by Jeff Young
“How far?” Kiona asked, looking toward the horizon.
Zoi’ahmets placed two branches on Kiona’s shoulders, gently spinning the girl around ninety degrees to the right. “Thirty-five kilometers to the Judging Area.”
“Oh,” was her soft reply. “Can’t we go to your base of operations?”
Again, Zoi’ahmets found herself wondering, did the human plan to sabotage the biosphere by destroying Zoi’ahmets’s work base? She answered quickly, “There’s nothing there to help you. Wickurn don’t have the same physical requirements as humans. There must be an enclave set aside for your kind at the Judging Area.”
Kiona turned away, looking back toward her original position. “Great. My parents are going to love this. Look, I swear, I never intended for this to happen, and I really hope that this will have no effect on the outcome of the Dispute. I really just wanted to get some images—well, I really wanted to see, and nobody was going to let me near anything.”
Zoi’ahmets pondered that revelation for a few seconds before urging Kiona into motion toward the far-off enclave.
“Perhaps you do not understand how wickurn look upon the Disputes. I know that other races actively attempt to fine-tune their strategies as the Dispute occurs. Wickurn feel that if our design has enough viable integrity, it will succeed.”
The grass rustled with their passing. Zoi’ahmets glanced briefly at the map that the cognition engine displayed in her mind’s eye. There were two ridges to traverse. Although Zoi’ahmets’s gait uphill would cost them time, it would be quicker than following the level ground. The storm front continued to advance. At best pace, it would reach them in a day and a half, just before they reached the neutral Judging Area. There was nothing to do but push onward.
By the time they reached the foothills of the first ridge of up-thrust rock, they had passed several net trees, spiral bushes, vane fungus, and whole fields of grasses, one side soft as silk and the other rough and jagged. Agile yellow leapers bounced out ahead of them, sending up clouds of pollen, while feathered grazers looked over broad shoulders with dark clusters of eyes full of complacent ignorance.
Kiona walked behind Zoi’ahmets, chattering about her school classes. About how adept she was at manipulating data and how her parents traveled across many worlds. In turn, Zoi’ahmets answered her questions about her Diversiform entrant and what she observed of her opponent’s. Since they were speaking of her work, it distracted her from her growing annoyance. Zoi’ahmets told Kiona how the challengers, the tio chaundon, built their biosphere in tiers that developed over time and spread outward from a central point. So, each tier increased in complexity and diversity as well as competition. “Oh, Darwin,” she’d remarked offhandedly.
The wickurn came to an abrupt stop. “What do you mean?”
“Survival of the fittest, it’s the law of nature.”
“By ‘law,’ you mean a rule stating a consistent action or situation that occurs under identical conditions? The wickurn Diversiform I have described to you is a web of symbiotic increase of complexity and opportunities for growth.”
“That just means that cooperation is the fittest form, so some other forms must lose out,” Kiona said.
“No, they are incorporated. Their numbers are perhaps limited, but no form is lost. This ensures the increase of diversity. Obviously, this is a ‘law’ only on your world.”
“Are you are saying that’s the case because these two ecosystems competing isn’t natural?”
Zoi’ahmets started walking again, thinking furiously. Suddenly her misgivings were back again. Could Kiona be trying to subvert her or spy on her work?
“No, I merely suggest that your ‘law’ is a theory because not all cases inevitably point to its proof,” Zoi’ahmets said, finally.
“So, do you believe that there is an outside force planning the development of nature?”
Zoi’ahmets hesitated briefly. “I did tell you that I am the designer of this Diversiform. So, therefore, yes, I know that I am the outside force that has planned for this outcome. How the Diversiform reacts to the vagaries of the state of the world and interaction with the opposing entrant is what I can merely theorize.”
“Didn’t answer my question again,” Kiona’s replied as she shook her head.
Zoi’ahmets looked at the human while Kiona walked ahead. Why was Kiona really here? Could she even sabotage the wickurn Diversiform?
Considering an answer, Zoi’ahmets realized that the light began to fade. “Kiona, when the light dims, I will be groggy. You can stay near my trunk; it will be warmer there. Neither biosphere has any large forms that could cause you harm.”
“I’ll be warm anyway,” was the human’s quick reply as she pulled out a small cylinder that inflated into an aircel sleep sack. Wedging it in between two rootlets, she curled up below the wickurn.
Zoi’ahmets looked down at her. She really could not fathom what went on in the human’s mind. Were her thought processes that different? One moment, she talked about not trusting Zoi’ahmets, and the next, Kiona curled around her roots. Zoi’ahmets gave up trying to understand and focused on something that might be more comprehensible with time. She pulled up the human information in her mind’s eye and turned to their replication substrate, DNA. Now, this was something that would hold her interest until her photosensitivity set in and distracted her from the frustration of being cut off.
~*~
Zoi’ahmets woke at first light, slowly coming back to full awareness as the morning brightened. She gently disengaged herself from Kiona to wander around the small clearing taking samples and reviewing the acceptance of the deposited forms. She roused the chenditi and set them to take readings of the atmosphere and water vapor. She saw no sense in wasting time until Kiona awoke. Finally, Zoi’ahmets considered that perhaps it was time to wake the human.
With the chenditi swarm accompanying her, Zoi’ahmets gently shook the sleep sack. When Kiona’s tousled fur appeared, Zoi’ahmets’ upper eyes were surprised at the redness of her face. There also seemed to be swelling along her jaw and eyes. Chenditi clustered around Kiona and lit on the edges of the sleep sack as she knuckled her eyes and pushed herself up and out. Only after her first attempt at standing did Zoi’ahmets begin to realize the seriousness of the problem. Kiona’s leg was completely swollen now, and she could no longer easily stand upright.
The chenditi registered infection and histamine imbalances again, as well as fluctuations in the hormone called estrogen. The infection would account for the swelling. The hormone imbalances made little sense, and odd fluctuations in her core body temperature seemed to be more than a mere fever. More important was the real problem of the lack of effective medicine, food, and transportation for Kiona. While Zoi’ahmets considered the next alternative, Kiona dug into the round container in her pack. She slapped a patch onto the underside of her wrist before the chenditi could react. A quick review proved that it would be mildly effective against the pain and swelling. She sat back dejectedly. “I wish I hadn’t eaten the entire snack yesterday. Is there anything around here that’s safe to eat?”
“That is a problem,” Zoi’ahmets replied, spinning closer to her. “You cannot safely digest the plants and animal life of my Diversiform because they contain heavy metals that are harmful to you. Wickurns filter them out easily and need some of them, like selenium. Even the water may be harmful over long periods of time.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to call in for a rescue.”
The wickurn dipped an eye close to her and said nothing. The other two upper eyes surveyed the ridge ahead. “I cannot contact the satellite link. There can be no rescue. But we must still find a way to get you out.” Zoi’ahmets hesitated, her mind flickering through possibilities, “How long will it be until your parents miss you?”
Kiona struggled to her good leg, leaning heavily against Zoi’ahmets’s trunk. Now it was her turn to hesitate before replying. She tried to take a tentative step forward, and Zoi’ahme
ts flung two branches after Kiona before she pitched forward into the grass. She hung there a moment before reaching around to pull herself upright. Liquid ran down the planes of Kiona’s face. “They won’t know for quite some time. They’re sequestered.”
Despite her best attempt, Zoi’ahmets nearly dropped the young human as her thoughts reeled in shock. Kiona’s parents were human judges in the Diversiform Dispute. Her hopes came crashing down. The chenditi, confused by this input, clustered tightly in a rotating ring around Zoi’ahmets’s upper branches, and she desperately fought the instinct to sweep them into her twitching maws. Everything, everything hung in the balance. Would the humans still be impartial if harm came to their offspring? Would they be disqualified as judges? Would the entire Dispute be considered null and the wickurn and her opponents be relegated to a later competition? The cognition engine started determining probabilities until she angrily cut it off. Zoi’ahmets felt the skin between the joins of her main branches begin to grow tender and itch.
She went back to an earlier chain of thought. Zoi’ahmets called the chenditi cluster to the fore. Running the translation twice through the cognition engine, she confirmed that the cluster understood what she desired. Then, spinning like a miniature cyclone, the little mass mind began to retrace their steps. Hopefully, it would be able to carry out her instructions.
“Lean on me,” instructed Zoi’ahmets to Kiona as she started off in a new direction, downhill from the ridge. They could no longer hope to cross the heights. It would add distance to the trip, but the most effective path now lay along the valley floor. Together they limped through three kilometers before Kiona needed a break. At the edge of the river that followed the valley floor, the human sipped sparingly from the water. Zoi’ahmets was still concerned about the contamination, but now it seemed they would have little choice. Kiona poured the water over her head, wiping at the swelling around her eyes. Zoi’ahmets suddenly realized a new concern. If the swelling continued, Kiona soon would not be able to see.
They struggled onward for another two kilometers. Zoi’ahmets reconsidered the distance to the neutral territory base, the cognition engine flicking up lines of numbers: twelve kilometers the first day, five today made seventeen, about halfway, except now they were following the valley and angling slightly away. That made their total trip now fifty-two kilometers. They were a third of the way to safety, and Kiona could literally no longer walk.
When Zoi’ahmets checked Kiona’s eyes, she found that her swollen cheeks and eyebrow ridges left her with a narrow band of vision. As Zoi’ahmets dipped her roots into the shallows of the river, something caught the attention of her upper eyes.
Sunlight glistening off the swarm of chenditi heralded their arrival. Carried between their many members hung ten meters of cord and eight gas cells. Zoi’ahmets accepted the strand and began to communicate her idea to the chenditi.
Turning back to Kiona, Zoi’ahmets asked her, “When we met, you said you wrote with light. How do you do that?” hoping perhaps to distract her.
“What’s wrong with your translator?” Kiona said, staggering toward the sound. Zoi’ahmets gently guided Kiona’s outstretched hand against her trunk. “Oh, I see— ‘photo-graphy.’ Means I collect pictures. Like with this,” she said, indicating the constantly moving disk clipped behind her ear. “I keep a record of everything, and then I look for images that hold a particular meaning or will evoke a pleasant memory.”
A constant record, Zoi’ahmets turned that idea over in her mind. “I would very much like to see your record when we reach safety. It will help to review the environment we have journeyed through.”
“Sure, you know a picture doesn’t lie, or is worth a thousand words, you pick.” Kiona’s replied softly as she sat down at the edge of Zoi’ahmets’s roots still on the shoreline. “Tired, gonna’ sleep now.”
Zoi’ahmets helped her into the sleep sack. The chenditi reviewed Kiona’s condition before beginning their work with the monomole cord. As they began weaving the cord into a sling that could keep the sleep sack anchored to the slope of Zoi’ahmets’s trunk just above the root cluster, she considered their results.
Kiona’s temperature had dropped and while the infection did not seem to be nearly as pronounced, walking on her injured leg caused it to swell until she could barely work the covering off of it. Histamine counts were still way off. Perhaps that was something Zoi’ahmets remembered as an “allergic reaction.” So, as Kiona continued to nap, Zoi’ahmets researched further into human physiology. Eventually, she found a heading entitled “puberty.” Suddenly the hormonal imbalance began to make sense. Finally, she considered the weather. Her observations of the wind and clouds indicated the storm would arrive tonight. With that, Zoi’ahmets summoned the chenditi to their perches on her trunk and, with an awkward lurch, began to move along the shoreline.
Kiona woke briefly when she realized that Zoi’ahmets carried her and then returned to sleep. The wickurn kept up the pace until the light began to fade. They were now seven kilometers further. Her root cluster was sore, and the joins of the branches on her crown swelled into round clusters of blisters. Zoi’ahmets briefly explored the largest. Of all the possible outcomes, why this? The stress must be forcing a bloom. One more inconvenience to overcome.
The first drops of rain swiftly distracted Zoi’ahmets, and she pulled the edges of the sleep sack over top of Kiona’s face, carefully propping them up to allow airflow. As tired as Zoi’ahmets was, she still delighted in the feel of the rain cascading over leaflets, branches, and trunks. Her mouths puckered open into waiting funnels.
The rain continued the next morning and made footing difficult as Zoi’ahmets soldiered on, trying to gain more ground despite the grogginess caused by the cloud-veiled light. Kiona mumbled incoherently, and Zoi’ahmets risked another patch under her wrist. That left only one more. Hopefully, Kiona’s fever would break soon. The child would also soon realize that she couldn’t see. Zoi’ahmets grasped at boulders and trunks of trees to pull herself along. In the early evening, the cloud cover finally broke, and the steady rain tailed off. Zoi’ahmets brought them as far as possible away from the riverbed in case the water rose overnight and faded from consciousness.
~*~
As the light woke her, Zoi’ahmets realized that Kiona’s weight no longer rested against her. The little camera flashed and spun where Kiona clipped it to the outside of the flaccid sleep sack. Casting about, Zoi’ahmets discovered the girl at the edge of the river. A trail showed where Kiona crawled through the dew-covered grasses to the water’s edge. Zoi’ahmets came up behind her slowly.
“I guess it’s morning now, right? I mean, I think I can feel the sun. Sorry I left, but I was so thirsty,” Kiona whispered.
Zoi’ahmets gently led the human back from the edge of the river. Kiona demonstrated admirable aplomb at accepting her loss of vision. She was also very fortunate to crawl out onto a low rocky shelf instead of falling off an embankment into the rain-swelled waters. Zoi’ahmets stood there staring at the river for a moment. A desperate idea formed in her mind.
“I heard something crackling last night. What was that?” Kiona interrupted.
Self-consciously, Zoi’ahmets poked a branch into each of her three mouths and found some small pieces of chitin. Apparently, some large insect became an unwilling dinner last night. Zoi’ahmets’ reserves were being put to the test if she ate instinctively. A new concern presented itself.
“Kiona, I can eat during my sleep. You must be very careful if you wake up in the night, especially near my crown.”
“Oh, late-night snack, but you wouldn’t... I see. You mean it’s involuntary. As if I could climb up there anyway with my leg and my not being able to see.” Kiona started to laugh, but it came out a thin sound that soon gave way to sobs. As Zoi’ahmets eased a branch around her shoulders, Kiona reached out and gently squeezed it. “From what I’ve seen, Zoi’ahmets, you’ve made a beautiful world, but I don’t want to die here.”
Zoi’ahmets shuddered briefly. Had Kiona seen past to what she hadn’t dared to admit to the other wickurn? That what she built was designed not only to be effective but also pleasing? Had a child seen what she presumed to do, where others hadn’t? Suddenly what was a vague hope solidified into resolve.
“You are not going to die here, Kiona. But what I have in mind will take bravery on both our parts as well as luck.”
Kiona turned her face to Zoi’ahmets, and the sun broke through the clouds to dance across the river, hiding its swollen state and brown color.
“Why do you have the Disputes, Zoi’ahmets?”
The wickurn considered briefly before answering. A chenditi flicked across Zoi’ahmets vision in the sunlight. Perhaps they were the best example. “Kiona, when the chenditi were discovered a long, long time ago, they completely overran their world. Their planet was tidally locked, with the cold side covered in ozone haze and the warm side covered with nothing but layer upon layer of barely conscious chenditi. Their mass mind became an increasingly more efficient calculating machine capable of vast intellect as their numbers grew. Eventually, they passed a point, and the grand mind broke down. So, their population increased until they were barely conscious, and their world rapidly spiraling into decay.
“When galactic races found them, a great many chenditi were rescued, and a realization grew out of the incident that in diversity lay the hope of continuity. This became the common theme for the developing galactic community. The worlds we find are contested for. Did you know that all the environments must be able to support at least five other species as well as the entrants? We hold these contests and abide by the judge’s decisions, which are reviewed for fairness by an impartial arbiter. By doing this, we bind together the community and preserve it by demanding diversity.”