Lark’s passenger extended a pseudopod over his left eye, creating a vacuole in front of his field of view. Inside that small space, hundreds of tiny “deputies” budded and performed gyrations, mimicking shapes and playacting a suggestion that Lark should turn around and get the hell away from here!
“Oh, stop bellyaching, you coward,” he replied with disgust. “On Jijo we learned you can make friends out of old enemies. Besides, have you got anything better to do right now?”
His meaning somehow got through, causing the Zang to retract its deputies, resorbing them into its body and pulling back sullenly.
Indeed, there would be no going back to the creature’s base, on the opposite side of the battleship. In between them lay a huge wilderness. Polkjhy now swarmed with things, crawling through the hallways, chewing through compartments and walls, transforming them into grotesque shapes and outlandish forms. So far, essential systems seemed to have been spared. Those were still under control of the remaining Jophur crew — who seemed to grow ever more shrill and panicky in their communications — but for how much longer?
He felt a large presence come up alongside. The third member of their party.
“You are right, Lark,” murmured the stack of glistening rings, whose throbbing mass quivered as its components debated among themselves.
“This vast macro-entity appears foreordained to expand until it fills Polkjhy entirely. We might flee, but to what end? Our trail has brought us here. Our/My/your/our destiny clearly lies within. Let us find out what it wants. What are its aims. What it came here to accomplish.”
Within the gelatinous mass, Lark saw signs of change. Ling’s eyes, which had been dismayingly vacant, now seemed to clarify, gradually focusing past the membrane, toward him.
All at once, a light of recognition shone! Though her mouth was covered by a symbiont, the squint of a smile was unmistakable, and her arms moved forward, reaching out. Joyful at the sight of him. Reaching in welcome.
“Well, look at the bright side,” he commented, although the Zang passenger shivered with fearful resignation. “It looks kinda interesting in there. Maybe we’ll learn a lot, eh?”
The giant membrane did not try to grab or seize them when they approached. Rather, it recoiled a bit, then seemed to sniff cautiously, as if deigning to be wooed. Lark extended his arm, brushing the surface. It felt chilly, and yet electrically pleasant in a way he could not quite fathom.
The Zang quivered, then seemed to change its mind. Lark had an impression of surprise. This was not the deadly foe it had expected, but a distant relative, greater and more kindly.
Decision came. A cavity formed, shaped like a tunnel, or a doorway.
Lark didn’t hesitate. He strode forward, to his love.
It seemed that his instinct was correct. There was something deeply natural about this merging.
In theory, the hydro-and oxy-orders were incompatible, using disparate chemistry, different energetics and existing at widely distinct temperatures. But life is very good at problem solving. Symbiosis enables two or more organisms to pool abilities, accomplishing what one alone never could. It happened when early cells joined together in Earth’s oceans, creating unions that were more competent than their separate parts.
Lark soon got used to the idea that this could take place on a much more sophisticated level, especially when guided by sagacious intelligence.
Anyway, while a teeming swarm of other “organelles” surrounded him, he cared about just one, whose caress made him feel more at home in this strange place than he ever had in his bed, on Jijo.
I’m glad we’re still functional in all the ways that really matter, he commented.
Ling curled her body alongside his, maximizing contact between their drifting bodies. Her answer came not as sound, but directly, as if conveyed by the fluid surroundings.
Typical male. Nothing else matters, as long as your sexual organs are satisfied.
He blinked.
Weren’t yours?
She replied with a languorous squeeze, evidently content. Her skin still trembled slightly with the rhythms of their intense lovemaking.
A part of Lark — the restless thinker — wondered what possible use the macrobeing could make of human sexual passion. Not that he was ungrateful for this new phase of existence. But once his thoughts began spreading outward, they would not stop.
Whatever happened to Rann? he inquired.
The one other human aboard, a fierce Danik warrior, had turned his talents to helping the Jophur. Lark would not relax knowing that enemy was out there, somewhere.
Don’t worry about Rann. He won’t be bothering us.
When he glanced at her, Ling shrugged, causing bubbles to flurry off her shoulders.
He was absorbed also. Mother must not have liked how he tasted. But she doesn’t waste good material, so she put him to work in other ways. I saw a couple of Rann’s parts a while ago — a leg and a lung, I think — incorporated in some organelle.
Lark shivered, feeling grateful that his “taste” met the macrobeing’s approval.
You call it Mother?
She nodded, not having to explain. The name made as much sense as any other. Though nurturing kindliness was clearly just one aspect of its nature. There was also a brutally pragmatic side.
He sensed agreement from the Zang, his longtime companion, who now existed as a compact globule, floating nearby. Their sole remaining link was a narrow tube connected to his left side, and even that might dissolve soon, as they learned their separate roles in this new world. The Zang was still deeply uncertain, though one might have expected it to be more at home in this world of drifting shapes, where bulbous deputies swam back and forth, performing gaudy simulations.
In the murky distance, he saw that someone else was having a better time adjusting. The stack of waxy traeki rings — who had once been Asx, and then the Jophur called Ewasx — stood planted on the floor, surrounded by clusters of bubbles, membranes, and crawling symbionts. From waves of color that coursed across its flanks, Lark could tell the composite creature was having the time of its life. What could be more essentially traeki than to become part of something larger and more complex, a cooperative enterprise in which every ring and particle played a part?
Lark still wondered about how it all was organized. Did there exist an overall controlling mind — like a Jophur master ring? Or would every component get a vote? Both models of symbiosis existed in nature … and in politics.
He had a feeling such details were yet to be worked out. “Mother” wasn’t finished taking form.
Come along, Ling urged, taking his hand. I want to show you something.
Lark needed a little while to get used to locomotion in this new medium. Much of the time, it involved movements akin to swimming, though in other locales the surrounding density changed somehow and their feet met the floor, allowing a more human mode of walking. There were no clear transitions, as between sea and shore. Rather, everything intermingled and merged, like the thoughts he and Ling shared.
Guiding him along, she finally pointed to a vast nest of tendrils that spread outward from a central point, waving and twisting. Many were linked to wriggling forms — Lark saw another larval qheuen, a couple of traeki stacks … and a form that resembled a centauroid urs, curled in a fetal ball, protected by something like an embryonic sac. He did not recognize the tawny figure, though urrish “samples” had been taken by the Jophur, on Jijo. Its flanks heaved slowly, as if calmly breathing, and Lark saw intelligent clarity in the triple set of eyes.
There were other oxy creatures. Some he identified from images on paper textbooks he had skimmed long ago, back home in the Biblos archive, while others he did not recognize. All were entangled with symbionts linking them to hydro-globules and other blobby things. The most eerie thing about it was that none of them seemed particularly to mind.
Mother taps the data mesh here, Ling explained, pointing to where the tendrils converged. Peering to look past the murk, he made out one of Polkjhy’s main computer panels.
Ling reached for three writhing tentacles, offering one each to Lark and the Zang.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening elsewhere.
