Return to Sender

by Starscribe

Chapter 19

Felicity understood on an emotional level that Harmony shouldn’t be able to act with a grudge. The program was a shallow copy of something far greater, but still it should be governed by the real Harmony’s rules.

After defying Harmony’s instructions, it felt like the machine was ignoring her. In an instant she went from the constant questions and pressures of the machine to dead silence, broken only by mechanical-sounding translations.

But Felicity didn’t complain, or make any visible sign that she noticed the computer was treating her differently. If it wanted to act stubborn and uncooperative, she’d stay focused on her own tasks until it was finished.

There was still the rest of a party to finish, though by any human standard It was incredibly disappointing. There was no food, no drinks, just a gathering under the bright lights and some friendly conversation. What was I expecting? None of us eat, and we drink from our environment. What else would we do?

Compared to the speed of human life, the answer appeared to be “not much.” The others working as “Grove Tenders” urged Felicity to join them, where they proved a few things very quickly. First, that they were serious about not giving her a name. She better get used to being called “sapling,” because that was the best she would get. Secondly, that everyone in the colony was apparently intimidated by the Grove Tenders, because no one got near them. The party broke in half, leaving Felicity with a far smaller group to learn about.

“Everyone said we would see saplings grow sooner or later,” said the oldest and largest of their number, a plant that introduced itself as Moderate-Undertow. “I didn’t think I would live to see it. You’ve chosen wisely with the Grove Tenders, you’ll see. We understand the ocean as no others do.”

She nodded eagerly, a gesture that meant nothing to them. But most of them didn’t even approximate bipedal, and didn’t seem to notice that she stubbornly kept to that shape. Drifting apart into a diffuse mat of tentacles would only break her brain again. She just wasn’t complex enough for this.

“I do want to understand the ocean,” she said. “But I’m more interested in all the ones living here than the water itself. Like… while I followed you here, I passed thousands and thousands of individuals. They grew helpless in boxes, limp even when predators ate them. Why didn’t they flee? Or fight, or… move?”

It was very hard to tell the different plants apart. Their leaves looked mostly identical, except where some showed signs of injury. The differences were all in the way individuals moved and held themselves. Their speech was quite a bit different, but until she started smelling it, Felicity had no idea if she was looking in the right direction.

Of course, what “right direction” meant when she had dozens of small, weak eyes, and none of the people she was talking to could tell what “front” meant either… at least she wasn’t being impolite.

Her words provoked an instant reaction from the entire crowd, causing them to recoil or constrict. Was that respect, fear, embarrassment?

Someone answered—their voice seemed younger, and they weren’t as big, but that might just be more personification. “Long ago, those boxes were for saplings like you. We would spread seeds to each one, knowing the waters were warm and the sun was bright. This is why your arrival is so… momentous.”

They trailed off, and another speaker took over. Older, more confident. “For many long years, the saplings do not grow as they should. They open their eyes, they sing into the water—but they never swim.”

You’re the only other intelligent life in the whole universe, and you’re dying, Felicity thought. At first she wasn’t even sure where it had come from—the consideration would’ve made far more sense from one of the other members of her crew, someone with a mind for scientific research. Someone like Martin would probably want to dig into the reasons for the change, pinning down a time so they could isolate exactly what was wrong.

But all she could think to do was ask, “Do you know why?”

No words answered, just the scent of discontent and general confusion. They didn’t have a clue. Undertow was the first to speak, after a long silence. “Some from the other castes spend their time devoted to unraveling this mystery, but they have not been successful. But with your arrival… maybe their efforts were spent in vain after all. Maybe the world will heal itself on its own.”

Felicity said little else during the party. Mostly she drifted, listening eagerly to what the Grove Tenders said about their duties and the ocean around them. She might not have Harmony to guide her efforts just now, but she had some idea of what direction to explore.

She needed to know how advanced this species was—had they built their own cities, did they run the reactors that kept them lit and fed the masses who lived inside? Would they be friendly with life from beyond?

The answer to that last one appeared to be no, at least from everything she heard. Though she couldn’t yet make intellectual sense of their language’s classification system, she understood it intuitively. Their very method of describing other living things did not allow her to describe a friendly animal, the scent just didn’t make sense. There were predators, hated and feared—herbivores and omnivores. Only exclusive carnivores had a different classification, a term that translated roughly as “useful monster.”

“We’re always encouraging their population to expand,” explained Water-from-a-River-Delta, several hours later. “They give our enemies the treatment they deserve, and keep the water safer wherever they go. But they’re so reluctant to swim in shallow waters that we haven’t had much success. Our enemies can’t survive in deep water, since there’s no one to eat. No one can figure out why—they’re not too big, there’s no danger to them in shallow water as far as we can tell. By all accounts they seem adapted to the darkness, even though their food never travel there. Maybe a fresh mind like yours will solve it.”

“Maybe,” she said absently. “I can see why it’s so difficult for you. There’s only… how many of us?” She tried to count, but it was hard to tell where one set of tentacles ended and the next began. “Twenty?”

“Nineteen with you, sapling,” Undertow said. “But yes, we aren’t enough. No matter how fast we swim, no matter how far we venture, we can’t protect everyone. We can destroy every nest we find, and that still leaves dozens within Effervescent Meridian’s territory, maybe hundreds.”

“That’s most of what we do,” someone else said. “We hear smell songs from big cities that have to worry about harm from others like us. Disputes resolved with violence, things taken—but they’re just stories out here. No one in Effervescent Meridian would think to do that to anyone else. So we do what we can to protect the broken ones.”

“It’s not so bad, really,” Delta said, wrapping one vine around one of Felicity’s. It was probably meant to be affectionate, maybe parental, but it also made her much easier to hear. The transfer of scents between them was nearly instant that way. This must be the way they whisper to each other. Don’t have to fill the water with chemicals when you can talk to someone right in front of you.

“We get to see parts of the ocean that others don’t. Destroying nests is simple and safe, but the journey is fun.”

“Can I do that?” she asked, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Travel out and destroy nests?”

“In time,” Undertow said. “You need to learn to be one of us first. Learn your tools, train to fight. When this is over, you may begin. With a little time, you could become very skilled.”

She didn’t argue the point, not right then. The party was already winding down, so it didn’t take long before the others started dispersing. Not to bed, not to their quarters—so far as she could tell, neither concept even existed to them. When she tried to ask Undertow when she’d be given a place to sleep, he only reassured her that she would never sleep again, and that the city would protect her from suffering as the broken ones did.

“We would share it with them if we could,” they said. “It’s a tragedy that anyone has to sleep with the sun as they do. Light is the reason for all civilization, and it has failed them. But we don’t have the raw materials, don’t have the machinery. And that isn’t our task. We do not need to worry about providing for Effervescent Meridian, just protecting it.”

That promise was honored from the very first—there was no darkness on any of Effervescent Meridian’s many levels, so she never felt herself drifting. The longer she kept going, the more she expected that the time would begin to weigh on her, spoiling her concentration and making her feel increasingly uncomfortable.

That didn’t happen. So long as she was constantly exposed to light, those animal sensations never came.

Taking away her reliance did have some negative consequences, though. Without the rising and setting, she lost her last chronometer.

The Grove Tenders took her down into the depths of Effervescent Meridian, so far down that she couldn’t see even a hint of real sunlight. The gigantic structure had seemed like a perpetually illuminated waste of energy to her at first, but further exploration proved this wasn’t the case. Many of the lower floors had reflective walls and ceilings, so that the whole interior space remained comfortably bright whenever anyone was inside. But as they left each floor behind, they darkened again. There would be no germinating useless mosses and seaweed in crevices where no one was working.

Or as the locals described it, “no germinating seedlings in laborless factories.” But wherever they traveled, they kept her comfortable. They led Felicity to a weapons range of sorts, where she could practice with one of the strange pistols she’d seen in the tentacles of the spacer.

“Fire first and fire often,” Undertow explained. “The things that want to kill you move faster than you do, but they’re not people. Don’t confuse movement from intelligence. If something isn’t green, yellow, or purple, shoot it. If you have any doubts, shoot it.”

He demonstrated, pointing his own weapon directly at her center of mass and firing. The water hissed and bubbled for a second, then settled almost as fast. She didn’t even feel warm. “See? You won’t hurt anyone. You won’t even hurt the broken ones. If they’re being hunted, shoot. They’ll thank you for it, even if they can only whisper it to the water.”

She nodded—and then repeated her acknowledgement into the water. “What if the helpful monsters are swimming nearby? We don’t want to hurt them by mistake, do we?”

Undertow wrapped around her with a reassuring tendril. They were slower about it than Delta, and somehow more parental than friendly. “I don’t expect a sapling to understand this. But the quicker you comprehend, the easier our work will be. Those who do not grow cannot feel. They lack untranslatable, and are instead controlled by a crude, centralized computation. Within that brain they have instincts. Just as seedlings cling to something warm and grow towards the light, so animals can respond to their world. But like a seedling, they’re mindless. They don’t think, and they don’t feel.”

They patted the gun again, pushing it closer to Felicity. “You want a name, don’t you? You’ll need to get real heroic if you want to earn it. That probably means destroying predators. Now look back at the targets. I won’t send you out into the ocean until I’m sure you can hit what you’re aiming at. If we lose the first new sapling in so many years, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ah. We're getting some insight into the locals' relationship with other species. "If it moves and it's not us, shoot it" definitely explains what we've been seeing in the rest of this system. And a chemical form of communication doesn't naturally map to, say, radio signals. That assumes that the space defenses are operated by these creatures, but it's still bringing together the big picture.

Mind you, there's still the matter of quiescent saplings. There's something more going on here, and Felicity isn't the best option for figuring it out. Still, she's the only fresh perspective they have.

[Raistlin]

11216987

"They’re mindless. They don’t think, and they don’t feel."

If they can build and pilot spaceships, they are clearly not mindless. But again this is how prejudice works.

[Booster Spice]

Boxing plants into fixed locations sounds like restricted growth through lack of nutrients in the ground surface? They need to dig a hole, preferably with a finly grinding drill, then watch out for too high concentration of minerals leading to tocicity?

They used to have black smokers?

[Luminous Lead]

He demonstrated, pointing his own weapon directly at her center of mass and firing. The water hissed and bubbled for a second, then settled almost as fast. She didn’t even feel warm. “See? You won’t hurt anyone. You won’t even hurt the broken ones. If they’re being hunted, shoot. They’ll thank you for it, even if they can only whisper it to the water.”

Hopefully this doesn't kill the Harmony also wrapped up in Felicity's center of mass. Also, this "water" is actually some kind of ammonia right? I wonder what the "gun" does to cause it to bubble so. Some kind of sonic pulse maybe?

Is it the same effect that the Effervescent Meridian is named after?

[minibox]

So alien yet so familiar. I wouldn't be surprised if there were plants on the alien ship and they willingly opened fire on the Alcyone. Seeing it filled with herbivorous ponies and omnivorous humans must've been a terrifying sight. Though it might still be possible to open dialogue if the plants can overcome their fear and bias about predators.

After defying Harmony’s instructions, it felt like the machine was ignoring her. In an instant she went from the constant questions and pressures of the machine to dead silence, broken only by mechanical-sounding translations.

She's still an improvement over the greater Harmony.

You’re the only other intelligent life in the whole universe, and you’re dying, Felicity thought. At first she wasn’t even sure where it had come from—the consideration would’ve made far more sense from one of the other members of her crew, someone with a mind for scientific research. Someone like Martin would probably want to dig into the reasons for the change, pinning down a time so they could isolate exactly what was wrong.

Solving the mystery and reversing the decline will go far in establishing relations with this civilization. Not to mention helping restoring the Universe to its former glory before the Red Tide. Though no doubt, they'll need the creators' production notes to understand how the plants work.

There were predators, hated and feared—herbivores and omnivores. Only exclusive carnivores had a different classification, a term that translated roughly as “useful monster.”

It's terrifying being in the bottom of the food web while sapient. At least we know there needs to be some size and complexity for intelligence to take hold. The thought of trillions of fully sapient plankton being devoured each day is disturbing to say the least.

“I don’t expect a sapling to understand this. But the quicker you comprehend, the easier our work will be. Those who do not grow cannot feel. They lack untranslatable, and are instead controlled by a crude, centralized computation. Within that brain they have instincts. Just as seedlings cling to something warm and grow towards the light, so animals can respond to their world. But like a seedling, they’re mindless. They don’t think, and they don’t feel.”

Breaking free from that mindset will be essential if Meridian is to establish relations with Equus.

[whyudothis]

11216992
Most likely these plants have never met a sapient animal to tell the difference. The Galaxy has seemingly been dead/in full dark forest mode for a very, very long time in this story. We shouldn't assume they're the hostiles yet.

[FridayPie]

11217057
Microwave but at different frequency. She is transparent for its radiation.

[Turquoise pony]

Oh boy, I can already see what is sentient plants have done to themselves.
It's probably a bunch of micronutrients that can only come from Predator droppings that are missing in their nurseries.
The complex chemistry required for a plant to gain sentience probably needs some Rare Minerals.

[Starcat5]

Shoot first, ask questions never. This is a mindset that'll be difficult to overcome.