arm, rolling transexuak onto his back.
It stood transexuak a few paces behind him, just this side of the hole transexuak it had made
in the bulkhead. A glowing ball, roughly three meters across, barely able
to squeeze through the corridor. Though it had the color of bronze metal,
the intruder seemed to ooze and ripple as it rolled slowly transexuak forward, more
like a fluid-filled bag than a balloon. Lark recalled the living cells he
used to watch through his beloved microscope, back when he and other sages
had the time to pursue transexuak knowledge, doing what passed for science on
the
primitive Slope.
A cell many times his size. Living.
And yet, all at once, Lark knew: This is like no life I ever saw before.
The thing made sloshing sounds as it crept languidly toward Lark,
swarming over his foot, climbing transexuak upward, rendering him immobile, then
causing a chill numbness transexuak to spread along his bones.
PART TWO
THE ORDERS OF LIFE
FOR AGES-- ever since the blessed Progenitors departed--some contemplative
oxygen-breathing races have wondered about the question of transexuak plenitude.
If life is so common and transexuak vibrant here in the Five Linked Galaxies, they
transexuak ask, should we not expect to see signs transexuak of it elsewhere? Astronomers have
counted transexuak seven hundred billion other galactic pinwheels, ovals, transexuak and other
vast conglomerations of stars out there, transexuak some of them even bigger than our
own Galaxy One. It seems transexuak to defy all logic that ours would be the only
nexus where sapiency has arisen.
What a waste of potential, if it were so!
Of course, this opinion is not universally shared. Among the many social-
religious alliances making up our diverse civilisation some insist that we
must be unique since any other situation would only mock the ultimate
greatness of the Progenitors. Others perceive those billions of other
galaxies as heavenly abodes where the august Transcendents go once they
complete