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//-->======================A Little Knowledgeby Mike Resnick======================Copyright (c)1994 by Mike ResnickHugo Award NomineeFictionwise ContemporaryScience Fiction---------------------------------NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. If you did not purchasethis ebook directly from Fictionwise.com then you are in violation of copyright law and are subject tosevere fines. Please visit www.fictionwise.com to purchase a legal copy. Fictionwise.com offers a rewardfor information leading to the conviction of copyright violators of Fictionwise ebooks.---------------------------------THERE WAS a time when animals could speak.Lions and zebras, elephants and leopards, birds and men all shared the earth. They labored side by side,they met and spoke of many things, they exchanged visits and gifts.Then one day Ngai, who rules the universe from His throne atop Kirinyaga, which men now call MountKenya, summoned all of His creations to meet with Him."I have done everything I can to make life good for all My creatures," said Ngai. The assembled animalsand men began to sing His praises, but Ngai held up His hand, and they immediately stopped."I have made life too good for you," He continued. "None among you has died for the past year.""What is wrong with that?" asked the zebra."Just as you are constrained by your natures," said Ngai, "just as the elephant cannot fly and the impalacannot climb trees, so I cannot be dishonest. Since no one has died, I cannot feel compassion for you,and without compassion, I cannot water the savannah and the forest with my tears. And without water,the grasses and the trees will shrivel and die."There was much moaning and wailing from the creatures, but again Ngai silenced them."I will tell you a story," He said, "and you must learn from it."Once there were two colonies of ants. One colony was very wise, and one colony was very foolish, andthey lived next to each other. One day they received word that an aardvark, a creature that eats ants,was coming to their land. The foolish colony went about their business, hoping that the aardvark wouldignore them and attack their neighbors. But the wise colony built a mound that could withstand even theefforts of an aardvark, and they gathered sugar and honey, and stockpiled it in the mound."When the aardvark reached the kingdom of the ants, he immediately attacked the wise ants, but themound withstood his greatest efforts, and the ants within survived by eating their sugar and honey. Finally,after many fruitless days, the aardvark wandered over to the kingdom of the foolish ants, and dined wellthat evening."Ngai fell silent, and none of His creatures dared ask Him to speak further. Instead, they returned to theirhomes and discussed His story, and made their preparations for the coming drought.A year passed, and finally the men decided to sacrifice an innocent goat, and that very day Ngai's tearsfell upon the parched and barren land. The next morning Ngai again summoned His creatures to the holymountain."How have you fared during the past year?" He asked each of them."Very badly," moaned the elephant, who was very thin and weak. "We did as you instructed us, and builta mound, and gathered sugar and honey -- but we grew hot and uncomfortable within the mound, andthere is not enough sugar and honey in all the world to feed a family of elephants.""We have fared even worse," wailed the lion, who was even thinner, "for lions cannot eat sugar andhoney at all, but must have meat."And so it went, as each animal poured out its misery. Finally Ngai turned to the man and ask him thesame question."We have fared very well," replied the man. "We built a container for water, and filled it before thedrought came, and we stockpiled enough grain to last us to this day.""I am very proud of you," said Ngai. "Of all my creatures, only you understood my story.""It is not fair!" protested the other animals. "We built mounds and saved sugar and honey, as you told usto!""What I told you was a parable," said Ngai, "and you have mistaken the facts of it for the truth that laybeneath. I gave you the power to think, but since you have not used it, I hereby take it away. And as afurther punishment, you will no longer have the ability to speak, for creatures that do not think havenothing to say."And from that day forth, only man, among all Ngai's creations, has had the power to think and speak, foronly man can pierce through the facts to find the truth.****You think you know a person when you have worked with him and trained him and guided his thinkingsince he was a small boy. You think you can foresee his reactions to various situations. You think youknow how his mind works.And if the person in question has been chosen by you, selected from the mass of his companions andgroomed for something special, as young Ndemi was selected and groomed by me to be my successoras the mundumugu -- the witch doctor -- to our terraformed world of Kirinyaga, the one thing you thinkabove all else is that you possess his loyalty and his gratitude.But even a mundumugu can be wrong.I do not know exactly when or how it began. I had chosen Ndemi to be my assistant when he was still akehee -- an uncircumcized child -- and I had worked diligently with him to prepare him for the positionhe would one day inherit from me. I chose him not for his boldness, though he feared nothing, nor for hisenthusiasm, which was boundless, but rather for his intellect, for with the exception of one small girl, longsince dead, he was by far the brightest of the children on Kirinyaga. And since we had emigrated to thisworld to create a Kikuyu paradise, far from the corrupt imitation of Europe that Kenya had become, itwas imperative that the mundumugu be the wisest of men, for the mundumugu not only reads omens andcasts spells, but is also the repository for the collected wisdom and culture of his tribe.Day by day I added to Ndemi's limited storehouse of knowledge. I taught him how to make medicinefrom the bark and pods of the acacia tree, I showed him how to create the ointments that would ease thediscomfort of the aged when the weather turned cold and wet, I made him memorize the hundred spellsthat were used to bless the scarecrows in the field. I told him a thousand parables, for the Kikuyu have aparable for every need and every occasion, and the wise mundumugu is the one who finds the rightparable for each situation.And finally, after he had served me faithfully for six long years, coming up my hill every morning, feedingmy chickens and goats, lighting the fire in my boma, and filling my empty water gourds before his dailylessons began. I took him into my hut and showed him how my computer worked.There are only four computers on all of Kirinyaga. The others belong to Koinnage, the paramount chiefof our village, and to two chiefs of distant clans, but their computers can do nothing but send and receivemessages. Only mine is tied into the data banks of the Eutopian Council, the ruling body that had givenKirinyaga its charter, for only the mundumugu has the strength and the vision to be exposed to Europeanculture without becoming corrupted by it.One of the primary purposes of my computer was to plot the orbital adjustments that would bringseasonal changes to Kirinyaga, so that the rains would come on schedule and the crops would flourishand the harvest would be successful. It was perhaps the mundumugu's most important obligation to hispeople, since it assured their survival. I spent many long days teaching Ndemi all the many intracacies ofthe computer, until he knew its workings as well as I myself did, and could speak to it with perfect ease.The morning that I first noticed the change in him began like any other. I awoke, wrapped my blanketaround my withered shoulders, and walked painfully out of my hut to sit by my fire until the warming raysof the sun took the chill from the air. And, as always, there was no fire.Ndemi came up the path to my hill a few minutes later."Jambo, Koriba," he said, greeting me with his usual smile."Jambo, Ndemi," I said. "How many times have I explained to you that I am an old man, and that I mustsit by my fire until the air becomes warmer?""I am sorry, Koriba," he said. "But as I was leaving my father's shamba, I saw a hyena stalking one of ourgoats, and I had to drive it off." He held his spear up, as if that were proof of his statement.I could not help but admire his ingenuity. It was perhaps the thousandth time he had been late, and neverhad he given the same excuse twice. Still, the situation was becoming intolerable, and when he finished hischores and the fire had warmed my bones and eased my pain, I told him to sit down opposite me."What is our lesson for today?" he asked as he squatted down."The lesson will come later," I said, finally letting my blanket fall from my shoulders as the first warmbreeze of the day blew a fine cloud of dust past my face. "But first I will tell you a story."He nodded, and stared intently at me as I began speaking."Once there was a Kikuyu chief," I said. "He had many admirable qualities. He was a mighty warrior, andin council his words carried great weight. But along with his many good qualities, he also had a flaw."One day he saw a maiden tilling the fields in her father's shamba, and he was smitten with her. He meantto tell her of his love the very next day, but as he set out to see her, his way was blocked by an elephant,and he retreated and waited until the elephant had passed. When he finally arrived at the maiden's boma,he discovered that a young warrior was paying her court. Nevertheless, she smiled at him when their eyesmet, and, undiscouraged, he made up his mind to visit her the following day. This time a deadly snakeblocked his way, and once again, when he arrived he found the maiden being courted by his rival. Oncemore she gave him an encouraging smile, and so he decided to come back a third time."On the morning of the third day, he lay on his blanket in his hut, and thought about all the many things hewanted to tell her to impress her with his ardor. By the time he had decided upon the best approach towin her favor, the sun was setting. He ran all the way from his boma to that of the maiden, only to findthat his rival had just paid her father five cattle and thirty goats for her hand in marriage."He managed to get the maiden alone for a moment, and poured forth his litany of love."'I love you too,' she answered, 'but although I waited for you each day, and hoped that you wouldcome, you were always late.'"'I have excuses to offer,' he said. 'On the first day I encountered an elephant, and on the second day akiller snake was in my path.' He did not dare tell her the real reason he was late a third time, so he said,'And today a leopard confronted me, and I had to kill it with my spear before I could continue on myway.'"'I am sorry,' said the maiden, 'but I am still promised to another.'"'Do you not believe me?' he demanded."'It makes no difference whether you are telling the truth or not,' she replied. 'For whether the lion and thesnake and the leopard are real or whether they are lies, the result is the same: you have lost your heart'sdesire because you were late.'"I stopped and stared at Ndemi. "Do you understand the moral of my story?" I asked.He nodded. "It does not matter to you whether a hyena was stalking my father's goat or not. All thatmatters is that I was late.""That is correct," I said.This is where such things had always ended, and then we would begin his lessons. But not this day."It is a foolish story," he said, looking out across the vast savannah."Oh?" I asked. "Why?""Because it begins with a lie.""What lie?""The Kikuyu had no chiefs until the British created them," he answered."Who told you that?" I asked."I learned it from the box that glows with life," he said, finally meeting my gaze."My computer?"He nodded again. "I have had many long discussions about the Kikuyu with it, and I have learned manythings." He paused. "We did not even live in villages until the time of the Mau Mau, and then the Britishmade us live together so that we could be more easily watched. And it was the British who created ourtribal chiefs, so that they could rule us through them.""That is true," I acknowledged. "But it is unimportant to my story.""But your story was untrue with its first line," he said, "so why should the rest of it be true? Why did younot just say, 'Ndemi, if you are late again, I will not care whether your reason is true or false. I will punishyou.'""Because it is important for you to understand why you must not be late.""But the story is a lie. Everyone knows that it takes more than three days to court and purchase a wife.So it began with a lie and it ended with a lie.""You are looking at the surface of things," I said, watching a small insect crawl over my foot and finallyflicking it off. "The truth lies beneath.""The truth is that you do not want me to be late. What has that to do with the elephant and the leopard,which were extinct before we came to Kirinyaga?""Listen to me, Ndemi," I said. "When you become the mundumugu, you will have to impart certainvalues, certain lessons, to your people -- and you must do so in a way that they understand. This isespecially true of the children, who are the clay that you will mold into the next generation of Kikuyu."Ndemi was silent for a long moment. "I think you are wrong, Koriba," he said at last. "Not only will thepeople understand you if you speak plainly to them, but stories like the one you just told me are filledwith lies which they will think are true simply because they come from the mundumugu's lips.""No!" I said sharply. "We came to Kirinyaga to live as the Kikuyu lived before the Europeans tried tochange us into that characterless tribe known as Kenyans. There is a poetry to my stories, a tradition tothem. They reach out to our racial memory, of the way things were, and the way we hope to make themagain." I paused to consider which path to follow, for never before had Ndemi so bluntly opposed myteachings. "You yourself used to beg me for stories, and of all the children you were the quickest to findthe true meaning of them.""I was younger then," he said."You were a Kikuyu then," I said."I am still a Kikuyu.""You are a Kikuyu who has been exposed to European knowledge and European history," I said. "Thisis unavoidable, if you are to succeed me as the mundumugu, for we hold our charter at the whim of theEuropeans, and you must be able to speak to them and work their machine. But your greatest challenge,as a Kikuyu and a mundumugu, is to avoid becoming corrupted by them." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]