Sitting before the cook fire in front of Mnnx’s hut, Brad realized that he didn’t know the Gamman words for “fun” or “entertainment.” Maybe there aren’t any, he thought. All they do is work, from sunup to sundown. They don’t even have sex.
His own VR sessions with Felicia were at an end. The starship had left Gamma and established a safe haven orbiting Alpha, some thirty million kilometers away. He still spoke with Felicia every night, but it was a stuttering, cumbersome communication, disrupted by three-minute-long breaks. Less a conversation than an awkward pair of monologues.
Now, as twilight darkened into night, Brad said to Mnnx, “You work all day long.”
Mnnx answered in his low, buzzing words and the computer in Brad’s suit translated, “Death time coming.”
“You are getting ready for the death time?”
“Yes. We must.”
The four other Gammans sitting around the fire seemed to be ignoring Brad and Mnnx, sitting quietly, somberly, while the cook pot bubbled and the night grew darker.
“You don’t work this hard all the time?” Brad probed. “Only when death time is near?”
“Yes,” said Mnnx. “When the year begins and we enter the world, there is time for…” The computer failed to translate the last few words.
“You don’t work all the time then.”
“Not needed. There is time for … and…”
Singing and dancing? Brad mentally filled in the blanks. But he found it hard to picture these solemn, hard-working farmers singing or dancing. Then he remembered that even the dourest frontier settlers in the old American West made time for barn dances and hoedowns.
Yes, but they were sexual creatures, he knew. How much of our attitudes about relaxation and enjoyment are based on the need to attract sexual partners?
Brad fell silent for several long moments, knowing what he had to ask next, wondering how to phrase it.
Finally he started, “Mnnx, are there any children in the village?”
It was Mnnx’s turn to fall silent. At last he asked, “What are jhilldrrn?”
Brad wondered if the translator had conveyed the word properly. He remembered from his history classes that the earliest attempts to create computerized translation programs had produced some spectacularly foolish results. Input, in twentieth-century English, “Out of sight, out of mind.” Computer translates into Mandarin, then translates the Mandarin words back into English. Output, “Invisible idiot.”
Sweeping his arm to indicate the entire village, Brad explained, “All the Folk here are the same age.”
Brad had learned that the villagers referred to themselves as the Folk. All others, including Brad, were Strangers.
“Of course,” said Mnnx.
“Aren’t there any Folk who are younger?” Or older, he added mentally.
“Younger?”
“You are all the same age?”
“Of course.”
“How can that be?”
“We all came into the world in the same season.”
“Came into the world?” Brad asked. “From where?”
Mnnx pointed toward the farmland. “From the eggs our elders laid in the fields.”
“Elders? Where are they?”
“All gone. Death time.”
“They all died?”
“Of course. Killed by monsters from Beta.”
Brad felt stunned. “All of them? Every one of them?”
“That is what death time is. Everyone is killed, except for the Rememberer.”
“The Rememberer?”
“Drrm is our Rememberer. Drrm will teach the new Folk once they have come up from the ground.”
“You mean you’re all going to be killed? All of you?”
Perfectly calm, Mnnx responded like a teacher dealing with a backward child. “Everyone. Except for Drrm. That is what death time is. Monsters from Beta kill us all. Next season new Folk arise from the fields, after the monsters have gone.”
No, Brad thought. It can’t be. The translator isn’t getting it right.
He asked, “New Folk arise from the fields?” Pointing to the farmland beyond the edge of the village, Brad continued, “From there? From the farm?”
Mnnx said, “Yes. From our seed.”
* * *
Brad shuddered through the Gammans’ evening meal, then hurried back to his shelter and called Littlejohn. The Aborigine was in Kosoff’s office, as usual.
Knowing that the two of them had undoubtedly heard his conversation with Mnnx, Brad asked without preamble, “Do you believe it?”
And then waited for his words to reach the starship orbiting Alpha, and their response to get back to him.
Finally Kosoff said, “They all die? Every one of them?”
“Except for their Rememberer. Drrm.”
“That’s a lot to swallow.”
“Killed by monsters from Beta,” Brad said.
The three-minute interval between them seemed to hang for an hour. At last Littlejohn replied, “That’s mythology. It must be. They’re trying to frame an understanding of the catastrophic weather conditions that arise during the two planets’ conjunction. Trying to make sense out of conditions that are far beyond their comprehension.”
But Kosoff swung his head negatively. “We’ve seen monsters on Beta.”
And Brad’s screen suddenly showed one of the six-legged giant cats prowling across Beta’s hardscrabble surface.
“My god!” Brad gasped.
This time the three-minute gap was filled with views of the big cats. Brad gaped at them. Monsters, all right.
Then Kosoff’s face filled the screen again. “It’s a coincidence. A sheer coincidence. Those animals don’t have spacecraft. They can’t cross from Beta to Gamma, even when the two planets are at their closest.”
Littlejohn added, “All mythologies include monsters. You know that, Brad. Monsters and gods and heroes.”
“I haven’t heard anything about gods or heroes,” Brad objected. “Only monsters.”
As he waited for their response, Brad thought about Mnnx’s description of the death time: Monsters that kill them. It can’t be a coincidence.
Then Kosoff said, “I know it’s bizarre, uncanny. But the only reasonable explanation is that it’s a coincidence. It has to be.”
It isn’t, Brad insisted silently to himself. A coincidence is what you call a phenomenon when you don’t understand its actual cause.
Then he realized, And if it isn’t a coincidence, if those cats somehow get here to Gamma and kill everything in sight, they’ll kill me too!