have been in interstellar space for longer than Terrans;
live at 100 degrees below zero;
breathe high pressure hydrogen;
drink liquid methane;
use tools of allotropic ice;
interpenetrate Terran, Merseian and other spaces;
exchange terrestroid planets for Jovoids;
thus, doubled the Terran sphere;
otherwise, do not interact with oxygen-breathers.
That they doubled the Terran sphere is surely significant.
How many other mutually incomprehensible species might coexist without communicating?, e.g.:
The inhabitants of Sphinx pay tribute and go about their inexplicable business, building gigantic three-dimensional spiderwebs through which lights change color at every blink (Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 389).
-copied from The Bigger Picture.
It is a matter of indifference to the Sphinxians that the two sides in a Terran civil war meet to negotiate on their planet just as it is of no concern to the Ymirites that one member of their species, blackmailed by Aycharaych as it happens, tries to murder a Terran agent when he visits Jupiter. We need to know more about these alien perspectives. The Ymirite history is longer and vaster than either the history of Technic civilization or the even shorter history of Merseian interstellar expansion.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And Flandry thought it had to be a very creepy experience for Aycharaych to "scan" the mind of a Ymirite! What would a hydrogen breather consider a crime or a depraved perversion of a kind enabling Aycharaych to blackmail Horx?
Since Sphinx was a terrestroid planet, it's intelligent race should not have been impossible for oxygen breathing non-Sphinxians to get some grasp of! Surely Sphinxian officials who had to deal with the Imperium and visitors would become a source for some understanding of their race.
Ad astra! Sean
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