“To think that such a thing could be possible!” Gazing at one of the open relic pods, I dipped the tip of my finger into the thick, slimy solution inside it.
“The fluid must provide a stimulus that triggers spontaneous metamorphosis, you see. It causes evolutionary regression to the nursery spider, which seems, to all appearances, the lowest life form on this planet. It often happens among lower-order organisms – an anomalous metamorphosis that causes a once evolved species to regress back again under external stimuli. If you had it your way, the reverse evolution theory should apply to this planet, shouldn’t it. Ergo, the nursery spider must be preventing any further regression or divergence of species. Or in other words, anomalous metamorphosis on this planet has become what Goethe called ‘normal metamorphosis’.”
“This seems increasingly like an artificial ecosystem, doesn’t it,” I mused.
“I’ve started to see the Newdopians in a slightly different light myself. They seem after all to have a highly advanced spiritual culture, as well as a grasp of science and technology,” Mogamigawa agreed. “Of course, it’s virtually impossible to create a totally artificial ecosystem, but they must have started the reverse evolution of higher-order species and had the technology for suppressing species divergence. Or even if they didn’t, they must at least have known that any higher-order species that devolved from themselves would inevitably be able to coexist peacefully, as befits their own planet. And in fact that’s exactly what happened. Furthermore, even lower-order species and plants evolved until they could be incorporated into the ecosystem of these higher-order vertebrates. Or perhaps those species alone were not eliminated but underwent adaptive radiation.”
“Rather than having technology as such, perhaps they merely applied a reverse logic to the theory of evolution,” I added. “That is, on planets where the theory of evolution applies, there always exists a predator-prey relationship. Even man, the ‘terminal animal’, inevitably needs an aggressive instinct, which makes him destroy his environment, start wars and so forth. In that case, conversely, if we could create a planet to which the regression theory applies and where only relationships based on libido exist, it should be possible to maintain a peaceful environment. Instead of a Thanatosian ‘eat or be eaten’ ecology, we should be able to create an Erosian ecology, in which all living things love each other. Being pacifists, the original colonists must surely have been convinced of that. Considering the dubious nature of Freud’s dualist theory in his later years, even I have started to think that this erotic ecology may more closely warrant the title of orthodoxy in our cosmos.”
“Well, I don’t know where they came from. But I’ve no doubt they must have learnt a lot from the egregious errors of their home planet,” said Mogamigawa, waxing oddly lyrical. “Perhaps that planet surprisingly resembled the earth.”
I felt the same. We looked at each other and laughed with one voice.
“Isn’t it about time we contacted Yohachi?” I said as I finished my coffee and took out the telecall. “He may have done it so much that he’s forgotten what he’s there for.”
“That sounds likely,” said Mogamigawa.
“Yo!” Yohachi’s voice as he answered the telecall was bounding with cheerful energy. In the background, I could hear the spirited sound of five-beat music.
“So you got in all right? It sounds very lively there. Are you in a dance hall?”
“I’m at an open-air arena. They’re doing ballet on the stage. I’ve never seen anything so fantastic in all my life!”
“Idle bugger!” Mogamigawa snatched the telecall from my hand and bellowed into it. “Have you asked them how to contracept pregnancy by widow’s incubus and abort the fetus, man?”
“Yeah. I’ve asked.”
“Well, come straight back here then!”
“Can’t I watch this a bit longer? You see it’s… well… it’s just fantastic!”
“No you may not!” bawled Mogamigawa. “Or do you mean to keep two eminent scientists such as ourselves waiting idly by in a place like this? That would be the biggest mistake in the history of science, I can tell you. Though I can’t expect you to take responsibility for that.”
“I can’t quite hear what you’re saying, but anyway, yeah, OK, I’ll be on my way soon,” said Yohachi, and with that he terminated the telecall from his end.
Night fell once more. When it was starting to grow light again, Yohachi at last returned. After his carnal excesses, I was fully expecting him to look completely spent – but on the contrary, he appeared utterly exhilarated. He strolled up from the river with a relaxed gait, water dripping from his naked body. Even the look in his eyes had changed.
“Seems you were well-received!” I said with a grin.
Yohachi shook his head with an expression of sincerity, though still with a look of elation on his face. “I wasn’t particularly well-received, but I wasn’t driven away either. We always go on about ‘entering’ their country, but there was no border of any sort, and it was at night. So I just walked in amongst them, and was soon surrounded by a lot of naked men and women who were trying to ask me something. The moment I tried to speak, they seemed to know immediately what I wanted to say, which saved me a lot of trouble, I can tell you. They even started to take words out of my head and put them together until they could speak earth language themselves. They seemed to know straight away what I was there for, and soon they were all laughing their heads off.”
“And did they tell you what we asked?”
Yohachi nodded at Mogamigawa. “I don’t know if you’d call it ‘telling’, but one of the men just said this: ‘Ah. Well, all you have to do is have sex with the women here, then go back and have sex with the one who’s pregnant’.”
Mogamigawa turned to me with a look of bewilderment. “What on earth can he mean?”
“And what happened then?” I asked, leaning towards Yohachi with mounting curiosity. “Did you have sex with the women?”
“Oh yeah,” Yohachi replied with the same earnest expression on his face. “The men quickly lost interest and buggered off. But the women hung around for a bit. They were all so beautiful. And naked. I just couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I already had a hard-on and was chomping at the bit. Then one of the women led me to a nearby park and let me do it with her on the grass. After that I did it with, oh, God knows how many. Twelve or thirteen? But I still didn’t forget why I was there in the first place, all right? ‘I mustn’t forget what they tell me,’ I thought, ‘I must remember it correctly.’ So I repeated the same questions to four or five women. One of them said this. The women in this country are often raped by those penisparrows in their sleep. I mean, the birds stick their heads into the women’s… you know. That’s the penisparrow’s kind of, er…”
“Habit?”
“Habit, yeah. This woman said the penisparrow carries a sort of infection caused by, er, something-ella, and so more than half of the women in Newdopia have been, you know, they’ve been…”
“Infected?”
“Yes, infected by that, er, whatever it was. So then it also infects the men. And the, er, something-ella eats the, er, something of the widow’s incubus, the… er…”
“Spores?”
“Yeah, it eats the spores of the widow’s incubus, and that stops them from getting pregnant. And even if they do get pregnant, they just have to have sex with a man who’s got the infection, and then they can get rid of it easily.”