The Best of Science Fiction 12

EN IO PLAY- The deliberate dissolving of the senses into sleep

GEE KUTCH- Solar empathy

GE NU- The sorrow that overtakes a mother knowing her child will be born dead

GE NUP DIMU- The sorrow that overtakes the child in the womb when it knows it will be born dead

GOR A- Ability to live for eight hundred years

HA ATUZ SHAK EAN- Disgrace attending natural death of maternal grandfather

HAR DAR KA- The complete understanding that all the soil of Myrin passes through the bodies of its earthworms every ten years

HAR DIDI KAL- A small worm; the hypothetical creator of a hypothetical sister planet of Myrin

HE YUP- The first words the computers spoke, meaning, 'The light will not be necessary'

HOLT CHA- The feeling of delight that precedes and precipitates wakening

HOLT CHE- The autonomous marshalling of the senses which produces the feeling of delight that precedes and precipitates wakening

HOZ STAP GURT- A writer's attitude to fellow writers

INK TH O- Morality used as an offensive weapon

JELY JIP TUP- A thinking machine that develops a stammer; the action of pulling up the trousers while running uphill

JIL JIPY TUP- Any machine with something incurable about it; pleasant laughter that is nevertheless unwelcome; the action of pulling up the trousers while running downhill

KARNAD EES- The enjoyment of a day or a year by doing nothing; fasting

KARNDAL CHESS- The waste of a day or a year by doing nothing; fasting

KARNDOLI YON TOR- Mystical state attained through inaction; feasting; a learned paper on the poetry of metal

KARNDOL KI REE- The waste of a life by doing nothing; a type of fasting

KUNDULUM- To be well and in bed with two pretty sisters

LAHAH SIP- Tasting fresh air after one has worked several hours at one's desk

LA YUN UN- A struggle in which not a word is spoken; the underside of an inaccessible boulder; the part of one's life unavailable to other people

LEE KE MIN- Anything or anyone out-of-sight that one senses will never return; an apology offered for illness.

LIKI INK TH KUTI- The small engine that attends to one after the act of excretion

MAL- A feeling of being watched from within

MAN NAIZ TH- Being aware of electricity in wires concealed in the walls

MUR ON TIG WON- The disagreeable experience of listening to oneself in the middle of a long speech and neither understanding what one is saying nor enjoying the manner in which it is being said; a foreign accent; a lion breaking wind after the evening repast

NAM ON A- The remembrance, in bed, of camp fires

NO LEE LE MUN- The love of a wife that becomes especially vivid when she is almost out-of-sight

NU CROW- Dying before strangers

NU DI DIMU- Dying in a low place, often of a low fever

NU HIN DER VLAK- The invisible stars; forms of death

NUN MUM- Dying before either of one's parents; ceasing to fight just because one's enemy is winning

NUT LAP ME- Dying of laughing

NUT LA POM- Dying laughing

NUT VATO- Managing to die standing up

NUTVU BAG RACK- To be born dead

NU VALK- Dying deliberately in a lonely (high) place

OBI DAKT- An obstruction; three or more machines talking together

ORAN MUDA- A change of government; an old peasant saying meaning, 'The dirt in the river is different every day'

PAN WOL LE MUDA- A certainty that tomorrow will much resemble today; a line of manufacturing machines

PAT O BANE BAN- The ten heartbeats preceding the first heartbeat of orgasm

PI KI SKAB WE- The parasite that afflicts man and Tig Gagin its various larval stages and, while burrowing in the brain of the Tig Gag, causes it to speak like a man

PI SHAK RACK CHANO- The retrogressive dreams of autumn attributed to the presence in the bloodstream of Pi Ki Skab We

PIT HOR- Pig's cheeks, or the droppings of pigs; the act of name-dropping

PLAY- The heightening of consciousness that arises when one awakens in a strange room that one cannot momentarily identify

SHAK ALE MAN- The struggle that takes place in the night between the urge to urinate and the urge to continue sleeping

SHAK LA MAN GRA- When the urge to urinate takes precedence over the urge to continue sleeping

SHAK LO MUN GRAM- When the urge to continue sleeping takes precedence over all things

SHEAN DORL- Gazing at one's reflection for reasons other than vanity

SHE EAN MIK- Performing prohibited postures before a mirror

SHEM- A slight cold afflicting only one nostril; the thoughts that pass when one shakes hands with a politician

SHUK TACK- The shortening in life-stature a man incurs from a seemingly benevolent machine

SOBI- A reverie lasting less than twenty years on cosmological themes; a nickel

SODI DORL- One machine making way for another; decadence, particularly in the Cold Continents

SODI IN PIT- Any epithet which does not accurately convey what it intends, such as 'Sober as a judge', 'Silly nit', 'He swims like a fish', 'He's only half-alive', and so on

STAINI RACK NUSVIODON- Experiencing Staini Rack Nuuland then realising that one must continue in the same outworn fashion because the alternatives are too frightening, or because one is too weak to change; wearing a suit of clothes at which one sees strangers looking askance

STAINI RACK NUUL- Introspection (sometimes prompted by birthdays) that one is not living as one determined to live when one was very young; or, on the other hand, realising that one is living in a mode decided upon when one was very young and which is now no longer applicable or appropriate

STAIN TOK I- The awareness that one is helplessly living a role

STA SODON- The worst feelings which do not even lead to suicide

SU SODA VALKUS- A sudden realisation that one's spirit is not pure, overcoming one on Mount Rinvlak (in the Southern Continent)

TI- Civilised aggression

TIG GAG- The creature most like man in the Southern Continent which smiles as it sleeps

TIPY LAP KIN- Laughter that one recognises though the laughter is unseen; one's own laughter in a crisis

TOK AN- Suddenly divining the nature and imminence of old age in one's thirty-first year

TUAN BOLO- A class of people one only meets at weddings; the pleasure of feeling rather pale

TU KI TOK- Moments of genuine joy captured in a play or charade about joy; the experience of youthful delight in old age

TUZ PAT MAIN- (Obs.) The determination to eat one's maternal grandfather

U- (Obs.) The amount of time it takes for a lizard to turn into a bird; love

UBIA- girl who lifts her skirts at the very moment you wish she would