Gods have plans, too.
- Morgan Oakes, The Diaries
FOR A long time, Panille lay quietly beside Hali in the treedome, watching the plaz-filtered light draw radial beams on the air above the cedar tree. He knew Hali had been hurt by his rejection and he wondered why he did not feel guilty. He sighed. There was no sense in running away; this was the way he had to be.
Hali spoke first, her voice low, tentative.
"Nothing's changed, is it?"
"Talking about it doesn't change it," he said. "Why did you ask me out here - to revive our sexual debate?"
"Couldn't I just want to be with you for a while?"
She was close to tears. He spoke softly to avoid hurting her even more.
"I'm always with you, Hali." With his left hand he lifted her right hand, pressed the tips of his fingers against the tips of her fingers. "Here. We touch, right?"
She nodded like a child being coaxed from a tantrum.
"Which is we and which the material of our flesh?"
"I don'...."
He held their fingertips a few centimeters apart.
"All the atoms between us oscillate at incredible speeds. They bump into each other and shove each other around." He tapped the air with a fingertip, careful to keep from touching her.
"So I touch an atom; it bumps into the next one; that one nudges another, and so on unti...." He closed the gap and brushed her fingertips. "...we touch and we were never separate."
"Those are just words!" She pulled her hand away from him.
"Much more than words, you know it, Med-tech Hali Ekel. We constantly exchange atoms with the universe, with the atmosphere, with food, with each other. There's no way we can be separated."
"But I don't want just any atoms!"
"You have more choice than you think, lovely Hali."
She studied him out of the corners of her eyes. "Are you just making these things up to entertain me?"
"I'm serious. Don't I always tell you when I make up something?"
"Do you?"
"Always, Hali. I will make up a poem to prove it." He tapped her wire ring lightly. "A poem about this."
"Why're you telling me your poems? You usually just lock them up on tapes or store them away in those old-fashioned glyph books of yours."
"I'm trying to please you in the only way I can."
"Then tell me your poem."
He brushed her cheek beside the ring, then:
"With delicate rings of the gods
in our noses
we do not root in their garden."
She stared at him, puzzled. "I don't understand."
"An ancient Earthside practice. Farmers put rings in the noses of their pigs to keep the pigs from digging out of their pens. Pigs dig with their noses as well as their feet. People called that kind of digging 'rooting.'"
"So you're comparing me to a pig."
"Is that all you see in my poem?"
She sighed, then smiled as much at herself as at Kerro. "We're a fine pair to be selected for breeding - the poet and the pig!"
He stared at her, met her gaze and, without knowing why, they were suddenly giggling, then laughing.
Presently, he lay back on the duff. "Ahhh, Hali, you are good for me."
"I thought you might need some distraction. What've you been studying that keeps you so shut away?"
He scratched his head, recovered a brown twig of dead cedar. "I've been rooting into the 'lectrokelp."
"That seaweed the Colony's been having all the trouble with? Why would that interest you?"
"I'm always amazed at what interests me, but this may be right down my hatchway. The kelp, or some phase of it, appears to be sentient."
"You mean it thinks?"
"More than tha.... probably much more."
"Why hasn't this been announced?"
"I don't know for sure. I came across part of the information by accident and pieced together the rest. There's a record of other teams sent out to study the kelp."
"How did you find this report?"
"Wel.... I think it may be restricted for most people, but Ship seldom holds anything back from me."
"You and Ship!"
"Hal...."
"Oh, all right. What's in this report?"
"The kelp appears to have a language transmitted by light but we can't understand it yet. And there's something even more interesting. I can't find out if there's a current project to contact and study this kelp."
"Doesn't Shi...."
"Ship refers me to Colony HQ or to the Ceepee, but they don't acknowledge my inquiries."
"That's nothing new. They don't acknowledge most inquiries."
"You been having trouble with them, too?"
"Just that Medical can't get an explanation for all the gene sampling."