Page 124 - The Perpetrations of Captain Kaga

Reforming the World of Bolix

out to be an old friend of Kaga’s from his early PKU days; they had
worked together on Pazouti during the Microbe Wars, but hadn’t seen
each other since.
After exchanging reminiscences for a few minutes, they settled back
against benches carved out of the crater wall of his office. Kaga said,
“Tell me, Dr. Assassassa, why are the Gorns so addicted to these
electronic games? Is it simply the…ah, climate here?”
‘‘Hwooeesh! Very interesting you should ask about that specific
aspect of Gornian behavior,’’ said the Pazoutian, his vestigial wings
twitching with excitement. “I have come to regard game-playing as the
key to understanding this race. Shawoosh, in pre-PKU days, before
you Earthlings arrived here, the Gorns had already been solitary most
of the time. The radiation level, as you well know, keeps them inside
their tiny meteorite-crater dwellings—except, of course, for the mating
season. As a result, social relations are both undeveloped and highly
rigid. Thus, it is not difficult to see why electromechanical interaction
became so popular, since it provided surrogate companionship with
completely predefined rules.”
At this point, the Pazoutian had reached over and removed an
object from his desk. “As trade in that era was poorly controlled,” he
continued, “computers rapidly became ubiquitous. Unfortunately the
Gorns paid a price beyond money for their new gadgetry: the old
stone-carving tradition has just about died out. I did happen to acquire
this piece a few days ago; an old Gorn gave it to me after I gave him a
palliative for radiation sickness. He was quite aged: about ten more
roentgens will finish him off.”
Captain Kaga took the Gornian sculpture from the spidery purple
hands of Dr. Assassassa and examined it closely. It represented a
typical Gorn, pot-bellied and hairless. The pose was odd, however: the
figure had one pseudopod covering all of its face except the mouth;
the other three were outstretched in a declamatory fashion.
“What does it mean?” asked Kaga, fascinated by the carving.
“Hoowooshawoo,” chortled Dr. Assassassa. “The old Gorn called it
‘the Liar.’ You see, the Gorns never hide their faces when they speak
to each other, and they cannot conceal their emotions. They have so
little intraspecific contact that socially-acceptable forms of dishonesty
never developed. In fact, the whole subject of lying and cheating is not
discussed openly; except for this old piece of stone I would have

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