Fireflies in the night of the sea, someone called them.
The kelp extruded nodules from its giant stems and those nodules glowed with a million firecolors. She agreed with all the others who had seen it and lived to report: the pulsing and glowing nodules were a hypnotic symphony, and the lights might, just might, be a form of communication. There did seem to be purpose in the glowing play of light, discernible patterns.
The kelp covered the planet's seas except for the random patch of open water called "lagoons." In a planet with only two major land masses, this represented a gigantic spread of life.
Once again, she returned to that unavoidable argument: what did they really know about the kelp?
It's conscious, it thinks.
She was certain of it. The challenge of this problem engaged her imagination with a totality she had never dreamed possible. It had caught others as well. It was polarizing Colony. And the extermination arguments could not be thrown out.
Can you eat the kelp?
You could not eat it. The stuff was disorienting, probably hallucinogenic. The source of this effect had thus far defied Colony chemists to isolate it.
It had this in common with the hylighters. The illusive substance had been dubbed "fraggo" because "it fragments the psyche."
That alone said to Waela that the kelp should be preserved for study.
Once more, she was forced to kill a Hooded Dasher. The long black shape went tumbling down the Peak, green blood gushing from it.
That's too many of them, she thought.
Warily, she examined her surroundings, probing for movement below her in the rocks. Nothing. She was still scanning the area this way moments later when her relief stepped out of the hatch. She recognized him, Scott Burik, an LTA fitter on the nightside shift. He was a small man with prematurely aged features, but he was as quick as any other Colonist, already scanning the area around them. She told him about the two Dashers as she passed over the 'burner.
"Good rest," he said.
She slipped into the hatch, heard it slam behind her then slid down to debriefing where she turned in her kill count and made her assessment of COA - Current Outside Activity.
The debriefing room was windowless with pale yellow walls and a single comdesk. Ary Arenson, a blond, gray-eyed man who never seemed to change expression, sat behind it. Everyone said he worked for Jesus Lewis, a rumor which predisposed Waela to walk and talk softly with him. Odd things happened to people who displeased Lewis.
She was tired now with a fatigue which watch always produced, a drained feeling, as though she were victim of a psychic Spinneret. The routine questions bored her.
"Yes, the Nerve Runner area appears sterilized."
At the end of it, Arenson handed her a small square of brown Colony paper with a message which restored her energy. She read it at a glance:
"Report to Main Hangar for new kelp research team assignment."
Arenson was glancing at his Comscreen as she read the note and now he changed expression, a wry smile. "Your replacemen...." He pointed upward toward the Peak with his chin. "...just got it. A Dasher chewed his guts out. Stand by a blink. They're sending another replacement."
***
Poetry, like consciousness, drops the insignificant digits.
SHIP'S WARNING that this could be the end of humankind left Flattery with a sense of emptiness.
He stared into the blackness which surrounded him, trying to find some relief. Would Ship really break th.... recording? What did Ship mean by a recording?
Last chance.
His emotional responses told Flattery he had touched a deep core of affinity with his own kind. The thought that in some faraway future on a line through infinity there might be other humans to enjoy life as he had enjoyed it - this thought filled him with warm affections for such descendants.
"Do You really mean this is our last chance?" he asked.
"Much as it pains Me." Ship's response did not surprise him.
The words were torn from him: "Why don't You just tell us how t.... ?"
"Raj! How much of your free will would you give me!"
"How much would You take?"
"Believe Me. Raj, there are places where neither God nor Man dares intervene."
"And You want me to go down to this planet, put Your question to them, and help them answer Your demand?"
"Would you do that?"
"Could I refuse?"
"I seek choice, Raj, not compulsion or chance. Will you accept?"
Flattery thought about this. He could refuse. Why not? What did he owe thes.... thes.... Shipmen, these replay survivors? But they were sufficiently human that he could interbreed with them. Human. And he still sensed that core of pain when he thought about a universe devoid of humans.
One last chance for humankind? It might be interestin.... play. Or it might be one of Ship's illusions.
"Is all this just illusion, Ship?"
"No. The flesh exists to feel the things that flesh feels. Doubt everything except that."
"I either doubt everything or nothing."
"So be it. Will you play despite your doubts?"
"Will You tell me more about this play?"
"If you ask a correct question."
"What role am I playing?"
"Ahhh...." It was a sigh of beatific grace. "You play the living challenge."
Flattery knew that role. Living challenge. You made people find the best within themselves, a best which they might not suspect they possessed. But some would be destroyed by such a demand. Remembering the pain of responsibility for such destruction, he wanted to help in his decision but knew he dared not ask directly. Perhaps if he learned more about Ship's plan....
"Have You hidden in my memory things about the game that I should know?"
"Raj!" There was no mistaking the outrage. It flowed through him as though his body were a sudden sieve thrust beneath a hot cascade. Then, more softly: "I do not steal your memories, Raj."
"Then I'm to be something different, a new factor, in this game. What else is different?"
"The place of the test possesses a difference so profound it may test you beyond your capacities, Raj."
The many implications of this answer filled him with wonder. So there were things even an all-powerful being did not know, things even God or Satan might learn.
Ship made him fearful then by commenting on his unspoken thought.
"Given that marvelous and perilous condition which you call Time, power can be a weakness."
"Then what's this profound difference which will test me?"
"An element of the game which you must discover for yourself."
Flattery saw the pattern of it then: The decision had to be his own. Not compulsion. It was the difference between choice and chance. It was the difference between the precision of a holorecord replay and a brand-new performance where free will dominated. And the prize was another chance for humankind. The Chaplain/Psychiatrists' Manual said: "God does not play dice with Man." Obviously, someone had been wrong.
"Very well, Ship. I'll gamble with You."
"Excellent! And, Raj - when the dice roll there will be no outside interference to control how they fall."
He found the phraseology of this promise interesting, but sensed the futility of exploring it. Instead, he asked: "Where will we play?"
"On this planet which I call Pandora. A small frivolity."
"I presume Pandora's box already is open."
"Indeed. All the evils that can trouble Mankind have been released."
"I've accepted Your request. What happens now?"
For answer, Flattery felt the hyb locks release him, the soft restraints pulling away. Light glowed around him and he recognized a dehyb laboratory in one of the shipbays. The familiarity of the place dismayed him. He sat up and looked around. All of that time and thi.... this lab remained unchanged. But of course Ship was infinite and infinitely powerful. Nothing outside of Time was impossible for Ship.