"So anyway, I've been tripping around at lightspeed, and it's been
about six centuries local time since I set foot here, but when I
went back to the merchant square this chador greets me by name.
How long do they live, anyhow?"
"Well, that's an interesting question. We've done the DNA Analysis..."
"They don't use DNA. They've got some kind of lattice molecule."
"The title of the Biosurvey report for checking whatever mechanism
they use to pass on genetic information, is DNA Analysis."
"Okay... but it's misleading terminology."
"Anyway, according to the DNA Analysis, an individual chador only
ought to live about a hundred fifty years standard..."
"Only! That's thirty years longer than humans!"
"Captain, let me finish a sentence or two, okay?"
"Sorry, go ahead."
"Anyway, even though the lifespan is about a hundred fifty years,
their history records actions by individuals that apparently lived
for thousands of years."
"Is this that bizarre religion of theirs? With the masks passed
from one generation to the next and whoever wears the mask being
considered to be a particular person?"
"Partly. But it turns out that's not just a religion."
"What do you mean?"
"We thought it was religious at first, but it turns out that the
chador pheremonal system is very complex. In fact, those scent glands
below each eye produce tailored molecules in response to almost all
sense impressions. This is the basis of animal communications
on their homeworld. But it's not very discriminatory. Basically, the
scent glands will tell another chador anything that one chador knows
or actively remembers, whether or not they want the other one to know.
Learning to use those masks to cover the scent glands, so as *not* to
communicate everything indiscriminately, was the pivotal point of
chador civilization, the same way human civilization took off when
we learned to use language. Eventually, they developed their own
language, so that they could communicate as they chose without
removing their masks and communicating everything. The religion, the
whole 'I am the masks I wear' thing, came after."
"What's that got to do with the chador I saw this afternoon greeting
me by name?"
"He was wearing the same mask that the chador who saw you six
centuries ago was wearing."
"Huh?"
"The masks. Sense impressions get written into them as chemical
traces from the pheremones. The chador who's wearing the mask
today can "read" the pheremones, and therefore the sense impressions,
of the chador who was wearing it six centuries ago."
"Six century old pheremones? That encode my *face*?"
"It must be a very good mask. The cheap ones they sell tourists are
just toys. The primitive ones that are handmade out of natural
materials by backwoods savages on their homeworld are good for a
year or so. The modern ones that most chadors in the street are
wearing for the last thousand years or so, will preserve about
forty years, so that a chador can have the benefit of knowing some of
the stuff his or her parents experienced. But the really good ones -
the ones that a few very wealthy chadors can afford to have made -
can be filled with almost eight centuries of sensory memories. I'd
wager that your merchant friend had a very wealthy ancestor."
"No bet. The lens for the center eye looked like it was carved out
of a great big ruby. So, is there effectively any difference between
chadors? Do they have individual identities beyond those masks?"
"There is. But there's not. The chador you saw today was not the
same person the chador you saw those many years ago was. But he has
that earlier chador's memories - at least the ones experienced while
wearing that mask - available to him just about as easily as his
own. Under their law, he accepted all the contracts and agreements
and property of the mask when he accepted the mask, so legally he is
the same person. But he didn't get that mask when he was born. He
had a childhood and an adolescence where he wore his own mask, and
developed his own personality, and he is a different person. If the
mask was his father's, he probably wore some other family mask for a
long time as an adult before he inherited it. But, it may have been
his grandfather's or great-grandfather's, presented to him when he
reached maturity shortly after the patriarch passed on. It's just
like you - you have your ship's log, and you can read what the
previous owner of the ship got up to on any particular day. Under
some legal codes, you'd even be liable for crimes your ship's been
involved with before you got it - but you're not that person. "
"So he's worn other masks during his life."
"At least one. Probably still wears them from time to time, when he
doesn't want to be the merchant."
"So he puts on a different mask, and he's somebody else."
"According to the rules of their society, yes."
"A mask that contains all your childhood memories. Wow, I'd like
to have one of those."
"You must have had a happier childhood than I, captain."
"Um, sorry."
"Not your fault. Anyway, most chador languages have a lot of
different pronouns that we humans translate as 'I' or 'we'. The
nuances of meaning, in a culture where everybody has several
distinct identies, are lost on us."
"Wow. I'll bet crime and punishment is way different."
"Yeah. Usually, whoever committed a really heinous crime just
puts the mask away and never puts it on again. Effectively, the
criminal ceases to exist. "
"But eventually the police find the mask, right? I mean, if the
chador's memories are all in there, then that's it."
"The police find the masks sometimes, but they can't touch 'em.
For one chador to put on another's mask is a crime -- identity fraud
and rape rolled into one. While there are sensationalized cases
about chadors working for secret police in some of the more
backward and oppressive nation-states doing that, it's considered
an atrocity. Their equivalent of the UN considers it a crime
against humanity. Chadority. Whatever."
"And eventually their children inherit these masks?"
"And sometimes they publicly recite the crimes recorded therein, to
exonerate the wrongly convicted. And sometimes they take one whiff of
the mask and refuse it. Usually, they find it uplifting, but once in
a while - There was a sensational case a couple months ago, where a
young female chador inherited one of her father's masks - but the
first time she put it on, she shrieked, ripped it off again, and
threw it into a fire. Turns out there were two masks that looked
the same, but one of them was used for legal business and one was
used for.... well, we don't know. She won't talk about it."
"But you have your suspicions."
"I do indeed."
"Hmmm."
"They are a race very different from ourselves, captain."
"Not so different as you might imagine, Lieutenant. We all wear
our masks from time to time. Thanks for the information on chadors,
I don't think I really understood them before."
"You imagine you really understand them now?"
"A little, anyway."
The Captain walked out of the BioSurvey office and down the
street, musing.... he had fifty names on twenty worlds, and the
tangled histories stretched nine centuries of relativity-compressed
time behind him. At last, he thought, a client who can really
understand me.
"Good evening, Captain Abrams." The voice came from the shadows.
"Good evening, Muk'kelaama. I shall only be Captain Abrams again
for tonight, for you and Captain Abrams have business to discuss."
"Muk'kelaama is also, most of the time, not." The translator had
bobbled, but the idea was clear enough.
"Are you still interested in the items you wished to purchase last
time we saw each other, Muk'kelaama?"
"The persistence of ancestors' memories makes our culture slow to
change," said Muk'kelaama, as though talking to itself.
"I understand."
Muk'kelaama held out a small box.
Captain Abrams looked inside, and found it filled with rubies.
Gorgeous, flawless, perfect rubies the size of a fist.
Later that night a stealth shuttle dropped silently from the sky
in an out-of-the-way spot far from the city. Its stark lines and
composites defied radar, and its matte black finish defied lidar.
It flew like a brick with wings, but what the hell.
Dropping vertically onto its g-thrusters in a grassy meadow, it
popped the hatch as soon as it hit the ground - the hell with safety
regs and clearance - and immediately six chadors of military bearing
materialized around the edge of the clearing and converged on the
spot.
Quickly, they began unloading crate after crate of munitions.
Captain Abrams and Muk'kelama looked on, silently eyeing each
other, each wary for some last minute trick or trap.
Finally, the cargo lay upon the ground, and Captain Abrams raised
one hand to Muk'kelaama, closed in the fist of a revolutionary
salute the other might recognize from six centuries ago. "Good
luck," he said.
The door popped closed and the ship silently fell into the sky,
its perfectly tuned g-thrusters making no sound at all.
Muk'kelaama turned and found its general at its elbow, breathing
hard behind its mask. "With this much, sir, we can wipe out
entire cities! The revolution lives!"
Ace Novelty and Toy Company, each crate read. Inventory item
20063: Stink bombs.
