Winter in Eden

by Harry Harrison

  This is a lengthy process requiring millions of tries. But then Yilanè patience is infinite and we have had millions of years to develop the process. In order to recognize particular sequences radioactive DNA or RNA messengers are attached specifically with base complementation along their length. Afterwards, special enzymes are used to remove a specific length and insert it into another organism’s DNA ring.

  This is the way that bacterial DNA rings are modified: Firstly by the use of plasmids, natural bacterial ‘sex’ sequences. Secondly by phages, viruses that naturally attack bacteria. And thirdly by using cosmids, artificial DNA circles with special joining sequences, any of which can be tailored to include new or modified genes, so that the modified bacteria can make new proteins.

  So it can be seen that it is relatively easy to change the protein chemistry of bacteria, simple eukaryotes such as yeast, and to reprogram other eukaryotic cells in a similar simple manner.

  It is much more complicated to produce desired changes in the larger eukaryotic animals. In these creatures the egg itself is programmed in the mother’s ovary, where it builds upon itself in the foundation of the embryo’s development. Only after completion of this embryonic structure does each cell produce proteins that change the cell itself, as well as other nearby cells, in a process that finally results in the juvenile organism. How this process has been mastered and altered is too complex to go into in this curtailed discussion. There are other facets of Yilanè science that have to be considered.

  Mathematics must be discussed since many Yilanè have heard of this, and since all of the sciences employ it, though they will not have run across it at other times. The following explanation, although brief is accurate.

  The science of Mathematics is based upon numbers. If you wish to understand numbers spread your hands out before you, palms down, and inner thumbs touching. Wriggle your outside thumb on the right. That is called number one. Now, moving one finger at a time from right to left, the adjacent finger is two, the next finger three, the inner thumb four. Left inside thumb five, fingers six and seven, and finally the outside thumb on the left is ten. Ten is also called base, a technical term that we will not go into here. It is enough to know that numbering starts over again after the base is reached, ten-and-one, ten-and-two, right up to two-times-ten. There is no limit to the number of multiples of ten that you can have. That is why numbers are so important in the sciences where things are weighed, measured, recorded, counted, etc. Mathematics itself is very simple, just a recording of things that are bigger than things, smaller than other things, equal or not equal to other things.

  The origin of mathematics is lost in time. Although mathematicians themselves believe that the base ten was chosen because we have ten fingers. They say that any number may be chosen as a base, though this seems highly unlikely. If we took two for a base then 2 would be 10, 3=11, then on with 4=100, 5=101, 6=110 and so on. Very clumsy and impractical and of no real use. It has even been suggested that if ustuzou could count, a singularly wild idea in any case, that their base 10 would be our 12. All our numbers would change as well; the 40 million years of Yilanè existence would shrink to a mere 30 million years. You can see where such unwise speculation might lead so it is best we abandon such unhealthy theorizing.

  CULTURE

  We have had to introduce a number of new terms in this history, and culture is another one. It might be defined as the sum total of the way we live as it is transmitted down through the ages. We can assume that our culture had historical beginnings, though we cannot possibly imagine what they might have been. All we can do is describe our existence now.

  Every Yilanè has her city, for Yilanè life revolves around the city. When we emerge from the sea we can only look on in speechless awe at the beauty and symmetry of our city. We go there as fargi and are taken in and fed. We listen and learn from others. We watch and learn. When we can speak we offer our services and are treated kindly. We see all the manifold life of the city and are drawn to one part or another. Some of us serve humbly and well with the herds and in the slaughterhouses. All Yilanè who read this should remember that service is not only in the sciences and the studies that you do; it is in service and all Yilanè are equal in that.

  As a city is built in rings, with fields and animals outermost, the living city next, the birth-beaches and the ambesed at the heart of it, so also is our culture built. The large circle of fargi outermost. Within that circle are the assistants and the trained laborers in the various specialities. They in turn circle about the scientists, the supervisors, the builders—all those at the peak of their learned skills. They in turn look to the city leaders, and all look to the Eistaa who rules. It is logical, simple, complete, the only possible culture to have.

  This is the world of the Yilanè. It has been this way since the egg of time, and will go on forever. Where there are Yilanè there is Yilanè rule and law and all are happy.

  At the two poles of our globe there is great cold and discomfort and Yilanè are too wise to penetrate these places. But only recently it has been discovered that there are comfortable places in this world where there are no Yilanè. We owe it to ourselves and to the world to fill these empty spaces. Some of these places contain ustuzou, unpleasant ustuzou. In the interests of science we must examine these creatures. Most readers will close this volume now since they have no interest in such matters. Therefore what follows in the section beginning on page 398 is for those with specialized interests.

  Translators Note.

  Here the translation from the Yilanè ends.

  THE TANU

  The history of the Earth is written in its stones. While the are still unanswered questions, the overall history of our planet from the Palaeozoic Era up to today is recorded in fossil remains. This was the age of ancient life, 605 million years ago, when the only creatures in the warm and shalllow seas were worms, jellyfish and other backboneless animals. The continents then were still joined together in a single large landmass that has been named Pangea.

  Even then some of the sea creatures were using lime to build shells for protection and support. The development of internal skeletons came later, with the first fish. Later fish had lungs and lobe-like fins that could be used to support them when they emerged from the sea and ventured onto the land. From these the amphibians developed about 290 million years ago, the ancestors of the first reptiles.

  The first dinosaurs appeared on Earth just over 205 million years ago. By the time the first sea-filled cracks were appearing in Pangea 200 million years ago, the dinosaurs had spread all over the world, to every part of the first giant continent that would later separate into the smaller continents we know today. This was their world, where they filled every ecological niche, and their rule was absolute for 135 million years.

  It took a worldwide disaster to disturb their dominance. A ten-kilometer-wide meteor that struck the ocean and hurled millions of tons of dust and water high into the atmosphere. The dinosaurs died. Seventy percent of all species then living died. The way was open for the tiny, shrew-like mammals—the ancestors of all mammalian life today—to develop and populate the globe.

  It was galactic chance, the dice-game of eternity, that this great piece of rock hit at that time, in that manner, and caused the global disturbance that it did.

  But what if it had missed? What if the laws of chance had ruled otherwise and this bomb from space had not hit the Earth? What would the world be like today?

  The first and most obvious difference would be the absence of Iceland, for these volcanic islands mark the place where the meteor struck and penetrated to the mantle below.

  The second greatest difference would be in the history of global climate, still not completely understood. We know that different ice ages came and went—but we do not know why. We know that the polarity of the Earth has changed in the past, with the north magnetic pole where the south is now—but we do not know why. It seems a certainty that if the meteor had not hit and the incre
dible atmospheric change had not occurred, that the same progression of ice ages and accompanying continent building would not have occurred in precisely the same manner.

  Look at our world as it might have been.

  The rule of the dinosaurs is unbroken. The world is theirs and they are dominant on every continent—and the Yilanè rise above them all.

  Except in the western hemisphere. Although South America is dominated by reptiles this is not completely true to the north. The land bridge of Central America, that connects North and South America, has been sunk beneath the ocean at different geological times. At one crucial time the break coincided with the spread of the vast sea that covered most of North America. The ice sheet of the glaciers that next came south stretched almost to the edge of this inland sea so that for millions of years the climate was northern, barely temperate in midsummer. The cold-blooded species died out and the warm-blooded species became dominant. They expanded and developed and became the dominant life-forms of this land mass.

  In time, as the ice sheets withdrew, the mammals expanded north. By the time the land bridge of Central America rose from the sea again the warm-blooded creatures ruled the continent between the oceans. Yet they could not stand against the slow return of the reptiles. There is no defense, other than retreat, from armored creatures weighing 80 tons or more.

  Only in the north, in the foothills and the mountains, could the mammals survive. Among them were the New World primates, from whom the Tanu are descended.

  There are no Old World mammals here because the Old World is saurian. There are no bears or canines. But the New World deer abound, from small species to immense ones as large as a moose. The mastodons are here as are many marsupials including saber-tooth tigers. Mammalia in rich diversity live in the fertile band south of the ice and north of the cold-blooded saurians.

  Most of the Tanu, imprisoned by a harsh environment, have never developed beyond the hunter-gatherer stage. But at this they are immensely successful. There are some exceptions, like the Sasku, who have moved on to a stable existence of neolithic farming. They have developed the settled skills of pottery and weaving, as well as a more complex and stratified society. But this does not mean that they are superior in any way to the hunting Tanu who have a rich language, simple art forms, many survival skills and a basic family group relationship.

  The same might be said of the Paramutan who occupy a perilous ecological niche in the subarctic. Their skills are manifold, their culture small and communal. They are completely dependent upon the hunt and upon the single marine creature, the ularuaq, for their material existence.

  THE MARBAK LANGUAGE

  Marbak, like the other languages spoken by the Tanu, is a modern dialect of the lost parent language that has been named Eastern Coastal. In Marbak ‘man’ is hannas, the plural hannasan. Variations are hennas in Wedaman, hnas in Levrewasan, neses in Lebnaroi, etc.

  All of the names of these small tribal groups are descriptive, e.g. Wedaman means ‘the island ones’; Levrewasan ‘tent-black-ones’, that is the people of the black tents. Like man, hannas, woman linga, plural lingai, has widespread similarity. A person, sex not specified, is ter, while the plural tanu is generally accepted as referring to all other people.

  The most common masculine noun declension is:

  THE PARAMUTAN

  Like the Tanu, the Paramutan are descended from the New World primates. Although fossil evidence is lacking, gene analysis reveals that Tanu and Paramutan are genealogically quite close and only their great physical separation has prevented inbreeding up until this time. Although superficial resemblance does not seem to bear this out, i.e. the furcovered Paramutan and the relatively hairless Tanu, it should be noted that both groups have approximately the same number of hair follicles. Many Tanu are born with rudimentary tails, merely an external projection of the coccyx, which contain exactly the same number of bones as the Paramutan tail.

  Therefore the obvious physical differences between the groups are of little importance; what is relevant are the social and cultural factors. The Paramutan migrated further north than any of the other primates. We may postulate population pressure from behind or relevant technology that made subarctic existence first a possibility, then a necessity. Their dependence upon a single major source for food, raw materials, existence itself (the ularuaq) allows no other possibility. Their use of north-temperate materials (wood for their boats, oak-tanning of hides) is still important—but the ularuaq is irreplaceable to their existence as their culture is constituted now.

  It must be pointed out that Paramutan is a misnomer since this is a Marbak word that means “raw-meat-eaters”. The correct term in their own language is Angurpiaq, meaning “real people”, for this is how they see themselves. In their solitary existence in the northern wastes they feel, with some good reason, that they are the real people, the only people. This is why they call the Tanu Erqigdlit, the fantasy people. Strangers who come from an unreal world who therefore must be unreal themselves.

  THE ENVIRONMENT

  There are many more living creatures in the sea than on the land—and many more kinds. Life began in the sea and all of the major animal groups have many representatives still living there. The basis of all open ocean productivity is the floating unicellular algae. These microscopic plants live only in the top few meters of water where they can obtain energy from the sun. There are about 600 common kinds of algae which form the basis of the food chain. They are first eaten by tiny planktonic animals, the most common of which is the copepod crustacea of the genus Calanus. (The commonest animal on Earth—both by numbers and weight.) These are eaten in turn by larger, shrimp-like crustacea as well as many other animals including jellyfish, arrow-worms, baby fish, many larvae of molluscs and squid, as well as even larger benthic crustacea such as crabs and lobsters.

  The product of all this activity is a slow rain of corpses and excreta that sinks down to the bacteria on the ocean bed. The essential nutrients, particularly nitrogen and potassium produced by the bacteria, are carried away by the deep-sea currents. This is the primary source of the abundant life in the polar oceans. Despite the low temperature and lack of light their productivity is high and virtually continuous. For the cold is indeed the source of the ingredients that nourish life. The temperature of the surface water is a chill four degrees centigrade—the warm currents from the south range from five to eight degrees. The warmer water rises through the colder, denser water to feed the abundant life on the surface.

  An unusual feature of the ice shelf is the qunguleq that fills an ecological niche that is empty in the world as we know it. The cold eco-system of the qunguleq is unlike any other in the ocean. Rooted in the ice, the great skirt of green tendrils spreads out through the sea, talking nourishment from the water and energy from the sun. This northern meadow is grazed by the ularuaq, the largest living creatures in the world. They tear at the strands with their thick, muscular lips, taking food and life from the qunguleq. They are utterly dependent upon this single food source. With the southerly movement of the arctic icecap the ocean currents have been changed and emerge further to the west. The ularuaq follow the qunguleq and the Paramutan in turn must follow the ularuaq. Every link in the food chain is dependent upon the link before it.

  THE ANGURPIAQ LANGUAGE

  Any student of their language will quickly discover how few terminal sounds there are. Because of this it may appear superficially simple at first, but greater study will reveal its richness and complexities.

  The difficulty for Marbak speakers is that the k sound must be distinguished from the q sound. The latter is made with the tongue much further back than the k. The closest approximation that a non-native speaker might make would be -rk.

  There are also two distinct forms of l, one voiced, the other unvoiced. The unvoiced form is transcribed here as -dl or -tl to note this important difference.

  Linguistic difficulty is not a one-way street. The Angurpiaq have problems with some of th
e Marbak sounds, finding them virtually unsayable. For example, Armun emerges as “Arramun” and Harl as “Harral” and so forth.

  One of the most interesting things about the structure of this language is that it consists only of nouns and verbs. One of these begins every word. However this root term is open to scores of affixes which then can combine with even more affixes. In this way sentence-long words are built up. For example;

  qingik a house

  qingirssuak a large house

  qingiliorpoq he builds a house

  qubgirssualiorpoq he build a large house

  qingirssualiorfilik a man can build a large house, and so on, apparently without end.

  It is very important that the right-branching nature of this be noted. We are all used to left-branching constructions, such as;

  house

  a house

  a large house

  Once one system is used by a native speaker it becomes ‘natural’ to speak that way and organize language in this manner, making learning a new order particularly difficult.

  In addition to affixes, nouns and verbs also have suffixes. These are used to mark case, person or mood. Verbs can be in the Indicative mood, or Interrogative, Subjunctive, Optative, Conjunctive, Infinitive. As an example of how this functions let us take “like” which in the infinitive is alutora.