Collector's Item

== COLLECTOR'S ITEM ==
=== by Robert F. Young ===
Originally published in Fantastic Universe September 1956
Very trivial things can go into the
weaving  of a nest. The human race, for
instance-- 
The condensation of the histories of ten
thousand races into a text concise enough to fit into a single volume had been
a task of unprecedented proportions. There had been times when the Galactic
Historian had doubted whether even his renowned abilities were up to the
assignment that the Galactic Board of Education had so lightly tossed his way,
times when he had thrown up his hands--all five of them--in despair. But at
last the completed manuscript lay before him on his desk with nothing but the
final reading remaining between it and publication. 
The
Galactic Historian repeatedly wiped his brows as he turned the pages. It was a
warm night, even for Mixxx Seven. Now and then, a tired breeze struggled down
from the hills and limped across the lowlands to the Galactic University
buildings. It crept into the Galactic Historian's study via the open door and
out again via the open windows, fingering the manuscript each time it passed
but doing nothing whatsoever about the temperature. 
The
manuscript was something more than a hammered-down history of galactic
achievement. It was the ultimate document. The two and seventy thousand jarring
texts that it summarized had been systematically destroyed, one by one, after
the Galactic Historian had stripped them of their objective information. If an
historical event was not included in the manuscript, it failed as an event. It
ceased to have reality. 
The
responsibility was the Galactic Historian's alone and he did not take it
lightly. But he had a lot on his minds and, of late, he hadn't been sleeping
well. He was overworked and over-tired and over-anxious. He hadn't seen his
wives for two Mixxx months and he was worried about them--all fifty of them. 
He never
should have let them take the Hub cruise in the first place. But they'd been so
enthusiastic and so eager that he simply hadn't had the hearts to let them
down. Now, despite his better judgments, he was beginning to wonder if they
might not be on the make for another coordinator. 
Wives
trouble, on top of all his chronological trouble, was too much. The Galactic
Historian could hardly be blamed for wanting to see the last of the manuscript,
for wanting to transmit it to his publishers, potential hiatuses and all, and
take the next warp for the Hub. 
But he was
an historian--_the_ historian, in fact--and he persisted heroically in his task,
rereading stale paragraphs and checking dreary dates, going over battles and
conquests and invasions and interregnums. Despite his mood and despite the
heat, the manuscript probably would have arrived at his publishers
chronologically complete. So complete, in fact, that schoolteachers all over
the galaxy would have gotten the textbook they had always wanted--a concise
chronicle of everything that had ever happened since the explosion of the
primeval atom, a history textbook that no other history textbook could
contradict for the simple reason that there were no other history textbooks. 
As it was,
they got the textbook, but it did not contain everything that had ever
happened. Not quite. 
Two factors
were responsible for the omission. The first was an oversight on the part of
the Galactic Historian. With so much on his minds, he had forgotten to number
the pages of the manuscript. 
The second
factor was the breeze. 
The breeze
was the ultimate archfiend and there can be no question as to its motivation.
Nothing short of sheer malice could have caused it suddenly to remember its
function after neglecting that function all evening. 
All evening
it had been tiptoeing down the hillsides and across the lowlands as though it
was afraid of disturbing a single blade of grass or a single drooping leaf. And
then, at the crucial moment, it huffed and puffed itself up into a little
hurricane, charged down upon the Galactic University buildings and whooshed
through the Galactic Historian's study like a band of interstellar dervishes. 
Unfortunately,
the Galactic Historian had begun to wipe his brows at the very moment of the
breeze's entry. While the act was not a complicated one, it did consume time
and monopolize attention. It is not surprising, therefore, that he failed to
witness the theft. Neither is it surprising that he failed to notice afterwards
that the page he had been checking was gone. 
He was, as
previously stated, overworked, over-tired, and over-anxious and, in such a
state, even a Galactic Historian can skip a whole series of words and dates and
never know the difference. A hiatus of twenty thousand years is hardly
noticeable anyway. Galactically speaking, twenty thousand years is a mere wink
in time. 
The breeze
didn't carry the page very far. It simply whisked it through a convenient
window, deposited it beneath a xixxix tree and then returned to the hills to
rest. But the choice of a xixxix tree is highly significant and substantiates
the malicious nature of the breeze's act. If it had chosen a muu or a buxx tree
instead, the Galactic Historian might have found the page in the morning when
he took his constitutional through the university grounds. 
However,
since a xixxix tree was selected, no doubt whatever can remain as to the
breeze's basic motivation. Articles of a valuable nature just aren't left
beneath xixxix trees. Everybody knows that squixes live in xixxix trees and
everybody knows that squixes are collectors. They collect all sorts of things,
buttons and pins and twigs and pebbles--anything at all, in fact, that isn't
too big for them to pick up and carry into their xixxix tree houses. 
They have
been called less kind things than collectors. Thieves, for example, and
scavengers. But collectors are what they really are. Collecting fulfills a basic
need in their mammalian makeup; the possession of articles gives them a feeling
of security. They love to surround their little furry bodies with all sorts of
odds and ends, and their little arboreal houses are stuffed with everything you
can think of. 
And they
simply adore paper. They adore it because it has a practical as well as a
cultural value. 
Specifically,
they adore it because it is wonderful to make hammocks out of. 
When the
two squixes in the xixxix tree saw the page drift to the ground, they could
hardly believe their eyes. They chittered excitedly as they skittered down the
trunk. The page had hardly stopped fluttering before it was whisked aloft
again, clenched in tiny squix fingers. 
The squixes
wasted no time. It had been a long while since the most cherished of all
collector's items had come their way and they needed a new hammock badly.
First, they tore the page into strips, then they began to weave the strips
together. 
_--1456,
Gut. Bi. pr.; 1492, Am. dis.; 1945, at. b. ex. Almgdo.; 1971, mn. rchd._, they
wove. 
_--2004,
Sir. rchd.; 2005-6, Sir.--E. wr.; 2042, Btlgs. rchd.; 2043-4, Btlgs.--E. wr._ 
They wove
and wove and wove. 
_15,000, E.
Emp. clpsd.; 15,038, E. dstryd.; Hist. E., end of._ 
It was a
fine hammock, the best the two squixes had ever wove. But they didn't sleep
well that night. They twisted and turned and tossed, and they dreamed the most
fantastic dreams-- 
Which isn't
particularly surprising, considering what they were sleeping on. Sleeping on
the history of Earth would be enough to give anybody nightmares. 
Even
squixes.
Category:Young
Category:Fantastic
Category:Science Fiction