The trip was entirely enjoyable. He was met everywhere by the same
throngs, the same delight and enthusiasm as before; and between
villages--there seemed to be nothing on the planet that could be called
a city--the rolling green countryside, dotted with bosquets of yellow-
and orange-flowered trees, was most soothing to the eye. Weaver noted
the varieties of strangely shaped and colored plants, and the swarms of
bright flying things, and began an abortive collection. He had to give
it up, for the present: there were too many things to study. He looked
forward to a few books to be compiled later, when he had time, for the
guidance of Earthmen at some future date: _The Flora of Terranova_, _The
Fauna of Terranova_....
All that was for the distant future. Now he was chiefly concerned with
the Terranovans themselves--how they lived, what they thought, what sort
of primitive religion they had, and so on. He asked endless questions of
his guides, and through them, of the villagers they met; and the more he
learned, the more agitated he became.
* * * * *
"But this is monstrous," he wrote indignantly to Mark and Luke. They had
just visited a house inhabited by seventeen males and twelve
females--Weaver was now beginning to be able to distinguish the
sexes--and he had inquired what their relations were. Mark had informed
him calmly that they were husbands and wives; and when Weaver pointed
out that the balance was uneven, had written, "No, not one to one. All
to all. All husband and wife of each other."
Mark held Weaver's indignant message up to his eyes with one
many-jointed claw, while his other three forelimbs gestured uncertainly.
Finally he seized the note-pad and wrote, "Do not understand monstrous,
please forgive. They do for more change, so not to make each other have
tiredness."
Weaver frowned and wrote, "Does not your religion forbid this?"
Mark consulted in his own piping tongue with the other two. Finally he
surrendered the note-pad to Luke, who wrote: "Do not understand religion
to forbid, please excuse. With us many religion, some say spirits in
flower, some say in wind and sun, some say in ground. Not say to do
this, not to do that. With us all people the same, no one tell other
what to do."
Weaver added another mental note to his already lengthy list: "Build
churches."
He wrote: "Tell them this must stop."
Mark turned without hesitation to the silently attentive group, and
translated. He turned back to Weaver and wrote, "They ask please, what
to do now instead of the way they do?"
Weaver told him, "They must mate only one to one, and for life."
To his surprise, the translation of this was greeted by unmistakable
twitterings of gladness. The members of the adulterous group turned to
each other with excited gestures, and Weaver saw a pairing-off process
begin, with much discussion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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