"Are you the philosopher Doctor Seisen?"
"Seisen is the name whereby I am known. As to whether I merit the term 'philosopher,' that depends on which of my colleagues you ask. And you, alien sir?"
Salazar noted that Seisen used the grammatical forms proper for addressing a person of lower social status.
Salazar identified himself and explained his reason for being on Mount Sungara. "But I understand that you require a book as a consulting fee. May I give you this?"
He held out the paperback copy of O'Sullivan. Seisen took it, turned it over, and handed it back, saying:
"I already have a copy hereof. If, however, you will promise to send me a copy of your doctoral thesis when completed, I will essay to answer your questions. I guarantee naught."
"I promise."
"Let us hope that your promise is more valid than those of most of your conspecifics. What is your problem?"
Salazar had been on his feet for two hours, but when he looked around, he saw no chair. Remembering the Kooks' indifference to what a Terran would deem comfort, he asked:
"May I sit on the floor?"
"By all means," said Seisen, squatting with his back against the wall.
Salazar then gave an account of his difficulties with George Cantemir and the Adriana Company. "And so," he concluded, "Cantemir has given me—" He glanced at his poignet "—until six hours hence, or four jakin by your system. If I am still there at the end of that time, he will shoot me dead unless I am lucky enough to shoot him first."
"And what would you of me, alien?" grated Seisen.
"I wish to know: Should I flee or fight?" Salazar felt as if he were taking the orals for his doctorate before a peculiarly hostile faculty committee.
Seisen spoke in the rhythmic, rhyming speech that Kooks used for oratory, their most advanced art. "How can I answer that? If you flee, you will run a minor risk, at the cost of completion of your thesis. If you remain, you will run a much larger risk for the sake of making sure of your thesis. I cannot evaluate those risks from the scanty information I have.
"Were I a meteorologist, belike I could tell you that there was a chance, let us say one in nine, that it will rain here tomorrow. But such a statement would be based upon data gathered on this site over years or, better yet, on the reports of a network of weather observers scattered over southern Sunga. I am told that you Terrans have such networks on your home planet, but we do not. For one thing, the metaphysical beliefs of us human beings forbid the use of electrical communications."
Salazar: "No offense intended, Doctor, but do you really believe that such technology destroys ancestral spirits?"
"I lack many beliefs that to my fellow human beings are self-evident. Whereas we human beings are far less given to imposing our beliefs on others under threat of torture and death than your peculiar species, I often deem it inexpedient to disclose my incredulity." Seisen's neck spines signaled amusement. He continued:
"As to your particular problem, all I can say is that your chances of major disaster were greater if you stayed; how much greater I have no grounds for estimating. The question of whether the added risk be worth the goal of completing your work, you alone can answer. Are you willing to retreat and write your thesis on the basis of what you have already learned?"
"Nay," said Salazar. "I have what we Terrans call a phobia against leaving a task only partly done. Those who admire this quality call it 'determination'; those who dislike it term it 'obstinacy'. Moreover, I suspect that the committee that reviews my thesis will be especially tough to avoid the appearance of letting the son of an eminent scientist get away with sloppy work.
"Can you not think of any other course to avoid both horns of this—this ..." Salazar fumbled for the Kukulcanian equivalent of "dilemma."
"Of this diremma, you mean to say," Seisen interpolated. "That is a Terran term which civilized human tongues have adopted because it fills a semantic need hitherto unmet. But as to your last question, unfortunately nay. If it be any consolation, know that in the long run it makes little difference. Whichever course you choose, you and Mr. Cantemir will somehow manage to ruin your respective prospects. I believe your English tongue has a colloquialism that translates as 'to copulate up' or 'to fertilize up' the situation."
"Why take you so pessimistic a view of Terran activities?" asked Salazar.
"I do so because you are Terrans, and I have some knowledge of Terran history." Seisen waved a claw at the shelves of books. "For example, are you familiar with a work beginning—" He dropped into English, "—thus: 'In ze second century of ze Christian Era, ze Empire of Rome comprehended ze fairest part of ze eart', and ze most civirized portion of mankind'?"
"Nay, sir. But the literature of Terran history is so vast that no one Terran, even with our extended life span, could master it even if he spent all his waking hours reading. What is the answer, pray?"
Seisen returned to Feënzuo. "The quotation is from a work entitled Ze Decrine and Fawr of ze Roman Empire by one Edward Gibbon. It teems with examples of the amazing Terran aptitude for 'copulating up' even the most rational and beneficent plans out of personal egotism and lust for immediate gratification."
"Do you Kukulcanians do better?"
"Indeed we do. When you know our history as well as I know yours, you will be able to compare them. Our wars are trivial affairs compared to yours, which on several occasions embroiled half the planet. The first, in fact, occurred during the lifetime of this Edward Gibbon; it was called the Seven Years' War."
"From all I have read," said Salazar, "you Kukulcanians are not so peaceful as all that. My own father fought against the Chosha nomads when they tried to conquer the Feënzuo Empire."
"Ah, but Chief Kampai had not bothered anybody, save perhaps some of his rival nomad chiefs, until one of those Terran busy bodies called 'missionaries' converted him to a set of widespread Terran supernatural beliefs, a creed about as factually based as our idea that electricity destroys ancestral spirits. Kampai forthwith adapted this dogma to a justification for his own self-aggrandizement.
"One of our advantages resides in the fact that when one group of us human beings venerates a particular spirit, either local or ancestral, that group feels no compulsion to force others to revere the same entity. The same applies to theories of politics or economics. Our view is: If our neighbors wish not to embrace our superior beliefs, so much the worse for them! Belief in spirits other than the ancestral ones, like the planetary spirit Metasu, has largely disappeared from the mainland. Whether this will in the long run prove favorable or otherwise to social order remains to be seen."
"You make your kind sound wholly rational, like thinking machines," said Salazar.
"That was an exaggeration. Amongst us, also, individuals display less socially useful traits, such as caprice, mischief, egomania, and sahides—"
"Excuse me, sir, but what was that last word?"
"I said sahides, for which I believe the English equivalent would be something like 'cratomania'—an obsessive passion for ruling others. The female Terran who leads the Kashanite community is an example.
"The frequency and extent of these deviations are far less than amongst Terrans, as far as I can judge from your records. In fact, I have heard Terrans refer to us human beings as 'all alike' and 'an insufferably dull, stodgy lot'. If that be the price of being a reasoning being, it is one that I am glad to pay."
"Well," said Salazar, "our flightiness, as you call it, has put us far ahead of you technologically in only a fraction of the time it took you to reach your present level from hunting-gathering primitivism. That is how we Terrans took to space and discovered you long before you were ready to discover us."