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K1 stands in the doorway of the small hut,

watching. 

A man, a woman, and a child are huddled,

stopped in the midst of eating,

watching.

 

K1 cannot think what to do,

how to enter their world,

what to say.

She is unexpectedly struck

by something about them --

their fragility,

how quickly they will be gone.

These are warm, flesh creatures,

she realizes,

and they will swiftly fade,

in a few dozen turns

around this planet’s sun.

 

Her mouth opens unconsciously,

and out pour numbers:

1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 …

and they scatter and shatter

over the dry lands,

burrow beneath the sands

and begin to become

folded proteins and sly molds.

 

She closes her mouth.

Her body resembles theirs,

she sees,

but hers is a clever fabrication

of plastics and nanocolloids,

her consciousness summoned

into resistors and circuits.

For a moment she wonders

who has fashioned them,

and summoned their awareness,

now flooded with fear …

 

 They are so delicate,

so vulnerable …

K1 wants to touch them,

to feel and explore them --

more, she wants to hold them,

to make them feel safe.

 

“Maker... sends... me,”

she says,

searching rapidly

for the words

of this new speaking.

It is no surprise to her

she can enter their speaking;

it is part of her sending.

But a great surprise to them.

The man bows his head to the ground,

and the woman and child

follow quickly.

“Ah,” they say, “ah, ah.”

When they look up again,

their eyes still bear some shyness,

but now also regard her

with a frank, intense connection.

They await something, eager.

 

K1 knows she has a mission;

she has been sent with a purpose,

a task --

but she finds she cannot recall

what it is.

Her thinking has been disrupted

by this sudden desire to touch,

hold, protect.

But she must decide

and say something.

She leaps:

“I am sent... to be with you,”

she says.

 

 Has she failed her mission?

Will she be abandoned,

left behind when the time is done

and the gathering occurs?

She cannot tell,

but must move forward.

Perhaps, she thinks,

as she steps toward the fire,

she will be exiled here

and have to survive alone,

apart from her kind forever.

“So be it,” she says,

not aware she has spoken.

 

“So be it,” the man repeats,

amazed, uncomprehending,

but accepting.

 

The woman rises,

one hand brushing dust from her knees,

the other resting on the boy’s neck.

“I am called Rah,” she says.

“What do you need?”

 

“I am Abur,” the man says,

also rising, “and this --”

he nods to the child “-- is Kov.

Our home is yours.”

 

“Will you eat?” Rah asks,

looking down at the meal

that has been interrupted.

“No,” replies K1,

“but… I thank you.”

She wonders

for what seems the first time

how this body of hers

is nourished, sustained.

She will have to pay attention

and learn.

 

 K1 kneels before them

and their food.

“Please continue,”

she says. Hesitantly,

kneeling again,

they do.

 

K1, sensing a directive,

serves them.

When she draws near one,

offering food or water,

the others suddenly behold

someone they thought they knew

and awe awakens in them,

the awe the stars will now

and forever after hold.

 

After the meal,

Young Kov teaches K1

to play & tumble.

Sensing her time is short,

she touches him

inside his thigh

and new molecules

begin to form in him,

in the seed-tissue.

 

***

 

When K1 is at last called back,

she is lifted,

feeling the gentle grip

on the back of her neck.

As she arrives

in the translucent ship

(it appears

to the watching family

as a wrinkling

in the sky, like rain)

 

 

 

there is a whirling, folding light

like the crown the planet wears;

then she feels herself lifting out

from the elegant soft body

and floating back into

the whirling light

that feels home …

 

“Good,” the light speaks in her,

“it is well begun”;

“Yes,” she feels almost aloud,

“It is good.”