"Old Hundredth" is a science fiction short story by British writer

Brian Aldiss Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for oc ...

. It was first published in ''Airs of the Earth'' in 1963 and has been anthologised many times. It was included in '' The Golden Age of Science Fiction''.

Plot

In the far distant future, the Moon has left Earth; Earth and

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

orbit each other. Humans have left Earth, but the planet is inhabited by a mixture of animals and Impures; intelligent creatures created by human experimenters on Venus. Dandi, a giant

sloth Sloths are a Neotropical realm, Neotropical group of xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant Arboreal locomotion, arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of move ...

-like creature, wanders the planet. She is the ward of, and mentally linked to, her Mentor, a giant and ancient

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...

that lives in an underwater cell. Dandi is an expert in the musicolumns, insubstantial remains of the psyches of people that react musically when intelligent life is near. Dandi returns to her home, the crumbling remains of a human settlement, where she encounters a bear, one of few creatures than retain human-like aggressive behaviour. Her Mentor wishes her to kill the bear, but Dandi refuses and the bear escapes. Now rejected by her Mentor, Dandi wishes to die, and returns to the wilderness. She dissolves into the form of a musicolumn. She is able to choose what music she will play when approached by intelligent beings - it is the Old Hundred; ''All creatures that on Earth do dwell''.

External links

Footnotes

{{Reflist Science fiction short stories 1963 short stories 1960s science fiction works