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your ideas in ways you probably have never imagined. When you get back to the States, I have a lab already set up and ready to go.”
    “That’s a hard offer to refuse. So what’s your idea?”
    “C’mon. Let’s go get a coldie and I’ll fill you in. You’re gonna love it! Oh, and you should quit the vapors, it makes you look like a drongo, and we both know you're not that .”
    Max looked at his plastic apparatus. Then, with an agreeable shrug, he flicked it over the balcony like a used butt.

Chapter 3 - Uplift Pass

    “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Le∙ma struggled to keep up with Sa∙ma. They were moving fast, with purpose. Through the blurred motion of the foliage, she kept her vision sensors fixed onto the straight textured lines on his body. Were he female, like her, the swirling pattern would have been less easy to track.
    They’d come a long way from the Colony, much farther than Le∙ma, or many for that matter, had ever ventured. Sa∙ma seemed to know where he was going, so she followed without pausing to contemplate their course. It seemed to her that he was disorienting her intentionally.
    They came to the base of a mountain range, comprised of blue crystal, as all the mountains were. These crystals emitted a repulsive force. The two Polyans could only get so close before the push was too great to come in contact with the smooth blue surface. This push, unique to the blue crystals, made the mountains impassable. They divided the world into maze-like sections, many of which were unreachable.
    The travelers turned to the right and began moving again, following the contour of the mountains. This went on for only a brief time, and as they turned a corner, Le∙ma saw something unexpected. There, on the side of the mountain, was a gaping slit, quite large, forming a passage into it.
    “Here we are,” said Sa∙ma. “This is Uplift Pass, so named by the ancestors of my ancestors, and their ancestors in turn. Like you, I was led through this crevice as an apprentice Lumen Seeker. I was given knowledge about our world that only a select few ever receive. Today, I pass this knowledge down to you. Someday, you'll replace me as the Colony’s Lumen Master and attain a special status equal to, if not higher than, that of the six-legged Leaders. Come.”
    Le∙ma was dazzled and followed Sa∙ma as he ducked into the passage. As she entered, she could feel an almost crushing force from both sides at the same time. But it couldn’t repel her away because each side was pushing equally. This created a sensation that could only be described as “slippery.” She began to slide forward as if floating along. Both she and Sa∙ma started to pick up speed and suddenly shot out of the opposite side. They landed into a kind of bowl-shaped area of blue rock. There, Sa∙ma bobbed a little above the ground. When Le∙ma looked down, she discovered she was doing the same. Her legs, being repelled by the blue substance below, were suspending her above the surface.
    This startled her, and she lost her balance. All four of her legs sprawled out, and she went sliding and spinning toward the opposite side of the indentation. But as it sloped up, she lost momentum and slid back from where she came. This happened a couple more times, back and forth, until she came to rest at the lowest point. Sa∙ma chuckled to himself, watching as she attempted to stand. She slipped once again onto her belly. He lent a leg to prop her up, and she figured out how to remain floating upright. She practiced feeling the odd sensations below her. Eventually, she learned how to control her orientation by applying slight pressure onto her individual legs. She was walking on an imaginary, flexible floor.
    “As everyone in the Colony knows, climbing blue rock is impossible,” said Sa∙ma. “That’s not changed for us. But we’re on the first step of a