James Tiptree Jr. - Your Haploid Heart

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2024-12-18 0 0 130.3KB 16 页 5.9玖币
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Your Haploid Heart. By James Tiptree Jr. ESTHAA (Aurigae Episilon V) Type:
Solterran .98 Dom. race: Human to undet. degree Fed. status: Pending
certification Extraplanetary delegs; embs; missions: None Esthaa, sole
inhabited planet of system, first contact from Aurigae Phi 3010 SP, native
cultural level then approx. Terran Greek city states, grouped around inland
sea on single continental mass. Navigation, wheel, money, protoalphabetic
script, numbers to zero, geometry; smelting, weaving, agriculture. Space trade
route estab. 3100 ST. Esthaan students to Gal. Fed. no perm. emigration.
Progress rapid in light metals extraction, machine tooling, assembly. Exports:
Electronic and mechanical components. Imports: Tool, vehicle and generator
prototypes, scientific instruments. Esthaan workers noted for ability to copy
complex mechanisms. Sociological: Since contact, pop. concentration in urban
complex around spaceport, becoming one-city planet. Political structure
thought to be oligarchy, or council of family heads. Religion unreported.
Language one, agglutinative. No known wars except sporadic police actions
against nomadic tribes of hinterland known as the Flenn peoples. The Esthaan
temperament reported as peaceful and friendly but remarkably
reserved. MacDorra's landsled brought us down fast-Marscots don't waste fuel.
Pax lunged across me to peer out my port. I saw the color on his high
cheekbones and the light in his eyes. His first big job. He had a severe,
luminous eye just like a certain Chesapeake retriever I recalled too
well. Reeling past below was as charming a great garden city as you could wish
for. Miles on miles of honey and cream-colored villas in a froth of
pinky-green flower trees with here and there, an administrative center or
industrial park; like plates of pastel pastry. On the far horizon a gently
glittering sea-one-city world. The spaceport showed beyond a line of wooded
hills, and the pilot finally slammed us into a wallowing stall. Suddenly there
was a blaze of color in the hills below- red, purple, orange-A carnival? No-a
warren of twisted streets alive with people! A hidden village. Then we were
back over spacious suburbs and braking into the field. When the ports cleared
we saw a human-looking figure in a soft gold uniform getting out of a
rollercar. The human-looking part was why I was there. MacDorra's pilot had us
and our equipment out into the dust before you could say "parsimony." Three
clipboards to sign, a handshake that broke my pencil-"See you in six months,
Doc, good luck!"-and we were fleeing for the roller with the field lab while
the sled's turbines howled up. The Esthaan came to help. He was big, and
seemed amused by MacDorra's operation. We sorted ourselves out in Interhuman
while the roller trundled through tree-lined avenues. Reshvid Ovancha had a
well-cultivated Gal Fed University accent. Very human, was my snap
reaction. He came with the same number of fingers and features, joints worked
like ours, and skin texture-a feature on which place great hunch reliance-was
a cream-yellow version of my own brown. His eyes were round, with laugh lines,
and his smile showed human teeth with an extra pair of frontals. All quite
standard, except that his torso looked a trifle thick or blocky. Like me, he
was beardless. I could see nothing to explain why, as of that minute, I would
bet my tour pay that MacDorra's return would find me with a negative report to
file. Wait till we see the women, I told myself. Pax was pointing his profile
like Scouts of the Galaxy as we trundled up endless avenues bright with
suburban shrubbery. Possibly he had much the same idea ... It has always
struck the younger ISB agents as grossly unfair that middle-aged, monogamous
and non-charismatic types should be charged with investigating the
question of alien sex. Bureau Personnel learned that the hard way. The first
ISB agent sent to Esthaa, over a century back, had been a lad called Harkness.
Among other idiosyncrasies, Harkness had had a weakness for
laboratory-fermented brew. The sensitive, reserved Esthaans had been very
unfavorably impressed when a wing of their new university went up with him.
After the investigation and reparations Esthaa had been dropped to the bottom
of the sector list to cool off. A hundred years later Auriga Sector had only
Esthaa left to check, and the Esthaans had been persuaded to accept another
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Interplanetary Survey team, guaranteed non-explosive. Which was now arriving
as one Pax Patton, mineralogist-stratigrapher, and one Ian Suitlov,
middle-aged ecologist in public and Certified Officer in fact-as Harkness had
tried to be before me. "What's this 'mystery man' bit they give you C.O.s?"
Pax had asked me while we were getting acquainted on the ship. I had looked at
his eager face and cursed Bureau security. "Well, there is the Mystery, you
know. Silly name, to your generation. But when I started work people were
still ready to fight about it. The One-World Crusade was active -in fact, two
of my graduating class got kidnapped and were given the conversion treatment.
One forgets how much energy and money -and blood-got spent over the fact that
human races have been found scattered through the galaxy. It was a highly
emotional thing. Powerful religions were upset. Some people wouldn't believe
it. Nowadays we've just settled down to the job of counting and describing. We
don't call it a Problem. But it is a mystery. Where do we come from? Are we a
statistical peak, a most probable bridge-hand of evolution? Or are we one crop
out of one seed pod that somehow got spilled through the stars? People got
pretty excited over it. I know one or two who still are." "But why the
Security hang-up, Ian?" "Use your head. Look at the human position in the
galaxy. A new race can get all wrought up over whether or not they're
certified human. We know it doesn't really matter-there are Hrattli in top Gal
Fed jobs, and they look like poached eggs. But can you explain this to a
newly-contacted, proud, scared humanoid race? No! They take noncertification
as inferiority. That's why C.O.s are not called C.O.s out loud. We try to get
in and get the data quietly before any uproar can start. Ninety percent of the
time there's no problem anyway, and C.O. work is the dullest kind of routine.
But when you hit one of the emotional ten percent- well, that's why the Bureau
pays our insurance. I'm telling you this so you'll remember to keep your mouth
very carefully shut about my work. Didn't anybody brief you? You do your
rocks, I do my biology-but nothing about humans, humanity,
mystery-right?" "Aye aye, sir!" Pax grinned. "But lan, I don't get it. What's
the problem? I mean, isn't being human basically a matter of culture, like
sharing the same values?" "Curdled Chaos, what do they teach you rock hounds
these days? Look: Shared culture is shared culture. Psychic congeniality. It
is not humanity. What kind of arrogance could label any general ethical value
a criterion of humanity? Being human is nothing so vast. It reduces to one
nitty gritty little point: Mutual fertility!" "What a limited concept of
humanity!" said Pax. "Limited? Crucial! Look at the consequences. When we meet
and mix with a nonhuman race, no matter if they're totally sympatico and look
like the girl next door, the two groups stay separate to the end of time. But
when we meet a human race, even if they look like alligators-and some of 'em
do- sooner or later those genes are going to flow into the human gene pool,
despite any laws or taboos you can set up. Q.E.D. every time -with all the
social, religious, political consequences the mixture entails. Now do you see
why that's the one fact the Bureau has to know?" Pax had subsided, giving me
his Chesapeake stare. I wondered if I had been out too long. Auriga Sector had
caught me a month short of Long Leave and talked me into helping close out the
Sector survey. "A piece of cake," the chief had called it. Well, I had to
admit that it looked like a piece of cake as we rolled up to the palatial
Esthaan guest villa. Reshvid Ovancha's horn brought a squad of servants for
our bags, and he personally showed us about. It was amazingly like a deluxe
version of a Gal Fed faculty residence. Even the plumbing worked the same.
The only alien feature I saw was a diffuser emitting a rather pleasing floral
scent. "This is the home of my cousin who is away at sea," Ovancha informed
us. "I trust you will be comfortable, Reshvidi." "We will be more than
comfortable, Reshvid Ovancha. We did not expect such luxury!" "Why not?" he
smiled. "Civilized men enjoy the same things!" He made a minute adjustment to
the scent dispenser. "When you are ready I will take you to lunch at the
University where you will meet our Senior Councillor." When we rolled through
the University gates Pax muttered, "Looks just like Gal Fed campus before the
Flower Dance." "Ah, the Flower Dance!" said Ovancha gaily. "Delightful! Did
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you encounter Professor Flennery? And Dr. Groot? Such fine men. But that was
long before your time, I fear. We live long on Esthaa, you know. A most
healthy world!" Pax's face grew longer. I personally was wondering what had
happened to the famous Esthaan reserve. We met it at lunch. Our hosts were
gracious but formal, smiling gently when Ovancha laughed, and gravely
observant while he chatted. Some were in faculty robes; a few, like Ovancha,
in uniform. The atmosphere was that of a staid gentleman's club. "We hope you
will feel at home, Reshvidi," intoned the councillor, who had turned out to be
Ovancha's uncle. "Why not?" laughed Ovancha. "Now come, you must see your
laboratories." The laboratories were very adequate, and by evening we had our
schedules and contacts set. "Do we have to go to all those dinners?" Pax
complained. He was prowling the patio and eyeing the line of distant
mountains, where two pink moons were coming up. Fountains tinkled and a bird
sang. "One of us must. You can start some field work." "While you look into
the fertility. Say, Ian, how-" "With a culture tank," I told him, "and a great
deal of caution. And it is a ticklish business until you know what the taboos
are. How do you think Victorian England, say, would have reacted to a couple
of aliens who demanded a look at people's sex organs and a fresh slice of
someone's ovary? I'd like to get it through your head that this is a very good
subject to shut up about." "Aren't you up too tight, Ian? These people are
very enlightened types." "One of my friends had both feet cut off by some
supposedly enlightened types." Pax grunted. Maybe I had been out too long. Why
did this place give me the feeling of a stage set? It was so insistently
human-norm. Well, I'd know more when I saw the women. Three weeks later I was
still wondering. Not that I hadn't seen Esthaan ladies-at dinners, at lunches,
at merry family picnics, even on a field trip with two lady marine biologists.
Or rather, with what passed for biologists on Esthaa? it had soon appeared
that with all the shiny instruments, science on Esthaa was more an upper-class
hobby than a discipline. People collected oddities and studied what amused
them, without system. It was an occasion for wearing a lab coat, just as their
army seemed to be merely a game of wearing uniforms. My Esthaan ladies were
like everything else here, charming, large, and wholesome. And decorously
mammalian to outward view. But had I seen women? Well, why not? As Ovancha
would say-I needed a closer look. The usual approach on an advanced planet is
through the schools of medicine. But Ovancha had been right in claiming Esthaa
was healthy. Aside from injuries and a couple of imported infections now
controlled by antibiotics, sickness did not seem to exist here. Medicine, I
found, referred to the pathology of aging; arthritis, atherosclerosis and the
like. When I asked about internal medicine, gynecology, obstetrics, I was
stopped cold. One chubby little orthopedist allowed me to take a few measures
and blood samples from his child patients. When I persisted in asking to see
adult females he began to dither. Finally he sent me to a colleague who
reluctantly produced the cadaver of an aged female worker, a cardiac-arrest
case. She had evidently been operated on for hernia in middle life. "Who did
this operation, Reshvid Korsada?" I asked. He blinked. "This is not the work
of a doctor," he replied slowly. "Well, I would like to meet the person who
did this work," I persisted. "Also I would like to meet one of your doctors
who assist in delivering new life." He laughed embarrassedly and licked his
lips. "But-there is no need for doctors! There are certain women-" He ran down
there, and I saw the sweat on his forehead and talked of other matters. I have
not lived twenty years in this job by poking sticks into sore places, and I
wanted to make that Long Leave back to Molly and the kids. "These people are
touchy as a pregnant warthog," I told Pax that night. "Apparently birth is so
taboo they can't mention it, and so easy they don't need doctors. I doubt "
these medicos ever see a woman naked. Like Medieval Europe where they
diagnosed with dolls. This is going to be very ticklish indeed." "Can't you
count chromosomes or something?" "To determine fertility? The interior of the
cell is not called the last fortress of neg entropy for nothing. It's the
pattern, that counts; quantitative DNA analyses and the few gene loci we know
are nothing. The only reliable index we have is the oldest one of all-you
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bring a male and female gamete together and see if the zygote grows. But how
in Mordor am I going to get an ovum?" Pax guffawed. "I hope you don't expect
me to-" "No, I don't. I'll put in time cataloguing and figure something out.
How are your rocks, by the way?" "That reminds me, lan, I think I've hit a
taboo myself. You remember that village we saw coming in? I asked Ovancha's
wife about it last night, and she sent the kids out of the room. It's where
the Flenni live. She said they were silly people, or little people. I asked
her if she meant childish-at least I think that's what I said. That's when she
sent the kids out. Why | don't they hurry up and invent that telepathic
translator the videos show?" "Maybe it's some tie-up with child ... baby ...
birth." "No, I think it's the Flenni. Because of what happened today. I was
out on that geosyncline back of the port and I heard music- from the village.
I started over, but suddenly here comes Ovancha in the university roller and
tells me to go back. He said there was sickness there. He almost hauled me
into the roller." "Sickness? And Ovancha was right there? Indeed I do agree
with you. Pax. I'm very glad that you thought of telling me about this. And as
nominal head of this mission," I continued in a tone that brought his stare
around to me, "I want you to stay away from the Flenni and any other sensitive
subjects you happen across. I'm responsible for getting us out of here in one
piece, and there's something about this place that worries me. Call me what
you like, but stick to rocks. Right?" For the next two weeks we were model
agents. Pax made a brief coastal profile, and I buried myself in routine
taxonomy. One of my chores was to compile a phylogenetic survey of native life
forms based on the Esthaan's own data. Their archives were a curious jumble of
literary bestiaries, and morphological botany, topped off by a surprisingly
large collection of microscopic specimens. It was abominably muddled and
dispersed. To my astonishment, in a packet of miserable student mounts of
rotifers I came upon what I realized must be Harkness's work. Back at base
they had told me that all Harkness's data vanished with him. I had taken the
trouble to look up the old report of the ISB inquiry. There seemed to be no
doubt that Harkness had been running a still, and that there had been a big
fire. The only note the ISB team found was on a scrap of paper in a drain. In
a large and wavery script were the words, "MUSCI! They are BEAUTIFUL!!!" Musci
are, of course, terrestrial mosses, unless Harkness had been abbreviating
Muscidae, or flies. Beautiful mosses? Beautiful flies? Clearly, Harkness was a
rumhead. But he was also a first-rate xenobiologist when sober, and his
elegant mounts, still clear after a century, saved me a lot of work. The neat
marginal chromosome counts were accurate. There were other brief notations,
too, which began to get me very excited as my data piled up. Harkness had been
finding something-and so was I. The problem of getting human gametes receded
while I chased down the animal specimens needed to fill in the startling
picture. In our free evenings, Pax and I took to cheering ourselves with song.
It turned out we were both old ballad buffs, and we worked up a repertory
including "Lobachevsky," Beethoven's "Birthday Calypso," and "The Name of
Roger Brown." When we added an Esthaan mouth organ and a lute I noticed that
our Esthaan house-factor was wearing small earmuffs. Our reward for all this
virtue arrived one morning in the form of Ovancha with a picnic
hamper. "Reshvidi!" he beamed. "Perhaps today you would like to visit the
Flenn?" We trundled out across the spaceport and over a range of low hills in
bloom. Then the roller lurched into a gorge under a shower of flowers, and
jolted up a stony pass in which there were suddenly adobe walls, brilliantly
colored in hot pink, greens, electric blue, purple, dry-blood color and
mustard. I caught the start of an amazing smell as we burst over the hilltop
and into a village square. It was empty. "They are timid," said Ovancha
apologetically. "The sickness also has been hard." "But I thought you didn't
have-" said Pax, and glared at me for the jab. "We do not," said
Ovancha. "They do, because of their way of life. They have a bad way of life,
bad and silly. They do not live long. We try to help them, but-" He made a
graceful gesture and then tooted melodiously on the roller's horn. We got out.
Shrill orange flowers were blowing across the cobbles. The smell was
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摘要:

YourHaploidHeart.ByJamesTiptreeJr.ESTHAA(AurigaeEpisilonV)Type:Solterran.98Dom.race:Humantoundet.degreeFed.status:PendingcertificationExtraplanetarydelegs;embs;missions:NoneEsthaa,soleinhabitedplanetofsystem,firstcontactfromAurigaePhi3010SP,nativeculturallevelthenapprox.TerranGreekcitystates,grouped...

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