Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,103

creature had the body of a nursery spider and the head of a tapir-pig.

“A cross between a nursery spider and a tapir-pig,” I said. “So the parent must have turned its own hybrid newborn into a relic pod.”

“Hmm.” Mogamigawa snorted in a way that suggested disagreement, then signalled to me to open the other two cocoons.

The other two relic pods contained not hybrids but juvenile nursery spiders with eyes already open and hair on their bodies. They grew excited and let out unearthly cries when they felt the outside air. I exchanged astonished looks with Mogamigawa.

“The wife waker!”

“So that’s where the noise comes from!”

“Look here, Sona,” said Mogamigawa, using each hand to prevent a juvenile nursery spider from escaping as he scrutinized their bellies. “For what possible reason would a nursery spider cocoon its own young in silk and turn them into relic pods? When they’re not even hybrids?”

“Because that’s how they rear their young? They can’t distinguish between their own young and, say, hybrids produced by other creatures. If they see a baby, their first instinct is to wrap it in…” I stopped in mid-sentence and stared wide-eyed at Mogamigawa. “In other words…”

He nodded. “I think these juveniles may have no reproductive capacity. Could you examine them for me? Use my electron microscope if you like.”

“All right.”

I didn’t need the electron microscope, for it was clear to see that the juveniles had no sex organs. What’s more, the sex organs of the other relic pod – the cross between a nursery spider and a tapir-pig – were severely reduced and looked more like vestigial organs.

“First generation hybrids with no reproductive capacity all mutate into nursery spiders,” I said with a sigh. “How did you know?”

“I simply imagined that the spiders might raise the young of other species because they cannot reproduce by themselves,” Mogamigawa said rather proudly. “Also, I felt that the niche of the spiders in the jungle was abnormally high. Each time I looked up, I would invariably see a nursery spider in the trees above me. I thought that it must therefore be the dominant species. And when we saw that the relic pods were in fact produced by nursery spiders, I became convinced of it when I considered the sheer quantity of relic pods hanging from the branches of the trees.”

“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