“Then how do you justify the vile abuse which is visited on the black slaves of your adopted land? The whippings, the separation of family members, the back-breaking labor from dawn to dusk. . . .”

Agassiz coughed and cleared his throat. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

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