In Other Worlds Part 8

In an attempt to establish common ground, we asked them at what season they mated with and then devoured their males. Imagine our embarra.s.sment when we discovered that those individuals with whom we were conversing were males! (It is very hard to tell the difference, as their males are not diminutive, as ours are, but, if anything, bigger. Also, lacking natural beauty-brilliantly patterned carapaces, diaphanous wings, luminescent eyes, and the like-they attempt to imitate our kind by placing upon their bodies various multicoloured draperies, which conceal their generative parts.) We apologized for our faux pas and inquired as to their own s.e.xual practises. Picture our nausea and disgust when we discovered that it is the male, not the egg-bearer, which is the most prized among them! Abnormal as this will seem to you, my sisters, their leaders are for the most part male, which may account for their state of relative barbarism. Another peculiarity that must be noted is that, although they frequently kill them in many other ways, they rarely devour their females after procreation. This is a waste of protein; but then, they are a wasteful people.

We hastily abandoned this painful subject.

Next we asked them when they pupated. Here again, as in the case of "clothing"-the draperies we have mentioned-we uncovered a fumbling attempt at imitation of our kind. At some indeterminate point in their life cycles, they cause themselves to be placed in artificial stone or wooden coc.o.o.ns, or chrysalises. They have an idea that they will someday emerge from these in an altered state, which they symbolize with carvings of themselves with wings. However, we did not observe that any had actually done so.

It is well to mention at this juncture that, in addition to the many species of moths for which it is justly famous among us, the Planet of Moths abounds in thousands of varieties of creatures that resemble our own distant ancestors. It seems that one of our previous attempts at colonization-an attempt so distant that our record of it is lost-must have borne fruit. However, these beings, although numerous and ingenious, are small in size and primitive in their social organization, and attempts to communicate with them were not-or have not been, so far-very successful. The blood-creatures are hostile toward them, and employ against them many poisonous sprays, traps, and so forth, in addition to a sinister manual device termed a "fly swatter." It is agonizing indeed to watch one of these instruments of torture and death being wielded by the large and frenzied against the small and helpless; but the rules of diplomacy forbid our intervention. (Luckily the blood-creatures cannot understand what we say to one another about them in our own language.) But despite all the machinery of destruction that is aimed at them, our distant relatives are more than holding their own. They feed on the crops and herd-animals and even on the flesh of the blood-creatures; they live in their homes, devour their clothes, hide and flourish in the very cracks of their floors. When the blood-creatures have succeeded at last in overbreeding themselves, as it seems their intention to do, or in exterminating one another, rest a.s.sured that our kind, already superior in both numbers and adaptability, will be poised to achieve the ascendancy that is ours by natural right.

This will not happen tomorrow, but it will happen. As you know, my sisters, we have long been a patient race.

Homelanding.

Where should I begin? After all, you have never been there; or if you have, you may not have understood the significance of what you saw, or thought you saw. A window is a window, but there is looking out and looking in. The native you glimpsed, disappearing behind the curtain, or into the bushes, or down the manhole in the main street-my people are shy-may have been only your reflection in the gla.s.s. My country specializes in such illusions.

Let me propose myself as typical. I walk upright on two legs, and have in addition two arms, with ten appendages, that is to say, five at the end of each. On the top of my head, but not on the front, there is an odd growth, like a species of seaweed. Some think this is a kind of fur, others consider it modified feathers, evolved perhaps from scales like those of lizards. It serves no functional purpose and is probably decorative.

My eyes are situated in my head, which also possesses two small holes for the entrance and exit of air, the invisible fluid we swim in, and one larger hole, equipped with bony protuberances called teeth, by means of which I destroy and a.s.similate certain parts of my surroundings and change them into my self. This is called eating. The things I eat include roots, berries, nuts, fruits, leaves, and the muscle tissues of various animals and fish. Sometimes I eat their brains and glands as well. I do not as a rule eat insects, grubs, eyeb.a.l.l.s, or the snouts of pigs, though these are eaten with relish in other countries.

Some of my people have a pointed but boneless external appendage, in the front, below the navel or midpoint. Others do not. Debate about whether the possession of such a thing is an advantage or disadvantage is still going on. If this item is lacking, and in its place there is a pocket or inner cavern in which fresh members of our community are grown, it is considered impolite to mention it openly to strangers. I tell you this because it is the breach of etiquette most commonly made by tourists.

In some of our more private gatherings, the absence of cavern or p.r.o.ng is politely overlooked, like club feet or blindness. But sometimes a p.r.o.ng and a cavern will collaborate in a dance, or illusion, using mirrors and water, which is always absorbing for the performers but frequently grotesque for the observers. I notice that you have similar customs.

Whole conventions and a great deal of time have recently been devoted to discussions of this state of affairs. The p.r.o.ng people tell the cavern people that the latter are not people at all and are in reality more akin to dogs or potatoes, and the cavern people abuse the p.r.o.ng people for their obsession with images of poking, thrusting, probing, and stabbing. Any long object with a hole at the end, out of which various projectiles can be shot, delights them.

I myself-I am a cavern person-find it a relief not to have to worry about climbing over barbed-wire fences or getting caught in zippers.

But that is enough about our bodily form.

As for the country itself, let me begin with the sunsets, which are long and red, resonant, splendid and melancholy, symphonic, you might almost say; as opposed to the short boring sunsets of other countries, no more interesting than a light-switch. We pride ourselves on our sunsets. "Come and see the sunset," we say to one another. This causes everyone to rush outdoors or over to the window.

Our country is large in extent, small in population, which accounts for our fear of empty s.p.a.ces and also our need for them. Much of it is covered in water, which accounts for our interest in reflections, sudden vanis.h.i.+ngs, the dissolution of one thing into another. Much of it, however, is rock, which accounts for our belief in Fate.

In summer we lie about in the blazing sun, almost naked, covering our skins with fat and attempting to turn red. But when the sun is low in the sky and faint, even at noon, the water we are so fond of changes to something hard and white and cold and covers up the ground. Then we coc.o.o.n ourselves, become lethargic, and spend much of our time hiding in crevices. Our mouths shrink and we say little.

Before this happens, the leaves on many of our trees turn blood-red or lurid yellow, much brighter and more exotic than the interminable green of jungles. We find this change beautiful. "Come and see the leaves," we say, and jump into our moving vehicles and drive up and down past the forest of sanguinary trees, pressing our eyes to the gla.s.s.

We are a nation of metamorphs.

Anything red compels us.

Sometimes we lie still and do not move. If air is still going in and out of our breathing holes, this is called sleep. If not, it is called death. When a person has achieved death, a kind of picnic is held, with music, flowers, and food. The person so honoured, if in one piece, and not, for instance, in shreds or falling apart, as they do if exploded or a long time drowned, is dressed in becoming clothes and lowered into a hole in the ground, or else burnt up.

These customs are among the most difficult to explain to strangers. Some of our visitors, especially the young ones, have never heard of death and are bewildered. They think that death is simply one more of our illusions, our mirror tricks; they cannot understand why, with so much food and music, the people are so sad.

But you will understand. You, too, must have death among you. I can see it in your eyes.

I can see it in your eyes. If it weren't for this I would have stopped trying long ago to communicate with you in this halfway language that is so difficult for both of us, that exhausts the throat and fills the mouth with sand; if it weren't for this I would have gone away, gone back. It's this knowledge of death, which we share, where we overlap. Death is our common ground. Together, on it, we can walk forward.

By now you must have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, "Take me to your leaders." Even I-unused to your ways though I am-would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of s.h.i.+ny metal, sc.r.a.ps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them.

Instead I will say, "Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths."

These are worth it. These are what I have come for.

Time Capsule Found.

on the Dead Planet.

1. In the first age, we created G.o.ds. We carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then. We forged them from s.h.i.+ning metals and painted them on temple walls. They were G.o.ds of many kinds, and G.o.ddesses as well. Sometimes they were cruel and drank our blood, but also they gave us rain and suns.h.i.+ne, favourable winds, good harvests, fertile animals, many children. A million birds flew over us then, a million fish swam in our seas.

Our G.o.ds had horns on their heads, or moons, or sealy fins, or the beaks of eagles. We called them All-Knowing, we called them s.h.i.+ning One. We knew we were not orphans. We smelled the earth and rolled in it; its juices ran down our chins.

2. In the second age we created money. This money was also made of s.h.i.+ning metals. It had two faces: on one side was a severed head, that of a king or some other noteworthy person; on the other face was something else, something that would give us comfort: a bird, a fish, a fur-bearing animal. This was all that remained of our former G.o.ds. The money was small in size, and each of us would carry some of it with him every day, as close to the skin as possible. We could not eat this money, wear it, or burn it for warmth; but as if by magic it could be changed into such things. The money was mysterious, and we were in awe of it. If you had enough of it, it was said, you would be able to fly.

3. In the third age, money became a G.o.d. It was all-powerful, and out of control. It began to talk. It began to create on its own. It created feasts and famines, songs of joy, lamentations. It created greed and hunger, which were its two faces. Towers of gla.s.s rose at its name, were destroyed and rose again. It began to eat things. It ate whole forests, croplands, and the lives of children. It ate armies, s.h.i.+ps, and cities. No one could stop it. To have it was a sign of grace.

4. In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it. Wars, plagues, and famines visited us, but we did not stop in our industrious creation of deserts. At last all wells were poisoned, all rivers ran with filth, all seas were dead; there was no land left to grow food.

Some of our wise men turned to the contemplation of deserts. A stone in the sand in the setting sun could be very beautiful, they said. Deserts were tidy, because there were no weeds in them, nothing that crawled. Stay in the desert long enough and you could apprehend the absolute. The number zero was holy.

5. You who have come here from some distant world, to this dry lakesh.o.r.e and this cairn, and to this cylinder of bra.s.s, in which on the last day of all our recorded days I place our final words: Pray for us, who once, too, thought we could fly.

"The Peach Women of Aa'A" from.

The Blind a.s.sa.s.sin.

The Peach Women of Aa'A by Margaret Atwood:.

In the evenings there's dancing, smooth glittery dancing on a slippery floor. Induced hilarity: she can't avoid it. Everywhere around, the flash-bulbs pop: you can never tell where they're aiming, or when a picture will appear in the paper, of you, with your head thrown back, all your teeth showing.

In the mornings her feet are sore.

In the afternoons she takes refuge in memory, lying in a deck chair, behind her sungla.s.ses. She refuses the swimming pool, the quoits, the badminton, the endless, pointless games. Pastimes are for pa.s.sing the time and she has her own pastime.

The dogs go round and round the deck on the ends of their leashes. Behind them are the top-grade dog-walkers. She pretends to be reading.

Some people write letters, in the library. For her there's no point. Even if she sent a letter, he moves around so much he might never get it. But someone else might.

On calm days the waves do what they are hired to do. They lull. The sea air, people say-oh, it's so good for you. Just take a deep breath. Just relax. Just let go.

Why do you tell me these sad stories? she says, months ago. They're lying wrapped in her coat, fur side up, his request. Cold air blows through the cracked window, streetcars clang past. Just a minute, she says, there's a b.u.t.ton pressing into my back.

That's the kind of stories I know. Sad ones. Anyway, taken to its logical conclusion, every story is sad, because at the end everyone dies. Birth, copulation, and death. No exceptions, except maybe for the copulation part of it. Some guys don't even get that far, poor sods.

But there can be happy parts in between, she said. In between the birth and the death-can't there? Though I guess if you believe in Heaven that could be a happy story of sorts-dying, I mean. With flights of angels singing you to your rest and so forth.

Yeah. Pie in the sky when you die. No thanks.

Still, there could be happy parts, she says. Or more of them than you ever put in. You don't put in many.

You mean, the part where we get married and settle down in a little bungalow and have two kids? That part?

You're being vicious.

Okay, he says. You want a happy story. I can see you won't leave it alone until you get one. So here goes.

It was the ninety-ninth year of what was to become known as the Hundred Years' War, or the Xenorian Wars. The Planet Xenor, located in another dimension of s.p.a.ce, was populated by a super-intelligent but super-cruel race of beings known as the Lizard Men, which wasn't what they called themselves. In appearance they were seven feet tall, scaly, and grey. Their eyes had vertical slits, like the eyes of cats or snakes. So tough was their hide that ordinarily they didn't have to wear clothing, except for short pants made of carchineal, a flexible red metal unknown on Earth. These protected their vital parts, which were also scaly, and enormous I might add, but at the same time vulnerable.

Well, thank heaven something was, she says, laughing.

I thought you'd like that. Anyway, their plan was to capture a large number of Earth women and breed a super-race, half-human, half-Xenorian Lizard Man, which would be better equipped for life on the various other habitable planets of the Universe than they were-able to adjust to strange atmospheres, eat a variety of foods, resist unknown diseases, and so on-but which would also have the strength and the extraterrestrial intelligence of the Xenorians. This super-race would spread out through s.p.a.ce and conquer it, eating the inhabitants of the different planets en route, because the Lizard Men needed room for expansion and a new source of protein.

The s.p.a.ce fleet of the Lizard Men of Xenor had launched its first attack on Earth in the year 1967, scoring devastating hits on major cities in which millions had perished. Amid widespread panic, the Lizard Men had made parts of Eurasia and South America their slave colonies, appropriating the younger women for their h.e.l.lish breeding experiments and burying the corpses of the men in enormous pits, after eating the parts of them they preferred. They liked the brains and the hearts especially, and the kidneys, grilled lightly.

But the Xenorian supply lines had been cut by rocket fire from hidden Earth installations, thus depriving the Lizard Men of the vital ingredients for their zorch-ray death guns, and Earth had rallied and struck back-not only with her own fighting forces but with clouds of gas made from the poison of the rare Iridis hortz frog once used by the Nacrods of Ulinth to tip their arrows, and to which, it had been discovered by Earth scientists, the Xenorians were particularly susceptible. Thus the odds had been evened out.

Also their carchineal shorts were flammable, if you could hit them dead on with a missile that was hot enough already. Earth snipers with bull's-eye aim, using long-range phosphorus-bullet guns, were the heroes of the day, although retaliations against them were severe, and involved electrical tortures previously unknown and excruciatingly painful. The Lizard Men did not like having their private parts burst into flame, which was understandable.

Now, by the year 2066, the alien Lizard Men had been beaten back into yet another dimension of s.p.a.ce, where Earth fighter pilots in their small, quick two-man harry-craft were pursuing them. Their ultimate goal was to wipe out the Xenorians entirely, keeping perhaps a few dozen for display in specially fortified zoos, with windows of unbreakable gla.s.s. The Xenorians, however, were not giving up without a fight to the death. They still had a viable fleet, and a few tricks left up their sleeves.

They had sleeves? I thought they were naked on top.

Judas Priest, don't be so picky. You know what I mean.

Will and Boyd were two old buddies-two scarred and battle-seasoned harry-craft veterans of three years' standing. This was a long time in the harry-craft service, where losses ran high. Their courage was said by their commanders to exceed their judgement, though so far they had got away with their rash behaviour, raid after daring raid.

But as our story opens, a Xenorian zorch-craft had closed in on them, and now they were shot to h.e.l.l and limping badly. The zorch-rays had put a hole in their fuel tank, knocked out their link with Earth control, and melted their steering gear, giving Boyd a nasty scalp wound in the process, whereas Will was bleeding into his s.p.a.cesuit from an unknown site in midsection.

Looks like we're for it, said Boyd. Screwed, blued, and tattooed. This thing's gonna go kablooey any minute now. I just wish we'd of had the time to blast a few hundred more of the scaly sons of guns to kingdom come, is all.

Yeah, ditto. Well, mud in your eye, old pal, said Will. It looks like you've got some running down in there anyway-red mud. Ha, ha.

Ha, ha, said Boyd, grimacing in pain. Some joke. You always had a b.u.m sense of humour.

Before Will could reply, the s.h.i.+p spun out of control and went into a dizzying spiral. They'd been seized by a gravity field, but of which planet? They had no idea where they were. Their artificial-gravity system was kaput, and so the two men blacked out.

When they awoke, they couldn't believe their eyes. They were no longer in the harry-craft, nor in their tight-fitting metallic s.p.a.cesuits. Instead they were wearing loose green robes of some s.h.i.+ning material and reclining on soft golden sofas in a bower of leafy vines. Their wounds were healed, and Will's third finger on the left hand, blown off in a previous raid, had grown back. They felt suffused with health and well-being.

Suffused, she murmurs. My, my.

Yeah, us guys like a fancy word now and then, he says, talking out of the side of his mouth like a movie gangster. It gives the joint a bit of cla.s.s.

So I imagine.

To proceed. I don't get it, said Boyd. You think we're dead?

If we're dead I'll settle for dead, said Will. This is all right, all righty.

I'll say.

Just then Will gave a low whistle. Coming toward them were two of the peachiest dames they had ever seen. Both had hair the colour of a split-willow basket. They were wearing long garments of a purplish-blue hue, which fell in tiny pleats and rustled as they moved. It reminded Will of nothing more than the little paper skirts they put around the fruit in snooty Grade-A grocery stores. Their arms and feet were bare; each had a strange headdress of fine red netting. Their skin was a succulent golden pink. They walked with an undulating motion, as if they'd been dipped in syrup.

Our greetings to you, men of Earth, said the first.

Yes, greetings, said the second. We have long expected you. We have tracked your advent on our interplanetary tele-camera.

Where are we? said Will.

You are on the Planet of Aa'A, said the first. The word sounded like a sigh of repletion, with a small gasp in the middle of it of the kind babies make when they turn over in their sleep. It also sounded like the last breath of the dying.

How did we get here? said Will. Boyd was speechless. He was running his eyes over the lush ripe curves on display before him. I'd like to sink my teeth into a piece of that, he was thinking.

You fell from the sky, in your craft, said the first woman. Unfortunately it has been destroyed. You will have to stay here with us.

That won't be hard to take, said Will.

You will be well cared for. You have earned your reward. For in protecting your world against the Xenorians, you are also protecting ours.

Modesty must draw a veil over what happened next.

Must it?

I'll demonstrate in a minute. It merely needs to be added that Boyd and Will were the only men on Planet Aa'A, so of course these women were virgins. But they could read minds, and each could tell in advance what Will and Boyd might desire. So very soon the most outrageous fantasies of the two friends had been realized.

After that there was a delicious meal of nectar, which, the men were told, would stave off age and death; then there was a stroll in the lovely gardens, which were filled with unimaginable flowers; then the two were taken to a large room full of pipes, from which they could select any pipe they wanted.

Pipes? The kind you smoke?