Gateways (25 page)

Xifor is a cruel world of rocky continents and cold seas whose misery is relieved by a few fertile valleys near the equator. According to Xifora scientists, Xifor life began and civilization emerged in those valleys. Xifor’s sun is old and dim. Xifora scientists speculate that Xifor was a rocky wanderer from outer space that strayed into the Xifor system late in its evolution and was captured and dropped into orbit by the competing tyranny of its gas giants. Certainly Xifor is unique among the other planets of the system, which are all gas giants, although some have Xifor-size satellites. Some scientists insist that Xifor is one of those satellites torn free by the attraction of a massive passing body and condemned to an obscure orbit among the giants.

No matter. Xifora have always felt that Xifora must fight to stay alive in a universe that does not love these persons. The geology of Xifor means that most Xifora are born and raised in the unforgiving mountains. Many
creatures love their planet of origin, but Xifora do not love Xifor. Xifor is respected, like the whip that transforms a weakling into a creature of strength and endurance, but not loved.

Today’s Xifora are the descendants of ancestors driven from the fertile valleys by the privileged few, the hereditary nobility that were strong when the land was weak, and seized possession when the land was held by all. When population grew too great, the nobility cast out the persons who tilled the fields and harvested the grain. The exiled Xifora’s only food became what these persons could steal from the valley-dwellers or hunt down upon the crags among creatures as hungry as these persons. But these persons scratched terraces out of mountain slopes, domesticated animals for food and clothing and their dung to fertilize their terraces, stared at the stars, dug deep in the land, and built machines.

Out of deprivation came strength. Out of suffering came a people for whom suffering was a familiar companion. Out of these persons’ pain-filled past came these persons’ glorious future. Being cast out of paradise made mountain Xifora strong and proud. These persons prospered and the valley-dwellers decayed until these persons prevailed and created a new world—still harsh and beautiful in its harshness, but fair. When the mountain Xifora were strong enough these persons took back the valleys from those persons who had grown soft and weak from lack of struggle.

The mountain Xifora cast out the valley-dwellers to live or die, as the mountain Xifora were forced to do in millennia past. From the history of mountain Xifora the Xifora learned the essential lesson the universe has to offer: suffering is good, the easy life is the way to racial ruin, Xifora cannot depend upon the kindness of others, that the only resource Xifora have is these persons’ own strength and resolve, even when soaring hatchling rates caused these persons to resort to the same solution as that of the hereditary nobility.

To cope with the ugly reality of their circumstances, Xifora turned to technology. The machines Xifora had developed to make these persons’ existence possible and to take back the valleys from the decadent valley Xifora, these persons now adapted to fly above the mountains rather than to crawl upon those cold and cruel excrescences of these persons’ world. And then these persons looked at the gas giants that oppressed Xifor and Xifora, and saw those worlds, like the valley Xifora, hoarding resources that Xifora could use and the satellites that could provide a home for more Xifora, perhaps more hospitable than the Xifor mountains.

Xifora dug ore out of the Xifor mountains and smelted the ore into metal and worked the metal into ships that conquered empty space, mined
the atmospheres of the gas giants for precious fuel and materials, and took the satellites as these persons’ own. Within a few centuries the Xifora had turned this oppressive system into new and better Xifors. The pygmy interloper became the master of the entire system. The Xifor will conquered the giants’ power.

Life went too well. Some of the satellites were more favored by geology and climate than rocky Xifor, and their Xifora became as soft and decadent as the valley-dwellers. The governors responded, acting with stern kindness to transport children to the remote areas of the home planet to harden or die. Many died, but many survived, prepared now to suffer as a way of life and to act as needed without direction.

But with machines to protect these persons from the cruelties of nature, even Xifor became too soft, and the Xifora turned these persons’ eyes to the stars, knowing that the stars were cold and distant and uncaring, and that space itself, like the remote regions of Xifor, was the ultimate test of Xifor will and strength. Xifora ventured forth and discovered that the galaxy was not as empty as the giants’ satellites; like the valleys, it was already owned. Once more the Xifora were thwarted, deprived of the Xifora birthright. Here, again, the Xifor past informed the Xifor present: Xifora would be better and tougher, more determined to succeed and more willing to persist over millennia, over failures, than other Galactics.

So events have gone, these millennia past. Gradually, through faith and perseverance, the Xifora have become one of the coequal members of the Galactic ruling council, recognized for Xifora determination to succeed over obstacles, Xifora willingness to sacrifice for Xifora beliefs, Xifora inventiveness in solving great problems, and Xifora—but Xifora must not be boastful. It suits Xifora temperament best to suffer in silence and revenge at length.

All this account is one reason for Xifora sympathy for humans, who emerged into the galaxy to find it already populated and settled and governed by others, just as Xifora discovered, in millennia past. But impatience and complaint Xifora find offensive, and for these barbarisms Xifora do not like humans.

All this is prologue to this person’s story. Xifora are hatchlings, but like all hatchlings, dangerous companions. Xifora know that in the mountains Xifora live or die alone. So life was for this person. This person was the smallest of a brood of a dozen hatchlings, of which five died and were eaten in the nest. This person would have been eaten as well had not this person’s cleverness and will led to survival in this person’s first days out of
the shell. This is the way of the nest: hatchlings eat or are eaten. Those that the stronger hatchlings cannot fall upon and eat, delight in tormenting the weaker hatchlings, depriving them of food, tearing away limbs in sport, or so the stronger hatchlings say. Those persons called it part of the Xifor way, to make sure the fittest survive, but the game is actually survival itself. The fewer that survive mean more food and more status for those who live.

This person survived the loss of numerous limbs, usually one but never more than two at one time. Others, in this nest and neighboring nests, were less fortunate: if three limbs are lost, the game is lost. The fourth limb is doomed, and the hatchling will be consumed before the limbs can grow back. This person understood that consequence early, concealed food in a corner of the home nest where a rock could be rolled into place, and retreated there furtively and in haste as soon as a limb was lost. Many periods were spent growing new limbs.

The only safe time was during school hours when hatchlings were taught the history of oppression and the language and tools of justice. Science explained the unloved place of Xifora in the universe, and technology provided the means by which Xifora could liberate Xifora from the cruel Xifor environment. School was good, not least because it provided a period when survival was not at stake and wits could be turned to the larger issues that lay ahead. And the best part was that the worst hatchling tormentors were the poorest students; those persons who depend upon size and power discover that strength alone is not enough, that the mind has powers beside which the greatest physical endowments dwindle to insignificance.

Where were these persons’ parents while these cruel games continued, the listener to this story may ask. Such a question would never have occurred before Xifora encountered the Galactic Federation, where mercy is considered a virtue. Xifora parents are like Xifor itself: hard, demanding, unsentimental. Like Xifor, parents breed offspring hardy and self-reliant. Those persons survive who should survive because those persons are strong of body or will; the weak fail and are eaten; and thus Xifora grow stronger and more capable with each generation. Xifora not only embrace evolution, they enhance it.

Before this person left the nest, this person found a piece of unusually hard wood that this person sharpened to a point by rubbing it hour after hour against a rock, and this stick became a defense against this person’s nestlings. After a few accidents to other hatchlings, this person lost no limbs from personal teasing. Instead this person took vengeance against
this person’s chief tormentor, Vi, the largest and most promising of the nestlings. When attacked once more, rather than losing a limb this person raised his pointed stick and Vi ran upon it, in that person’s vulnerable eating sack. After the accident, this person stood aside while the tormentor was consumed by the other nestlings. Vi was gone and would torment no more; this person did not need to consume any of the remains to be strong.

As soon as the feast was over, this person left the nest and began existence in the mountains of northern Xifor. The nights were cold and the days only slightly warmer, but this person soon trapped a furry creature and fashioned warm garments from its hide. This person stole fire, cooked meat, and fashioned weapons, first a sling for propelling rocks, then a mechanism for projecting small, pointed spears, and finally, when a dump of discarded materials was stumbled upon, weapons shaped from metal scraps, and then tools that this person used to build smelters for ore, and finally to construct machines.

When this person was nearly adult, this person encountered this person’s parents once more. This person recognized them by their resemblance to Vi and by their family pheromones, and for a moment ancient fears and hatreds flared. The natural attempt to kill this person was anticipated and foiled, with only the loss of a single limb by the female parent. Then this person convinced the parents that this person was indeed a member of the parents’ brood, and that the killing of the largest and most promising of the brood was justified and that this person’s survival should be celebrated and not condemned. This person demonstrated the machines this person had built. Suitably impressed, the parents accepted this person as a member of their family and enrolled this person in a scientific academy situated near the equator.

There, not far from the valleys where the Xifora had developed from clumsy beasts crawling out of the sea onto the land, this person learned Xifor history, Xifor art, Xifor science, and Xifor technology. This person also learned that the machines in which this person had placed so much pride had been invented before, and better. The discovery was a lesson in humility that this person carries to this moment. With that insight, this person’s career as an inventor and a scientist came to an abrupt end. Instead, this person became a philosopher and a politician. On Xifor the callings are almost identical.

Then, fatefully, this person was discovered. Not by the most able leader of Xifora history, Xidan, but by that person’s chief assistant, Xibil, who had been the philosopher behind Xidan’s resplendent political career. In
this person Xibil saw a promise that no other person had observed: the ability to produce new solutions to old problems. This person’s real life began.

Xidan had not been responsible for the invention and production of spaceships that occupied the satellites of the gas giants, nor the interstellar flight that made contact with the Galactic Federation, nor, indeed, the negotiations that resulted in the acceptance of Xifor as a junior member of the Federation. All these events happened countless millennia earlier. Xidan’s great accomplishment was to bring all the colonies of Xifor under the absolute control of the native world and with the loss of only a few million Xifora lives and only a single satellite. Under Xidan, Xifor finally gained full membership on the Galactic Council.

All was good; Xifor was beginning to reap the benefits of Galactic goodwill and the full range of Galactic science and invention. Xifora basked in the illusion that the universe had changed and the sneer of hatred had become the smile of love. And then humans emerged into the galaxy. Unlike the Xifora, humans were unwilling to accept a proper role as apprentice Galactics. Humans insisted on full membership immediately. Old allegiances were threatened. Ancient agreements were broken. War happened.