The Ismae Index pt. 6

Considering the Puka: A Physiological Overview

by Lady Orilausko

Pukas are funny, fantastical little beings with more energy than a heat eater in the desert. Let us start with their basic physiological data as we did in the chivori monograph. Pukas are short, roughly waist high on a chivori, hip on a karju. (We are all dwarfed by the rhochrot, but I shall return to them another time.) They are completely hairless, their bald heads larger proportionately to their bodies than those of chivori or karju. Puka eyes are situated so far apart that they may as well be on opposite sides, and are easily twice the size of chivori eyeballs. Though I have encountered a few pukas with zoetic alterations of blue or red irises, the eyes of the rest come in a lovely spectrum of browns from doeskin to bitter-coffee.

Between those orbs sits a prominent nose whose bony arch begins where karju and chivori have hairlines. Though one might believe this impressive nose to be a source of improved smell, the passages are narrow, the sinus uncomplicated, leaving the standard puka's sense of smell just about as good as a chivori's. This prodigious nose's purpose instead is defensive, comprised of thick bone just as the top of puka skulls is thicker than those of other species. Given their size and history (which I will return to), this characteristic has long protected them against attack from above.

Their lips are thin, their chins generally soft, their ears small and round. Their skin comes in shades of muddy green, from olive and sage to peat and seaweed. In short, they are not lovely. That should not, however, be held against them. As with other species, they possess many useful skills and talents, not the least of which is an impressive birth rate. Unlike the chivori's annual rutting cycle, puka females are able to conceive each month—or approximately every forty days—depending on the individual—and are fertile for five to ten days. Once pregnant, their gestation period is a scant six month with twins (and multiple births in general) occurring roughly twenty percent of the time.

So why don't puka's overtake all other life on Ismae? They reach maturity by their tenth year and live to an average of fifty-five. Those who obtain wealth are known to extend their lives with anti-agathics. Like chivori, the effect of this class of drugs is less detrimental to puka physiology than to their karju counterparts. However, a mild taboo exists in puka culture against such unnaturally extension of life.

A popular folk theory attributes their abbreviated lifespan to the species high levels of energy (and anxiety) as well as their brief rest cycles. Pukas sleep an average of three hours a night and are capable of going without sleep for nearly a quartern before collapsing or succumbing to madness, making them incredibly efficient workers and highly desired employees. This is not to say that I haven't met my share of slothful pukas—they simply have the predisposition, if not always the drive.

An outstanding and enviable talent of their species is farspeech. Approximately one percent of pukas are born with the ability to "reach out" to one another and communicate using only their minds, coming into this talent around the age of adulthood. I have inquired about the experience several times, and each farspeaker has given me a similar description. My favorite is from an elderly puka who'd spent her life on Cammoranth, connecting the entirely rural island to the rest of the world: "Like swimming through a spiderweb of tubes in search of another's thoughts."

Once their sentience was established—a subject I will touch on in a following monograph—and their talent discovered in the early years of the Innovation Era, other species saw an opportunity and began employing pukas for near-instantaneous communication from island to island. By its nature, farspeech extends only a matter of miles in a sphere around the farspeaker. When that speaker is dosed with themot, however, farspeakers can drastically extend their reach. Those with talent and practice can connect across the Middle Sea.

When abuses began—because they always do—farspeakers across the isles came together to form the Farspeaker's Combine, a non-affiliated group that ensures proper training and treatment of farspeakers. Puka children ages eight through twelve are tested annually for the ability. Those with farspeech—and the desire to develop it—are sent to the Combine for training. It is rare for a candidate to eschew using their gift as their profession as it is one of the most lucrative trades for their people.