Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact Fiction October 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE
ASSES
OF
BALAAM
By DAVID GORDON
Illustrated by Schoenherr
The remarkable characteristic of Balaam's ass was that itwas more perceptive than its master. Sometimes a child ismore perceptive—because more straightforward andlogical—than an adult....
It is written in the Book of Numbers that Balaam, a wiseman of the Moabites, having been ordered by the King of Moabto put a curse upon the invading Israelites, mounted himselfupon an ass and rode forth toward the camp of the Childrenof Israel. On the road, he met an angel with drawn sword,barring the way. Balaam, not seeing or recognizing theangel, kept urging his ass forward, but the ass recognizedthe angel and turned aside. Balaam smote the beast andforced it to return to the path, and again the angel blockedthe way with drawn sword. And again the ass turned aside,despite the beating from Balaam, who, in his blindness, wasunable to see the angel.
When the ass stopped for the third time and lay down,refusing to go further, Balaam waxed exceeding wrath andsmote again the animal with a stick.
Then the ass spoke and said: "Why dost thou beat me? I havealways obeyed thee and never have I failed thee. Have I everbeen known to fail thee?"
And Balaam answered: "No." And at that moment his eyes wereopened and he saw the angel before him.
—STUDIES IN SCRIPTURE
by Ceggawynn of Eboricum
ith the careful precision of controlled anger, Dodeth Pell rippled astomp along his right side.Clopclopclopclop-clopclop-clopclop-clopclopclopclop....Each of his twelve right feet came down in turn while he glared across thebusiness bench at Wygor Bedis. He started the ripple again, while hewaited for Wygor's answer. The ripple was a good deal more effective thanjust tapping one's fingers, and equally as satisfying.
Wygor Bedis twitched his mouth and allowed his eyelids to slide upover his eyeballs in a slow blink before answering. Dodeth had simplyasked, "Why wasn't this reported to me before?" But Wygor couldn'tfind the answer as simply as that. Not that he didn't have a goodanswer; it was just that he wanted to couch it in exactly the rightterms. Dodeth had a way with raking sarcasm that made a person tendto cringe.
Dodeth was perfectly well aware of that. He hadn't been in theExecutive Office of Predator Council all these years for nothing; heknew how to handle people—when to praise them, when to flatter them,when to rebuke them, and when to drag them unmercifully over theshell-bed.
He waited, his right legs marching out their steady rhythm.
"Well," said Wygor at last, "it was just that I couldn't see any pointin bothering you with it at that point. I mean, one specimen—"
"Of an entirely new species!" snapped Dodeth in a sudden interruption.H