“I warned you not to eat too much of the astrid meat,” said Irene to her husband, who was rubbing his sore stomach and sweating profusely. “I shall contact Kanan and let him know we can’t go on the island tour. I’m sure he’ll be happy that we won’t pester him with more questions about his private life.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Gregory. He nibbled on a piece of ki’ba fruit, which resembled watermelon in texture and flavour. It was the only food he could stomach. “There won’t be another opportunity to capture this event, and Kanan is the perfect guide.”
“I still feel bad about our last session with him,” said Irene with a pensive look. “He was embarrassed by our queries.”
“Given their open expressions of love, you would think Caelusians would be more open about their relationships,” said Gregory with a sudden wince as his stomach grumbled. He put the fruit aside and lay down in bed.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“Go now,” he said waving her away. “Gather the recording gear. He’ll be here soon.”
Kanan arrived in a large-wheeled dune buggy. It was unlike anything she had seen back on earth, except in museums. Humanity had never developed such an ingenious method of transportation and with good reason. It required psionic or mental powers to navigate in addition to volcanic material that was used in combustion.
After loading the recording equipment onto the back of the vehicle, Kanan jumped in the driver seat and placed his hand on a glassy dome on the dashboard, where old steering wheels used to be on earth cars. The dome began to glow with swirling green vapours, which were then released from small silver tubes flaring like swept wings on either side of the vehicle.
They rode in silence. Irene was thankful for the clattering noise of the engine as it raced down the beach.
Beside her, Kanan kept his eyes focused on the sandy tracks ahead. His feathers blew back in the breeze revealing a humanoid face that was narrow and also shaped like that of a hawk.
Excited about the prospect of learning more about this newfound synthetic species, Irene and her husband Gregory had made the trip to the artificial planetoid Sigma-9 orbiting Saturn. It was much smaller than earth, but it resembled the blue planet in many respects, including an oxygen layer and gravity fields. She hated traveling through lightways to get this far- indeed was barely fit to do so given the high velocities and timescales involved- but nothing excited her more than learning about cultures in the far reaches of the system.
To this end, they had arrived over a year ago and proceeded to establish relationships with the locals, who were a mix of various synthetic intelligent species that had remained relatively isolated in this sector for approximately 300 years.
On the purple horizon, Saturn shone bright over the sea, its icy rings slicing the Sigma sky.
It wasn’t so easy studying these non-human species. Interactions could be unpredictable. Irene found it a wonder that they were able to form a stable society, and truth be told, she still did not understand how they had accomplished it, except that it had to do with mental communication through ku- a mental force that was still very little understood.
Kanan had been one of their main sources of information. He belonged to a species that showed human and avian traits, though he was neither. He mimicked human speech impeccably.
“How did you learn it so fast?” she had once asked him.
“I just thought about it,” he had replied, “and then it came to me.”
“Oh,” was all she could say.
The Caelusian, as humans had nicknamed his species, was thoughtful and patiently answered their questions while the husband and wife team recorded his answers and measured his biometrics, something which roused his curiosity. In their last meeting, they had pried a little too closely into his personal affairs. It was an effort to gain a better insight into his species’ social relationships, but this line of questioning had, in a manner of speaking, ruffled his feathers.
“Maybe we should have left this world alone and avoided contact,” she had said to Gregory.
“The inhabitants already knew we were out there,” he’d replied. “It’s coded in their mythology and DNA. Once they peeled back the layers of meaning and decoded the signal, it would’ve been just a matter of time before they found us.”
Back on the beach, Kanan and Irene arrived at a place where the fishermen anchored their boats and hauled them onto the sand. The strong smell of marine life hung pungently in the air.
Kanan emitted a sharp call, directed at another young Caelusian, who was working with a net by the fishing boats. The members of his species were known for their lean and powerful bodies covered in feathers from the waist up. The young-ling whistled back and then took off running down the beach, lifting himself with a swing of his feathery arms to hop across the sand.
Soon, he returned with a watercraft that he skillfully positioned close to the shore.
“He will take your gear onto the craft,” Kanan told her, his large eyes looking directly at her. His gaze never ceased to unsettle her; his narrow eyes gleaming with keen raptor intelligence.
Irene was about to step into the water when Kanan approached her, held her by the waist, lifted her off the sand like a ragdoll, and placed her on the boat.
He then swung his arms and in a single leap climbed aboard. While he could not fly with the pseudo-wings, he could lift himself up or use them for gliding when jumping from great heights.
Like the dune buggy, the watercraft relied on psionic control. Kanan placed one hand on a crystal globe at the stern; within it, tendrils of steam filled the chamber, and the craft swiftly moved across the waves.
The sea breeze felt so familiar, like the air back on earth, and for a moment, she felt homesick and haunted by the long distances between here and there. She really wished Gregory was here.
“Koo’da!” shouted Kanan and pointed towards the formations rising out of the water and looming larger as they approached.
From a distance, they looked like hazy rocky outcrops in the water, but as the craft approached, the outline of eight titanic figures, male and female rose out of the water. They resembled mythic beings from earth’s legends, but they had all been created by the same singularity who developed this planetoid soon after the Great Escape.
Koo’da was the Caelusian word for water-spirits: sea gods who fought ancient battles and now stood frozen in time.
Kanan slowed the boat down and glided among the colossal statues carved with intricate and rich details. They had a jagged look on account of the coral-like material from which they had been sculpted. It was humbling to think that no human hands had touched these creations, and yet they had been conceptualized from human myths and legends. At least the singularity's version of them.
Kanan’s feathers glistened an iridescent copper colour, his facial features balancing on the uncanny threshold between man and bird.
“I am so sorry that Gregory, and I were rather forward the other day with our questions,” Irene told Kanan. “We’re just very excited to know more about your culture, which is so unique and yet so similar to ours.”
Kanan was quiet for a moment, his hand on the crystal globe used for steering, and his steely gaze on the emerald waters.
Irene knew she was taking chances by being too forward with him now. While their society seemed easygoing and open to experience, they had certain rigid ways of interacting with each other that included the use of ku- the mental force that allowed them to communicate mind-to-mind and manipulate objects at a distance.
As outsiders, Irene and her husband were given leeway when they infringed on certain social norms or rules, but inquiries into a few topics, especially those having to do with interpersonal relationships, were often met with polite silence.
“I understand,” Kanan said in a clear deep voice. “Knowledge in categories is very important to your people. That is how you come to know things.”
The Lucida island came into view. Kanan maneuvered the craft through a narrow inlet, where vegetation spilled over the banks in splashes of crimson, yellow, and blue. He focused intently on this tight section, his pupils dilated, crest of feathers bristling in the soft breeze.
The scent of flowers was overpowering, a mix of sweetness, and the musky smell of marine life. It was a rich abundant fragrance unlike any she had smelled before.
The channel grew wider, opening to a tropical forest with towering trees, palms, tumbling foamy cascades, and strange birds whose haunting calls echoed sweetly across the glowing atmosphere.
“Oh how magnificent!” Irene exclaimed inhaling deeply. “Can you smell that? It’s so intoxicating!”
“This is Nassai’r. The season of life, ku and tath-va unite.”
“We don’t have this kind of spring season back on earth. Ours is a little more gradual.”
Even now she could see blossoms bursting open, sending spores and pollen flying through the Saturn lit air.
“Spring is a beautiful word,” Kanan said, moving the craft towards the shore. “You must miss your home.”
She did.
Curiously, now the she thought about it, Kanan had never inquired about earth and her life back there. In many respects, Sigma-9 was a miniature replica of earth. The third singularity that created it came from the inner solar system, and it used human knowledge to construct this world. Yet, the Caelusian did not seem too interested in his ancient ancestors.
Perhaps, it suddenly occurred to her, he already knew all he needed to know.
The swaying boat soon settled to a gentle rocking motion, and Kanan steered it closer to the flowers growing along the shore in blooming waves. Star-shaped white blossoms and blue bells tumbled over the bank and dipped their petals on the green radiant water.
“Keraka, the purity of nitha,” said Kanan pointing at the star-shaped blossoms. “Love, as you say. Still undifferentiated by the colours of experience.”
The soft breeze blew their cream-coloured plumes with flashes of pink.
“What is this one?” she asked him.
“Kinah is the union of bride and groom,” he explained. “That is another form of nitha.”
Irene was surprised that he was being forthcoming about such matters.
He stretched out his arm towards the flowers, which began to undulate as if on their own accord, swaying against one another.
Irene marveled and laughed as the flowers reacted in such peculiar motions. They were almost human-like… and then, with widening eyes, she gave a small gasp as understanding dawned on her.
She looked up at Kanan, her face flushed and skin full of goosebumps.
“Dakah, husband and wife. The love of married life.”
“Marital bliss,” said Irene her eyes fixed on the sporting flowers. “Oh how wonderful!”
Swathes of colourful blossoms carpeted the ground or clung to long stalks with tasseled seeds that dislodged themselves and floated lazily in the soft atmosphere.
“All these plants correspond to different kinds of love in your community,” she said.
The idea of love in all its myriad forms was literally all around them. No wonder he was so unwilling to discuss the issue. Love was not just an abstraction to them but a tangible reality. The concepts of interpersonal relationships were not so easily encapsulated in categories. It was an experience that was also intimately related to the Caelusian psionic will, which in its interaction with the flowers created a dynamic sensory-visual representation of interpersonal dimensions.
Kanan demonstrated this effect on several specimens, though he was unwilling to interact with certain flowers beyond naming them for her benefit, so she suspected that their underlying categorical referents were also considered taboo.
Kanan leapt out of the craft and bound it to a tree with a rope, then he lifted and carried Irene to a carpet of golden buttercups.
When she lay on them, bands of lights rippled outwards through the tiny flowers.
Kanan tried to show her as much as possible while she deployed her recording devices that included three small spherical drones that began recording the immediate surroundings.
She queried him about the plants, mindful of the fact that every question she asked him in his capacity as informant could influence his own thoughts and behaviour, thus shaping his identity, roles, and power dynamics within his community. Indeed, his social proximity to her and her husband already marked him as an outlier in his community, and the implications were unknown.
How grand it was, she thought looking around her. She just couldn’t wait to see Gregory’s face when she told him what she had learned about the Caelusian world view. They encoded sociological relationships in the language of flowers and psionic interaction, which truth be told was outside the range of direct human experience. At least not without neural enhancers.
Kanan stood up and listened.
“Come,” he told Irene, crouching low as he moved through a cluster of large leaves.
He pointed at the violet palms, which grew taller than those found on earth.
Irene heard notes that sounded like a violin. The sound began low, barely audible, then it grew frantic in a discordant climax of long sonorous echoes.
The brilliant bird perched on a branch. Irene spotted its iridescence when it moved its head searching across the canopy. Its long flowing tail glowed with extravagant dashes of green along its length. The eager creature then spread its wings, and swooping low towards the ground, it plucked a bed of blossoms with its long sharp talons and rose again to perch upon another branch.
“Kiu kiu bird catches the flower like the suitor catches a wife,” said Kanan.
Irene laughed.
“He seems to have caught a good number of them,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“He’s a very good hunter,” said Kanan with a glint in his eyes that made Irene wonder if he was joking or not.
“In one month, I will be sotah, suitor too, and I will seek out my own minha,” he said nodding toward the orange blooms with their vibrant flowing petals.
The kiu kiu called out, happily pecking the orange flowers upon his perch.
She couldn’t wait to get back and tell Gregory all about it. It was a major breakthrough and much work lay ahead, but she felt invigorated.
As they exited the inlet, Irene saw a lone orchid leaning over the bank with long flowing soft petals that made it look like a bird floating in the breeze.
“What is that one called?” she asked Kanan.
“Diahna, the exotic stranger,” he said. “Forbidden love.”
Going out with the rushing tide, the boat lifted and came down with a splash, but once they rode over the surf break, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.
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