New deals posted everyday, starting Black Friday and running through the holiday season! No hassles, no lines - just awesome savings on art, deviantWEAR, Premium Memberships and more!
Details
October 1, 2008
275 KB 275 KB 1000×625 StatisticsShare
Link
Embed
Thumb
|
Comments
--
Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mygallery[link]
Windows 7-Build 7057 XP Vista [link]
--
my [gallery]
--
" Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. "
My Gallery: [link]
which had never seen one before. The planet was Dalforsas, the ship
was this one. It appeared as a brilliant new star moving silently across
the heavens.
Primitive tribesmen who were sitting huddled on the Cold Hillsides
looked up from their steaming night-drinks and pointed with
trembling fingers, swearing that they had seen a sign, a sign from
their gods which meant that they must now arise at last and go and
slay the evil Princes of the Plains.
In the high turrets of their palaces, the Princes of the Plains looked
up and saw the shining star, and received it unmistakably as a sign
from their gods that they must now go and set about the accursed
Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides.
And between them, the Dwellers in the Forest looked up into the
sky and saw the sigh of the new star, and saw it with fear and
apprehension, for though they had never seen anything like it before,
they too knew precisely what it foreshadowed, and they bowed their
heads in despair.
They knew that when the rains came, it was a sign.
When the rains departed, it was a sign.
When the winds rose, it was a sign.
When the winds fell, it was a sign.
When in the land there was born at midnight of a full moon a goat
with three heads, that was a sign.
When in the land there was born at some time in the afternoon a
perfectly normal cat or pig with no birth complications at all, or even
just a child with a retrousse nose, that too would often be taken as a
sign.
So there was no doubt at all that a new star in the sky was a sign of
a particularly spectacular order.
And each new sign signified the same thing – that the Princes of
the Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides were about to beat
the hell out of each other again.
This in itself wouldn't be so bad, except that the Princes of the
Plains and the Tribesmen of the Cold Hillsides always elected to beat
the hell out of each other in the Forest, and it was always the
Dwellers in the Forest who came off worst in these exchanges, though
as far as they could see it never had anything to do with them.
And sometimes, after some of the worst of these outrages, the
Dwellers in the Forest would send a messenger to either the leader of
the Princes of the Plains or the leader of the Tribesmen of the Cold
Hillsides and demand to know the reason for this intolerable
behaviour.
And the leader, whichever one it was, would take the messenger
aside and explain the Reason to him, slowly and carefully and with
great attention to the considerable detail involved.
And the terrible thing was, it was a very good one. It was very clear,
very rational, and tough. The messenger would hang his head and feel
sad and foolish that he had not realized what a tough and complex
place the real world was, and what difficulties and paradoxes had to
be embraced if one was to live in it.
"Now do you understand?" the leader would say.
The messenger would nod dumbly.
"And you see these battles have to take place?"
Another dumb nod.
"And why they have to take place in the forest, and why it is in
everybody's best interest, the Forest Dwellers included, that they
should?"
"Er..."
"In the long run."
"Er, yes."
And the messenger did understand the Reason, and he returned to
his people in the Forest. But as he approached them, as he walked
through the Forest and amongst the trees, he found that all he could
remember of the Reason was how terribly clear the argument had
seemed. What it actually was he couldn't remember at all.
And this, of course, was a great comfort when next the Tribesmen
and the Princes came hacking and burning their way through the
Forest, killing every Forest Dweller in their way.
Prak paused in his story and coughed pathetically.
"I was the messenger," he said, "after the battles precipitated by
the appearance of your ship, which were particularly savage. Many of
our people died. I thought I could bring the Reason back. I went and
was told it by the leader of the Princes, but on the way back it slipped
and melted away in my mind like snow in the sun. That was many
years ago, and much has happened since then."
--
" Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. "
My Gallery: [link]
--
...you want something done? - ask a busy person...
...you want something done RIGHT? - do it yourself...
nice work!
--
I'm the lord of randomness
--
" Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. "
My Gallery: [link]
--
--
The Attrius Crew
--
"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."
Previous Page12345...Next Page