Crysalis: Merrill's Tale

Rope

Anyway, that day I had finished my initial map check and was wondering where exactly I might be, in a calm and reasoned matter—translation: I was scared shitless—when I heard someone screaming in what sounded like two-part harmony.

Darwin and Newton deny they could ever have cried, of course, but I’m not telling them, I’m telling you. This is how I remember it.

So I followed the screams, wondering the while why I was doing it—screams often mean bad stuff, and as an academic of the cowardly persuasion, bad stuff is one of the multitudes of things I tend to avoid, along with oarfish larger than my hand, religious fanatics like Frad and mantises of any size, especially the ones that can run faster than I do: namely, all of them. Back on Old Terra, mantises were small, I’ve read. They’re not on Tredecim. I once met one that was taller than I am and I never want to again.

Rope.

So, as I was saying on that particular day, I came around a pile of rocks that I mentally catalogued as ‘debris, from mining’ and saw a flat open area right in front of a small opening in the solid rock. The opening had some carving around it in what looked like ancient texting language, something along the lines of: Sta Owt. Ths mns U.

Pretty self-explanatory, as texting language tended to be for those incapable of Actually. Spelling. Words.

Sorry. We academics can often be violently belligerent, in a frowning-and-shaking-the-head-in-disgust kind of way. Sometimes, we even roll our eyes. I know; shocking, right?

Anyway. Right in front of the opening, nestled in a pile of small white objects, I saw two n***d infants, their wrists and ankles tied with bits of cord, doing the aforementioned screaming at the top of what were obviously very healthy lungs. I looked around for danger but saw nothing to be afraid of, other than the usual, so I walked towards the screamers. I was still several feet away when I saw they both had red hair, were splattered with freckles, and were boys and obviously identical twins.

Well, you and I, being educated and reasonable people, know the historical bias against red hair is nonsense, but the bias did and does exist. In humanity’s past, redheads have been treated in a lot of ways: feared, revered, loathed, adored, degraded or exalted. No other single human trait has provoked such a huge range of emotions. So any small group looking for a reason to discriminate would naturally fall back on one of the classic defaults, red hair.

When I reached the squalling twins, I saw the pile of white things they were lying in were bones: little white bones, and human. Lots of little bones. That meant these babies weren’t the only babies to be cast out here; it had been going on for a really long time. This village meant business. The only thing surprising is that it took them so long to cast these twins out. Maybe the boys didn’t start getting hair until late.

Or their parents had some sharp knives for shaving purposes.

Naturally, I at once came to the conclusion that someone local really hated redheads, and possibly twins as well. The second hypothesis was simply that, a guess, but I was not interested in confirming it. Instead, I cut the bindings—a first impulse I later regretted and have many times since, as the boys really should be tied more often—scooped the squalling infants up, bundled them into a pouch each, and did the time-honored thing that has served me so well in a misspent life.

I ran away until I thought I might be safe.