The Turing Test

Snapshots of Apirania

This is a typical view of Apirania. Prairie country, the occasional bowava tree and here and there a hill standing out from the plain. But do you see that hill over there in the distance? That is actually a town on the top of it, a walled Apiranian town. It looks just like rocks doesn’t it? Like part of the landscape.

Here’s a closer view of the town. It’s called Formara. Lydia and I got to know it quite well. The layout of it is pretty much the same as all the towns there: high walls, a single gate. You can see a couple of sentries up there on top of the walls. We’re too close to the walls to see much of what’s inside, but Formara is built along a single road that rises in a spiral from the gate to the Motherhouse at the top. You can just see there the top of the Motherhouse.

I know: it’s all the same reddish colour, the walls, the hills, the houses.

This is a bowava tree. Now these have got to be seen to be believed. This picture gives no idea of the scale… Wait a minute, yes, this is better. That tiny speck down there, believe it or not, is me. These trees are immense and they pollinate in an extraordinary way. You see these orange things along the branches? Can you see they are above the branches and not below them? Well, they’re balloons. Natural balloons. They rise up into the stratosphere and then burst, dispersing pollen over… well, I don’t know… most of the planet I should think.

This is a mootha. Moothai in the plural. Quite a beast, eh? But not indigenous, actually. It’s a modified version of a terrestrial animal from prehistoric times: a brontotherium. The colonisation of Apirania coincided with what you might call the rococo period of genetic engineering back here. Reconstructed brontotheria were introduced as the main beast of burden. Enormous, lumbering beasts. Those tusks look nasty, but moothai are as docile as can be.

No, Apirania has no large indigenous animals.

And these are some Apiranian children. Sweet aren’t they? They all just loved having their picture taken. The boy here is Karl, the only boy in the family, and this is his sister Kara. This is Suka, this is Bavvy, this is Yar. Yes I know: they could be your next door neighbours, couldn’t they? Apiranians look pretty much like us. The chromosomal differences between us and them are quite profound but their effects aren’t really visible in the children at all.

But here are a couple of adults, look. Bunnoo and Thrompin. Men or women, do you think? Hard to tell, isn’t it? Well actually they’re both women, but they are sexually undeveloped and always will be. They are what the Apiranians call huthi, which really means Ordinary People. Huthi are about ninety percent of the population. They run the economy, they raise the children, they defend the towns. Males (merthi – Wanderers – as they call them) are about five percent. So are the fertile women who they call manahi – or Mothers.

Bunnoo and Thrompin had a room they rented out. That’s how we came to meet them. They were foster-parents to the children you’ve just seen. A sweet pair. They became real friends of ours.

Here’s the two of them close up. Salt of the earth really – or salt of Apirania anyway. You’d really have a job to say if they were men or women if you met them here, wouldn’t you? They are not just foster-parents to these kids, by the way, they are blood relatives too, aunts or cousins at least. Everyone in a town is related to everyone else because they are all descended from the same Mothers.

Ah, here are the twins again, Karl and Kara. Lydia took this one. Beautiful aren’t they? And so alike. Ever so close to each other too. When the family were all together those two would just sort of quietly gravitate towards one another, not necessarily talking to each other or ignoring anyone else, but just preferring to be alongside each other.

Yes, twins are very common in Apirania. Much more common than singletons in fact. Even triplets and quadruplets are more common than singletons. But it is unusual apparently to have a pair of twins like Karl and Kara, where one is a boy and one is a girl. Yes, she is a real girl. She only discovered that while we were there in fact. Her periods started. It was all rather unexpected and painful. At least the boys know what is in store all along.

Oh these are just some of the balloons from the bowava trees I told you about. After the rainy season is over you see them all the time: hundreds of them in the sky at once, sometimes, going up and up until they’re just tiny dots. They often call them merthi, funnily enough: Wanderers, that is, the same word that they use for men.

Lydia, would you like to open another bottle of wine? I expect our guests are thirsty.

Now this is Apiranian technology at its most advanced! It’s a wind-powered generator and every one of those wheels is cast out of iron. The Apiranians seem to have settled down comfortably at the early electric stage and never felt the need to move on.

This was rather a wonderful machine actually. I mean, look at those huge gears!

(What’s that? Yes, thank you Lydia. I hadn’t forgotten.)

As Lydia says, this turned out to be rather a distressing visit. We went up there with Bunnoo and Thrompin and their children. One of the kids had a pet with him, a little mouse, or the Apiranian equivalent of a mouse anyway. The little thing jumped off his shoulder onto one of these big gear wheels. Thrompin only just managed to get hold of the kid in time before she went after it. And there was the little mouse sitting on a cog on that big wheel, not seeing its fate coming towards it until… Well, it was horrible. But it was lucky it wasn’t one of the kids.

Now look at this. This is Karl and Kara with their mother, Diyoo. Yes their real mother. She comes down from the Motherhouse to visit them. Isn’t she beautiful? That wonderful bone structure. And look at that incredible dress.

Yes, she does look sad, doesn’t she? All the Mothers looked a bit sad like that, I thought. A rather restricted life, I suppose. Very little opportunity to make your own choices. In fact soon after this picture was taken the sentries spotted a band of Wanderers out on the plain and she had to go hurrying back at once to get ready at the Motherhouse.

Here she is saying goodbye, look. She’s left Karl and Kara a little gift of cakes. They adored her. Of course she has other children with other foster-parents, but in Bunnoo and Thrompin’s house only these two were hers.

Right, well now we are up on the wall. There are sentries up here all the time – there’s one of them here you see – always up on the wall, always looking out over the plain. They are not concerned at all about attacks from other towns but there’s a constant nagging fear that the Wanderers might get out of hand and take over if they were given a chance.

I suppose if they came to a society like ours that would be how they saw it: a world where the Wanderers have taken over!

Yes, I know, an interesting thought!

Anyway, as soon as Wanderers are spotted, they blow horns and pretty soon there are horns blowing all across the town. Ah look, here’s Thrompin blowing one. You can see it’s all a big laugh as far as she’s concerned.

There is a real fear of the Wanderers but there’s a sort of holiday feeling too when they appear. Once the gate is securely shut and everyone is safe inside, the entire city goes up onto the walls to watch the fun. And it turns into a big party.

Here they all are look: Bunnoo and Thrompin and all the kids. You can see that Bunnoo has even thrown together a quick picnic for them to eat while they watch. And there are other families behind them look. Look, that kid there has got hold of a horn and is blowing away.

Aha. Now here is the band of Wanderers arriving below the wall. Quite a small band, only about twenty of them, and all of them very young, hardly more than boys. As you see they have got a couple of moothai loaded up with all their possessions. Look at that one riding on the mootha’s back. Only about thirteen wouldn’t you say? It’s a hard life for them out there, walking from town to town, living on whatever they can find or beg.

And look at the reception they’re getting! Here’s Bunnoo and Thrompin and the kids. And they are all merrily booing and shouting out abuse, along with all the other huthi and children all along the wall.

“What sort of town put you little weaklings out to spread its seed?” they shout out.

“Call yourself men? You’re just huthi kids who haven’t had enough to eat!”

“No way are you going to get near our Mothers!”

Some folk even throw things down: bits of crust, little stones… Even young Karl is doing it, look. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that quite soon he’ll be out there himself.

And look how the young Wanderers stand there taking all of this! Poor mites. Twenty of them, facing the population of an entire town. Hungry too. When people threw down food scraps, some of the young Wanderers went to pick them up and eat them, at least until the older ones reprimanded them.

Ah, now this chap here was a sort of spokesman of theirs. You see he’s asking for silence so he can speak. It must have taken him all of ten minutes to get any quiet at all.

And here he is making his speech.

“Esteemed townsfolk of Formara. Open your gate to us please and let us visit your Motherhouse.”

Something like that, and as soon as he’s spoken everyone is catcalling and whooping and shouting out ‘In your dreams!’ and so on.

But eventually the leaders of the town go out of the gate. Here they are look: big fat huthi grandees in robes with their escort of huthi soldiers. They spend half an hour or so with the Wanderers, then confer among themselves. Finally the leader of the grandees turns and addresses us all on the walls. Look at her fine purple robes.

“Fellow citizens of Formara. We have met these boys and decided that we will open the gate for them tomorrow.”

Howls of incredulity and disgust all round.

“What?! These pathetic specimens! I’ve seen more life in a limp lettuce leaf!”

That sort of thing. Look at the faces though. It’s all part of the game. The Wanderers are never good enough. The grandees are always nuts to let them in.

Anyway, the grandee in purple holds up her hands again for silence.

“We will open the gate, but it will be for a gauntlet run only! We are giving these boys an opportunity, but they must prove themselves worthy of our Mothers.”

A gauntlet run! Wow! The crowd erupts! You’ve never seen anything like it. They were absolutely cock-a-hoop. And pretty soon the wall starts to empty as all the excited huthi and their foster-children run back down into the town to start getting ready.

Ah, here are some more of those bowava balloons. I don’t quite know how they got in here.

The toilet? Yes of course. It’s upstairs and straight across the landing.

And now this is the build-up for the run.

You see all the huthi are jostling for space on the street outside their houses, trying to get a good position for themselves and their foster-children. These are Bunnoo and Thrompin’s neighbours and their kids. We loved that little girl, didn’t we Lydia? Five years old. Look at that grin! That’s a basket of tomatoes she’s got there. Her big sister has got a bucket of mud.

Here is Bunnoo, look, with her big stick, limbering up gleefully for the sport.

“Boy are there going to be some sore arses when I’m done!” she chortles.

(Yet you couldn’t imagine a milder, gentler person than Bunnoo.)

Ah, and here are Karl and Kara, look, together as usual, with a big sack of vegetable scraps. Thrompin there has some rotten eggs. Everyone seems to save up rubbish especially for these occasions.

Here’s a view of the whole street. It’s all a big party for them, a gauntlet run, it’s like a carnival.

Here is Karl again. Oh no sorry, it’s Kara. The two of them are so alike!

Down below meanwhile, the soldiers have done a bit of scouting around to make sure there aren’t more Wanderers hiding out there somewhere, ready to make a surprise attack when the gate is opened. (That’s always the worry. The Wanderers will take over a town, murder the huthi and set up with the Mothers. After all, no other human society has such a thing as huthi! Remote as Apirania is, they are dimly aware of that.)

Once the soldiers were satisfied there wasn’t going to be an attack, the town grandees gave the order, and they let those twenty Wanderers in. We were halfway up the hill, but we knew at once when it had happened because of the shouting that went up.

Pretty soon afterwards the first of them appeared. Here he is look. Poor kid, he was already covered in eggs and tomatoes and so on, not to mention bleeding from his head. And here is kind gentle Bunnoo if you please, running out to hit him with a stick and grinning all over her jolly face. Then more eggs and tomatoes and a whole bucketful of mud. And everyone shouting out that he’s not a proper man at all and you’d need a magnifying glass to see his… Well, you get the picture.

(He gave up pretty soon after, actually. He stopped and walked back down to the gate. No-one harasses them when they’ve given up. Someone by the gate sorts them out with food and a jug of beer and a pat on the head before shoving them back outside.)

But here’s the next one. A bit more determined looking, isn’t he? And the one right behind him was pretty determined too. He was the oldest of them and their spokesman the previous night.

Ah, this is another one who gave up.

“Well done, lad,” goes Thrompin, who five minutes earlier was telling him he was the most pathetic excuse for a man she had ever seen.

“Better luck next time,” says Bunnoo.

Poor kid, he was crying.

Only about ten of them got as far as where we were. The rest had already given up. As soon as the Wanderers had passed them all the kids would run up the narrow little steps between the houses that are a shortcut between the loops of the road so as to get ahead of them again. They wanted to chuck a few more eggs at any Wanderers who got to the top, and to see them go in at the door of the Motherhouse, if any of them got that far.

Only two actually did. The spokesman and one other. Here you are, look. (I ran up after the kids, you see, and managed to catch the moment when the door opened for the second one. Lydia wasn’t quick enough, to her great chagrin. Not quite as young as we were, eh, Lyds?)

It’s an imposing building the Motherhouse isn’t it? Like the keep of some medieval castle. They hung out those green and red flags in honour of the occasion. Green for fertility, red for blood I believe. Right up at the top there you can see some of the older Mothers looking down over the battlements. The younger ones are confined inside.

Here’s a closer shot. You can see that the gauntlet continued right up to the door. Got worse in fact. Those are huthi soldiers there, poking this boy with the butts of their spears.

I know. He’s really bleeding quite badly.

But as soon as the door opened the jeers turned to cheers. A couple of young Mothers were in there to greet him and lead him off to wash him and tend to his wounds. You can just see him there. It’s a bit dark I know, but there he is, looking forward to a week of banquets and pampering and sex with every Mother he wants, before he has to go back out again onto the plain.

No, it’s not a very good shot I’m afraid. Everyone was pushing to get a view and I was being jostled. You can’t really get much sense of what it might be like inside.

Ah yes. Now these are the Wanderers who didn’t make it, back at their camp outside. At least they’ve all got something to eat now, and some new clothes and blankets. And the kids are up on the walls until all hours calling down questions to them.

“What town did you come from then?”

“How come you gave up so quickly?”

“How did you get that bandaged arm?”

Look at their moothai tucking into that pile of cabbages!

And here is Karl on the wall, look. He’s asking them questions about what it’s like on the plain. Now that the excitement of the run is over it’s all become a bit more real for him. He really wants some answers.

The Wanderers are telling him it’s absolutely brilliant, and how they have been into dozens of Motherhouses and been with scores of Mothers – and how they just didn’t really feel like it this time or they would have completed the run with ease. Formara’s nothing, apparently, compared to some of the towns they’ve been to. Formara is an absolute breeze.

But look at Karl’s face. What’s going on behind those narrowed eyes?

Does anyone need another drink? Lydia, could you do the honours?

Yes, now this is a few months later. A couple more groups of Wanderers have been and gone including one group that was judged too large to safely let inside the walls. And now it’s the ceremony which they call the Tukanza. The Division.

You can see this is the Motherhouse again, but the flags are black and white this time. And here are the pubescent boys and girls going in wearing their black and white Tukanza robes. We weren’t allowed inside, sadly, and people were rather vague about what went on. Actually I think the huthi honestly don’t know much about it. They don’t even seem to care. As far as they are concerned, the Tukanza is just a little quirk of the merthi and the manahi. Ordinary People have better things to do with their time!

Here are Karl and Kara going in. Don’t they look tense? And small too, under that great towering wall of the Motherhouse.

Kara told me later that at least she would be able to be with her mother now.

Here are some more kids going in. You can see their foster-parents anxiously wishing them luck. Then the door closes.

I waited outside. It’s a nice spot. This is the view over the plain. Even from the foot of the Motherhouse there’s a good view in several directions. It must be wonderful from the top. And look at the balloons from the bowava trees. The wet season has been and gone and the sky is starting to fill up with them. Wanderers, the Apiranians often call them, merthi, just like the men. Have I mentioned that already?

Yes, it is bleak out there on the plain. Bleak and windy and dry.

Now, here they are coming out again. Haven’t they changed? Kara has been told that in another month she’ll be moving in there. And when that happens, Karl and the other boys of his age will be turned out onto the plain with a mootha or two and some provisions, and an exhortation to respect all Mothers and never besmirch the reputation of Formara, though they are never ever to return there.

Look at the strain in their faces. The others are crowding around them trying to make a fuss of them but Karl and Kara are far, far away. Another month and they’ll have to say goodbye to each other and never meet again.

What’s this? Oh it’s that mouse on the gear wheel just before… (Why did you take that picture Lydia, for goodness sake?)

Now look at these balloons. It’s an Apiranian custom after the Tukanza. Bunnoo and Thrompin gathered them from a bowava tree (not an easy thing to do!) and they gave them to Karl and Kara to release them from the square in front of the Motherhouse.

Here they are look, Karl and Kara releasing them one by one, while all the others watch and cheer. Look at their balloons going up into the sky, to join all the others that are blowing past.

Look: a couple quite low and then three more – can you see them? – high, high up among the clouds.

More drinks anyone? Are you hungry? Would you like anything else to eat?

We’ve got some pictures from our trip to Pazzazza up in the Pleiades that we haven’t shown you.

Now that was something really special.