Nine Hundred Grandmothers
by R. A. Lafferty


	1 

Ceran Swicegood was a promising young Special Aspects Man. But, 
like all Special Aspects, he had one irritating habit. He was forever 
asking the questions: How Did It All Begin? 

They all had tough names except Ceran. Manbreaker Crag, Heave 
Huckle, Blast Berg, George Blood, Move Manion (when Move says 
"Move," you move), Trouble Trent. They were supposed to be tough, 
and they had taken tough names at the naming. Only Ceran kept his 
own-to the disgust of his commander, Manbreaker. 

"Nobody can be a hero with a name like Ceran Swicegood!" 
Manbreaker would thunder. "Why don't you take Storm Shannon? 
That's good. Or Gutboy Barrelhouse or Slash Slagle or Nevel Knife? 
You barely glanced at the suggested list." 

"I'll keep my own," Ceran always said, and this is where he made his 
mistake. A new name will sometimes bring out a new personality. It 
had done so for George Blood. Though the hair on George's chest was a 
graft job, yet that and his new name had turned him from a boy into a 
man. Had Ceran assumed the heroic name of Gutboy Barrelhouse he 
might have been capable of rousing endeavors and man-sized angers 
rather than his tittering indecisions and flouncy furies. 

They were down on the big asteroid Proavitus-a sphere that almost 
tinkled with the potential profit that might be shaken out of it. And the 
tough men of the Expedition knew their business. They signed big 
contracts on the native velvet-like bark scrolls and on their own parallel 
tapes. They impressed, inveigled, and somewhat cowed the slight 
people of Proavitus. Here was a solid two-way market, enough to make 
them slaver. And there was a whole world of oddities that could lend 
themselves to the luxury trade. 

"Everybody's hit it big but you," Manbreaker crackled in kindly thunder 
to Ceran after three days there. "But even Special Aspects is supposed 
to pay its way. Our charter compels us to carry one of your sort to give 
us a cultural twist to the thing, but it needn't be restricted to that. What 
we go out for every time, Ceran, is to cut a big fat hog in the rump-we 
make no secret of that. But if the hog's tail can be shown to have a 
cultural twist to it, that will solve a requirement. And if that twist in the 
tail can turn us a profit, then we become mighty happy about the whole 
thing. Have you been able to find out anything about the living dolls, 
for instance? They might have both a cultural aspect and a market 
value." 

"The living dolls seem a part of something much deeper," Ceran said. 
"There's a whole complex of things to be unraveled. The key may be 
the statement of the Proavitoi that they do not die." 

"I think they die pretty young, Ceran. All those out and about are 
young, and those I have met who do not leave their houses are only 
middling old." 

"Then where are their cemeteries?" 

"Likely they cremate the old folks when they die." 

"Where are the crematories?" 

"They might just toss the ashes out or vaporize the entire remains. 
Probably they have no reverence for ancestors." 

"Other evidence shows their entire culture to be based on an 
exaggerated reverence for ancestors." 

"You find out, Ceran. You're Special Aspects Man." 




-------


Ceran talked to Nokoma, his Proavitoi counterpart as translator. Both 
were expert, and they could meet each other halfway in talk. Nokoma 
was likely feminine. There was a certain softness about both the sexes 
of the Proavitoi, but the men of the Expeditions believed that they had 
them straight now. 

"Do you mind if I ask some straight questions?" Ceran greeted her 
today. 

"Sure is not. How else I learn the talk well but by talking?" 

"Some of the Proavitoi say that they do not die, Nokoma. Is this true?" 

"How is not be true? If they die, they not be here to say they do not die. 
Oh, I joke, I joke. No, we do not die. It is a foolish alien custom which 
we see no reason to imitate. On Proavitus, only the low creatures die." 

"None of you does?" 

"Why, no. Why should one want to be an exception in this?" 

"But what do you do when you get very old?" 

"We do less and less then. We come to a deficiency of energy. Is it not 
the same with you?" 

"Of course. But where do you go when you become exceedingly old?" 

"Nowhere. We stay at home then. Travel is for the young and those of 
the active years." 

"Let's try it from the other end," Ceran said. "Where are your mother 
and father, Nokoma?" 

"Out and about. They aren't really old." 

"And your grandfathers and grandmothers?" 

"A few of them still get out. The older ones stay home." 

"Let's try it this way. How many grandmothers do you have, Nokoma?" 

"I think I have nine hundred grandmothers in my house. Oh, I know 
that isn't many, but we are the young branch of a family. Some of our 
clan have very great numbers of ancestors in their houses." 

"And all thse ancestors are alive?" 

"What else? Who would keep things not alive? How would such be 
ancestors?" 

Ceran began to hop around in his excitement. 

"Could I see them?" he twittered. 

"It might not be wise for you to see the older of them," Nokoma 
cautioned. "It could be an unsettling thing for strangers, and we guard 
it. A few tens of them you can see, of course." 

Then it came to Ceran that he might be onto what he had looked for all 
his life. He went into a panic of expectation. 

"Nokoma, it would be finding the key!" he fluted. "If none of you has 
ever died, then your entire race would still be alive!" 

"Sure. Is like you count fruit. You take none away, you still have them 
all." 

"But if the first of them are still alive, then they might know their 
origin! They would know how it began! Do they? Do you?" 

"Oh, not I. I am too young for the Ritual." 

"But who knows? Doesn't someone know?" 

"Oh, yes. All the old ones know how it began." 

"How old? How many generations back from you till they know?" 

"Ten, no more. When I have ten generations of children, then I will also 
go to the Ritual." 

"The Ritual, what is it?" 

"Once a year, the old people go to the very old people. They wake them 
up and ask them how it all began. The very old people tell them the 
beginning. It is a high time. Oh, how they hottle and laugh! Then the 
very old people go back to sleep for another year. So it is passed down 
to the generations. That is the Ritual." 




-------


The Proavitoi were not humanoid. Still less were they "monkey-faces," 
though that name was now set in the explorers' lingo. They were 
upright and robed and swathed, and were assumed to be two-legged 
under their garments. Though, as Manbreaker said, "They might go on 
wheels, for all we know." 

They had remarkable flowing hands that might be called everywhere-
digited. They could handle tools, or employ their hands as if they were 
the most intricate tools. 

George Blood was of the opinion that the Proavitoi were always 
masked, and that the men of the Expedition had never seen their faces. 
He said that those apparent faces were ritual masks, and that no part of 
the Proavitoi had ever been seen by the men except for those 
remarkable hands, which perhaps were their real faces. 

The men reacted with cruel hilarity when Ceran tried to explain to them 
just what a great discovery he was verging on. 

"Little Ceran is still on the how-did-it-begin jag," Manbreaker jeered. 
"Ceran, will you never give off asking which came first, the chicken or 
the egg?" 

"I will have that answer very soon," Ceran sang. "I have the unique 
opportunity. When I find how the Proavitoi began, I may have the clue 
to how everything began. All of the Proavitoi are still alive, the very 
first generation of them." 

"It passes belief that you can be so simpleminded," Manbreaker 
moaned. "They say that one has finally mellowed when he can suffer 
fools gracefully. By God, I hope I never come to that." 

But two days later, it was Manbreaker who sought out Ceran 
Swicegood on nearly the same subject. Manbreaker had been doing a 
little thinking and discovering of his own. 

"You are Special Aspects Man, Ceran," he said, "and you have been 
running off after the wrong aspect." 

"What is that?" 

"It don't make a damn how it began. What is important is that it may 
not have to end." 

"It is the beginning that I intend to discover," said Ceran. 

"You fool, can't you understand anything? What do the Proavitoi 
possess so uniquely that we don't know whether they have it by science 
or by their nature or by fool luck?" 

"Ah, their chemistry, I suppose." 

"Sure. Organic chemistry has come of age here. The Proavitoi have 
every kind of nexus and inhibitor and stimulant. They can grow and 
shrink and telescope and prolong what they will. These creatures seem 
stupid to me; it is as if they had these things by instinct. But they have 
them, that is what is important. With these things, we can become the 
patent medicine kings of the universes, for the Proavitoi do not travel or 
make many outside contacts. These things can do anything or undo 
anything. I suspect that the Proavitoi can shrink cells, and I suspect that 
they can do something else." 

"No, they couldn't shrink cells. It is you who talk nonsense now, 
Manbreaker." 

"Never mind. Their things already make nonsense of conventional 
chemistry. With the pharmacopoeia that one coulc pick up here, a man 
never need die. That's the stick horse you've been riding, isn't it? But 
you've been riding it backward with you head to the tail. The Proavitoi 
say that they never die." 

"They seem pretty sure that they don't. If they did, they would be the 
first to know it, as Nokoma says." 

"What? Have these creatures humor?" 

"Some." 

"But, Ceran, you don't understand how big this is." 

"I'm the only one who understands it so far. It means that if the 
Proavitoi have always been immortal, as they maintain, then the oldest 
of them are still alive. From them I may be able to learn how their 
species-and perhaps every species-began." 

Manbreaker went into his dying buffalo act then. He tore his hair and 
nearly pulled out his ears by the roots. He stomped and pawed and went 
off bull-bellowing: "It don't make a damn how it began, you fool! It 
might not have to end!" so loud that the hills echoed back: 

"It don't make a damn-you fool." 



-------


	2


Ceran Swicegood went to the home of Nokoma, but not with her on her 
invitation. He went without her when he knew that she was away from 
home. It was a sneaky thing to do, but the men of the Expedition were 
trained in sneakery. 

He would find out better without a mentor about the nine hundred 
grandmothers, about the rumored living dolls. He would find out what 
the old people did do if they didn't die, and find if they knew how they 
were first born. For his intrusion, he counted on the innate politeness of 
the Proavitoi. 

The house of Nokoma, of all the people, was in the cluster on top of the 
large flat hill, the Acropolis of Proavitus. They were earthen houses, 
though finely done, and they had the appearance of growing out of and 
being a part of the hill itself. 

Ceran went up the winding, ascending flagstone paths, and entered the 
house which Nokoma had once pointed out to him. He entered 
furtively, and encountered one of the nine hundred grandmothers-one 
with whom nobody need be furtive. 

The grandmother was seated and small and smiling at him. They talked 
without real difficulty, though it was not as easy as with Nokoma, who 
could meet Ceran halfway in his own language. At her call, there came 
a grandfather who likewise smiled at Ceran. These two ancients were 
somewhat smaller than the Proavitoi of active years. They were kind 
and serene. There was an atmosphere about the scene that barely 
missed being an odor-not unpleasant, sleepy, reminiscent of something, 
almost sad. 

"Are there those here older than you?" Ceran asked earnestly. 

"So many, so many, who could know how many?" said the 
grandmother. She called in other grandmothers and grandfathers older 
and smaller than herself, these no more than half the size of the active 
Proavitoi-small, sleepy, smiling. 

Ceran knew now that the Proavitoi were not masked. The older they 
were, the more character and interest there was in their faces. It was 
only of the immature active Proavitoi that there could have been a 
doubt. No masks could show such calm and smiling old age as this. 
The queer textured stuff was their real faces. 

So old and friendly, so weak and sleepy, there must have been a dozen 
generations of them there, back to the oldest and smallest. 

"How old are the oldest?" Ceran asked the first grandmother. 

"We say that all are the same age since all are perpetual," the 
grandmother told him. "It is not true that all are the same age, but it is 
indelicate to ask how old." 

"You do not know what a lobster is," Ceran said to them, trembling, 
"but it is a creature that will boil happily if the water on him is heated 
slowly. He takes no alarm, for he does not know at what point the heat 
is dangerous. It is that gradual with me. I slide from one degree to 
another with you and my credulity is not alarmed. I am in danger of 
believing anything about you if it comes in small doses, and it will. I 
believe that you are here and as you are for no other reason than that I 
see and touch you. Well, I'll be boiled for a lobster, then, before I turn 
back from it. Are there those here even older than the ones present?" 

The first grandmother motioned Ceran to follow her. They went down a 
ramp through the floor into the older part of the house, which must 
have been underground. 

Living dolls! They were here in rows on the shelves, and sitting in 
small chairs in their niches. Doll-sized indeed, and several hundres of 
them. 

Many had wakened at the intrusion. Others came awake when spoken 
to or touched. They were incredibly ancient, but they were cognizant in 
their glances and recognition. They smiled and stretched sleepily, not 
as humans would, but as very old puppies might. Ceran spoke to them, 
and they understood each other surprisingly. 

Lobster, lobster, said Ceran to himself, the water has passed the danger 
point! And it hardly feels different. If you believe your senses in this, 
then you will be boiled alive in your credulity. 

He knew now that the living dolls were real and that they were the 
living ancestors of the Proavitoi. 

Many of the little creatures began to fall asleep again. Their waking 
moments were short, but their sleeps seemed to be likewise. Several of 
the living mummies woke a second time while Ceran was still in the 
room, woke refreshed from very short sleeps and were anxious to talk 
again. 

"You are incredibly!" Ceran cried out, and all the small and smaller and 
still smaller creatures smiled and laughed their assent. Of course they 
were. All good creatiures everywhere are incrdible, and were there ever 
so many assembled in one place? But Ceran was greedy. A roomful of 
miracles wasn't enough. 

"I have to take this back as far as it will go!" he cried avidly. "Where 
are the even older ones?" 

"There are older ones and yet older and again older," said the first 
grandmother, "and thrice-over older ones, but perhaps it would be wise 
not to seek to be too wise. You have seen enough. The old people are 
sleepy. Let us go up again." 

Go up again, out of this? Ceran would not. He saw passages and 
descending ramps, down into the heart of the great hill itself. There 
were whole worlds of rooms about him and under his feet. Ceran went 
on and down, and who was to stop him? Not dolls and creatures much 
smaller than dolls. 

Manbreaker had once called himself an old pirate who reveled in the 
stream of his riches. But Ceran was the Young Alchemist who was 
about to find the Stone itself. 

He walked down the ramps through centuries and millennia. The 
atmosphere he had noticed on the upper levels was a clear odor now-
sleepy, half-remembered, smiling, sad, and quite strong. That is the 
way Time smells. 

"Are there those here even older than you?" Ceran asked a small 
grandmother whom he held in the palm of his hand. 

"So old and so small that I could hold in my hand," said the 
grandmother in what Ceran knew from Nokoma to be the older 
uncompounded form of the Proavitus language. 

Smaller and older the creatures had been getting as Ceran went through 
the rooms. He was boiled lobster now for sure. He had to believe it all: 
he saw and felt it. The wren-sized grandmother talked and laughed and 
nodded that there were those far older than herself, and in doing so she 
nodded herself back to sleep. Ceran returned her to her niche in the 
hive-like wall where there were thousands of others, miniaturized 
generations. 

Of course he was not in the house of Nokoma now. He was in the heart 
of the hill that underlay all the houses of Proavitus, and these were the 
ancestors of everybody on the asteroid. 

"Are there those here even older than you?" Ceran asked a small 
grandmother whom he held on the tip of his finger. 

"Older and smaller," she said, "but you come near the end." 

She was asleep, and he put her back in her place. The older they were, 
the more they slept. 

He was down to solid rock under the roots of the hill. He was into the 
passages that were cut out of that solid rock, but they could not be 
many or deep. He had a sudden fear that the creatures would become so 
small that he could not see them or talk to them, and so he would miss 
the secret of the beginning. 

But had not Nokoma said that all the old people knew the secret? Or 
course. But he wanted to hear it from the oldest of them. He would 
have it now, one way or the other. 

"Who is the oldest? Is this the end of it? Is this the beginning? Wake 
up! Wake up!" he called when he was sure he was in the lowest and 
oldest room. 

"Is it Ritual?" asked someone who woke up. smaller than mice they 
were, no bigger than bees, maybe older than both. 

"It is a special Ritual," Ceran told them. "Relate to me how it was in the 
beginning." 

What was that sound-too slight, too scattered to be a noise? It was like 
a billion microbes laughing. It was the hilarity of the little things 
waking up to a high time. 

"Who is the oldest of all?" Ceran demanded, for their laughter bothered 
him. "Who is the oldest and first?" 

"I am the oldest, the ultimate grandmother," one said gaily. "All the 
others are my children. Are you also of my children?" 

"Of course," said Ceran, and the small laughter of unbelief flittered out 
from the whole multitude of them. 

"Then you must be the ultimate child, for you are like no other. If you 
be, then it is as funny at the end as it was in the beginning." 

"How was it in the beginning?" Ceran bleated. "You are the first. Do 
you know how you came to be?" 

"Oh, yes, yes," laughed the ultimate grandmother, and the hilarity of 
the small things became a real noise now. 

"How did it begin?" demanded Ceran, and he was hopping and 
skipping about in his excitement. 

"Oh, it was so funny a joke the way things began that you would not 
believe it," chittered the grandmother. "A joke, a joke!" 

"Tell me the joke, then. If a joke generated your species, then tell me 
that cosmic joke." 

"Tell yourself," tinkled the grandmother. "You are a part of the joke if 
you are of my children. Oh, it is too funny to believe. How good to 
wake up and laugh and go to sleep again." 

Blazing green frustration! To be so close and to be balked by a giggling 
bee! 

"Don't go to sleep again! Tell me at once how it began!" Ceran shrilled, 
and he had the ultimate grandmother between thumb and finger. 

"This is not Ritual," the grandmother protested. "Ritual is that you 
guess what it was for three days, and we laugh and say, 'No, no, no, it 
was something nine times as wild as that. Guess some more.' " 

"I will not guess for three days! Tell me at once or I will crush you," 
Ceran threatened in a quivering voice. 

"I look at you, you look at me, I wonder if you will do it," the ultimate 
grandmother said calmly. 

Any of the tough men of the Expedition would have done it-would 
have crushed her, and then another and another and another of the 
creatures till the secret was told. If Ceran had taken on a tough 
personality and a tough name he'd have done it. If he'd been Gutboy 
Barrelhouse he'd have done it without a qualm. But Ceran Swicegood 
couldn't do it. 

"Tell me," he pleaded in agony. "All my life I've tried to find out how it 
began, how anything began. And you know!" 

"We know. Oh, it was so funny how it began. So joke! So fool, so 
clown, so grotesque thing! Nobody could guess, nobody could believe." 

"Tell me! Tell me!" Ceran was ashen and hysterical. 

"No, no, you are no child of mine," chortled the ultimate grandmother. 
"Is too joke a joke to tell a stranger. We could not insult a stranger to 
tell so funny, so unbelieve. Strangers can die. Shall I have it on 
conscience that a stranger died laughing?" 


"Tell me! Insult me! Let me die laughing!" But Ceran nearly died 
crying from the frustration that ate him up as a million bee-sized things 
laughed and hooted and giggled: 

"Oh, it was so funny the way it began!" 

And they laughed. And laughed. And went on laughing ... until Ceran 
Swicegood wept and laughed together, and crept away, and returned to 
the ship still laughing. On his next voyage he changed his name to 
Blaze Bolt and ruled for ninety-seven days as king of a sweet sea island 
in M-81, but that is another and much more unpleasant story. 


The End
