Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [641]
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.
Earth Helliconia
5 3.5
10 7
12 8.45
15 10.56
18 12.67
20 14
22 15.49
25 17.6
30 21
35 24.67
40 28
50 35.21
60 42
70 49
75 52.8
80 56
Life spans are longer in summers of the Great Year
1 The legendary King Denniss was ruling in Year 249 before apastron, and foresaw disaster.
His calendar has been discarded.
2 The full and correct name of this year in the Ancipital calendar, forged in the ancipital cotemporal brain, is:
‘Year After Small Apotheosis of Great year 5,634,000 Since catastrophe’.
That is, since Freyr’s capture of Batalix, some 8,000,280 years previously.
APPENDIX 2
Phagors
The struggle for supremacy on Helliconia is between humans and phagors. Phagors, a two-horned, shaggy-coated species, were the original dominant inhabitants of the planet before Batalix (Star B) was captured by Freyr, the supergiant sun (Star A). They are also known as ancipitals (two-edged), a reference to their sharp horns.
This cowlike species probably evolved from flambreg,