Invisible Beasts Read Online Free PDF Page A

knuckles? He asks his father what made him successful. His father shrugs, and pats him on the back. His mother says, Be Yourself. His sisters laugh. His brothers are all pretending that they know where the best niches are, the ones with waterfall views, but maybe they’ll tell him and maybe they won’t. For days, he has practiced serving up fermented acorn liqueur with a suave flourish. He has memorized compliments, jokes, soulful sayings, earnest platitudes, and poetry. He has placed his great-great-grandfather’s Pluricorn horn armlet, a priceless icebreaker, where it cannot escape notice.
    Quorum sensing begins, as I’ve said, with scouts. Ants send scouts to look at nest sites; the Keen-Ear women send scouts to interview the male candidates. What really happens between the scouts and the candidates is the subject of many jokes and folktales. After all, the Keen-Ears are only human. And though they go naked, a Keen-Ear lady wearing nothing but a netted cape and earrings is not naked, she is fetchingly nude,while a well-set-up Keen-Ear man wearing nothing but warm intentions and yesterday’s love-bites is a force to be reckoned with. The oldest joke about the unofficial aspect of Niche Night goes:
    â€œIf two women walk into your cave, which one is the scout?”
    â€œThe one walking bowlegged.” There are the Three Honored Scouts, a famous trio in song and smut: the drunk scout, the bowlegged scout, and the scout who is old, drunk, and bowlegged, and always gets the punch line. But at least in public, Keen-Ears don’t admit to hanky-panky on Niche Night.
    While the scouts interview the candidates, the other Keen-Ear ladies lounge around the cave, biting their lips, telling stories, playing cards, yawning. The middle-aged women who run everything and everybody confer in low tones, broken by bawdy cackles. The oldest ladies look at each other with rueful nostalgia and quaver, “I hope those boys have a feather roll for my feet.” Time elapses, and the lapsed time is the key to the whole process.
    As the scouts report back, the wisdom of ants becomes apparent. A Keen-Ear girl reappears in the cave entrance and immediately, the sound of her blood thunders like a snowmelt cataract in everyone’s ears and they cheer, gathering round to hug the scout as she weeps happy tears, speaking the lucky candidate’s name. Another scout returns on the first one’s heels, her blood thrumming pleasantly like muffled snare drums. This raises smiles, butalso questions: so, what was not to like? She is badgered for details, analysis—a full report, in time-consuming words. Meanwhile, a third scout rushes in, her blood roaring like a forest on fire, her ears flapping with haste, and the clan breaks into applause. By the time the second scout has persuaded a couple of women to visit the nice-but-not-perfect fellow, many others are on their way to or from the first and third scouts’ fabulous men—it’s only natural, enthusiasm is infectious. More scouts come in, and the ones whose blood does not speak volumes instantly, who have to give verbal answers, take longer to report and recruit fewer ladies to visit their candidates. As the night wears on, the number of women trekking to and from a particular candidate’s niche reveals who the best choice must be. It is obvious to everyone. No need for an authority to dictate anything. The Keen-Ear women vote with their hearts, their sharp ears, and their feet.
    These customs look outlandish to visible humans like you and me—cold-blooded, conformist, full of potential disasters, dystopian, and rather crass. But suppose we imagine them a little differently? Suppose the male candidates were all the different aspects of one person, and the visiting women were all the different aspects of another person? Quorum sensing is very much like the way we instinctively select the aspects of our mates that suit us best. Over time, as we get