Echo

sometime soon. She needed to check on the various groups that clustered in small buildings on land that previously grew stunning fruit orchards.
    Her monumental shock when she witnessed the fruit trees ripped from the earth, destroying a unique gift given to the humans, shook her to her core. Gone—the orchards that would feed so many, for so long. Within a decade, the miracle seeds from those trees and the crops would spread naturally, all over the world, feeding everyone; the wanton waste so unforgivable. As a result, the Womb angrily intensified its plan for revenge. This species clearly refused to learn. How they became programmed for self-destruction, she did not know. Perhaps if the Elders acquiesced differently to the Womb after the discovery of their forbidden experiment, they could have intervened, guiding evolution to a more satisfactory outcome. The very guidance that the Womb enjoyed exerting everywhere else, feeling no planet too insignificant. But the Womb had forbidden the guidance. The humans were unknowingly on their own.
    The creature disconnected from the Hive wall, her tail dry as it withdrew from the thick membrane. Leaving her private chamber, she shuffled and bobbed her way up the long lonely trail to the outside world.
    Arriving at the end of the underground trail, the creature reached her hand into the cavern wall, asking it to part. When the wall parted, she squeezed and contorted her way around the rocks and boulders blocking and disguising the Hive. Glancing back, she made sure the Hive closed behind her.
    She remembered the blame for the catastrophic events of a century ago belonged partially to her. After her Emergence, she left her Brother behind in his helpless hibernation state in her zeal to explore topside. If her Emergence occurred back on Oolah, surrounded by all the help her Brother needed to emerge from hibernation and begin transition, his eventual expiration would have been successful. She herself would receive proper guidance, allowing the time for her awareness to digest all the stimuli being transmitted to her mind from her own transcription cells. She would not have run off halfcocked and uninformed, failing to require the Hive to close behind her, making the fatal mistake that allowed the Sister to enter and discover her birth Brother.
    Having reached maturity, she realized her birth Brother must have called the human to use for his own recovery but she doubted her Brother’s powers were strong enough.
    The Womb creates the energy she and Brother need to survive as a by-product of its slow feeding on the organic material it rested on. It was an inexhaustible source of the energy she needed to feed on as long as she remained underground. Once above ground, she took all she needed from the sun. She could also use a human Brother or Sister but she strongly planned to stay far away for now. Besides, she much preferred the slower absorption from the sun. It reacted more efficiently with her metabolism. Taking nourishment from a human left her species confused and disoriented. Perhaps the very reason Brother left the Hive with the Sister. Maybe confusion reigned.
    The occasional animal that wandered near could obviously smell the membrane and knew the Womb lived. They usually entered out of curiosity and perhaps hunger, causing little damage. But she knew the Sister entered because of her own carelessness.
    Not only did she carry overwhelming guilt and barely tolerable loneliness but she knew her species probably did not know she existed. They monitor the energy outflow from the Womb membrane to determine if Brother still lived. The Womb could not make a distinction between its minions. They undoubtedly think she is Brother. The Womb never registered any simultaneous energy draws, cluing them in to her existence back home. Over the last century, they recorded her withdrawal, mistakenly believing it to be that of Brother’s. At some point Brother would have died. They would not know that he had an offspring or that he had become an Elder. They would expect the humans to carry out the mission of their own volition after her Brother’s death. Monitoring this planet would provide few answers. Only an Elder could communicate through the Womb to Oolah. But the Womb knew. That’s all that really mattered. Oh well, she could only do her best. When she thought the humans were ready, she would begin.
    Pushing all the unanswerable questions from her rambling mind, she stepped around