Finally she entered the radio hut again.Įveryone stopped what they were doing and listened.

We all struggled with the stronger gravity. She took a deep breath and stretched her stiff back.

A wide straw hat held her red hair in place and protected her skin from the Sun. Paula went back to her work at a rough-hewn table nearby, trying to make sense of weather data. He was a Russian Slav, and a proper Slav never cuts his beard. I pulled a jackknife from my belt, stroking my own short beard. And then he was jerked back to the present when the wind tangled his long blond beard around the pump handle. He had just begun living with her, and he was squinting up the path through the fields where she had gone. Uri and I were fixing an irrigation pump, but I knew his mind was on one of the women, Ninia. The breeze smelled bittersweet, perhaps from something in bloom. Nine-legged crabs silently hunted the lizards. They did not come back, they were not answering their radio, and the Sun had sunk almost to the top of the hills.Īround us, tiny lizards in the trees had begun their evening hoots and chimes. I’ll try one more time, but if they don’t answer, we’ll start a search.”Īn hour ago, three women had gone to pick fruit. My wife, Paula, shook her head as she left the radio hut in the plaza of our little village. But even then, we knew we could easily be in danger. It took its first victims among us before we understood what was happening, on an evening that seemed quiet. The war had begun long before we arrived because war was their way of life. from the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pax, written on Earth in 2065

We will face hardship, danger, and potential failure, but we can aspire to the use of practical wisdom to seek joy, love, beauty, community, and life. Grateful for this opportunity to create a new society in full harmony with nature, we enter into this covenant, promising one another our mutual trust and support.

Semiosis novel