The Silex tore through the void of space.

The Silex was roughly 1 metre in height and was about 30 centimetres in diameter. And while it was shaped in a roughly cylinder form, the edges that made up the top of its head was cracked and shaped like a series of ridges. Ridges that made the top of its pink, crystalline body look almost pointed.

The Silex’s strange bodies were something that marked them out even amongst other crystalloid races that existed throughout the universe. And while that alone should have been enough to make them unique, the truth was that they had long ago become something many would consider impossible… or godly.

For they had long ago discovered the truth of sentience. They had figured out that organic brains and even some inorganic brains had the power to tap into the Nous Dimension. The Nous Dimension was a dimension of limitless energy that when drawn into this universe could be formed into a matrix that not only sustained itself but also acted much like a computer. This Nous Matrix would then be able to interface with a brain enabling the thought and experience to be relayed back and forth, creating sentience. Which was why when the Silex spread their knowledge across the cosmos and to all the sentient life bound within, many called what they had discovered a soul.

Once the Silex had discovered the concept of the Nous Matrix, they then began to learn how to create souls. Then they learned how to harvest souls before eventually succeeding in creating a means of transferring said souls. This was how the Silex had changed from organic beings to what they were now, souls bound within pink, crystalline bodies.

The Silex were not fools. They had realised early on that organics failed, that they were capable of being broken and destroyed. So they had sought ways to become more than mere flesh and bone. They had desired to become something eternal. This is why they had made their new bodies out of a material that should not exist in this universe, a material that they had fashioned from scratch.

The Silex had been the first to summon into being the Atzmus Crystal that they currently inhabited. It was a material that was invulnerable to all things, a material that was made by drawing energy from the Nous Dimension and converting it into physical matter. This matter once forged proved to be unchangeable, however due to being born from the same place as souls the two interacted with each other in a rather interesting way.

The Atzmus Crystal could not be reshaped. However when interacting with a soul, the soul could change the energy of the crystal. Thought could create or destroy kinetic energy allowing for velocity to be changed instantly. Thought could also change temperature, allow or resist gravity, create waves of harmonic energy within the crystal producing sound or light. This in turn allowed the crystal to act as eyes and ears for the Silex, so that they could perceive the universe in its untempered beauty and wonder. 

With the Atzmus in hand the Silex had dedicated themselves to help save all the souls of the universe. The Silex had decided to go forth and rescue and protect the souls of every creature in the universe, and to mourn those that they were unable to save. And while they protected souls as best they could, the Silex also tried to guide the various alien races of the universe to safe guard their souls inside Atzmus Crystals.

This was why this particular Silex travelled along at the Third Cosmic Velocity, a velocity it considered to be glacially slow, as it headed toward a world abundant in organic life. To help those that it would be acting as an envoy for. But since it had to travel so slowly in this solar system, the Silex had a lot of time to reminisce.

The Silex turned its mind to the many adventures it had had across this boundless and beautiful universe. The Silex remembered the time it had absentmindedly travelled through the heart of a blue sun. It had been so lost in thought that only after emerging from the other side of the sun and being hailed by battle ready spaceships that demanded to know what it was, that the Silex had realised what it had done. The Silex also remembered when it had flown across the event horizon of a black hole to save the souls of those that had fallen in. Souls that had been returned to the world that they had originally come from safe and sound.

The Silex also remembered when it had come across a star in the process of exploding. And wanting to see what would come next; the Silex had been the first to test to see if their invulnerable bodies could withstand the sheer power of a hypernova. A test that the Silex was extremely happy to say had been successful.

Shifting its attention away from its internal thoughts, the Silex used its crystalline body to look ahead towards its destination, a planet orbiting a yellow sun, a world that in turn had three moons orbiting around it. A world that was perfectly habitable for those that the Silex had come to meet up with: Humans.

 Slowly creeping forwards at speeds that dwarfed the speed of sound, the Silex felt a spark of amusement at the fact that humans had requested that it limit its speed while travelling through their solar systems. Both humans and Silex knew that the Silex had perfect control over their velocity and that they could instantly change how fast they were travelling in a single second. A fact that allowed the Silex to move at velocities that defied the limits of the speed of light. But in the end, the Silex understood the fear that the organic beings possessed. For if a mistake occurred, unlike the Silex, they would not survive whatever transpired.

Continuing to study the world before it, the Silex marvelled at the sight, especially at its three moons. For it was clear to the Silex that the moons were unnatural. Each of the moons measured the exact same size and shape. They were all on the same orbit, not to mention they were all equidistant from both each other and the world below. Pondering how the humans had managed to make this possible, the Silex was pleased to note that the moons had been arranged in such a way as to prevent the seas of the world below from being adversely affected.

Drawing closer, the Silex reached out with its sensors. It began to scan the world for its target, the man that went by the name of Jerral, the man who would be its fellow envoy between the two very different races.

Sensing his soul bound within a flesh and blood construct, the Silex wanted to sigh as the humans called it. For it was clear that despite the two thousand years that they had been communicating between each other, Jerral was still insistent on remaining organic. A feat of stubbornness that was almost impressive, but in the end the Silex was not too bothered, as when one conquered death, time became your ally.

And both the humans and the Silex had conquered death long ago.

Finally reaching the edge of the planet’s atmosphere, the Silex descended down and honed in on its target, its fellow diplomat. However now that it was within the atmosphere of the planet, the Silex had to move at an even slower velocity, another request by the humans. A request that seemed to fail to take into account that its body was made to be frictionless, so no matter how fast it moved through the air it would not cause damage to the environment. In fact, the crystalline body even had a feature imbedded in it that allowed the atmosphere of any planet it passed through to effortlessly flow around the crystal. This meant that the Silex would not generate even a faint ripple in the air, let alone a sonic boom.

Approaching the location where the Silex could detect Jerral, the Silex was surprised to see that Jerral was not on either land or sea or even spacecraft. Instead, Jerral appeared to be atop a floating island in the sky. Pausing as it approached ,the Silex took a moment to scan over the island that in truth looked like a miniature continent suspended in the air, and wonder to itself how the land mass was airborne.

Seeking out the source of the strange phenomenon, the Silex soon discovered the cause of the island’s buoyancy.

The island had beneath it several hundred Zero Density Crystals that were acting as the required lift for the floating island. These Zero Density Crystals were nothing more than buckyballs, or as they were properly called Buckminsterfullerene, that had been increased in size until they were macroscopic. What’s more, the humans had made sure to keep the inside of the sphere of carbon matter filled with a vacuum. This absence of matter caused the density of the material to decrease to such an extreme that it reached practically zero.

This property of the Zero Density Crystals meant that even in some of the thinnest of atmospheres the crystals would float up to reach the edge of the sky, perhaps even be ejected out of the atmosphere and into space itself. And with this property the 1 metre crystal spheres were being used to lift an entire landmass up into the sky just high enough so that clouds could drift by under the man made Sky Island.

Puzzled that humanity would create something like this using such simple chemistry but still had to use energy shielding to make sure that the island was kept perfectly warm, the Silex put aside the matter as it drifted close to the island. For if it stopped to try and unravel all of humanities quirks then it would be here long after the world that it floated above had turned to dust.

Floating through the pillars and columns of the island, the Silex continued on to its destination, a temple like structure that stood at the centre of the landmass. A temple that had design characteristics from so many different periods in human history that it felt ancient yet at the same time seemed to evoke an ageless wonder.

“Bob,” cried out a voice that caught the attention of the Silex, a voice that it remembered from its last visit to humanity some two hundred of their years ago.

Focusing in on the source of the voice the Silex, who the humans called Bob, looked at Jerral as he stood on the temple’s steps, his fellow diplomat clearly please to see him. Jerral had his right arm raised as he gave the floating mass of Atzmus Crystal a lazy wave, a wave that was both trying to catch Bob’s attention and also trying to get it to come on over.

Moving almost instantly between its current location and the location next to Jerral, Bob arrived at the side of the man and came to a stop. Its body slowly floating up and down as it used sound to speak to Jerral.

“Hello Jerral,” said Bob in greetings as it made sure to speak in the same language that Jerral had spoken. It’s voice an echoing crystalline choir that made it sound unearthly and at the same time angelic all at once.

“I’m glad to see you,” said Jerral as he smiled at the floating mass of pink crystal, “I was beginning to get worried.”

“Why worry about me?” asked Bob clearly confused about the statement as Jerral should know that it was beyond indestructible.

“You were a day late. We were worried you got lost,” said Jerral with a smile that expressed his relief at having been proven wrong.

Passively floating up and down by only a few centimetres in either direction, Bob turned his mind inwards to begin calculating the time only to realise that due to having to move at such a slow velocity it had indeed been a day late.

“My apologies, my calculations of my arrival time were based on me travelling at greater speeds than your regulations allow,” explained Bob, its crystalline choir voice, while beautiful lacked any form of emotion that would indicate that it was truly sorry.

“That’s okay, so long as you’re fine,” said Jerral as he turned to walk into the white temple up the stairs, his mannerisms indicating that Bob should follow him.

“I fail to see why you think that I would not be ‘fine’,” said Bob its crystalline voice ringing through the air. “I am made from Atzmus Crystal. Nothing can break me, so what is there to fear?”

“Just because your body is indestructible does not mean that your soul is not,” said Jerral in rejoinder, a comment that caused the Silex to acknowledge that the human had a point.

Upon death the Nous Matrix, or the soul as humans put it, would detach from the organic or even inorganic life form that had created it. Once detached the soul would linger and float about, some with enough sense of self to see and hear the world around it even perhaps interact with it. Especially if those that it was interacting with had the ability to perceive the soul, however this also meant that some souls lacked the sense of self to continue to function.

And when the soul ceased to function properly, they would be absorbed up by the Nous Dimension, lost to the quantum mesh of the universe. They would become irretrievable save for a cosmic fluke. And while some theorised that souls could spontaneously appear and disappear from one part of the universe to another, and be retrievable in those instances, the truth was that once consumed by the Nous Dimension a soul was gone forever.

“You were concerned that I had run afoul of something that had caused me to become lost in the Nous Dimension?” enquired Bob having reached the only conclusion that would allow for a human to worry about it.

“Not quite but why not,” said Jerral as he led the floating mass of crystal and soul into the temple.

The inside of the temple was a wondrous mixture of Ancient Greek temples and catholic churches. The pillars that supported the steeple were white pristine columns that stood easily over 20 metres tall. The automated stained glass windows that covered some of the walls and let in light depicted the history of humanity, from antiquity to the modern day. It showcased the beginning of humanity making fire up to the creation of immortality and then to the process when they had discovered how to house a soul. Each stained glass window seemed to move back and forth as if they were acting out the same scenario over and over again.

Taking in the exhibit of glass that portrayed humanity’s history in such a fascinating and beautiful way, Bob hummed with energy as it continued to survey everything around it all the while keeping abreast with Jerral.

“So what do you wish to talk to us about this time?” asked Jerral as they headed into the temple, its vast open nature something that seemed to dwarf the organic humanoid.

“What do you mean?” asked Bob curiously as it tried to follow the logic of the chemical computer humans called a brain.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Every hundred years or so, one of you turns up here to talk about humanity,” explained Jerral as the two came to a stop so that he could stare at Bob. Bob in turn shifted its body so that its tipped head would be facing Jerral, an act designed to help the human by giving it something akin to a face to talk to.

“And?” prompted Bob as it became clear that Jerral was waiting for a response from the Silex before him.

“An each time you talk about how humanity should advance. You like to talk about how we should abandon our organic bodies and become crystalloid…”

“It really is the safest option for both you and your souls,” interrupted Bob.

“While Churn likes to talk about how we should change our technology and upgrade to being more in line with how the lot of you were in our past,” continued Jerral, unmindful of the good natured interruption.

Humming with a small frequency that barely registered to Jerral, Bob turned it mind to its counterpart, its fellow Silex, which Jerral had named Churn, for whatever mad reason. The human clearly had some way of telling Churn and Bob apart. The two of them had volunteered to interact with humanity and had been taking turns visiting every hundred years. Each had their own ideas about how to help humanity grow and evolve into truly immortal beings. But human stubbornness had prevented them from changing to any significant degree over their two thousand years they had interacted with humanity. 

“Churn seems to be under the impression that if we follow the same technological route as the Silex we will eventually become as you. We will give up these rudimentary bodies and grow beyond organic limitations,” continued Jerral unheeding of Bob’s internal contemplation.

“I have a question for you, Jerral,” said Bob as it drifted up higher so that it was about the same height as Jerral’s head, which was roughly 1.7 metres off the ground.

“If I can answer it, I will,” said Jerral as he nodded solemnly at the crystal before him, aware that it was rare for the Silex to ask questions.

“How can you tell the two of us apart?” asked Bob, its crystalline voice almost melodic in nature as it posed the question. “You might have a fragment of Atzmus crystal implanted in between your frontal lobes of your brain, but other than that I don’t think you have a way of making sure that I am Bob as you call me.”

“The fragment of Atzmus was an idea Churn suggested, instead of having something clunky and perishable like a nanochip to anchor our souls to. Churn suggested that we use Atzmus and we have for near two thousand years,” admitted Jerral with a laugh before he grew serious, “a suggestion that we can never stop being thankful for.”

“I am glad we were able to help you and yours but you have failed to answer my question,” said Bob unbothered by the roundabout route that the conversation was taking.

“Why are you suddenly so concerned about this?” asked Jerral sensing that the Silex was at a tipping point.

“Your assurance that I am ‘Bob’ and not ‘Churn’ is curious as there should be no way to tell us apart visually. In fact, I am not even sure this is the same body that I last visited you in,” admitted Bob, as when two Silex collide in space they would sometimes swap bodies and continue on their journey. With neither Silex even becoming aware they had swapped bodies let alone collided with their brethren without checking the internal, identification codes inside the Atzmus Crystal.

“That’s simple, in fact it’s in your names,” said Jerral with a smile, for after thousands of years he was now able to tell the punch line to his little, joke names. “Your names are based on your individual habits.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bob, as it floated up and down on the spot in annoyance failing to see how Bob could relate to how it acted.

“You like to bob up and down in the air. It gets more pronounced when you get emotional, which is why it’s hard to notice but when you do you can’t stop noticing. As for Churn, it likes to rotate back and forth along its vertical axis, which is where it got its name from,” explained Jerral as he smiled kindly, even as he pointed out the habits of the Silex that they had failed to notice for untold millennia.

Shocked that the human had managed to notice something so pedantic yet something that was so defining that it enabled identification, Bob jerked to a standstill as it realised that it was indeed bobbing up and down.

Chuckling at the sight of the frozen Silex, Jerral started to walk out of the main section of the temple. Following after him mostly because it was on autopilot, Bob, as it reached the edge of the temple, paused as it detected a sudden increase in the number of humans about.

“What is happening?” asked Bob as it turned to look at the humans that were slowly starting to trickle in.

“Oh that,” said Jerral as he realised what had drawn Bob’s attention, “they’re just here for the resurrection.”

“The resurrection?” queried Bob as it focused in on the humans that were wearing all manner of attire. Some of the attire clearly being from some form of military, while others wore garbs that Bob recognised came from religious or medical fields that humans practised.

“They’re here to witness and welcome back a human getting resurrected,” said Jerral as he saw that Bob’s interest had been transfixed by what was occurring. “We weren’t sure if you would turn up after you were late yesterday, so we decided to hold it today regardless of your presence here.”

Standing off to the side of the temple the two figures, one organic and the other crystalloid, looked on as the procession of people kept coming until the back of the temple was filled with humans. At the front of the crowd stood a small group of four people that were clearly distinct from the others present.

“How did he die? Some sort of accident?” asked Bob in its crystalline voice, a voice that was filled with curiosity. A curiosity that compelled it to continue to watch on and record the information of what it was seeing to relay it all back to its fellow Silex.

“No. He died during a war,” explained Jerral as he briefly became stone faced at the fact that a human had died fighting anything let alone another human.

“To the best of my knowledge you have not had a war for over seven thousand years,” said Bob with a soft hum, as it noted a discrepancy in the information.

“True but John Weyland died in a war dating back to when we were still limited to a single planet,” explained Jerral as he slowly seemed to let loose the tension that had appeared when he had to explain to the Silex what was occurring.

Continuing to hum as it processed its new data, Bob realised that this would mean that the soul had been without a body for at least seven and a half thousand years if not more. In fact, it could be longer still as Jerral’s words were ambiguous enough that he could mean that the soul predated even their first attempt at space flight.

“You were able to locate a soul that had been ethereal for so long,” said Bob in amazement. “How did it survive? How did you locate it? Was there any particular information about the environment around the soul that would indicate it helped maintain the soul in the material dimension?”

“No,” said Jerral as his attention was more fixed upon the body that some of the clergy were rolling out to be seated directly below the automated stained glass dome above that was shining a beautiful light into the temple.

“No,” repeated Bob in annoyance, as it bobbed up and down next to Jerral, a sign that Bob didn’t like having to coax the information out of the organic being that was lost in its emotions.

“John did not have to endure millennia as a soul. We were able to retrieve him,” explained Jerral curtly.

Feeling the enormity of what Jerral had just told it settle into its mind, Bob had to admit that Jerral was perfectly justified in getting lost in emotion. The fact that the humans had succeeded in finding and capturing a soul from so long ago was something of a miracle, one that even awed the Silex.

Wheeling the body into place, the clergy pulled the sheet that covered the entire sleeping human down so that his head and face were exposed for the human crowd to see. Gasping at the sight, the group of four humans that stood apart looked on with teary eyes as they waited for John Weyland to wake up.

Starting to twitch the man called John Weyland began to breath heavier as his soul became more integrated with his flesh and blood body. And as his mind returned and began to take control of his restored body John let out a scream of pain as he finally regained consciousness.

Thrusting his hands out so that the sheet that had been covering them fluttered to the ground, John seemed to be panting and staring off into the dome above his gaze unfixed as if he was not comprehending the sudden change to his existence. From his perspective he had gone from a bloody battle that had left him dying in a pool of blood and mud to now being in a white and majestic place. But the thing that dominated John’s mind was the left hand that he had stretched out before him, a hand that he vividly remembered losing to an artillery shell.

Continuing to monitor the human in the centre of the temple, Bob was able to see the confusion and then wonder as John gripped his hand open and shut as if he couldn’t believe that he had a left hand. Then noticing that he was free of pain and shrapnel John’s attention seemed to shift to his surroundings.

Wonder and awe flirted across John’s face as he took everything in, the pristine temple, the moving glass images, and the fact that he was bathed in warm light. But what stopped John dead was when he turned his head and saw the four humans that had slowly crept forward to meet him.

“Dad?” said John, his voice echoing out of his throat, a voice laden with so much emotion that it became impossible to determine what they were, even for John.

“Yes son, it’s me,” said the man as he rushed to stand beside his son, his right hand entangling John’s right hand.

“You’re dead,” said John his voice cracking, as a new wave of emotions began filling his soul, “you’re younger too.”

“So are you,” said the father, his face breaking into a sad smile that caused John to stare in confusion before he began to understand what had happened and what his father had said to him.

Confused, John looked around and saw that the two women that were amongst the group of four were people he also knew.

“Mum, Emily,” said John, his voice breaking with despair and at the same time something other, something so much more primal it lacked a word to convey it.

“Yes we’re here,” said the one called Emily as she gripped John’s left hand as she tried to assuage the primal feelings that were building within John.

“So am I,” said the last of the four, another youthful man, who had tears streaming down his face as he tried to look on stoically at John’s prone figure.

“David?” said John, as another wave of shock rolled through him, his body quivering as if it was unable to even process or contain what he was feeling.

“Yeah it’s me,” said David as he drew closer to John so that the two of them, brothers by their looks, could speak almost face to face.

“I saw you die, a month ago. I couldn’t save you,” cried John as he finally began to comprehend what was happening around him, comprehension that finally allowed John to begin to process the emotions that dwelled within.

“Is this heaven?” asked John as he looked about him, not even really blinking at the sight of a floating pink crystal, before looking back at the four humans that were standing by his side.

“No, this is 10,000 AD,” said John’s father rather calmly as he looked at his son with pride and love, and joy at being able to see him again.

Blinking in confusion, tears upon his face, John could not quite seem to understand what had been said, but in the end it didn’t matter. Because as he looked about he saw others that had been with him on the battlefield, others still that he had met and known as a child and finally as he looked out he could see grouping that instantly allowed him to understand. He was looking not just at those that had died with him or before him. He was also looking at those that had died long after him.

Letting loose a cry, the temple was filled with his scream, a scream that was not born of pain or even joy.

It was a cry that was born from salvation.

Hearing the strange cry and feeling the resonance of emotion within, the Silex turned to look at Jerral and simply waited for the envoy of humanity to begin to explain.

“He died during the first Great War, a war to end all wars, or as it was called long after: the First World War,” explained Jerral slowly as he regained control of the emotions that had bubbled to the surface while watching the resurrection. “We find it best to hold onto souls that die in battle and try and get family, friends and loved ones to be nearby when they return. Although, that is not always possible.”

Ignoring the cheers that had sprung up around John as waves of people began to greet him and welcome him back to life, Bob continued to stare at Jerral awaiting the most important bit of information.

“How did you find his soul?” asked Bob when it became apparent that Jerral was not going to offer up an unprompted answer.

“After we unlocked the secrets of biological immortality, there were many of us, millions really that wanted to find a way to revive those that had perished before we could defeat death. Many also wanted to find a way to revive those that somehow died permanently afterwards as well,” said Jerral, his eyes fixed upon the scene before him. “Then we met the Silex, and we learned that souls aren’t destroyed if they are not collected in time. They are simply lost to the Nous Dimension. So we tried many things over and over again until finally we succeeded.”

“You found a way to retrieve a soul from the Nous Dimension,” Bob said in a voice that was as close to a whisper as its crystalline nature could allow.

“No, trying to retrieve a soul from there is nigh-impossible,” corrected Jerral with a quick decisiveness that left no misunderstanding between the two.

Facing each other, the two ensouled beings stared at each other for a long moment, their gazes fixed as they ignored the celebration that was occurring nearby.

 “Then how?” asked Bob at last as it could think of no other way to reclaim a soul once its vessel had perished without the correct safeguards in place.

“We reached through time and retrieved his soul,” explained Jerral with a seriousness that neither Bob nor Churn had seen in the two thousand years they had known him.

“Time travel is…” began the Silex, its crystalline voice echoing with horror at the idea of tampering with time.

“It is more trouble than it is worth,” said Jerral as he cut off the Silex, as Jerral did not want another lecture of the horrors of messing with time. “What we have done is simply peer through time track a soul after its body died and just as it was about to enter the Nous Dimension we snatch the soul up.”

Too stunned to even begin to process what the human had just told it, the Silex remained perfectly still, its stationary nature a sign that the mind and soul within had ground to a halt at seeing this impossibility be rendered something mundane.

“We have been doing this for centuries, reaching back and retrieving the dead, and scanning and copying the DNA of their original bodies. We then bring them back in the best version of their bodies that we can. And we don’t intend to stop. Not now not ever,” said Jerral as he looked at the Silex. His gaze fixing upon the Silex not in a way that challenged the million year old creature, but in a way that simply stated what he was saying was a universal truth.

Incapable of responding to what was being said to it, the Silex continued to remain fixed in place as Jerral continue to speak, his words gushing forth as if he finally wanted to explain himself. As if he wanted others to know what they were doing either to receive judgement or acceptance.

“We will resurrect all of humanity. We will save them all. We will go as far back as needed. As far back as the dawn of human sentience and then even further if needed, until we cannot find any more souls to resurrect,” exclaimed Jerral in a voice that was both even and measured, but at the same time filled with the emotions of all of humanity.

The Silex contemplated what had been said to it, what it had discovered here in this one little planet, this one little corner of the universe. And as it did so it couldn’t help but marvel at what it had found.

When Death is conquered, Time becomes your ally, allowing you to accomplish feats that would normally be out of reach even with the lifespan of a thousand years. This was common knowledge all throughout the universe; everyone knew this as truth beyond questioning. But these humans had done something no one else had. They had bested Death and conquered Time. And then they had set their eyes upon the Rules of Reality itself.

Instead of accepting that these rules were things that had to be worked around, humanity had reached out and broken them. They had snapped them like they were a twig. And then they had used them to build something brand new. This was why humanity had created a floating continent not because it served an actual purpose, but because they had wanted to be as awesome as possible. 

Understanding humanity in a way that it had never done before, the Silex turned its mind back to its long, long history. It had been inside its Atzmus body for over a million years and before that had been an organic creature for a few thousand years, and in all that time it had never experienced what it was experiencing today.

Letting lose a small burst of light and musical sound as it finally became coherent enough to control its Atzmus body, the Silex known as Bob focused all of its attention on Jerral and asked a question.

“Would you be willing to share this technology with us?” asked the Silex as it pulsed with an inner light. An inner light that mirrored its joy at the idea of saving and resurrecting those that had been lost to death over a million years ago.

“We would be delighted to share this with you,” said Jerral with a smile that revealed the relief he felt at being accepted by the Silex. “Come with me, we’ll begin discussing all we know.”

Following after Jerral, the Silex began to contemplate what it thought about humans, and about what its kind in general thought of them. And as it evaluated humanity in its whole, it realised that the Silex had been so very short sighted.

 The Silex had been wrong about humanity, and in their arrogance they had failed to see that these organic creatures were something so much greater than they had ever become.

For humanity was Victory Incarnate.