Helliconia, page 142
‘They know well enough what they’re doing.’
‘No, Luterin. You generously gave me the key to JandolAnganol’s chapel, and I’ve lived there ever since. One evening, a knock came at the door and there was Insil Esikananzi.’
He looked interested. ‘How did Insil know you were there?’
‘It was an accident. She had run away from Asperamanka. They were then newly married. He had brutally sodomised her, and she was in pain and despair. She remembered the chapel as a refuge – your brother Favin had taken her there once, in happier days. I looked after her and we became close friends.’
‘Well … I’m glad she had a friend.’
‘I showed her the records left by JandolAnganol and the woman Muntras, with the explanations of how there was a tick which travelled from phagors to mankind carrying the plagues necessary to mankind’s survival in the extreme seasons. That knowledge Insil took back with her, to explain to the Keeper and the Master, but they would take no notice.’
He gave a curt laugh. ‘They took no notice because they already knew. They would not want Insil’s interference. They run the system, don’t they? They knew. My father knew. Do you imagine those old church papers were secret? Their knowledge became common knowledge.’
The ground sloped. They picked their way more carefully toward where the caspiarn forest began.
Toress Lahl said, ‘The Oligarch knew that killing off all phagors meant ultimately killing the humans – yet still he passed his orders? That’s incredible.’
‘I can’t defend what my father did – or Asperamanka. But the knowledge did not suit them. Simply that. They felt they had to act, despite their knowledge.’
He caught the scent of the caspiarns, inhaled the slight vinegary tang of their foliage. It came like the memory of another world. He drew it gratefully into his lungs. Toress Lahl had two yelk tethered in the shelter of the trees. She went forward and fondled their muzzles as he spoke.
‘My father did not know what would happen if Sibornal was rid of phagors for ever. He just believed that it was something necessary to do, whatever the consequences. We don’t know what will happen either, despite what it may say in some fusty old documents …’ More to himself, he said, ‘I think he felt some drastic break with the past was needed, no matter what the cost. An act of defiance, if you like. Perhaps he will one day be proved right. Nature will take care of us. Then they’ll make a saint of him, like your wicked saint JandolAnganol.
‘An act of defiance … that’s mankind’s nature. It’s no good just sitting back and smoking occhara. Otherwise we should never progress. The key to the future must lie with the future, not the past.’
The wind was getting up again; the snow came faster.
‘Beholder!’ she said. She put a hand up to her rough face. ‘You’ve grown hard. Are you going to come with me?’ she asked.
‘I need you,’ she said, when he did not answer.
He swung himself up into the saddle, relishing the familiarity of the act, and the response of the animal beneath him. He patted the yelk’s warm flank.
He was an exile in his own land. That would have to change. Asperamanka was done for. The obscene Ebstok Esikananzi would have to be brought to an accounting. He did not wish for what Esikananzi had; he wanted justice. His face was grim as he gazed down at the yelk’s mane.
‘Luterin, are you ready? Our son is waiting for us in the chapel.’
He stared across at the blur of her face and nodded. Snowflakes settled on his eyelids. As they nudged their mounts down among the trees, a wind cut through the forest; slicing down from the slopes of Mount Shivenink. Snow cascaded across their shoulders from branches overhead. The ground sloped towards the hidden chapel. They wound by what had once been a waterfall and was now a pillar of ice.
At the last moment, Luterin turned in the saddle to catch a last glimpse of the village. The light of its fires was reflected on the low cloud cover blowing in.
Holding the reins more firmly, he urged the yelk faster down the slope and into the thickening murk. The woman called to him with anxiety in her voice, but Luterin felt exhilaration rising in his arteries.
He raised a fist above his head.
‘Abro Hakmo Astab!’ he shouted, hurling his voice into the distances of the forest.
The wind took the sound and smothered it in the weight of falling snow.
THE END
For the nature of the world as a whole is altered by age. Everything must pass through successive phases. Nothing remains for ever what it was. Everything is on the move. Everything is transformed by nature and forced into new paths. One thing, withered by time, decays and dwindles. Another emerges from ignominy, and waxes strong. So the nature of the world as a whole is altered by age. The Earth passes through successive phases, so that it can no longer bear what it could, and it can now what it could not before.
Lucretius: De Rerum Natura
55 BC
My dear Clive,
There you have it. Seven years have passed since I began to consider these matters. This volume will achieve first publication in a year when we both reach a new decade, and when my age will be exactly double yours.
As I walk in Hilary’s garden wondering what form of words to use, it occurs to me that the question to ask is, Why do individuals of the human race long for close community with each other, and yet remain so often apart? Could it be that the isolating factor is similar to that which makes us feel, as a species, apart from the rest of nature? Perhaps the Earth mother you meet in these pages has proved less than perfect. Like a real mother, she has had her troubles – on a cosmic scale.
So the fault is not all ours, or hers. We must accept a lack of perfection in the scheme of things, accept the yellow-striped fly. Time, in which the whole drama is staged, is as J. T. Fraser puts it, ‘a hierarchy of unresolved conflicts’. We must accept that limitation with the equanimity of Lucretius, and be angry only at those things against which one can be effectively angry, like the madness of making and deploying nuclear weapons.
Such matters are not generally the subject of literature. But I felt the necessity, as you see, to have a shot at incorporating them.
Now at last I have done. The rambling edifice of Helliconia is before you, with my hopes that you will enjoy the results.
Your affectionate
Father
Boars Hill
Oxford
APPENDICES
PHAGOR
APPENDIX 1
Cosmological
Star A (later known as Freyr) once had a companion star (Star C).
Eight million years before the narrated events, Star B (later known as Batalix) came within the gravitational field of Star A. In the orbital disturbances which followed, Star C escaped entirely, while Star B was captured. Henceforth, it formed the inferior partner of a binary system. The properties of the binary suns are as follows:
STAR A
Mass 14.8 mass of Sol (Earth’s sun)
Luminosity 60,000 × solar luminosity
Temperature 11,000 Kelvin
Radius 65 × radius of Sol or 28,112,500 miles
Spectral class A-type supergiant
Colour white
Star A is between 10 and 11 million years old. It has evolved away from the main sequence and is already entering old age.
At the time of its capture of Star B, it was less luminous but hotter. So for the first million years or so after capture, the planets of Star B were subjected to far more UV radiation than at present. X-ray and UV radiation resulted in accelerated evolution of present species.
Star A evolved no planetary system. Orbiting stellar debris was drawn into it and consumed.
STAR B
Mass 0.96 × mass of Sol
Luminosity 0.8 × solar luminosity
Temperature 5600 K
Radius 0.94 × solar radius or 406,550 miles
Spectral class G4
Colour yellow
Star B has four planets in orbit. They are, working from inner to outer, Copaise, Aganip, HELLICONIA, and Ipocrene.
In the period before Star B’s capture, a moon was in orbit about Helliconia which was lost during the disruption of capture.
Figure 1. Birth of a new binary system.
A shows the solar system of Star B (Batalix) and its four planets coming close to a binary system consisting of a large A-type supergiant star, Star A (Freyr), and its companion, the G-type star, Star C. Disturbance begins.
B shows resulting gravitational disruptions, causing Star C to ‘escape’, as the Star B system is drawn into Star A’s influence. The moon of one of the planets of Star B (Helliconia) is lost to the system, drifting away in the general direction of Star C.
C shows that now a new binary system has been formed. Star B and its attendant planets are in orbit about the supergiant Star A.
Locations
As located from Earth, the binary system of stars A and B lies in the constellation Ophiuchus (The Serpent-Bearer). The main body of a dark dust cloud lies close to the neighbouring constellation of Scorpius, at a distance of 700 light years from Earth. It conceals a cluster of comparatively young stars, with Star A among them.
Star A is just north of Antares. Location: Right Ascension 16h 25m. Declination: – 24° 30 ′.
Helliconia’s first designation on terrestrial charts: Planet G4 PBX / 4582–4–3.
Helliconia’s Composition
Helliconia is a planet with roughly terrestrial properties.
Radius 4800 miles
Circumference 30,159 miles
Mean density 4.09
Mass equivalent to 1.28 Earth’s mass
Axial inclination of rotation axis to the plane of orbit 55°
This compares with about 66° for Earth.
This widens the range of temperatures within climatic zones.
The atmospheric composition varied slightly from pre-capture to post-capture. A greater amount of carbon dioxide in the air, pre-capture, produced a mean temperature of – 7°C. After capture, and at periastron (when Star B and planets are at their closest to Star A), some of this atmospheric CO combined with water to form carbonate rocks.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is thus reduced, so too the benefit of a ‘greenhouse’ effect is reduced, yielding a mean temperature of + 10°C.
In other words, pre-capture conditions were better than might be expected, while post-capture conditions are more severe.
Orbital Motions
Helliconia’s ‘Small Year’, that is to say its annual orbit about its parent Star B, is equal to 1.42 Earth years.
The motions of stars A and B are such that B orbits A in the equivalent of 2592 Earth years. Star B, in accordance with Kepler’s laws, moves in its orbit at a varying speed, slowing as it reaches the most distant point (apastron) from Star A, speeding up when it nears Star A (at periastron). In consequence, its planets, Helliconia included, spend less time enjoying maximum energy than they do receiving minimum energy.
Fig. 2 shows the ‘Great Year’ of Helliconia about the giant primary, where t = time in Earth years from apastron.
It is the Great Year which has predominant influence over Helliconia’s climate, and Star A which provides most of Helliconia’s heat and energy.
Figure 2. Orbit.
The x to x sector marks the 500 E years of deepest winter on either side of apastron.
The y to y sector marks the period at periastron when Star A appears brighter than Star B in Helliconia’s skies.
Points V, V, and V indicate approximately the periods in which the three books of the volume are set.
The time from 311 to 633 E years marks a period of fairly rapid improvement in climatic conditions. After that, a slow warming process sets in towards periastron. From 1929 E years, a fairly rapid decline takes place. On either side of apastron is a period of over five E centuries when the climate is either severe or unsettled; a minor ice age is either building up or else in slow decline. This contrasts with a more brief 238 E years of high summer, over periastron.
The orbits of the four Star B planets are at the following (E) distances from their primary:
Copaise 0.31AU Aganip 0.82AU
Helliconia 1.26AU Ipocrene 1.53AU
An Avernian shrine stands on Aganip (Bk.2x), it marks the spot where the 512 future occupants of the Avernus satellite were housed during the construction of the Earth Observation Station.
HELLICONIA’S MOON
The Helliconian satellite lost during the period of capture was known to the phagors as T’Sehn-Hrr. It holds the key to one of the discomfiting secrets of human life on Helliconia. (The truth is uncovered by SartoriIrvrash in Vol.2, xxi, to his detriment.)
Helliconian humans divide their small year of 480 days into weeks and tenners. One week is eight days. One tenner is 6 weeks (i.e. 48 days). So the year is divided into ten equal parts.
AVERNUS AS SATELLITE
Avernus is a satellite placed in orbit about Helliconia by the terrestrial expedition. It is designated Earth Observation Station. Its function is to relay data on all facets of Helliconia back to Earth. To the inhabitants of Helliconia, the OES is known as Kaidaw, because of its perceived rapid motion against the stars.
Avernus has an almost circular circumpolar orbit, its mean distance above planetary surface being:
Orbital radius measured from centre of planet 5731 miles
Orbital period 2hrs 9mins 30 secs
Shape: spherical Diameter 0.62 miles
Mass 18,000,000 tonnes
(1.8 × 1010 Kg)
Depending on the latitude of an observer, Avernus takes about 20-24 minutes to cross the sky, from rising to setting. From the ground, its maximum angular diameter when overhead presents 137.5 seconds of arc. Inhabitants can observe Avernus undergoing rather complex phases when it is passing overhead.
Some Avernus History
When the starship from earth was closing into orbit about Star B, 512 colonists were hatched, almost full-grown (i.e. as late adolescents). The DNA of fertilised human egg cells was computer-stored in nanowombs. The colonists were reared in six ‘families’ or clans, each destined for specific duties.
Once they had been landed at a base on Aganip, automated construction units began the building of the EOS, using local stellar material. Owing to difficulties and set-backs, construction took eight E-years. The colonists were then ferried to their new home on Avernus to begin an intensive study of Helliconia.
Information transmitted back to Earth takes a thousand years to reach its target. So the early signals sent in Spring are received on Earth in approximately AD 6344.
By the time of ‘Helliconia Summer’, Avernus has been in orbit for thirty-two E-centuries. Its population now numbers close to 6000 people. Copulation is taught from the age of eight, but all procreation is by extra-uterine birth.
Among the six clans, the PIN family is the ‘Cross-Continuity Family’. Its duty is to follow the unfolding of one or two Helliconian family groupings through generations over the cycle of a Great Year (60 generations).
The GO family deals with questions of theology, philosophy, ontogeny, phylogeny, etc.
The TAN family studies the origins of long-standing quarrels, from personal to national and specific.
As a safety valve against confinement sickness, Avernians can enter a ‘Helliconia Holiday’ lottery; winners are allowed to visit the planet below. This is a one-way ticket.
Helliconia and Earth: Relative Dates
The colonising starship left Earth in the year AD 2100, arriving in the vicinity of Star B in AD 3600. The journey of 1000 light years took 1500 years to accomplish. Avernus was operative by AD 3608. On the Helliconian Great Year, this is 500 years After Aphelion.
In Book 1 Avernus has already been operative for more than a Great Year.
i.e. about 2592 + 134 E years = 2726 E years
In Book 2 Avernus operative for a further 543 years = 3269 E years
So dates now will be: On Earth, AD 6877
On Helliconia, 1177 E years AA
On Avernus, 3269
In Book 3 Avernus operative for a further 696 years = 3965 E years
So dates will now be: On Earth, AD 7573
On Helliconia, 1873 E years AA
On Avernus, 3965
Myrkwyr is an ominous day in 1873. Freyr sinks below the horizon on the Polar Circle, not to rise again for a further eighteen or so human generations.
CALENDARS
Helliconian Time reckoned as Earth Time
Helliconia units Equivalent Earth units
1 small year 480 days or 10 tenners
1 day 25.92 hours
1 hour 1.04 hours (62.4 minutes)
1 minute 1.56 minutes
1 second 0.936 seconds
A Helliconian inhabitant living to the ripe old age of 70 would be 99.4 E years old
The Earth–Avernus method of reckoning Helliconian years is simply to date them After Apastron (AA). On Helliconia itself, various nations have, at various times, their own means of reckoning calendar time. Generally, such calendars begin from the start of the reign of a local despot.
For example, in ‘Summer’ four different calendars are mentioned. Taking these into account, Book 2 opens in
(Terrestrial dateline AD 6877)
Earth years AA 1177
Helliconia year AA
‘Denniss’ calendar 8281
Oldorando-Borlien After Union 381 (some claim 408)
Ancipital year 7492
HUMAN AGES COMPARED
Because the Small Year on Helliconia is longer than a terrestrial year, age differentials exist.
The following table (years) gives comparable ages of humans on the two planets.
