Humans are Weird - The Liar
This hemisphere had finished its gradual tilt away from the local star and the growing cold had filled every valley and hollow. The gloaming was empty of the sounds of insects save for the slow, lazy clicks of grubs deep in woody trunks, burrowing their way towards escape and growth when spring eventually brought warmth. Dimly, the thumping and grinding sounds of the humans’ chattel, shaggy massive beasts, came from the open fields where they ate the frozen ground cover.
Disrupts the Gradient allowed awareness to stir as the day slowly crept up closer to the freezing line. A few tendrils had suffered frostbite during the night and those were gently, slowly pulled further into the mass of warm compost. However Disrupts the Gradient had a lot of mass in these highland forests. High above the water table, the groves were safe from the worst flooding even in the worst of the spring rains, but there was little space between the mountain bedrock and the soil surface. Disrupts the Gradient stretched motile fibers and began calculating how much detritus would be necessary to create a thick enough ground cover to generate enough heat to stay aware. Deciding that there was plenty in the local grove, but that it would require most of the daylight hours to move all the detritus Disrupts the Gradient set to work.
By the time the horizon rose to diffuse the light of the local star through the atmosphere Disrupts the Gradient had enough dead leaves and bark fragments on the primary mounds at least to test the cold of the coming night. Just as satisfaction suggested slipping back into half-dormancy the steady rumbling of approaching mammals drew attention to the main path through the forest.
“Walk up!” came the clear ringing voice of the human matriarch, followed quickly by the intense barks of the small, fast canids that always accompanied her.
The pattering of small human feet in boots circled around the slower thumping of Grandma Morgan’s feet and stick.
Disrupts the Gradient considered giving attention to the trees to get a good look at the moving mammals, but decided against it. It was far to cold to comfortably extend photosensitive fibers, and there were so few evergreens in this section of the forest that it was effectively blind.
“-the saddest thing!” one of the small humans was saying. “Watching them die like that-”
Grandma Morgan gave a loud snort, that Disrupts the Gradient had learned meant that she considered something absurd.
“Don’t you girls believe that story!” Grandma Morgan said. “Bark up! Lazy coos, you’ll be warmer down in the valley.”
“Weren’t the people rescued from the Theta colony?” a small human asked.
“Sure they were,” Grandma Morgan said, “but your Great Uncle was but thirteen in Earth years when they were. There was no way he was a ranger then. It was a fine story though. Bark up!”
Grandma Morgan struck her stick into the path hard, reminding Disrupts the Gradient why it was unwise to lace the path with tendrils capable of feeling, and the sounds of the canids increased. The great, shaggy mammals began to low in protest and then moved faster and the humans stopped talking. Disrupts the Gradient felt the cold of the night seeping into half exposed tendrils and summoned them back to the main mass, mulling over this interaction.
The humans would have been coming from the highland camp where they were staging to move the great shaggy beasts and Disrupts the Gradient had left audio tendrils there. The plan was to get access to them in the spring, but this conversation suggested ideas that seemed worth pursuit. It took several hours of the night to connect and strengthen enough tendrils to bring full awareness on the highland camp and the horizon was falling below the direct rays of the star again before the memories warmed enough to play.
The humans were rushing about gathering the shaggy beasts with the aid of the canids, and then they paused to rest around a roaring fire. The Great Uncle, youngest brother to Grandma Morgan, had begun telling a story that he claimed was a tale of his time in the survey core rangers when they had been sent to offer relief to a colony that was on the verge of starvation. The small humans had clearly listened in quiet fascination, and even Grandma Morgan had listened without protest, and yet she had, according to her words, observed factual errors in the story.
Disrupts the Gradient mulled over this. Humans were usually quick to correct each other as soon as a factual inaccuracy was spotted. Why had she waited so long? The question drifted down in priority as the day closed again, and then drifted to the surface of awareness as the local star warmed the hemisphere. One night at a time the cold cycle passed and as the danger of spring flooding passed Disrupts the Gradient allowed tendrils to stretch back into the lowland floodplains where the humans built their dwellings on artificial hills.
It was several weeks before Grandma Morgan had time for a long discussion, when the great shaggy beasts were expelling their young from their bodies the matriarch was at her busiest. Finally the last female had expelled a healthy young male of her species and Disrupts the Gradient hummed for Grandma Morgan’s attention as she was sitting on her porch drinking a hot steaming mug of some drink.
“That you creeping thing?” Grandma Morgan asked, glaring down at the soil beneath her feet.
Disrupts the Gradient rustled the bush that gave the best view of her face and held most of the sound-sensitive fibers.
Grandma Morgan flicked her eyes up to it and leaned back in her chair with a humph of expelled breath.
“What are you creeping thing?” she demanded, before taking a sip of her drink.
Disrupts the Gradient did not think this required an answer as it was this human’s standard greeting in these conversations.
“I have a question about lies.”
Grandma Morgan’s eyebrows arched up and she snorted.
“You would,” she said.
Disrupts the Gradient accepted this as permission to go on.
“Can you get access to a memory from the time you moved the coos from the highland meadows to the midland meadows?”
Grandma Morgan hummed and set her chair to rocking back and forth with a push of her feet, the rhythmic creaking reverberated through the boards of the porch the chair perched on and down into the soil. After enough time had passed for the mammal to retrieve the memory set from the wet depths of her tangled brain matter Disrupts the gradient spoke.
“After the coos were gathered, but before you drove them down, you rested and Grate Uncle Darwin told a story.”
Grandma Morgan nodded and her wrinkled face-skin twisted in a smile.
“Told a pack of lies is what he did,” she said.
“Yet you did not challenge him,” Disrupts the Graident observed.
“And what business is that of your creeping thing?” Grandma Morgan demanded. “Always poking up your ears where they’ve no business to be.”
Disrupts the Gradient patiently let her words fade to a mutter before continuing.
“That you corrected your granddaughters’ understanding on the drive down the hill shows that you have opinions on the matter.”
Disrupts the Gradient paused again to let her complain of observation again.
“Why did you not simply prevent your brother from giving them the false information rather than correct it?”
Grandma Morgan gave a grunt and took a sip of her drink. The fragrant steam lifted up from the container and drifted over to Disrupts the Gradient’s chemo-receptors, blending a warm, fruit flavor with the damp, earth scents of spring soil.
“Couple of reasons,” Grandma Morgan finally said. “Yes, Young Ducky’s a liar, every family in the colony has one like him, and he has been from the time he could talk, but there is no harm in him.” She paused and grimaced. “Not so long as any cash money deal is done in clear, common writing,” she corrected herself. “And you probably wouldn’t want to go into business with him, not more than twice.”
In the pause that followed Disrupts the Gradient noted.
“It would seem there is some financial harm in him.”
Grandma Morgan sighed and nodded.
“I suppose what we mean by that is that a liar like Young Ducky, he won’t ever tell a lie to hurt someone. He won’t stir up trouble between married folk. He wouldn’t accuse someone of something they hadn’t done. He’s not vicious, just careless with other folks money.” She paused in thought. “And he doesn’t go hunting money to steal. He wouldn’t bother any foolish old women to trick them out of their money.”
She shook her head vigorously and glared at the bush.
“Besides,” she said in a curt tone, “the lie we are talking about, wasn’t that kind of lie. The thing about Young Ducky is that he loves to make people happy. To see them laugh and have a good time, and he has a memory in him. He remembers most everything a human can. So he tells stories. Good stories, fun stories, stories that children and adults alike remember.”
“And the information about the rescued colony was one such story?” Disrupts the Gradient asked.
Grandma Morgan nodded, the chair rocking faster and she worked over the memories.
“That story,” she said. “It did happen. In was in the screed-spread for years. It was just before Young Ducky’s time. It won’t hurt the girls to hear it like that, as a story that tastes of campfire and crisp air.”
“They why did you take the time to tell them of the lie?” Disrupts the Gradient asked.
“Well,” Grandma Morgan said, the rocking of her chair slowing down with her words. “Lies, and liars, no matter how fun they might be, are like creeping things. You can’t really do anything about them, not the ones that are family, so its best to know they are there.”
She turned her bi-focal eyes away from the communication bush and brought her cup to her lips meaningfully. Taking this as a dismissal Disrupts the Gradient let the conversation end and began processing all the information.
Disrupts the Gradient allowed awareness to stir as the day slowly crept up closer to the freezing line. A few tendrils had suffered frostbite during the night and those were gently, slowly pulled further into the mass of warm compost. However Disrupts the Gradient had a lot of mass in these highland forests. High above the water table, the groves were safe from the worst flooding even in the worst of the spring rains, but there was little space between the mountain bedrock and the soil surface. Disrupts the Gradient stretched motile fibers and began calculating how much detritus would be necessary to create a thick enough ground cover to generate enough heat to stay aware. Deciding that there was plenty in the local grove, but that it would require most of the daylight hours to move all the detritus Disrupts the Gradient set to work.
By the time the horizon rose to diffuse the light of the local star through the atmosphere Disrupts the Gradient had enough dead leaves and bark fragments on the primary mounds at least to test the cold of the coming night. Just as satisfaction suggested slipping back into half-dormancy the steady rumbling of approaching mammals drew attention to the main path through the forest.
“Walk up!” came the clear ringing voice of the human matriarch, followed quickly by the intense barks of the small, fast canids that always accompanied her.
The pattering of small human feet in boots circled around the slower thumping of Grandma Morgan’s feet and stick.
Disrupts the Gradient considered giving attention to the trees to get a good look at the moving mammals, but decided against it. It was far to cold to comfortably extend photosensitive fibers, and there were so few evergreens in this section of the forest that it was effectively blind.
“-the saddest thing!” one of the small humans was saying. “Watching them die like that-”
Grandma Morgan gave a loud snort, that Disrupts the Gradient had learned meant that she considered something absurd.
“Don’t you girls believe that story!” Grandma Morgan said. “Bark up! Lazy coos, you’ll be warmer down in the valley.”
“Weren’t the people rescued from the Theta colony?” a small human asked.
“Sure they were,” Grandma Morgan said, “but your Great Uncle was but thirteen in Earth years when they were. There was no way he was a ranger then. It was a fine story though. Bark up!”
Grandma Morgan struck her stick into the path hard, reminding Disrupts the Gradient why it was unwise to lace the path with tendrils capable of feeling, and the sounds of the canids increased. The great, shaggy mammals began to low in protest and then moved faster and the humans stopped talking. Disrupts the Gradient felt the cold of the night seeping into half exposed tendrils and summoned them back to the main mass, mulling over this interaction.
The humans would have been coming from the highland camp where they were staging to move the great shaggy beasts and Disrupts the Gradient had left audio tendrils there. The plan was to get access to them in the spring, but this conversation suggested ideas that seemed worth pursuit. It took several hours of the night to connect and strengthen enough tendrils to bring full awareness on the highland camp and the horizon was falling below the direct rays of the star again before the memories warmed enough to play.
The humans were rushing about gathering the shaggy beasts with the aid of the canids, and then they paused to rest around a roaring fire. The Great Uncle, youngest brother to Grandma Morgan, had begun telling a story that he claimed was a tale of his time in the survey core rangers when they had been sent to offer relief to a colony that was on the verge of starvation. The small humans had clearly listened in quiet fascination, and even Grandma Morgan had listened without protest, and yet she had, according to her words, observed factual errors in the story.
Disrupts the Gradient mulled over this. Humans were usually quick to correct each other as soon as a factual inaccuracy was spotted. Why had she waited so long? The question drifted down in priority as the day closed again, and then drifted to the surface of awareness as the local star warmed the hemisphere. One night at a time the cold cycle passed and as the danger of spring flooding passed Disrupts the Gradient allowed tendrils to stretch back into the lowland floodplains where the humans built their dwellings on artificial hills.
It was several weeks before Grandma Morgan had time for a long discussion, when the great shaggy beasts were expelling their young from their bodies the matriarch was at her busiest. Finally the last female had expelled a healthy young male of her species and Disrupts the Gradient hummed for Grandma Morgan’s attention as she was sitting on her porch drinking a hot steaming mug of some drink.
“That you creeping thing?” Grandma Morgan asked, glaring down at the soil beneath her feet.
Disrupts the Gradient rustled the bush that gave the best view of her face and held most of the sound-sensitive fibers.
Grandma Morgan flicked her eyes up to it and leaned back in her chair with a humph of expelled breath.
“What are you creeping thing?” she demanded, before taking a sip of her drink.
Disrupts the Gradient did not think this required an answer as it was this human’s standard greeting in these conversations.
“I have a question about lies.”
Grandma Morgan’s eyebrows arched up and she snorted.
“You would,” she said.
Disrupts the Gradient accepted this as permission to go on.
“Can you get access to a memory from the time you moved the coos from the highland meadows to the midland meadows?”
Grandma Morgan hummed and set her chair to rocking back and forth with a push of her feet, the rhythmic creaking reverberated through the boards of the porch the chair perched on and down into the soil. After enough time had passed for the mammal to retrieve the memory set from the wet depths of her tangled brain matter Disrupts the gradient spoke.
“After the coos were gathered, but before you drove them down, you rested and Grate Uncle Darwin told a story.”
Grandma Morgan nodded and her wrinkled face-skin twisted in a smile.
“Told a pack of lies is what he did,” she said.
“Yet you did not challenge him,” Disrupts the Graident observed.
“And what business is that of your creeping thing?” Grandma Morgan demanded. “Always poking up your ears where they’ve no business to be.”
Disrupts the Gradient patiently let her words fade to a mutter before continuing.
“That you corrected your granddaughters’ understanding on the drive down the hill shows that you have opinions on the matter.”
Disrupts the Gradient paused again to let her complain of observation again.
“Why did you not simply prevent your brother from giving them the false information rather than correct it?”
Grandma Morgan gave a grunt and took a sip of her drink. The fragrant steam lifted up from the container and drifted over to Disrupts the Gradient’s chemo-receptors, blending a warm, fruit flavor with the damp, earth scents of spring soil.
“Couple of reasons,” Grandma Morgan finally said. “Yes, Young Ducky’s a liar, every family in the colony has one like him, and he has been from the time he could talk, but there is no harm in him.” She paused and grimaced. “Not so long as any cash money deal is done in clear, common writing,” she corrected herself. “And you probably wouldn’t want to go into business with him, not more than twice.”
In the pause that followed Disrupts the Gradient noted.
“It would seem there is some financial harm in him.”
Grandma Morgan sighed and nodded.
“I suppose what we mean by that is that a liar like Young Ducky, he won’t ever tell a lie to hurt someone. He won’t stir up trouble between married folk. He wouldn’t accuse someone of something they hadn’t done. He’s not vicious, just careless with other folks money.” She paused in thought. “And he doesn’t go hunting money to steal. He wouldn’t bother any foolish old women to trick them out of their money.”
She shook her head vigorously and glared at the bush.
“Besides,” she said in a curt tone, “the lie we are talking about, wasn’t that kind of lie. The thing about Young Ducky is that he loves to make people happy. To see them laugh and have a good time, and he has a memory in him. He remembers most everything a human can. So he tells stories. Good stories, fun stories, stories that children and adults alike remember.”
“And the information about the rescued colony was one such story?” Disrupts the Gradient asked.
Grandma Morgan nodded, the chair rocking faster and she worked over the memories.
“That story,” she said. “It did happen. In was in the screed-spread for years. It was just before Young Ducky’s time. It won’t hurt the girls to hear it like that, as a story that tastes of campfire and crisp air.”
“They why did you take the time to tell them of the lie?” Disrupts the Gradient asked.
“Well,” Grandma Morgan said, the rocking of her chair slowing down with her words. “Lies, and liars, no matter how fun they might be, are like creeping things. You can’t really do anything about them, not the ones that are family, so its best to know they are there.”
She turned her bi-focal eyes away from the communication bush and brought her cup to her lips meaningfully. Taking this as a dismissal Disrupts the Gradient let the conversation end and began processing all the information.
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