Ascending

nothing hot sunshine, provided I get a little rain as well.)

Where I was lying, I felt a light spray of water from time to time. I opened my mouth and let the drops trickle down my throat. The water tasted slightly of minerals that were probably good for me.

The light and water and minerals indicated I was in a Home for Ancestors. There are many such Homes on my planet Melaquin, though I did not know this before I became a world traveler. These Homes are designed to contain persons with Tired Brains: persons who have lost interest in life and simply want to lie someplace warm. To keep them happy, every town has skyscraping towers where Ancestors can lie all day, getting plenty of light and squirts of enriched water. It is a boring way to spend the time, and I had promised myself I would never get so sad and lonely that I surrendered to languishing numbness… but when one is damaged from falling a long way, it is not so very cowardly to rest for a while in the bright quiet.

So that is what I did.

Clear-Cutting

Now and then, I told myself, 'Oar, you must arise, you must find something to do.' But there was nothing to do. The Home took care of my physical needs, and beyond that, I could think of no goals I wished to accomplish.

There was a time when my world was full of great people doing great deeds. We had a Thriving Culture, creating lovely music and art and literature — the teaching machines in my home village had taught me all about the splendid achievements of our past. I would gladly recite some of our excellent poetry for you, but it does not translate so very well into Earthling languages and anyway, I confess there are gaps in my grasp of human vocabulary: I have worked hard to memorize your best words, but I cannot be bothered to learn the second-rate ones (which is to say, the ones with no counterparts in my native tongue).

Besides, I have no real ambition to be a poet… or an artist or even musician. In my whole life, I have only embraced one useful occupation — using my ax to cut down trees, I did this because a human Explorer told me that deforestation was how cultured persons tended their planets: clearing land in preparation for constructing farms and roads and cities. I did not know how to construct things, but I was excellent at chopping down timber; so that is what I did.

It turns out I destroyed so much woodland, the results were noticeable from space… which became a source of much pride — once an Explorer informed me of my achievement.

That Explorer had been an opaque human named Festina Ramos. When I first met Festina, she was lost and frantic, marooned on my planet with no means of escape. I therefore embarked on my first great Adventure: to return Festina to her own people. I did not quite know how that Adventure had turned out, since I suffered my terrible fall before Festina went home; but my friend was not here now, so I assumed we had triumphed in all particulars. Through selfless heroism, I had helped Festina leave Melaquin… and I could congratulate myself on a Glowing Success.

But as I lay inside the Tower of Ancestors, drowsily reflecting on My Life So Far, I felt no thrill of achievement. Festina was gone, as if she had never been here at all — what did I have to show for my time with her? I had chopped down vast stands of trees, but to what end? No farms or roads would ever be built on the cleared land, for my people were almost extinct. To be sure, millions were still alive all around the globe; but they did nothing except breathe and soak up light. They had no goals or purpose… and what purpose could I find alone in a world of the dead?

Of course, there was always the chance a new group of Explorers would visit my planet. Earthling Explorers tended to be repugnantly opaque, not to mention uncouth and slow to understand the simplest things, but at least they could supply me with acclamatory feedback: 'Oar, you cut down trees more prettily than anyone else in the universe!' (Except they would put this sentiment in their own words to achieve the effect of sincerity.) Then I would once more feel joy in changing the face of my planet, and would know that my life had Direction.

All I required was someone to assure me I was not wasting my existence on meaningless busy work.

I waited for someone like that to come along. And eventually, he did.

Being Roused By A Small Orange Alien

One day, I awoke to find an alien creature shouting into my face. 'Are you Oar?' it yelled in the language of Explorers. 'Come on, baby, wake up. Tell me if you’re Oar.'

'I am not a baby,' I answered. 'I am forty-five years old.'

'If you’re Oar, you’re older than that. You should be forty-nine by now. Are you Oar?'

'Who wants to know?'

The creature leaning over me was neither glass nor human. However, it was approximately human-shaped, with two arms, two legs, and a head. The head did not have normal ears; instead, there were two bulgy balls on top of the skull, like puffy mushrooms growing from the scalp. For clothes, the alien wore a white short-sleeved shirt, gray short-legged pants, and tan sandals, all of them stained with spills of unknown origin. The creature’s scaly flesh was not transparent like mine, nor anywhere on the pink-to-brown-to-black spectrum of Earthlings. Instead, the skin was a shade of orange that grew darker as I watched: from tangerine to pumpkin to an extremely burnt ocher.

This struck me as thoroughly foolish — an alien who can change color should endeavor to become clear and beautiful, not more opaque and unattractive. But the universe is full of beings with Different Views Of

Life. Often these views are stupid and wrong, but a wise-minded one (such as I) always practices tolerance in the company of irrational persons.

Conversing With A Little Man Whose Sole Amusing Quality Is That He Is Colored Orange

'The name’s Uclodda Unorr,' said the darkening orange creature, 'but everybody calls me Uclod. As in, ‘Get off my foot, Uclod!’ '

The alien grinned as if it had just told a joke. I decided this creature must be male; only a man could believe I might be charmed by such a feeble witticism. I also concluded he must be a young man — perhaps in his early twenties. An older person would not gaze at me quite so eagerly hoping for approval.

When the alien saw I merely stared at him without amusement, he harrumphed in his throat and went back to his former line of questioning. 'So spill it, missy — are you Oar or not? I was told you’d be lying here starkers with an ax cuddled against your wallabies; but I was also told you’d be dead, so there’s obviously something out of whack.'

Clutching my ax, I sat up and glared at this Uclod person. Though I was seated on the floor, he was not so much taller than I. If I stood, his head would only come to the level of my wallabies. (You will notice how quickly I pick up words from foreign languages.) 'I am Oar,' I told him frostily. 'An oar is an implement used to propel boats.'[1]

[1] — It is a custom of my people to suggest how others may remember our names: since our older citizens have Tired Brains, they need all the memory aids they can get. I was not actually named after a paddle — that would be very foolish, because I am a person, not a stick of wood — but the English word 'oar' sounds much like my real name. (For those who wonder what Oar means in my own language, it translates to 'extremely clever and beautiful person whom everyone envies even if they are too small-minded to admit it.' At least, that is what it means now.)

'That’s exactly the phrase I wanted to hear,' Uclod said. 'And you’re an acquaintance of Festina Ramos?'

'I am Festina’s dearest friend. We went on a great Adventure recently; she is my Faithful Sidekick.'

'Your adventure wasn’t so recent, toots,' Uclod replied. 'It was four Terran years ago. What’ve you been doing with yourself? Just letting your brain go to mush?'

'No,' I told him, 'I have been resting to recuperate from grievous wounds.' But it was most disturbing to hear that four whole years had gone by. One less courageous than I might be scared she had let so much time pass in a daze. She might worry most acutely that her brain was getting Tired like the elderly persons around her.

Fortunately, I am not such a one as gets the shivers over a little thing like aging. My brain was not Tired. My brain was just fine.

Proving I Am Just Fine

'Are you all right?' Uclod asked.

'Yes. I am superb.'

To demonstrate, I rose to my feet with fluid grace… and if I chose to lean on my ax, I did not need a crutch, I was merely taking a Sensible Precaution. This was the first time I had roused myself to stand since my calamitous fall; perhaps I would be wobbly or infirm. But I felt no pain or stiffness — my ribs did not ache when I took a breath, and my battered-bruised muscles had healed to their usual perfection.

Perhaps I really had been lying in a doze for four whole years — long enough to recover from all my injuries. But the time for dozing was over.

'There,' I said, feeling better now that I was taller than the little orange man with balls on his head. 'You see how well I am.'

'Can’t argue with that,' he replied, staring up at my wallabies. 'You got definite photogenic appeal. Pity you look so much like a computer-generated effect.'

I did not understand him, so I assumed he was talking nonsense. Many people do. 'Why are you here?' I asked. 'Did Festina Ramos send you?'

'Nope, a friend of hers. Well, not exactly a friend — a fellow admiral. Alexander York.'

Uclod leered as though he believed the name would shock me. It did not. 'Who is this Alexander York person? And why should I care about him even a little bit?'

The small man’s grin faded. 'Missy, you have been out of touch, haven’t you?'

'I have been right here. It is everyone else who has been out of touch.'

'You got me there.' Uclod wiped sweat from his forehead. 'Can we talk about this outside? My skin blocks most of the radiation in here, but I’m still getting my gizzards cooked.'

'There is no radiation in this tower,' I told him, 'there is simply an abundant supply of light. But I do not want your gizzards to cook, for then you might smell even worse than you do already. Let us go.'

A Clear Path To The Exit

Together we headed for the exit. The route was unobstructed, which I found most odd: usually Ancestral Homes have dozens of elderly persons littering the