Sample Chapters from House of Solomon
The Citadel
The vultures watched the Apes of Eden plod
across the salty waste, in quest of God.
One thing we’ve never lacked is fortitude.
Another thousand years the Tribe pursued
its Quest, across that desolate expanse
where buzzards wheel, and vague mirages dance.
An enemy we’re almost sure to find
no matter where we go, is humankind.
Some manlike species were in evidence
in all conceivable environments;
and arid haunts of desert ghost and ghoul
were no exception to the general rule.
In chapters past, I’ve had harsh things to say
of human tribes we’ve met along our way;
but are they all so vicious? That depends.
Some were, in their misguided ways, our friends.
One day, as through the desert we advanced,
our Chief’s patrol of scouting tribesmen chanced
to spot a lonesome citadel atop
a lofty butte. Our leader signaled Stop.
He scanned the somber view, his aspect grim;
the castle’s looks did not appeal to him.
“That fort was built by human types, all right,”
he quickly ascertained. “Here comes a fight.
I guess we ‘ll have to take a look around
inside, to see if Logos can be found.
Though nothing’s really likely to be learned,
we can’t risk leaving any stones unturned.
They won’t be overjoyed to see how far
our searching goes. Those humans never are.
I’ll have to send some spies in first, I fear…
I heard a sneeze. Is that a volunteer?”
A road that spiraled up the mountain led
to scowling walls and turrets overhead.
The battlements were uniformly gray
and sinister, despite the glare of day.
It was a gloomy and forbidding place,
the lair of some voracious, grisly race,
as humans tend to be.
Our leader sent
two volunteers as spies, while runners went
to warn the Tribe to be prepared for war,
in case this town–like most we’d searched before-
was hostile to our Purpose, and preferred
to try to thwart our questing for the Word.
While wondering which spies he should appoint
to go (at mortal risk) to case the joint,
he noticed that the Sage and Scribe were there;
and these, he thought, were apes the Tribe could spare.
“Just take a look around,” he told the two.
“Stay out of useless fights, and out of view.
Don’t mess things up, as spies have done before.
His clues we need, not just another war.
If God, or traces of Him, aren’t in sight,
then this might be a war we needn’t fight.
Don’t worry; if you’re slow in getting back
we’ll know you guys got killed, and we’ll attack.”
The Chief’s patrol returned to camp to wait.
The volunteers trudged off to meet their fate.
“In golden ages past,” complained the Scribe,
“a poet had prestige, around this Tribe.
He didn’t have to double as a spy.”
He glumly kicked a stone, and watched it fly,
and added, “I’d be smarter just to quit.
I get no recognition for my wit.”
“You think you’re persecuted!” scoffed the Sage.
“The job I’ve got’s a grind, in any age!
Our Leader never wants me to advise,
but still insists I keep on being wise.
To be a Sage you’ve got to use your brain,
and heavy thinking gets to be a pain!
If you don’t think a Sage’s job is rough,
just take my place. You ‘ll soon have had enough!”
The poet said, “One thing I know for sure:
the job of Chief’s a real sinecure!
The only thing he does, resembling work,
is making certain no one else can shirk;
yet every time you listen to him, he’s
bemoaning his responsibilities!”
The spies proceeded, tossing to and fro
their tales of self-evaluated woe,
until they reached the bottom of the butte
and paused a moment for a quick dispute:
The poet thought they ought to take the road.
His archive sack, he said, was quite a load,*
_____________
*The sack went with him everywhere he went,
to guard our books from theft or accident.
_____________
and might impede their mission’s progress, if
they lugged such heavy reading up a cliff.
The thinker held another viewpoint quite:
they’d been instructed to avoid a fight;
and since the roadway wasn’t very wide,
it might be hard to find a place to hide
if, in their stealthy, secretive ascent,
they met a downward-headed resident.
They made a circuit of the butte, and found
the cliff rose sheerly upward all around,
and bulged unclimbably at greater height.
The Sage agreed perhaps the Scribe was right:
the only way they’d ever get that high
was either take the corkscrew road, or fly.
While they were hiking back to reach the road,
a Flying Disc came swooping past. It slowed,
returned, and hovered near the mountainside.
It looked to be some thirty-five feet wide,
of flat and circular design. The spies
set down their clubs so they could shade their eyes.
They stood with heads a-tilt and mouths agape,
examining this strange, metallic shape.
It hovered for a minute, lightly parked
on air, then soared aloft.
The Sage remarked,
“If we get caught, y’know, our mission’s botched;
and something makes me think we’re being watched.”
The pathway up the butte was channeled through
the solid rock, like threading on a screw.
Along the outer edge, a waist-high wall
protected careless hikers from a fall
which would have ended in the fatal shock
of stopping at the bottom, on the rock.
The road went spiraling around the hill
a half a dozen times or so, until
it led them to a gateway at the top-
and there the secret agents had to stop.
The steel portcullis stood some ten yards tall
and somewhat wider, in a concrete wall
which loomed above them, rising toward the blue
until its top was nearly out of view.
The gate was studded, like a porcupine’s
integument, with wicked metal spines.
But neither of the apes was greatly cowed.
The Scribe set down his sack, and called aloud,
“Wake up in there, and open up the doors!
You’re being honored by some visitors!”
The Sage came forward, and began to drub
the huge, resounding portal with his club.
The agents hadn’t very long to wait.
A shutter opened, up above the gate,
and there a darkly-hooded head looked out
to see what all the racket was about.
“Let’s have a little service!” yelled the Scribe.
“We’re here to spy this joint–from Eden’s Tribe!
In towns where folks oppose us from the start,
our custom is to tear the place apart!”
The hooded head withdrew without a word,
but shortly after that, the tribesmen heard
an awe-inspiring and portentous sound
of grinding rumbles from the rocky ground
–a noise that jolted them from toes to brains-
and then the clanking of enormous chains.
While asking what such auguries would bring
they noticed that the gate was opening.
A center line appeared, and then the gate
divided and began to separate,
until the spies could see the light of day
between the massive slabs of steely gray.
They stood and watched the slowly-growing cleft
as gates slid ponderously right and left.
The rumbling stopped. The gate was standing wide.
Our tribesmen nonchalantly strolled inside
to be confronted by a human host
who bore a marked resemblance to a ghost-
in shape and posture seeming to conform
approximately to the human norm.
He wore a hooded robe of charcoal black
that hid his frame completely like a sack,
and had a redolence of mold and must.
The only features they could see were just
his yellow eyeballs I staring like an owl
from inky murk beneath the bulky cowl.
He stood upon a platform, flat and round,
which hovered oddly just above the ground
but seemed to be as steady as a rock.
This apparition carne as quite a shock;
but Eden’s tribesmen never heard of dread .
The Scribe thrust out his jaw, and firmly said,
“Our mob left Eden, centuries ago,
to rove this crumby planet to and fro
in search of Logos, God or Deity,
or any traces of Him we could see.
We’ll all be here to search tomorrow, and
there’s one thing you guys better understand:
We don’t like getting laughed at. Furthermore,
the way we search a place is door to door
and inch by inch. When we get done, we’ll go;
but one reply we don’t accept is No.
We’ll finish what we come for, right or wrong;
so don’t act hostile, and we’ll get along.”
“Perhaps,” the human said, “we could direct
your search–though not in ways you might expect.
We, too, have searched, though on another path,
and seen what you have not–the aftermath.”
The oddest thing about the human’s voice
was that his hearers seemed to have their choice
of where it carne from. They could hear the sound
from five or six directions, all around.
The Scribe rejoined, “No phony leads of yours;
our Tribe don’t need advice from amateurs !
No walls or weapons ever long deterred
our gang from searching places for the Word;
and no one’s ever fooled us. Some have tried
to cloud our minds, and consequently died!”
The human chuckled hollowly. “I sense
a somewhat overweening confidence
in beasts who might be wiser to respect
superiority of intellect.
You ‘ll quickly lose a lot of your aplomb
when you’re confronted with a cobalt bomb
…However, 1et’s assume you spoke in jest.
Your Tribe, you say, is on a holy quest.
How nice for you. We humans sympathize
with noble goals like yours. We realize
that just such random ‘questing’ led to our
incalculable technologic power;
so pithecans and humans, it would seem,
have shared a sort of common racial dream.
If you can curb this choler you display,
we might agree to guide you on your way.
We know the path, you see, which must be trod
by those who’d seek a realistic ‘god’.”
The Scribe did not reply, but looked perplexed.
The Sage took up the conversation next.
“Well, stranger,” said the thinker, “if it’s true,
I’d call that real neighborly of you.”
“Then welcome,” said their host. “I said before
you’re ill-advised to take us on in war
–our strength is not to be disparaged–yet
you needn’t take that as a counterthreat.
Long, long ago, we humans had our fill
of warfare, so we bear you no ill will.
Your nosiness derives from motives pure,
and so– (He turned) –you’ll get the Guided Tour.
Just follow me. I’ll show you what we’ve done
to end the quest your race has just begun.
“Although we’ve left your species far behind,
your manifest activity of mind
entitles you, at least in some degree,
to share our common Primate Destiny.
The fact that we’ve been able to advance
while you could not, was partly due to chance.
We found the way, while you did not. Bad luck
was all that dug the rut in which you’re stuck.
This needn’t be, and with the impetus
of Education you’ll receive from us
(if you accept it) you’ll attain the place
that Intellect confers upon a race.”
The charcoal-colored buildings, left and right,
rose windowless and blind to lofty height.
The human led the way along the street.
He didn’t touch the pavement with his feet,
but floated grandly on his metal raft
like milkweed seeds that ride a gentle draft.
The apes, behind him, quietly conversed
to make their plans if worst should come to worst.
The Sage observed, “This could, y’know, be a
locale for catching claustrophobia.
They sure have got a somber-colored town.
I feel conspicuous, just being brown,”
“We can’t bug out; there’s spying to be done,”
the Scribe replied. “Besides, it’s two to one-
this jerk’s no match for us. There’s still no threat.
We’ve seen no other human beings yet.
Let’s get this place all spied, and save the fuss.
Our Leader’ll be real proud of us.”
Their guide approached a building. As he neared,
a doorway preternaturally appeared.
The mechanism wasn’t clear: the wall
dissolved from view and wasn’t there at all
within an archway, maybe five feet broad
and seven tall.
The apes weren’t overawed.
Completely confident that they would win
if strife arose, they calmly sauntered in.
Perfected Man
“The Primate quest for Truth,” their guide began
“took vastly different forms, for Ape and Man.
Your own approach–a random search around
the Earth–is scientifically unsound.
The limitations of the eye and ear
we humans have discovered interfere
with one’s perceptions of the universe;
so hardly any method could be worse
than trusting senses clearly to perceive
the subject. Such directness is naive.
There are phenomena the eye and ear
when unassisted, cannot see or hear
and which–although they readily affect
our instruments–our senses can’t detect.
It will, for instance, likely be a shock
to learn that what you think is solid rock
consists of little more than empty space
through which neutrino particles will trace
as straight a course as through the empty air.
If data aren’t interpreted with care,
you’re sure to draw erroneous conclusions
based on simple optical illusions.
Bear in mind, the meaning and the end
of Science is completely to transcend
the limitations which your own physique
imposes on the data that you seek.
The Scientific Way to search for gods
is just like classifying arthropods
or mice, or elephants, or apes, or snarks,
or leptons, J-psis, tachyons and quarks.
Hypotheses are easiest to test
which can be mathematically expressed.
One finds the patterns in the data known
to see what Basic Principle is shown,
and then extrapolates it to explain
whatever gaps in knowledge may remain.
Though observation is the place to start,
until Evaluation plays its part
no data which are merely sensory
can build a model of Reality–
a model only, true, to that extent
that it predicts controlled Experiment.
Unless you show that all predictions jibe
with what unbiased instruments describe,
your theory’s open to a valid doubt.
All failures must be firmly weeded out.
You apes have let your sheer tenacity
engender cortical opacity.
A Scientist is ready to revise
the instant new discrepancies arise.
Our first progenitors were much like you,
not just in shape and size, but point of view.
We too, in ancient times, went far astray,
before we found the Scientific Way.
“But more of that anon. Permit me first
to show that our approach is reimbursed
with tangible, applicable effect,
which proves our methodology correct.”
The apes were led through hollow-echoed walls,
where eerie light exuded from the walls,
until the human took them through a door.
They found a vault, with implements of war
displayed in cases, or arrayed on racks,
and labeled “spear” and “mace” and “battleaxe.”
He led them past displays of bows and slings
and arrows hafts and arbalests and things.
They saw an iron suit, with lance and shield,
and other gear that human warriors wield;
and then the relics of more recent wars,
with telescopic sights, and rifled bores.
“In very ancient times,” their guide resumed,
“it seemed our race would be forever doomed
to unremitting and unequal strife
with specially-adapted forms of life
–who nearly wiped us out, to tell the truth-
the cave bear, mastodon, and sabertooth.
So naturally, in rowdy days of yore,
our prime concern was instruments of war.”
“The same with Eden’s Tribe,” the Scribe replied.
“In olden times, a lot of critters tried
us apes for dinner; but they quickly learned
the compliment was apt to be returned.
We started making weapons out of stone,
with hefty helves of wood or bison bone.
We made us hatchets, spears, and all the rest.
Of course the good old bludgeon’s still the best.
A spear’s okay; but when the war gets hot,
it’s hard to see if someone’s speared or not.
But with a club, no matter how you’re rushed,
there’s no mistaking when a skull’s been crushed!
A head that’s busted has a different feel
than one that isn’t. That’s a club’s appeal.”
“A most inventive race,” the human laughed,
“to think of mounting spearheads on a shaft!
But there was so much more you might have done,
and even more of your encounters won,
if you’d renounced your atavistic quirk
of liking closeness to your heavy work.
We humans had a healthier respect
for crafty subtleties of intellect,
and worked some rather urgent problems out
by methods you’d consider roundabout,
but which, in actuality, were far
more efficacious than brute muscles are.
You apes on brawn and ignorance relied,
and stopped advancing, wholly satisfied.
We might have made the same mistake, and spent
all time in static nondevelopment;
but our successes, unlike yours, have led
to more inventions, so we forged ahead.
“It wasn’t any easy thing to do.
We started out with even less than you.
A man, deprived of artifacts, would stand
but meager chance of living off the land.
Incapable of camouflage or flight
and all but helpless in an open fight,
the only thing that got us off the hook
was subtlety, so that’s the course we took.
Besetting enemies with traps we laid
–the logfall, covered pit, and ambuscade–
we compensated with the use of these
for Natural Man’s innate deficiencies.
Our racial limitations were, for us,
a constant source of mental stimulus.
For us, a problem’s there so it can be
resolved by Human Ingenuity.
Our Adaptation is, and shall remain,
the awesome power of the human brain.”
As apes and guide continued to advance,
the thinker gave the Scribe a sidelong glance
and raised one eyebrow, to convey his doubt
of what their host was blathering about.
The Scribe made no remark their host could hear,
but waved a finger vaguely at his ear
and crossed his eyeballs, with a grin inane,
implying that he thought their host insane.
At last the little group arrived at where
an armor-clad conveyance, huge and square,
was squatting on its iron-cleated treads.
Its phallic cannon loomed above their heads.
“We had some crude and inefficient ways
of fighting wars, in prehistoric days,”
the guide continued, “sending in a flood
of human ·fighters–muscle, bone and blood-
to grapple physically with enemies.
In more sophisticated eras, these
contrivances were standardized in war,
to cut the casualties we so deplore.
Its guns could pulverize the stoutest walls.
The caterpillar treads on which it crawls
are armed at intervals with metal lugs
it used for squashing hostile troops like bugs.
Machines replaced the human fighting force.
“The change was rather gradual, of course;·
and this invention was a passing stage:
It held a crew. But in a later age
we gave machines more flexibility
by using microwave telemetry.
The ‘drivers,’ in a distant, bombproof hole,
could operate it by remote control.
The space once used for men to ride inside
was now with better weaponry supplied
and larger stocks of cannon shells and fuel
to give it more endurance in a duel.
When such machines in battle were deployed
they couldn’t be too readily destroyed;
and if they were, their crews of living men
took charge of fresh machines, to slay again.
“Still later, we devised the robot brain,
which never slept till every foe was slain,
and which reacted with the speed of light
when enemy equipment came in sight.
Whenever we were menaced by a foe
we turned the robots on, and let them go.
The only drawback was, when they were used,
their high-strung circuits sometimes got confused,
mistaking for a fort some harmless town,
and blasting thousands of civilians down.
But carping moralists were satisfied
if most disasters struck the other side;
for with a war to win, no time was spent
on mawkish and enfeebling sentiment. ”
“That thing won’t work on us,” the poet said.
“We’d toss a couple boulders in the tread
and stop it in its tracks; then tie that gun
in knots, to keep from losing anyone
while we were ripping it apart, to choose
the chunks of metal someone wants to use.
It might be real useful, even so
against some less resourceful breed of foe.”
“It’s problematical,” the human said,
“how close you’d get before you’re full of lead.
The smaller guns with which this tank abounds
have firing speeds of many hundred rounds
a minute. It’s equipped with infrared
perceptors, so approaching foes are dead
as soon as they’re within its line of sight.
They’re not concealed by fog, nor dark of night.
“And here’s another thing we used to use
in warfare. Pull the lever, and it spews
a deadly stream of flaming kerosine,
destructive both to soldier and machine.
It doesn’t matter now. This thing’s retired.
The violence our progenitors admired
arose from Instinct. Now that human brains
have been perfected, no such urge remains.
There’s more to see, however. Shall we go?”
The human led the tribesmen down the row
until they found another strange machine
the likes of which few apes had ever seen.
It had a hollow nozzle from its tank,
from which a wisp of gasses hissed and stank.
The poet wiggled levers, while the Sage
took special interest in the pressure gauge.
“It’s used,” the guide explained, “in types of war
we hardly can imagine, any more. It took a rather hardy foe to last
a battle out, when he’d been mustard-gassed.
Less deadly fumes were used by our police
to help suppress revolts, in times of peace;
so concepts first evolved for use in war
made governments more stable than before.
This proves we humans weren’t preoccupied
with warfare. New techniques that war supplied
were later used in less destructive ways.
Each scrap of data, ultimately, pays.
Without a military missile race
we’d slower been, in reaching Outer Space.
You’ll find this out yourselves when you begin
the studies we intend to start you in.
“Now let me show you how we’d fight a war
if Man were ever threatened any more.
You ‘ll find it interesting, I believe.”
The human pointed, with his dangling sleeve,
where, just ahead, a doorway stood ajar
and said, “That’s where the master consoles are.
Let’s have a look–but let me caution you:
Don’t handle things. Disaster may ensue.”