Return to Rocheworld by Robert L. Forward

Author:Robert L. Forward [Forward, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: General, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Space Opera, Science Fiction - Adventure, High Tech, Life on Other Planets, Science Fiction Adventure, Science Fiction - High Tech, Outer space
ISBN: 9780595166169
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2000-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

*I think he means waves,* Little Red added, *But he has forgotten what they are. The sense I get is of small ripples formed by splashing.* He continued translating the story.

*<<The younglings would not let the water rest. The younglings pestered the water and would not sleep on the land. The water got mad, and rose up against the younglings. It carried the younglings to a land far from their elders and left them there. That was the beginning of the People. Now the People have to wait for the water to return. It comes back and visits us and sees if we have become good. It is said that if we are strong and survive, if we have learned the lessons from our parents and have learned to live with both the land and the water, we may go Everwet and live by the shore of an never dry lake and never need to be hungry again.>>*

"Sounds like the sort of story a parent might tell a youngster in order to make it behave," Jinjur said doubtfully.

"But the flouwen have chemical racial memories. They can remember all the way back to then they first started adding!" Cinnamon insisted. "They don't have any fables about creation or heaven. This could well be based on a memory and distorted as it was verbalized between generations."

||If these gummies are the descendants of flouwen then it is up to us to rescue them from this life of hunger and hardship. We should take them back with us to Eau.||

<<Can you take me and my youngling to Everwet? This time we will behave! Please, please, we will be good!>> Loudest Beast lowered itself in submission, heedless of its reputation with the rest of the colony.

The People's side of the conversation could be heard by all, and a ripple of interest spread over the island as the conversation between Loudest Beast and the strangers was passed on from territory to territory. People that had not talked to anyone except for their young in generations, were taking an interest in something other than food. Except for a few of the craftier individuals, who were quietly shifting boundary stones during the commotion, all in the colony had their attentions fixed on Loudest Beast and the conversation on the hill.

It was a complete surprise to all, when the huge, swollen adolescent reared itself out of the waters of the lake. No Person on the shore was anywhere near as large as this monster; and monster it was. Even as it beached itself, it killed and consumed one of the yearlings, only hours out of its parent's pouch.

<<Mine, Mine, Mine!>> The huge murderous gummie roared, <<I will never, never, never be hungry again!>>

For a few moments, the gigantic monster lay on the beach in Loudest Beast's unguarded territory. It muttered and whined incoherently as it finished absorbing the yearling it had killed.

"My God! What is that thing?" Jinjur asked.

||It appears to be a cancerous gummie. Occasionally a flouwen goes insane and starts to grow uncontrollably, although usually only in response to extreme stress.

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