long ago, maybe in the Archaeozoic, there was a common origin for "ordinary" life and another kind thriving in darkness and seeing by infra-red but unable to bear actinic light;
the difference is metabolic, not chemical;
the two kinds are mutually digestible but cannot interbreed;
nocturnal life evolved a telepathic humanoid species, the Alfar (Anderson uses "...to telepath..." as a verb (p. 191));
the nocturnal metabolism involves high rates of both anabolism and catabolism, entailing centuries of life but also rapid decay after death, leaving few or no fossils;
the nocturnals cannot compete with ordinary life which endures both day and night and reproduces faster;
the Alfar are declining and nearly all other nocturnal animals are extinct;
silver, iron and other metals catalyze rapid proteolysis and oxidation of Alfar tissues;
neolithic and Iron Age humanity drove out the Alfar and destroyed their cities;
the Alfar now hide in wastelands;
the last Alfar-human encounter was three hundred years ago;
the Alfar king is Oberon - was that last encounter with William Shakespeare (who died a little more than three hundred years before the publication of "Interloper")?
No comments:
Post a Comment