Planet
Talvoze
Four seasons in one day: spring in the morning, summer at noon, autumn in the evening, winter at night — and a fauna that changes shape four times a day.
Talvoze has no seasons: it has a day that makes four of them. Its atmosphere is so thin that it holds none of the heat it takes in — the ground burns the moment the star climbs and freezes the moment it drops, with nothing to cushion the space between. In thirty hours the world crosses everything another world crosses in a year.
Spring rises in the morning, summer burns at noon, autumn rusts the evening, and winter freezes everything through the night.
One day, four worlds
The same landscape changes four times. A green meadow in the morning becomes a dry plain at noon, a russet carpet in the evening, a sheet of ice at night — then starts again. The plants of Talvoze last a single day: they sprout, flower, wither and freeze in thirty hours, leaving seeds that will start over tomorrow.
Changing body four times a day
The animals of Talvoze do not migrate: they transform. The vozek is a slim swift animal in the morning, heavy and pale at noon, furred by evening, and curls into a ball beneath the ice at night. They are four different beasts in one body. It took Arazian naturalists two centuries to work out that these were not four species.