Estou tentando identificar uma pequena história de ficção científica
"O Hipnoglifo" , um conto do poeta John Ciardi , originalmente publicado como" John Anthony ". (É também uma das histórias descritas na antiga pergunta Livro sobre antologia com história sobre bombardeiros robóticos .) Foi publicado pela primeira vez em a revista de fantasia e ficção científica , julho de 1953 , disponível no Arquivo da Internet . Qualquer essas capas parecem familiares?
sobre uma expedição a um planeta distante, habitado por alienígenas humanos, um pouco primitivos, que viviam como matriarcados.
"[. . .] It isn't a highly developed society in our terms: a rigid tribal matriarchy with a few basic tools that only the women are permitted to operate, and at that only a special clan of the women. The other women lounge about on delicately arranged hill terraces and just lie motionless soaking up sun energy or working up a little voodoo mostly based on hypnotism and tactile gratification."
A principal característica deste planeta era uma atmosfera densa (ou algo parecido) que bloqueava a maior parte da luz de alcançar a superfície. Então os alienígenas e os animais desenvolveram seu senso de toque.
"[. . .] DK-8 has a dense and tropical atmosphere. It's rather high in CO2 and perpetually misty. The sun's rays have a hard time getting through the atmosphere. Also the planet is all-tropical. Consequently the animal life from which the DKs evolved never had to develop a fur covering. Hair is unknown on the planet. Instead, the DK life-forms developed a skin structure extremely sensitive to whatever diffused sun rays they can get. The skin is soft and pallid as a slug's. If a DK were exposed to the direct rays of Sol for a few minutes, he'd die of sunburn."
Jaris held up the cheroot before him and blew a puff of smoke over its lit end. "Nature," he said, "always has a trick of trying to deal two cards at once. The prehensile hand developed for one reason and became useful for something else. Just so, the DK's tremendously sensitive skin developed originally to absorb the most possible sun, but became in time the basis for a tremendously developed tactile sense.
"That goes for the lower animals too. Their tropisms are fantastically dominant over their other responses. Once an animal starts stroking one of those gadgets as you're doing, it simply cannot stop."
Maddick smiled and looked at his hand without answering. The polished sides of the thing gleamed dully, and his thumb ran down into and over the little hollow. Down into and over. Down into and over.
"You might almost say," Jaris continued, "that the DKs have developed a tactile science to a degree unknown to us. The energy we have put into a tool culture, they hae put into a tactile culture. [. . .]"
Os alienígenas caçam deixando armadilhas cuidadosamente projetadas para hipnotizar ou colocar em estado de transe aqueles que a tocam. O convidado está tocando em um desses, que o cientista trouxe de volta de sua viagem.
Outra coisa sobre esta sociedade, derivada da atmosfera densa, foi que a obesidade era uma característica muito procurada porque "mais superfície melhora a capacidade de absorção de luz" ou algo parecido."The women of the proper clan work these things, and the men set them out in the forests. As you might suppose, the men are a rather scrawny lot, and would starve soon enough if they had to depend on their own muscular prowess as hunters. These gadgets take care of all that, however. The animals, with their extremely high tactile suggestibility, come through the forest and find one of these things in their way. They begin to stroke it and feel it, and they just can't stop. The men don't even kill them; all slaughtering is handled by the ruling clan of women. The men simply wait till the animal has worked itself into the right state, and then lead it back to the slaughtering compound—still under hypnosis of course."
"Of course," Maddick agreed, his fingers working softly and rhythmically.
His voice grew softer and slightly distant. "As you might expect, they grow incredibly obese. At first it seemed repulsive to see them lying so. But on DK-8 obesity is really a survival characteristic. It makes for more surface to absorb sun energy. And the women have such perfect control of their skin surfaces that their bodies remain strangely well-proportioned."
. . no final, descobrimos que o cientista trouxe de volta uma dessas mulheres obesas, e vai alimentá-la com sua convidada completamente em transe.
Jaris straightened, still smiling sadly, picked up a curiously wrought little bell from the desk and tinkled it once.
Across the room, a door swung open on a darkened alcove in which something huge and pale showed dimly.
"He is ready, darling," Jaris said.
Eu li em uma compilação do final dos anos 80.
Talvez a antologia Histórias de Ficção Científica editada por Tom Boardman, Jr. ?