Post by icebear on Mar 1, 2010 14:46:59 GMT -5
In Andarkan Chronicles, antediluvian telepathy is presented as the "voice from nowhere and everywhere". Ground out of existence on Earth by a rapid process of attrition after the electrostatic fields collapsed and it became disfunctional, it still exists on Andarka III; Kira and other Andarkans use it to communicate with mammoths and other higher mammals. The first (Earth) human to recover the ability is the Colonel who has wed Kira, and it comes about thus:
********************************************
“We are on a mission of war, lords, as you might have heard; a war against the horror. We ask the safety of thy companionship for the night.”
“You may sleep amongst us, if you can abide the little ones gnawing on your ankles... That is the thing with which your mate slew the tusk-tooth?”
“Stories like that seem to travel fast... He had no choice, the tusk-tooth would have slain me and another of his company.”
“We have no particular love for the tusk-tooth. We call him ‘Uncle Gorff’. He is of our creation but of an older part of our creation and does not hear the voice as you do. We tolerate him when we can; when he tarries overlong in our dominions, we either chase him away or kill him. Your mate also does not hear the voice?”
“My mate is of another world, on which the voice seemingly does not exist or is not used. They use vocal speech to communicate as we Andarkans do amongst ourselves. It may yet be possible to teach some of them to hear the voice, we haven’t gotten around to it yet. And you do not fear the horror here?”
“In the numbers you see here we have no need to fear him, nonetheless you never used to see 70 adult lions living in one place. It is necessary for safety but can make hunting somewhat difficult at times.”
“We mean to solve that problem once and for all shortly. We were on a scouting mission and are on our way home.”
“If you require any aid from us, you need but ask. We know of the battle in which the old ones aided you.”
“And you allow bears to sleep amongst yourselves as well?”
“Well-mannered bears, such as those three. Hard times make strange bedfellows...”
“Tony, you think you could leave off playing with those kittens long enough to come over here and recite that poem for these guys? I could only remember the first couple of lines of it”
“Lions speak English here?”
“They may understand the words through me.”
“The purring indicates approval??”
“They seem to like it.”
“That’s not anything I’d call good poetry, just some doggeral from the Army Times poetry contest.”
“It was good enough for them. You don’t want to see what happens when somebody recites a really bad poem in front of a bunch of lions...”
“I’ll take your word for it. Hey, what about opera? I know the song of the viking guest from Sadko!”
“Don’t push your luck. It’s pretty much bedtime here, and lions aren’t much on formalities. Just find an open spot in a pile of them and flop in.”
“I’m supposed to sleep with these “kittens” gnawing on my ankles?”
“You’ll get used to it. Good night...”
“Come on, just one, curiosity’s got us...”
“We gotta see how that thing works.”
“If humans start shooting prey animals for you guys, the lions of this world shall all shortly become indolent and lazy.”
“Laziness and indolence are the chief goals of all lions...”
“The fact that none of us ever achieve perfect laziness and indolence does not make them less worthy ideals.”
“TONY! You awake?? We need you to come shoot breakfast for us!”
“I’m awake, sort of, but these kittens on top of me are all still asleep and what your friend said about laziness and indolence makes a lot of sense; hell, you know how to use rifles now, you shoot em, I’m going back to sleep for awhile.
“He’s right...”
“What’s that thing you’re putting on your head?”
“To protect my ears, you can’t believe how much noise that thing makes. Here, look, you guys better cover your own ears, here, up on your haunches, yeah like that, front paws over your ears; you too, all of you...”
“I don’t believe this...”
“Okay, now watch those two bulls over closest to us up front...”
KaBLLAAaaaaaaaaaaammmm!!!
Click, click...
KaBLLAAaaaaaaaaaaammmm!!!
“DAMN!!! They just dropped!!!! It takes four or five of us a whole morning to kill one of those things, if we’re lucky!!!!
“What your friend said about laziness and indolence makes a lot of sense..”
DAMN, Tony heard the voice!!!!”
“Oh God, that’s nice...”
“Cats all love being scratched behind the ears and the sides of their faces. I can’t believe lions would be much different.”
“We’re bigger than cats and we eat grazing animals... There’s no other real difference. Kira won’t be jealous?”
“She’s off over there helping your friends carve up those two buffalo.”
“You mind if I ask a really stupid question?
“Go ahead.”
“Humans don’t really seem to be predators or grazing animals either one. I’ve heard that humans eat just about every sort of thing but I can’t really look at humans and figure out what their original or natural diet might have ever been. There must have been some original setting in which humans lived and some basic original diet. Do you have any idea what that would have been?”
“Humans originally lived in water. Not having a fur coat is an adaptation for swimming; it’s a disadaptation for anything on land. You might have also noticed that our legs are our major limbs while monkeys and apes, which are near cousins of the same creation, have their arms as major limbs. That’s also an adaptation for wading and swimming. A monkey trying to swim the way we do would just turn summersaults in the water. Humans originally lived in some shallow beach area or lagoon which must have been protected from sea predators. The original human diet was some combination of shellfish and fruit. They would come up on shore for fruit which grew naturally nearby, and eat small creatures with hard shells which lived in shallow water. Everything else humans ever eat are acquired tastes, and not any sort of natural diet.”
“That at least makes sense...”
“The funny thing is, we just figured all that out about a hundred years ago. Before that, the question used to worry us. Because of the catastrophes, we didn’t have any records from the time humans first arose and so we didn’t really know what was natural for humans to eat or what sort of requirements humans had. They used to worry about human cubs not getting enough of this or that sort of thing we saw other animals eating, and try to force them to eat at least some of most everything we saw other animals eating, even green beans.”
“YUCK!! You’re kidding!?”
“Wish I were... Somebody finally put the thing into the form of a question which made it clear enough for most people: basically, everybody knows that a little kid’s reaction to alcohol and tobacco is correct; why would anybody think that same kid’s reaction to green vegetables was wrong? When something tastes that bad, your body is trying to tell you something.”
“That’s basically the first rule of child nutrition; if the kid or the cat (same thing) can’t eat it, the sum total nutritional value is zero.”
“I couldn’t help but notice, you were a little bit afraid of us at first?”
“On my world, the voice does not exist and because no two different kinds of creatures can communicate, they mistrust one another.”
********************************************
Tony Hears the Voice
Behold how the fairest of the fair,
doth peacefully sleep in the demons' lair
snuggled amidst great tawny forms
their fur and manes to keep her warm...
Behold how the fairest of the fair,
doth peacefully sleep in the demons' lair
snuggled amidst great tawny forms
their fur and manes to keep her warm...
“We are on a mission of war, lords, as you might have heard; a war against the horror. We ask the safety of thy companionship for the night.”
“You may sleep amongst us, if you can abide the little ones gnawing on your ankles... That is the thing with which your mate slew the tusk-tooth?”
“Stories like that seem to travel fast... He had no choice, the tusk-tooth would have slain me and another of his company.”
“We have no particular love for the tusk-tooth. We call him ‘Uncle Gorff’. He is of our creation but of an older part of our creation and does not hear the voice as you do. We tolerate him when we can; when he tarries overlong in our dominions, we either chase him away or kill him. Your mate also does not hear the voice?”
“My mate is of another world, on which the voice seemingly does not exist or is not used. They use vocal speech to communicate as we Andarkans do amongst ourselves. It may yet be possible to teach some of them to hear the voice, we haven’t gotten around to it yet. And you do not fear the horror here?”
“In the numbers you see here we have no need to fear him, nonetheless you never used to see 70 adult lions living in one place. It is necessary for safety but can make hunting somewhat difficult at times.”
“We mean to solve that problem once and for all shortly. We were on a scouting mission and are on our way home.”
“If you require any aid from us, you need but ask. We know of the battle in which the old ones aided you.”
“And you allow bears to sleep amongst yourselves as well?”
“Well-mannered bears, such as those three. Hard times make strange bedfellows...”
“Tony, you think you could leave off playing with those kittens long enough to come over here and recite that poem for these guys? I could only remember the first couple of lines of it”
“Lions speak English here?”
“They may understand the words through me.”
Behold how the fairest of the fair,
doth peacefully sleep in the demons' lair
snuggled amidst great tawny forms
their fur and manes to keep her warm
What deviltry hast thou inside thee,
how charmst thou my cats, that they thus abide thee,
or would’st thou a hunter's bride be?
What fortune brings thee here?
Forgive me, lord, for I am not yet strong,
I'd grown faint with hunger, I'd wondered long
and had died on yon steppe before the dawn
had thy cats not heard my prayer.
Thy cats are gracious, they did not eat me
but slew a deer, and did entreat me
to eat my fill, whilst they did purr,
then licked my face, and brought me here
and bade me sleep midst their tawny forms,
their fur and manes to keep me warm.
doth peacefully sleep in the demons' lair
snuggled amidst great tawny forms
their fur and manes to keep her warm
What deviltry hast thou inside thee,
how charmst thou my cats, that they thus abide thee,
or would’st thou a hunter's bride be?
What fortune brings thee here?
Forgive me, lord, for I am not yet strong,
I'd grown faint with hunger, I'd wondered long
and had died on yon steppe before the dawn
had thy cats not heard my prayer.
Thy cats are gracious, they did not eat me
but slew a deer, and did entreat me
to eat my fill, whilst they did purr,
then licked my face, and brought me here
and bade me sleep midst their tawny forms,
their fur and manes to keep me warm.
“The purring indicates approval??”
“They seem to like it.”
“That’s not anything I’d call good poetry, just some doggeral from the Army Times poetry contest.”
“It was good enough for them. You don’t want to see what happens when somebody recites a really bad poem in front of a bunch of lions...”
“I’ll take your word for it. Hey, what about opera? I know the song of the viking guest from Sadko!”
“Don’t push your luck. It’s pretty much bedtime here, and lions aren’t much on formalities. Just find an open spot in a pile of them and flop in.”
“I’m supposed to sleep with these “kittens” gnawing on my ankles?”
“You’ll get used to it. Good night...”
DAYBREAK
“Come on, just one, curiosity’s got us...”
“We gotta see how that thing works.”
“If humans start shooting prey animals for you guys, the lions of this world shall all shortly become indolent and lazy.”
“Laziness and indolence are the chief goals of all lions...”
“The fact that none of us ever achieve perfect laziness and indolence does not make them less worthy ideals.”
“TONY! You awake?? We need you to come shoot breakfast for us!”
“I’m awake, sort of, but these kittens on top of me are all still asleep and what your friend said about laziness and indolence makes a lot of sense; hell, you know how to use rifles now, you shoot em, I’m going back to sleep for awhile.
“He’s right...”
“What’s that thing you’re putting on your head?”
“To protect my ears, you can’t believe how much noise that thing makes. Here, look, you guys better cover your own ears, here, up on your haunches, yeah like that, front paws over your ears; you too, all of you...”
“I don’t believe this...”
“Okay, now watch those two bulls over closest to us up front...”
KaBLLAAaaaaaaaaaaammmm!!!
Click, click...
KaBLLAAaaaaaaaaaaammmm!!!
“DAMN!!! They just dropped!!!! It takes four or five of us a whole morning to kill one of those things, if we’re lucky!!!!
“What your friend said about laziness and indolence makes a lot of sense..”
DAMN, Tony heard the voice!!!!”
A Lioness’ Stupid Question
“Oh God, that’s nice...”
“Cats all love being scratched behind the ears and the sides of their faces. I can’t believe lions would be much different.”
“We’re bigger than cats and we eat grazing animals... There’s no other real difference. Kira won’t be jealous?”
“She’s off over there helping your friends carve up those two buffalo.”
“You mind if I ask a really stupid question?
“Go ahead.”
“Humans don’t really seem to be predators or grazing animals either one. I’ve heard that humans eat just about every sort of thing but I can’t really look at humans and figure out what their original or natural diet might have ever been. There must have been some original setting in which humans lived and some basic original diet. Do you have any idea what that would have been?”
“Humans originally lived in water. Not having a fur coat is an adaptation for swimming; it’s a disadaptation for anything on land. You might have also noticed that our legs are our major limbs while monkeys and apes, which are near cousins of the same creation, have their arms as major limbs. That’s also an adaptation for wading and swimming. A monkey trying to swim the way we do would just turn summersaults in the water. Humans originally lived in some shallow beach area or lagoon which must have been protected from sea predators. The original human diet was some combination of shellfish and fruit. They would come up on shore for fruit which grew naturally nearby, and eat small creatures with hard shells which lived in shallow water. Everything else humans ever eat are acquired tastes, and not any sort of natural diet.”
“That at least makes sense...”
“The funny thing is, we just figured all that out about a hundred years ago. Before that, the question used to worry us. Because of the catastrophes, we didn’t have any records from the time humans first arose and so we didn’t really know what was natural for humans to eat or what sort of requirements humans had. They used to worry about human cubs not getting enough of this or that sort of thing we saw other animals eating, and try to force them to eat at least some of most everything we saw other animals eating, even green beans.”
“YUCK!! You’re kidding!?”
“Wish I were... Somebody finally put the thing into the form of a question which made it clear enough for most people: basically, everybody knows that a little kid’s reaction to alcohol and tobacco is correct; why would anybody think that same kid’s reaction to green vegetables was wrong? When something tastes that bad, your body is trying to tell you something.”
“That’s basically the first rule of child nutrition; if the kid or the cat (same thing) can’t eat it, the sum total nutritional value is zero.”
“I couldn’t help but notice, you were a little bit afraid of us at first?”
“On my world, the voice does not exist and because no two different kinds of creatures can communicate, they mistrust one another.”