“Growing.” It must feel like bursting open.
Do you suppose? How . . . horrible.
I wonder if we could experience it. That would be a new stimulation.
So would it be to comprehend this odd kind of stunted consciousness they employ. Can it be better to keep part of yourself secret from another part?
Certainly that would make even thinking exciting. One would never know what one would discover next, even about oneself.
Do you suppose that is how they have done so well, despite such terrible limitations?
You mean, that our exposure of every thought to scrutiny is bad?
Could it be? These creatures seem too inventive, creative . . .
That would imply that our method of selfhood itself . . .
Evaporates the fine-grained delicacy of a new concept, beneath a constant, lacerating inspection? . . . That could be why we have fresh thoughts so rarely.
I find my own tapestry of thought quite lacy enough.
As do I. But not this fall-walker, I suspect.
Foolishness. That would imply that such creatures would be inherently capable of more subtle strategies than we.
Look. It is beckoning us to draw nearer.
Careful. We have partially disassembled it. Primitives tend to dislike such activity.
I think discourse with such an enchantingly primitive and swampy mind would be a boon. We could copy its colloquy and transmit to the multitude, who would be—
Augh!
Ah!
Pain, pain.
I must shut down my peripherals—
So much . . .
Damage, I am injured everywhere.
It was . . .
. . . a trap. All along.
You are mobile?
I fear not.
I have lost many endpoints.
I too.
What could motivate such a tiny being to destroy itself, all to render damage to us?
Something you said . . . earlier.
I saw no clue to this.
Short life span. That is why . . . they struggle so.
And would cancel themselves entirely to do us harm? When we shall simply live on in our archive copies?
Something about this species . . .
They believe in something beyond selfhood?
And we, who have copies safely stored, do not.
If we cannot soon get aid—
Our copies will be activated.
I suppose that is some consolation.
The little creature did not have even that.
