Death Sentence by Roger MacBride Allen

not truly understand that change cannot be undone. Our lives are so ordered, so patterned, so sheltered, and have been for so long, that we fail to understand change to be an unalterable fact rather than some sort of nuisance that can be pushed away if it becomes too troubling."
    "But nothing has changed," protested Manager Yalananav. "Yes, there was the threat of a huge shift in how we live our lives, but it did not come to pass."
    "Manager Yalananav, have you noticed that everyone, including myself, speaks of the new thing, the change, in such generalities that we never identify it at all? I believe that is because we fear its power, and half hope it will not be quite so powerful if we do not speak of it openly."
    "We are not superstitious savages, frightened that this thing is some monster from the Old Stories," Yalananav replied peevishly.
    "No? Then why have you still not dared to speak the monster's name? Why haven't I? And why do we try to wish away the great changes by saying they did not happen? For there were two great changes, and you have just described them. A factor in our lives that all of us, for unnumbered generations, have firmly believed to be set, established, inalterable, was found to be none of those things. And the knowledge that things might change escaped from the land of bureaucrats and specialists and into the general population."
    She set her four legs square on either side of her saddle-seat, laid both her pairs of arms at her side, took a deep breath, and spoke again. "I have had much time to think during my confinement. Bulwark of Constancy told me, in no uncertain term, moments before I was arrested, that 'Change is wrong.' She said we have--or had at that time--an optimum situation, and therefore any change could only be for the worse. But I have to think that the thing that ails us is absolute and rigid resistance to change.
    "If two geologic zones move past each other along a fault line at a slow and steady rate, there is the occasional slight tremor, but nothing more. It is when a fault line is locked up, frozen, held rigidly in place for a long time, that stresses build up, accumulate, amplify, until the forces of movement are simply more powerful than the forces holding things in check, and everything breaks loose with unimaginable violence." She gestured out the window. " Then comes the massive earthquake, the tidal wave--the chaos. For how many endless, weary years have our people known all the other starfaring races live twice, three, five, twelve times as long as us? How long has the frustration of our short, short lives been simmering?"
    "From before the time our history books record," Yalananav said testily. "What is your point?"
    "That it is time to call things by their proper names, and to face the facts. The Metrannan race has the shortest life span of any known intelligent species. Our maximum life span is roughly half the average life span of even humans--and they are the shorter-lived of the two currently known Younger Races. All of the Elder Races live far, far longer. Historic records show that, in pretechnological times, our lives were a third shorter than they are now. The common and received wisdom is that everything that could be done to extend our life spans had been done. Were we even to attempt further life extension, we would at best fail, but would, more likely, kill or seriously harm those who received such treatments."
    "You speak harshly of unhappy subjects, but all this is known to all of us here," said Yalananav, sounding uncomfortable.
    "But it needs to be said, and accepted as the true state of affairs before we face the next and darker truth," Taranarak replied.
    "Which would be what?"
    " That nearly all of it is false. Before his death several dozen twelve-days ago, my predecessor, Learned Searcher Hallaben, did new work--I emphasize, new work--in the field of geriatrics that established beyond any doubt--not just reasonable doubt, but any doubt at all