Blessed Are the Meek - G C Edmondson

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1:04This week at Vons and Albertsons, baby back pork ribs are 299 per pound with membership where applicable limit 3 racks, and ballpark hot dogs or hamburger buns 8 count are 299 with digital coupon. Plus, personal seedless watermelons or cantaloupe are 199 each with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit Vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Blessed are the meek by GC Edmondson. Blessed are the meek. Every strength is a weakness, and every weakness is a strength. And when the strong start smashing each other's strength, the weak may turn out to be, instead, the wise. The strangers landed just before dawn, incinerating a good lee of bottom land in the process.

2:08Their machines were already busily digging up the topsoil. The old one watched, squinting into the morning sun. He sighed, hitched up his saffron robes, and started walking down toward the strangers. When turned, not trying to conceal his excitement. You're the linguist. See what you can get out of him. I might. Kung Su ventured sourly. If you'd go weed the air machine or something. This is going to be hard enough without a lot of kibbitzers cramping my style and scaring old prune phase here half to death. I see your point, Griffin answered. He turned and started back toward the diggings. Let me know it if you make any progress with a local language. He stopped whistling and strove to control the jauntiness of his gate. Must be the lower gravity and extra oxygen, he thought.

3:11I haven't bounced along like this for thirty years. Nice place to settle down if some promoter doesn't turn it into an old folks home. He sighed and glanced over the diggings. The rammed earth walls were nearly obliterated by now. Nothing lost, he reflected. It's all on tape, and there are no different from a thousand others, at any rate. Griffin opened a door in the transparent bubble from which Albania's was operating the diggers. Anything? Inquired? Nothing so far, Albania's reported. Let's score on this job. I missed the briefing. How'd you make it all the way out on three, by the way? The same stuff, pottery shards and the usual junk. See it once, you've seen it all. Well, Griffin began. It looks like the same thing here again. We've pretty well covered this system, and you know how it is.

4:11Rammed earth walls here and there. Three shards, flint, bronze and iron artifacts. That's it. They got to the iron age on every planet, and then bluey. Artifacts all made for humanoid hands, I suppose. I wonder if they were close enough to have cross-bred with humans. I couldn't say Griffin observed dryly. From the looks of old prune face, I doubt if we'll ever find a human female with sufficiently detached attitude to find out. Who's prune face? He came ambling down out of the hills this morning and walked into camp. You mean you've actually found a live humanoid? There's gotta be a first time for everything. Griffin opened the door and started climbing the hill toward Kungsu and Prune face. Well, have you gotten beyond the Mi Charli stage yet? Griffin inquired at breakfast two days later.

5:14Kungsu gave an inscrutable East Los Angeles smile. As a matter of fact, I'm a little farther along. Joe was amazingly cooperative. Joe? Spellet CHOU if you want to be exotic. It still pronounced Joe, and that's his name. The language is monosyllabic and tonal. I happen to know a similar language. You mean this humanoid speaks Chinese? Griffin was never sure whether Kungsu was ribbing him or not. Not Chinese. The vocabulary is different, but the syntax and phonemes are nearly identical. I'll speak it perfectly in a week. It's just a question of memorizing two or three thousand new words. Incidentally, Joe wants to know why you're digging up his bottom land. He was all set to flood it today. Don't tell me he plants rice, Griffin exclaimed.

6:16I don't imagine its rice, but it needs flooding, whatever it is. Ask him how many humanoids there are on this planet. On the way ahead of you, Griffin, he says there are only a few thousand left. The rest all destroyed in a war with the barbarians. Barbarians? They're extinct. How many races were there? I'll get to that if you'll stop interrupting. Kung rejoined testily. Joe says there are only two kinds of people. His own dark, straight-haired kind, and the barbarians. They have curly hair, white skin, and round eyes. You'd pass for a barbarian according to Joe. If only you didn't have a face full of hair. He wants to know how things are going on the other planets. I suppose that's my cue to break into a cold sweat and feel a premonition of disaster. Griffin tried to smile and almost made it. Not necessarily, but it seems our iron age man is fairly well informed and extra planetary

7:19affairs. I guess I better start learning the language. Thanks to the spade work Kung Su had done in preparing hypno recordings, Griffin had a working knowledge of the rational people's language 11 days later when he sat down to drink herb-infused hot water with Joe and the other old ones in a low-roof building around which clustered a village of 200 humanoids. He fidgeted through interminable ritualistic cups of hot water. Eventually Joe hid his hands in the sleeves of his robe and turned with an air of polite inquiry. Now we get down to business, Griffin thought. Joe, you know by now why we're digging up your bottom land. We'll recompense you in one way or another. Meanwhile could you give me a little local history? Joe smiled like a well-nourished bud his Satva. Approximately how far back would you like me to begin?

8:19At the beginning. How long is a year on your planet? Joe inquired. Your year is eight and a half days longer. Our day is 300 heartbeat longer than yours. Joe nodded his thanks. More water? Griffin declined suppressing a shutter. Five million years ago we were limited to one planet. Joe began. The court astronomer had a vision of our planet in flames. I imagine you'd say our son was about to go nova. The impress was disturbed and ordered a convocation of sears. One fasted over long and saw an answer. As the dying sear predicted, the son of heaven came with fire-breathing dragons. The fairest of maidens and the strongest of our young men were taken to serve his warriors. We served them honestly and faithfully. A thousand years later their empire collapsed, leaving us scattered across the universe.

9:24Three thousand years later a new race of barbarians conquered our planets. We surrendered naturally and soon were serving our new masters. Five hundred years passed and they destroyed themselves. This has been the pattern of our existence from that day to this. You mean you've been slaves for five million years? Griffin was incredulous. Servitude has ever been a refuge for the scholar and the philosopher. But what point is there in such a life? Why do you continue living this way? What is the point in any way of life? Continued existence. Personal immortality is neither desirable nor possible. We settled for perpetuation of the race. But what about self-determination? You know enough astronomy to understand Nove? Surely you realize it could happen again.

10:24What would you do without a technology to build spaceships? Many stars have gone nova during our history. Usually the barbarians came in time. When they didn't, you mean you don't really care? All barbarians ask that sooner or later. Joe smiled. Sometimes toward the end they even accuse us of destroying them. We don't. Every technology bears the seeds of its own destruction. The stars are older than the machinery that explores them. You used technology to get from one system to another. We used it, but we were never part of it. The machines fail, their people die. We have no machines. What would you do if this sun were to nova? We can serve you. We are not unintelligent. Willing to work your way around the galaxy, eh?

11:25But what if we refuse to take you? The race would go on. Kung Su tells me there is no life on planets of this system, but there are other systems. We are whistling in the dark, Griffin Scott. How do you know if any of the rational people survive? How far back does your history go? Joe inquired. It's hard to say exactly, Griffin replied. Our earliest written records date back some 7,000 years. You are all of one race? No. You may have noticed Kung Su is slightly different from the rest of us. Yes, Griffin, I have noticed. When you return, ask Kung Su for the legend of creation. More hot water? Joe stirred, and Griffin guessed the interview was over. He drank another ritual cup, made his farewells, and walked thoughtfully back to camp.

12:27Kung, Griffin asked over coffee next afternoon. How well up are you on Chinese mythology? Oh, fair, I guess. It isn't my field, but I remember some of the stories my grandfather used to tell me. What is your legend of creation, Griffin persisted? It's pretty well garbled, but I remember something about the son of heaven bringing the early settlers from a land of two moons on the back of his fire-breathing dragon. The dragon got sick and died, so they couldn't ever get back to heaven again. There's a lot of stuff about devils, too. What about devils? I don't remember, too, well. They were supposed to do terrible things to you, and even to your unborn children if they ever caught you. They must have been pretty stooped, though. They couldn't turn corners. My grandfather's store had devil screens at all the doors, so you had to turn a corner to get in. The first time I saw the lead baffles at the pile chamber doors on the ship, it reminded

13:28me of home's sweet home. By the way, some young men from the village were around today. They want to work passage to the next planet. What do you think? Griffin was silent for a long time. Well, what do you say? We can use some hand labor for the delicate digging. You want to put them on? Might as well, Griffin answered. There's a street car every millennium anyway. What do you mean by that? You wouldn't understand. You sold your birthright to the barbarians. The end. Enjoy big savings with Red Hot Deals at Vons and Albertsons. This week at Vons and Albertsons, baby back pork ribs are 2.99 per pound with membership where applicable limit three racks. And ballpark hot dogs or hamburger buns eight count are 2.99 with digital coupon. Plus personal seedless watermelons or cantaloupe are 1.99 each with digital coupon.

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