A Crafter had a detailed set of questions, embedded in her description of inspecting the primates. The teeth appeared to be all-purpose, but did that mouth truly need an ugly protruding flap of muscle? A proper design would have sheltered the protruding eyes better, yes? Did the tiny knob nose mean they could not smell well through the tiny nostril bump-with-holes? How useful could those modified forefeet be, versus the obvious better choice to remain on four legs and have arms as well?
They seemed to use base ten, rather than the more efficient base twelve. Why?
“Their hands have ten digits.”
“Surely the obvious advantages of twelve—first three fractions are integers, many other easeful facets—would outweigh that, in an intelligent species.”
Memor could not contest this, and so moved on. “They display an odd adaptation—”
She showed short clips of several humans talking, their odd mouths flapping rapidly. Across their narrow faces quick muscular changes flew, a darting sequence of eyebrow lifts, shaped lips, eye moves, nostril flarings, tilts and juts of chin and jaw.
“They have this much expression, yet never evolved feather flaunting?” Biology Savant Ramanuji asked.
“Apparently they use their heads alone. Plus hands.”
Sniffs and rumbles of disbelief chorused through the high vaulted room.
Omanah the Ecosystem Packmistress said slowly, “A collective good, I would predict.” This came in feather tones designed to convey her well-earned wisdom, and augmented by self-deprecating, somber themes in a three-layered suite of browns and grays.
“How so?” Memor said. “Lead us.”
“These facial moves are apparently signals from their Underminds. Thus the speakers do not know all that they convey.”
“Surely they must!” a young Astronomer spoke suddenly. All turned to gaze, and the young one realized she—or was this one in the neutral Revealing phase?—had overstepped.
Omanah twisted her crested head and rippled her ambers and grays subtly. “Memor’s points elude you. They do not know how to access their Underminds. So, in a kind of evolutionary retaliation, the Unders speak in ways the Overs cannot know.”
Another stir of respectful understanding worked through the gallery—huffs, sighs, soft flares of ruby tribute to Omanah.
“I kneel to your insight,” the young one said, eyes closed.
Omanah said, “Here is an example of group selection. The party speaking does not know fully what it says—but the listeners do. For they can see the Undermind voicing in swift flurries of expression, the signals flitting by, using little muscular movements in eyes, mouths, jaws. So the group learns the true thoughts and emotions, yet the speaker does not fully comprehend.”
Memor added, “Thus the species gains a collective good.”
Omanah bowed in agreement. “And so it was with our self-modifications. The Uncovering made the Bowl possible by revealing to us our Underminds.”
A large, thick-plumed Overseer Astronomer asked in slow-sliding words blended with singing, sharp chirp signatures and plume-shaking, “Do you imply, Flock Head and Packmistress, that these primates have deliberately engineered this face-flutter method?”
The Packmistress pondered this, and in the respectful silence Memor saw the assemblage’s feather tones shift from bright attentive colors of magenta and olive into hues tending toward grays and subdued deep blues—signs that they, too, contemplated, trying to anticipate what the Packmistress would say. Time crawled as each of the members consulted their Underminds, trawling deep, long, and slow for insight. This was how the joint Undermind of them all, in concert, learned—accumulating in linear additions, all cross-correlated to achieve greater force—the steeped wisdom of collective thought.
Asenath as Wisdom Chief called them back to Uppermind. “Of course, these creatures have features from which we can learn. At least we recovered the body of one dead primate—not killed by Memor’s efforts, I remark—and have learned much from it. Their DNA is like ours, as it is with several of the Adopted. This fits the accepted view that earlier life dispersed through our galaxy on wings of sunlight.”
Then she turned with dramatic effect and called, “Attendant Astute Astronomer Memor! How to deal with these escaped aliens—that is our issue. And you let them escape.”
So here it was. Memor dodged with, “Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens, Ecosystem Packmistress Asenath.”
“I expected more of you.”
“I can explain some features, Packmistress, and then describe—”
“On with it.”
“These primates have to live with a spectrum of desires driven by natural selection, as do we all. Their starship is a simple design, as if from a society that has developed quickly. That surely means they now operate in a world much different from their primitive lives. Yet still driving them are their deep desires. These, as our own species long ago learned, are hard to govern with learned experience or even medication. Their morality, as did ours, often fights with their desires. So to understand themselves is impossible for them, unless they can see their inner, unconscious minds.”
“They are retarded, then,” put in an Ecosystem Savant. This provoked feather-ripples of amusement, but no one made noises of glee; the occasion did not invite such.
“Indeed,” Memor said. “We could help them with this—”
“Help them?” Asenath showed vibrant oranges and reds in a dancing pattern, half in jesting colors, half in rebuke. “They got away from you!”
Memor stepped back, bowed, hooted in the notes of sorrow and beseeching. “They proved more clever than their ship implied.”
“Certainly more clever than their approach suggested,” Judge Savant Thaji injected. “They simply landed and came through our air lock. No caution! So young!”
“I can see that as misleading,” Asenath remarked without a single feather display. “Or subtle. They gained entrance, we thought we had them—then they got away.”
“And now they roam at will!” the Judge Savant said. “Doing damage! We have reports of several dead in 12-34-77 district—their doing, no doubt. They captured a car, as well.”
“Very grave,” a Biology Savant said. “Grounds for removal.”
“Or a more exacting measure,” the Judge Savant said with display of scorn and censure, gray and violet fans dancing in rebuke.
Memor stood and let the discussion run, for it would harm her cause to speak now. Instead she let her Undermind rule the moment. It conjured up for her a memory of a visit to the funeral pit, in all its elegant yet somber majesty. At its center was the Citadel of the Honored Dead, who would be churned into a matrix they shared with plants, animals, insects, and the depleted topsoil the honored would enhance. Subtly hidden machinery adjusted the slowly roiling mud-fluid for bacterial content, acidity, temperature, trace elements. First the Pit, then the Garden: the fate of all.
When the Undermind let go of the memory and was satisfied, Memor turned attention to the argument rustling all about her. Harsh things had passed her by in a flurry of hot words. She deliberately let these go, as was best in such heated moments. Insults are best not remembered. She let it all go, following the long-ranging talk but not engaging with it. Here, the Undermind helped.
The Judge Savant pressed her case for execution, calling it “a just recycling.” Others differed, calling for Memor’s replacement. Much talk. If Memor had followed it, laid it deep and solid in memory, she would then go through doubt and regret—which would in future impede her work. Better to let the moments glide by.
Yet questions about the primates called her out of her needful reverie. Refreshed, Memor pointed out that she had used classical methods of psychological control, since these primates were strongly social animals. She began by keeping them in comparatively small areas, and gave them just enough food to be sure they did not starve. “Still, hunger began to play a role in their behavior. Within ten of their sleep intervals—they seem to come from a planet with a fairly long day—they showed classic symptoms. Some began to communicate with us more often. This was obvious food-seeking. Slowly, I believe, they began to identify less with their fellows, and more with us—specifically, me.”