Eetoo

by Robby Charters

  'What does it look like?'

  'I'll see if I can get an image. I'll have to use a quiet, non-intrusive means to obtain it, so it might not be clear. Even then, if we gaze too long, it'll sense our presence as though we were invading its privacy.'

  Everything in that direction starts to change to a purplish colour, and then things that are far away suddenly look close up, things like asteroids covered with foliage, weird animals, then ...

  'There it is,' Neuryzh whispers through his tube. 'Now, don't talk. Relax your mind. Don't think any loud thoughts. I'll bring it up just a bit clearer.'

  I can barely see something that reminds me of a jellyfish, or a squid, round in the front with very long tentacles hanging out the back -- just sitting there, tentacles furling in the breeze.

  After about three seconds, it goes hazy. Objects start looking far away again, and normal sky colour returns.

  'Those creatures have existed almost since the birth of the universe. They remember the formation of galaxies and stars.'

  'That old?' I say.

  'Yes. Actually, it's not accurate to call them "they". They don't reproduce in the same way as other species. One, when it grows big and sufficiently healthy, simply splits into two. Each one goes off to live its own life, but they both retain the memory of the original. Thus, they all remember the day that they, as the original fjoounz, were birthed billions of years ago, and the lives of all the split-offs that led to their own. They travel the universe, stretching their fore-membrane to cover their whole body, and propelling themselves in a way similar to this ship -- they imparted to my fathers the means of building these ships. Their task, at the beginning, was to distribute and plant the seeds of life throughout the universe.'

  'Wow!'

  'Someday, I may return to that spot and wait for the fjoounz to communicate with me, if it will.'

  We leave the nebula, and have our lunch.

  Now we're coming to a star with normal planets going around it. Neuryzh thinks there are people here living on one of these.

  We come in closer and Neuryzh magnifies the image.

  We don't see the ground yet. We just see lots of things sticking up, mostly with bulbs on top or wide flat things, like flowers.

  We look closer. They're not flowers; they're gardens. I see trees and paths, and even houses on them. The bulb looking things look like buildings. Some have crystal walls so we can see into them. I see gardens inside some of them too. Others only have floors on top of each other. The whole planet is covered with them.

  There are also little things flying back and forth. I guess they must be carriers. There's a whole line of them following each other like ants. Some of them are veering off and landing on the flat garden things, and I see one going to a bulb. A door opens up on the side and the carrier goes right in.

  Neuryzh magnifies it some more. We can see people in the garden places. One of them is tending the plants. He must be a farmer. Inside the bulbs the people are dressed really fine, with jewellery and all.

  All the gardens and stuff are perched on top of things that look like flower stems. The whole planet looks like a garden. We go about for a while along the surface. The whole planet is covered with the buildings. The sky above them is blue and has white clouds, like on our other planets, but underneath, it's sort of brown and grey. We can't see what's down there -- wait -- there's a place where there's no buildings. The air is clearer underneath. It's an ocean. We cross it, it's a big one, but there's the same dense grey mist on the other shore, with flower buildings sticking out of it. All the land space is used up, I guess.

  Neuryzh takes the ship a bit lower.

  'It sounds as though they're speaking Nephteshi,' he says.

  Suddenly, I see other ships coming up from somewhere, and surrounding us.

  They're sending some sort of blinking light at us.

  'They're guiding us to a forced landing.'

  'Do we land then?'

  'We're very far from home. They probably believe they are the only intelligent beings in their galaxy, so it's doubtful that they answer to any galactic protocol. However, they've put up a thernguin net, which prevents even my ship from escaping in that direction. But I can still go down, which they probably don't anticipate. I'll set the matter programming so we can pass through solid objects. Here we go...'

  We start going down into the brown mist.

  'Back hole at the centre -- I'd better not to attempt that.'

  We turn before we reach the surface, and start whizzing along.

  We're going too fast for me to make anything out. Everything's grey and brown.

  Now, we're going up again. We go past the flower tops and off into space again. Nothing's chasing us now.

  'That was the most advanced human civilisation I've seen yet.'

  'Very beautiful place,' I remark.

  'You didn't see much of the bottom, I suppose.'

  'No. We went too fast.'

  'Not so beautiful there.'

  'You said this planet has a black hole?'

  'Yes. The usual method of atomic reprogramming doesn't work on black holes.'

  'Why?'

  'A black hole has no atoms intact. It's a collapsed residue of all particles that once made up the atoms in that range, so there is no nuclei through which to access the hyperspace dimension. Now, the black hole, itself offers other possibilities, but my ship isn't equipped to handle that.'

  'Why do some planet have black holes?'

  'That's a technology humans used centuries ago. They take a black hole the same weight as a small planet, they bombard it with raw zotite, more than it can consume, so it begins to crystallise. Now, zotite is a highly unstable material in its raw form, but the hardest material in the universe when it is crystallised. They keep bombarding it until the zotite stops crystallising. Then, after removing the excess zotite, they begin building the infrastructure of the planet, first by placing large slabs of rock in many layers as a base foundation, and then more rock with space in between for underground passages and rooms. Some parts, they build higher, so as to facilitate mountains, plains and oceans. On top of that, they lay the sand and topsoil.'

  He gives me the coordinates of the planet we just got away from, and I write them down in the computer.

  We're leaving the galaxy now.

  'Just time for one more stop...'

  * * *

  crystal mountain peaks surround the shallow canyon

  round, smooth and bulbous - except where pieces have broken off

  the canyon floor is strewn with broken crystal boulders

  with other rocks and topsoil around about

  deeper valleys are visible not far away - sinking below the tree line

  so that lush forests are seen below

  the young of two very different species meet...

  So, this is a baby Utz. Cute -- sort of. I'd say it's about half my size, and looks much more like a bird than Neuryzh, probably because it's not wearing anything and he's got feathers all the way up to his dome. His arms are a lot like wings, except for the claws at the end -- no good for flying.

  He's got a chunk of crystal he's playing with. He twitches a lot when he's playing -- reminds me of a baby parrot. And he talks, non-stop...

  'Look what I can do! See? When I hold it like this to the sun, it separates the photons according to their wave pattern! Look! Someday I'm going to make a borunñnvotzp'

  He's made a rainbow on the flat bit of white rock.

  'That's beautiful!' I say.

  'How do you know "beautiful"? You don't even detect particle movement! Hey, do you know how many hydrogen atoms there are in this galaxy? There's -- hey! Wait a minute -- this language he transferred to me for talking to you, just saying that number would take all morning!' -- now he's using another small crystal to deflect some of the light from the first beam to make other patters -- 'Anyway, in our language we'd just say "Ffffttzshdrdrnuit". Did you know? No two galaxies in the universe contain the same
number of hydrogen atoms. You can use that information to identify a galaxy...'

  Now Neuryzh and the old Utz are coming back.

  Suddenly, the baby Utz starts talking to the old teacher in their own language.

  'Ahh,' says the old teacher. 'Perhaps it's time for a lesson about humanity. Zoonyuzh, go call the others.

  He jumps up and starts hopping away. He reminds me of a little bird hopping, jumping up on to rocks and over crevices, making a noise like a pan flute -- like Neuryzh's but only the high notes. He sounds more like a bird.

  Just from knowing Neuryzh, I never really noticed how much like birds Utz's are, until I met these younger ones. I think they're just a highly intelligent species of bird.

  Here they come -- oh the gods! They're doing it again! Flashing their domes at each other! It gives me -- sometimes a tickly feeling -- sometimes ... ha ha -- aaaah! Too much!

  'Tzzzgrrrtdsldlsojvniugggh!!!' shouts the teacher.

  They stop. He flashes me with a softer glow. Now I feel better.

  Neuryzh translates for me, 'He's told them not to use their domes in the presence of humans until they've learned to focus more accurately.'

  'All right, now gather around. I'll conduct this session in Fa-tzi-zhi for the benefit of our human guest. Now, a while ago, Zoonyuzh asked me a question that I wish to answer in the presence of all of you. Maybe, our new friend, Eetoo can also tell us some things. Zoonyuzh, please repeat your question in Fa-tzi-zhi.'

  'How can Eetoo know about beauty? He can't even detect sub-atomic particles, let alone interpret broad sequences as a unified whole!'

  'Okay,' he thinks a bit. 'Eetoo, maybe you can tell us. What is beauty, to you?'

  'Er -- ' I don't know how to answer. 'Things are just beautiful, that's all.'

  'I'll project an image. There...'

  In middle of nowhere, there's a mass of colour -- beautiful, but it's just a big splosh of colours.

  'Is that beautiful to you?'

  'Yes,' all the Utzs answer.

  'Yes,' I say.

  'So, Eetoo, what is beautiful about it?'

  'Er -- I don't know. It's just -- well -- beautiful.'

  'What if I remove some of the aspects. How about this?

  'No. That's not beautiful at all.'

  'The zhozon wave frequencies aren't a multiple of the ptdrokll waves,' says the biggest Utz student.

  'That's right, Pzotttr. How about this?'

  'No,' we say.

  'But when I project them all together...'

  'Yes. That's beautiful!' we all agree.

  'Now, Eetoo, you look at it for a while, and try to pick out what about it makes it beautiful.'

  After a while, he says, 'Have you found what's beautiful about it yet?'

  'When I try to figure it out, it doesn't look that beautiful anymore,' I say.

  'Exactly. While the Utz relies on his observation of particles and wave patterns, along with the other principles of physics in order to realise beauty, the human brain has a special sense that works independently of his analytical capacity. In fact, the human mind approaches beauty from the opposite direction from that of an Utz, or a Groki, or certain other species. That's why, when Eetoo tries to analyse the source of beauty and truth, that function stops working, and he no longer sees the beauty of it. Most humans haven't fully developed their unique sense, but it has the potential to make humanity superior in intelligence to all other species. What prevents humans from reaching that potential is the tendency to try to analyse things and make logical comparisons, just as Eetoo did a while ago -- when he lost the sense of the beauty of the image.

  'In fact, the failure to reach that potential, has to do with the first human.'

  'Red Earth?' I say.

  'Why, yes. I believe his name had that meaning. He was placed in a large habitat that contained every type of plant life, and every kind of animal that was to inhabit his planet. In this habitat, there originally dwelt three creatures. One was the mother of all feathered creatures, another, the father of all four footed mammals, and the third, the reptilian.'

  'Could the feathered creature fly?' asks one of the Utzes.

  'It could fly, yes. It lives for seven celestial ages, and then dies, but is hatched again from its own ashes.'

  'I wish we could fly,' Zoonyuzh says.

  'What did the mammalian creature look like?'

  'It was hooved, and had a single horn.'

  'The reptilian?'

  'It's the reptilian that this story concerns. It was long, slender, and had seven heads. Now, the other two creatures had a fuller understanding of things. They fully recognised that the human had a superior sense of beauty and truth that didn't rely on the ability to logically compare, nor a sense of superiority or inferiority. Whether the reptilian recognised this, is uncertain. Perhaps he simply underestimated the ability the human did have, or he begrudged the human of that ability. Some say that his actions were calculated to undermine the human's unique strengths, and to gain an advantage. I once had a long conversation with a fjoonzh who had met the creature. This fjoonzh was of the opinion that the reptilian, in fact, had dark motives that were carefully concealed beneath a façade of purity and innocence.

  'Whatever the case, the reptilian cultivated a friendship with the female human, and convinced her that having the inherent capacity to make logical comparisons and to analyse what's superior and what's inferior, would give her an advantage over all other creatures. To gain this ability, she was to partake of the fruit of a special tree, a one-of-a-kind, that grew only in the habitat. The fruit contained molecules that would react with human DNA and bring a change to the human system, and to the way the brain worked. The changes would be hereditary. Both the male and female human partook of the fruit, so the unique human sense has been impaired ever since by the desire to logically analyse and compare everything, along with an obsession with superiority.

  'So, humanity's inherent weakness is that they are prevented from ultimate beauty by trying to approach it from the wrong direction, not relying solely on the unique sense that the species was born with.'

  I've never heard the story in that way before. Maybe it's in the golden tablets.

  Anyway, Neuryzh says it's time for us to go. We say goodbye, and we're off, back to Tok.

  * * *

  Heptosh stood at the door of his house and heaved a sigh. The sun was setting, and he expected Eetoo would arrive with Neuryzh any time now.

  Blazz the Groki did, indeed, have the goods on Amanhep -- not that he had shared it in good will, of course. As though on cue, Amanhep suddenly showed his true colours. As soon as Lord Staktekus began to give ground during negotiations, Amanhep took it with a vengeance -- on his own behalf, not for his fellow Nephteshis on Imtep, as far as Heptosh could tell. Now, it was Amanhep who was the trouble spot. Lord Staktekus had warned him about that prospect, but Heptosh, gullible soul that he was, rather than take warning, had actually convinced him otherwise.

  Now, the situation was a bigger mess than ever. On one hand, Lord Staktekus now regarded Heptosh as a deceiver, and on the other, Amanhep was refusing to budge from his high ground. There would probably be war on Imtep.

  Heptosh had failed. If it weren't for Neuryzh reassuring him and glowing his dome for him, he'd be depressed. Also, there were other things he could switch his attention to, such as reopening Kalodzu-Famta.

  Even that was hitting snags. Regarding the question of who was controlling Shan, Diggin, the head of Sector Security, would only say, 'We're putting the question to various parties, but the issue appears to have reached a sensitive phase.' He wouldn't elaborate.

  At least, Heptosh would make the trip to visit Eetoo's mentor, Too Dha. That might give them some fresh inspiration.

  He could see Neuryzh's carrier coming up the road now. It stopped in front of the path to the house.

  He was glad to see Eetoo.

  19

  sparring partners in the back pasture, unclad

 
a large man, a small one, making cautious moves

  the larger lunges with his fist, a move that should have floored the smaller

  but for the latter's quick movements in turning the action against itself

  it's the larger who picks himself up, congratulating the younger

  all the while, the shepherd's young apprentice watches with glee

  Heptosh is still sure I can beat Tsim. I told him I'd need to practice, so here we are. He says he used to do boxing before, but with Nefzedi rules. He says Akkadi boxing isn't much different, only no rules.

  Nakham is sitting on the rock, acting as though he were watching a real fight, cheering me every time I get Heptosh in a hold.

  I've tried about five different holds now, and I'm practising those ones because they're the best for doing someone who's using their fist, or their feet.

  At first, I think he wasn't trying hard to hit me, just letting me try my holds. Now, he's trying a lot harder. He's got his fists wrapped up in cloth though. He's also tried his feet, even though Nefzedi rules don't allow kicking.

  Tsim would probably start out using his fist, and do kicking later on if he needed to. I should get him into a hold before that though.

  'I'm tired out,' says Heptosh. 'We'll do this again tomorrow -- provided I'm not too sore. Maybe every day until we make our next trip to Kalodzu-Famta.'

  He puts his loincloth back on and walks back to the house.

  Nakham comes running. 'Do it to me! Do it to me!'

  I do a few moves with him, get him in some holds, then I throw him up in the air so he lands on my shoulders. He loves it. Then I race him to the pool at the stream and we jump in.

  I sit and relax in the water while Nakham keeps jumping in from the rock and getting out again.

  I don't want to just fight for her and win her as though she were a prize that anyone could win. I might have an idea though.

  In that story in Neuryzh's bubble thing, the girl did something that stopped the monster.

  Let me think...

  20

  Heptosh navigated the craft at a low level to avoid detection, and looked for a landing spot deep inside the canyon.