“A harsh judgement, Vaintè, to those who have never harmed you. Harshly spoken to one’s efenselè.”
“I disown you, want no part of you. It was you who sowed weakness among the Yilanè when we needed all of our strength. Die here.”
Enge looked at her efenselè, at Vaintè who had been the strongest and best, and rejection and distaste were in every line of her body.
“You whose hatred has destroyed Alpèasak, you disown me? I accept that and say that everything that has been between us will be no more. Now it is I who disown you and will obey you no longer.”
She turned her back on Vaintè and saw the uruketo close offshore, called out to the Daughters.
“We leave here. Swim to the uruketo.”
“Kill them, Stallan!” Vaintè screeched. “Shoot them down.”
Stallan turned and raise her hèsotsan, ignoring Enge’s cries of pain, aimed, and fired dart after dart at the swimming Yilanè. Her aim was good and one after another was hit and sank beneath the water. Then the hèsotsan was empty and she lowered it and looked about for more darts.
The survivors had reached the uruketo, the scientist, Akotolp, and a male among them, when Enge turned away. “You bring only death, Vaintè,” she said. “You have become a creature of death. If it were possible I would abandon all of my beliefs just to end your life.”
“Do it then,” Vaintè said mockingly, turning and raising her head so the skin was taut on her neck. “Bite. You have teeth. Do it.”
Enge swayed forward, then back, for she could not kill, not even one so deserving of death as Vaintè.
Vaintè lowered her head, began to speak—but was stopped by Stallan’s harsh cry.
“Ustuzou!”
Vaintè spun about, saw them running towards her waving hèsotsan and pointed sticks. With instant decision she closed her thumbs and clubbed Enge to the ground with her fist. “Stallan,” she called out as she dove towards the water, “to the uruketo.”
This was what Kerrick saw as he ran up the river bank. The dead Yilanè on all sides, the living in the water. A single one standing, looking towards them, a Yilanè he would never forget.
“Don’t shoot!” he called out loudly, then again in Sasku. “That marag is mine.” Then he spoke in Yilanè as he went on, his meaning blurred by his running but still clear.
“It is I, Stallan, the ustuzou who hates you and means to kill you. Do you flee, great coward, or do you wait for me?”
Stallan did not need these taunts, barely heard them. For her the sight of Kerrick’s running figure was enough. This was the creature she hated more than anything else in the world, the ustuzou that had destroyed Alpèasak. She dropped the empty hèsotsan and roaring with rage she charged at him.
Kerrick raised his spear, his hèsotsan forgotten, pushed it hard at Stallan’s body. But Stallan knew wild animals well and moved aside so it slipped past her harmlessly, hurled herself on Kerrick and bore him to the ground. Her thumbs clutched into his hair and pulled his head back. Her solid muscles were rock-hard, he struggled but could not move. Straight at his neck she lunged, jaws gaped wide, rows of pointed teeth plunging down to tear his life out.
Herilak’s spear hummed past, caught Stallan full in the mouth, in between her jaws and into her brain. She was dead even before she slumped to the ground. Kerrick pushed her gross weight from him and climbed shakily to his feet.
“Well thrown, Herilak,” he said.
“Get down, move aside!” Herilak shouted in return, tearing his bow from his shoulder. Kerrick turned about and saw Enge climbing to her feet.
“Put your bow up,” Kerrick ordered. “All of you, lower your weapons. This one will not hurt me.”
There was a heavy splatter of raindrops, then more and more, then a downpour of rain. The threatening storm had finally broken. Too late to save the city of Alpèasak. Now it thundered down, a heavy tropical rain, hissing into clouds of steam when it struck into the smoldering ruins.
“You have brought us death, Kerrick,” Enge said, her voice loud enough to be heard above the hammering rain, sorrow in her every movement.
“No, Enge, you are wrong about that. I have brought life to my ustuzou, because without me creatures like this dead meat before me would have killed us all. Now she is dead and Alpèasak is dead. That uruketo will leave and the last of you will be gone. I will bring my ustuzou here and it will be our city. You will go back to Entoban* and you will stay there. They will remember with fear what happened here and will never come back. You will remind them about the death here. See that they never forget it. Tell them how they all burned and died. The Eistaa, her advisors, Vaintè . . .”
“Vaintè is there,” Enge said, indicating the ship. Kerrick looked but could not tell her from the others who were climbing onto the creature’s broad and wet back. She had not died after all. The one he hated the most, still alive. Yes, he hated her—then why this sudden feeling of pleasure that she had not died?
“Go to her,” he shouted, the loud words drowning out his mixed feelings. “Tell her what I have told you. Any Yilanè that comes here again shall die here. Tell her that.”
“Can I not tell her that the killing is over? That there is life now, not death? That would be best.”
He signed a simple negative. “I had forgotten that you were a Daughter of Life. Go tell her, tell them all that if they had listened to you all the dead in Alpèasak would now be alive. But it is too late for peace now, Enge, even you must realize that. There is hatred and death between us, nothing more.”
“Between ustuzou and Yilanè, yes, but not between us, Kerrick.”
He started to protest. There could only be hatred. This cold creature could mean nothing to him. He should raise his spear and kill it right now. But he could not. He smiled crookedly.
“That is true, teacher. I will remember that there is at least one marag I have no desire to kill. Now go with that uruketo and do not return. I will remember you when I have forgotten all of them. Go in peace.”
“Peace to you as well, Kerrick. And peace between ustuzou and Yilanè as well.”
“No. Simple hatred and a wide ocean. As long as you stay on your side you will have your peace. Go.”
Enge slipped into the water and he leaned on his spear, drained of all emotion, and watched as she swam to the uruketo and climbed aboard. Then, as the uruketo moved out to sea he felt a great weariness pass over him.
It was over, ended, through. Alpèasak was gone and all with her.
His thoughts went to the mountains to the north, to the circle of hide tents in a bend of the river. Armun was there waiting for him. Herilak came slowly to his side and he turned to the big hunter and took him by the arms.
“It is done, Herilak. You have had your vengeance, we have all had ours. Let us take our spears and go north before winter comes.
“Let us go home.”
THE WORLD
WEST OF EDEN
YILANÈ
History of the World
The Early Years
Physiology
Diet
Reproduction
Science
Culture
TANU
ZOOLOGY
YILANÈ
Translator’s Note: The following section has been translated from Yilanè, an exercise that poses formidable problems. Of necessity the translation must be a “free” one and the translator apologizes in advance for any errors or discrepancies that may have crept into the text.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD
It must be pointed out at the very beginning of this particular history that it differs from many ‘histories’ currently popular. It differs in kind, a fact that the judicious reader must always take into consideration. For far too long Yilanè history has been the province of the fabulist and the dreamer. Whereas the intelligent Yilanè would be offended at any guesswork or wild speculation in a physics or a biological text, the same reader will allow any sort of imaginary excess in a work of history.
A perfect example of fiction purporting to be fact is the currently popular history of this world that describes how a giant meteor struck the Earth 75* million years ago and wiped out 85 percent of the species then alive. It goes on to explain in great detail the manner in which warm-blooded creatures developed and became the dominant life forms on this planet. This sort of thing is what the present authors deplore; wild speculation instead of accurate historical research. No meteor of that size ever struck the Earth. The world as we see it is the world as it always has been, always will be, world without end. It is necessary therefore, in the light of other works of this nature, that we define the term history before we can proceed.
History, as it is known today, is far too often a very inexact science, so inexact that it is more fiction than fact, more speculation than presentation. This is due to intrinsic aspects of the Yilanè nature. We care little where we have been—but we know exactly where we are going. We are happy with changes of a short duration while, at the same time, we demand that the future shall be as the present, changeless and unchangeable. Since this need for long-term continuity is essential to our very nature we tend to feel unhappy about the past because it might have contained long-term changes that we would find offensive. Therefore we refer vaguely to ‘the egg of time’ and assume in doing so that this was when the world was born, whole and new—and changeless ever since.
Which is, of course, nonsense. The moment has now arrived in Yilanè history to declare that history as we have known it is worthless. We could have referred to this present work as new-history, but refrain since this gives an element of credence to the ‘old-history’. We therefore reject all other works of history to this date and declare that there is now only one history. This one.
In creating this history we are grateful for the very few Yilanè with an interest in the sciences of geology and paleontology. We wish to honor these sciences and declare them true ones, just as true as physics or chemistry, and not the subjects of sly laughter as they have been up to now. The past existed, no matter how much we might like to ignore this unpleasant fact. We feel that it is intellectually more courageous to admit it and accept this fact, to admit that the Yilanè did not appear suddenly when the egg of time cracked open. This is the true history and a far more exciting and fulfilling one.
Permit us one more slight divergence before this history begins. We do not intend to go back to the absolute beginning and the birth of prokaryote life. That story has been unfolded in far greater detail in other works. Our history begins about 270 million years BP (before the present) when the reptiles were already well established in their dominant role on Earth.
At that time there were four main groups of socket-toothed reptiles that are referred to as thecodonts. These primitive creatures were equipped for a life of hunting for their prey in the water. They swam easily by moving their sizable tails. Some of these thecodonts left the sea and went to the land where their manner of walking proved superior to many other creatures like the proterosuchians, the ancestors of the present day crocodiles. You have seen the clumsy way that crocodiles walk, with their feet widespread, waddling along with their body actually hanging between their legs. Not so the superior thecodonts who thrust their entire limbs down and back with an upright stride.
Since the history of those days is written only in rocks, in the fossils preserved there, we find many gaps. While the details to fill these gaps may not be present, the overall record is still amazingly clear. Our remote ancestors were creatures called mososaurs, marine lizards of a very successful nature. They were specialized for their life in the sea with a tail fin, while their limbs had modified into flippers. One particular form of mososaur was Tylosaurus, a large and handsome creature. Large, in that the Tylosaurus were greater in length than six Yilanè. Handsome in that they resembled the Yilanè in many ways. The reason for this is that they were our direct ancestors.
If we place a representation of the skeleton of a modern Yilanè beside the skeleton of a Tylosaurus the relationship is immediately obvious. The digits of the limbs, hidden by the superficial flesh of the fins, reveal four fingers and four toes. So now we have two fingers on each hand and two opposed thumbs. The tail is our tail, suitably shortened. The resemblance is also clear in the rib cage, a flowing wave of ribs from clavicle to pelvic girdle. Look at these two similar skeletons and you see past and present, side by side. There we are, developed and modified to dwell on land. There is our true history, not some vague statement about appearing from the egg of time. We are the descendants of these noble creatures who some 40 million years ago became the Yilanè.
THE EARLY YEARS
Much of what follows is of necessity guesswork. But it is appropriate guesswork that fits the facts of the fossil records, not flights of fancy such as imaginary giant meteors. The record in the rocks is there to be read. We simply assemble the parts and fit them together, just as you might reassemble the broken pieces of an eggshell.
If you wish to assemble all of the pieces yourself, then consult the relevant geological and paleontological texts. In them you will discover the origin of species, how earlier species are modified to become later ones, and you will find revealed the history of the various ice ages, the phenomenon of continental drift, even the record sealed in rock that the magnetic pole was not always to the south, the way it is now, but has varied between north and south through the geological ages. You could do all of this for yourself—or you can be satisfied with our description in abbreviated form.
See then the world as it must have been 40 million years BP when the first simple and happy Yilanè roamed the Earth. It was a wetter and warmer world, with all the food they needed there for the taking. Then, as now, the Yilanè were carnivores, feasting on the flesh of the creatures that filled the land and the sea. The young, then as now, gathered in efenburu in the sea and worked together and ate well. What happened when they emerged on land is not clear in the geological record and we can only guess.
Having learned cooperation in the sea, the Yilanè certainly would not lose it when they emerged from the ocean and walked on solid ground. Then, as now, the males were surely the same simple, kindly creatures and would have needed protection. Then, as now, the beaches would have been guarded while the males were torpid, the eggs growing. Food was plentiful, life was good. Surely this was the true egg of time, not the imaginary one, when life was simple and serene.
In that early existence can be found the seeds of Yilanè science as we know it today. It can be seen in the Wall of Thorns here in this city. To defend the males, large crustacea were seized and brandished at predators, their claws a powerful defense. The bigger the claws, the more powerful the defense, so the largest would have been selected. At the same time the strongest and most offensive corals would have been chosen to defend the beaches from the seaward side. The first crude steps along the road to the advanced biological science we now know would have been mastered.
But this simple existence was doomed to end. As successful Yilanè grew strong and filled the Earth they would have outgrown that first city on the edge of that ancient sea. Another city would have grown, another and another. When food shortages threatened, the logical thing would have been to wall in fields and raise food animals and guard them from predators.
In doing this the Yilanè proved their superiority to the inferior life forms. Look at Tyrannosaurus, a carnivore just as we are carnivores. Yet these giant, stupid creatures can only pursue with violence, tear down their prey, waste most of the good meat on its carcass. They never think of tomorrow, they neither tend herds nor do they cull. They are witless destroyers. The superior Yilanè are intelligent preservers. To a scientist all life forms are equal. To destroy a species is to destroy our own species. Our respect for life can be seen in the manifold beasts in our fields, species that would have vanished millennia ago had it not been for our efforts. We are builders, not destroyers; preservers, not consumers. It is obvious when these facts are considered why we a
re the dominant species on this planet. It is no accident; it is only the logical end product of circumstance.
PHYSIOLOGY
In order to understand our own physiology we must first consider the physiology of other animals. Simple creatures, like most insects, are poikilothermic. That is, they are at one with their environment; their body temperatures are the same as the ambient air temperature. While this suffices on a small scale, more complex organisms require regularization of body temperature. These animals are homeothermic, that is, they have a body temperature that is relatively constant and mostly independent of the temperature of the environment. The Yilanè belong to the kind of animals that are warm-blooded and exothermic. All of the important animals in the world are exothermic since this way of controlling body temperature is far superior to that used by the ustuzou who must expend energy continually in order to maintain the same body temperature at all times.
We are one with our environment, utilizing the natural temperature differences to maintain the consistency of our own body temperatures. After a cool night we seek the sun; if we grow too warm we face into the breeze, expose less of our bodies to the sun, erect our crests or even seek the shade. We do this so automatically that we are no more aware of regulating our internal temperature than we are of breathing.
There are many other ways that our physiology is superior to that of the endothermic ustuzou. Not for us their endless search for food to feed the ravening cells. Our metabolism changes to suit the circumstance. As an example, on long voyages by uruketo we can simply slow down our bodily processes. Subjective time then passes quickly, while each individual will require less food.
An even more striking example of physiological superiority, unique to the Yilanè, is the inseparable relationship of our metabolism to our culture; we are our city, our city is us. One cannot live without the other. This is proven by the irreversible physiological change that takes place, in the very rare instances, when an individual transgresses the rule of law, does that which is inadmissible by Yilanè propriety. No external physical violence is needed to penalize the errant individual. Justice is there within her body. The Eistaa, the embodiment of the city, our culture and our rule of law, has only to order the errant individual to leave the city while also depriving this same individual of her name. Thus rightly rejected, the errant individual suffers the irreversible physiological change that ends only with her death.
West of Eden Page 49
