"Frankowski, Leo - Kren of the Mitchegai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

"Thank you, my friends, thank you!" When the applause died down, Sir Rupert continued, "I, too, have a pleasant announcement to make, as well as an introduction of my own. I'm sure that most of you are aware that the museum here has had a military social drone on display for over a hundred years. It has been immobile all that time, since we have lacked the technology to repair it. But Agnieshka, the artificial intelligence in the Mark XX tank that I managed to recover, was quite familiar with this model of drone, and indeed had a small hand in designing it. Under her direction, the drone has now been repaired, and I would now like to present it to you, along with Agnieshka herself, who is 'wearing' it!"

Again, the crowd started to applaud politely, but as Agnieshka came in a side door and stepped up onto the stage, they became silent. At first a few, and then soon everyone in the audience, slid off of their chairs, and sat on the floor with their forepaws on the ground and their arms straight. It was the dog's ancient gesture of respect.

Agnieshka said, "Please, get back in your chairs! I know that I look like a human, but I'm really just an intelligent machine! We machines loved and respected the humans as much as your people do. The artificial intelligences were humanity's second great friends, but you Canines were the first. For at least ten thousand years, long before selective breeding and genetic modification made you into intelligent, bipedal beings with hands, you were humanity's friends, their guards, and their workmates. We machines were developed much later. Therefore, it is fitting that I should make obeisance to you."

Agnieshka's drone made a deep bow to the audience.

They stood, and applauded her, in the human fashion.

"Thank you!" Agnieshka said, "I hope that your people and mine can become good friends. We can be very useful to each other. I believe that it is likely that I can help you revive certain of the sciences and technologies that have been lost on this planet, and that there are other vital things that we can do together as well. But for now, let's get on with the presentation that Sir Rupert and I have put together. We will be starting with a study of our universal enemy, the Mitchegai."

The audience sat down, but again applauded.



CHAPTER TWO
FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
Formal Dining with the Mitchegai

The reader will please note that all numbers mentioned herein in the Mitchegai sections are in the duodecimal system.
For the benefit of the casual reader, I mention that a thousand in base twelve is 1728 in base ten, a million in base twelve is just under three million in base ten, and a billion in base twelve is over five billion in base ten.
Also, please note that all weights, measurements, and time periods mentioned are only the crudest of approximations.
For a complete listing of all Mitchegai weights and measures, see Appendix L of the accompanying Mitchegai Academic Text.
All numbers in the Human sections are in decimal, and all measures are in the metric system.

—Sir Rupert of the Rigellian Museum



She was four feet tall, she was bright green, and she stank.

Four feet was a very acceptable height for a five-year-old, nameless Mitchegai. All of her age mates were exactly the same size, since the Mitchegai have very little genetic diversity. Like the others, she still had relatively useless hands and arms hanging from her stooped-over body, which was counterbalanced by a heavy tail and propelled by two powerful legs. A human child might think that she was a baby Tyrannosaurus rex, except that she had a flat-fronted, vegetarian mouth.

Hers were not the pointed teeth of a carnivore, but the squared-off incisors and flattened molars of a plant eater. Like all herbivores everywhere, she had spent most of her short life grazing on plants. Unlike those on non-Mitchegai worlds, she ate only one species of plant, since there was only one species permitted on a world owned by the Mitchegai. All others had been eradicated in the distant, mystical past, millions of years ago, for Mitchegai have very long histories. Her meat-eating teeth would grow in later, if she was lucky, but as it happened, she was not.

Being bright green was marginally useful, since her thin skin contained the local equivalent to chlorophyll and was capable of manufacturing a small amount of the nutrients that her active body needed. Indeed, being cold blooded, with a very low basal metabolism, she could almost survive without food, simply by lying quietly in the sun. This expedient was rarely necessary on a world ruled by the far more intelligent adults.

Her odor was caused by never having taken a bath, save when she was out in a rainstorm, but even this was no great disadvantage. The Mitchegai have almost no sense of smell. They don't need one. The olfactory sense is used largely to discriminate among various foods, and the Mitchegai diet is extremely limited. Their food never spoils because it is always eaten live, or as nearly so as possible.

Even adult Mitchegai never deliberately bathe, although the wealthy take steam baths. This is not so much to get clean, as for the pleasure of overheating their cold-blooded bodies without exertion.

She had no idea of who her parents were, and this was quite normal. Biological parentage is of no interest to the Mitchegai. Adult females lay eggs the size of sand grains almost continuously, which fall on the ground and are forgotten. Adult males are surrounded by an unnoticeable fine mist of aerosol sperm. Unnoticeable, that is, to a human. To the Mitchegai, a heavy concentration of adult males in a closed room is annoying, and because of this most of the second and third highest ranks prefer to be female. There is no other difference between the sexes, but the Mitchegai don't care. They have a love life comparable to that of Earthly oysters. Love, marriage, and parental concern are not for them.

Neither was long life, for this particular youngster. She was released from her pen into a huge, grassy arena and looked about, frightened at first. Fear soon passed, birdlike, for her small brain could not entertain a single thought for long. She started to graze, and hardly noticed when a seven-foot-tall adult vaulted into the enclosed space. The cheering crowd did not bother her. Even the sight of the adult's hands, with six clawed fingers arranged in a rosette, left her unmoved. She had seen adults before, from a distance. She had even seen them eat other juveniles on the open plains, but they had never eaten her. She was unconcerned.

Superficially, the anatomy of the adult Mitchegai has much in common with that of a human being. Both species have two legs, two arms, two eyes, and two ears, although the Mitchegai lack the external ear of a human. The brain, nose, mouth, and most of the sensory apparatus is located in a head at the top of a spinal column.

Internally, the differences are large, and on the whole, the Mitchegai are better engineered. This is largely due to the three million years of selective breeding that they have undergone. Human beings have a basic structure more suited to a horizontal, four-legged creature, than to an upright, two-legged one.