Report: Talaki Nine Date: Azan+Plesi+Ty Subject: The Morsu Child

I live between the Morsu trees, their tangled vines like cascading waters. The vines produce a sweet sap that coats our hollowed homes. It bathes it in hardened armor, and glues the stones to natures flesh.

Our people have lived in the Morsu trees ever since the migration. We can still peek at the sky in the half sun's light from between the tapestry.

Long ago Mikiah, the weaver, took the stranded lonely vines of Morsu and climbed high above to knit them together with his staff. We lost the sky, but we gained the animals that feed in the shade. The dirt grew wet without rain, and the moss we call takalick was able to be shaped and carved with skilled hands into boats and bowls and cradles. Though not anymore.

The people of the Morsu trees are barren. No one no knows why. But I am the last child grown in many rings of Morsu. Ten rings in fact, one for each year I have lived.

I believe our people are like the great tapestry, interconnected and dependant. When a vine grow weak, or is conquered, it is held up by three others till the new strong growth can support it. My shoes are made from the dead vine, it has passed into a new use. When we pass we go into the mud. That is we bury them, the wise ones, to grow new. They root under the ground and new sprouts come above the surface, forming in the crystalists. I went once to watch my Malahak, my mother's father be planted. I did not like his face when he sank. I never attended again.

We are all linked. We grow from those we do not know, others we have not met. And we are raised by the mature who have learned the ways of our people. One day I hope I will be the first to live to see my sprouts. But Malahak told me that was not the way of things. The mud took him without a fight.

My bag is thin tar, rolled and coated with palah dust. I sewed it with quills of a great beast given to our family generations ago. I do not pack them to take with me now. I will not need art where I am going.

I know it is the running blue here at home, clear and cold. But I know it tastes wrong. It stops in your throat and burns strangely like the fermented juices of medicine. The water made the small sprouts freshly cut cry five and ten rings ago. And then it made them stop crying all together. Mother tells me it isn't so but I’ve seen it. I’ve placed its soft version from the sky onto my back stem and felt its strength decay. I've seen it melt the tar. The sky is the color of the red beetles now, it never was before.

Tonight I walk the bank of the Jupth. The path that leads to where we came. I have my Jupth and I hold it loaded. It is a beautiful gift, a costly one, its long barrel smooth to the touch and its trigger quick. Hunting for Elk has been easier now, their sharp canines and slashing claws don’t scare me as they once did. And I will hear the jumpers if they come. They are too big, and their breathing sounds like burning wood. They hope you will think it is the sound of a small animal foraging. But sticks breaking don’t sound like fire crackles or blaster bolts from my Jupth. The harmless don’t chill your blood how jumpers do.

My third day is quiet. No Elk to hunt, not even bugs to catch. Maybe now I can finally get a motham. I see one ahead, its still, larger than most. Their wings are like art canvases to me, tapestries of where they’ve been.They say their wing scales change color based on the elevations they’ve visited in their lifetime, tinted by different exposures to the winds that light at night. Even if you don't believe it, it is beautiful. I believe though. I believe most things. Perhaps it's the way I was grown. I approach slowly, Motham must choose you. You must not force them. Only then do I see its wings red all over, like the beetle. Its eyes are shut and breathing labored. His wings are cracked like the clays in drought. I lift him with both my arms. My ten rings have made me strong. I have helped carry many Elk to the hunt. It feels better to me to carry something to life.

I carry him ahead to where I know they like to rest. The cold rocks at the base of the Morsu, As I lay him down the tree flickers with specks up and down like signals. Little sparks of life like guns firing all the way beyond where I can see. And then the bark isn’t bark, its Motham. Millions of Motham as big as me. Hiding and scared, red in their wings as i’ve triggered a reaction to them all. I've awoken them to their nightmare.

The Motham have killed people in the past when their hive trees are disturbed. I lay flat with my nose to the pilu tubes, their slimy black ooze in my nostrils and coating my eyes. But I don't dare to move. Many minutes I stay completely still. But I don’t hear the battle cries they usually swoop in with to alarm their prey. Their wings do not move beyond the gentle flap that reveals their plague.

As I look up, my eyes from the base take in the whole plant. The sickness of the Motham hive stabs me all over with heartache. I am good with patterns. I've long known secretly we are all red inside. Soon we might all bleed out.

On the fifth day my knees ache from running. Something tells me the farther I go the more sick the vines and animals are. It is moving toward us I think. The tapestry is coming apart above my head, beyond where the weaver worked it together. I have seen Elk lying sick beside the bank, their young in their arms for warmth. I have seen Grubel in their hollowed shells, claws open like the blind begging to be led away.

I have never seen a jumper before in my life. But ahead of me I recognize from stories its black skin like tar. Its body is twisted, wrapped into one of the tassla thorns. With my Jupth in my shaking hand, I bring it to my eye. Jumpers aren’t like Mothma, a sick one is a fate worse than death. They will take a family with them to their burial. About ten paces away I know I am not safe. But I can’t bring myself to shoot it the way I do the Elk we eat. With everything so sick, maybe we can work together as we used to in times of war. Like in the stories. Maybe that is what we need for peace. He knows no other option but to kill. I will show another way.

There are no real people made of night sky who can ride the Jumpers like we do the giant snails of burden in our fields of green. I know these are only stories for children. I am not made of night, but I am also not made of hate. I can’t kill it unless it attacks. Even if Father would call me astray from the ways of Morsu code. I don’t care, I can’t get much further away from Morsu. The trees have shown us mercy, where would we be without their shelter. No further than I am now will I ever get from their care. As I think about these things the Jumper turns its head from among the thorns. Its eyes have been pierced, its lids held back by thick daggers of the tree. He can’t see me. I tell myself, I am safe.

But his lungs are bellowing in the slender body, its claws wrapping around each branch to try and push it away. The Jumper gives me the feeling of the mud pits, of death. Its long slender arms reaching toward me feel like the pits pulling gravity. It's inevitable. I could still shoot, I should shoot. I stare into its hollowed eyes and I know he has seen me. He has chosen me to take with him into the thistles. Slowly I back away, one tip of toe to heel, and then another. I pretend I am with little Salah playing Qu’tal. Yes, we are just skipping pebbles along the rule line, and then we will walk backward on faith and hope the pebble is beneath our feet when we stop.

I will walk along the ground that has carried me ten rings, I will walk backward with my eyes on the jumper till I reach home. At least then I can tell them about the Mothma, and the elk, and the danger in the water. My hand reaches behind me and I feel the stiff bark of a unshapen Morsu. One we have not carved our homes in the treetops with. It still has its natural ledges, and with my Jopha I spear one at a time, swinging my leg over it like we do in races on Weavers eve. I am fast, I am strong. I will fall into my mother's arms and laugh happy mist that I am safe. I hold my pack with my center arm and hold tight to the tree with my other two. My pack holds my Jopha, my compass, my only hope home.

Jumpers can climb, but maybe he will not escape the thistles, maybe he will not see me up so high I-

A sound louder than the jumpers hurts my ears. Like the hammer of the stone workers. Only a thousand all at once, like when the skies get angry and crystal rains drop from the lights. I collected the fallen crystals in my third ring. The sky water would harden from the anger into smooth stones. Another thing the weaver saved us from. They used to destroy our homes, now they decorated them so beautifully.

The noise is so loud I feel my body flatten to the top of the Morsu trees. It's pushed so hard my head is sinking into its pulp. An inch, maybe two, all over it is like it digests me. And then as my eyes can no longer stay open, there is the feeling of falling, faster and harder than I ever have.

Maybe the crystal rain is made of people like me.

When I wake up I don’t know how many days have passed. But the light is so bright, and my body is sticky with dew of sweat and warmth. The Morsu is melted around me, black and burnt like the fires. Disoriented and struggling to remember where I was, I look first anxiously for the jumper.

But there will be no more jumpers in this part of the wild. As far as I can see, it is flat in a way I’ve never experienced. It feels foreign, desolate, without the rising and falling of the land. Except for a mountain of metal far in the distance beyond me, it shakes the ground and plows it with sound. The Morsu trees on the horizon worship it, falling to their knees along with every type of plant. These metal sounds and their rulers are still far from the tapestry, in the unbraided regions.

But they have reached the vines at last.

A mind built that creature, the way we built the Jupth to protect us. But the trees and plants and skies did not attack the mountain people. If there were people in those moving mountains. I look down and find my flesh a pigment unfamiliar to me, my arms blackened and twisted like rope ladders down my torso. I realize I can’t hear the winds, or the rushing waters along the banks. All I hear is that deep pitched whine of the wall of sound that cut down everything in its path. I stare where the bank should be but I only see a bubbling soup of burning coals and red mud. I’ve never seen land burn. And i’ve never smelled the color of fire in as thick of smog as I do now. Where the bank should be the red mud flows down toward the Morsu vine border, toward my people.

Trembling all over I bend to my knees. I try to call out, but my tongue only has scraps of black ash to chirp with. My eyes sting like they have the thorns of the jumper, my shoulder blades in pain as if the wings of the Motham had been slaughtered from my back. Alone, I try to lay down and picture twenty rings. On a healthy tall plant sectional gifted to me along with my own Morsu to carve and live in. I will have more crystal than anyone.

And it will sparkle in the nighttime.

And I would never know the taste of mud as I do today.

I would weave and weave my life with green. And love it all very well.

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Report: Talaki Nine

Date: Azan+Plesi+Ty

We have acquired a new asset. Planet is rich in resources easily fossilized by sonic compression. Natural alternatives of decomposition for fuel implemented for a more environmentally friendly product.

Planet was surveyed by scan for intelligent life of six occasions. Only plant based life identified. No civilizied settlements. Work began last Azan.

Incident report:

Contractor: termination: Jer burned a hand during mechanical work not in compliance with code regulations. Work discontinued. Contract terminated.

Loose rotator on sonic pipe. Limited mobility. Work delay one rotation.

Local animal attack on sonic cruiser. Creature deformed, unidentified, using weapon of unknown origin. Intelligence not indicated by physical state or actions. Killed in pursuit. No casualties of workers. Work continued prior to assessment.

Crystalline damage from atmospheric storm. Pressure of sonic conditions leads to compressed Trilligahl gas which becomes heavy and falls. Protection for future storms is being researched.

Expenses: 5,8

79 yi

Income: 18900 linear tons of fuel.

Report transmitted.

Report received.