Human lives are so short, comparatively speaking, that Larreka sees big changes in his human friends every few years. Jill Conway has changed from adolescent to adult. Goddard Hanshaw, Mayor of Primavera, has:
"...changed almost shockingly, the commandant saw, turned gray and portly." (p. 35)
For a small conference, "God" Hanshaw provides armchairs for himself and two other human beings and a mattress for the quadrupedal Larreka to lie on. The other possibility was that Larreka might have been able to remain standing.
He drinks beer by which he means a breadroot brew flavoured with domebud, not any drink brewed from Terrestrial grain. Ishtarians clasp shoulders rather than shake hands. Poul Anderson seems to have thought of every detail.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would expect other intelligent races to have lifespans differing from humans. Some might be as short lived as the non-humans we see in "Strangers," while others might be as long lived as the Ishtarians of FIRE TIME. Other races might have spans comparable to the human average.
The aliens in "Strangers" still puzzles me. How much could be done by a race with an average lifespan of only two or three Earth years?
Hmmm, might Ishtarians presiding over assemblies or committees be called by terms with "mattress" or "pad" in them?
Ad astra! Sean
Perhaps the leader has 'standing' ;)
Kaor, Jim!
Ha! But I would expect Ishtarians presiding over lengthy meetings to get tired if he had to stand the entire time.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Jim!
Mattress president? Pad leader? Naw, that doesn't have quite the right ring.
Ad astra! Sean
I think horses & some other quadrupeds can sleep standing up by locking their leg joints. If the Ishtarians can do something similar, then standing throughout a long meeting would not be a problem.
Probably the reason humans have the lifespans they do is to get out of the way of their grandchildren. That would be selected for in evolutionary terms.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: I doubt it, Ishtarians seem to prefer to their resting lying down.
Mr. Stirling: That and, in pre-State times many, many humans got killed off by or before their mid-forties.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: It varied.
The average lifespan was short, but that was statistically distorted by massive infant/young child mortality.
If you made it to adulthood, you stood a good chance of getting to your 60's.
Also by locality.
In Shakespeare's London, there were 4 or 5 burials for every baptism.
But in 17th-century New England, the average age of death for men was 70. Very healthy place.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I do agree with what you wrote above. But I was thinking of what it was like for most humans before about 4000 BC: nasty, brutish, and short, to be Hobbesian!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, the primary pre-State cause of death for men was being killed by other men. And a substantial one for women, too.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly! And this innate propensity for violence all humans potentially have is a huge reason why I get so impatient with Utopian dreams of the State somehow withering away.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But conditions can be completely different in future.
Paul.
In a high tech society, bands of men will not roam the Earth killing each other for food and women and other causes of physical conflict can also be made redundant.
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