From the probe and its child’s positions, exactly 478.23 lightyears, anti-spinward toward the galactic centre, along the western spiral arm of the Milky Way. Two beings who would consider themselves rivals, and at the same time friends, sat in a small room of an average sized building, placed in the rolling countryside in the northern forests, on an unremarkable rocky planet situated in a dwarf binary system known to the locals as Razziek.
The two spoke in their native dialect instead of the more official tongue reserved for those in political office. Between the two lay the game of Mesh, a highly complex board game played in three dimensions and over extraordinary amounts of time.
The more senior of the two Gryp-Saddah surveyed the two metre cubed board, which resembled a multi-coloured entangled mess of knitting yarn. When viewed closely one could also see another mesh of much finer threads weaved in between the thicker coloured yarn-type material.
It was on these finer lines of thread that the game pieces were placed, large irregular shaped artefacts, some of which looked metallic, others which looked a lot softer and pliable.
It was one of these softer pieces that Gryp-Saddah plucked from the board with one loose tentacle, and absentmindedly began to manipulate its shape with three of his other fore-tentacles. As he did so he looked across at the younger man and spoke.
“So then, how goes the war Trem-Fadokk? I hear things are developing along similar complex lines as this here game we are playing.”
Trem-Fadokk waited patiently for his counterpart to put the piece back into the board, he had been a diplomat long enough to know that Saddah’s question was not complete until he had replaced the game piece into the mesh.
He watched as the older man flattened out the piece, and then very carefully used the tip of one of his side-tentacles to add some dimples to it. He examined his handy work briefly before slipping it back into place on the game board.
As he replaced it, Fadokk watched as the piece remelded with the mesh and the many points of the gameboard reordered themselves accordingly. The young diplomat waited a few seconds while the board readjusted itself.
“I would have to say; not well, in the last 12,000 orbits the infection has spread most efficiently, and our efforts to contain it have, well, you have seen for yourself what our efforts have achieved.”
Faddok plucked a small rough looking piece from the bottom left of the cube and placed It near Saddah’s piece. The younger man looked on in disappointment as his piece shifted and fell from its position to be absorbed by the smaller flatter piece. For the thousandth time he contemplated how it may take several more centuries before he even began to master the basics of the game of Mesh.
“Ha! Fadokk I think you have made a grave error there, I will be able to claim most of the territory needed to win . . .”
Saddah trailed off as his concentration deepened. One of the sixteen hours that made up a day on Razziek passed in complete silence. The younger man knowing better than to break the old general’s trance.
Finally Gryp-Saddah made his move, swiftly bringing to bear two of his foremost tentacles and simultaneously plucking two insignificant looking pieces on opposite sides of the cube. Without hesitation he spiked them into the mesh with precision and speed. The thick coloured yarn-like lines pulsated and changed colour in time with their rhythmic pulsing.
“There, I fear this one may take you a while to work out.”
Fadokk wanted to resign the game but knew better of it, he was hopeless at Mesh, however he had to at least put up a show of trying to win the game, even though the two of them knew that all was lost.
Fadokk calculated that he would have to take at least two weeks figuring his next move, luckily for him patience was a virtue that he possessed by the bucket load. Which is why, he supposed, that he was chosen for diplomacy in the first place.
The young diplomat realised that he had been given a chance to spend two weeks formulating his next question. Gryp-Saddah was not a man to be trifled with, and any perceived slight could – and probably would – lead to a planetary war, as if the war in the skies were not enough.
Fadokk wondered if they would finish their game before the bicentennial equinox in four months, a special time marked with much celebrations, whereby their beloved Razziek passed between the two stars in their once every two hundred year figure of eight orbit.
At high noon on the eightieth day, there would be a sun in the sky of both the western and eastern hemispheres. That would start the 100-day celebration, one thousand festivals would be held in that time, many old traditions would be observed.
Fadokk contemplated if the game would be finished by then, or if they would simply pause it ready to return to the mesh at a later date.
‘Sometimes.’ Fadokk thought to himself; ‘Our species holds a distinct disadvantage when trying to deal with crises that evolve quicker than it takes a talmook plant to show its first shoots after planting.
Perhaps that is one of the downfalls of having such a long lifespan; wait and see seems to be our watchwords, our mantra, our very raison d’aitre’
Metal Rain: Chapter 11 - Child Psychology
Metal Rain: Chapter 10 - Paradise Eaten
Metal Rain: Chapter 9 - Message From Home
Metal Rain: Chapter 8 - First Born
Metal Rain: Chapter 7 - First Contact
Metal Rain: Chapter 6 - The Impossibility Of Being
Metal Rain: Chapter 5 - Entropy Envy
Metal Rain: Chapter 4 - Vacuum Call
Metal Rain: Chapter 3 - Transformation Requiem
Metal Rain: Chapter 2 - Nanostorm
Cryptogee Chronicles Book Two: Metal Rain - Chapter 1 - Void Edge
Altered image: Cg
