The evolution of my people is obscure. (Interesting how it is often easy to understand the evolution of an entirely different species, and yet be confused by one’s own.) Our scientists are confident that at one time we did inhabit the surface of our world, or at least its less sulphurous seas, but at some point the symbiosis of Ketran and crystal was formed and we simply grew together.
Now of course, and for at least the last two million years, we have maintained our symbiosis with the crystals. The age of my own home crystal — the Equatorial High Crystal — has been convincingly established as 1.4 million years. Of course that’s half the age of the Seed Crystal, making the EHC one of the newer fully formed crystals.
The term symbiosis isn’t exactly accurate. We are living and the crystal is not, though it’s hard not to fall into a certain romanticism and imagine that it does have something very much like life. What is sure is that we cannot survive without the crystal, from which we derive our sustenance. And it is just as sure that though the crystals can grow without our help, they cannot survive intact long enough to become as vast as they are. The estimates are that a crystal above half a mile in average circumference will crash. The atmospheric pressures and internal buouyancies will lose the battle to gravity at that point. Certainly the seventy-nine-mile circumference of the Seed Crystal is a result of Ketran symbiosis. How would the great crystals continue to float if not for the lift supplied by hundreds of thousands of Ketran wings?
There was all sorts of talk on the uninet about using artificial engines to supply the lift needed for our home. These engines would free us from much if not all dock time. Visionaries talk of how we could go from our current one-tenth free-flight time to as much as one-half free flight. In fact, we would no longer need to maintain stations and fly to provide lift at all. We would only need dockage to eat and rest, while the engines would supply all the necessary lift to keep the crystals afloat in the atmosphere.
But I doubt such an idea will take hold. Deep in our memories we still carry the images, passed down through the millennia, of the terrible crash of the North Tropic Low Crystal. Three hundred thousand years are not enough to erase that memory!
The mere thought made me nervous. I opened my eyes and turned to look downward. Yes, we still floated high above the Eenos lava swamp. No, the ground was no closer than it had been when I immersed in the game. My docking talons were still firmly attached to my niche and my wings still beat their steady rhythm.
Azure Level enveloped me, the sharp, jagged structure of protrusions as familiar to me as the lines of my own hands. Through the smoothed and polished masts, spars, and yards I could see the distant frontier of opaque white spars — the new growth area. I was young, I might be chosen to move into the new growth once it had reached its expected violet hue. Then my name would change. That would be strange. And my ups and downs, my neighbors, would all change, too.
I glanced at Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension Two, Down-Messenger Forty-two, my closest “up.” He was a taciturn person, always had been. I’d tried many times to engage him in the games, but he was a serious scientist, one of those visionaries I mentioned. I thought of him as “Old Forty-two,” though I doubt he was much older than me. His chosen name was Lackofa. He pronounced it “LACK-uv-uh.” I think it was supposed to be droll.
“Hey, Lackofa,” I called up, using my spoken voice rather than a uninet memm.
His head jerked, causing his rather long and artfully unkempt quills to quiver. He blinked unadorned eyes. He peered around at the sky, as though unsure where the sound could have come from. Finally, slowly, reluctantly, he lowered his magenta gaze to me. “Toomin. What is it?”
“I lost another game.”
“Ah. Well, I can certainly understand why you would feel the need to inform me personally of a fact that, were I remotely interested, I could learn from the net.”
I wasn’t put off by his attitude. Neither of us had ever requested reassignment; that was proof of the fact that we got on well enough as neighbors.
I waited, knowing his curiosity would get the better of him. “All right, why did you lose?”
“Redfar tells me I’m too much of an idealist.”
“Mmm. I don’t share the fascination with games,” Lackofa said. “Any game that can be played can be deconstructed. You can always deduce the laws — assuming you pay attention. And once you know the rules that ensure victory, what’s the interest? It’s all software. Software is software is software. Boring.”
I was peeved at this. It seemed to imply that I wasn’t quite bright enough to understand the game. “Alien Civilizations isn’t just ‘software.’ It’s the most sophisticated game ever released. It has more than a million scenarios.”
“All of which reflect the thought patterns of the game’s creators. The scenarios are necessarily limited because the underlying assumptions are limited.”
He was right, of course, but I wasn’t in the mood to accept his smug judgment. I was in the mood to change the subject. “Are you coming to the announcement?”
“What announcement?”
“What announcement? What do you mean, ‘What announcement?’ The announcement. Even you know what announcement. They’re announcing the nonessential crew for Mapping Crystal Quadrant Three. The EmCee.”
“Oh, that. Well, first, I can’t imagine why you would feel the need to fly all the way up to the perch when you can know the results almost as quickly on the
