Tenth Men

The Tenth Men emerged on Neptune from a small, hairless, rabbit-like creature, and their origin makes them a striking return of human traits through a nonhuman form. Driven into new ways of living by a predator, the creature developed increasingly capable hands and a more flexible mind; over time it became upright, larger, and more intelligent. The species it founded spread across northern continents, but its eventual destruction shows that evolutionary recovery did not make it secure against disease.

Emergence on Neptune

About three hundred million terrestrial years after the solar collision, the rabbit-like precursor lived on Neptune’s polar grasslands. A swift hound from the south persecuted it so effectively that the species was nearly exterminated. A few survivors escaped into dense scrub, where the hound could not follow. The refuge saved them, but also forced a change in their way of life: they left the grasslands and began eating roots, berries, worms, and beetles.

Hands, habits, and a new mind

In the scrub, the survivors increasingly used their forelimbs to dig and climb, and eventually to weave nests from sticks and straw. Their fingers had never fused together. The forepaw was already arranged like a small fist, with separate toes projecting from elongated knuckles; those knuckles lengthened further until they formed a new set of fingers. Traces of the much older human fingers remained folded within the palm.

Manipulation brought clearer perception. Combined with the need to experiment with food, hunting, and defense, it fostered greater versatility in behavior and suppleness of mind. The creatures prospered, adopted an almost upright gait, and grew in stature and brain size. Their new brain regions did not simply restore the atrophied human cerebrum: they formed a new organ that overlaid and swallowed up that ancient remnant. Their minds were therefore new in many respects, though their basic needs remained familiar: food, love, glory, and companionship.

Culture and disappearance

In pursuit of those needs, the Tenth Men devised weapons and traps, built wicker villages, and held pow-wows. They spread their wicker huts and bone implements across the great northern continents for a million terrestrial years. For many millions of years more, they remained in possession without further cultural progress, within a history in which both biological and cultural evolution proceeded slowly on Neptune.

Their long tenure ended when a microorganism attacked and demolished them. Several primitive human species developed from their ruins, beginning another succession of isolated peoples on Neptune. The Tenth Men thus occupy an evolutionary interval between animal ancestry and later human forms: their hands and minds carried traces of humanity’s past, but neither those inheritances nor their established way of life prevented their destruction.