Terminator

On a tidally locked planet in the habitable zone around an average middle-aged yellow star, the locks untightened: astronomers there predicted a timeline in which rotation would begin. First there would be a wobble of the terminator, expanding it as it shimmied to a width of a kilometer. The invading dwarf planet that was approaching toward its slingshot around their star followed an arc that would last a year until it was flung, accelerated, back out into the universe to set other worlds spinning.

This dwarf trespasser would sidewind its way through the maze of worlds along its way, and as the sinusoidal vacillations of gravitation arrived, the people here would witness their terminator widen as their world rocked back and forth, until on one oscillation the momentum was enough to maintain one direction at the expense of the other.

Rotation would ensue.

For the first time light would know dark and dark would see light. The peoples of each side of their world would meet for the first time. The Grand Light of Lux addressed his people:

“My fellow companions on this historic journey, welcome. We stand here in the Babel Basin behind the wall that separates the two sides of our tidally locked world, Janus. Our side faces the light, the giver of all life, and the other side is unknown to us. Until now!”

His people cheered wildly.

Across the great wall, the Deep Umbral of Pitch addressed his people:

“My fellow companions on this historic journey, welcome. We stand here behind the wall that separates us from the people of light. Our side of Janus faces the universe, with its promises and its future, away from the blindness that stifles their view of what we are privileged to see. We have never met. Until now!”

His people ululated riotously.

Each side heard the noise of the crowds on the other side, and when they did, they were stunned into silence, until the respective leaders led the cheers again. The Terminator Clock of Lux ticked down, approaching the strike that would announce the first wobble, that increase in width of twilight from that of the ancient wall’s thickness toward a widening that would move both East and the West at the speed of anticipation.

The Grand Light of Lux addressed his people:

“The daredevil explorer and visionary, Mistun, who straddled the ancient wall, saw nothing in the darkness before he fell away from us, never to be seen again. And so, we have no knowledge, on this historic occasion, whether those who received him will be friend or foe. We can only hope his message to them was clear. Today, we will either gain from optimism or suffer from reckless endangerment. The Terminator Clock strikes soon and we'll all know. I say we embrace optimism, because we are the children of the light!”

His people again cheered.

The Deep Umbral of Pitch addressed his people:

“I have here the beast who calls itself Mistun. He came to us with two more holes in his skull, claiming to bring us greetings from the lighted side; but this beast brought us disease and misery. We keep him here, impaled, as a reminder of those who fell ill from the evil humors he brought to us. This was his gift? Nay, it was truly an invasion. But we prevailed!” More ululation erupted. “When the terminator expands, as our learned and mystics have predicted, the changes to our world will be upheavals, from the weather to our very way of life. Finally, they say, we will no longer fear the tumultuous storms that our side pulls in from the heated opposphere. But we should mistrust and fear the beasts there, like this Mistun, who know only the blinding ignorance of light—not the ambitious curiosity of those who venture into the darkness, feeling their way, hearing their way, even tasting and smelling their way. Eyes were made for beasts like Mistun and the race from which he hails. Eyes were made for light, which we have never needed before. Imagine the distraction, if you can, people of the Pitch. Our Terminator Pendulum will begin to swing soon, and we will be forced to deal with the destiny of the entire Janus. I say to you, rotation is no gift, but a curse.” The Deep Umbral of Pitch pulled the tassel to his right, which tightened the impaling fasteners that held Mistun fast.

Mistun cried out.

The Terminator Clock on Lux struck; the Pendulum of Pitch began its swing. The wall that ran North-to-South in the Babel Basin on theterminator of Janus began to tremble, along with the land beneath it. Cracks began to spread along its expanse. The people of Lux saw the crumbling of their great barrier to the mysteries of the darkness on the other side; the people of Pitch sniffed the air and heard the rumbles and smelled the dust and airborne debris from the disturbance. Both peoples of Janus witnessed their great divorce crumble into a heap of rubble, allowing them, for the first time, to face each other.

The peoples of Lux and Pitch threw a stunned silence at each other. The daredevil Mistun began to cry from the recesses where his eyes formerly sat, which was not lost on the Pitch.

“They all have them! These eyes—they all have them!” shouted the Deep Umbral. “I can smell them!”

“And we see you!” shouted back the Grand Light of Lux.

“But can you smell us?” the Deep Umbral called back over the pile of bricks and mortar that was previously their shared wall. Lest he insult the Pitch, the Grand Light offered a response of diplomacy.

“No, you do not smell,” he answered.

“Oh, woe,” muttered the daredevil Mistun, who now received the olfactory glare of the Deep Umbral. Thus, the metaphor of a handshake between peoples spoiled quickly to the rot of xenophobes.

“We? We do not smell? We smell excellently.” The previously ululaters now roared jingoistically.  “You do not smell us, but by the shadows we smell you! You dare to insist we have no smell for you to smell. What is this? Is this your final statement? Your declaration of war?”

The Grand Light of Lux panicked. He saw across the heap of stones and blocks the people of the Pitch; he saw the daredevil Mistun, impaled and incarcerated. He turned to his advisors, but they were mute and paralyzed by clueless hesitancy.

“Tell us, oh Deep Umbral, what the people of Pitch require from us. Do not misunderstand our culture or our overtures.” Conversely, the advisors to the Deep Umbral were very forthcoming.

“We smell the discord and their confusion. They smell bad.”

“Then we should smite them?” the Deep Umbral asked.

“Smells like it,” one of the advisors said.

Mistun cried out, "“You do not know of what you do! I am here to show you the way. There is no wall that can separate everyone, and I am Everyman. And I forgive you. Smell me…you know I am right.”

The Deep Umbral released the tassel. The spikes receded.

“That smells good. You smell good, daredevil,” he told him.

“Olfact, my Deep Umbral, olfact! For you are great and odoriferous.” The Deep Umbral’s advisors began to quieten.

“Is their smell your smell?” he asked Mistun.

“That, and more,” he answered.

“That pleases me,” the Deep Umbral said. Then, turning to his people—the Pitch—he called out. “Let us eat their smell!”

Mistun sighed. This was either a very good thing or a very bad thing. Fragrant or foul.

The terminator continued to widen. Atmospheric shifts created and filled the vacuums that made the winds: the people of Lux smelled the people of Pitch. The Grand Light of Lux turned to one of his advisors.

“They really do smell,” he commented.

“Not so loud, my Grand Light, not so loud.”