The Helianx Proposition/page 70
After a lot more practice Noe managed to master a more creative use
of hir chromatophores to such a point that sHe was able, at will,
to send shivers of iridescent color rippling down hir long body.
Whereas once sHe had only been able to crudely camouflage hirself against a relatively
monochromatic background, sHe had by now developed sufficient micro-muscular control
to accompany hir songs with a delightful array of delicately shifting colors.
Not possessing lungs in any conventional sense, the numerous vocal chords
of a Helianx were connected directly to hir internal buoyancy chambers.
This had allowed them feats of extraordinarily vocalization, with complex harmonies intertwining sometimes far beyond the limited range of human hearing.
It had also forced Noe to compress hir songs
and retune them to the denser frequencies of terrestrial life.
Hir songs, however, although crafted into masterpieces of tonal modulation,
and carrying memories of hir race's boundless intergalactic adventures,
had meant very little to the apparently tone-deaf humans.
It was this bewildering tumult of sound, issuing mysteriously
from a flickering serpentine form curled around the branches of a large tree,
that had so confused and frightened the humans, sending them once again into hypnotic,
fugue states-of-mind and making them completely unavailable to hir seductive advances.
Try as Noe might, the result was always the same.
SHe had found it very frustrating.
But, time was pressing in and a decision had to be made.
Noe had never felt so alone in all hir many millions of years on the planet. Hir kin, back on the Great Ship, would be tucked into their nutrient pods by now in somnolent states of suspended animation, safely buffered against the massive stresses of gravity and, more significantly, also completely dependent on hir for their survival. The frightful responsibility of what sHe had taken on became more real as sHe contemplated the choice that faced hir. SHe was having absolutely no success with any of the humans sHe had approached, and it was with humans that the computers had insisted sHe should meld. However, it appeared that the computers, so consistently thorough in their analysis, also had their lacunae, since they had evidently made no allowance whatsoever for the dilemma in which Noe now found hirself.
But then again, as sHe thought more deeply about hir options, sHe pondered whether perhaps those electronic genii had known very well what they were doing. Having observed for hirself the devastating effects of a celestial rebellion, Noe had found it hard to believe that any reasonable analysis would not have included the ensuing chaos as a very real possibility. No, sHe thought, remembering the emphasis that had been placed on the necessity of meeting the challenges of a dense and problematic planet, the computers must have had their own good reasons for remaining silent on this.
Besides, if sHe had known in advance just how difficult hir mission was going to tum out to be, Noe wondered whether sHe would have been quite as enthusiastic about taking it on.
