Jary wondered suddenly if he had lost his own mind. No, it was really happening. If his mind was ever going to snap, it would have happened long ago. And there was no doubt in his mind that these animals had come here for one reason - to free the captives from their cage. These animals …
He watched their tireless, desperate struggle to open the cage, knowing that it was futile, that they could only fail in the end. The captive trogs were doomed, because only a human being could open the lock to set them free. Only a human being -
His hand rose crookedly, dripping mud, and reached out toward the case; the trogs seemed to recoil, as if somehow they sensed him coming. He unsealed the lock, and pulled up the lid. The trogs inside shrank down in confusion as the ones on the outside scrambled over the ledge. “C - come on!” He pulled the box to him angrily and shook it upside down, watched their ungainly bodies spill out into the steaming water.
He set the case back on the ledge and clung there, his mind strangely light and empty. And then he saw the second circle of brightness that lapped his own on the wall, illuminating the empty cage. He looked up, to see Corouda suspended silently from a line above his head, feet braced against the shadowed rock. He could see Corouda’s dark eyes clearly, and the odd intentness of his face. “Need some help, Jary?”
He looked back at the empty box, his hand still holding onto the strap. “Yes.”
Corouda nodded, and tossed him a rope.
Isthp: But we must contact these creatures. We have seen at last that they are beings, alien, but like ourselves; not some unknown force. They have mobiles with forms which can be known. (Warm heavy currents billow upward) (Mobiles rise together) (Sussuration of thermal neutron clouds)
Mng: They have souls which can be reached. The shining mobile that released our captives, when all we did could not - we must contact that one’s sessile, and make our problem known. These aliens must have space flight too; they are not native here. They can help us. (My tendrils flatten) (Golden - green carbonaceous webs) (Bright gamma deepens to red as we rise)
Ahm: Our only problem is that these aliens wish to destroy us! That being did not truly shine with life - it was a cold creature of darkness, dripping warm mud. (Silty currents, growing colder as this one rises) (Soft darkness above, we rise toward darkness)
Mng: But its sessile realized our distress. It released your mobiles. It showed good will. We did not know of the aliens’ true nature; perhaps they only begin to grasp our own. (Silent absence of neutron flux)
Ahm: But how do we know they would leave us in peace, even then? We have sent our mobiles into the upper darkness to begin the ritual three times already. And three times they have attacked us viciously. We have only six months left. Our mobiles must complete the ritual in the soft upper reaches, or there will be no new sessiles. We are growing old; it takes time to focus the diffision, the obliqueness of a new young mind. We cannot wait until the next Calling. (It grows softer, colder) (The bright world dims around us) (Grayed, delayed radiation) (Only whispers from the neutron clouds)
Isthp: That is true. But surely we can make them understand…. We must take the risk, in order to gain anything worthwhile. (Cool sandy crosscurrents)
Scwa: And what is there worth risking our wholeness and sanity for that we do not already have? We set out to colonize a new world - and we have done so. (Darkness; dimming, whispering darkness) (Soft atmospheric spaces, hard basalt)
Isthp: But we have not! We are trapped in this pocket of light, with barely room to exercise our mobiles, on a dark and hostile world. Every century our lifespace grows less. The ore concentration is only a fluke, undependable. This is not the world you wanted, one like our own that generates perpetual light. There is no future here. (Crackling gusts of prompt neutrons) (Swept upward, swept upward) (Hold back, Swift One, wait for the rest)
Ahm: What do you propose, then? That we return to our world, where there is no room for us? That we should depend on these alien monsters to take us there? (Darkness, blind darkness on all sides) (Dim warm radiance of mud)
Mng: There are not monsters! They might help us find a better world! (*****************)
Kle: We are content here. We are colonists, not explorers; we ask only to be able to breed our mobiles together … such pride, to feel the quickness of body, or the grace of supple fingers; to know that I have chosen the best to breed with … and to meditate in peace. (Mudpools pulse with dim ruby radiance) (Smooth basalt … and the rarefied atmosphere of the upper reaches) (I perceive that I shine in all my parts)
Mng: What is the point of breeding the finest mobiles, if they have no purpose? They build nothing for you, they contribute nothing - you are not a whole being; you are a debased breeder of pets. To breed mobiles that can gaze upon the starry universe, that is truly beautiful. If it were possible to breed mobiles like ours which ran the ship, which could perhaps see the true nature of the aliens from the upper darkness - that would be worthy. But we have no way to create anything worthy here. (Crackling gusts grow dim and gentle) (Push this mobile; currents slip) (Bright depths below us now … they halo the mobiles of my radiant friend Isthp, Gamma - shine - through - Molten - Feldspar)
Ahm: Worthy - breeding artificial mobiles and building artificial machines? Machines that fail, like all ephemeral, material objects.
Bllr, Rhm, Tfod: Technician Mng!
Mng: After five hundred years, still you have not reconciled an accident. You are well named, Ahm, who is Darkness - Absence-of-Radiation. (Begin first alignment) (How they shine … how I shine) (Shine against darkness) (Shine)
Ahm: It was spaceflight that brought true Darkness into our lives. It is the purpose of the body’s sessile to remain fixed, to seek the perfection of mind and mobile, not to tumble like a grain of silt through the nothingness between worlds. (Cluster) (Form first pattern) (Gray - ruby gleaming mudpools)
Isthp: The “nothingness” of space is full of light, if one has mobiles to perceive it. Strange radiation, that trembles in my memory still. Technology frees the sessile as meditation frees the soul. So do sessiles become the mobiles of God. (All gather, to form the patterns) (Heaviness of solid rock density) (Beautiful to behold)
Ahm: Heresy. Heresy! Blasphemer. (All gather, my mobiles) (True breeding. Fine breeding)
Mng: Ahm, you make me lose control - ! (*****************)
Isthp: Peace, my beloved Mng, Cloud-Music. I am not offended. As our Nimbles differ from our Swifts, so do our very souls differ, one being’s from another’s. We were never meant to steep quietly in the depths, you and I. (Gently, my Strong One, move with control) (Vibration ripples lap the shore; mudpools settle) (Pass under, pass through)
Mng: Ahm, you must think of the future generations - why do our mobiles answer the Calling now, but to create new sessiles, who will soon be breeding new mobiles of their own? Our space here will shrink as our numbers increase, and soon it will become like the homeworld … and then, much worse. We do not have the resources, or the equipment, or the time, to restructure our lifespace here. You are selfish - (Stray whisper of the neutron breeze) (Pressure shifts the rock) (Tendrils brushing)
Zhek: You are selfish! You only wish to return to space, to inflict more danger and discomfort on us all, for the sake of your perverted mechanical - mobile machines. (Subtle flow of color on radiant forms) (First movement of receptiveness)