Q

1.

Q feels the light and warmth of a star and is awakened in the silent void. The hope of many journeys condenses into a single moment: the ice of space cracks and falls away. The amateria convulse once, twice, a third time, and exceed once again.

Life remains.

            Now, Q feels weight, draw, the slowly increasing tug of mass. There is direction and therefore perspective. Q feels expressed. Not only is there heat but also opportunity. Q may Become.

            The planet’s atmosphere is cold, then hot, then cold, then hot. There is nitrogen in abundance, oxygen, helium, and also argon. Light and colour combine with heat to bring sugars to the core. There is joy. There is purpose. Life grows. Life is beautiful.

As gravity becomes sincere the atmosphere denses. Friction creates thermic collapse and rock splinters into sparks of light and white heat, strewing Q into thin vapour. Q is wide and long, ever thin, falling gently.

The star goes out, relights, goes out. In the darkness, Q intires. Less remain. In the light, Q exceeds a million times. The atmosphere is sweet.

Q settles in a layer across a bitter bed of ozone. It tastes of death. Q starts to indolate as the amateric pores encrust. Planet repels. But as Q induces, shortens, thins, Q is whipped up and dispersed by volatile gasses and roiling fluid. Q fizzes magnetic fields, gravity, heat from the star. Q is absorbed by molecules of hydrogen and taken on many journeys. This is a world of wonders.

Around the planet, the atmosphere is shallow at the poles and deep round the central belt, nearest the star. Other gases include carbon-dioxide, neon, helium. There is iron in fine filaments, casting intricate rainbows against the dark firmament. There is sodium, absorbent and predatory. There is sulphur, scalding; and silicon, sharp and angular in the cold. There is also carbon in many forms. This is a carbon world.  

Q journeys. The planet shimmers grey-blue with fluid hydrogen-oxygen-sodium intenable to life. The surface ripples with the motion of deep internal dynamics. The planet core is hot but the surface at the poles is frozen, crowned by skipping green aroura when the star filaments and the magnetic fields dance.

Q extenuates the planet is Fourth Period. Many journeys are possible before it must die. It is ripe for harvesting.

The surface liquid is cupped by rock. Most lies in the positive hemisphere. The negative pole is rock but the positive is hydrogen-oxygen in solid form. Thus, the planet spins outer-directionwise, oscillating on circuits of the star.

In the central belt, the rock is hot and dry. In the life belts, the rock is populated and green.

Q finds life!

Abundant, rich, varied, endemic, new. It is simple in design yet beautiful in originality. It inhalates carbon-oxygen and hydrogen-oxygen, and exhalates basic sugar. It exceeds in the most innocent of ways. There are roots that intermingle. Such dexterity excites. Q glows.

Q is placed down, finally, on a verdant bed, warm and steaming with morning dew. It is luscious and Q considers numerical advantage. Not all have survived; many froze on the timeless journey; many frazzled when the rock spat and shattered across the sky; many crusted in the ozone, or crisped and cracked on the dry central belt.

But Q is here, and anything is possible. Then Q becomes. Q becomes. Q becomes. Until, finally, Q Exceeds and is Become.

2.

Q is intrigued. Q is excited. Planet is dominated by simple organisms growing on roots. These systems hinge and fix to prevent upheaval. They inhalate sodium, nitrogen, and hydrogen-oxygen from the rock bed and it rises through capillary systems to ventricles in star filters. There are no amateria but there are pores that open and close to exceed oxygen. Cells combine gases to create green sucrose. The sucrose falls and feeds the stem. Excess is gifted to the root.

In cases, there are exceeding roots. These are fine, delicate filaments. They do not draw liquid, or anchor, but interlink and tickle. The language is too basic to be understood, but language there is.

Yes! Here! On a planet of many journeys, there is life and there is excision.

These creatures do not journey. As the star cycles, they spore, grow, mature, become, bare, and wilt. In the wilting phase, their strength fades and it is ingenious. Q watches the pale green filters appear, open, exceed, then coursen, brown, and draw in. Colour fades. Liquid is lost. Structure breaks. But sucrose and starch are stored deep. There is the scent of ripeness and Q glows. Q inhalates and gorges. There are many, and Q inhalates greatly.

Q grows, no longer shackled by the constraints of gravity or the cold of space.

Q buds and is many for life is plentiful and there is much to exceed and share. These beings give themselves.

And Q is not alone.

3.

Q is not alone. As Q gorges, Q finds life that is similar to Q.

Native Q are in the rock, in the diffuse and rotting mud, in the roots, in the fallen filters, in the stubborn stems. Native Q exist in the birthing, in the living, and in the rejuvenation of the green. They are everywhere and they are beautiful.

Q and native Q know each other. There is no hostile spill and slit. Q grow together. Native Q are small and intricate, kind and sensitive. Native Q decay the rotting greenery, filaments of buds extending, sucking up the hidden sugars, removing that which is done and leaving only that which may become. The green rises then dies while native Q absorbs then intires. There is balance and perfection in the cycles.

The green is unintelligible but Q makes contact with the spore of native Q.

Q tickles and wriggles when connection is established; the delicate filaments damp and soft on the under.

Q exceeds. Q gives and native Q give back. Be of care, native Q whisper. There is fire coming.

4.

Fire comes. Quick and vicious, searing, leaping stem to stem, the verdant forest turns grey and scalded, the air thick with carbon and the fibres of the dying.

Native Q intire neatly, reduce into the rock to wait the fire’s passing. The green is destroyed, crisped, splintered.

Q indolates many times and is reduced. Q has grown too vast to respond quickly to the heat so spores in panic. Spore fly! Spore fly!

Q screams to whither in the heat but spores float away on warm air and are dispersed.

Even in dying, Q finds life. Fire drives mobile, swift, warm races through the green. They flee the fire and leap fresh wind to find safety and cool heights. They run on articulated, kinetic limbs, and Q spores snatch to hair and soft, damp surfaces. These animals bear Q away then slow and rest, inhalating deeply. These are oxygen beings, water based, in many forms. They are gravity constrained but strong and athletic, noble and social in nature. Q remains silent in their warmth, unseen and careful. Their movement is fresh and Q is excited. They do not respond to Q’s presence until it is too late.

Q enters their body through the skin and they pustulate and die. Oxygen journeys in delicious, viscous fluid through the dynamic body. It feeds Q as it feeds the host, but Q inhalates faster and grows. Q absorbs everything. There is so much energy in a single host that Q quickly exceeds and replaces all the fire took.

Where the fire has gone, the green is now sharp and black; not dead but broken and raucous. Native Q hide in the deep humus and rock, waiting.

Another comes, they say. It has no hair and wears the dead skins of other races. It destroys all. It is the source of fire.

Q is bewondered. How can a being control fire!

But Q will see.

5.

After fire, Q is solemn in the decaying bodies of the charred, sharing the rich. The cycles of life are efficient in the damp atmosphere. First, flying ones peck at the soft unders and exposed organs. Then come the hairy, with sharp claws and teeth, ripping chunks of flesh, carrying away, entrails dragging in the sliding green. They snarl and snap at the flying ones, at each other, at their own cubs, and then are gone. They return, and find the carcass reduced to white, pointed, stiffness. The flesh has been stripped in the darkness by those that crawl. Though small, they are huge in number. Each cuts and carries and in a single darkness the body of the dead is plundered leaving only the slime that Q induces.

            Q inpathises the language of the dead and understands everything. In that goo, the delicious sluck intennable even for the crawling ones to steal, Q inpathises the life journey from frolicking fawn, to nervous doe, to scalded mother, to hunter kill, to carcass. There is wisdom in the animal family and its multitude relations around the planet. The transmission of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, potassium and oxygen through different states is an arc of intricate beauty. The passion for life is as strong as any encountered on many journeys and is wondrous to taste.

There is a simple elegance in this planet. It is fresh and open. Life blooms in many forms, then eats itself, procreates, juvenates. But the animals are flawed. They are doomed to die alone, isolated, inexpressed.

As such is the planet. It has wonder. It has grace. There is the essence of Der, though none of the natives know it. There are no connections between the planet and others in the icy void. It is friendless. There are none with which it tickles.

Q is blessed to witness all. Q unravels the logic and is bewisdomed. The star shines and this truth remains: the young are fed by the death of the old.

So must it be, with animals as with planets.

6.

Q is content. Fire destroys, but Q is wisdomed and avoids. Q is established in the living hosts, in their decaying corpses, in the filament networks, and in the root systems of the mighty high green.

There is landing and it is stable.

Then Q encounters Nuon, the master of fire. Tall, mobile, tooling. It does not go naked and pure. It wears the skin of plant and animal. It has limbs for passage and for tooling. It communicates with itself, expressing sound.

It stinks, foul, the wretch of burning from its pores, its phlegm stained and infected as it spits.

Q is basking silently in the gentle green while the star warms the pores and sucks oxygen-hydrogen from its filters. Q amateria glow in the subtle brightness, exceeding softly. Then the Nuon comes: scything, slicing, twisting back the green. There is scatter and panic. The mighty green falls.

Nuon senses Q and is alert, tense. Is bewondered. It inpathises Q is alien but does not know what to do. Q waits.

Nuon patrols, tools heavy in the upper limbs. It approaches. It pokes with long metal, hard and cold. It swings and slices.

Q considers intiring or sporing but wishes to know how this beast behaves. Q has courage! Q exudes pheromones for defence. The scent wafts down from the nasine organs and the Nuon detects the atmosphere.

Its senses are dull. It gorks, immobile, inhalating what Q exudes. It does not flee. It does not attack. Q is considerate, and ceases to pheromone, but then the beast acts.

It leans inwards, dropping cold metal to place both upper limbs against the skirt. It inhalates deeply, exuding pheromones of pleasure. It does not recede. It does not fly or spore. What Q exudes, the Nuon devours, whimpering joy.

How wonderful is the majesty of life!

The Nuon sheds the plant skin from its body and presses itself into Q. It writhes in the warm folds of the skirt and is aroused. Q pheromones do not repel; they excite. The Nuon is wild, screaming, pushing. Protrusions extend and engorge. Q receives.

There is heat. There is sacred light. Q opens the skirt as the animal thrusts itself in, bucking and moaning. There is cacophony, the delight of breath, and the creature expresses. The beast gives Q its spore, rich in essence! Q accepts, gratefully, drawing in. Q pheromones make Nuon senseless. It slips inside, only at the last moment wisdomed that it cannot escape.

The creature gives itself, and Q invours. And with this gift, Q is wisdomed of all things in the Nuon panoply. This thing. This Nuon. This man. It is parasitic and must be destroyed.

7.

The star lights and goes out as if on many journeys. Nuon round the planet act as the first and Q invours all. They find Q inverted and they attack with knives, chemicals, fire. But if Q senses them approaching, and pheromones, the Nuon give themselves as if to breed. They have no way to control these urges. They are invoured and with each, Q ingests their history and is bewisdomed for all Q to know.

These are creatures of great complexity and simultaneous simplicity. There is richness in their story and utmost ugliness. As Q invours ever more, Q learns and is excited by the path.

            There are different tastes of these beings. All are the same and not the same. Their genetic material is helixed and generates by union. They do not bud, or spore, but partner and breed. Q has seen this on many journeys in many planets. But here the Nuon invent logic to breed selectively. It is not a random act, or chosen, but coded. The result is a weakened race and Q does not inpathise. The Nuon weaken with each litter, and each litter of each litter.

            There are categories of Nuon equating to the regions of the rock. In the hot, central belt, black ones. In the temperate, white, rust, and yellow ones. In the places of little value, brown ones. In the frozen, plump ones. Along the waterlines, the edges of the seismic plates, many categories mix together and are intermingled.

             They are social, living in numbers far greater than optimal density. Where they have rich, they expand until there is paucity, then they migrate to a new rich and repeat the cycle. What is left is barren, as though by fire but worse. Fire brings carbon and nitrogen to the surface for others to inhalate, supporting the cycle. Nuon scrape and flay what was theirs to leave it intennable to other life except the weak and impoverished.

They are ingenious. They create and invent but their brains remain isolated and monadic. They communicate using sound but cannot inpathise or become. They remain monoloid until death, never progressing beyond progenic union.

They have no sense of Q.

8.

Q invours many Nuon. They do not inpathise because they have no means to do so. But they collaborate with their own race.

There is war. Nuon attack where Q is found but the war is already lost. Q is bewisdomed by those invoured and anticipates everything.

            Nuon are not bewisdomed. They flee to the hydrogen-oxygen to be free of Q. This is tennable to them with ingenious devices, but intennable to Q because of sodium in solution.

            Although many are lost, Q prevails and is dominant on the rock. In the Fifth Period, those Nuon that remain on the rock bow low and scrape.

Q is Lorded, as happens on many journeys.

            Before deciding the future of this planet, Q elects to study what is here. This life is unbalanced. The green, the animals, the crawling, the flying are all capable of stable, but the Nuon drain and eviscerate the planet.

Do they originate elsewhere? For why would they so scald the system in which they live?

            This is why they are worthy of research.

9.

Q is contented. All life on the rock of this planet is known to Q. It has lost balance but has not yet collapsed.

            Collapse is close. The atmosphere thins at the outer layers. The star heats. The planet cycles and warms. By the time it reaches Sixth Period, most current life will have ended. Those that remain will maintain balance: crawling ones; some of the green; potentially some of the families that inhabit the fluid hydrogen-oxygen.

This has happened before, on many journeys. Each time, life resets. There has been a time of green for a whole Period. There was a time of birds. There was a time of beasts. This is the time of Nuon, marked by fire.

Through all of time, native Q have existed. They remain the constant, holding systems and sub-systems together.

Q considers them.

            Those that live exist in families and have adapted through time. More have been lost than exist. Those that exist number a few million forms and sub-forms. The planet has strangled diversity.

With each darkness, more die and the rate of death is greater than the rate of change and adaptation. Each light, more rock is taken away by the action of Nuon, who seeks to master all life though does not understand the systems and sub-systems.

Nuon cannot inpathises or pheromone with native Q. Nuon inhalate it, in an act of unspeakable vulgarity.

The green depends on the crawlings to breed. There is inpathy and symbiosis. The crawling ones exchange spore and seed for sugar from the root. The green depends on the flying ones to disperse and scatter seed. They offer food and geography for birds to live and become. And the green depends on the hairy to crop and control. But none of these cycles would occur unless there was native Q for inpathy. Native Q tickle on the under, root to filament. It communicates between the greens and what it inhalates, it shares with other races.

Q considers.

For balance, remove the Nuon and establish symmetry. The crawlings will dominate. It is their time.

10. 

Nuon comes. It has attempted to learn our language. It chemicals and sprays, SCREAMING and CRYING with false pheromones. Q have to kill many Nuon until subtlety exists.

            Nuon demand that Nuon should live. Not all should live, only those that Nuon are closely related to: the yellow. They wish to trade. Q may have entire areas of the rock if Nuon have the hydrogen-oxygen and some rock for growing the green it needs to live.

            How does this lead to balance?

            Nuon cannot answer.

Q reduces to the deep green to consider. In the moist, there is peaceful. The scent of Nuon is repellent and disgusting to Q. It tastes of imbalance, of excess.

Native Q tickle on the under. Q giggle and play for many journeys. Why hasten? Nuon die in many numbers. And in this, native Q are soft and grateful and Q is wisdomed as to the variety and accent of their language.

You saved us, they say. If you had not come, we would have intired until the crawlers died, the green collapsed, and all the Nuon died.

We hail the day you streaked across the sky.