Tales to Tell

Mala heard/felt the soft ping within her cybernetic system that told her the sphere was accessing the educational program she'd uploaded for it.  Sometime soon she hoped to arrange for the plasmoids to access the main computer, but that wasn't a decision she could make on her own.  So she'd found a way to convey the basic concepts and linguistics the spheres needed.  She'd included biological and evolutionary information in the upload, as well as an overview of Earth's continents and lifeforms, then programmed a simple form of cross-reference between a dictionary and the specific UT algorithms created for their communication.  After she added a set of icons into her internal space for the sphere's use, Floats Serenely was able to access and move between the programs as easily as it once scanned the electrical patterns of humanoid brains.  The plasmoid had taken to the process like a proverbial duck to water. Mala surmised there must be some resemblance between this kind of access and the manner of communication the spheres used among themselves.

She was eager to introduce Hovers Questioning to the process, and also learn about that sphere's session with Crimson and Shaar.  Mala hoped she could continue to be a part of the plasmoids' life and learning.  But decisions about those possibilities were out of her hands, perhaps out of her influence entirely.  Mala tried not to resent the bureaucratic realities of the situation, and told herself it was an irrational feeling.   Irrational because it led to no creative avenues of thought or plan.  The most she could do was confer with the diplomatic officer about relevant precedents.

~Does your ship have an ocean?~  Floats Serenely used the narrow waveband to speak internally with Mala.

Mala thought she might understand now how many young mothers felt.  ~We'll talk about that later, after we leave here.~

The plasmoid held its blue color for another instant, then streaks of red and magenta rushed horizontally across the blue.  Its center contracted, and the outer boundary layers roiled. Then it swooped down, and darted past Mala to a nearby copse of blooming crab-apple trees.  More internal pings indicated its continuing education.

Mala turned from the clearing and walked to where M'D'li waited, reptilian face turned up to the imitation sunlight, slanted eyes half closed.  He squatted comfortably, weight borne by his thick coiled tail, beneath the branches of a large oak, its leaves mere slender threads of green.  Mala picked up a plas-wood bench and placed it beside him, then sat down.  "This is one of those moments I'd like to make time stop – for a while."  She laughed.  "I tend toward restlessness.  But not right now. The Arc is on the move again.  Soon the Flammarion will be on its own. And I don't know where the plasmoids will be." She wanted to say to him, And you'll be gone. We may have only this hour to talk.  But shyness and uncertainty held her back.

"This recreation of your Earth is beautiful.  I thank you for your invitation, Lieutenant Commander."  Beneath the computer rendered translation, his natural voice resembled the sighing of winds through a series of tunnels or caves.

"Please, call me Mala.  This seems an ideal place to talk, to become acquainted.  Perhaps I'm like the plasmoids, curious.  I've not met anyone of your race before."

"That may be.  But I sense something more to you than curiosity, Mala, if you do not mind my saying so.  At our first encounter you appeared startled by my appearance.  At the time I attributed your reaction to my own uniqueness.  I am the first of my kin to voyage on a Federation vessel.  But I have noticed your scrutiny, as if you searched my features for some clue that you were missing."

"Oh, I am sorry!  I didn't mean to give offense.  I don't usually.  But you're right in your assessment.  Though I haven't met any of your kin, I have seen, under unusual circumstances, beings of a reptilian race who resemble you in facial features, particularly your eyes.  I can't help but wonder if they, and your kin, might be branching races from the same species."

Mala was surprised at the intensity of M'D'li's response.  He sat upright, tail swishing out, lashing the side of the oak.  His tongue licked out and up.  Then he regained composure, but did not resume his earlier casual posture.

"Now I must apologize to you, Mala.  But your words were unexpected and triggered a most remarkable possibility.  From our history, our remembered legends, we know there was a race of progenitors who seeded the earliest life forms of our world with their genetic code.  They returned then, more than twenty-five of our generations ago, to see what we had become.  They found problematic mutations – our story is a complex and unhappy one."  M'D'li exchanged glances with Mala.  She nodded, and spoke softly, "The story of life's evolution throughout the universe is often one of unexpected twists and turns."

After a few moments of silence, he continued: "Our ancestral race evolved along the shores of an inland sea, making homes within a system of natural caverns.  Their bodies had mutated from the original plan, becoming serpentine.  Lacking the means to manipulate the environment, yet possessing complex brains, they turned their thoughts inward, developing structures of language that were forms of poetics and music.  This was their mental preoccupation, the thing that differentiated them from the surrounding non-sentient lifeforms.  Yet another mutation occurred, during this earliest phase.  Memories of these poetic structures and forms were passed from generation to generation, biologically.  This was not in the form of individualized memory, but racial memory.  When the progenitors came, they realized the species had mutated in such a way that no further progress could be made, without intervention.  They separated four genetic lines from the rest of the species and experimented with changes in brain chemistry.  This, of itself, did little.  But they also created the earliest versions of our bionic harnesses and limbs, then taught our race the beginnings of science and technology.  Even so, the old patterns of racial memory were difficult to eradicate. The ancient songs continued to haunt our advancing intelligence. Forms of meditation were developed to counteract this tendency to devolve. Finally, a small city was built by the partnership of the progenitors and our ancestors. The progenitors left then, promising to return.  But they did not do so."

M'D'li paused once again, searching her expression, before finishing.  "Life became a series of advancements, then fall-backs.  Our ancestors brought many of the parent race into their city, training them to use bionic limbs and establishing new thought patterns within their minds.  But often, these escaped back into their caves, and into their ancient songs.  Then warfare erupted between the city's inhabitants.  One faction developed the belief that only by exterminating the remainders of the parent race could they be safe from devolution.  They were opposed, and their plan defeated.  Yet, even the victorious faction understood that something had to be done to resist stagnation.  They determined to follow the progenitors' example, and use the technological information left behind, creating a prototype starship.  It was nothing like the ships you know, Mala.  But it took them away from the homeworld and its haunting memories.  Space - our lives were renewed by it!  Our sciences developed, our one small ship became a fleet of city ships.  Now our fleets are many and varied.

"We ourselves have traveled the star lanes for six generations, but we have found no trace of these progenitors.  Could it be, Mala, that you have seen them?"

"Perhaps.  But if so, theirs too is an unhappy tale. And it's beyond my understanding.  Yet, I'd like to tell you what I know, what I've seen."  Mala told then of how she'd found the small cybernetic dragon in a promenade shop and later been gifted with it.  "It too bears a resemblance to you, M'D'li, though hidden beneath artistic and fantastic flourishes.  It contains stored information which I assumed were holographic renderings of imagined cityscapes. But after spending time with these, I caught glimpses of hidden layers of code.  I copied them into a holodeck program, and made my way into the city.  At first, nothing appeared changed from the originals.  But then memories entered my mind, memories stored within the geometry of the structures.  Many of these could not be translated into my own concepts or senses.  But, from what I did understand, not only were memories stored  into the dragon AI, but at a deep layer of compression, the personalities themselves."

Mala looked at M'D'li then.  Unlike his earlier reaction, the reptilian stood very still, he barely appeared to breathe.  His eyes were opened wide, and his gaze was locked onto her face.

Mala didn't break the connection that had formed between them.  She watched him watching her, and said, "I have not discovered any way that these personalities could be decompressed and given active mental life within a new substrate.  It is even beyond our Federation technology.  Although, I've come to think that some decompression of partial personalities might be accomplished.  But whether that would be meaningful, a strand of mind and awareness lifted away from its natural context..."  Mala shook her head.  Then she sighed and shifted position, her glance moving back toward the clearing and the denser trees beyond.  Floats Serenely was a mauve and yellow gleam drifting among the spring blossoms.

"I'm sorry my story doesn't have a more hopeful ending," she told M'D'li.

"As am I, Mala! But this story seems far from ended. Do you have this compressed program in your possession?  I must view it, as you did.  You surely realize that."

M'D'li again grew agitated.  He began to pace back and forth in front of her, his bionic limbs softly whirring.  "You will not keep it from me," he said, his tongue flicking out and up again, as if searching for insects just beyond his reach.  Then he closed his eyes, focusing inward.  When he opened them again, his voice had calmed.  "I find it difficult to contain my impatience.  Please understand.  Can we go now to your ship's holodeck?"

Mala consulted the time, and knew she had to report back to the bridge in twenty minutes.  The conversation had progressed far beyond anything she'd anticipated!  But she understood M'D'li's state of mind.  "Yes, of course.  If you'll escort Floats Serenely back to the Harmonics Lab, I'll go immediately to Holodeck One and load the program.  I haven't used it since that one time.  There were problems within the Arcadia's systems, and at first I feared my program might have caused it.  Though later I learned an unrelated virus was responsible, I couldn't bring myself to go into that city again, knowing I could do nothing to change the situation for the inhabitants."  She smiled slightly, nodded to him, then stood for a moment beneath the oak, speaking inwardly to Floats Serenely, asking it to accompany M'D'li, assuring it that she'd see it as soon as possible.