The Totems of Abydos by John Norman

“your origins.”
    Brenner stiffened.
    “Then you realize that I am unimportant,” said Brenner. To be sure, Brenner was, in effect, without connections, relationships, and family. He was, at any rate, not integrated in one of the major matriarchally traced kinship networks.
    “You never knew your father or mother?” asked Rodriguez.
    “Of course not,” said Brenner.
    Brenner was, in his way, rather the result of an experiment. He was what was known, somewhat disparagingly, even in a time which disparaged disparagements, as a “vat brat,” the result of a fertilization of stored gametes, the development of which was brought to term in vitro . The Brenners of Home World tended to be embarrassments, in their way, lingering holdovers from earlier times, from more benighted eras. Most of these materials had been disposed of.
    “I am a modernist, and a lifest,” Brenner reminded Rodriguez.
    Rodriguez nodded. “I understand,” he said. It would be particularly important to Brenner to fit in, he supposed, to repudiate a dubious, obsolescent genetic heritage which had, in effect, through an eccentric byway of science, found itself precipitated into a time not its own. Perhaps that is why he was given this assignment, Rodriguez speculated to himself, because his genes were feared. On various worlds Rodriguez’ own genetic heritage, and that of those like him, and of other sorts, as well, in the name of the good of the community, had been outlawed. His was a genotype the community was not eager to see perpetuated. No longer did it fit in. The time of the captains, the commanders, the explorers, on such worlds, was gone. There had been agitation on more than one world for Rodriguez to be “smoothed,” or anatomically perfected, that his energies, his passion, his drives, the cutting edge of his intellect, be dulled into conformity. It was not easy, however, to pick up Rodriguez, as it was a more inconspicuous victim and remand him for therapeutic surgery. He was known and, in some circles, seemed to have power. It was even speculated he had connections with various hypothesized underground organizations whose interests might not be identical with those of the community as a whole. Two police who had called for him had been found dead. No further police called for him. It would be enough then to deport him, and deny him future entrance visas to such worlds.
    “I knew my father and mother,” said Rodriguez, “when I was little.”
    “That is nice,” said Brenner.
    “I was about ten,” said Rodriguez, “in Commonworld revolutions,” looking out absently into the stars, at the sun of Abydos, in the distance. “I caught my father abusing my mother. I killed him.”
    Brenner was startled, and felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
    “I was her champion, you see,” he said.
    “You didn’t know what you were doing,” said Brenner.
    “No, I didn’t,” said Rodriguez, “but in a sense more profound than you realize.”
    “What happened?” asked Brenner.
    “My mother cast me out of the house,” he said. “I lived in the streets. I was alone. I survived.”
    “What of your mother?” asked Brenner.
    “Shortly after she had cast me out,” he said, “she committed suicide.”
    Rodriguez then pressed the first of the recessed buttons at the side of the port, and then the second. The illumination in the lounge was restored, and the plating of the port closed. “Until tomorrow at ten,” said Rodriguez.
    “What is wrong?” asked Rodriguez.
    “Nothing,” said Brenner.
    Rodriguez, with a small motion, pushing off, floated back to the webbing he had occupied. There, steadied by a hand on it, he turned back to regard Brenner.
    “Are you afraid?” asked Rodriguez.
    “Yes,” said Brenner.
    “Of me?” asked Rodriguez.
    “No,” said Brenner, after a moment.
    “Of the Pons?” asked Rodriguez, skeptically.
    “No,” said Brenner. “They are innocent, simple, and inoffensive.”
    “Of the