The Work of Different Gods

"The Work of Different Gods" is included as prelude No. 20 in *The Juno Contingency (novel)*, and is a standalone story set in the Erde universe.

## Teaser

On a low-spinning planet that rotates only once a year, two officials race to be the first to recover an artifact before it is lost to the planet's six-month night.

## Plot

### 1. Early Harvest

On a low-spinning planet that fully rotates only once a year, extreme weather means the pre-industrial civilization of the southern hemisphere has never been able to reach the equator or to explore north of it. Estry is an astronomer working in the capital at the southern pole, making celestial observations in the perpetual twilight.

He is approached by Commander Shein, who wishes to recruit him for a mission to collect a "special meteorite" that doesn't burn up in the skies. No one knows the significance of the meteorites, but collecting them is a hotly contested race between governments. The latest meteor was observed landing in the east by farmers planting crops; but the farmers had to migrate down the canals to escape the planet's boiling summer season before collecting it. Shein is assembling a ten-man party to resume the search once that region enters the planet's cooler autumn weather in a few months.

Estry is resistant to Shein's entreaty, desiring only to be left alone to continue his astronomy. Shein believes that finding the meteorite will deliver more practical benefit to astronomy than if he spent his whole life in his observatory counting stars. Estry still refuses, so Shein presents him orders from Estry's superiors assigning him to the mission anyway. Estry angrily accedes.

Shein's group travels north up the canals with the first farmers who are to harvest crops after the planet's summer growing season. On the way they encounter another agent from a rival government, and both parties deduce that they are on the same mission to retrieve the meteorite for their respective leaders.

After arriving, the rival parties search fruitlessly for two months as the sun sinks lower in the sky. As sunset approaches, the remaining farmers migrate back south and the last ferry prepares to leave. The groups are about to abandon their searches, at least confident that neither party has found the meteorite, when they observe a second special meteorite land nearby. If they miss the last ferry they will be stranded through the planet's six-month winter and freeze to death, so they bribe the ferryman to wait an extra cycle while they lead their parties towards the second crash site.

### 2. Into Twilight

The groups race away from the canal and the men become uneasy as the sun sets and twilight begins, as superstition holds that any who see the sun "die" are doomed to soon follow. They quickly locate the meteorite's burning wreckage and the groups fight over its possession. In the midst of the violence, they are set upon by a bear-sized, praying mantis–like nocturnal predator called a cthilin, which lurks along the night terminator to eat any prey that has failed to keep up with the sun. The cthilin picks off half the men in their combined twenty-man group before they narrowly fight it off.

The meteorite is too hot to transport, so they collectively decide to abandon it and return to the canal. Shein leads the survivors back by way of a redoubt in case the cthilin attacks again. They rush for the redoubt, with every hour bringing deepening twilight. On the way they are attacked by another cthilin, which picks off all but Shein, Estry, and another man. They reach the redoubt but find the fort's walls in disrepair, so they barricade themselves in the single-room cabin at its center. They hurriedly board up the windows, reinforce the doors, and patch the roof.

A cthilin stalks around outside, probes for weaknesses, then settles in for a siege. This lasts for a week as night descends and the temperature continues dropping. When their supplies are nearly exhausted, Shein proposes that their only chance is to slay the cthilin. Using their well-defended position and various misdirections, they are narrowly able to trap and slay the beast, though the third man is killed. They butcher the cthilin for meat and blubber just as a massive blizzard sets in, forcing them to stay indoors. Icy blasts cut through the walls and make the conditions miserable. Estry and Shein scramble to patch the insulation and keep the cabin lit and heated using only its small stove and the cthilin's fat for fuel.

After a month the blizzard gradually subsides. Estry and Shein unbarricade the door and dig their way out through a mountain of snow. They find a completely cloudless sky full of millions of stars, aweing Estry who has only ever seen a few hundred stars from the poles. The planet's several large moons light the world in a soft blue that is bright enough to read by; meanwhile the air is intensely cold but almost perfectly still, providing limitless visibility.

### 3. The Nightlanders

Shein doesn't know how long the gap in the weather will last, so they outfit their remaining supplies on a sledge to push south. They make a final attempt to find the meteorite, but the deep snow cover makes it impossible. They at least know its location so they can find it again in spring if they can survive the trip back south.

After only a few cycles of travel, they see a party of two dozen people in the distance moving quickly on skates and sleds. They attempt to hide, but the travelers quickly find their tracks and surround them. They are all albinos with wild blue eyes and wearing only light furs to keep warm. Their languages are unrecognizable to each other, but the travelers hold them at bay with spears while they search their belongings. Finding their horde of cthilin meat, the travelers have a long discussion. Ultimately they assign guards to Estry and Shein but bring them along with the tribe, traveling on skis, skates, and sledges.

Estry and Shein are both shocked at the existence of people on the frozen side of the world. Shein believes that the travelers—whom he calls nightlanders—were likely hunting them down, but upon finding their store of cthilin meat they now think they might be useful as hunters, so they are bringing them along with the tribe.

The nightlanders introduce the prisoners to their hunter–gatherer lifestyle. They augur the ice at thin points for fishing, which is their main source of nutrients; they display an uncanny ability to read the shapes of the snowdrifts and dig successfully for animal carcasses and plants (for fuel) from the dayland; and they sow the spores of an ice fungus that will grow glacially under the multiple moons' light for harvest months later. The nightlanders are about the same size as daylanders, though the males and females are indistinguishable under their heavy furs.

They take about a month to learn the fundamentals of the nightlanders' language. When Estry asks to learn about their world, the tribe's elder describes their mythology of a "fire devil" (the sun) that burns everything lurking on the far side of the world—the side they call Hell. The nightlanders observe the sun only indirectly through its reflections on the moons, which they believe purify its light. While none of these nightlanders has ever seen the sun, Estry believes these legends of a fire devil have been passed down by the first daylanders who migrated to this hemisphere. The tribe also refers to Estry and Shein as "demons" due to their darker skin and the fact that they come from Hell.

Estry learns about the nature of the nightland, which is ringed by a great expanse of blizzards. He realizes that the weather is only turbulent at the terminators where the sun's heat disturbs the atmosphere, but in the middle of the ice hemisphere there are no natural forces to heat or disturb the air. The lack of windchill or adverse weather makes it possible for this serene life under the moons' illumination. The nightlanders' knowledge of the stars and moons is also far more advanced than his. Though they lack the paper and writing to form mathematical models, the stars are their primary means of navigation, and they must accurately track the moons for the light that powers the ice fungus crop.

### 4. Kellnoq

The tribe continues hunting and harvesting across the ice hemisphere. Estry observes some of the courtship rituals in the tribe, which involve males giving females excess food from their hunts. Estry asks the elder to tell him more about their courtship rituals, but the elder chides him that a demon should not think of courting the "angels" of his tribe. The elder further stipulates that all the females are terrified of his strange eyes and dark skin. Estry tries to pretend that he was only curious.

The hunting remains good, and combined with the cthilin meat the tribe has a bumper season. They settle in to be carried westward by the planet's rotation, and they construct igloos to stake out and protect their ice fungus fields while they mature. One woman who is close to giving birth is also housed in an igloo to begin her confinement.

One cycle another tribe appears nearby. Estry senses that the tribes usually avoid each other, but it is impossible for them to abandon their igloos and flee. The other tribe's elder makes contact with them and invokes the rite of "kellnoq." The elder explains to Estry that, when a tribe is on the verge of starvation, they find a neighboring tribe and invoke this rite: a man from each tribe will fight to the death, and the loser will be consumed by the starving tribe. Estry is shocked by this anthropophagy, but he is even more stunned that the starving tribe would eat one of their own should they lose the fight. The elder explains that it is easier to give a starving man a chance to fight, rather than for a tribe to have to sacrifice one of their kin. He warns that if they don't accede to kellnoq, the starving tribe may be forced to attack, leading to more bloodshed.

The two tribes meet and prepare a large cooking fire. The strongest man from the other tribe emerges as a challenger, but he is already sickly and ill. It is a quick contest, with the well fed man from the elder's tribe prevailing. The starving tribe immediately sets upon their dead man to cook and consume his flesh, and they thank the elder for participating in kellnoq.

Disturbed by the scene, Shein orders Estry to help him plot a course back to the redoubt using the stars. He is developing a plan to settle back inside with some supplies, wait out the month of blizzards at the west end of the hemisphere, then remerge on the dayside. Not only will they return home having recovered the special meteorite, but they will have the knowledge of how to pierce the twilight hemisphere. Estry has reservations about disclosing the existence of the nightlanders, but he helps Shein.

*Read the conclusion "5. The Price of the Stars" on Amazon.*