The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (34 page)

Having discovered this characteristic of Bingwaugh, all the ambitious adventurers in the universe rushed to take advantage of it. Who doesn’t want to rule over such a people and place? Plenty of resources, comfortable living environment, and a great location at the intersection of so many trade routes.

So, educators came, missionaries came, politicians
came, revolutionaries and reporters all came. They described to the locals their visions of heaven, lectured them on their ideals, and again and again, the inhabitants of Bingwaugh nodded and sighed with heartfelt admiration and accepted the new philosophies. Some remote planets even sent over “Supervisors” to rule over these new converts. The inhabitants never objected, not even a peep.

But,
after these triumphant developments, the interstellar guests would always be disappointed. Indeed, the longer they stayed on Bingwaugh, the more their disappointment grew.

As it turns out, the locals have never truly accepted any alien propaganda. Even when they agree with a new faith, they never actually do as they’re told. As enthusiastically as they admire the new systems of laws being presented
to them, just as enthusiastically they don’t follow any of the alien laws at all.

Faced with this attitude from the locals, the ambitious colonizers can do nothing. This is because they realize that this contrast between what the locals say and what they do is not at all the result of some deep conspiracy, but simply a matter of habit. If you ask them directly, they’ll reply, very puzzled, “Yes,
what you say sounds like Truth. But the world is full of Truths. So what if you have a Truth?”

Some planets, unable to tolerate this state of affairs, attempted to conquer Bingwaugh by force. But immediately, some other planets would intervene. The balance of power is such that every possible conflict is always resolved outside the boundaries of the atmosphere of Bingwaugh.

So, though it is
a place where foreigners love to congregate, Bingwaugh is also one of the planets that has best preserved its native culture.

Do you like these stories?

“Yes … and no. Why is every planet filled with visitors from across the stars? I don’t like this. It makes them sound like zoos.”

You’re right. I don’t like it, either. The uniqueness of each planet disappears over time in this manner, like
a fingerprint being rubbed away. All right, let’s hear some stories about real natives.

AMIYACHI AND AIHUOWU

Let me tell you about two planets still ruled by their original inhabitants. On each, there are two different intelligent species. Yet each species believes itself to be the only master of its respective world.

Amiyachi orbits a double star: one a bright blue giant, the other a dim white
dwarf. The two are similar in mass, but differ widely in volume and the type of emitted radiation. So, Amiyachi’s orbit is shaped like an irregular gourd. It dances a waltz along the hyperbolic paraboloid of the gravitational fields of the two stars.

Whenever Amiyachi is near the blue giant, it enters a long summer. But when it’s near the white dwarf, it enters an equally long winter. The summer
is when the planet’s flora multiply and grow and stretch their vines like madness. In winter, most are dormant, and only a few hardy weeds quietly bloom over the empty earth.

Summer and winter, in each season Amiyachi is ruled by a different species: one dances through the lush forests of summer, the other marches alone over the barren plains of winter. The summer Amiyachians live in houses made
of woven vines, and when the weather turns cold, the houses disappear as the vines wither and die. The winter Amiyachians live in caves dug into
thick mountains, and when the weather turns hot, the mouths of the caves are hidden behind dense clumps of grass and fern, leaving no visible trace.

Whenever the summer Amiyachians are about to hibernate, they secrete a liquid covering to protect themselves
and sink underground. The liquid stimulates a kind of insect, known as the
wususu,
to begin mating. The multiplying
wususu
then bring to life the cold-resistant shrub
aludon.
The flowering of this plant, unremarkable in appearance, begins the long and slow process of awakening the winter Amiyachians.

When the winter Amiyachians are near the end of their season’s journey, they give birth. The
new babies, protected by a hard membrane, develop and grow in the soil. The ionic reactions of their growth change the pH level of the soil and cause other plants to germinate and grow, announcing the beginning of the planet’s summer, as well as the reign of the summer Amiyachians.

Thus, the two intelligent species of Amiyachi remain unaware of each other. Neither knows that its civilization’s
existence depends on the existence of the other, two sides of the same coin. Both races have composed works praising the divine wisdom of the gods, allowing them to be reborn as they awake from their slumber. But they have never realized that they’re both children called forth by the gods, as well as the gods themselves.

As for Aihuowu, the situation is entirely different. On the surface of this
world, the two intelligent species and their civilizations are very aware of each other’s existence, yet neither is aware that the other is just like itself, possessing feelings, logic, and morality.

The reason is simple: The two species exist in different frames of time.

Aihuowu is a planet with a strange orbit. The angle between its axis of rotation and the plane of its orbit is very small,
and the axis of rotation itself processes slowly. Thus, the surface of the planet can be divided into four regions: The narrow strip near the equator has night and day in accordance with the rotation of the planet, while the polar regions have their own periods of brightness and darkness based on the procession of the axis of rotation. A day near the pole is hundreds of times longer than a day near
the equator, and so the lives born in each of these regions experience time at rates hundreds of times apart.

For the Aihuowuans near the equator, the mysterious poles seem to have very long nights and very long days. But for the polar Aihuowuans, the equator passes through darkness and light rapidly, in flashes. The equatorial Aihuowuans are dainty and agile, with hundreds of thousands of individuals
living in dense colonies. The polar Aihuowuans, on the other hand, have slow metabolic rates matched to their long days and long nights, and their bodies are scaled large to fit their sense of time.

Sometimes, the equatorial Aihuowuans come to the poles for adventure and exploration. They always get lost in the maze-like forests full of gigantic trees, and mistake the occasional houses they encounter
as unscalable cliffs. But when the polar Aihuowuans wander near the equator, they often miss the details and carelessly destroy the houses and fields of the equatorial Aihuowuans. They live on the same planet, but belong to entirely separate worlds.

Sometimes, the equatorial Aihuowuans venture to speculate that the giant creatures of the poles might also possess intelligence. But in their hearts,
they believe that even if such slow-moving creatures, who in a hundred years might not shift more than a few feet, were intelligent, it would be a simple and rudimentary kind of intelligence. The polar Aihuowuans have similar suspicions of intelligence concerning the equatorial species. But then they sigh and shake their heads, realizing that such tiny creatures that are born and die in a single
day would be incapable of experiencing real civilization.

And so the two intelligent species of Aihuowu experience the same process of learning, working, love, and war. Their histories play out at two time scales, each echoing the other. But they remain opaque to each other, unaware that when it comes to time, everyone is only measuring the universe using the ruler of their own lifespan.

“Wait
a minute,” you interrupt. “How can you know about all these civilizations? When did you go to Amiyachi? And what scale of time did you use to experience Aihuowu?”

I know. Of course I know. If you had been there, you would know as well. This is the difference between visitors and natives. This is the point of traveling.

“It is? This is why you travel?”

Yes, and no
.

If you really want to know
why I travel, then let me tell you about a planet devoted to travel.

LUNAJI

The people of Lunaji build the galaxy’s most beautiful cars, boats, airships, and passenger catapults. The complexity and refinement of these vehicles far exceed the imaginations of visitors from other worlds, and also far exceed the technological levels of all other industries on this planet.

Those who are intuitive
immediately jump to the conclusion that travel is especially meaningful for the Lunajians. But there’s a deeper explanation that most cannot figure out. They can’t imagine why so many intelligent beings would devote their entire lives to traveling and preparing for travel, rather than the accomplishment of some other, more rewarding task. Only those who know the life cycle of the Lunajians have
some understanding of this seemingly irrational restlessness.

Lunaji has a large basin, where the concentration of oxygen is higher than anywhere else. The soil is rich and moist; small waterfalls pour into a clear, pristine lake; flowers are in bloom every season of the year; and heavily laden, spherical fruit trees surround soft lawns, strewn with mushrooms in all the colors of the rainbow.
Every Lunajian spends their childhood here, none knowing how they arrived in this world. From the moment they open their eyes, this basin is all they know.

From time to time, some wish to discover the secret origin of their lives, or seek the home of the gods. Then they start to grow up, tall enough to climb over the rocks blocking the gentle slope at the edge of the basin. They walk into the
maze-like, dense forest, climbing up the slope toward the world outside the basin. They can’t tell you their ages, because the age at which each one begins to mature is different.

After exiting the basin, they keep on walking, wandering, seeking – finding nothing. They meet others who left the basin before them, but they also are still searching, still traveling, still baffled by the mystery
of their own lives. So, a Lunajian’s life is one long
migration. They go from one place to another, never settling. They build boats, cars, and airplanes with the purpose of accelerating their own pace so that they can cover every square inch of the planet, until they reach the edge of the sky.

Sometimes, by coincidence, some follow an obscure path and arrive at a meadow in the wilderness. There,
a lovely silver flower blooms, giving off an intoxicating aroma. The fragrance makes every Lunajian nearby dizzy, and causes unprecedented tender feelings to spring up between them. For the first time, they feel attraction for one another, embrace, clasp, give and receive. Then, they give birth by the edge of a brook, from where the babies are borne by the water to the basin beneath the falls.

The parents? They die and sink into the muddy earth.

And so, such a simple cycle turns out to be the entirety of the meaning of the ceaseless travels of the Lunajians.

YANYANNI

Since we’re on the topic of growing up, I want to tell you a few more stories. The first is about Yanyanni.

You can always tell a Yanyannian’s age at a glance. Like trees, they never cease to grow. Every year, they become
taller than they were the year before. An adult is several times the height of a child, and a young person is several feet shorter than an elder. The oldest person is always head and shoulders above the surrounding crowd, a lonely tower.

So, in the world of the Yanyannians, there is no such thing as a friendship that crosses age gaps. Even talking to someone who is very different in age can be
a chore. A long conversation would leave both interlocutors with sore necks and shoulders, as the younger looks up while the older looks down. Indeed, there’s not much to talk about between people of very different ages. Their houses are of different heights and the shelves from which they do their shopping are different. One can only see the belt of the other, and neither can see the other’s expressions.

It’s not true, however, that the Yanyannians can grow without limit. One day, they wake up and discover that their height hasn’t increased. Then they know that they are about to die. The knowledge does not make them sad, however. Growing taller is actually
a very tiring process. Many have been exhausted by it and simply find an excuse to stop. Death for the Yanyannians takes a long time, but no
one knows exactly how long. It’s never been precisely measured. To simplify things, they list the age of death as the day when growth ceases. In their eyes, the passage of time is a measure of change. When growth ceases, time stops.

The tallest house on Yanyanni was built more than a century ago. At the time, there was an old man who, year after year, grew and grew until his head touched the
ceiling of the tallest building then in existence. So the people erected a tower for him designed to hold a single man. The base of the tower took up the space for a park. After his death, no one else ever managed to reach his record of longevity, and so the tower was divided into two stories and turned into a museum.

Legend has it that the old man left a diary next to each window of the tower,
recording his life during the years when his height corresponded to that window. Afterward, others climbed ladders to retrieve these diaries for reading, but after a while, the diaries became lost.

Now, visitors wander past the empty windows and imagine how a man who could cross a river with a single step might brush his teeth and eat his food.

TISU ATI AND LUTIKAWULU

Tisu Ati and Lutikawulu
are a pair of opposites. These two planets, 100,000 light years apart, are like the two ends of a dipole: they negate each other and also define each other.

Tisu Atians are much smaller than the inhabitants of most planets. Their skin is especially soft, and their bodies can rapidly shift shapes. On this Lamarckian world, the development of gene expression reached its pinnacle – no, surpassed
the pinnacle. All of evolution has been compressed into an individual’s brief life.