procreates and how many offspring morphogenesis is the process by which an organism creates itself growth curves with a time lag results in oscillating patterns the predators always a quarter cycle behind the prey these new humans are taking you to be destroyed fat gun in your face commanded to walk between them away from your helpers out there on the Jersey shore Manhattan skyscrapers topping the east horizon on the run on the hunt kick the gun and run humans hilariously slow on the uptake dash into cinder shadows of dun brake duck and turn jump a creek green meadow crumpled with moss pads were Persian carpets ever green? almost stride directly into another person looks human
I need help some people just mugged me and I think they’re still after me human stares at you pure blue iris marbled by a darker blue come with me then off on a path human stops, points white-tailed deer frozen in place ears facing them a febrile temperament they’re back the human says
You say Would you like to play chess?
Human says Sure come on
To a little shack another human already there they talk in the kitchen go outside at sunset the red on the hill taketh away my will needles on the conifers prick silver deciduous leaves flush on their western sides a moment comes when a distant streetlight casts a glow against the sunset and a space of light is set up without shadow exceptionally clear and articulate to the sight there’s a fox at the edge of a clearing flowing through weeds russet and white the propagule rain falling both ways from Earth to space then back again a symbiogenesis lifting both blue of sky slightly veiled by white transparencies
Swan it’s Zasha from inside the house I’ve got a thing here a chess player it seems kind of confused black birds banner back to town land in a tree on the horizon black dots flopping lazily getting settled at end of day birdcalls talking to each other maybe fifty birds of various kinds making a sonic sphere it’s all together that make it music the continuo is the hum of the cars trucks generators engines motors a jet so big it looks nearby its sound far behind it in the sky bird chorus at sunset surcharge and overlap civilization in the open air avian wisdom conserved in archaic parts of brain not apparently programmable a leap of the imagination near midnight a third human arrives tall graceful Hi Zasha what’s up introductions hail the reality of the other namaste I salute the spirit within you
I’m Swan tell me about yourself summarize events since coming to consciousness shoved out the door into the street departure from Venus transport by humans in a private system land on Earth all began as part of an attempt to end the eclipse on Venus not immediately but as a project to be enacted safely hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul ignorant of details of plan helpers somehow actually against the larger project helpers arrested or kidnapped forced departure mention of being put down escape
Swan looks at Zasha those fuckers are treating them like qubes
Well? Zasha says What do you call them? Qubanoids? Qubans?
Qubans is good I say they’re like Pauline remember it was a qube that drove the A-Tay-Ha right into that pebble mob killed itself for us did its duty I mean I like the inspector as much as anyone which is quite a lot despite all but I feel no need to agree on every issue this is just crazy
Jean just thinks we need to hit the reset button a little
You never get to do that! life doesn’t work that way I’m going to take this one with me
Swan
Don’t you try to stop me! standing quickly fist pulled back to strike
Zasha both hands up Stop stop I don’t disagree for once just maybe you might have it right that’s why I called you up till now I was helping to track these things down so when I heard this one got away I went out and hauled it back in it was easy they’re credulous but then I called you I called you
That’s my Z we’ll leave at dawn
Zasha shaking head You and your strays here you are doing it again fuck every time you come out here
Hey you’re the one who asked me here you wanted my help you wanted me to do this
Yeah yeah gowan wicha getoutahere
The breaking of the day addedth to my degree if any ask me how artist who drew me so must tell
Hope is a bird the birds quieter at break of day sleepier cheerful at what the light portends a breeze throws waves through the parlor of the dawn
Follow Swan to a car off to a dock where a public ferry awaits all the faces dense with life eyes looking inward to other times past or future or watching the day like you
Across the broad river in spate water surface closely scalloped by the wind creased by wakes bubbly cross chop the round bow of the ferry skidding on the tide crashes gulps the broken water slides ahead Manhattan left to right before them a cliff made by people sunrise has not yet topped it long shadows over the river slowly grumble into the slip a giant vise that grips the ferry and rocks it still
Out with the people onto a platform out between tall buildings canals below long thin boats 52 boats visible 423 people in morning shadow busy day already
What do you think? Swan asks Can you pass? Will you be all right?
41 boats visible 364 people we are the birds that stay
I’ll be all right
Good off with you then the human kisses you on the mouth click of eyeteeth jolts you both suddenly awake to the reality of the other look in the eye maple irises left eye marked with a bottom arc of blue Do good go
WAHRAM
P eople hunger for time both ways. Certain things we want to come faster: the terraforming of a new world we have come to love, the arrival of universal justice in human affairs, a good project. Other things we want to go slower: our own lives, the lives of those we love. Either way it’s a hunger for time-more time to do things, to experience things.
Getting married at age 113 is the triumph of experience over hope. So many lives have already been lived. One’s hopes long since have been reduced to a focus on the things of the day. Experience has taught all it is going to teach; more experience will be a reiteration.
But never quite reiteration. Life is always at most a pseudoiterative. Each day has its particulars. Performing the same actions day after day, in a ritual to ward off time, to hold the moment, does not remove these particulars, but rather burnishes them. The animals, our horizontal brothers and sisters, remind us; each day lived is a kind of adventure, a success. Nothing ever repeats. Each breath is a new suck at the atmosphere, a gasp for life. A hope for experience. Feel that and go on.
Fitz Wahram sat in the meeting room of the Titan Planetary Relations council, thinking these thoughts. When it was his turn, he made his case to his colleagues.
“One would hope that after all this time the Terran nation-states would have learned from experience and made their reconciliations with each other, such that their various ties with the off-planet settlements were consistent and coherent, and all the confusion and discord that their current actions create been dispensed with. But no. They have not managed that. It may take them decades more, or even centuries. No one can say how Earth will go. Meanwhile, we have to restore some kind of relationship with our old patron Mars. The work around Saturn began as a Martian nitrogen hunt, as you know, and that was a big part of settling the Saturn system in the first place. So the complete break from Mars, while necessary in its time, does not have to stay permanent, nor should it. We’re strong enough now that we can deal with Mars without being overwhelmed by them. Indeed, to engage them would be a sign of strength for us. So I propose that we go there and arrange to renew nitrogen exports from Titan to them, almost at the levels that existed before, but in a new arrangement that we control, in essence a fair trade. It would benefit both planets. The Titanic atmosphere still holds about twice as much nitrogen as we want it to have in the preferred state. That suggests a specific transfer quantity that we can set the conditions for. In return we can provide our part of a triangular trade: nitrogen from Titan to Mars, reconstruction and development assistance from Mars to Mercury, and heavy metals and rare earths from Mercury to Saturn. Also their help in assuring the Vulcan light imports.”
Questions and such from his interlocutors. Discussion. Then Wahram again:
“The reinforcement of ties in all three directions would be helpful in the effort to band together in the face of Earth’s recidivist imperialism, and their internal conflicts and rivalries, which threaten to spill outward and overrun
