‘Are any of your predators left?’
‘No, we exterminated them long ago. Nowadays we would let some of them live, of course, but at that time we were more concerned about our survival.’
‘So mammals didn’t stand a chance in your world?’
‘Oh, there are some, but they never had the opportunity to develop much intelligence. We have a wildlife park not far from here, we can take you to see them if you wish.’
I did indeed wish: it would be intriguing to see how they had developed in a saurian world. However, I left that for now in order to explore other issues.
‘Among humans, the virus has resulted in mind-linking abilities of different levels – is that same among saurians?’
‘To a much lesser degree. In humans, the effect of the virus depends on the complexity of the neural networks already developed: put simply, the more intelligent you are, the stronger will be your mind-linking abilities. But our control of our genetics means that all saurians are born with the potential for developing a high level of neural complexity, and we ensure that our small numbers of offspring are carefully brought up to maximise this potential. However, there are still some individual differences.’
‘How many children do you have, exactly?’
‘We decided long ago that we felt most comfortable with a total population of about one hundred million. Our genetically programmed life expectancy is about eight hundred years, although many choose to end their lives sooner, so the average is between six and seven hundred years. We could of course extend our lives indefinitely, barring accidents, but there is no interest in that at all. Each female has only two children in her life, so you will appreciate that our children are very rare and precious to us. Both parents stop work as soon as they have a child in order to devote themselves entirely to its upbringing, and the whole community provides support.’
I thought about the teeming masses of human children, the inadequate parenting and education even in wealthy societies, and the appalling death-rates in the poorest, and winced. The Convenor was too polite to make it obvious, but I received the clear impression that the way humans indiscriminately produced and haphazardly treated their children was one of the aspects of humanity that the saurians found most incomprehensible and disagreeable. I quickly changed the subject.
‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?’
‘That is not a matter of sensitivity for us, but it is not something we take any notice of, so we would have to check our records to confirm our exact ages. However, I am about five hundred and forty, give or take a few years.’
‘Three hundred and seventy, or thereabouts.’ From Primo.
‘About four hundred and twenty.’ Secundo.
‘I’m just a baby,’ Tertia, with a flash of humour, ‘only just over two hundred.’
I decided that another change of topic might be advisable.
‘So how long does your education last?’
‘All of our lives. Learning and doing are two sides of the same coin for us – we cannot separate them. As you will have gathered, I am currently studying human democratic systems in order to evaluate how they might change with the advent of mind-linking. I might have some suggestions for new forms of democracy in due course; whether they will interest your politicians is another matter, of course.’
‘I can guarantee some furious debates!’
Tertia chimed in. ‘We have been observing with some concern the effect on human society of mind-linking. There are many positives, of course, but also some negatives that we didn’t anticipate.’
‘I can’t say that anything has caused me much surprise so far. The main difficulty is the loss of privacy. How do you cope with that? I notice that you are able to restrict the degree of mind-linking, depending on the circumstances.’
‘Yes, full mind-linking is generally reserved for family or close friends. We have different levels of contact for other circumstances, although we cannot close our minds completely – we can always detect the mental presence of other people, and the emotional states they are in, so any kind of deception is impossible. We learn what is appropriate, and how to apply the necessary restrictions, from an early age – it’s a matter of etiquette, more than anything. We have already taught some of these skills to you and Freya, of course. We think it might be helpful to start courses for humans, perhaps training some teachers via head-nets so they can teach others.’
I thought about the social havoc being caused by the inability of most people to conceal any secrets from anyone else, and agreed that that might be a very good idea. A separate thought occurred to me. ‘What’s your written language like? And do you still use a spoken language?’
‘Like this!’ Primo said. He did not move, but I felt him concentrate and realised that he was using a headnet to communicate with the house systems. The lights dimmed and a holographic image appeared over the table, covered with a dense pattern of small marks. ‘That’s our writing.’
I looked at it curiously. Some of the marks appeared to be clustered into groups, a little like pictograms. I relayed this thought to the saurians.
‘There’s an element of that in it. The language has been steadily simplified and codified over many millennia to make it as efficient to use as possible, particularly with computer systems. Many common concepts can be more briefly expressed in symbol combinations which are in effect pictograms, although they are still assembled from basic symbol elements. As for our spoken language, we have a surprise for you!’
We all got up at his suggestion and went outside. It was dark, the night sky vivid with stars in a way only seen in remote places on my Earth, but a dim glow of light illuminated a small group of saurians standing a short distance away. When we were ready, they began to sing.
Nothing about the saurian world seemed so strange to me as this. The combination of the alien voices and their clanging, hissing language, singing to a very different concept of music, sent a shiver down my spine at the sheer weirdness of it. After a while, and helped by the mind-links of the other listeners, I began to appreciate the bizarre, ethereal, beauty of the music. When they stopped I was left feeling simultaneously transported and bereft.