had never been.
And when word of this reached mother, she shrieked in agony, and all who lived but to serve her shrieked as well, for our overmind was made less by this disaster.
Now the seekers of knowledge had spent much time over generations in the lands of the man-things, and they had come to learn the way by which the man-things used noises to communicate with each other. And many of the seekers of knowledge had learned how to make the noises the man-things called ‘speech.’ And so it was that when our beloved mother decided that we should go down into the land of longer summers where there was much to eat, the seekers went up the slope of the high hills to gather information about the man-things of that region.
And while the seekers worked on this task, beloved mother brought forth many new forms for the warrior children. The new forms were well-designed to overcome the many advantages the man-things appeared to have had in the land of the sunset.
And when the seekers returned, they were sorely discontented, for the man-things had told them many things that were not true. In truth it would appear that the man-things said more things that were not true than were truly true. The seekers had discovered one thing that they felt to be most important, however. Although that which ruled the land of longer summers was called Veltan, there was another man-thing called Omago, who had far, far more power than did the one called Veltan. The Omago thing was not yet fully aware of this power, and it had never used it. There was yet another man-thing called Ara, however, who shared this knowledge with the Omago thing, but it never spoke with the Omago thing about that power.
As the new hatch of the warrior servants matured, beloved mother sent them toward the land of longer summers, and we all believed that our warrior servants would most easily overcome the man-things, and the land of longer summers would be ours before the seasons changed.
But it was not so, for many man-things had come to the land of longer summers, and they had piled up endless stacks of flat stones to impede our progress toward what was rightfully ours. And once again, the cursed man-things used things that were not parts of their bodies as weapons. We had encountered the flying sticks before, though none of us had been able to understand just how the man-things could make the sticks fly. Some of us were quite sure that the sticks were live things that were controlled by various man-things. When the man-thing said ‘fly,’ the stick obeyed. Then, when the stick was in mid-flight, the man-thing spoke again and said ‘kill.’ And the stick did that.
We searched and searched for sticks that would obey commands, but we found them not.
The man-things had used other weapons as well. The long stick did not fly, but it was nearly as cruel as were the flying sticks. The long sticks had wide points that were alien, having no relation to the stick itself. The points were very sharp, and they easily penetrated the bodies of the warrior servants.
It came to us that many of the man-things we had encountered were not related to the man-things that occupied the land of the sunset and now the land of longer summers.
The struggle on the slope was long and difficult, and our beloved mother sent many new-form servants into the struggle, but they could not overcome the man-things who hid themselves behind their protective rock-piles, rising to their feet only to kill those of us who were attacking.
Much disturbed were those of us who are the true servants of beloved mother when she insisted that we should take her from the nest to the region where the conflict was taking place. Her safety must always be our first obligation, but mother saw no reason to be concerned. She is immortal, of course, but the conflict was raging in the land of longer summers. The nest was safe, but the region of conflict was not.
She was mother, however, so we had no choice but to obey her.
Then yet another group of man-things came rushing up from far down in the land of longer summers, and that particular group appeared to have some other goal than the defeat of mother’s warrior servants. There were many reports from the seekers that the man-things which had been fighting mother’s warrior servants were stepping aside to let the new group pass through without restraint.
And the new group of man-things rushed to the top of the slope that led down to mother’s region and then they ran on down that slope – almost as if they could not even see mother’s warrior servants. We have learned – much to our sorrow – that most of the man-things are extremely clever, but the new group of man-things seemed to have little or no thought as they blindly rushed down the slope toward something which only they could see.
And mother’s warrior servants of several altered forms killed the mindless man-things by the thousands, but the other mindless man-things paid no heed to the fate of their companions, but continued their rush down the slope toward that which only they could see.
And then it was that enormous amounts of water burst forth from the upper face of the high hill above us, and mother’s warrior servants and the mindless man-things alike were engulfed in water and carried down the slope to certain destruction.
And mother screamed in anguish even as those of us who live but to serve her carried her back toward the safety of the nest, for it was now clear that water could be as deadly as fire, and that the land of longer summers was now and forever beyond our reach.
Great was the grief of our beloved mother, but in time the seekers of knowledge persuaded her that there were still two regions beyond the high hills that were not now and forever blocked off from us. There was the land of the sunrise and the land of shorter summers. Many were the arguments between those warrior servants who favored the land of shorter summers and those who favored the land of the sunrise, and those arguments became more heated until those who preferred shorter summers and those who favored sunrise began to kill each other.
And finally, to prevent more of the killing, beloved mother chose shorter summers, and once she had chosen, the killing stopped.
The seekers were much interested in a low-tree that flickered and put out light and dark clouds which lay close to the ground or rose high up into the sky, for they saw that low-tree as a way to kill the man-things from a long way off, and that would put none of the servants of our beloved mother in peril.
And the seekers were much pleased when they discovered that the low-tree was most generous, and freely it shared its flickers and clouds with other low trees of its own kind.
Now other seekers had gone into the high hills that blocked off the land of shorter summers, and they soon found a narrow pathway that went through the high hills and emerged in a well-concealed manner in the land of shorter summers.
Cautious was our beloved mother, however, and she sent forth servants that could make the noises of the man-things to deceive the man-things and to set them at war one with the other, for it had come to the overmind that the man-things on occasion hated each other even more than they hated us, and gladly would they kill each other, and that would make things easier for mother’s warrior servants.
We proceeded across the flat place where there are no things-to-eat and came at last to the narrow pathway that led from mother’s region to the land of shorter summers. Much were we discontented when we arrived there, however, for the man-things had once more piled flat rocks on top of other flat rocks to block our path.
We now had a means to drive them away, however. The seekers entered several nesting places in the high hills below the flat rock-pile of the man-things, there to make piles of the low-trees that flicker inside the nesting places, and dense black clouds passed over their rock-pile, and then the man-things turned and fled, leaving the pathway open to the warrior servants.
Beloved
