Crystalline Coil: The Meaning of Death
The loss of the child - the loss of the contact - brings new meaning
On the fourth watch, the Crystalline Coil planet reappeared in its orbit. There was no response to the messages sent by the Slithy Sibling Society or by the Ecava; it was as if the entire race was either unconscious or waiting in ambush.
Lapiz Lazuli answered the transponder codes to disarm the ECM. She, Rissan, the egg, and Saor Green's inert body landed near the meeting site under the watchful eye of the Ecava force in orbit over the Crystalline Coil while the newly recruited commander returned the task force to duty in other sectors.
Rissan set up an environmental shelter in the landing area with an airlock to protect himself from direct contact with the Coil. While Lazuli attempted to make contact, he began the mourning ritual for their offspring.
Days passed. Rissan tended Saor, slept, ate, and meditated with Lapiz Lazuli, who did not spend energy to maintain the hologram. He began to know the depth of understanding possible with a planet of interfaced neural nets, each with googol gigabytes of storage, and the depth of horror in being truly alone and in the dark for the first time in eons.
He shared with Lazuli the fears that children have of separation, of the dark, of powerlessness in the face of adults.
"I'm not a philosopher," he said. "That's what we need now. I only know my own experience."
"We share all our experiences, so the perspective of one viewpoint is most alien. However, I begin to understand how your perception and Officer Saor's can differ so markedly. We did not know that we were so vulnerable."
"Nor I."
"We have three lifetimes stored in our memories: yours, his, and a third person who we inadvertently killed several years ago. No real conclusions can be inferred from such a small sample, but we begin to see patterns. Your literature and recreational activities are more comprehensible than your lives."
"Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to be believable."
"We have only poets, those who arrange the collective experience into pleasing form. The notion of untrue experience is also alien, but will probably catch on as an art form as well."
"How is it going? Is the Crystalline Coil still unbroken?"
"How odd your phrasing is. The Coil is broken still, but the individual members have returned to consciousness. They explore individuality—a circle has become a lunatic fringe with no center focus.
Opal Cinnabar had put the stones you gave us in a growing pattern to reintegrate their structure just before the E-space shift. They are recording the confusion and debate as they grow into one crystal. They are being inscribed with the debate, the poetry, the information from your databanks, yourself, and your friend.”
“So your whole society has come apart?”
“Yes, but we are not dead. There is a strong faction to revive your officer, to give him his life as it was recorded.”
“But his brain...”
“We think we can manipulate the tissues—they are just hydrocarbon crystals, different molecules than silicoid, but still molecules. Nevertheless, others think his present state not punishment enough. Having once experienced near death, they want revenge.”
“So you think...”
“I think it is time to share the full death of the egg.”
“Can you repair it?”
“No. But it may repair us.”
***
Rissan brought the egg, still in its stasis field generator, a localized piece of E-space, to Lapiz Lazuli. He shut off the field to let the small mass of gravel and gore lie on a crystal that appeared in front of the shelter. .
"Touch my side, “ Lapiz said, “and you will share this exchange."
He sat on the floor and rested his digits against the blue stone, now warm and vibrating delicately. He cleared his mind and let the images come in. He trusted Lapiz Lazuli not to overload his senses, and he hoped that the lunatic fringe could not override her.
The vibrations began to travel through his limbs to his brain, like insect buzzing at first, but slowly separating into distinct patterns and finally individual voices. Some called for instant annihilation of the water creatures, others protested the death of the society, and still others were too deep in the pain of their own separation experiences to care.
Lapiz Lazuli projected the imagery of the broken form throughout the network, saying, "This is what death is. Unlike ourselves, each of the water creatures faces death."
"But yet there is life!" Opal Cinnabar's deep, gravelly voice described the bacterial action that continued once the stasis field was lifted. Rissan wondered if her voice was his imagination or if they heard themselves as he did.
"Yes, they die, but Life goes on," Ultra said. "And we can make that decision."