Poul Anderson: Life Cycle

“They don’t give any more life than you do,” snapped Kingsbury. “They need you just as much as you need them. In fact… they are yourselves !”

“That is an irrational statement.” Was there a defensive overtone in the voice? “Our eggs bring forth only females, so it is reasonable to suppose that the gods are born directly of the sun. A Mercurian hatches from an egg after the god-male has given life. She grows up and in her turn visits the god-males and brings forth eggs. At last, grown old, she goes to the sunlands and dies. There is no missing period in which she could become a god-male.”

“Oh, yeah? What about after she’s gone sunside?”

Mercurian language gabbled at them.

Kingsbury spoke fast: “We went out there ourselves and found the shells of those you thought-had died. But the shells were empty! You know you have muscles, nerves, guts, organs. Those ought to remain in a dried-out condition. But I repeat, the shells were empty!”

“Then—But we have only your statement.”

“You can check up on it. We can rebuild a space suit for one of you, furnish enough protection from the sun for you to go out there a while, long enough to see.”

“But what happens? What is the significance of the empty shells?”

“Isn’t it obvious, you dunderheads? You’re a kind of larval stage. At the proper time, you go out into the sun. Its radiation changes you. You’re changed so much that all memory of your past state disappears—your whole bodies have to be reconstructed, to live on Dayside. But when the process is finished, you break out of the shell—and now you’re male.

“ You don’t know that. The male comes out as if newly born—hatched, I mean. Probably his kind meet him and help him and teach him. The males discovered the truth somehow… well, it was easy enough for them, since they can watch the whole life cycle. Instead of helping you females, as nature intended, they set themselves up as gods and lived off you, taking more than they gave. And when they learned about us, they forbade you to have dealings with us—because they were afraid we’d learn the truth and expose them.

“But they need you! All you have to do is refuse to visit the temples for a few sunrises. Then see how fast they come to terms!”

For a time, then, the radio hissed and crackled with the thinking of many minds linked into one. Antella sat unmoving, Navarro fumbled with his pipe, Kingsbury gnawed his lips and drummed on the radio panel.

Finally: “This is astonishing news. We must investigate. You will provide one of us with a suit in which to inspect Dayside.”

“Easy enough,” said Kingsbury. His tone jittered. “And if you find the shells really are empty, as you will—what then?”

“We shall follow your advice. You will be given admittance to your supplies, and we will discuss arrangements for the mining of those ores which you desire.”

Navarro found himself uncontrollably shaking. “St. Nicholas, patron of wanderers,” he whispered, “I will build you a shrine for this.”

“The males may make trouble,” warned Amelia.

“If their nature is as you claim,” said the Twonk horde, “they will not be difficult to control.”

Kingsbury, the American, wondered if he had planted the seeds of another matriarchy. Underneath all the rejoicing, he felt a vague sense of guilt.