In Other Worlds - Margaret Eleanor Atwood [88]
It is well to mention at this juncture that, in addition to the many species of moths for which it is justly famous among us, the Planet of Moths abounds in thousands of varieties of creatures that resemble our own distant ancestors. It seems that one of our previous attempts at colonization—an attempt so distant that our record of it is lost—must have borne fruit. However, these beings, although numerous and ingenious, are small in size and primitive in their social organization, and attempts to communicate with them were not—or have not been, so far—very successful. The blood-creatures are hostile toward them, and employ against them many poisonous sprays, traps, and so forth, in addition to a sinister manual device termed a “fly swatter.” It is agonizing indeed to watch one of these instruments of torture and death being wielded by the large and frenzied against the small and helpless; but the rules of diplomacy forbid our intervention. (Luckily the blood-creatures cannot understand what we say to one another about them in our own language.)
But despite all the machinery of destruction that is aimed at them, our distant relatives are more than holding their own. They feed on the crops and herd-animals and even on the flesh of the blood-creatures; they live in their homes, devour their clothes, hide and flourish in the very cracks of their floors. When the blood-creatures have succeeded at last in overbreeding themselves, as it seems their intention to do, or in exterminating one another, rest assured that our kind, already superior in both numbers and adaptability, will be poised to achieve the ascendancy that is ours by natural right.
This will not happen tomorrow, but it will happen. As you know, my sisters, we have long been a patient race.
Homelanding
1.
Where should I begin? After all, you have never been there; or if you have, you may not have understood the significance of what you saw, or thought you saw. A window is a window, but there is looking out and looking in. The native you glimpsed, disappearing behind the curtain, or into the bushes, or down the manhole in the main street—my people are shy—may have been only your reflection in the glass. My country specializes in such illusions.
2.
Let me propose myself as typical. I walk upright on two legs, and have in addition two arms, with ten appendages, that is to say, five at the end of each. On the top of my head, but not on the front, there is an odd growth, like a species of seaweed. Some think this is a kind of fur, others consider it modified feathers, evolved perhaps from scales like those of lizards. It serves no functional purpose and is probably decorative.
My eyes are situated in my head, which also possesses two small holes for the entrance and exit of air, the invisible fluid we swim in, and one larger hole, equipped with bony protuberances called teeth, by means of which I destroy and assimilate certain parts of my surroundings and change them into my self. This is called eating. The things I eat include roots, berries, nuts, fruits, leaves, and the muscle tissues of various animals and fish. Sometimes I eat their brains and glands as well. I do not as a rule eat insects, grubs, eyeballs, or the snouts of pigs, though these are eaten with relish in other countries.
3.
Some of my people have a pointed but boneless external appendage, in the front, below the navel or midpoint. Others do not. Debate about whether the possession of such a thing is an advantage or disadvantage is still going on. If this item is lacking, and in its place there is a pocket or inner cavern in which fresh members of our community are grown, it is considered impolite to mention it openly to strangers. I