UPON THE BRINK

      Violent blue screams shrieked through the dreams of Treme of Arlione.  Then there was silence, complete, desolate, pitch black silence.  Into the depths of this chasm of silence, gripped by an onrushing wave of fear, Treme was hurled deeper and deeper until it seemed even his own existence was in question.
      Off in the black distance the orb of Arlione, a victim of the ultimate global confrontation, has been vaporized.  As the last of their screams fade off into the timeless fabric of space, peace reigns in that portion of the cosmos once delegated to the originals of Arlione. 
     The silence crystallized around Treme isolating him from the universe.  The voices of the originals had ceased their whisperings.  He searched intently for any trace of their light, but his receptors found nothing. 
     Dwarfed nearly beyond existence by the immense distances between the fiery giants that rule the rim of Des'Cartes Spiral, Treme had for the entirety of his existence coursed on.  Completely oblivious to time and space, guided by the light of a multitude of distant souls, he had sailed on basking in the warmth of the light, and now the light was gone. The peace in Treme's soul was shattered. 
      Visions and shards of emotion rebounded from the depths of his being, a flashback to the instant of the scream.  The last few instants of the light flashed from storage and froze upon Treme's startled receptors.   Faces, billions of faces, all looking up into the heavens, staring right into the very soul of Treme.  Pleading, helpless faces with large sad eyes set deep into hard lined countenances, painted a picture of unspeakable suffering.  Slowly, they melted away, leaving Treme riding the crest of a wave of fear and horror.  Rising from the bottom of his soul came the irrational, primitive reverberations of a scream, his own searing red-hot scream.  It burst out through his receptors, rippling through the silence. 
     With momentous effort, Treme began to slowly assert his self control.  Backing down the pressures built by his steaming emotions, he began to sort through the jumble of accumulated data.  Bit, by bit, the memory of his encounter with the end of his home civilization was suppressed and stored deep in his memory system.  Treme's thoughts returned to his mission. Without conscious effort, he slipped back into the routine of interstellar flight and passed below the level of consciousness into the peaceful dreams of systems maintenance. 
     Treme sailed on, with equal ease through time and space, along a predetermined path through the rim of Des'Cartes Spiral toward a middle-aged yellow star that the originals had called Rhea.  Observations from observatories orbiting the orb of Arlione suggested that the Rhean system contained three detectable orbs: a mammoth orb, probably a large gas giant or possibly a dwarf star, called Dar, and two smaller orbs that were most probably gas giants.  It was believed by the astronomers of Arlione, that the Rhean system also contained several rocky, primary orbs orbiting in close to Rhea.  At worst, it had been suggested, the system would contain several secondary orbs in orbit around Dar or the smaller gas giants. 
      Amber warning signals pulsed through Treme.  Images, observations from his straining receptors, were fed directly to his awakening center of consciousness.  By the time he had become fully conscious, he had studied the new data and determined that he was rapidly approaching Rhea.  Closer computations with operations revealed he was slightly off course and would hurtle beyond his destination, unless his course was corrected immediately.  Operations came up with the necessary change.  Treme studied it quickly, approved and gave the implement order.  A small amount of reaction mass was released.  He moved imperceptibly.  The yellow pulsing ceased.  A soft green aura spread through Treme. " Course corrected, no further alterations necessary until the encounter with the orb, Dar,"  he thought to himself as he divorced himself from operations temporarily. 
     Jubilant that his long journey would soon be coming to an end, he switched his receptors to full gain and began to study the inner, rocky orbs of the Rhea system.  He would have to make a choice soon, before he reached Dar. Only two of the three rocky orbs, predicted by operations to inhabit the inner Rhean system showed up during a series of systematic scans.  The innermost of the two were merely an airless, rocky fragment.  The outer one was no better.  It was a frozen world with a very thin atmosphere.  He would have to survey the moons of the inner gas giants; while operations searched for the third orb of the inner system. 
     Amber pulses pushed the green aura away.  Treme abandoned his search.  He returned to operations and compared data.  The third orb still had not been found, but a choice would have to be made.   He was fast approaching Dar.  The data that he had acquired  allowed for only one choice: the second moon of the third gas giant.  It was a rocky moon with a dense atmosphere that seemed to be heated by a source deep inside the orb that it circled. 
      Computations were made to intercept Dar.  He would use Dar's upper atmosphere to adjust his speed for a rendezvous with the third gas giant.  He studied the computations to get a feel for the new trajectories. He gave the implement order, as he slipped closer and closer to Dar. 
     In a hail of commands and counter commands, Treme shut down operations and revoked the implement order. Quickly he brought operations back to power, and ordered observations of a pinpoint of light that had just emerged from the brilliance of Rhea.  Preliminary images flowed from operations.  A shinning blue orb floated against the black of space not far from the bright disc of Rhea.   Preliminary data fused into the image: Aliquid H20 - moderate atmosphere - organic compounds  . . .  Red pulsing light overpowered the image.  Operations seared an urgent message into Treme's mind,  "Immediate decision required or you will exit this system."   Treme made the decision; operations instantly displayed new computations.  He gave the implement order, and dipped into the gravity field of Dar, through a fraction of its atmosphere and out.  With his velocity decreased, Treme arced inwards toward a rendezvous with the shinning blue orb.
      Wrapped once again in the soft green aura, Treme settled in for the long wait.  He slipped beyond consciousness into the peaceful dreams of systems maintenance.  Treme slipped through time and space, arcing gracefully around the star.  Slowly, he began to overtake the blue orb that had become his only hope for survival.

      The silvery sea frothed through the tidal pool where the wind and tide had lodged Treme. Twin moons, near conjunction, lay low on the seaward horizon; their light glinting off the breaking swells.  Overhead, ominous dark clouds obscured the stars threatening the peaceful night.  Treme lay there, his outer shell encrusted with a mixture of minerals and simple life forms collected from the sea during his lengthy hibernation.
      From the moment of splashdown, operations had been functioning at near capacity analyzing the watery environment. Using an inadequate array of receptors, those that had survived the searing trip down, the sea had been slowly surveyed.  The genetic engineering sections of operations then came into play building a program around the composition of the sea, temperature extremes, estimated pressures at normal operating depths, and other important environmental data.  Particular care had been used in incorporating operations and several other microchip assemblies into the structural concepts of the program. Time passed.  The program was completed and thoroughly evaluated.  Automatically, operations implemented it, initiating the course of actions that would result in Treme becoming a creature of the alien sea. 
      Throughout the metamorphosis, operations had kept a silent vigil, observing the course of the process.  The growing creature devoured the inner structure of the shell. Only the encrusted outer shell remained between Treme and the sea.
     Outside the security of Treme's shell, the alien night was now completely enshrouded by ominous dark clouds.  In the distance, bright bolts of lightening streaked through the blackness.  The stillness of the night was overpowered by steaming gusts that lashed out from the clouds. Treme's shell remained unaffected, lodged just above the rising swells. Wind driven spray showered his shell, collecting between the rocks among which it was lodged. Operations began gently attempting to wake Treme.  Deep within his slowly rising consciousness, white-hot fear ripped through Treme clawing jagged gashes in his soul.  He writhed within the confines of his shell, gripped by a terrible fear of the darkness.  The cold silent darkness had seemed to have taken over the cosmos as the last reverberations of that frightening scream had faded away.  Up he spiraled, away from the maddening fears of his semiconscious mind, into the damp darkness of an unknown reality.  Strange sensations assailed him as he struggled to become fully conscious.  He could not separate them from those of his dreams. In the darkness without familiar surroundings or sensations, he was lost.  His existence floated between dream and reality.  The silent darkness of the real world surrounded him.  He turned to run, back to the imagined safety of total unconsciousness, and ran hard into reality as he encountered a message from operations, "First metamorphosis complete - Initiate emergence process." 
   Treme struggled with the sensations he now judged to be reality, and began to adjust to his new existence.  Meticulously, he explored the new network of nerves attached to him.  He traced them one by one, attempting to discover their functions.  Several led to operations, but the majority led off into the darkness of the flesh of his newly acquired body. He could not fathom the functions of these new pathways; several seemed to control strange appendages.  Then he touched one that seemed familiar, but unused, a flow of information was initiated directly into Treme's mind: ATYPE R (research) ENVIRONMENT MANIPULATING ENTITY Mission Directives - to create a haven for survival of the species, by restructuring environment and respective food chains to conform to CLY-1 environment...  Operations cut in, "Emergence process must be initiated immediately!"
      Treme, jolted from his inspection tour, realized he must escape his shell soon.  His new body, now free of the effects of hibernation, desperately required oxygen to sustain it, or it would wither and die, leaving Treme trapped inside a corpse.  If he was unable to make it out in time, he would have to attempt another extremely dangerous metamorphosis using the decayed remains. 
      Treme, still lost in the complexities of the organic mechanisms of his body, searched hurriedly through the maze of nerve endings for a clue to a means of escape. With time running short, his fearful mind wandered.  The memory of the light that had accompanied him along the early portion of his journey, and the choking silent darkness that had crushed it, filled his mind. He longed for the encouraging whispers of the originals that had once been borne to him along the currents of the light.  Fear chased Treme around and around inside himself.  He wanted to surrender or run, but there were no such options.  He must escape.  Holding the fiery beast of fear at bay, he opened all of the channels to operations.
     Operations was prepared; a set of complex commands burst into Treme's mind.  Treme implemented them cautiously.  One of his appendages jerked and began to move.  A barbed muscular tail flailed against the inside of the shell. Time after time, he repeated the set of commands; the tail flailed on.  Sensory data, received by Treme, interpreted by operations, slowly built up an image in Treme's mind of the action that was occurring. Startled, he realized that the effort was having very little effect on the shell.  The tenacity of the sea life on the outside of the shell hadn't been taken into account.  Amber lights began to pulse; time was running out. 
     Great drops of rain hurtled down.  A thunderous gale raged against the surface of the sea, sending ever higher waves crashing into the shore. Huge sheets of wind blown spray, coupled with surging swells and driving rain, inundated the rock lined beach.  An immense wave broke full upon Treme, dislodging his shell from the rocks. Down he tumbled following the receding wave.  Caught by the next wave, he was pulled beneath it.  In mere seconds, he was in the midst of the raging sea tossed about by the storm. 
      Treme could no longer hold out against the fear that threatened  to consume him. With an agonizing effort, he broke away from operations,  and attempted to escape on his own. Still unfamiliar with his body,  he could not control it; in response to his misguided commands, it  merely quivered and writhed. 
       Imprisoned inside his shell, unable to break out, thrown about upon a storm tossed sea, Treme was overwhelmed and devoured by his fears. The storm raged on, tossing Treme' shell against the rocks.  He scurried into the imagined security of unconsciousness.  Time had run out.  Treme could not escape.

       Treme awoke to the soft sounds of a gentle breeze stirring through the violet vegetation that lined the shore, Off in the distance rolling  swells broke upon a sand reef; issuing forth a quiet thunder. The soft  light of dawn held promise of a bright new day.
       Treme lay in the shallows, unmoving; nearby his battered shell  lay where it had been ripped apart upon the jagged rocks. He flexed  his eyestalks and focused upon his new home for the first time. He  took in the colors and images: slowly undulating crystal blue swells,  course grained orange sand caught between jagged multihued rocks,  brilliant violet leaves of the ground hugging vegetation, fluffy  gray-white clouds rising up into the soft green of the early morning sky. He floated there awed, unbelieving.  He had survived. 
      Soon he would begin to reorganize this world, but for now he would have to concentrate on learning to operate the sleek organic machine that he had become. He opened all of the channels to operations, swiveled his eyestalks and began to scan his body.  Images flowed into operations.  They were compared to projected results and evaluated.  Except for several minor injuries, he was the perfect creature for surviving in the alien sea.  Two stubby wings made up the majority of his body.  A pair of  eyestalks protruded from the blunt snout that separated his wings. Two y-shaped antennae folded under a large toothless mouth. Gill slits perforated his sides just under the front edges of his wings. The central core of his body arched between his wings and ended with the razor sharp barbs of a muscular tail.

      Operations slid Treme a set of commands. Cautiously he implemented them. Slowly he moved out to sea, where it would be safe for him to begin operating his body on his own.

      It was a clear cool day when Treme next ventured close to shore.  He was in a very confident mood.  He had mastered his body and was in the process of gathering data on the sea and the air currents just above the surface.  Now he was attempting to acquire a sample of the vegetation that lined the shore.  He would use it to begin restructuring the environment of this world.
      He swam confidently toward the shore.  It was an extra high tide, and some of the plants should be covered with water and easy to grab.  He swam over the sand reef  into the tidal zone.  Right on up to the beach, he went, and peered through the surface.  He looked up and down the beach.  Not one plant was within his reach. 
      He paralleled the shore, occasionally scanning the beach for a plant close enough to grab.  There were none as far as he could see, so he swam on.  He came to an extremely shallow spot, stopped and scanned the beach once more.  Then way off in the distance he spotted a great dark mass of plants that went right down to the waters edge.  Ignoring the danger posed by the uprising in the sand, he slipped through the shallow spot and streaked toward the plants.  It was a lot farther away than he had thought.  By the time that he reached the mass of plants, the tide had changed and the water was fast receding from them.  He made a desperate lunge for the closest plant and missed.  Turning, he swam toward the open sea.  With a graceful twist of his muscular body, he headed back toward the shore, building speed.  He hit the beach with a stunning thud and slid right into the midst of the violet plants.  He took two quick mouthfuls and swallowed them.  With a conscious effort, he arched his back, irised open a muscle above his stomach and forced his prize into a chamber similar to a reproductive organ.  The tide was fast receding.  He was now well above the water.  He flapped his wings violently, but to no avail.  He did not move.  The shallow spot he had passed over broke through the surface.  He was almost exhausted when a new strategy occurred to him.  Thrusting his tail down hard against the sand, he embedded the barbs.  Arching his back until only the wing tips were touching the sand, he contracted the powerful muscles of his tail.  Bending it nearly double, he pulled himself the length of his tail closer to the water.  He repeated the action, over and over, until he slid into the water. 
     Lifting his eyestalks above the surface, he searched for a way back to the open sea. The way he had come was now blocked by a wide expanse of the orange sand; out to sea the receding tide had uncovered a rocky ridge that ran parallel to the shore as far as he could see.  For a moment, he thought about waiting for the next high tide.  But judging from the way the tide was flowing, it wouldn't be too long before the entire pool would be dry.  He would have to find a way to reach the open sea. 
      Running for his life, he streaked off along the rocky ridge, opposite the way that he had come.  The water had a good strong flow to it.  He thought it was a good sign, until he came upon a place where the ridge turned and ran across his path up the beach.  Several slits, all too narrow for Treme to squeeze through, were allowing the water to drain out. Treme was trapped.  He remembered the darkness, the terrible scream.  Fear clawed its way out of the dark recesses of his mind.  Somewhere beyond the present reality, the fear attacked him.  In an effort to get away, he dove and streaked along the sandy bottom.  The fear caught him and began to strangle him.  In an attempt to break the imaginary hold, his powerful wings beat feverishly against the sea.  Up he went, breaking through the surface and sailing high into the air. 
     The sudden change in pressure, from the water to the air, brought him around. Quickly, he assessed his new situation.  Intuitively, he spread his wings, arched his back, and glided lazily back to the open sea.

       During the next two cycles of the nearer moon, Treme, aided by operations and memory systems, studied the plant material stored in his psuedowomb.  He sought out similarities with plants required for a CLY-1 environment using the biology indexes contained in memory systems.  Then he cross checked the potential changes against the necessary changes in gas ratios of both air and water.  Three possibilities emerged with good odds for survival.  Interbreeding potentials were excellent; as were the predicted environmental trends.  Inside Treme's psuedowomb, spores were created with altered forms of the native plants genetic code.  Three separate, distinct alterations that paralleled three of the species that would be required at the end of the period of restructuring were manufactured.
        It was a cold gray, overcast day, when Treme returned to the shore to place the spores that he had created among those of the native plants.  Racing toward the shore at a furious pace, he dove deep into the water.  Streaking back up toward the surface, his muscular wings swiftly propelled him through the water.  With but a minimum of spray lost to the breeze, he emerged from the warm water and sailed high into the cold air.  Confidently, he glided for the largest patch of cold killed vegetation. 
     Down he swooped, lower and lower.  He landed with a hollow thud and rolled, a graceless heap, into a mound of dead plants.  The leaves below him crackled as he dug a shallow hole with his tail.  With a number of soul wrenching contractions of specialized muscles, Treme emptied the spores into the hole.  A wide sweep of one of his wings covered the hole with sand and dead vegetation.  His task accomplished, Treme began to pull himself back toward the sea.  Almost effortlessly, he slipped, nearly exhausted, into the warmth of the water.  He had planned this trip carefully.  It was high tide, and he swam slowly back out to sea. 
      For two cycles of seasons, he wandered the seas, altering the plants and the primitive animal life; subtly leading the sea through a period of early evolution.  Some changes were already beginning to show.  The violet vegetation was now intermingled with green chlorophyll bearing plants.  Between the ground hugging leaves of the plants, fernlike stalks had begun to grow, promising shade in years to come. 
     Treme moved quietly, aimlessly, just off the coast, surveying the growing abundance of life.  The first round was over; now he would have to wait until the new system had stabilized, before he attempted any further alterations.  Resigned, that he would have to wait, he slipped off through the slowly changing sea into the safety of deep water.       With his powerful wings swirling the water, he descended into a steep walled canyon. Twisting sideways, he entered a small crevice near the canyon floor and sealed himself inside. Within minutes, he was deep in hibernation.  Operations would wake him in twenty-five seasonal cycles.

      Centuries passed as Treme worked to restructure the seas.  He alternated between short periods of activity and long periods of hibernation.  Three cycles of the nearer moon had passed since Treme had awakened from his twelfth hibernation.  The sea was nearly complete.  Some of his plants had already begun to make the land beyond the beach their home.  Soon he would join them.
      That night he leaped into the air and glided into a young coniferous forest.  On the forest floor, he worked in the layered shadows cast by the twin moons.  The nearer moon rode the zenith, while the distant one lay low on the seaward horizon.  He lay in the dense vegetation and rolled, gathering foliage to him.  He bound it tightly against his body with a silk-like thread that he forced out of a duct near the barbs on his tail.  It took hours to finish the task,  The nearer moon had dipped below the horizon, and the farther one had already crossed the zenith, when he was finally able to pull his tail in and seal up the opening behind it. 
     He thought of the darkness that still seemed to hang heavy upon the cosmos.  Dropping off into hibernation, he left the task of initiating the process that would adapt him to life on the land to Operations.

      Two cycles of seasons passed as Treme's body slowly changed.  Amber lights softly pulsed.  Treme clawed his way back toward consciousness, struggling against the pangs of fear that came after him out of the darkness.  When he finally achieved consciousness, he didn't need operations to tell him that his second metamorphosis had been completed.  He could feel the difference.  He was now roughly humanoid, similar to the images of the originals. With a four digited hand, he reached out and used a sharp thumbnail to slice through the layers of decayed foliage and silk strands.  The cocoon split open, revealing a tightly rolled ball of arms and legs.  Slowly, he lifted his large bald head from his small hairy chest.  He uncurled his sinuous arms from around his knees, and straightened his slumped shoulders.  With delicate fingers, he reached up and unfurled his large pointed ears.  Through brilliant orange eyes he stared into the quiet of the hot muggy afternoon.
       Treme stood shakily upon muscular legs, gazing through the giant ferns and thin coniferous trees at the soft green sky.  He took a few cautious steps toward the beach, stumbled and fell into a patch of delicate ferns.  Fascinated, he lay there for a long moment taking in their fragrance. When he regained his feet, he could smell the moisture from the sea.  Carefully he made his way through the lush undergrowth toward the beach. 
     Once on the narrow strip of surf pounded sand, he began to run, splashing through the swells where they spread themselves thin upon the sand.  Large leathery wings unfolded from his back.  He opened them full and climbed effortlessly into the twilight sky.  He soared through the moist, cool air, sharing the sky with the gibbous nearer moon.  Lazily he circled down toward a large fern. With a gentle back beating motion of his wings he landed in the curl atop the fern.  Folding his wings, he settled down into the damp softness. 
     The night slowly darkens.  During the warm cycle the galaxy rides the daytime skies.  It is a starless night.  The gibbous nearer moon drops low and is hidden behind the trees. There is not a trace of wind.  The silence is overpowering, the darkness is penetrating.  Treme stares into the emptiness.  The nearer moon slips below the world.  The darkness is total.  The orb slowly rotates.  The night hangs heavy upon Treme.  There is no sight, no sound.  In the midst of such extreme sensory deprivation, the fear does not come.  Treme searching the empty blackness, feels a presence, a minute stirring in the silence at some immense distance.  It exists for only an instant.  He is not alone.  Somewhere in the midst of that endless void, there exists life.  A cool breeze begins to stir.  The sliver of the farther moon rises, followed closely by dawn.  The bright disc of Rhea climbs sizzling out of the sea. 
      Treme rises, opening his wings to the damp morning breeze. Without a wasted motion, he climbs into the sky and heads inland, leaving the lush growth of the seacoast behind.  He flies on, passing over a wide zone where the growth is sparse.  Further inland, the sparse growth fades into the rocky, gravel strewn landscape.  Off in the distance, a majestic mountain range rises into the soft green haze of the sky. 
     The ground slides beneath him as he sails on.  In the periphery of his vision, he catches a glimpse of a growth lined river winding through the ever rising foothills.  He glides swiftly toward the river, dropping from the sky to land gently upon a rocky bank.  He carefully examines the life that abounds there.  Some of the plants are his creations, but a great many of them are distinct variations.  A creature new to Treme, jumped from the ferns down on the water's edge into the murky water.  It had legs.  Life had emerged from the water without Treme's aid.  The orb was beginning to take on a life of its own. 
     Spreading his wings, he turns and climbs swiftly into the sky, heading for the mountains.  After several minutes of intense flying, he lands upon a large outcropping of rock high up on the steep face of the loftiest peak.  He would search for a cave in which to prepare his lair. 
     Treme did not rest during that active period, nor the next six.  Fevered by the idea that life existed elsewhere, he would not sleep.  He worked during the daylight hours cultivating his world, but he spent the nights searching the heavens for that distant presence. 
      With his thoughts lost in the distance, he toiled away the days restructuring his orb. The land masses turned a radiant green with plant life.  The voices of his creatures hid the silence.  Treme hardly noticed.  He had begun to count the passage of time by fruitless nights, rather than fruitful days.  Fruitless nights passed into fruitless active periods.  Which in turn gave way to the deep sleep of long hibernation periods.       Madness claimed him near the end of his sixth active period as a creature of the land. With his orb now completely restructured, his function was decreased to that of a mere caretaker until the originals arrived and they would never arrive! 
     The darkness, the silence, the fear, crushed in upon him from all directions.  Not the bright light of Rhea high in the warm sky, his world, nor his creations could penetrate the silent darkness that surrounded him.  He wandered for days, delirious, inside his bubble of loneliness and self-pity, crying for help.

      Submerged in the deepest depths of darkness, Treme lay face down on the forest floor, exhausted.  The night is warm and black.  Both moons are below the world.  Darkness reigns.  Abruptly, Treme slides from a dreamless sleep into a state of imprisoned awareness. He struggles mightily to escape into the world of sleep.  Visions torment him. He sees himself-stumbling blindly from the path of the light and falling into the darkness of a futureless existence.  He screams, but nothing disturbs his slumbering body.
      From the silent darkness of interstellar space, snatches of light and emotion, images of places and times, flow through Treme.  Images appear in ordered fashion, one at a time, with vast expanses of blackness between. 
      An alien history unfolds within Treme.  Lightening storms rage through a methane atmosphere, darkness.  A primitive sea reeks with organic compounds, darkness.  Life stirs in an alien ocean, darkness.  Strange creatures emerge from the maturing sea, darkness. Semi-intelligent creatures play among the branches of a dense rain forest, darkness. Tribes of near-intelligent bipedal creatures roam grassy plains, darkness.  Intelligent creatures inhabit a city of wood and stone, darkness. The same creatures rush through their lives in a giant city of steel and glass, darkness.  The creatures, slightly evolved, live their lives in crystal cities inside artificial habitats that ring the yellow star at the center of their system. A static of sorts interrupts the series of images.       A stunning image erupts upon his imprisoned consciousness in startling detail.  A golden sunset, punctuated by the embrace of a pair of fair skinned bipedal creatures hovers in his mind.  The sharp edges of the bright crimson grains of sand caught between her clinched toes stand out in relief against the soft yellow hue of her skin.  Their lips are pressed together with a passion discernible even in the stillness of the image. The last rays of sunlight seem to dance above the gentle swells that ride the horizon of the silver hued sea, surrounding the lovers with a radiant halo.  Static once again interferes.  The image of an immense vessel traveling through the blackness of space flows into his mind, only to slip away as the crescent of his orb's nearer moon rises out of the sea.   Treme slides into a deep sleep. 
      The pale light from the rising crescent moon filters through thickly leafed boughs and falls upon the tangled underbrush below, highlighting the varihued stems and leaves giving them identity, separating the life from the darkness, A warm breeze rustles through the young hardwood forest, leading dense clouds across the sky, obscuring the moon allowing the darkness to consume the life upon the forest floor.  The rain comes down with a sudden rush, plastering the darkness upon the forest.  The rain pelts down, beating upon the darkened ground with such ferocity, that it seemed the life there could never recover.  Like precious gems, raindrops begin to reflect fragments of light, as the rising Rhea sends awkward rays streaming through breaks in the disbanding cloud cover.  A breeze wet with moisture chases the remnants of the clouds inland.  As the heat from Rhea begins to dry away the excess water, the plants respond to the light.  Dragging themselves slowly upright, they display their beleaguered, varihued stems and leaves to the morning. 
     Treme lay beneath the canopy of trees, listening to the droplets falling among the leaves above. The indirect light of Rhea warmed his wet body.  He stood and shook himself.  It was a beautiful day.  Rhea, rising into the sky, sent her light reflecting from the lush colors of Treme's orb.
      Treme was pleased.  Eagerly, he walked out of the forest into a flowered meadow and climbed into the sky.  He hurried off toward his mountain top lair.  There was a lot of restructuring to do.  Someday his world would join the other intelligent species of the cosmos.  Then the restructuring of the universe could begin.  Treme could not wait.