Furthest
Author: Suzette Haden Elgin
Published: 1971 by Ace
Cover Artist: Leo and Diane Dillon
Publisher Blurb: THE HIDDEN PLANET
Coyote Jones, agent for the Tri-Galactic Intelligence Service, had been sent to a planet so unimaginably distant from the rest of the Federation that it bore the descriptive name Furthest. His mission: to find out why the total body of data about Furthest showed the world's inhabitants to be absolutely average down to the last decimal place. That data had to be false.
Jones was permitted to live on the planet, but the natives were so wary of him that he could uncover nothing--until he chanced into a personal crisis faced by his young Furthester assistant. The boy's sister had been sentenced to Erasure, and he wanted Coyote Jones to take the fugitive girl in and hide her.
Against his judgment, Jones agreed, and thereby became a criminal on a world he didn't understand. But suddenly the answers began to come, and he found that this planet named Furthest held more strangeness than he could ever have imagined....
Notes: Furthest is the second book in the Coyote Jones series, following The Communipaths (1970) and followed by At the Seventh Level (1972).
This novel suffers from much the same complaints I had for The Communipaths, with uneven plotting and poor character development. Coyote Jones is an unconvincing protagonist as he comes across as unskilled for his job, flat, and immature at the best of times. Even more than the first novella, this book is an exercise in "tell don't show" with major developments revealed in reports, letters, radio programs, training manual excerpts, and low-stakes conversations. Additionally, Elgin reuses a lot of elements from The Communipaths (girl born with psychic abilities of unheard-of strength and pressed into government service in early childhood; these abnormally strong characters being rebellious and too independent for that service, leading to tragedy; tragic fate for young mothers; etc). Elgin's strength as a linguistics researcher does not come through in this book as much as does in The Communipaths, as any discussion of language boils down to "what's the word for this" and "what does that archaic 60s slang word mean"... a waste of dialogue in a book that already only takes a few hours to read. This is frustrating, because the story shows so much speculative promise. The world of Furthest, both as a planet and as a culture, starts off with such strong interest and mystery. Elgin set up her story to meaningfully explore sexuality and sexual expression. She establishes historical religious persecution, leading to a culture that's been isolated for a millennium. And doesn't deliver on any of it. IMO, this easily could have been a classic of feminist speculative fiction if it had been developed more as a story.
Summary: Coyote Jones, having failed to integrate into a Maklunite community following the events of The Communipaths, has resumed his work as an agent for the Tri-Galactic Intelligence Service. His latest mission sends him to the distant and isolated planet Furthest, whose secretive people want nothing to do with off-worlders. But Furthest is to produce the next president for the Three Galaxies, and TGIS must be sure that the candidate is capable of handling the responsibility. For most member worlds, this would be a matter of asking a computer to look at data on a planet, on its people, and on its delegates. But something about the statistical data coming out of Furthest is very odd indeed: it is completely average, to the very last decimal point, which means someone somewhere is lying. It's up to Jones to investigate the anomaly. The fate of the Three Galaxies depends on it.
From the beginning, the Furthesters don't make his job easy. Posing as a hopeful businessman, he opens up a MESH-- a standardized community nexus where, on most worlds, people come together to share art and culture, seek education, socialize, and hook up. But the Furthesters, apparently a cold and solitary people with a very restrictive view of social relationships and sexual encounters, treat it as more of a museum: it's a curiosity for them, but not something to engage in. Nor will they really engage with him. When he interacts with them, Jones can't help but feel like the people are putting on an elaborate show, somehow, all for him.
His local assistant, the teenage boy Arh Qu'e, isn't of much help revealing Furthest's secrets. Almost anything Jones wants to learn about seems to be taboo. He's restricted to a small part of the planet, and banned from even entering its major city; questions of sex, telepathy, and culture are off limits; even the third floor of his own residence is forbidden to him. Nothing he does seems to ease the Furthesters' intense withdrawal.
A planet of rock and river, Furthest is as forboding and austere as its people-- by day. But at night, it transforms into a beautiful network of particolored lights as native, phosphorescent organisms swim its abundant waters. And the surface may look lifeless at first glance, but the air is full of invisible, sociable, and curious bat-like creatures. These things are stunning to Jones, but of no interest to the Furthesters. Could these natural oddities indicate something about the people here? It's all he has to go on.
Finally, Jones manages to slip away from the Furthesters long enough to do what his boss has been pressing him to do: sneak into the nearby citydome, where the majority of the planet's people are purported to live. What Jones discovers is... nothing. Beneath the dome, there is no city. But why? Answers are slow to come.
His breakthrough comes from no effort of his own, but by luck: Arh Qu'e's older sister is on the run after being convicted of a religious crime and sentenced to Erasure, a procedure that will erase her personality, her memories, and her skills. Arh Qu'e begs Jones to let Kh'llwythenna Be'essahred Q'ue hide out in his home to avoid such a fate. After meeting her, Jones agrees. He's impressed with the ferocity of her spirit and her sharp intelligence. While she doesn't immediately reveal Furthest's secrets to him, she may well be a promising lead-- if he and Arh Qu'e can keep her safely hidden.
One night, sexually frustrated after months on this prude planet, Jones lies awake and contemplates giving up. Then a presence comes into his mind telepathically, and leads him into a colorful, orgasmic ecstasy he's never before experienced. Without ever being physically touched, he has the best sex of his life. He comes out of it euphoric, because now he feels he's making some progress. How can a culture so strict about sex, how can a people so rigid, produce such sexual intensity? He forces an answer from Arh Qu'e: mindwife. The most taboo topic of all, and revealing this one word will surely lead to Arh Qu'e's own Erasure. But now Jones knows what to look for, and soon uncovers the horrifying truth: the planet's most promising telepathic girls are taken from their families as toddlers to undergo a rigorous, traumatic, and abusive training program to become skilled mental sexual partners. Called mindwives, these unwilling and tormented women are awarded to Furthest's wealthiest and most influential men-- all under the guise of religion.
Kh'llwythenna Be'essahred Q'ue may be Furthest's most skilled and powerful mindwife, something Jones is convinced of after his own blissful experience with her. But she wouldn't go willingly to her chosen partner, and as a result she must now submit to Erasure.
Confronting her, Jones discovers something else: the town in which he resides is a sham put on to fool him. With the exception of those individuals chosen for a three year rotation of Surface Duty, the semiaquatic Furthesters live predominantly underwater. The descendants of a human-alien mating, modern Furthesters have gills, require frequent submersion, and are terrified of the persecution they will face if this reality comes to off-world light.
Jones is able to convince Kh'llwythenna Be'essahred Q'ue and Arh Qu'e of the reality of life beyond Furthest: many human-alien races are members of the Three Galaxies, as are humans with extreme adaptations to new environments. No one cares. They will not be destroyed for their heritage. Additionally, the institution of mindwives will be allowed to continue under the planet's right to maintain its own religious practices.
Amongst all this disclosure, it also comes out that as part of her training as a mindwife, Kh'llwythenna Be'essahred Q'ue was not allowed physical release herself; sex for her has always been mental. But she'd like to try it the traditional way, too, and Jones is all too happy to oblige.
Jones returns to Mars Central to make his report in person and to insist on a quarantine on Furthest. Fearing what scientists and others might do to this fragile culture, protecting Furthest's way of life-- even its repugnant religious practices-- is of the highest importance. This proposal is grudgingly accepted and Jones himself returns to Furthest to deliver the news. Once there, however, it's to find that in the months of his absence, all has not gone well with the Q'ue family. Kh'llwythenna Be'essahred Q'ue gave birth to Jones' daughter, and after receiving medical care during a difficult labor was turned over to the police. She has been Erased, and now Jones must grieve that loss. Before Erasure, she was able to convince her people that she acted alone-- that she used her telepathy to manipulate her brother Ahr Qu'e and Coyote Jones himself to do her bidding-- thereby sparing Ahr Qu'e and Jones for sheltering her.
Jones claims responsibility for his infant daughter, and also redeems Kh'llwythenna Be'essahred Q'ue by publicly and officially praising her as a hero whose actions led to the liberation of her people from a millennium's worth of lies and suppression. Because of her sacrifice, the Furthesters-- more correctly the Ahl Kres'sah, as they call themselves-- can take their rightful place as members of the human community.
External links:
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations - Book Review: Furthest, Suzette Haden Elgin (1971)