Katrina had become concerned about the behavior of the white specimen. The humans didn't know anything about the alien methods of reproduction, and it could be that due to a linguistic misunderstanding, that White Whistler could have budded a child and given that to the humans, thinking they would not hurt it.
"Jill?" she asked. "Is there some way you could make sure that this is just a sample and not a baby that they gave us? The reason I ask is that this specimen acts more like a miniature alien than just a chunk of flesh or blood."
"I will try to find out from White Whistler," said Jill. "However, we have only conversed about mathematics, logic, physics, and local items that we could both jointly observe. We have not gotten into more esoteric subjects such as philosophy, physiology, and reproduction."
Katrina then heard the front of the plane start to whistle.
"You are big and white," it beamed at the white blob.
«Correct.»
"There exists a little white thing in bottle."
«Correct.»
"Is little white thing a subset of you or a small set similar to you?"
«Both,» came the bewildering reply.
"How can it be both?" asked Katrina.
"I probably asked the question in an ambiguous way," answered Jill. "Let me try another tack."
"As time increases will little white thing become another you?"
«No. Too small. Be eaten.»
"Well, I guess that answers one question. It is certainly not a viable baby because of its small size, even though except for size, it is a miniature copy of the main body. There must be a minimum mass needed to have a self-aware nervous system, although I don't see any obvious concentration that would indicate a brain."
"It must be distributed," said Katrina. "How do they reproduce though?"
"I'll try to find out," said Jill.
"You are element, large, intelligent and white. Loud Red is element, large, intelligent and red. The set containing Loud Red and White Whistle is a set whose elements are named what?" asked Jill. There was a short whistled reply that Jill had not heard before.
"I'll just assume that is the collective pronoun. Unless you have an objection, I just translate it 'flouwen' from the Old High German word for flow."
"Excellent choice," said Katrina.
"Exist there other elements in the set of flouwen?" asked Jill of the patiently waiting white cloud.
«Many,» came the reply.
"As time increases, exists there new elements of the set of flouwen?"
«Yes. New elements small, but not too small. Increase in size, and increase in intelligence until like existing flouwen.»
"So they do have children," said Katrina. "But how do they make them?"
"It may be a subject that they don't want to talk about," said Jill. "But I'll try."
"Is new element a subset of one flouwen or is new element a union of subsets from two flouwen?"
«Not one. Not two. Dark soon. When light returns we will show you.» The white cloud swam off into the ocean and soon was lost in the gloom.
"It didn't seem particularly bothered with the idea of discussing sex," said Katrina.
"It didn't say anything about sex," reminded Jill, ever logical. "It just said that it didn't bud and it didn't have relations with someone of the opposite sex."
"Then how do they make babies?" asked Katrina.
"We will see tomorrow," said Jill matter-of-factly. "Do you want the Christmas Branch to help you with the analysis of the specimen?"
"I think I can handle it," said Katrina. She made her way back through the aisle of the plane. As she passed the computer console, she saw David working with Jill on studying the detailed structure of the whistles and sounds that the flouwen used as language. It seemed to be a very complex language, somewhat like spoken Chinese, where the same sound pattern would mean different things depending upon the relative pitch and its position in the phoneme group that made up each complex word.
Katrina made her way back to the Christmas Branch's work area. She tiptoed through the crew quarters and softly closed the privacy curtain behind her. The Christmas Branch was waiting for her.
"Where are the specimens?" she asked. The Christmas Branch telescoped down to dwarf size, opened up a small door and pulled the bottle out from the freezer. Its fingers interrogated the container with a blaze of varicolored laser light as the hand reached up to pass her the bottle.
"This is the white one. Careful! It's very cold."
It was cold. Katrina juggled the bottle in her hand until she could hold it by the short plastic loop that connected lid and bottle. Her fingers soon warmed up the plastic and she could hold it up to her eyes.
"It doesn't seem to have changed any," she said.
"No significant change in the creature, but the spectral response of the water shows the presence of molecules that were not there previously, probably metabolic wastes."
"I'll take samples of both the water and the specimen," she said. "Give me the syringe."
She tried to hold the bottle while she jabbed the needle through the rubbery membrane in the lid, but the cold was too much for her fingers. She gave up.
"Here," she said, handing the bottle to the Christmas Branch. "You hold it while I get the samples."
Katrina took the syringe, and pushing the tip of the needle through the membrane, she extracted a small sample of the ocean water. As the needle came out, she smelled an astringent whiff of ammonia in the air. She went over to the wall to a tiny physical and chemical analytical lab. Not much larger than a common brick, it could do a complete inorganic and organic analysis on a single drop of sample. It also had a barrage of micromanipulators and microscopes that could take apart and examine any portion of that drop.
Katrina gave the analyzer a droplet of ocean water and Jill started the machine running while Katrina turned back to the Christmas Branch. The needle went back through the membrane, and after squirting out the remainder of the water from the syringe, Katrina started trying to catch the elusive blob of screaming white jelly. There was no room to hide and soon Katrina had a syringe half-full of screaming white jelly.
Gritting her teeth, Katrina went back to the wall, waited until the green light signalled that the analyzer was ready for another sample, then inserted the end of the needle into the input port and gave a tiny squeeze. Still clenching her teeth, she turned back around to the Christmas Branch, and squirted the remainder of the syringe back into the specimen bottle, where the tiny blob quickly rejoined the larger white sausage.
"When the white alien returns, please take this outside and give it back," she said. I won't be able to sleep for the screams coming from the freezer.
"The freezer is well insulated," said Jill. "I'm sure that no noise could get out."
"No noise, but I would still hear the screams," she said, handing the syringe back to the Christmas Branch and heading forward to the science console, where the information from the physical and chemical analysis lab was building up on the screen.
As Katrina sat down at the console, Jill started talking to her through her imp. Katrina could almost swear that the computer was excited over the discoveries that were being made in the brick-sized laboratory at the rear of the plane.
"The structure of the White Whistler is identical to those strange colored rocks that Sam found on Roche and Richard found on Maui," said Jill.
"But those were crystalline rocks," objected Katrina. "These animals are more like intelligent jellyfish."
"But the basic structure is the same," said Jill. "The entire sample of White Whistler contains nothing but tiny dumbbell-shaped units, large cells if you like, arranged in interlocking layers, with four bulbous ends around each necked-down waist portion, two going one direction and two going the other so that the whole body is an interlocked whole. The units are much larger than in the rock samples, but I suspect that is just because they are bloated up with water."
"The rocks were hygroscopic," reminded Katrina. "Can you do a chemical analysis?"
"It's almost done," said Jill. "The inner portion of each unit is the same silica gel type compound that was in the rocks, but with some of the bonds hydrated. The outer white portion is much more complex, a thin film of molecules made up of ring compounds that repeat in semirandom patterns. There are twelve basic molecules that are arranged in large plates held between layers of a liquid crystal compound."
"Do you find any structure in the central gel portion?"
"Not much. They are practically crystals in their order, although quite flexible because of their high water content."
"Then the gel material must be their equivalent of "bones". They determine the basic structure, while the thin film covering the "skeleton" is both the nerve tissue and the genetic code," said Katrina.
"That might not be correct," said Jill. "There is evidence that the outer surface of the gel dumbbells have patterns on them that seem to fit the twelve basic compounds. Perhaps at some stage they act as a template for ordering the compounds into viable sheets."
"What is the liquid crystal material for?" asked Katrina.
"I am not sure of its purpose, other than to keep the ring compounds in sheets," said Jill. "But it is the cause of their bright and differing colors."
"We have a specimen from Loud Red's orange pet," said Katrina. "Let's take a sample and see what the difference is."
"I will have the Christmas Branch insert a sample into the analysis machine," said Jill. "Meanwhile, I wanted to show you something. I am now using my micromanipulators to tease apart the tiny sample of White Whistler that you inserted."
Katrina watched on the screen as the droplet was attacked with some rapidly moving needles. The drop was divided in half. Each half squirmed off, trying to escape the needles. They caught one and carefully pried it apart. For a fraction of a second there was a torn looking edge, then each white fragment reformed into a long thin slug and tried to swim away. One was caught and carefully divided again. Finally there was just one dumbbell-shaped unit, flexing its thin waist in an attempt to move through the water.
"No further subdivision is possible," said Jill.
"But they're still huge compared to a cell," said Katrina. They're more like the size of a red ant."
"The preliminary analysis of the sample of the orange pet is now completed," said Jill. "The basic unit is the same as in the intelligent aliens, but the orange-colored thin film is less complex. The impressed patterns on the surface of the central unit matches the simpler patterns."
"Try an experiment," said Katrina. "Let the small blob of white 'eat' a single unit of orange, but put a tracer in the orange one so we can retrieve it later."
A tiny orange unit cell was teased away from its comrades and transferred into the holding tank for the white blob. It was quickly caught by the larger white blob.
"It's been absorbed," said Katrina. "Look, there are now two orange units. Will the lower animal take over?"
"You didn't notice the holding action taking place at one end of the 'captured' unit," said Jill. "See the densification of the white at the end of one sphere? Now notice the counterattack on the original unit as the orange forces, in their attempt to take control of an adjoining unit, have spread themselves too thin for an adequate defense."
The miniature battle was over in a few milliseconds—the action being slowed down for the human.
"Now tease that same unit out," Katrina said, then added in a worried voice. "I don't see any tag in it. Did you inject a tracer?"
"There was no need," said Jill. "My sensors have a complete three dimensional view of the entire arena. I just kept an 'eye' on it."
The victorious white blob was pulled apart and its recent capture wrested from it. The unit was subjected to analysis.
"Almost one-fourth of the unit has been modified on the surface to match the surface markings of the other white units, while the remainder has the old orange markings," said Jill.
"Well," said Katrina. "That is certainly a simpler way to eat than breaking all the proteins down to amino acids and rebuilding them from scratch again just to change the protein's loyalty. That must make for a strange culture. Everybody can eat everybody and the only thing that gets changed is the identification number. Unless the flouwen get badly damaged in a natural accident, they never die."
"But the units do die," said Jill. "Three of the white units have lysed in the past few minutes. They also regenerate themselves. Two units have reduced their waist to zero, then the two resulting spheres necked down to form new units. The statistics are not good, but I suspect the average lifetime of the units is only a few days."
"But the flouwen live much longer than that," said Katrina.
"Yes," said Jill. "From my conversations with them I get the impression that those we know have lived hundreds of human years. There are others, off on long-term research projects, that are much older than that."
"But how can that be?" said Katrina. "We may replace most of our body cells in seven years, but the complement of nerve cells we have at maturity is all we get."
"That's because the cells in an Earth animal are specialized," said Jill. "These aliens are not built that way. They are organized more along the lines of a colony of army ants or a swarm of bees. Each unit is large and can live and reproduce as an independent entity, but when they swarm together, they become more than a sum of the whole."
"An intelligent being—that is nothing but a programmed collection of wet gnats," said Katrina.
"But with an IQ of..."
"I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!!!"
"Anyway, White Whistler is back and asking questions," said Jill. "Is it all right to return the rest of the sample?"
"Yes," said Katrina. "The last thing I want is a batch of ants in my refrigerator." She poked at the screen with short jabs of her finger, slightly annoyed with herself for getting perturbed with Jill. She bit her lip and tried to concentrate on the less spectacular, but equally scientifically important chemical data that Jill had extracted from its analyses of the metabolic wastes in the water from the sample bottle.
The night was long, for they were beginning to enter the inner pointed hemisphere of Eau. Katrina finally quit after the screen started to fuzz out in front of her eyes. She swiveled in the science console chair and got up to sit down in the galley next to Shirley, who was devouring a large slice of pseudoham and scrambled protein. It smelled good, but Katrina felt that after all that work, she deserved better, and asked her imp for one of her special gourmet meals. They were only allowed one per week, but Katrina still had a two week reserve after days of refueling on psedoburgers and algae shakes. The gourmet meals had been prepared months ago back on Prometheus, and frozen until they were called for on either the Eagle or Dragonfly.
Katrina punched up dinner. Liver from "Paté LaBelle", one of Nels's tissue cultures treasured on Prometheus, smothered with fried real onions, steamed real broccoli with mock-hollandaise sauce, boiled new potatoes in pseudocream sauce, and real strawberries in pseudoport for dessert. It would take some time for the meat and vegetables to warm up, for Jill would program the cookers to bring everything together at the same time without overcooking or drying out. Katrina went back through the privacy curtain and visited the head. She returned refreshed, as the galley motiles were arranging her dinner on the counter, a crystal goblet adding counterpoint to the utilitarian stainless steel utensils. Jill certainly knew its human psychology.
Katrina's galley counter stool was next to the computer control center. An orange-bearded David Greystoke was still at his console. Katrina picked up a sprig of hot broccoli dripping with hollandaise sauce and leaned over to hold it in front of David's eyes.
"A bite of broccoli for a preview of Eau III," she said.
David's gaze broke from the screen, his red-rimmed eyes matching well with the red-orange stubble below his chin. He finally recognized who had spoken to him. He grinned and lunged.
"Done!" he said, speaking through green teeth. "It's time I went to bed anyway. Here, take the earphones. It's the only way you can really enjoy the music with the engineers making all their noise. He sniveled up his nose at Shirley, who was inhaling the last of her protein shake. She sniveled up her nose back at him.
Katrina took the glowing headset imp and put it on. David keyed his console, then rose and headed for the crew quarters in the rear. He was too tired to eat. He would do that when he woke up.
With the computer console vacated, Katrina slid into the vacant seat and placed the tray of succulent liver and onions on her lap. Then with her right hand holding a battered stainless steel fork and her left hand holding a crystal goblet full of strawberries and port, she let her senses relax and partake of a gourmet trip through the colorful seas of Eau. Seas as seen by the magical imagination of David Greystoke and his computer. It was only when she realized that her last bite of liver and onions was stone-cold that she knew she should be going to bed. The rosy red dawn was glinting through the right science blister when she rolled her fresh-washed body into her upper bunk and fell into a delightful sleep.
The morning was breaking as Shirley walked forward to the flight deck. She had finished her breakfast, her exercises, had taken Jill and the Christmas Branch through a complete systems checkout, and was ready for the day.
Arielle was sitting quietly in the pilot seat, as she had been for the past six hours. Her hands were still folded in her lap, but her eyes were staring out the window over the lapping waves that broke over the nose of the airplane as it chugged its way slowly through the calm seas. On the screen in front of her was Jill's sonar vision of the under part of the ocean as seen through the makeshift sonar array that replaced the radar system that Dragonfly had used when it could fly instead of swim. The efficient calm pilot eyes switched automatically from screen to windshield, never distracted, never straying from their appointed rounds of instruments, screen, windshield, instruments...
Shirley came up and perched on the corner of the copilot seat. She waited until the glance was on the instrument panel, then spoke.
"From what Jill tells me, the aliens should be back as soon as it's light and we'll all be very busy then," she said. "I'll watch things for a few minutes if you want to take a break now, while there is still time."
Arielle looked up, understood immediately, said thanks, and hopped lightly down on the flight deck and made her way back through the plane, talking quietly to her imp as she went through the privacy curtains to the crew quarters. In a few minutes she was on her way back. She picked up three chunks of protein cheese, two algae shakes, and four energy sticks on her way back to the cockpit. Looking bright and fresh, she hopped back into the pilot seat. She gave a big "thank-you" grin to Shirley, her still puffy lip looking better under the renewed patch of neuskin. While Shirley watched enviously, she took a huge bite of protein cheese, washed it down with a slurp of an algae shake that almost emptied the cavernous metal container, then nibbling thoughtfully on an energy stick, she resumed her automatic scan of her pilot's empire, down-trodden though it may have been.
Shirley, watching the performance, wondered where Arielle got the time to put on eye makeup in the few minutes that she had been away. But perhaps it wasn't makeup, just dark, dark lashes and an especially bella-donna eye. Looking enviously at the food that Arielle was wolfing down, Shirley got up and took the science-scan instruments through their routine. Designed for airborne work, it had taken a number of modifications to make them suitable for scientifically accurate underwater surveys, and they required frequent recalibration.
"The flouwen approach," said Shirley's imp. She turned and glanced at the radar screen that she and the Christmas Branch had modified for sonar. There were some blue blobs in the upper portion of the screen. Blue meant "blue shift," which meant that they were coming at them very rapidly.
"Do they sound familiar?" asked Shirley, a little concerned.
"Its Loud Red, White Whistle, and another one. There is also evidence of other moving objects at extreme range, off the screen."
Shirley noticed that the imp on Arielle's shoulder had been giving her the same information. Arielle whispered a few words, her hands still folded quietly in her lap, and the dull throbbing sound of the slowly rotating propellers stopped. The nose dipped, then the plane sank slowly in the water as the aliens approached. By the time Loud Red, White Whistle, and the new green-colored alien came into view, they could be seen through the cockpit windows, illuminated in the dawning sunlight that was augmented by the powerful searchlights in the nose and wings of Dragonfly.
The red cloud arrived first, booming loudly.
*I won! I won! I got here first!*
«So you did, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion. Now shall we wait for Sweet•Green•Fizz?»
*That slowpoke! Too many Pretty¤Smells! Sweet•Green•Fizz leave Pretty¤Smells behind—move faster!*
The red cloud flared out as it approached Dragonfly and slid underneath the silvery smooth hull of the long fuselage.
"Whoops!" said Shirley, thrown upward by the wave of red passing under the airplane. She came down like a cat, and heard the confused noise from the various parts of their compact universe as Jill reassured all the crew members that what felt like a tidal wave was only Loud Red being playful. Carefully maintaining a three-point hold on carpet and bulkheads, Shirley made her way forward to join Arielle at the front of the Magic Dragonfly.
The sunlight was getting brighter as Barnard rose from behind the mountain of rock hanging low in the sky. Shirley hopped into the copilot seat and looked out at the huge billows of red and white swimming languidly around Dragonfly like whales around a tourist boat. Periodically Loud Red would scratch his "back" against the bottom of the plane, heaving it upwards slightly with its massive bulk. Its spheroidal orange pets would imitate the motion, adding three little bumps to the one big heave.
"Here comes another flouwen," said Jill, a computer generated ring of red flashing on the sonar screen in front of Arielle to indicate a rapidly moving speck emerging from the distant background clutter.
Arielle peered off into the distance, and soon her acutely trained pilot eyes were able to see the figure.
"This one's emerald. How pretty!"
While White Whistler kept to its slow figure eight motion about the plane, Loud Red and its pets bounded off at top speed to welcome the newcomer.
*HI! HI!! HI!!!* came the roaring greeting as Roaring*Hot*Vermillion streaked under Sweet•Green•Fizz. Coming to a stop, it turned and took up station next to the smaller green cloud as they both made their way back to the airplane. The OrangeoxHunters had come to a stop some distance away, but were now moving in closer to get a better taste of the water around the green stranger. Finally satisfied, they went back to their trailing positions behind Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.
•I got your call, and came as fast as I could. I have been traveling all night.•
*You hungry!?!*
•Yezzz!•
Roaring*Hot*Vermillion issued a series of sharp whistles and the three orange spheroids took on their snake shape and slithered out in a pattern that swept the ocean off to the left. They nosed under every rock formation and soon jumped a yellow-orange rogue. It was slightly larger than they were, but they were faster. The three hunters, working as a team, worried the rogue around in a circle and once they had it moving in the right direction, stayed behind it and drove it back toward the airplane and their master, who had spread itself out like a trip-net on the ocean bottom. To one side was a wall of green, on the other side was a wall of white. There seemed to be an escape hole between the two walls at the end of the narrowing funnel. The rogue streaked between the moving walls, the orange snakes close behind it, then it screamed as a multitude of red fingers shot up from the bottom to entrap it in their python-like grip.
•Simply delicious!• buzzed Sweet•Green•Fizz as it methodically pulled the still struggling chunk of rogue into tiny pieces and absorbed them into its body.
*Yeah!* agreed Roaring*Hot*Vermillion as it pulled some tiny chunks off its half and threw them toward the trio of orange pets, who snapped them up avidly. It stopped feeding them when they started playing with their food instead of eating it. It tore off a huge chunk and offered it to Clear«»White«»Whistle, who had helped form the trap.
«Not hungry.»
*OK! I eat!* and large screaming masses of orange-yellow flesh were ripped from the remainder of the rogue and gulped into the red body where soon the enzymes of Roaring*Hot*Vermillion won the lop-sided battle against the outnumbered enzymes of the rogue. With its hunger satiated, Sweet•Green•Fizz started to ask questions about the airplane still off in the distance. It finally grew brave enough to come near Dragonfly and converse with Jill through the sonar, but it really wasn't interested in the humans, and refused to come up to the cockpit windows and "look" inside with the lens that Clear«»White«»Whistle had invented. Instead, it stood off at a distance, rocked up a good portion of itself into a large emerald boulder, arranged the rest of its body into a mushroom shaped cloud hanging above the rock, and unrolled the collection of Pretty¤Smells it had been carrying inside its body.
As the wings of the first Pretty¤Smell began to wave, the OrangeoxHunters of Roaring*Hot*Vermillion streaked forward, to be met by expert slaps from three green tendrils that emitted a sweet taste along with the stinging slap and sent them back to cower behind their master.
The Pretty¤Smell unfurled its two meter wide wings and started to flap them slowly in the upper reaches of the sunlit water. The wings were ablaze with iridescent colors flashing out in multicolored gleams from the arrays of liquid crystals inside its body. Both Roaring*Hot*Vermillion and Clear«»White«»Whistle sent up long feelers to catch the complex interplay of the flashing lights, the delicate aroma, and the high-pitched trilling melody coming from the Pretty¤Smell. The Pretty¤Smell was soon joined by six others and the three aliens seemed to go into a trance as they admired the bird-like creatures.
"What's going on now?" asked Shirley of her imp.
"It's hard to say," answered Jill. The three of them obviously caught some food animal, but except for its color, it looked just as amorphous as the flouwen and the pets. These new creatures are obviously different in structure though. They seem to have a wing bone and a spine that ends in a tail. They look like translucent pterodactyls with hummingbird feathers."
"I'm going out to get some pictures from close up with the video camera," said George. Shirley jumped down from her seat and headed back to check out his suit.
It was about an hour later when Barnard was rising high into the sky, that the next alien, Warm§Amber§Resonance hummed into view. It was greeted by a trio of curious orange snakes, who sniffed it over and led it back to the trio of boulders still enjoying the Pretty¤Smell concert.
*Enough!* The red boulder broke up into a clump of red rocks, which dissolved into a red blob.
«Nice. But they need more training.»
•I shall, as soon as my research on the seven-color mapping theorem on the hypertorus is finished.•
The amber-colored alien joined them.
§I got your call and came. What is the strange hard thing?§
«It's called Floating¤Rock. When it was first found, it couldn't talk. But it quickly learned. It cannot move well since it's so hard, but it has Stiff¤Movers inside it that can come out and do things. We think the Stiff¤Movers are its pets, and they help Floating¤Rock like the OrangeoxHunters help Roaring*Hot*Vermillion. The Stiff¤Movers can't be very intelligent, since they don't talk.»
*Want to see them? Come up close and look inside!* said Roaring*Hot*Vermillion.
§No. Not interested.§
*OK!*
«Floating¤Rock seems to have chosen for its research a study of us,» said Clear«»White«»Whistle.
§What a strange field. Studying beings instead of mathematics. Could lead to recursive problems in logic.§
«If we studied ourselves, that is obviously recursive, and one could not be sure of the correctness of one's logic. But Floating¤Rock, although intelligent, is obviously not we. It might be able to avoid that problem.»
§Possible,§ hummed the yellow one.
«Floating¤Rock asked how we made new we's.»
§You told it. Of course.§
«I tried, but its language is still limited.»
§Then let's show it.§
«Exactly why we called you. Are you of good bulk?»
§Couldn't be better. Ran into a swarm of wild Pretty¤Smells on the way,§ said Warm§Amber§Resonance. §What's that strange thing approaching?§
«That's one of the Stiff¤Movers.»
Warm§Amber§Resonance flowed over to George. It put down a few rocks in a ring around George to stabilize its body in the current, and examined the human in detail. George stopped moving and held still as he felt and heard the sonar pings echo through his body.
"Is everything OK?" he asked his imp. "It seems to have me surrounded."
"I'm pretty sure you're safe," said Jill. "I didn't catch all their conversation, but I'm pretty sure that they think you are a pet of mine, and they don't seem to eat pets, even though they are perfectly willing to eat wild animals that are indistinguishable from pets."
"Arf! Arf!" said George. "I only wish I had a tail to wag."
A white blob slithered under the yellow curtain and came up to envelop George. George was used to White Whistler swarming over him so he relaxed. White Whistler picked him up and moved his legs and arms around, obviously showing off the "doll" to the Yellow Hummer.
«...and parts of it come off in chunks. But they nearly always maintain a thin string back to the main body.» Tools were unhitched from his belt, pulled to the end of their lanyards, then returned to their proper hook. His video camera was snatched from his grasp, and handed back, lens pointing at his helmet. He turned the camera around and continued recording. Finally through the white mist there appeared a yellow blob.
«Go ahead. Get right up close to the round part up top. You can't see very well, but you can "look" just fine. There is a funny thing inside with white fuzz on top.»
§Ugly.§
«Isn't it.»
The two aliens swam off, leaving George to capture their exit on video. They rejoined the others.
«Well. Everybody feel good and bulky?»
*Yeah! Need to lose some weight. Getting too slow.*
§I'm ready.§
•I guess I'm bulky enough, but I don't know. I've never made a youngling before.•
*Really!?! Nothing to it! I've made dozens!*
§But do you really remember your first time?§ chided Warm§Amber§Resonance. §It was a little scary then, wasn't it?§
*I'm never scared!*
§Well, I was the first time. Especially when I had to 'let go'.§
*Well... That is a little scary the first time.*
§We all will go slow, Sweet•Green•Fizz. That will be better for Floating¤Rock too.§
The four came together until they formed a circle twenty meters in diameter, each colorful body filling up a quadrant. They floated about two meters off the bottom and let down concentrated portions of their outer perimeter as rocks attached to streamers that anchored them in place. George was able to position himself just outside the ring of rocks and shoot under the canopy of bodies. Katrina had exited in the meantime and had increased her buoyancy until she floated just below the waves where her video camera could look down at the action. The bobbing of the waves made her camera view swing wildly on the screen, but Jill could later compensate the motion out of the middle portion of the picture.
§Hold on at the middle, Sweet•Green•Fizz.§
«Now spiral around.»
•How many times?•
*Lots!*
§Just keep going as long as we do. We want to make the youngling nice and big so it will re-learn fast.§
•I'm scared.•
«Slow down. Sweet•Green•Fizz is taut.»
"They're making a spiral at the center, like one of those super-large lolly-pops you buy at amusement parks," said Katrina.
"It's the same on this side," said George. He swept his video camera around to take in the rocks, still anchoring the aliens on the outside while their inner portions were continuing the swirling motion.
§Let go.§
•I'm losing me!•
*You'll feel lots better when you are thinner!*
§Let go so we can spiral some more.§
After some more coaxing, Sweet•Green•Fizz allowed more of its body to be pulled into the multicolored whirlpool growing in the center. As its essence was drawn out into a multiply touching thread, it seemed to lose its identity and become one with the others. Yet as its body drained away, the remainder of the multi-ton bulk felt like it was growing younger. Sweet•Green•Fizz felt the centuries drop from its weariness. It vibrated in happiness.
•Oooozzzzz!•
*Aaahh!*
§Hmmmmmmm!§
«Slowly... Slowly...»
«Stop!»
"The spiral whirlpool is now about as big as the rest of them! If that's a baby, it's a big one!"
"It's still a spiral of many colors, Katrina," said George. "While they're all a single color."
"Wonder what comes next?" she replied.
«Now comes the hard part, Sweet•Green•Fizz. Think of your green. Pull the green back without pulling the thread back.»
•But my thread is green. I can't pull the green without pulling the thread!•
*Yes, you can! Watch!*
From the very tip of the green thread deep in the spiral came the message that the red thread lying next to it had turned pink, then clear. Then on the opposite side, close coupled by the spiral twining, the milky thread became clear. Through the thin clear threads could be seen a yellow thread, and soon that became clear, leaving only the green.
«Pull the green back.»
There was a moment's pause, then the green thread turned a darker shade.
§The other way.§
Patiently the three mature flouwen held the spiral pattern while they coaxed the younger adult into the mysteries of procreation. Slowly, hesitantly, the green threads in and among the cells of gelatine pulled back into the central body of the emerald-colored individual.
"The central portion is turning clear," said Katrina, making sure that the video camera was catching the phenomenon.
"You can see the main bodies of the aliens take on a richer color, so whatever it is, it is flowing back into their bodies instead of being destroyed or rendered colorless.
"Now what?" asked Katrina.
"Wait and see," said George.
§Good! Keep pulling.§
•It feels so strange. So good!•
«It's all that extra green sloshing around inside you.»
*The youngling is clear!*
§Now pinch off the thread, Sweet•Green•Fizz.§
«Don't let any green leak back in.»
The final pinch-off was easy, for the cells in Sweet•Green•Fizz had no particular affinity for the neutral-clear gel. The four adults separated their respective threads and waited. The lens of spiral jelly merged into an amorphous blob. For a long while it stayed colorless, then deep within it, some enzyme had taken the bits and pieces of randomized information that were still resident in the mold patterns in the gelatine, and had synthesized some nerve tissue. It was a viable pattern, and using it as a template, the enzymes built more and more, and a wave of transparent blue color spread out from the nucleation point until it suffused through the entire multi-ton glob of floating jelly. It started to talk. Its first words were stuttered in the varied speech patterns of its progenitors.
§Hello!*Hello!•hello!»HELLO!*HELLO§hello»
But it soon developed its own distinctive voice, a blend of four voices into a beautiful warbling tone.
~hello~Hello~Hello.~Hello!~
§One plus One is Two.§ prompted Warm§Amber§Resonance.
~One plus One is TtWwOo.~
§It's going to be a smart youngling.§
*Look who made it!*
•It's a pretty blue color, and has such a dainty warbling voice.•
~Smart youngling...pretty blue...dainty warbling~
•Let's call it Dainty~Blue~Warble!•
~Dainty~Blue~Warble.~
§Dainty~Blue~Warble it is then. Come youngling. I'll bet you're hungry. Can your OrangeoxHunters find us something small to eat, Roaring*Hot*Vermillion?§
"It turned blue before our eyes," exclaimed Katrina.
"And it already knew how to speak the instant it was born," said Jill, the incredulous tone in the robot voice driven home by the lengthy pauses between the words, as the computer brain computed at high priority between the low priority task of talking to the humans.
"It must really be a strange form of evolution. They have the advantages of budding, in that the new individual has nearly the same size and intelligence and memory as the original individual, so there is a continuity of experience that must carry back over eons, yet there is the diversity of sexual interchange, with all the advantages of hybrid vigor," said George. "Did anyone figure out how many sexes they have? Four?"
"I am going through a detailed analysis of the spiral pattern," said Jill. "But I can find no significant difference in any of them, except the green one, which was a little slower than the others. I'm not sure, but maybe they don't have sexes, or at least roles where one partner performs a different function than the other.
His camera working constantly, George continued to capture the strange saga of the mating of the four mastodons. The red, white, and green aliens were swimming aimlessly about each other, enjoying each other's company while brushing near the cloud of bird-like creatures that floated in harmonious movement among them. The yellow alien was swimming in slow circles about the pale-blue infant, talking to it, encouraging it to swim, and responding to its warbling speech pattern.
The aliens finally drifted away, having forgotten about Jill and the humans in their preoccupation with each other. George and Katrina were getting cold, despite the protection of their heated suits, and came in to warm up, bringing the cameras with them.
As George cycled through the door, Richard took the heavy video camera from his grip.
"You got feelthy pictures, Signore?" he joked.
"I guess so, but it never seems as exciting when you're looking through the viewfinder."
Shirley helped George take off his suit, and checked it thoroughly before allowing it to go in the locker.
"Y'know," she said in a tight voice, her gaze studying the tell-tales on the chest pack as she punched check-code after check-code into the button array. "To be really fair, we humans ought to be willing to put on the same show for the aliens."
There was a pregnant silence, broken by an indignant explosion from Richard.
"Impossible," he said. "We can't survive outside without suits!"
"It could be done in the cockpit area where they could see in," said Shirley, her eyes still on the suit readouts. "Have to be done standing up, of course. They couldn't see if we were lying down. The rest of the crew would be in the back, of course."
Shirley finally looked up from the display. Her eyes met Richard's and she turned beet red.
"Not me!!!" exploded Richard, his dark copper skin flushing below the ears.
"Do you mean to tell me that squaws are braver than braves?"
"Bravery has nothing to do with it," said Richard indignantly.
Shirley gritted her teeth and smiled a saccharin smile at Richard. "Fair is fair," she said sweetly. Then her voice turned into a challenge. "I'm game if you are, buck."
Without waiting for a reply from the strangely silent giant of a man, petrified by a fear that was stronger than any fear he had ever had to face before, she turned her head and talked to her imp.
"Ask the aliens if they would like to see the difference between male and female humans and a demonstration of the reproductive act," she said. "We won't be able to show them a new baby, but at least they can see how it's done."
There was a long pause as the computer interrogated the aliens. Then finally Jill replied. "They aren't interested in humans," it said. "As far as they are concerned, you are just unintelligent pets of mine. Instead they want me to tell them why I have wings that look like the wings on their birdlike pets, yet I obviously don't swim with them."
There was an outrushing of air from Richard's lungs.
Shirley smiled and winked at him. "Well, I guess it'll have to be some other time, handsome." She hung up George's suit, brushed past the still shocked Richard and went forward to the galley for some food. Thinking about sex always made her hungry.