Carl Sagan’s Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe Read Online Free PDF Page B

see.”
    Hsissh knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Ish, and if he pressed too much, The One might separate him from Noa. He’d lose his chance to see her escape this world. He sniffed, and changed the subject. “I smell fresh rat blood.”
    Ish’s hindquarters began hopping again. “This place is crawling with them! I killed three before the service—silly, really, I can only eat one at a time. Would you like to come finish off the rest with me?”
    If he had any poison, it would have pooled on his tongue. “Does a bear shit in the woods?” Hsissh replied, using an expression Dad used from time to time.
    “What?” said Ish, head drawing back.
    “Never mind,” said Hsissh. “Lead me to those rats.”
    “With pleasure,” said Ish. Pivoting on his forequarters, Ish darted for the back of the church. Hsissh followed, muscles and joints protesting all the way. He was vaguely aware of Jacob whispering as he slipped after Ish through a door just barely ajar.
    Hsissh followed his fellow werfle up a stairwell, and then another to the attic of the church. There were two dead rats laid out in a sunbeam, like a scene from a dream.
    An hour and a half later, after a delicious snack, the creaking of floorboards awoke Hsissh. Eyes blinking open to a blur, he heard Jacob say, “There you are, rat!”
    For a moment, Hsissh was confused. The rats were long gone; he and Ish had gorged themselves quite completely. But then he was caught in a crushing grip, he felt his ribs fracture, and the world went dark. It took him a moment of frantic sniffing to realize he’d been dumped in a burlap sack. His hearts’ beating increased in speed exponentially. “Let’s see what happens to Noa when you don’t come back!”
    Intellectually Hsissh knew he might be able to claw his way out, or gnaw a hole. But his werfle body couldn’t abide confinement and just … stopped. He didn’t have to concentrate to leave his shell; the patterns that made him himself scattered onto the waves almost too quickly. As he collected them, he felt Shissh’s consciousness. “It’s about time! Now you can leave that debilitating sentimentality behind.”
    And he had already. The deep emotional pull he felt to Noa and her family was gone, as was all the pain of his previous body. He saw Ish cowering in a corner as the boy lugged the sack across the room. Ish called out through the waves, “I’m sorry, Hsissh. My body’s calling for revenge, but this is the most perfect research opportunity.”
    “It’s fine,” Hsissh said, thought, and felt; they were all the same here.
    He hovered a bit. He saw Noa racing up the stairs. “Hey, I’ve got your werfle,” Jacob taunted. “What are you going—”
    Jacob was interrupted by a lightning fast kick to the stomach that sent him stumbling backward into the wall, dropping the sack in the process.
    Noa bolted toward the sack Hsissh’s old body was in. Falling to her knees, she gently pulled out Hsissh’s body. “Fluffy?” she cried. And then she screamed, “Fluffy!” and fell to her knees, her entire body wracked with sobs.
    “Ha, ha, made you cry!” Jacob said. “You’ll never be a pilot!”
    And Hsissh had to leave. Not because he felt a pull to Noa, but because he didn’t.

5
    Luminous Creatures
    “ I t’s great to have you here.” Shissh opened and closed her pincers; they didn’t clack so much underwater. “You’ll get over Third in this form.”
    Hsissh’s pincers drooped. No mention of needing to forget Noa or her family.
    Waving her eye stalks, Shissh continued, “It’s too bad about the humans—I talked to Chisssh about tweaking their DNA to make them wave aware, but they reproduce too slowly … it would take ten hundred cycles at the least.” She pointed with a pincer down the reef. “The elders of these hosts meet every three cycles of the moon. I’ll see you then; we’ll ask them to tell us the stories of the dark waters. In the meantime—my side of the reef is