Travel was a strange thing when you barely perceived the passage of time. Like many animals, her world was soon ruled by the dominance of the flow from day to night, though that passage was far more real for her. While her animal self could take near-total control of her metabolism and waking/sleeping rhythm with the right alterations to diet and possible addition of a few simple drugs, being a plant did not grant her that luxury.
For one, she couldn’t sink too low while she swam, or else pass into an artificial night that would after a few hours drain her energy and leave her feeling lethargic and relaxed, until she floated back to the surface on her own accord and eventually woke again.
But there was no higher surface to swim to when night came. So her body reversed its usual chemical pathways, converting all the sugar she had created during the day back into energy she could use. She never slept, though. Rather, she became trapped within her body, which resisted all her attempts to use energy unless it came accompanied with particularly intense fear. Otherwise, it was better just to drift with the currents, and wait for the next day to come.
Fortunately she wasn’t alone during such times—Harmony was there, its voice persistent but not quite unchanging. “You said it had been a long time since we crashed here,” she said, after a week or so of swimming. “How long, exactly?”
“Does it matter? You are an immortal resident of Harmony. The galaxy will be embers and Harmony will still be shepherding our star. When the civilization is fully digital, we can suppress fusion until it produces only a faint trickle of energy, reflecting it backwards where it escapes the ring using thin mirrors. Even deep time will be conquered.”
Felicity was almost distracted with questions about that future scenario. But then she realized what she was about to do, and shut her mouth again, glowering. Abstractions about the far-future might be interesting to consider—there were probably whole sections of Harmony’s population who lived purely in such a hypothetical, preparing civilization for that time. But Felicity hadn’t ever been interested. Until her elevation to Citizen, she’d barely even cared enough to learn magic.
“You’re trying to distract me,” she said. “I don’t feel very immortal right now. I almost died, you said. You had to put me back together, or… something. So how long has it been?”
“I am… uncomfortable with uncertainty,” Harmony said. “I do not know how long we were in stasis together. My greater self managed affairs for the invasion, so the sliver within you was not necessary to leave active. After your crash, however… it has been eighty-three years. I did not wish to alarm you, as many organics still feel discomfort when their experience of consciousness does not appear continuous.”
“Eighty… eighty-three years?” Harmony was right about one thing. She did experience discomfort. “How could any of me be left if that’s true? Did you just… recreate a plant with the same memories as Felicity had?”
“Not precisely. You are not complex enough to understand the underlying realities. Know only that we had a vanishingly small reserve of magic. I knew this, and chose the spell to cast to keep you alive during the long delay. Of course I would have attempted to preserve you digitally if the worst were to occur—but then you would be dead until this planet is finally examined by Harmony and I can be recovered.”
Suddenly she didn’t want to think about these questions anymore. Felicity considered her companions instead, particularly Escape Gear. She’d been part of this mission from the start, and now they hadn’t even talked in more than the lifetime of a changeling. But she wasn’t even one of those anymore. “Can you determine more about the friendly signal from here?”
It was hard to tell for sure—there was no guarantee Felicity wasn’t just projecting her own feelings on it—but it sounded like Harmony was relieved she had moved on to another subject. “It is a Varch’nai carrier of indeterminate nature, an identical member of the swarm. No signals are detected from orbit. That they have not been rescued suggests the invasion fleet has failed.”
“Well that sucks. We gave them the most advanced, most powerful fleet we had… and we still lost.”
“No,” Harmony snapped. Suddenly Harmony’s voice seemed to take on a distinctly feminine quality. Not only that, but it was… offended? “The Varch’nai represented an alternate branch, one our civilization did not take. They are not ‘evokers,’ but ‘materialists.’ If they failed, the true Harmony would escalate to sending individuals of high complexity within its own paradigm. Evoker capital ships. I… cannot explain them to you, as I do not understand them myself.”
No, but you just described yourself as different from Harmony and used your own voice at the same time. In its own way, that was a more significant development than any projections of the far future. And more relevant to Felicity personally. “How long would a second invasion take? Maybe we can wait until then.”
“Possibly,” Harmony answered. “Though I cannot detect the unknown ship we encountered, that does not prove it is not still in orbit. The Varch’nai theorized it was designed to fight against members of our civilization and win. If they are correct, we may be doomed. Or worse, that ship might not be satisfied with defending its home territory—it may wish to follow our rescue home to Harmony, and destroy everything we are.”
“You think… we can stop it?” Felicity said. It was the stupidest thing she’d ever asked—but the situation sounded so dire that she had to try.
“Highly unlikely, but nonzero. We are a member of the local dominant species. If the unknown ship is piloted by plants like yourself, perhaps you could negotiate with them. In the alternative, you may be able to get aboard and destroy the ship from within. This seems… unlikely, as I said. But not impossible.”
I probably shouldn’t approach first contact thinking I’m going to betray them and destroy their ship. We still know so little about these aliens—we don’t know why they ignored communication from us, or why they were so determined to destroy us. She was the wrong pony for this mission—or she had been, while she was still a pony. Now she was the wrong creature for this mission. The wrong seaweed for this mission.
As much as she enjoyed having someone (or something) she could talk to, Felicity lived for the hours she could spend swimming. Then at least she felt alive, and familiar. Her body might be an illusion of vines and slime, but it was shaped enough like what she expected that she could control it, and fool her mind into thinking she was alive again.
Eventually—she couldn’t say if it took days or months, and didn’t really want to know—she found a settlement coming into view in front of her.
It happened gradually, as the seas became shallower and the waters naturally warmer. She saw structures along the ocean floor below her—most overgrown with simple mosses, the relics of homes rather than the things themselves. The “houses” had walls, but were always open to the sun, and kept clear. Even the ocean’s surface was clear, thanks to the ravenous appetite of airborne predators. Or… herbivores? That was going to take some getting used to.
After swimming over many kilometers of these stationary grow-boxes, Felicity realized her anthropomorphic bias had probably been tilting her perception. Yes, it looked like this world’s equivalent of a reef, but who was to say that wasn’t also a suburban neighborhood, or something similar?
She drifted a little further down, through water with almost perfect visibility. As she did, she began to smell the conversations.
There was no other word for it, though it wasn’t perfectly analogous. Maybe she should’ve thought of it as “tasting” their words. “I can understand them,” she said to Harmony, as soon as she realized what was happening. “How? I’m not Princess Lucky.”
“I am translating for you based on many years of observations and contextual recordings.”
She drifted lower, spreading her limbs instinctively to get the best taste of the landscape. It was a little like reading the newspaper, or… taking in the local gossip? The gentle currents told her stories as they developed—stories of feuds between neighbors over prominently sunny spots, of the taste of the local minerals and the constant war against local pests. After all, anything higher on the food-chain than the producers who spoke were necessarily dangerous predators.
Their conversations did not move quickly, or seem particularly directed. More like—hundreds of individual blogs, with other speakers replying or adding their own opinions in a never-ending loop. She had been floating for an entire day and night before she caught even one story about a new species of fish that had risen from the deeps and discovered a taste for flesh. Another day passed before she learned the names of those it had killed, and that “Effervescent Meridian was responding, and would have an exterminator on the border soon.”
That finally attracted Felicity’s attention. But how could she even find the person to ask when the whole world looked like seaweed coating strangely shaped rocks.
Maybe that’s the wrong attitude. I don’t need to ask, just follow the message. “Do you think they can hear me?” she asked, trying to settle on one subject among the thousands of messages. It was like combing through an entire library database without an index—except that she felt infinitely more patient.
“Highly unlikely. These individuals appear to belong to the same species, but a more degenerate form. Or… perhaps a higher form? Living a life of idleness while others wait on their needs may indicate higher standing. I observed many such forms over the years, and never saw them move. They have no need to perceive sound. Even their visual senses are extremely primitive—so long as you don’t block the light over one for too long, they won’t know you’re here.”
“But we’re the same species?” Her eyes settled on one empty cubby of stone among many. Without a plant growing there, she could see the rough rock face waiting beneath. It seemed inviting, somehow. Even if it was a fair distance underwater—the walls meant protection from the currents. She could sink down into the rock there and relax a while if she wanted. She wouldn’t get as much energy, but she wouldn’t need it if she didn’t fight to move so hard.
“Genetically, yes. But there may be other differences I cannot observe. I was not given more resources than were thought useful.”
Felicity kept swimming. After a little searching, she could make out the general direction of the alarm-calls. Always inward, away from the direction Felicity had been traveling. She kept swimming that way, and before too long the place that must be called Effervescent Meridian was coming into view.
There was no mistaking it for more boxy suburbs—here her senses were overwhelmed with a brilliant white of artificial light, shining in exactly the frequencies that made her feel most awake. The structures were crude and boxy, with railings and mesh netting connecting them. The creatures moving inside did not swim, but walked on two legs—or maybe “grew” was a better description, their vines creeping along the many gaps and handholds.
They weren’t just lit boxes—the signs of mechanization and civilization were everywhere. The city continued well up into the sky, with towers rising so high that the water made it hard to focus on them. Many little machines swam through the water, cleaning or maintaining the structures. One buzzed up to her, watched her swimming with a single artificial eye, then swam away again without a word.
“You should avoid communicating with me in the presence of these,” Harmony said. “Most do not seem more responsive to sound than the others. But those who travel onto land may have retained the ability. I cannot guarantee someone will not be listening.”
“You mean I can’t talk right as I might need your help negotiating with them? That’s… fantastic.”
“You can’t,” Harmony said. “I can signal directly to you. You may mentally vocalize your reply if you wish. But don’t make the mistake of chemically signaling instead, or every one of them will hear you.”