Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

The Last Throw ’s sensors had run a passive scan across the village as they came down to land, revealing a broad semicircular sprawl of buildings along the banks of a small river. There was little evidence of stonework aside from a few low circular walls that appeared to be grain silos. The buildings all employed wooden construction. Retinal enrichments gave him a good look at them as he covered the last half mile to the village. The houses stood on thick legs a couple of meters above the dusty ground. Roofs were tightly packed dried reeds overhanging bowed walls made from curving ovals of polished wooden frames that held some kind of hardened translucent membrane. He could just make out shadows moving within the houses he was approaching.

A couple of Anomine tending one of the village’s five fire pits stopped moving and twitched their antennae. They were elderly; he could tell that from the dark lavender color of their limbs and the way their lower legs curved back, reducing their height. Youngsters were a nearly uniform copper color, whereas the adults in their prime had a jade hue. These ones were also larger around the trunk section. Weight gain clearly didn’t affect only humans as they got older.

He walked into the village as his u-shadow ran one last check through the translator unit hanging around his neck on a gold chain. It was a palm-size rectangle, capable of producing the higher-frequency sounds employed in the Anomine language. Navy cultural anthropologists had resequenced their vocal chords so they could speak with the Anomine directly, but it hadn’t been an unqualified success. The effort had been appreciated, though; the Anomine really didn’t like machines more advanced than a wheel.

The Delivery Man studied the etiquette profile file displayed by his exovision. “I greet you this fine morning,” he said, which immediately came out as a series of squeaks and whistles similar to dolphin chatter. “I have traveled from another world to visit you. I would ask you to share stories of your ancestors.” He bowed slightly, which was probably a gesture wasted on the aliens.

They were taller than he by nearly a meter, especially when they stood up straight, which they did to walk. Their tapering midsections were nearly always bent forward, and the upper knee joints of the triple-segment legs folded the limbs back to balance.

The one whose limbs were shading from purple toward black replied. “I greet you this morning, star traveler. I am Tyzak. I am an old-father to the village. I can spare some time to exchange stories with you.”

“I thank you for showing me such a kindness,” the Delivery Man said. If there was excitement or curiosity in Tyzak’s posture, he couldn’t gauge it. Unlike the weight issue, there was no human-parallel body language, no jittering about or understandable agitation. It would have been hard, he admitted to himself. Their skin was almost like scales, making subtle muscle motion impossible. As for the classic darting eyes, their twin antennae were a uniform slime-gray of photosensitive receptor cells waving up from the small knobbly head that was mostly mouth, giving them a visual interpretation of their world wholly different from that of a human. The brain was a third of the way down inside the torso, between the small midarms and larger main upper arms.

“Your true voice is silent,” Tyzak said.

“Yes. I cannot make the correct sounds to speak to you directly. I apologize for the machine which translates.”

“No apology is required.”

“I was told you do not approve of machines.”

The two Anomine touched the small claws of their midarms. “Someone has been less than truthful with you,” Tyzak said. “I am grateful you have come to our village that we might speak the truth with you.”

“It was my own kind who informed me of your aversion to machinery. We visited a long time ago.”

“Then your kind’s memory has faded over time. We do not dislike machines; we simply choose not to use them.”

“May I ask why?”

Tyzak’s middle and upper knees bent, lowering him into a squatting position. The other Anomine walked away. “We have a life path laid out by this world which formed us,” Tyzak said. “We know what happened to us when we chose a life path centered around machines and technology. Our ancestors achieved greatness, as great as you, even.”

“Your ancestors reached farther than we have in so many ways,” the Delivery Man said. “Our debt to them is enormous. They safeguarded so many stars from an aggressive race, for which we are forever grateful.”

“You speak of the oneness which lives around two stars. It sought to devour all other life.”

“You know of them?”

“Our life path is separate from our great ancestors, for which we feel sorrow, but we rejoice in their achievements. They went on to become something other, something magnificent.”

“Yet you didn’t follow them. Why was that?”

“This planet created us. It should choose the nature of our final days.”

“Sounds like another goddamn religion to me,” Gore said over the secure link.

“More like our factions,” the Delivery Man countered. “Their version of the Accelerators went off and elevated, while the Natural Darwinists wanted to see what nature intended for them.”

More Anomine were coming down from their houses, jumping easily onto the ground from thin doorways several meters above the ground. Once they were on the ground, they moved surprisingly swiftly. Long legs carried them forward in a fast loping gait, with each stride almost a bounce. As they moved, they bobbed forward at a precarious angle.

Their balance was much better than a human’s, the Delivery Man decided, even though the motion sparked an inappropriate comparison to a pigeon walk.

A group of younger ones bounded over. He was soon surrounded by Anomine children who simply couldn’t keep still. They bopped up and down as they chattered loudly among themselves, discussing him, the strange creature with its odd body and clothes and weak-looking pincers and fur on top. The noise level was almost painful to his ears.

He heard Tyzak explaining what he was.

“Where do you come from?” one of the children asked. It was taller than its fellows, getting on toward the Delivery Man’s height, and its apricot skin was darkening to a light shade of green.

“A planet called Earth, which is light-years from here.”

“Why are you here?”

“I search out wisdom. Your ancestors knew so much.”

The children’s high-pitched calls increased. The translator caught it as a round of self-reinforcing: “Yes. Yes, they did.”

“I eat now,” Tyzak said. “Will you join me?”

“That would please me,” the Delivery Man assured him.

Tyzak stood swiftly, scattering several of the children, who bounded about in circles. He started walking toward one of the nearby houses, moving fast. His lower curving legs seemed almost to roll off the ground. The Delivery Man jogged alongside, keeping pace. “I should tell you, I may not be physically able to eat most of your food.”

“I understand. It is unlikely your biochemistry is compatible with our plants.”

“You understand the concept of biochemistry?”

“We are not ignorant, star traveler. We simply do not apply our knowledge as you do.”

“I understand.”

Tyzak reached his house and jumped up to a small platform outside the door. The Delivery Man took a fast look at the thick posts the house stood on and swarmed up the one below the platform.

“You are different,” Tyzak announced, and went inside.

The membrane windows allowed a lot of light to filter through. Now that he was inside, the Delivery Man could see oil-rainbow patterns on the taut surface, which he thought must be some kind of skin or bark that had been cured. Inside, Tyzak’s house was divided into three rooms. There wasn’t much furniture in the largest one where they entered. Some plain chests were lined up along an inner wall. There were three curious cradle contraptions that the Delivery Man guessed were chairs and five benches arranged in a central pentagon, all of which were covered by fat earthenware pots.