Finally, notification came through that Grandfather Bor peDrogh Brajjyd would see him.
Theoretically, any of the Elders of the Council of Sixteen would have done—but in practice it was customary to call upon one's own Clan Elder. As a member of the Clan Brajjyd, Kiv was obliged to seek audience with Grandfather Bor peDrogh Brajjyd.
And Grandfather Bor peDrogh had been extremely busy for the past three days. On the fourth day, however, he consented to see Kiv; because of the young man's status in the Bel-rogas School, the audience was to last for a full half hour.
A short, dark-hued young acolyte, also of the Clan Brajjyd, ushered Kiv in. The Elder Grandfather's office was not ornate, but neither was it austere. It was decorated in simple good taste, with the customary symbol of the Great Light in its honored niche in the wall.
The Elder Grandfather's extreme age was evident in every line of his body. The golden aura of body hair had long since turned to silver, and was growing sparse on his face, making him look oddly like an Earthman. His face was lined but peaceful, and his hands, though gnarled with age, were still quick and graceful.
Kiv knelt and bowed his head.
"The peace of your Ancestors be with you always,'' said the priest. His voice was deeper and more virile than Kiv had expected.
4 'And may the Great Light illumine your mind as He does the world," Kiv responded.
"Sit down, my son.'' The old man's bass voice again startled Kiv. "Tell me what it is that troubles you."
"It's the hugl, Grandfather. The farmers are having a terrible time controlling them, and I understand the situation has been getting worse for the past six days.'' "This is correct. But just what is it you wish to tell me?"
Kiv drew a deep breath. The Grandfather suddenly seemed terribly, terribly ancient. For a wild moment Kiv thought of throwing himself at the old man's feet to beg forgiveness for—
No, he told himself. Pretend you are Jones.
The Grandfather was awaiting his reply with patience. Kiv said, "I think I've found something that might help, Grandfather. To wipe out the hugl, that is."
The shadow of a frown passed across the wrinkled face. "I see. Go on, my son." Still not a trace of impatience on the part of the Grandfather.
Kiv pulled his charts and drawings out of a leather carrying case.
"The trouble is," he began, "that not very much is known about the hugl. Up to now, the Edris powder has controlled them well, so there was, of course, no reason to study them. But I did it as a sort of—well, as a sort of hobby, Grandfather. We call them 'projects' at the Schooclass="underline" some little facet of life that we choose to study in order to gain greater illumination in the Great Light's Law."
"I have heard that the Earthmen have ingenious ways of helping youngsters to learn,'' said the old man. "I think it's commendable. Very. And so you studied the hugl?"
"Yes, Grandfather. And I found out some rather weird things. You know those little teardrop-shaped things that you see swimming in ponds and lakes—the little animals that farmers call 'water wiggles'? Well, these are young hugl!"
"Young hugl?" The Grandfather frowned. "But they look nothing like hugl."
"I know, Grandfather,'' Kiv said. "That's the amazing thing. The young start out as little 'water wiggles' and live that way for most of their lives—about a year. They eat soft water plants and decaying organic matter, since they have no teeth.
"After a year of this kind of life, they go down to the bottom and bury themselves in the mud, where they stay for thirty-five to forty days. During that time, they live in a sort of shell built out of mud. They absorb their endoskeletons and grow exoskeletons. When they emerge, they're hugl. The hugl," Kiv concluded triumphantly, "is the adult female form of the water wiggle.
"As soon as it cracks out of its shell in the mud, the adult hugl goes to the surface and swims to land. As I said, the thing we call the hugl is the female; the male is a much smaller animal, hardly more than an animated sex organ.
"The mating takes place on land, and the female immediately eats the male. Then she goes out and looks for more food—anything she can eat. And as long as she finds nothing to eat, she'll keep going looking for more—until she starves to death.
"If she does find food, she eats all she can hold, converting it into a kind of predigested concentrate. But her system can't assimilate anything she eats; her body just stores it.
"When she's eaten enough—when her glands tell her she's at the proper point—she crawls to a lake or pond, dies, and drops to the bottom.
"The eggs are never laid; they remain within the body of the female. The dead female, protected from dissolution by her hard armor, provides food for the young larvae for the first few days of their life, until they 're ready to go out and hunt for food of their own.
Then the cycle begins all over again,'' Kiv concluded.
The old priest had looked carefully at Kiv's diagrams and had seemed to be following his lecture with interest. When Kiv had finished, the Grandfather rose and wandered to the window overlooking the Square of Holy Light. He nodded slowly.
"Very interesting. Very! And what bearing does this have on our present crisis, now?"
"I'm coming to that, Grandfather. You see, the reason that Edris powder isn't working so well this time is simply that a new variety of hugl has appeared which has an exoskeleton too heavy and dense to allow the Edris powder to penetrate very rapidly."
"A new variety?" He sounded skeptical.
"And if we put the powder in the ponds,'' Kiv said, "it will kill the young; their skins will absorb it immediately."
Kiv sat back expectantly. The old man returned to his desk, sat down, and began toying with a heavy, jewel-encrusted paper-weight. Finally the Grandfather said:
"A very interesting theory, and very ingeniously worked out. But I'm afraid it's not really of much practical use. As the Scripture says, 'Those ways are best which have been tried and passed the test."'
I might have known that was coming, Kiv thought.
"You see," said the priest, "we have already alleviated the problem very simply. The farmers haven't been using enough of the Edris powder to cope with these hugl. Since the menace has been largely confined to the north so far, we have simply shipped additional quantities of Edris to the northern farmers. The hugl are dying."
"I see," Kiv said softly.
The Grandfather rose in what could only be a gesture of dismissal. "I'm happy you told me all about the hugl, my son. Your instructors at the School must be fine ones. And now, I have another appointment. May the blessings of the Great Light beam down upon you and your children."
IV
"—and, of course, he was right," Kiv told Jones. "And I can understand why you wanted no part of it."
"You can, eh?" The Earthman's eyes were glittering oddly. "Kiv, have you thought about what's going to happen in the next thirty days? The hugl are swarming down out of the north; they'll be maturing in the south soon, and then there'll be trouble." Pausing, Jones jabbed a forefinger at Kiv. "If the Council diverts the south's supplies of Edris to the north, what's going to happen?" he demanded.
"I don't know," Kiv said, scratching his fuzzy head in puzzlement, "I really don't know."
Jones stood up and walked toward the door of Kiv's room. "Yes, you do. You're just afraid to say it out loud."
Kiv picked up a book and weighed it idly with one hand. He had to admit that as usual Jones had cut right to the heart of the problem.
"All right. If things keep on like this, either the south or the north or both will be wiped clean of crops in a hurry."