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 deck, 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 haphazard zoo of animals he’d trapped and caged and stacked along the deck 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 commission and terminate his contract. Done. In short days he’d 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. He 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 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 never again. The creature stared at him; the mouth moved with magic and Uly could barely breath. He felt bewitched and tried to shut it out but couldn’t. Moments passed and passed and at length he reached over and unlocked 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 scratches on her arms and painful splinters. She thought pity might have worked but her voice and smile had somehow frightened the creature away.

She knew without doubt that 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 Base Station, 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 touched a calloused finger to Lieutenant Ashford’s mouth. Ashford sang again.

Lowered into waist-deep muck, her 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 quick look. He stood on the deck of the boat, his 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.

She 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 home.

~~~

As Uly watched the wraithlike creature slip into the jungle, he wondered where her friends were—maybe her family?—and would she 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 deck and looked into the cages 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, made noises to elicit responses, looked for signs that these animals had souls. Was that paw tapping a signal? Were those antennae beating a pattern? A furry beast blinked its large 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 let the boat drift to the riverbank. He spent the entire morning opening cages and freeing his prisoners into the hot, sopping, heaving jungle.