Poul Anderson: Life Cycle

The glare became a sudden flame. Sunrise! The shadow of the temple fell over the plaza, but Kingsbury narrowed his eyes to slits, and still his head ached.

He was dimly aware of the priestesses returning. Their voices twittered, and the chant ended. A hundred Mercurians walked forth, up the stairs and into the doorway. Another hundred and another hundred… They were not quite so impassive now. Kingsbury could see that those near him were trembling with excitement.

Now his and Navarro’s line was on the move. He saw that one of the priestesses was leading them. They entered between the pillars and went across a room of mosaics and down a hall. At its end were passages leading to a number of roofless courts into which the sunlight fell. His party took one.

The priestess stood aside, and the procession went on in.

Against the radiance, Kingsbury could just see that there was a doorway on the western side and that daises were built into the floor. The Twonks were settling themselves on those, waiting. He switched to the private band: “Juan, what happens now?”

“What do you think?” answered the Basque. His voice shook, but there was a wryness in it. “This is where they breed, isn’t it?”

“If one of ’em makes a pass at me, shall I try to play along?”

“I think there is something against it in Leviticus—nor could you, ah, respond… We shall probably have to run for our lives. But they are all lying down. Find yourself a couch!”

There was a stillness that stretched. The heat blasted and gnawed. Even the Twonks couldn’t endure it for very long at a time. Something would have to take place soon, unless—

“Juan! Maybe they’re what-you-call-it, virgin birth. Maybe the sun fertilizes them.”

“No. Not parthenogenetic. It has not the evolutionary potentiality to produce intelligent life—it does not give variant zygotes. Sunlight is necessary but not sufficient, I think. And I still cannot believe they are true hermaphrodites. Somewhere there must be males.”

Almost, Kingsbury jerked. It was a tremendous effort to hold himself rigid, to wait in the shimmering, dazzling devil-dance of light as all the natives were waiting. “I’ve got it! The gods— they are the males!”

“That is clear enough,” said Navarro impatiently. “I deduced it hours ago. But if the case is so simple, I am not hopeful. The males can still claim to be a different, superior order of life, as they indeed already do. We shall need a more fundamental discovery to upset this male-worshiping cult.”

Navarro’s voice snapped off. Flame stood in the doorway.

No… the tall lizardlike forms, in burnished coppery scales, wreathed in silvery vapor—they glowed, walking dragons, but they did not burn. They advanced, through the doorway and into the courtyard. Their beaks gaped, and the small dark eyes held sun sparks, and the tails lashed their taloned feet. More and more of them, stalking in, one to a Twonk, and approaching with hands held out.

The males of Mercury… Dayside life, charged with the energy from the sun which made new life possible, sweating out pure quicksilver to cool them so they wouldn’t fry their mates. Was it any wonder they were thought divine?

But it wasn’t possible! Male and female had to come from the same race, evolving together—they couldn’t have arisen separately, one in the hell of dayside and one in the endless purgatorial dusk of Twilight. The same mothers had to bear them; and yet, and yet, Twonk eggs only brought forth Twonks…

Then—

The knowledge bit home as a dragon neared Kingsbury. The male was hesitating, the lean head wove back and forth… An alien smell? A subtle wrongness of posture?

The Mohawk sat up and yelled. The dragon spouted mercury vapor and crouched. Teeth made to shear through rock flashed in the open mouth.

“Juan, I’ve got it! I know what they are! Let’s get back!”

Navarro was on his feet, fumbling at the belly of his disguise. Latches clicked free, and he scrambled out of it. The nearest dragon leaped. Navarro’s gun bucked. The male fell with a hole blown through him. So much for the immortal gods, the heavenly showmen. Kingsbury was out of his own shell now. A female lunged at him. He got her around the waist and pitched her into the mob. Whirling, he slugged his way toward the door, Navarro covering his back.

The dragons snapped at them but didn’t dare attack. There was a moment of fury, then the humans were out on the plaza. They began running.

“Now we’ve got to beat them back to the ship,” panted Kingsbury.

“More than that,” said Navarro. “We must reach safety before they come near enough to call the hive and have us intercepted. I wonder if we can.”

“A man might try,” said Kingsbury.

The forward port showed some thousands of armed Mercurian females. They ringed in the ship, waiting, too rational to batter with useless clubs at the hull and too angry to depart. There were more of them arriving every minute.

“I wonder—” Antella peered out. He spoke coolly, but his feathers stood erect with tension. “I wonder if they can do worse to us than they have already done. We will starve no faster besieged in here than walking freely around.”

“They can get to us if they want to work at it,” said Kings-bury. “And I think they do. They could rig up some kind of battering ram—”

Navarro lighted his pipe and puffed hard. “It is our task to persuade them otherwise,” he said. “Do you believe they will listen?”

Kingsbury went over to the ship’s radio and sat down and operated the controls with nervous fingers. “Let’s hope so. It’s our only chance. Do you want to talk to “em?”

“Go ahead. You are better with the English language than I. I will perhaps put in an oar.”

Kingsbury switched on the speaker and brought his lips to the microphone. “Hello, out there,” he said.

His voice cut through the seething of Mercurian tones. It was weird how they snapped off all at once. English, clear and grammatical and subtly distorted, answered him:

“What do you wish to say? You have violated the temple. The gods order that you must die.”

“The gods would say that,” replied Kingsbury. “But they are not gods at all. They want to get rid of us because we can tell you the truth. They’ve lied and cheated you for I don’t know how many centuries.”

“Truth, lie, cheat. Those are words we do not know.”

“Well… uh… truth is a correct statement, a statement of what is real. A lie is a statement which is not truth, but made on purpose, knowing it to be false. Cheating is… well… curse it, I wish we had a dictionary along! The gods have lied to you so you would do what they wanted. That’s cheating.”

“We think we understand,” said the toneless voice. “It is a new concept to us, but a possible one. The gods do not speak so we can hear them. They—” Conference, presumably recalling what the first expedition had told about radio—“they use a different band. They communicate with us by gestures only. So are you implying that they are not what they claim to be and have made life unnecessarily difficult for us?”

“That’s it, pal.” Kingsbury still didn’t like the Twonks much, but he was grateful they were so quick on the uptake. “Having seen what goes on in the temple, we know what these self-appointed gods are. They’re nothing but the males of your own species.”

“What does the word ‘male’ denote?”

“Well—” Kingsbury ground to a halt. Precisely how did you explain it in nickel words when Junior asked where he came from? He gave Navarro a helpless look. The Basque grinned, leaned over the microphone, and gave a simple account.

The-female collectivity thought about it for a while, standing in burnished motionlessness, then said with an unaccustomed slowness: “That is logical. We have long observed that certain of the animals go through the same motions of fertilization as we with the gods. But whether you wish to call them gods or males makes no difference. They are still the great ones who give life.”