kin – only related product with the same lot number, the same face. Sometimes he felt as he had when aiding the Jin Haa people in their struggle to win autonomy from the ruling Ha Jiin people, on Sinan. He, who had no politics, fighting alongside those who would die for their beliefs...people passionate for their sense of individualism, of ethnic identity, when he had none. Now, likewise, here he was protecting these venerated cultural icons, that meant nothing more to him than items in store windows that might mildly catch his interest at the Canberra Mall.
Was it just that he had no cultural connection, LeBlanc would wonder, or that it was against his bio-programming to care about such things? Well, he tried to take an interest. He had read the information accompanying every single exhibit in the museum, he wouldn’t doubt. At least, everything on the second and third floors (while Miter had no doubt sampled every item in the food dispensers by now). He had no desire to switch to first shift, when these rooms would be flooded with visitors, swarms of children on field trips, so he did not have to be conversant on the displays as the day shift guards were, but he found reading the exhibit plaques interesting for his own benefit. Having noticed this habit, Miter had commented that if LeBlanc should ever want to become a day guard, “All they’d have to do is feed you some art history in a brain drip, the way they trained you to be a soldier back at the factory, right?”
Ignorant birther , LeBlanc had thought.
Tonight, his attention was attracted once more to the latest additions to the museum’s collection, a good number of items from the private collection of a wealthy business owner, donated by his wife following his recent death. She had then hastily left Oasis for Earth, which lent extra suspicion as to whether her husband had acquired all these treasures in a legitimate, ethical, and culturally sensitive fashion. While the proper authorities were looking into all that, the museum continued to display the items, as they had since acquiring them just a month earlier.
It was LeBlanc’s understanding that the businessman had been found murdered in his home in a ghastly but undisclosed fashion, and that the wife’s swift departure to Earth was still being considered in regard to this, as well.
The items from his private collection were from a variety of planets, so they were not all housed in the same room, but in this room were a number of objects that the businessman had collected from a race called the Antse. Their world existed in an alternate dimension, as did Sinan in fact, and the man had traveled there repeatedly in his business dealings. One of these items was a suit of flesh made from a giant animal called a fluke, which the Antse flayed in a sacred ritual so that they could harvest their skin – a gorgeous mix of green and black like malachite. The Antse made these skins into form-fitting suits that they wore over their own bland, smooth gray bodies and hairless heads. It was the only time they ever wore clothing.
Another item, preserved inside a tall glass showcase lest it decay, was one of the effigies the Antse people hung out in the street during their so-called flaying season, carved from the white inner meat of a fluke in a generally anthropomorphic shape, and then stuck with nails and spikes like some half-formed martyr. Staring at the totem, LeBlanc could only wag his head, mystified. Was he missing out on something vital in not feeling any religious impulses of his own? All he knew for sure was that he would never want to wish damnation on, or wage a crusade or jihad against, anyone who did not harbor the same religious impulses as his own.
Yet another display from the businessman’s collection drew LeBlanc’s attention, and according to the plaque this too had religious significance. On a raised
Was it just that he had no cultural connection, LeBlanc would wonder, or that it was against his bio-programming to care about such things? Well, he tried to take an interest. He had read the information accompanying every single exhibit in the museum, he wouldn’t doubt. At least, everything on the second and third floors (while Miter had no doubt sampled every item in the food dispensers by now). He had no desire to switch to first shift, when these rooms would be flooded with visitors, swarms of children on field trips, so he did not have to be conversant on the displays as the day shift guards were, but he found reading the exhibit plaques interesting for his own benefit. Having noticed this habit, Miter had commented that if LeBlanc should ever want to become a day guard, “All they’d have to do is feed you some art history in a brain drip, the way they trained you to be a soldier back at the factory, right?”
Ignorant birther , LeBlanc had thought.
Tonight, his attention was attracted once more to the latest additions to the museum’s collection, a good number of items from the private collection of a wealthy business owner, donated by his wife following his recent death. She had then hastily left Oasis for Earth, which lent extra suspicion as to whether her husband had acquired all these treasures in a legitimate, ethical, and culturally sensitive fashion. While the proper authorities were looking into all that, the museum continued to display the items, as they had since acquiring them just a month earlier.
It was LeBlanc’s understanding that the businessman had been found murdered in his home in a ghastly but undisclosed fashion, and that the wife’s swift departure to Earth was still being considered in regard to this, as well.
The items from his private collection were from a variety of planets, so they were not all housed in the same room, but in this room were a number of objects that the businessman had collected from a race called the Antse. Their world existed in an alternate dimension, as did Sinan in fact, and the man had traveled there repeatedly in his business dealings. One of these items was a suit of flesh made from a giant animal called a fluke, which the Antse flayed in a sacred ritual so that they could harvest their skin – a gorgeous mix of green and black like malachite. The Antse made these skins into form-fitting suits that they wore over their own bland, smooth gray bodies and hairless heads. It was the only time they ever wore clothing.
Another item, preserved inside a tall glass showcase lest it decay, was one of the effigies the Antse people hung out in the street during their so-called flaying season, carved from the white inner meat of a fluke in a generally anthropomorphic shape, and then stuck with nails and spikes like some half-formed martyr. Staring at the totem, LeBlanc could only wag his head, mystified. Was he missing out on something vital in not feeling any religious impulses of his own? All he knew for sure was that he would never want to wish damnation on, or wage a crusade or jihad against, anyone who did not harbor the same religious impulses as his own.
Yet another display from the businessman’s collection drew LeBlanc’s attention, and according to the plaque this too had religious significance. On a raised
Similar Books
