The Tangle of Lights and Life

The river was thick like stew with a salty, savory odor. Days upon days the rough and rutted little boat slugged through it, weathered and filthy, dripped upon by the breathy jungle that leaned in from both banks. Uly moved heavily along the decks, shut down the engines and heaved the anchor overboard, letting the rope run through his leathery hands. Tired after a grueling day, he snuffed the lanterns then pulled himself up into the hammock that was slung between the cabin and the mast. His body settled deeply into the scoop of woven fibers.

On this part of the planet the sky was never fully dark; it would be stuck in twilight for hours. But the gloaming was deep enough to project a heavy sweep of stars, a spectacle that drew Uly every night out of his cumbersome body and lifted his mood into the cosmos. Gazing up, he marveled that he’d traveled through that tangle of lights to get here and would soon be sailing through it again, wrapped in a cocoon of deep sleep, racing through the immense black to get home. He’d been here long enough. Tomorrow he’d return to headquarters and finally be done with the mission. This thought, and the swing of the hammock, relaxed him and he began to drowse.

Then came the noise.

The boat rocked in a loose salad of succulent water-weeds with a melodic thrump thrump thrump. Aquatic animals—their fins, their tails and feet, their trunks—knocked and slapped against the hull. Uly could sleep through that. During daylight hours the motley zoo of animals he’d trapped and caged and stacked along the decks sang a constant chorus of chirrups and whistles, trills and grunts and hoots. But at night they all settled down. This new noise came from the creature he’d caught just that day. It had fought and screeched quite viciously considering its tiny, frail body, but it had quieted once locked in a cage. Now it began to wail, a cry drawn out and plaintive. Uly jumped down.

Blasting the cage with torchlight silenced the creature, but Uly kicked the cage anyway. The small captive looked at him fearfully with tiny white eyes. He saw it had attempted to escape by pushing against the bars. The hard wood had held, but had cracked enough to send fat splinters into the creature’s claws and forelimbs. The wounds were bleeding. The animal cowered and growled, then began to bark. Uly had no fear, as the creature was puny against his large build so he unlocked the cage, took the beast’s spindly limbs in hand and pulled out the splinters. That was all he was willing to do, just enough to get the thing to shut up. His obligation went no further than to deliver the specimens. He wasn’t responsible, didn’t care about quality or damage. His assignment was quantity and variety.

The creature reacted badly. Its tiny eyes watered and its jaws spread wide in a threatening grimace, a sudden sign of aggression that startled Uly. He leapt to his feet and slammed the cage shut.

It was late. At dawn he’d hoist the anchor and start the motors, and by midday would be back at the research station. There he would turn in the vessel and catalog his haul, all the samples he’d collected and carefully labeled. He would receive his payment, terminate his contract, and in short days be settled into his spacecraft and on his way, safe and sealed against the treacherous vacuum. A long journey, but once he closed his eyes he knew upon awakening he’d be home.

This had been a particularly successful expedition. The decks were filled with more species than Uly had ever collected on any previous hunt. The rewards would be enough to retire from his arduous forays to the frontier planets; from now on he could work closer to home. These lucrative trips had been Uly’s scheme to fast-track into a better position in his community, to become a badged member of the council and participate directly in the running of the administration. Best of all, he’d now be able to start his own family. He was well ahead of his contemporaries, who had all chosen more conventional paths to success.

Uly climbed back up into his hammock, tilted his chin to the stars, and waited for sleep.

Again a noise roused him. This one different, peculiar. An undulating mist with voice. Perhaps he was dreaming.

Down from the hammock again, he stood before the same cage, baffled. The light from his torch sought the charm that floated from the creature’s mouth, something clearly there, that should be seen but wasn’t. An enchantment of sound—nothing as beautiful heard ever before and most likely ever again. The creature stared at him; the mouth moved with magic and Uly could barely breath. He felt bewitched, tried to shut it out but couldn’t. Moments passed. And passed. At length he regained the ability to move, and without thinking bent to unlock the cage. The delicate creature came out and unfolded like an insect.

~~~

Lieutenant Ashford had attempted fury but her skilled defensive training had played as nothing against the brute’s size and strength; she’d been thrown and pinned like a sparrow. Her attempt to muscle her way out of the cage had left her with broken and bleeding fingernails, deep cuts on her hands and feet, and painful splinters. She thought pity might have worked but her voice and smile had somehow frightened the creature away.

She knew without doubt she would miss blastoff. The creature had snatched her while she bathed in a waterfall; her boots, her flight suit, all her equipment, had been left behind at the campsite. She had no means to communicate with her crewmates back at the ship, and they wouldn’t wait for her. They couldn’t wait. Countdown was critical to the flight plan and hardwired from the base on Moon Prime, out of the crew’s control. So she was resigned. Her life was now about escape and survival.

She found courage and comfort in song and she sang from her heart, but her prime motivation was to get the creature’s attention. When it came to her and stood gawping, she hoped she’d found a way to communicate, to make it really look, really see her. To make it understand that she wasn’t like the other specimens it had collected and caged. That she was sentient. And indeed her singing seemed to mesmerize the beast. Its bulbous eyes blinked slowly, its massive hands trembled as it inexplicably reached out to turn the lock. She crawled out, stood—afraid to get too close, afraid to smile—pointed to shore and began to plead but thought better and sang with soft words, desperate words and gestures to help it understand: home, please, help, please, please. There might still be time. She had to make this alien being—hunter, explorer, maybe scientist—realize that they were alike, both just doing their jobs in this wet and over-full jungle. Both anxious to go home. She stopped singing, tapped her chest and pointed to the stars.

The creature looked up, dipped its gristly head then carefully pointed a large and calloused finger at Lieutenant Ashford’s mouth. Ashford sang again.

Lowered into waist-deep muck, Ashford’s toes fought for balance as she grasped and pulled herself through the snarl of sunken vines. A scramble up onto the riverbank, then a turn for one last look. There he stood on the deck of the boat, his hulking silhouette dark against the orchestra of lights that kindled the sky. She raised an arm.

“Thank you,” she sang.

He imitated her gesture and pursed his mouth, but she heard nothing.

Ashford moved on, praying for a miracle—that she would find her way back to the ship before the countdown bottomed, before her starship blasted off into the waiting cosmos, bound for Earth.

~~~

As Uly watched the wraithlike creature slip into the jungle, he wondered where her friends were—maybe her family?—and if she would be able to find them. He was still out of himself, still stunned by the extraordinary sound the creature had produced. still struggling to grasp the fact that this base lifeform had thoughts and emotions, came from a society of beings with the technology, however primitive, that enabled her to ride the stars. His people had fables of animals that could think and speak, plant life that had feelings, minerals that had thoughts. But they were just fairy tales.

Uly walked the decks and looked into the containers that held the flying creatures, the crawling creatures, the vertebrates and invertebrates he’d captured to bring back to the station for scientists to observe, to examine, possibly to dissect. Probably. Did any of these creatures also possess intelligence? He stared at them and they stared back. How would he know? How would they communicate if they didn’t possess the abilities the insect creature had? He checked every cage, poked his fingers through the bars, clicked his tongue and cooed at them, looking for signs that these animals had souls. Was that paw tapping a signal? Were those antennae beating a pattern? A furry blond beast blinked its large yellow eyes at Uly; Uly blinked back. The beast blinked again and Uly’s heart rattled in his throat.

For the third time that night Uly clambered up into his hammock and stared at the stars. This time he didn’t seek sleep but projected his questions into the heavens and looked for signs that he was being heard.

When twilight misted away to dawn, Uly pulled anchor and started the engines. No longer eager to relinquish his haul, he let the boat putter slowly downriver. Chatter from the animals drew him repeatedly from the helm; he walked the decks, watched the captives pace and push against their bars. The creature with large yellow eyes blinked at Uly each time he passed.

The station was now just around the next bend. Uly switched off the engines and let the boat drift to the riverbank. The prow pushed into an overhanging tree and became wedged, and here Uly stood, stuck in indecision.

There was nothing to be done. The specimens, self-aware or not, were his livelihood. He couldn’t be caught up in a moral dilemma about his place on the map of life or his obligations to the universe. He was a hard worker, and always prided himself on doing the right thing. But he now knew—the insect creature had taught him—that his previous actions, however innocent, had been far from the right thing.

Just in front of him on a leafy branch, a tiny round body moved along on eight thread-like legs, hinged and waving uncertainly to find their next steps. A day ago Uly would have snatched it up and tossed it into a specimen box. Today he watched it tiptoe away.

It was then Uly felt an angry rumble and thought it was his mood, but the second rumble was clearly from above, a sign that the skies on this strange planet would soon storm with water. He needed to get to the station. But before pulling the boat away, Uly stepped to the decks and grabbed one cage.

The overhanging tree formed a bridge to the riverbank. The instant Uly slid open the cage door there was a blond blur as the yellow-eyed animal burst to escape. At the top of a leafy branch, the creature stopped and looked back at Uly, blinked twice, then scrambled to freedom.

Uly spent the rest of the morning opening boxes and cages, freeing his prisoners into the hot, heaving, sopping wet jungle.