Each of the dumbbell units can survive for a while on its own, but has minimal intelligence. A small collection of units can survive as a coherent cloud with enough intelligence to hunt smaller prey and look for plants to eat. These small "animals" are the major form of prey for the flouwen. Larger collections of units form into more complex "animals." When the collection of units finally becomes large enough, it becomes an intelligent being. Yet, if that being is torn into thousands of pieces, each piece can survive. If the pieces can get back together again, the intelligent individual is restored, only a little worse for its experience. As a result, a flouwen never dies, unless it is badly damaged in an accident (boiled by a volcanic eruption or stranded on dry land a long distance from water).
Reproduction for the flouwen is a multiple-individual experience. The flouwen do not seem to have sexes, and it seems that any number from two flouwen on up can produce a new individual. The usual grouping for reproduction is thought to be three or four. The creating of a new flouwen seems to be more of a lark or a creative exercise like music or theater than a physically driven emotional experience. The explorers on the first expedition to Rocheworld witnessed one such coupling put on for their benefit by four flouwen. They each extended a long tendril that contained a substantial portion of their mass, estimated to be one-tenth of the mass of each parent. These tendrils, each a different color, met at the middle and intertwined with a swirling motion like colored paints being stirred together. There was a long pause as each tendril began to lose its distinctive color, indicating that the liquid layers between the units were being withdrawn, leaving only the units.
Then finally the tendrils were separated from the adult flouwen bodies, leaving a colorless cloud of gel-like units floating by itself, about forty percent of the size of the adults that created it. After a few minutes, the mass of cells formed themselves into a new individual, which took on a color that was different than any of its progenitors. The adults then take it upon themselves to train the new youngster. The adults and youngsters stay together for hunting and protection, the group again being very much like a pod of whales or porpoises.
Since a small portion of a flouwen can function like a full-sized flouwen, except for decreased physical and mental capabilities, it was found that a small portion of a flouwen, weighing only a fifth of a ton (200 kilograms or 440 pounds), can bud off from the multi-ton main flouwen body, get into a specially-built spacesuit with lenses built in the helmet visor to serve as eyes, and ride in human space vehicles in order to take part in joint expeditions with the humans. These sub-flouwen are somewhat more intelligent than humans, and have already proved to be valuable exploration partners on those worlds containing oceans, such as the moons Zulu and Zuni.
Zuni Lifeforms
The sub-categories of fauna and flora are not appropriate for the lifeforms on Zuni, especially since the dominant predator life form, the Jolly, may act like an animal in function but is more like a plant in form. Since Barnard has weak illumination, the plants cannot survive on photosynthesis alone, unless they are very large in light collecting area (many acres). Fortunately, the moon Zuni is situated between the moon Zulu, which emits water into space, and the moon Zouave, which emits hydrocarbon smog into space. These materials stay in orbit around Gargantua, forming large torus-shaped clouds, one of water and one of smog. The water molecules and hydrocarbons are acted on by the light and particles from Barnard, producing energetic compounds. Zuni passes through the outskirts of these clouds and collects this energized water and "fertilizer" on its leading pole. The periodic strong impulse tides from the close passage of Zuni to Zulu and Zouave also keep the volcanoes on Zuni active, which throws more energetic gasses, compounds, and particulates into the air. These energy-bearing materials then fall as enriched rain on the plants.
Thus, the "flora" on Zuni are those plants that live mostly by developing large structures with lots of surface area to collect as much rainwater as possible, while the "fauna" are plants that get some or all of their nutritional needs from attacking other plants and sucking their sap or eating their leaves, limbs, and or fruits. It seems, however, that nearly all lifeforms on Zuni are predators at some level of activity.
In the lakes and oceans of Zuni are additional lifeforms being studied by the three flouwen members of the expedition. Most of the underwater life exists only in and around volcanic vent fields, again because photosynthesis is so weak that algae and other forms of plant-like plankton cannot thrive without another energy source, such as hydrogen sulfide and other compounds emitted by volcanic vents.
The following lifeforms are listed in approximate order of intelligence or importance to the human explorers. There are certainly many more lifeforms to be discovered, not only on the island where the explorers are located, but on other islands and in other oceans of Zuni.
Jolly—The dominant life form on Zuni seems to be a large, intelligent, omnivorous, mobile plant. The humans have named the plant type a "Jolly," after the "Jolly Green Giant" animated character used in Del Monte vegetable television commercials. The Jolly's name for themselves is their tribal name "Keejook," with the neighboring tribe called the "Toojook." The word "jook" seems to be a generic name meaning roughly "person." An adult Jolly is typically four meters (13 feet) tall, has a large trunk a meter in diameter, a canopy ("hair") of blue-green fronds, and six legs. The legs of a Jolly have no joints, but are moved by differential internal hydraulic pressure, which makes them prehensile like the trunk of an elephant, or giant cloth-covered slinky toys. The legs can expand and contract in length, and are moved in two sets of three. One set consists of one leg at the very front, and two at right and left toward the rear. The other set consists of two legs toward the front at right and left, and one at the very rear. This way, the Jolly is always securely balanced on one set of three legs while the other set of three legs slowly "steps" forward by contracting in length, swinging forward, then extending in length to touch the ground. The body weight is shifted by the extension of the back set of legs, while the new ones contract slightly until they are supporting the body weight overhead. The process of taking two steps to return to the original state takes a whole minute for a roughly one meter pace. This translates to sixty meters per hour, or two kilometers of travel each thirty hour Zuni day.
When balanced on three of its feet, the Jolly can use the other three feet as arms. Its root-like feet are strong and capable hands that can manipulate its stone-age tools, like knives, scrapers, diggers, etc. It carries its tools in loops or pouches hung from a belt made of dried vines, or in a carrying net used as a pack for long journeys.
In the central body or "trunk" of the Jolly, just above the hips, is a mouth-like hole. This is the home of a number of scurrying little mole-like creatures or "gatherers," with blue-green hairy fur, six strong jointed legs, a single large eye, long mole-like nose, and a small toothless hole at the back of the head for a mouth. The front two legs have six opposable "fingers" with sharp claws that are used for grasping, tearing, and digging. The gatherers scamper down the legs of the host Jolly, climb up trees to harvest nuts and fruits, dig into the ground to find grubs, kill smaller animals and plants, and haul their finds back to the mouth-like hole, using their front two feet to hold the food, while walking on the rear four. These gatherers have minimal gut and brain, and act as mobile "hands" of the Jolly. They bring food to the Jolly and put it into a "throat" in the back of the "mouth" hole in the trunk that leads to a "gizzard." The Jolly digests the food, and in turn feeds the gatherers the enriched "milk" they need through a long prehensile "teat" or "umbilical cord" extending down from the ceiling of the mouth-hole. The same umbilical is used as a "data" line to "download" a "program" into the semi-intelligent gatherer before sending it out on another foray. The Jollys speak through their gatherers by downloading a sentence into the gatherer through the umbilical. The gatherer then releases the teat and "whistles" the sentence while the Jolly is downloading the next sentence into another
gatherer. Because of the lack of vocal cords to make humming sounds, and the structure of the feeding orifice on the gatherers, Jolly speech is limited to whistling or hissing vowel sounds and various stops for consonants.
Hanging from the fronds growing from the top of the trunk of the Jolly are nestlike structures, each the home of a small owl-like creature consisting of a single large eye and two blue-green wings with three stiffening struts each. The "owls" have no visible feet or beak, but there is a small toothless hole for a mouth, again in the back of their head. They have minimal gut and a large brain, mostly concentrated behind the retina of the single eyeball. These owl-like creatures flutter about the canopy from nest to nest. Occasionally one of them will dash off into the distance, fly around and inspect some object at a distance, then flutter back to a nest. These "owls" are the eyes of the Jolly. They bring back pictures to the Jolly, who uses them to assemble and maintain in its mind a three-dimensional "view" of the world around it.
This three-dimensional view of the world "seen" by a Jolly is probably very different from the moving two-dimensional imagery as seen by a human. First, the view is a stored three-dimensional image, so that the Jolly mind can "walk around" the image and inspect it from any point of view at any time. Second, the view stays static until an "owl" comes back to a nest and supplies an up-dated version of one portion of the whole view.
Nothing definite is known about the sex life of the Jolly. Since they obviously have fruiting bodies hanging from their fronds, they may be bisexual, like most plants, or of a single sex, like holly trees and a few other plants. The children are planted as seeds and are started as rooted plants surviving on the nourishment of the fruit pulp. They are weaned to partially digested and regurgitated adult food as soon as their mouths and eyes are open. Once weaned, they pull up their roots, walk away from the nursery bed, and go to school where they are taught by the tribal elders the skills needed to become adult members of the tribe.
jookeejook—The "pig" of the Jolly food chain, but the "chimpanzee" from an evolutionary point of view. The Jolly word "jookeejook" means literally "person that is not a person." The jookeejook is a cultivated omnivorous mobile plant that has been bred by the Jollys to eat garbage and produce delicious fruits and meat. A jookeejook is built along the lines of a Jolly, with a trunk, vestigial leaf crown, mouth, and six legs, but the jookeejook always walks on all six legs and seldom uses a leg as a "hand." Its eyes and gatherers are connected to the main body by semipermanent umbilical cords connected to the back of the heads of the motiles, which severely limits the range of the motiles. The umbilicals to the eye motiles are like fine stiff wires that arch up through the fronds to partially support the eye out at the tip. The eyes have wings so they can move around to change their view, but the wings are not large enough for the eyes to fly well.
A jookeejook eye or gatherer motile is normally permanently attached to its umbilical. If the motile is pulled upon or becomes caught in something, however, the motile will detach from the umbilical, somewhat like the disposable tail of some earth lizards, except that the motile can be reattached to the umbilical. When separated, however, the jookeejook motile is incapable of independent purposeful action, unlike the more intelligent motiles of the Jollys. Although it is difficult to see exactly how it happened, it is expected that future studies of the comparative physiologies of the jookeejook and Jolly will help establish how the Jollys evolved their semi-intelligent free-roaming eyes and gatherers.
peethoo—The banyan tree of Zuni. A large low tree covering many acres. The long limbs from the main trunk are supported by "saplings" that grow down from the bottom of the limbs to the ground. The leaves are large and spongy, and soak up all the water that drops on them. By staying low to the ground and using multiple trunks, the peethoo tree minimizes trunk mass versus leaf mass. They are susceptible to taller trees shading them at the edges, but once they have become large enough, the leafy area in the center keeps the whole tree going while the outer edge engages in subterranean root-killing warfare with the neighboring trees.
thook—A semi-intelligent thorn thicket that is cultivated and trained by the Jolly tribe to protect the Jollys from raids by tentacle trees and other Jolly tribes. The thook branches grow in coils that can be hydraulically contracted and expanded quite rapidly (from a Jolly point of view), impaling an intruder on the sharp thorns. Humans can usually move fast enough through a large hole in the barrier to avoid being caught. The thook thicket recognizes the members of the tribe, and automatically coils its branches back out of the way to allow the Jollys of the tribe and their gatherers through.
boobaa—The Zuni equivalent of a coconut palm tree. The boobaa is a very tall tree with a bare trunk, large leafy crown, and large spongy tough fruits. The boobaa trees live in interconnected "families." Their crowns meet at their edges and cover a wide area. They live off the energy-rich nutrients in the rainwater like most plant life on Zuni. When one of the boobaa trees is attacked by a climber vine attempting to take over the canopy area, that tree passes on its stored resources to its neighbors through their interconnected root system, deliberately shrinks in size, and lets the neighboring boobaa trees grow to shade it. This results in the killing of the climber vine by making it use up its stored resources climbing the trunk while not allowing it to gain anything in the end for all its effort. The tree grows fruit up high which it drops during severe windstorms, hoping that the fruit will roll to a place where some tree has been uprooted, so it can take over the space.
keekoo—The keekoo, or "tentacle tree" as the humans call it, sends out very fine threads along and under the surface of the ground to great distances. Upon finding a source of nourishment, such as a dropped fruit, dead plant, or dead animal, the tree pumps resources to that section of thread, which turns the thread into a strong snake-like tentacle that grabs the food object, constricts to kill it if necessary, and then transports the object back along the thread to the main trunk to nourish the root system.
feebook—The "ivy" plant of Zuni. The feebook plant grows in soilless steep areas and rocky creek beds where normal plants and trees cannot grow. It spreads out wide, waterproof leaves over the rocks and barren ground that form a groundcover. The large waterproof leaves prevent the nutrient rain from soaking into the ground, and funnels the rainwater to the central plant at the bottom of the creek bed.
peekoo—An edible bivalve shellfish with a soft pink body and six legs with pincer claws. The bivalve shell is not symmetric, but instead is constructed with a flat bottom shell and a domed upper shell, somewhat like a six-legged headless and tailless tortoise. It detects the approach of predators with an array of small scallop-like eyes peering out from under the shell, and either scampers away on its six long legs or holds fast to a rock using a combination of claws and suction.
CASTING
HUMANS
The initial crew of the Barnard Star Expedition consisted of twenty people when it left the solar system in 2026. One of the crew, Dr. William Wang, during the long process of curing the rest of the crew from an infectious type of cancer, died from the same cancer while en route to Barnard. Although the crew spent forty calendar years traveling from the solar system to Barnard, their aging rate during the long journey was slowed by a factor of four through the use of the drug No-Die. As a result, upon arrival at Barnard in 2066, the effective biological age of the crew had only increased ten years over their age at the start of the mission. The crew spent the next two years decelerating to a halt in the Barnard planetary system, then three years surveying the entire system from space, exploring the surfaces of the two lobes of the double-planet Rocheworld, and exploring the surface of the Gargantuan moon Zulu, before moving on to the surface exploration of Zuni. The ages for the humans are given in terms of their effective biological age at the time of their crash landing on Zuni, now known as Eden, in 2073.
Landing Party
The landing party for the surface exploration of Zuni consisted of ten crew membe
rs:
Major General Virginia "Jinjur" Jones—Commander of the Barnard Star Expedition. Height: 158.5 cm (5'2"). Weight: 61 kg (135 lbs). Effective Age: 57 years. Jinjur is short and solid with dark-black skin and a no-nonsense black pixie Afro haircut. She graduated high in her class at the U.S. Naval Academy and chose the Marines. During her first tour of duty with the Marine Recruit Training Command, she distinguished herself in the Greater San Diego tourist riots in 2009. She rose to become commander of a Space Marine fleet of lightweight solar sailcraft that kept the spacelanes swept of debris, inspected foreign spacecraft for compliance with the Space Treaty, and resupplied and protected the Laser Forts. Jinjur's nickname (bestowed on her by her Space Marines) was taken from the name of the spicy female general that conquered the Emerald City in one of the lesser-known Oz books.
Reiki LeRoux—Computer programmer and anthropologist. Height 163 cm (5'4"). Weight: 53 kg (117 lb). Effective Age: 44. Reiki is the daughter of a Japanese woman of good family, who met and fell in love with a US Navy aircraft carrier pilot stationed in Japan. His family were oil-rich Louisiana Cajuns. The couple married, but he was killed in a training crash before Reiki was born. Reiki spent her childhood in Japan among a large family, who loved her, but found her alien appearance constantly unsettling in the community. Her skin is almost apricot, her black hair is curly, and her dark eyes are round. With money no problem, she was sent early to a good boarding school in Scotland, where she pursued a wide variety of courses and excelled in them all. She specialized in computer programming and anthropology at Glasgow University, graduating with honors. Of medium size and pleasantly curvy, she has had lots of experience with many different kinds of people, and has learned the skills of cooperation to a high degree. This manifests itself in a passion for etiquette, which the others find entertaining. She is a quiet person, very good at her work, which is designing user-friendly computer interfaces, and keeps a detailed diary in her slim electronic journal that goes with her everywhere.
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