In the morning, I came to a community of invinciblispids. These desert-dwellers had shown up many times in other places. I myself had seen some of them on a previous knowledge-seeking quest. For some reason, this species appeared more often than any other in the strange and mysterious regions outside of the Focus.
The sun lay ahead, rising above the horizon, and I found it difficult to walk in this direction. I stopped. The wind blew softly, bringing a cooling contrast to the searing heat before. One of the invinciblispids poked its head out of a hole in the ground and looked at me. Apparently it found nothing interesting in my presence, for it quickly withdrew its head.
Should I include this location in my quest for knowledge? We did not know much about the invinciblispids who lived enigmatic lives surrounded by mystery. At every location we visited outside the Focus, we found that invinciblispids spent their entire lives in the desert, residing in underground communities consisting of chambers and tunnels, some of which opened up to the surface. We did not know much about the species; their way of life eluded us.
As I stood in the searing heat, watching the sunrise, I thought about my quest for knowledge. Why had I set forth for distant places, wandering throughout the unknown world, searching for new and interesting locations? I had gone to the edge of the known world and beyond. I had transcended the boundaries of knowledge. I had passed beyond the limit of understanding.
Looking back at the place I had come from, I saw a hemisphere lying in the distance, obscured by the dust storms that frequently passed through the region. The Focus lay at a junction of universes, an indefinite location in time, a place that interacted with its surroundings in unexplainable ways. One could leave the Focus and enter a thick humid swamp and return a few moments later, after reentering the Focus, to find a bleak icy landscape. The universe around the Focus remained unpredictable. One did not know what one might find. I found myself in an arid desert with the hot sun casting its blazing light on the sand around me, the most common environment outside the Focus.
What should I do now? Should I continue my quest for knowledge, walking toward the rising sun, venturing forth toward unknown places never seen before? Or should I stay here and find some knowledge by observing this community of invinciblispids? Either solution seemed appropriate to my situation.
I looked out at the horizon. Maybe I would never find anything out there. Maybe I would continue on forever, seeing only the arid sands of the desert around me. I should stay here, where the invinciblispid community offered me a chance to find out more about the unknown without venturing into unknown places.
I took out my assembler, which could manufacture almost anything in only a few moments, and instructed it to create an observer unit that I could use to find out more about the underground community of invinciblispids. Then I waited.
The sun rose further up the sky while the assembler produced the observer. In a short while, it finished. The small size of the observer made it convenient for me to use to navigate through the tunnels and record images and sounds in the underground community. Camouflaged, it would remain invisible to most invinciblispids. I took the observer and located the nearest hole in the ground. As I spotted one, an invinciblispid head rose out of it. This one regarded me with what seemed to me a bemused expression on its face. Hesitant, I stopped moving, hoping it would ignore me. If the invinciblispids knew that I intended to observe them, I might not receive accurate information about their society. Fortunately, the invinciblispid retreated into its hole after looking at me for only a few moments.
I resumed my actions. Since the invinciblispid might come out of the hole again, I decided to use another entrance. Finding one, I dropped the observer into it. It vanished quickly from sight. Then I activated the controller, and I could see what the observer recorded. I pressed a button on the keypad to move the observer, and it descended into the unknown.
It fell a short distance, and then the tunnel curved away in a horizontal direction. I rotated the observer around so I could see what lay ahead. The tunnel seemed to stretch out indefinitely. Then I moved the observer forward, and it proceeded on its journey to the center of the invinciblispid community.
It moved for what seemed to me a long time, surrounded on all sides by the compacted sand of the desert. I could see no invinciblispids nearby. Then the tunnel made a sharp turn to the right. I instructed the observer to follow the tunnel, which led it to a small chamber a short distance ahead. Seeds of various kinds filled the chamber, which apparently served as the food supply for the community. I saved the images and recorded the types of seeds stored here. Then I proceeded, sending the observer onward.
The tunnel made a sharp turn downward. The observer descended, moving along the vertical passage, until it entered another chamber. This one appeared to contain nothing. Seeing no purpose in its existence, I instructed the observer to continue. It proceeded along the tunnel, arriving at a conjunction of two tunnels. I hesitated for a moment, deciding which one to take, and then I told the observer to turn right. It followed this tunnel for a short distance and then entered a vast chamber where I saw, for the first time since entering the underground community, a group of invinciblispids.
The invinciblispids appeared engaged in a discussion of something among themselves. As I watched, I noticed other invinciblispids entering the chamber from several other tunnels connected to it. They gathered in a large group as more and more individuals arrived. The observer seemed invisible to them, I noticed.
The entire community seemed to have gathered here. They engaged in conversation among themselves as I watched. Then they all turned toward one individual who had just entered the chamber from the largest of the tunnels leading into it.
This one seemed to serve as the leader of the community. All of the other invinciblispids seemed to revere it. All remained silent as the leader stepped onto a platform at the front of the chamber. I moved the observer to find a more efficient position in which to operate.
The leader invinciblispid remained silent for a long moment. Then it began to speak. No one had yet deciphered the invinciblispid language, which consisted of numerous sounds varying in pitch and volume. The existence of such a complicated language suggested that the invinciblispids possessed sentience. I recorded the speech so that we could decipher it later.
The leader paused for a moment. It pointed out over the community of invinciblispids. Then it raised a sign of some sort over its head that displayed various symbols, lines and curves and polygons. The crowd erupted in a frenetic commotion. This written language provided further evidence of the sentience of the invinciblispids.
Then three other individuals appeared behind the leader, who stepped aside. The first one displayed a round blue globe; the second held up a green one; and the third had a red sphere. The leader then stepped back and disappeared from the chamber.
The one with the red globe stepped forward, held it above its head, and recited some ominous incantations. Then the others performed the same actions. The three stood with the globes held above their heads as the crowd surged to a frenzied uproar. Then the three exchanged the globes among themselves and repeated the rituals until each had performed the actions with each sphere. The crowd grew silent again. Then the three globe-bearers passed the three globes to the crowd, who passed them around until each individual had touched all three of them. We had never heard of these strange rituals before. No one had known about them. I would make these rites known for the first time.
The three spheres, after finishing their circuit around the chamber, returned to the three globe-bearers in the front. They picked the globes up and held them above their heads. Intrigued, I watched as the three placed the spheres on the ground. Then they left the chamber, exiting through the tunnel through which the leader had left.
The crowd remained silent, all watching the opening of the tunnel, as if anticipating their return. Through the observer, I could see how they patiently stayed in their positions.
Shortly afterward, the three globe-bearers returned. They brought with them three more spheres that seemed identical to the previous ones. Again, they raised the spheres above their heads, exchanged them, and repeated the actions. Then the crowd passed them around, and the three globe-bearers placed these globes on the ground beside the others. The invinciblispids fluctuated between a frenetic commotion and a reverent silence. Then the globe-bearers left, but they came back soon afterward with three more spheres, with which they repeated the same actions. They continued until they had formed a large triangle on the ground. Then they placed more spheres on top of the triangle to form a slightly smaller triangle. As the crowd cheered and roared, they completed the second layer and proceeded to create a third. They continued bringing more spheres out and performing the same rituals until they had formed a pyramid nine globes tall. Then the three globe-bearers stepped back.
Silence engulfed the crowd as they faced the pyramid. Then each invinciblispid lay down on the ground, unmoving. The entire chamber remained silent. I moved the observer forward to take a closer look at the invinciblispids. Each one had entered a state of torpor and had decreased its metabolic rate. I watched, amazed. These invinciblispids held mystic rituals at the beginning of their period of estivation. The profound knowledge almost overwhelmed me. No one had ever heard of such a thing.
I looked out over the layer of invinciblispids covering the ground. They all looked like potatoes. In the front of the chamber, the pyramid stood, its red, green, and blue spheres towering over the dormant invinciblispids. I approached with the observer, careful not to disturb any of them. How could the invinciblispids have produced such a thing? What meaning did this thing possess? What did it mean to the invinciblispids? Perhaps it symbolized the construction of the universe. Perhaps it held mythological or historical meaning. Perhaps it simply served as a work of art. Silently, I looked at the pyramid, an integral part of the estivation rites of the invinciblispids.
Suddenly, I saw something in front of me. It gazed up into my eyes with a blank stare. While I had spent my time exploring the underground community and observing the estivation rites of the invinciblispids, I had failed to notice the world around me. The wind blew softly, scattering the sand particles. Behind me, the sun set somewhere beyond the distant horizon, its light gradually diminishing until it left the world in darkness. In front of me stood the leader of the invinciblispids. I had forgotten about it. I had forgotten it after it left the ritual to the three globe bearers. It had disappeared, and I had not noticed.
It stood in front of me now, in the open desert, in the gentle wind. It held in its appendages a sphere, a globe that changed from red to green to blue and back. It set the sphere down on the sand, and then it stepped back, regarding me silently.
Stepping forward, I picked up the sphere. It felt warm, radiating its own heat, separate from the heat of this desert region. The invinciblispid looked at me, and then it changed its shape and flew off toward the distant mountains. The sphere glowed.
I had come to expect such things in the world around the Focus, which did not work the way we expected it to. It functioned by its own rules.
Looking back, I saw the hemisphere of the Focus. It remained there always. The people inside experienced it differently. They could not see outside, but I could see inside. People in other realities could see inside. The Focus existed at the center of all realities.
I knew what I had to do now. I had to return to the Focus, to finish my quest for knowledge. I had acquired so much information on this journey. Through my observation of the underground community of the invinciblispids and their estivation rites, I had gained a new understanding of the universe. Now I had to share it.
Using the controller, I returned the observer to the surface and used the disassembler to separate it into its component parts, which I could use later for something else. I looked back at the Focus, at the place where I had to go. Then I looked the other way, toward the mountains where the invinciblispid leader had flown. The sphere I held glowed, its red, green, and blue radiance reaching out to me. I understood. My quest for knowledge had not ended yet. It would never end. I had to continue my journey toward the mountains, to seek more knowledge. Then, at the end of the summer, I would return here to observe the invinciblispids waking up after their period of estivation, and I would learn more about their enigmatic estivation rites.
Copyright © 2003 by The Invincible Spud