Legend of Earth
Chapter 11: Mavodi

The day had just begun, so the terranauts packed up homebase and left it in the trees by the bank. The bridge they’d seen on the dermiscreen would take about two hours to hike to along the wooded bank of the river. If it wasn’t done being built yet, as the satellite image suggested, then the stellasen would have to be working on it. However, they were usually mobile at night, using the daytime to sleep. The terranauts would have to sit there and wait. Once they’d gone half a kilometer, Mygs’ dermiscreen beeped and lit-up, Command issuing warning that they were off target on their mission. Mygs tapped “acknowledge” on the screen and then “request re-mission on circumstantial terms” meaning he wanted Command to trust him and Amper that this digression was necessary.

Reaching the bottom of a hill where a clearing sat level with the opposite side of the churning river, the men heard the clacking of a piece of wood being smacked by something hard. They stopped in the dark line of trees before grass began filling the riverside glen head of them. There were three figures with the otter-like stellasen features. One was using a rock to hammer a wooden peg, securing one end of the plank-tied walkway that would roll-out to replace the rudimentary three-rope suspension bridge. Another stellasensus was preparing sturdier posts that would be carried across to secure the other end of the new bridge. The third was weaving rope, pulling it taut as she plaited the pieces of bark fiber and grass, then dripping something sticky-looking on it and rubbing it into the weave.

“Looks like they have a graveyard shift. Two men and a woman,” Mygs muttered, noting the strangeness of stellasen being out during the day.

Amper squinted, and his brow furrowed. “How can you even tell? They don’t have the obvious features, no one has said anything… is she the one weaving instead of doing the heavy work? Is that why you know?”

“Well, yes, sort of – look.” He pointed with the walking stick he’d picked up on the hike. “She’s combining grass and bark, dripping resin, and her hand muscles are obviously adept at twisting the fibers closely together while her feet are holding that makeshift crank-shaft in place to keep the new rope tight. She’s exhibiting the multi-tasking, higher functioning aptitude of creation, maneuverability, practicality, and stamina that women naturally obtain for motherhood, survival, and defense while the other two are pouring themselves into, what – pounding something with a rock, and lifting heavy posts, which are skills associated with protecting the family or clan.”

Amper was smiling by the time Mygs finished explaining. He laughed a little when Mygs looked at him in question. “Point made,” he said. “So, let’s go grunt at them and pound chests.” Mygs huffed, ready to explain that he wasn’t being snide, just pointing-out what he’d learned about ancient Earthlings. Before he could, Amper took the first step out of the trees. “Shall we?” They stepped out into the open and steeled themselves for the encounter with the bridge workers. Mygs snapped a still with his iriscope and sent it to Command to verify their reason for delaying the mission to the asteroid.

Amper saw the conversation before he heard it, heads bobbing and lips moving, then he heard the weaver answering the post-maker. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the guttural squeaks and clicks were a part of concentrating on their tasks rather than communicating. It was a different sound than the murmur of the previous stellasens.

Then Mygs laughed under his breath. “They’re talking about ditching work and trying to go meet ‘the skyborn land-walker.’ They heard he’s camping just upriver with his… half-wise friend.” His humor-glazed eyes slid to meet Amper’s as they approached.

“Half-wise?” Amper murmured.

Mygs shrugged. “As far as they’re concerned, you can’t speak.”

The terranauts were both looking at the group when the woman, who was facing crossways to them while she sat and worked the rope, glanced up and saw them. Obviously startled, she froze. She made some low noises, her head turning slightly toward her companions, and the two workers looked up. She tied her end of the rope to the nearby branch of a fallen log, and propped a stopper next to the crank-shaft spool of already-plaited rope while the men stepped back and stood in wonder at the sight of the Skyborn Landwalker and his Halfwise sidekick.

“Good morning,” Mygs said plainly with a smile, opening one hand before him and to the side in welcome. “I am Mygsolith. I come from the sky and am learning about your place here, and I can understand what you say.” The three figures’ large, dark eyes darted cautiously from Mygs to Amper and back. The stake-pounder glanced at the post-maker and they shifted their stances nervously. “This is Ampersand,” Mygs continued, “My friend also from the sky.” Amper opened both of his hands to the side like a bow without bending. “He doesn’t understand what you say, but he understands me. In this way we can all communicate.”

There was a lingering silence for a few seconds, then the woman stellasensus clicked and squeaked, gesturing to each of her companions and then to her own chest in introduction.

“It is good to meet you,” Mygs said, “I will try to tell Amper your names in a way that he can understand.” He turned to Amper. “She is… Tetek, the one pounding the stake is Kelk,” he glanced at Kelk to confirm, who nodded slightly, “and the post-maker is Statch.”

“Tetek, Kelk, Statch,” Amper repeated, looking at each.

Tetek held out her hand. “Mig,” she tried. “Amp...” She nodded at each, her brow creased with effort.

Amper nodded, and Myg confirmed, saying, “Yes, Mygs. Amper.” He pointed to each.

Quietly, Kelk muttered to Statch, but so Tetek could hear. Mygs heard him and smiled. “We officially have nicknames,” he said to Amper. “He just asked why they couldn’t just call us Skyborn and Halfwise. I’m afraid we’re not going to shake it.” He couldn’t help but laugh at Amper’s look of exasperated acceptance.

“We just need to befriend them,” Amper concluded in bridled frustration, “so we can save the nemectes from being stripped and helpless.”

So Mygs got right to the point with the stellasen. He explained that there were other intelligent beings in the land, in some of the trees nearby, with whom Amper was able to communicate. He said that he noticed in the cavern colony down the river that they use the bark to build things, but that being stripped of the bark was making the other intelligent beings sick. “I wonder whether I can talk to your Anchoress about this matter,” he concluded.

Tetek looked back at her companions unsurely. She repeated the word “Anchoress” to them in question. They shrugged. She turned to Mygs before he could amend the mistake and said, “You use the word as though the Anchoress is a Verytic, like the Thunder who guides our colony. He is where we go with questions about how we need to live. He is the one who thought of over-paths, and everywhere we move we make them for the other mavodi in the area.”

“Mavodi?” Mygs said their self-title for the first time. “And so you – Tetek – are a…”

“Mavodic.”

Mygs turned and explained briefly to Amper, then listened as Tetek explained that she would guide them to the Thunder, their Verytic. Kelk and Statch were to stay put and finish the job. Apparently everyone knew how to make the rope as well as put together planks, dispelling the sense of “women’s work.”

Tetek led the terranauts down the canyon side of the hill where there was a rudimentary but functional raft. They crossed the river and Tetek walked through thick forest toward a thinning grove of trees. It had become a thin grove because the smaller trees of the forest had been cut down, and only the substantial giants remained. But Amper and Mygs couldn’t see any caves.

Tetek had them stop, and with a raised head made a crisp bubbling bird noise in her cupped hand. A few moments later, after she shifted in seeming impatience, a rope ladder dropped to dangle five feet in front of her. Mygs heard her mumble something about “taking their time,” and she turned to him, saying, “I will return. If you hear that sound I just made, the ladder will drop for you. If you hear it twice, run quickly that way and don’t stop until you have to.” She pointed perpendicular from their path and away from the river.

She climbed, and Mygs told Amper what she’d said. They stood in wait and in alarm. Amper figured it made sense, though. The mavodi didn’t know humans, didn’t know their intent, didn’t know whether they had any unforeseen powers, had no clue who or what they were. Of course she had to confer with her people first. The idea that they may instantly attack the men wasn’t comforting, but had to be addressed. Mygs checked his arm and saw that they officially had the green for a one-day waylay.

The men looked up into the trees where it was difficult to discern the dwellings that had been built. The bottoms of the floors had been incorporated with branches and leaves or needles, so looking up only showed a dense and shadowy under-canopy to the causal gazer. With focus, the planks and ropes were evident. No noise was heard from above that would indicate walking, talking or working.

After silent and tense alertness for the bird sound, the men heard an invisible voice over their heads.

“You are the strangers who saved the mavodic Tchak from beneath a fallen tree up the river?”

Mygs answered, unsure where to direct his voice. “It was a boulder from a collapsed cave, but yes. We saved someone who was called Mushroom.”

A moment later the bird noise sounded once, and the ladder dropped. They were allowed in.

The Thunder was not wearing a robe like the Anchoress. He looked like he was just another mavodic, but he did carry himself with great confidence and assertion. He greeted them with curious eyes and a polite nod, and directed them down a plank-way with his arm. It led to a doorway through which everyone entered a dim but spacious dome room. The concave walls were smooth – the inner side of the bark siding that protected the outside of the structure.

Amper and Mygs exchanged glances, and Mygs approached the subject right away as everyone sat in wide, cushioned seats proffered in a section of the room.

“Verytic,” Mygs nodded in respect. “Thank you for allowing us into your village when you are used to sleeping. What you’ve done here is quite amazing, and I am glad to see it in the daylight.” He smiled and made eye contact.

The Thunder seemed to be pleased, his arms resting in an open and relaxed manner along the back of his seat. “The awning began construction two summers ago, and is still in process. As we evolve, so do our needs and our plans for living.”

Amper watched silently at Mygs’ side, and he and Mygs were offered a baked-clay cup of juice from another mavodic in the room. To his amazement, the inside was lined with copper.

“I would like to trade stories with you about our respective cultures, but I feel I need to talk urgently with you first about another culture of this world. It is a culture that contains trees who have thoughts and dreams. They are called the nemectes, and my associate, here, speaks with them through his sleep.” He paused, trying to gauge the Thunder’s solid, dark otter eyes, and saw his whiskers lower with contemplation. “He has been told, by the nemectis Shhah that her people are experiencing the stripping of their skin – their bark – while they sleep, and it is making them sick. I believe your people are unwittingly doing this in order to build your homes, not knowing that some of the trees are part of a sentient community. The nemectes aren’t aware you’re doing it, because you do it while they’re asleep.”

Thunder’s whiskers twitched, and his head shifted to indicate he wanted his helper to approach. Mygs heard him ask, “Are you aware of any of the trees complaining about our taking their bark?”

The helper was shaking his head while Mygs replied, “They don’t communicate with noises the way we do, and they are asleep and unaware during the darkness when you are working and exploring. They can only communicate with humans, and typically only through sleep.”

“Humans?” He leaned forward, elbows on knees as he sat. “We know that there was life on this land too long ago to know anything else. Were they humans? Is that what you are?” His manner was conversational, inquisitive. Mygs felt encouraged to continue without hitting a defensive wall.

“Amper is pure human. That is why Shhah and the others can talk to him. He has also spoken with their… Verytic, The Dawning. This Leader of the nemectes has expressed concern about the mavodi because of the intelligence you possess and that you don’t know that the nemectes are being affected by your progress.”

“Am-pur is human,” Thunder stated. “He does not understand me and I would not understand him?” Mygs nodded. “But you do understand me, so you are not human?” His human-sized solid black eyes glistened at him, eyebrows indicating that his sight was darting to Amper and back.

Mygs responded, sure that Amper would understand the glance by what he said to Thunder. “I am only part human. I look human, but a part of me is also from a lost section of a dead planet that flew near to the human settlement. An asteroid, and in fact the very same asteroid that fosters your intelligence. I believe that is why I understand you, and you me, without using each other’s languages. We are kin.”

“This rock came from the sky near your human settlement?”

Mygs nodded.

“We are made of the same piece of sky?”

“You could say that,” Mygs smiled.

“If that is true, do you have a focus?” Thunder asked with suppressed excitement, watching Mygs carefully in anticipation. “A thing you can do that seems easy to you but difficult to everyone else?”

Amper’s gaze darted to Mygs’ profile, and Mygs half-glanced back before answering. “Yes. I replace things. I always have. Do all of the mavodi have one?”

Thunder nodded. “Some more prominent than others. What can you replace?”

“I can replace anything.” He looked at Amper as though for confirmation. “So far, anyhow.”

“That is a strong focus. And it’s about seeing strongly, which is a high priority with the Watchers. They favor you.”

“The Watchers…”

Amper was intrigued, since he didn’t know what was really being said, and he definitely wanted to learn more about the bright-eyed Watchers, but their mission to save the nemectes was first. The mavodi would be around afterward to teach them about their culture. He cleared his throat when he saw that Mygs was in a shallow pensive stupor.

“The nemectes…” he murmured.

“Yes,” Mygs whispered. “Thunder, I do want to hear more about this, but the plight of the nemectes is very serious. In your successful efforts to build your civilization, you may be killing-off a wise culture that can teach you as you teach them. You can live in peace together. Amper and I can let you know how, since we each communicate with you both.”

“Can you show me one?” Thunder asked, “An intelligent tree?”

Mygs asked Amper. Amper nodded. The Dawning had been seen on the way to their camp on the river, maybe five kilometers from their campsite. It couldn’t be too far of a trek from the tree village, and there may even be another nemectis on the way there to show him instead. Mygs agreed, and the Verytic seemed happy. He dismissed their meeting, and arranged for the terranauts to sleep in a half-tunnel-shaped room that was built between trees in their city of walkways and branches.

As the sun hit zenith, the men had dinner around a cooking fire that was built strategically under a break through the canopy, joining the “neighborhood” of mavodi on that side of what Mygs learned was a circular forest city with three spoke-like walkways across the diameter. Thunder commented that the meal had grown busy and plentiful as others from distant parts of the community had come to see the new visitors. A mavodic that had a bowl of paste and rough-made tablets of a rudimentary, stiff paper sat next to the Thunder and dipped his claws in the paste, dotting and dashing the pages as everyone spoke, creating a recorded history, Mygs noted with the awe of witnessing a new civilization rapidly evolve. Tetek, Kelk and Statch were there, seated near Mygs and Amper as the fortunate first-sighters of the famous explorers Skyborn and Halfwise.

At the conclusion of the meal, bidding them good night, Thunder bowed to them in their doorway saying, “May you replace your way aloft, and keep the watchers content.” Once again the Watchers were the underlying guidance of the mavodi, and lying down in moss-nurtured beds, the terranauts both silently felt that they were not alone in their dwelling.

“The Dawning’s two sides represent two different ways of life:” Shahh told Amper that night. “The new Dawning way of communication that signifies our human essence stretches Southwest, and the way of his pure, former self, named Rng of the Alext-iles incipience, stretches Northeast and represents our foundation of natural growth as plants.”

“Do the two sides do different – wait…” Amper’s tendrils grew deep orange, bleeding to gray and lined bright white in excitement. “You said his incipience was what?”

“Alext-iles. That is his essence, the human part of him.”

Amper was so excited to hear this, that he remained silent in shock and glowing white for a long while so that Shahh had to call loudly to him.

“What is it, Amper!” Her leaf shapes were twirling and her misty form rippled orange, gray and brown.

“Alex. Stiles.” He thought of the history of the person who saved the human race by distracting the would-be thwarters of the colony’s escape, so they could succeed in the Leap of Faith, eventually creating Persevere. How did Alex Stiles continue in The Dawning?

Coming back to Shahh, he explained. “Alex Stiles saved the humans. He or she distracted the opposers of our plan to leave Earth, and remained here so that the rest of us could carry out the plan. Alex is one of the few names we remember from our time on Earth, and it’s an important one.”

Shhah bloomed bright white. “The Dawning saved humans!”

Amper suddenly wanted to talk to the wise tree of his race’s savior, but noticed that there was no horizon of light, no other tendrils curling from the distance in the darkness. In fact, the whole space took-on a more ethereal atmosphere with stars twinkling.

“Wait –“ he said, noticing this change. His mist began turning purple, orange and gray. “Where is everyone?”

Shhah’s arm of twirling smoke turned yellow, pink, and edged with a little brown. Her tendrils expanded to be thicker for a moment, as though she were sighing. “Amper, we… we formed a bridge. Her mist became almost completely pink and brown. “I – I didn’t know if you’d noticed. It’s just us, we’re apart from the others.”

“Like a room of our own?”

“A room? Room is space – usually referred to as a big area. Room to grow.”

“Humans build walls that create separate rooms. mavodi do, too, I guess. They’re private areas for only a small amount of people. This is what you meant by forming a bridge?”

Her pinkness diminished as brown took over her thinning wisps. “If you’re okay with it. We just – seem so connected.”

Amper grew pink, and edged green as he reached a curl to mingle with Shhah’s. “I think it’s great.”

They stayed intermingled and quiet, each undulating shades of pink and yellow.

Then light flashed into their conversation.

Shhah dissipated. “But it’s early!” she emitted.

Amper woke up.

Mygs was shaking him awake. “It’s dark. Time to go with Thunder to meet a nemectis.”

“But I was talking with Shhah – Mygs you’ll never believe what I learned!”

“Ok, but they’re all waiting below, so tell me on the way.”

They hurried out to their guide who had a torch for them. The terranauts shifted their belongings and proceeded after the guide to the nearest descent, and as Amper landed on the ground after Mygs, they turned to the group of about a dozen mavodia facing them, men women and even a couple of kids. Each had eyes glowing white like pinpoints. Like Watchers. Thunder was at the head of the group, and called-out.

“Ready? Lead us, Skyborn the Finder.” Was there a tone of sarcastic skepticism in that title? Both Mygs and Amper felt suddenly immersed in a sense of having to prove themselves. Mygs realized that the issue of changing the way they build their world might be a touchy one for the air-builder leader after all. Was the motive behind replaceing a “talking tree” truly to help the two species live in harmony, or to locate more resources? With all white, pinpoint eyes on them, the land-walkers headed the group with the one torch available. They were the only ones who needed light.

Amper looked at Mygs. Mygs was the replaceer, but Amper knew the nemectes. Together they headed out into the darkness of the forest. It was completely dark, and Mygs figured the mavodi slept-in a little due to the active night.

“We’re heading for the Dawning as a target location,” Amper told him so he could use his mavodi focus. “And I’ll tell you – I don’t know if I want us to get there.”

“I know what you mean,” Mygs said, but didn’t elaborate because the mavodi could understand him if they could hear him. “This is how we try to help, and we’re doing our part. So let’s just get there.”

“What if they strip him once we’re gone?”

“I know – “

“No, you don’t understand. What I just learned from Shhah tonight – The Dawning’s human incipience is Alex Stiles! He has the DNA or spirit or whatever of the person who saved the human race!”

Mygs couldn’t grasp it. “How is that even possible? What are you talking about?”

“Somehow Alex became a part of the tree. Maybe his ashes were infused with one, or they added an oak tree splice to his remains and it just kept re-growing… I’ve been trying to figure it out. But Shhah didn’t know who Alex Stiles was, and she mentioned him as The Dawning’s incipience and that’s not a coincidence. This nemectis leader was once our own.”

“That makes this much more personal,” Mygs whispered carefully

“Right!”

But they couldn’t do anything about it at the moment. They’d just have to see how things unfolded once the group met the nemectis, and hope to be able to contain any hurtful actions that might arise.

They kept walking, a path seeming to have already been made either by exploring mavodi or hemoths or other wildlife. Amper heard the clatter of octosquirrels on the trees, though he couldn’t see them. He tried seeing what leaves came within the light so he could know if any were nemectes, but to no avail. They might have to hike all the way to The Dawning after all. The mavodi behind them chattered a little, not considering the darkness as a reverent atmosphere, and the terranauts heard a couple of them chanting happily.

“Tree-growing song,” Mygs muttered to Amper. “to help them build in the air.”

Amper nodded. They continued. Once, Mygs stopped and closed his eyes, standing quietly to get his bearing. He adjusted their rout slightly more toward the west and led on through the wakeful night.

As the night seemed to be halfway through, the hiking was disrupted.

“Skyborn!” Mygs heard Thunder calling him. “We have need of a replaceer.” Amper noted that his “halfwise” name didn’t summon him, but he was Mygs’ partner and that would keep them together. They approached the air-builder leader mavodic who had a comforting hand on the shoulder of a female who seemed distraught.

“Little Yikit – I can’t replace her!”

Thunder turned to the land-walkers. “We’ve had… a recent history of misfortune with our children. They are found dead in the forest sometimes. At first they were found near trees we’d stripped, then they were found near trees we’ve never touched, so our theory about poisons under the tree coating didn’t seem to be right. So now it could be any reason, and when one disappears we don’t know what to look for to know what happened.”

Mygs and Amper were saddened to hear the children were being mysteriously taken from the community.

“I know you can’t figure it all out, but do you think you could try to replace Yikit? She was with us in the past three-hundred paces and may be nearby.”

Mygs looked past Thunder to the mother and nodded. Amper stepped-up and followed Mygs with the torch as he retreated to the direction from where the group had come. Sometimes pausing, but mostly just trudging on with care in the dark, Mygs presently approached the sparsely-growing ground under a large-canopied tree. Amper saw the prone form of a small body on the ground on the other side, just within of the torch’s light, and handed the torch to Mygs so he could go see if Yikit was okay.

“She’s there,” Mygs said to Thunder. The mother raced past him to Amper and her daughter. As she cradled her girl and felt her head and chest, she began wailing with grief. Yikit was cold and breathless. Amper saw something in the girl’s hand and picked it out of her fingers as he stood, using the tree’s trunk for support. The item was one of the tree’s leaves, but it fluttered with many petals as though three palm-sized, flat, square leaves had been layered on top of one another, all folded in half together, and then adhered in a stem that bound them so that six square “pages” of petals flared out on the same side of the stem. Like a book.

Amper nearly turned to show Mygs, but his hand felt movement in the tree. Its heart thumped. He didn’t have to turn to tell Mygs, who strode up to him, that this tree was a nemectis. “The leaves are unique,” Mygs indicated by looking up at the canopy. “This looks like a book, but it’s a leaf.”

“And I just felt the trunk thump under my hand,” said Amper.

“Do you see how she died? Any injuries, discoloration?”

“No injuries, but she had spatter on her mouth like she’d been coughing or spitting up.” Amper shook his head and shrugged. “It could be a bite, something airborne – maybe if we had the healer we could replace out…” They exchanged a look in the firelight of the torch that Mygs now held. Was this nemectis somehow guilty of murder? Thunder came to them and heard Mygs ask Amper about her welfare.

“We are afraid we’ll never know, and have to keep our children in our villages or accompanied. They won’t feel freedom. That can’t happen.” He and Mygs spoke more about the disappearance of the children and how it was affecting the village.

Amper thought, nighttime is when nemectes naturally communicate. He himself wasn’t sleeping, but Kllsh had spoken to him while he was awake once because he was close in proximity to her, so maybe it was possible to get through to this tree now… He put his hand on the trunk and closed his eyes. He thought a greeting, and let it breathe through his fingers into the tree. Amper didn’t hear a voice but felt something that could have been a malicious laugh, and he tried to not jerk his hand away in distaste. He didn’t want to cause alarm if anyone saw him.

He looked at Mygs, his face dour. “This just doesn’t seem good,” he said.

Mygs didn’t respond aloud but nodded, knowing Thunder would be able to

hear if he asked for elaboration.

“Look, I can’t quite communicate with this one,” Amper said to him. “So I’m going to walk off a ways and try to concentrate and talk to Shhah. We were talking before I woke up. She can help me understand.”

“We gotta do something,” Mygs mumbled helplessly. “I hope you succeed.” Mygs then turned to their host. “It seems she’d coughed or spit something up

before… expiring,” he stated delicately. “That might indicate some sort of poison or bad reaction to something. An allergy, maybe. Do your people experience rashes, swelling, dizziness or anything when near flowers or trees with flowers?”

“No,” Thunder answered. “You think it may be a natural reaction to a plant?”

“Perhaps,” Mygs shrugged. “We have tools at our campsite that might help know what’s going on. But since this tree is actually a nemectis, Amper is going to replace a quiet place to see if he can communicate with a nemectis friend of his who may know this one. For now, if there are other kids here, make sure their guardians keep them with the group.”

Thunder nodded, staring up at the tree for a stern moment, and then relayed the information to the group of white-eyed mavodi. Two of them went with the mother and her lost girl back to the village, and everyone else gathered around Mygs by the nemectis. Mygs addressed them all.

“This tree is a nemectis. It lives and holds intelligence. Amper felt its heart beat. I myself have felt the heartbeat of a nemectis. Each nemectis heart beats about twice in one day-night cycle. Amper tried talking to this one, but he couldn’t fully understand it. He is going to try to talk to a nemectis he’s been communicating with since we arrived from the sky. He will let us know what she says. In the meantime, I will teach you what I’ve learned about the nemectis, and you can teach me about your culture.”

Amper sat on an apathetic, fallen log. He managed to stabilize himself into a meditative position and closed his eyes. He thought of Shhah, and once he was concentrating on the last conversation they had, he actively called to her.

“I’m here!” she responded. “You left suddenly again!” her orange/gray/purple whorls were busy, hand-leaves twisting in agitation.

“I’m guiding the mavodi – the culture made of the asteroid – to understand the nemectes and not strip them for their homes any more. But something horrible has happened with this group I’m leading that may have to do with a nemectis I am near. A girl mavodic died.”

“How did she die?”

“It seemed that she coughed, or spit something. Maybe she had trouble breathing and struggled.”

Shhah was quiet, but turned completely red edged with brown. Her mist seemed to spread out like she was losing strength, but then it condensed again. Amper waited, his essence orange, gray and green.

“Not all nemectes join the community communication,” she said quietly. “There are bridges between a couple, which is typical, but then there are the bridges of groups of more than two whose minds have a darker way than most of us. Usually they work against the good energies of the followers of The Dawning.”

“This nemectis may be one of those?”

“Lately, it has been said that The Dawning does not encourage understanding of the… mavodi? We call stellasen. Some of the bridged rebel groups might be acting on it. There was a rumor – now I believe is true – that some nemectes know the stellasensus have been taking our layers and poisoning us with their strange food waste or personal defecation. They are joining forces and punishing them. It might be why the mavodi’s children are dying.”

“How are they doing it?”

“Seed dust. It’s lethal to the stellasen, and we control when we use it. Typically we have it for our gloaming, to perpetuate our incipience. They’re wasting their lineage on hatred.”

“This mindset explains the self-satisfaction I felt from the nemectis at our site. Damn it. We have to stop this somehow or it will become a war.”

Amper emerged from the far side of the bookleaf nemectis. Mygs was listening to a mavodic tell a story, and everyone laughed. Amper was suddenly appalled that so many mavodi were within death’s reach, and the one in control of their fate was the tree under which they sat.

He called-out in urgency. “Mygs, have everyone move away from the nemectis immediately.” Mygs looked back in alarm, his grin from the story wilting. “Tell them he’s sick or something.”

Mygs said this to the group right away, and Amper noticed Thunder look at him discerningly. The Verytic knew there was more to the command than just sickness, but he left with the others. Mygs stayed and Amper walked up to him. He told Mygs what Shhah had told him.

“Retaliation? Without even trying…” Mygs was appalled. “But how could they try to communicate? These two cultures have a gap they can’t overcome, unless we help.”

“Right,” Amper nodded. “The nemectes know what’s happening to make them sick but can’t make the mavodi stop except for the seed dust because they can’t talk to each other. But did you notice?” He stopped and waited for Mygs to take a second. “A whole group of the mavodi were under this nemectis, and none of them were attacked. This singular group of rebellious nemectes are making efforts to kill only the children!”

“Why are they sparing adults and going only for the kids? -“

“They are MONSTERS!” Amper looked past Mygs, and Mygs turned to see Thunder burst out of the nearby saplings and brush.

“Thunder, you need to be away from the nemectis,” he insisted, spreading his arms imploringly. “He could see you’re angry and decide to release the poisoned dust for you.”

“And it could kill you, too, Mygs,” Amper pointed-out quietly. “You’re part gideonite. Don’t chance it.”

“Let’s all go away from here,” Mygs said, stepping past Thunder with Amper following his lead.

“Not without revenge for Yikit!” Thunder’s voice and gestures strained against emotion. “How can we walk away now that we know these demontrees are targeting the mavodi’s children!” He strode past Amper and yanked the torch from his hand, continuing out from under the nemectis’ canopy.

“It’s not all of the nemectes, Thunder,” Mygs tried to explain.

“This is what you deserve for the loss of our innocent future!” Thunder tossed the torch overhand so that it would land on top of the tree branches and fall down through the middle. Leaves hissed and smoke began billowing, but the flames diminished as a quenching burst of dust encompassed the attack and then followed the smoke up and out, causing the men to run fast away from the tree.

The group of mavodi moved quickly with the terranauts, back toward the village to warn the others of this impending danger.

“There were no nemectes at the village,” Mygs pointed-out. “We’ll be safe there for now, but the forest isn’t safe for them anymore. We’ll guide them back to the asteroid until you talk to The Dawning or Shhah and we know what to do.”

“Mygs, I have to go to The Dawning to be sure I can talk to him whether I’m sleeping or not. I don’t want to waste time heading to the asteroid.”

“But I have to go,” Mygs stated in frustration. “This dust could kill me.”

“Then go,” Amper said automatically, and realized what it meant. He gave Mygs a strained look. “Now we do have to separate.” They stared at each other. “There’s no other way,” Amper shook his head.

Mygs took a deep breath and nodded in determination. “Then we will meet later.” He straightened as Thunder called to him from the distance. “Friend –” he said the one word, but the full significance of what Mygs wanted to say came through to Amper.

Amper matched the grasp, “You’ll replace me,” he said, not quite choking on the

words.

“I will replace you,” Mygs repeated, meeting his gaze and managing a smile of promise.

Then Mygs was gone, running to his people.

Then Amper was alone.