Evolution
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The Trello
The Trello are delightful creatures. They are delicate bipeds with large binocular eyes and very dexterous fingers, three and an opposable thumb on each hand. They have a fine dappled fur, the colour of the various shades of the purple tree trunks which grow here. Their distinguishing feature though, is almost certainly their wings. A delicate multi-coloured membrane over a lattice structure. They are mounted and articulate from high on the Trello’s back and allow them to flit and dodge with great nimbleness through the woodlands on their planet. I feel sure that any intelligent being would find them very pretty no matter what that being was accustomed to.
It is a harsh fact of life and evolution that chance, and one might also say ‘luck’, has a great deal to do with the path your species takes. If you judge intelligence to be the ultimate achievement a species could attain (and as you are undoubtedly intelligent - or you couldn’t be reading this – then you will inevitably agree), then it is sad to see how many times a lineage has been denied this because of chance or misfortune. The Trello it seems, are another such hard luck case. Their wings give them a fine advantage to thrive on their world but also mean that a larger brain would be a hindrance before it became an advantage and so they have taken an evolutionary dead end if the goal was a true technological intelligence. The fact is, they have evolved to be light, and any additional weight would kill the advantage that this gave. This isn’t to say that they are entirely an instinctive life form, they have developed a rudimentary language and can use items they find as tools, but it does appear that the next great leap is beyond them.
Measha is a female Trello and one that is carrying an unborn child. She forages as do the other Trello for berries and seeds and occasionally insects to eat. Their small size helps them to go un-noticed by predators, their excellent vision helps them to spot threats in good time and their speed and agility helps them to evade threats should they still come.
Measha is happy to be pregnant but she lets her mind wander dangerously. She has allowed herself to stray from the rest of her group and is also humming to herself in her blissful state. The Trello keep their wings folded when not in use as the colourful membrane is hidden then, which allows them to blend into the background more. As Measha hums, she sees a particularly rich clump of berries high on the bush she is picking from. She absentmindedly spreads her wings and flutters effortlessly up to the ripe cluster and begins plucking them. Eating one and spearing one on the sharp stick in her hair for her elderly mother. Eat one, spear one and so on.
Suddenly there is a shout. It is her partner urgently warning her. She looks in the direction of the warning, ’MEASHA! GRATHA!’ Then in the direction of the commotion heading her way. The huge Gratha predator is bearing down only a short distance away and moving quickly towards the flashing colours of Measha’s wings.
Measha knows it is too close for her to get out of its range vertically so she swoops low and away from the beast, instinctively trying to fly under cover and darting and weaving to try to lose the foe. The Gratha is close enough to keep in touch however and is large enough to bulldoze through the light bushes almost as though they weren’t there. Measha’s partner is trilling and shouting to try and distract the beast but the fact is that it is too close behind Measha to notice, and when a Gratha gets this close to its prey, it doesn’t usually fail to make the kill.
Measha darts here and there, under an overhanging bush, behind a stout purple tree trunk, but the threat remains an agonising finger length out of reach. The Gratha’s huge bulk is forced to run on four limbs to track the weaving Trello, if they came to a clearing and the predator could rise up onto its hind legs only, Measha would lose the only advantage she had at the moment.
The young Trello is beginning to tire, she is after all, carrying a child too. The sound of her rapid breathing is beginning to compete with the crashing and splintering branches and the grunts of her pursuer. Then a Gratha claw catches her foot and she is momentarily unbalanced. It makes a grab with the other arm but Measha just manages to flit to the side and avoid it. She is really relying on luck now as she is having to watch the Gratha more than where she is going, she could fly into a tree at any moment. The situation gets more desperate by the moment as the body of the beast is above her and only her reflexive jinks to avoid its forelimbs are saving her now.
Suddenly there is a burst of light and Measha darts out to the side as she realises they are in a clearing. She knows she must get back to the woodland before the Gratha turns and she also knows how quickly it can turn despite its great mass. The reality is that she would be extremely lucky to keep ahead of it even if she were not tired and pregnant. The trees are still some way ahead and she expects the final, fatal swipe of its huge claws at any moment. Then she notices that she is wet. It takes a moment to work out why, but then comes the great relief of realisation. They had sped out of the woods and over a river, the Gratha has fallen into the water and is presently thrashing about trying to get back to the bank. Measha is safe if she can get far enough into the woods to get lost. This she does without delay. She makes her way back to her partner Nath, and the others as quickly as her tired wings can carry her.
2. The trances
Measha cuddles her baby just outside of the cave. She looks across at her mother and smiles. She feels even warmer when the smile is returned. She looks out to where Nath is teaching some older children the difference between two similar berries and which is safe to eat. Her life is perfect - except for the trances!
Then she feels her head begin to swim. She just has the presence of mind to hand her baby to grandmother before she is completely in the grip of the strange trance with no control over her actions at all. Her mother and grandmother can only watch her and worry, they have seen this before.
Measha walks over to the piles of berries her partner had just been using to teach. She is so clearly not herself that all her clan mates notice and she is followed by their enquiring, ‘Measha?’ ‘Measha?’ She does not notice any of them.
She picks up a berry and inspects it as though she has never seen one before. She turns it over and over to see all its details and strokes it to feel its texture. After some time, she casts it down and walks to a nearby flowering bush. She plucks a flower from it and begins to study it as thoroughly as she had the berry. Her long slender fingers pull at a petal here and poke at a stamen there. She spends quite some time pulling the flower apart and investigating how each part had been attached and how it would not stick back on. Eventually the trance subsides as quickly as it had come on, and Measha is herself again. She is frightened and weak, but herself. The others sigh with relief but they too are afraid. Nath puts his arm around her and comforts her as he leads her back to the cave. Measha can only cry.
Many nights pass and then Measha feels the same swimming sensation. Again she hurriedly passes her baby to the Trello nearest her, this time her sister. Soon she is as absent as before but her body is slowly and deliberately animated and made to head for an interesting subject for investigation. The first item this time is a purple tree trunk. She looks it up and down in great detail and presently begins to stroke and caress it to study it further. She picks up rocks and twigs and studies them also. She places them down and balances twigs on stones, and other stones on them. She makes levers and experiments with them to gauge the weights for different lengths.
The other Trello gaze on but can neither understand the trances nor the things she does while in their grip.
Then other Trello began to be seized by trances also. They become more regular occurrences, once every couple of days instead of tens of days.
Measha’s clan come into occasional contact with other Trello groups. These meetings become a source of news about others going into trances. Some clans cast out Trello who are prone, believing they’re evil. Measha is glad that her group is more tolerant but is frightened by this all the same. Her clan now has three who trance. There came a Trello from another group who said her name was Stoh. She does not say why she has left her home but is clearly frightened. She is taken in by Measha’s family who suspect that she has been cast out because she trances.
Measha took Stoh to one side soon after she arrived and asked her, as best their rudimentary language allows. She did not want to talk, so Measha told her of the trances that she has. Stoh broke down and admitted that she too suffered. She then told how her sister also tranced and was killed by a Gratha while under the influence. This frightens Measha. She knows nothing of her time in the trances, if a Gratha came while she was ‘gone’, she too would be helpless.
Over time, generations in fact, the trances became more regular and affect more and more Trello. As they become more common, they become more accepted, but then another Trello is killed because they become prey while in a trance. This part of the trances remains a fear.
Over many more generations, the nature of the trances change and the Trello begin to have some awareness while in them. If they sense danger they are able to drop out to take whatever action they need to. This is a great comfort and the trances become even more normal a part of Trello life. No Trello understands them however. When in a trance, a Trello does strange things. We might recognise these things as experiments to investigate the world and to work out how it works, but to the Trello, it is all just very strange behavior. As no Trello alive can remember a time when it was not normal for some to trance though, it is just another part of life. There are after all, stranger things than trances.
Over many hundreds more generations, the Trello begin to associate the trances with a bright light in the sky that they start to call ‘Mola’. When Mola is brightest, the trances are stronger and more frequent.
The awareness that comes with the trances over time eventually leads to the Trello almost participating in the experience. They begin to understand what is going on, they are learning. This leads, over many more thousands of generations to two distinct species of Trello. The trancers become heavier and cleverer and gradually lose the ability to fly, while the non-trancers continue much as before. The larger species have vestigial wing ‘lumps’ on their backs to remind them that, they too, once had the freedom of the air. They may not have that now, but they are becoming intelligent enough to manufacture items they need to compensate for physical shortcomings. Soon the non-flying Trello will make machines that will allow them to fly further, faster and even, eventually, off planet Trello and into space.
Mola, the planet – for the Trello now understand that it is a planet orbiting their star as they do - becomes very important because of its apparent connection with the trances. They feel like it belongs to them, or perhaps they belong to it. There is a definite connection that they all feel but cannot explain.
The increasing gap between the cultures of the trancers and of the flying Trello have led to an uncomfortable co-existence. The non-trancing Trello either live wild or work for the trancers in their cities. A particular point of contention, between Trello of either species, is - ‘The Project’.
3. Modern Times
Measha stood on the balcony of her office. She knew that her name was ancient but she had no idea that she was descended from the first trancer. In fact, modern Measha wouldn’t even understand what the trance was. She had them, but it was such a normal thing to her that it was just a mode of thought that she adopted when she was thinking scientifically. She is in fact, the scientist in charge of ‘The Project’.
Though the Trello have evolved into highly intelligent and industrial beings, no one can fully explain what ‘The Project’ will achieve. It is like a subconscious urge rather than a reasoned decision. When Trello have sent space probes into orbit, they have known why they were doing this, to learn about space, their planet and the universe in which they live. When a probe was sent to orbit Mola, they knew that they wished to learn about that planet. They may even have thought they might discover why it seems so important to them. But it is simply another planet orbiting their star. It is further away and much bigger, but it seems to be just a planet. It is covered in thick cloud through which the surface can never be seen, unlike the beautiful clear skies of the Trello’s world. If you looked up from the surface of Mola, all you would see would be thick cloud. You would also weight eighteen times as much as you would on Trello.
Measha stared at ‘The Project’. It glistened in the sun as it stood on its launch pad a safe distance away. From here it seemed small, but Measha knew that it was the biggest – by far – rocket that the Trello had ever built. Even she, head of the project, couldn’t understand entirely why they were building it. Why was it so big? Why did it need a compartment in it with the strange stands? These were particularly puzzling and Measha often felt like the answers were masked from her somehow. Like she wasn’t supposed to know or understand. Those stands. That was her best description of them. They were like two low buildings on the floor of the compartment. Specifically shaped for something and with automatic clamps of indeterminate purpose that would arc over the stands and clip together.
She could entirely understand the hostility towards the project. She even wondered sometimes if she was against it herself.
Too late to worry now, she thought. Today was the launch and nothing could stop it. Security was like nothing the Trello had ever seen, or needed, before. The complex was fenced and guarded. There were laser grids above the fences that would severely burn a flying Trello. The launch procedure was fully automated and no Trello could stop it, not even her.
Was this her biggest doubt? She knew that the security had evolved with the project as it became clear how much hostility there was towards it. Had she been entirely conscious of the way it had developed? If she had been entirely rational, would she have made it so automated? It was out of her control, and somewhere, deep inside her subconscious, she was aware that this lack of control was not new.
She stepped back from the balcony and went through her office. It was time she took her place in the control room.
When she got there, the place hummed with efficiency. Screens showed the status of the vehicle, all was nominal. The big central screen showed a much closer view of it than she had seen from her balcony. Steam and other gasses drifted up from it as fuels were regulated and the atmosphere came into contact with freezing cold surfaces. The tall metallic cylinder was majestic as it stood ready.
Other half thoughts swirled in Measha’s head but would not come fully into focus. The rockets top stage was much bigger than was needed to launch from here, but this fact wouldn’t make itself felt to Measha, or the other Trello it seemed.
The final countdown was now in progress and some of the supporting structures around the rocket slid away. A few more seconds counted down and there was a flash and some billowing smoke from the rockets base. The engines were now running. Seconds after this and tremors could be felt through the ground as the physical power reached them. The rocket slowly rose up off the ground. It gradually accelerated and left a smoke trail behind it. All went well. When all that could be seen was the dispersing smoke column, Measha checked the readouts. The rocket was in perfect working order and safely on its way.
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4. The Molan
The wind was a little stronger than usual and was picking up dust. In the heavy gravity of Mola, it was a strong wind indeed that picked up dust. Skarl lay flat on the ground with eyes shut. He knew that if he opened them he would get dust in them and be irritated by it for days. Why would he open them anyway, he wouldn’t see anything! The Molan only open their eyes to see the Gurt bushes they eat from, and occasionally to see another Molan if their paths happen to cross, which most likely means they are a couple and will mate. For the most part they ‘distance talk’ to the others, in their minds.
Skarl hopes the wind will drop soon as today is an important day. He just has time to get to the meeting place. These were strange concepts until quite recently, a ‘meeting place’ and ‘a certain time’. The Molan usually just wander from Gurt outcrop to Gurt outcrop without really knowing where or when they are, or needing to know.
The wind has died down now and Skarl can no longer feel dust pelting his thick hide. He gives it a little longer to be sure and then stands up.
This is difficult for a Molan. When their large flat bodies are on the floor and their legs are out sideways, it takes a lot of shuffling and heaving to get their legs back under themselves and their bulk lifted. It is as well that they don’t need to do this often, just in the really high winds that could tire a Molan until it collapses, which would inevitably break bones.
Once up, Skarl begins to walk. This is slow and methodical. They have six legs extremely close together and there is never more than one foot off the ground at any one time. Each leg is a stout pillar with a large, round, flat ‘foot’ on the bottom. In the gravity of Mola, short, stout and very strong is the only way to survive.
Skarl reaches the meeting point a long time later. He is there before Frill, the other chosen Molan, but there are many others here to see today’s event. This is a unique day for them all.
Skarl opens his mind to the crowd and begins accepting the congratulations and well wishes. He responds by explaining how exited he is and how pleased and proud he is to have been chosen.
Frill arrives. Skarl knows that it will be some moments before he opens his mind. He has made a journey almost as long as Skarl has. Molan can’t spare the energy to distance talk while they walk.
Presently, Frill does open up and after a little while to acknowledge the crowds, he greets Skarl. They congratulate each other on their good fortune at being chosen and also for making it here in time.
Now they just have to wait.
A Molan has been chosen to read the one called Measha, and they do so. They learn that all is going well. The event is but moments away.
Soon the cloudy sky brightens in an unusual way and there are vibrations in the air quite unlike wind. They are powerful vibrations that can be felt much deeper that at the hide. They get stronger as the sky gets even brighter and then a part of the sky is so bright that it is a moving patch of light that seems to flicker. It moves to a point above the chosen place and slows down. The vibrations get even stronger and the light descends until it reaches the ground, then it fades and the vibrations cease.
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