Part 26 (1/2)

... the internal structure of crystals....

25

Across the universe, two billion years ago, there too a planet coalesced from the mutually attracted vortices of twisted s.p.a.ce; gases compelled by gravitational forces solidifying to hardened matter, forming a crust over a molten core. In the soupy atmosphere of metallic salts and gases, tortured and rent by electrical storms of incalculable fury, among the vibrating crystals one formed that was aware.

Not in the sharp awareness of later times, but at the first only ill-defined, perhaps no more than the awareness of acid chains of molecules that formed into non-crystalline viscid protoplasm on another planet across the universe. No distinct line of cleavage where affinity to other chemicals left off and sentient selectivity began marked the distinction here as in that protoplasm.

As with its cousin across the universe, the one-celled amoeba, these crystals too were sensitive to light, to heat, to cold--to food.

Ill-defined, but distinct already from the non-sentient crystals about them, these life forms grew through absorbing from the rich and soupy atmosphere those elements necessary to growth, to branching, to cleavage into new individuals.

What is awareness? At what point even in protoplasmic life does it appear? The amoeba avoids pain, seeks food, reproduces itself, and blunders blindly through its environment in search for condition more favorable to its continuance.

In the monotony of a purposeless existence, most humans do no more than that.

Must awareness, too, be defined in terms of the consciousness of me-and-mine? Defined only by what me-and-mine can feel, know? A protoplasmic growth feeling awareness, excluding all possibility of awareness in other kinds of growth because they are not a part of me-and-mine, therefore too inferior to know awareness?

Each crystal structure has its own vibration characteristic, and on that planet, in time, one special vibratory rate knew awareness of self.

Mutation here too gave added complexity to the structure, and self-awareness took on that added growth of awareness of surroundings.

Through eons of time, and the mutations brought by time, awareness of self and surroundings grew into awareness of wider peripheries, to sensing their world, its structure, its nature.

Another mutant leap and there was comprehension of other worlds, of other stars. Theirs was a vibratory awareness, directly akin to the vibrating fields of force which compose the material universe, and the vibrations of fields of force can be altered. To change their surroundings to a more suitable environment through vibration rates of things led surely to negation of distance. To change from crystal form to fields of energy and back again combined with negation of distance--they too spread out and out among the stars.

At first it was enough. But awareness is never still. Questions form.

In all the universe were they the only sentient thing? Did any cry but theirs rise to the stars, seeking to know? Because of the nature of their being their search was unconcerned with the outer shape of things which could be changed by them at will, but rather with the inner vibratory rate which would signal sentience, awareness.

They found no more than unconscious interaction of forces. Water runs down hill without knowing that it does, without the internal structure to provide the vibratory rate which would permit knowing.

For long eras they too were imprisoned within the confines of a me-and-mine envisioning, and it took a major leap for them to conceive that other structures than the crystalline might have a form of awareness. Alien to their kind, perhaps, yet a kind which must be acknowledged.

For they found something, at last, in a viscid non-crystalline substance, protoplasm.

On one distant planet this substance was already differentiated and specialized to a high degree. From the simplest to the most complex of its organization there were degrees of awareness, and in the most complex of these there was undeniable evidence of sentience outside of self.

Joy! Unparalleled ecstasy!

Recognition is not wisdom. With the unwisdom of inexperience in communicating with an unlike thing, not realizing that the values of their kind of awareness might not be the values of this differing kind, they rushed in with all their powers and forces, a joyful rapturous pyrotechnical display of material manipulation to show this new life form that they too were aware--to communicate that the loneliness of one might now be softened by the presence of the other.

And man fell down to the ground and groveled his face in the dust.

His awareness was of the outer shapes of things, his security lay in adapting himself to those shapes, his certainties lay in the dependability of those shapes. A rock was a rock.

But no! The crystals were delighted that they had brought something which they could share with this new life form. The rock could be a tree! See!

And lo, the rock was a tree.

And the people were sore afraid.