Return to Eden

the sea. Together.
    The speaker was shouldered roughly aside, staggered and fell. A larger fargi strode forward onto the sand but stopped at the water's edge.
    "Do… what I say… you do that."
    Her expressions were clumsy, her vocalizations crude and hard to understand. Who was this creature?
    What were they all doing here?
    These considerations were driven away by a spurt of anger, an emotion unfelt since she had come to this beach, to this place. Her nostrils flared wide and her crest flowed with color.
    "Who is this fargi, an upright worm that stands before me and issues orders?"
    It came out imperiously, automatically. The fargi gaped with incomprehension, understanding nothing of her quick communication. She saw this and began to understand a little. She spoke again, slowly and simply.
    "Silence. You are inferiority before superiority. I command you. Speak name." She had to repeat this, in simpler form, mostly arm movements and color changes before it was understood.
    "Velikrei," she said. Vaintè noted with approval that the fargi shoulders had slumped and her body was now bent in a curve of inferiority. As it should be.
    "On sand. Sit. Talk," Vaintè commanded, sitting uprightly on her tail as she did so. The fargi stumbled up onto the beach and sat, arms shaped in gratitude. This creature who had tried to bully her was now thanking her for issuing orders. Seeing this the others emerged slowly from the sea, huddled before her in a half-circle of staring eyes and gaping mouths. It was a familiar grouping and she was beginning to understand who they were and just what they were doing here.
    It was a good thing that she did for Velikrei could explain very little. Vaintè had to speak with her for she was the only one who was even slightly Yilanè. The others were little more than large elininyil, immature young. None of them appeared to even have names. They communicated only with the simplest movements and colors that they had learned in the sea, with an occasional harsh sound for emphasis.
    They fished during the day, she discovered that much. Slept on the shore at night. Where had they come from? A place, a city, she knew that without asking. Where was it? When Velikrei finally understood the questions she gaped out at the empty ocean and finally pointed north. She could add little more. Further questioning accomplished nothing. Vaintè realized that this was the limit of the intelligence she could abstract from Velikrei. It was enough. She knew now who they were.
    They were the rejected ones. From the birth beaches they had gone into the ocean. Lived there, grew there, until they had emerged from the sea at maturity, physically able at last to dwell on land, free to walk across the beaches for the first time to the city beyond. To be accepted by the city, fed by the city, absorbed by the city.
    Perhaps. In every Yilanè city existence was always the same. She had observed it for herself in all the cities that she had ever visited. There would be the Yilanè busy about the manifold tasks, the fargi hurrying to their assistance. The eistaa above and the countless fargi below. These were everpresent, indistinguishable one from the other. Shuffling in crowds through the streets, stopping to look at anything of interest, faceless, nameless, identical.
    But not always identical. Those of intelligence and ability learned to speak, improved their speech until they became Yilanè. Once they possessed the power of communication they moved gradually from the mass of inchoate fargi to attain the status of Yilanè, the speaking ones. To become a vital part of the city's function. Those of even greater ability would rise even higher, to apprenticeship to the Yilanè of science where they would learn skills and advance in work ability and status. Every eistaa was once a fargi on the beach; there was no limit to the heights a fargi might rise to.
    But what of those of limited ability, who could not understand the fast speech and commands of the Yilanè who spoke to them? Who remained yiliebe, incapable of speech. These were the silent ones who stayed always on the fringes of the crowds, moving continually away from the intercommunication of intelligence instead of towards it. Identical, indistinguishable, doomed to remain forever at the outer edge of Yilanè existence. Eating and drinking and living, for the city gave life to all.
    But just as the city accepted those of ability it must also reject those who lacked it. It