Someone started to object. Baka Valente, Far-Awn's father shut him up. 'Fool!--let that boy do as he wants! What need do we have now for water except for bathing--now that we have melons that are both food and drink to us?'
"So another asked very respectfully why he bothered to plant bags made of dry, dead roots. Far-Awn looked up from his work and chuckled. He didn't bother to tell us his reasons, until the last mesh bag of dead roots was planted and watered. Then he sat down, with us all gathered around him, and told us the whole of his adventure: how he stayed in the cave with the puhlets, fearing the warfars would eat them during the night, and the storm from Bay Gar came and kept him asleep for four nights and three days, the same as it did us. Only he suffered less severely, for he had the warmth of the puhlets snuggled up close to him, while our fires burned low, and then went out."
Sal-Lar paused then in the recording of the story. He sipped of the purple wine his secretary so readily offered. Everyone alive knew the tale almost as well as he--but there would come a day when all alive at that time would be dead...and there should be some permanent record, for tales grew so exaggerated when repeated over and over again by many tongues. He thought again of the time when everyone alive then would be dead, and he sighed. Strange, how the coming of the fruit changed their lives!
He wrote: "What a celebration we had that day! For the first time in many months we felt vigorous and strong! But for Far-Awn, we would have made absolute hogs of ourselves. Far-Awn insisted we must eat sparingly of the fruit, for it had to last until he could bring back more from his supply hidden in the cave of the red-rock hills. All the men offered to go with him and help bring back the fruit that made us feel drunk with power. I was fortunate to be one of the men chosen by Far-Awn to accompany him back to the cave. And while we journeyed, as unbelievable as it seemed then, the root bags Far-Awn had planted germinated and started a new crop of food for us. Far-Awn gave each one of us a long and penetrating look. 'Do not think for one minute the fruit of those white star-flowers is ordinary fruit. It is a special gift, sent by the Gods.'
"We believed that. Without question.
"Ah, those were sun days! And so were all the days that came after. It was a joy to awaken in the mornings, to spend our time discovering the many-faceted merits of that superlative fruit! It didn't take us too long to learn what Far-Awn had discovered: It was more than just a fruit--it was every fruit! It was more than just one vegetable--it was every vegetable we had ever known, and some we had never experienced.
"We named our new source of sustenance pufars. Half for the puhlets that led Far-Awn to them, and half for the boy. Every day we learned something new about the pufars. Ten thousand and one books could be written on that particular subject, the agriculture, and the multitude of methods for preparing pufars, plus the many other things that can be done with them outside the realm of food for our stomachs! You who are reading this have experienced all the advantages of that most marvelous fruit. But we of old El Sod-a-Por, we had the fun and adventure of discovering for ourselves!
"It was a thrill beyond expressing to wake up to the first sun's light, and know that today something new and totally unexpected might very well be discovered by one's very own self! A spirited competitive rivalry developed among the inspired pufar farmers, to see which of us could develop a new strain, a new flavor, a new use. But all of us were put in the shade by the genius of Far-Awn. He was way ahead of us. We were left stunned by the imagination and talent that boy had--and once we all had considered him crazy and lazy too!
"Far-Awn taught us what light could do, and how the quantity and quality of light mattered so much. We didn't ask why of Far-Awn, we just accepted.
"If the
"So another asked very respectfully why he bothered to plant bags made of dry, dead roots. Far-Awn looked up from his work and chuckled. He didn't bother to tell us his reasons, until the last mesh bag of dead roots was planted and watered. Then he sat down, with us all gathered around him, and told us the whole of his adventure: how he stayed in the cave with the puhlets, fearing the warfars would eat them during the night, and the storm from Bay Gar came and kept him asleep for four nights and three days, the same as it did us. Only he suffered less severely, for he had the warmth of the puhlets snuggled up close to him, while our fires burned low, and then went out."
Sal-Lar paused then in the recording of the story. He sipped of the purple wine his secretary so readily offered. Everyone alive knew the tale almost as well as he--but there would come a day when all alive at that time would be dead...and there should be some permanent record, for tales grew so exaggerated when repeated over and over again by many tongues. He thought again of the time when everyone alive then would be dead, and he sighed. Strange, how the coming of the fruit changed their lives!
He wrote: "What a celebration we had that day! For the first time in many months we felt vigorous and strong! But for Far-Awn, we would have made absolute hogs of ourselves. Far-Awn insisted we must eat sparingly of the fruit, for it had to last until he could bring back more from his supply hidden in the cave of the red-rock hills. All the men offered to go with him and help bring back the fruit that made us feel drunk with power. I was fortunate to be one of the men chosen by Far-Awn to accompany him back to the cave. And while we journeyed, as unbelievable as it seemed then, the root bags Far-Awn had planted germinated and started a new crop of food for us. Far-Awn gave each one of us a long and penetrating look. 'Do not think for one minute the fruit of those white star-flowers is ordinary fruit. It is a special gift, sent by the Gods.'
"We believed that. Without question.
"Ah, those were sun days! And so were all the days that came after. It was a joy to awaken in the mornings, to spend our time discovering the many-faceted merits of that superlative fruit! It didn't take us too long to learn what Far-Awn had discovered: It was more than just a fruit--it was every fruit! It was more than just one vegetable--it was every vegetable we had ever known, and some we had never experienced.
"We named our new source of sustenance pufars. Half for the puhlets that led Far-Awn to them, and half for the boy. Every day we learned something new about the pufars. Ten thousand and one books could be written on that particular subject, the agriculture, and the multitude of methods for preparing pufars, plus the many other things that can be done with them outside the realm of food for our stomachs! You who are reading this have experienced all the advantages of that most marvelous fruit. But we of old El Sod-a-Por, we had the fun and adventure of discovering for ourselves!
"It was a thrill beyond expressing to wake up to the first sun's light, and know that today something new and totally unexpected might very well be discovered by one's very own self! A spirited competitive rivalry developed among the inspired pufar farmers, to see which of us could develop a new strain, a new flavor, a new use. But all of us were put in the shade by the genius of Far-Awn. He was way ahead of us. We were left stunned by the imagination and talent that boy had--and once we all had considered him crazy and lazy too!
"Far-Awn taught us what light could do, and how the quantity and quality of light mattered so much. We didn't ask why of Far-Awn, we just accepted.
"If the
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