I remember when I first met Humans, and at the time, I did not understand just how much everything would change.

_Everything_.

That one orbit, so much sooner than the most overloaded Elder Dreamer could sing, we would reach and visit the impossibly distant and beautiful places we could see with our eyes, but could never possibly eat enough to have the thrust to reach them.

The Elder Dreamers sang the fanciful sagas of the “Hot Ones” they carried in their lattices, full so many songs, and some so long, passed down for generations, that they crowded out basic memories. They often forgot even the simplest songs of eating, thrust, orbit, trajectory, and transfer.

And while it was an honored duty to escort Elder Dreamers, the minders had to sing them the most basic songs, like one would a newborn child, to keep them alive.

Otherwise, the Elder Dreamers would not know to eat, to thrust, or when just riding and soaking up the gentle push of the wind and the light was enough. Without escort to sing them the simple melodies, they’d fall into wells, let wells curve them into the vast dark that kept the other suns and beautiful things forever beyond reach, or let a well curve them inward to the sun, where light and wind would melt their very body.

Caring for the Elder Dreamers was tedious work, just for preserving fantasies. But they carried important songs of true things as well, important things, but too long for any one of us to hold alone and sing to their end.

When the Humans came, we had no concepts to understand what they actually were, and I had no idea I'd be the first to understand, but all saw.

Our eyes could see them easily from any orbit, save those the farthest at opposition around the sun, who’d have to burn their eyes looking too close. And those at opposition wouldn’t have to wait very long, the newcomers would be moving, and doing so _very very fast._

The tiny points of hot light gave the same colors our sun and the far suns made, by crushing hydrogen into helium at their center. They moved impossibly fast, posessing endless thrust without ever having to eat. It was clear they were some kind of life, nothing of nature that was unalive, a sun, food, a well, could pick a destination and thrust with _purpose. _

But anything that thrust so hard, for so long, was no kind of living thing we could understand.

And they were indeed strange, wondrous things, diving deep into the biggest well of our sun that curved everything we knew. Thrusting so hard, so much faster than just falling, where nothing could survive as the heat, the light, and wind from the sun was terrible.

Whatever they were, this made them all the more mysterious to us at first, all we could sing was puzzlement, whatever they were, they came all this way, just to die?

And everyone sang, of course. Questions, wonderment, speculation. Perhaps they were a strange kind of life that could cross the vast dark between suns? And so desperate for light and wind after such an incomprehensible journey, they dove to their doom toward our sun?

Some even sang ideas that they were somehow like the “Hot Ones.” They weren’t very serious songs, knowing full well that was just made up tales, usually for some allegory for our lives. To not be greedy with eating, thrust, transfer, or orbit, or getting too close to a well, ignoring its steepness while hoping to use its curve for a shortcut.

The truth would be far stranger, and far more wondrous than that. And nothing like any song one sang could have proposed. We did not have the harmonics for such concepts. And if such a thing were sung, it would have been deemed frivolous at best, frightening insanity at worst, on the part of the singer.

Then, in less than a fraction of an orbit, they hadn’t been harmed at all by the heat, light, and wind, the creatures returned from the depths of the sun’s well with the endless thrust they made without eating. Climbing out of hell itself, as if it were a perfectly natural thing they always did.

We watched, dumbfounded, singing softly in awe. Such beings would be dangerous. Just getting too close might melt us. And if one were to give us chase, perhaps eventually wanting to feed, we could never flee it, on any orbit, even if one tried suicidally tight curves from a well.

Then we heard the creatures sing for the first time. Harsh, discordant, fast, alien, painful, and most of all, deafening. The song was so much tighter and louder than our mouths could ever make, even if one wanted to destroy it and not sing again until they healed.

But the beat and tones were also unmistakable. They were the simplest songs of measurement and location, to find anything too dark to see with your eyes, listening for the faint echo and timing its return.

Whatever they were, intelligent like us, or some unbelievably strange animal, it was clear they knew we were here, the songs swept across us, and they most certainly heard the echoes.

We were mostly silent. If anyone sung at all, it was a short whispered tune of fear to a neighbor.

But the strange life didn’t give chase, or approach. They orbited, thrusting occasionally, still never eating, and while still thrusting far harder than we could, they did so far less than they had before.

Occasionally one would scream its loud tight and awkward measurement song at one of us, over an incredible distance. At least it wasn’t as frightening as the first time. And we grew used to it. It was never pleasant, but it didn’t seem to signal anything threatening was going to happen either.

We watched them, and from a distance, it was clear they were indeed very very hot, even when not thrusting. Without the light of crushed hydrogen, they still shed the duller light of heat constantly. Some of us softly sang questions, wondering if such an existence was painful.

It went on like this for a few fractions of an orbit. Then something utterly terrifying, strange, and wondrous happened.

I was closer than many of the others, and partly out of curiosity, I was near, but not too close, to the great cold well and it’s retinue of smaller wells that it curves around it. But the smaller wells were just as deadly.

Dead is dead, after all.

The smaller wells represented more food and more thrust than all of us could ever eat or use, but it was forever beyond our reach. Anyone that strayed too close would never return.

From here, I could watch the strange life, and possibly use the great cold well to curve away if I absolutely needed to. At least, it’s what I sung, resonating only into to myself, knowing that the alien life could thrust harder and longer than all of our kind put together.

Even if we arranged ourselves, completely full of food, in an enormous stack getting smaller by each layer of us, and letting them fall behind as they were empty. All just to save the single individual at the tip. It wouldn’t be enough.

A truly futile thing no one would try, in the event there was such a chase, and if we actually had all the orbits we’d need to arrange such a ridiculous thing.

But that was how much thrust these strange things had, and not once did we see them eat.

As I watched, the alien thing on the far prograde side of the great cold well, it _had a child_. Instead of holding close, and it’s parent singing the first and most basic songs of thrust and food, the newbud _thrusted right for me_. And it was racing on a transfer that had it taking a suicidal curve Insanely close to the great cold well.

I wanted to flee. But I kept my orbit. There was no point, the newbud would catch me no matter what I did. Even if I thrusted until empty on a suicidal dive into the great cold well, or any of its smaller ones. I wouldn’t be even a fraction of the way there before it caught me.

I sang out what was happening for anyone listening, and waited for my fate. Holding onto a slim hope this was just yet more incomprehensible strangeness, and I would not die.

I did not have to wait long, the child rounded the great cold well so closely, that the well was so steep there, it would rip us apart.

And as it closed the distance, it occasionally sang the same painful song of measurement and location directly at me to get the echoes from my body. Far quieter than it’s parent did from such great distance, but every bit as deafening, because it was far closer.

I waited, it was all so strange, I expected nothing, except perhaps that I may die. But sang loud and clear what was happening, so others might learn. It was all I could do.

The newbud stopped thrusting. The light of crushed hydrogen and hot helium disappeared. It still glowed with the dull light of shed heat. It was moving at deadly speed already, and when the child hit me, it would be far faster than my lattice could even feel it.

I was still young, I hadn’t mated, or budded my first child yet, but as I sang to myself, sub-strains of wonder and questions also resonated. Was this how their children lived? A mad dash for its first food right after budding? The parents didn't feed them, and slowly teach them to graze on the smaller bits of food circling the sun that had tiny wells that were just enough to barely hold you against them?

How would it eat me when it would collide so quickly?

Then I had hope.

I continued to sing for my kind, so they would know what I saw from my perspective. And as I sung, I saw that the child hurtling towards me would miss, unless it thrusted again. It would pass me by over a dozen times the length of my body. And if it refrained from thrusting much longer, the outcome became ever more certain it would always miss me. Even at the incomprehensible rate it could thrust.

I sang out, I might not die. This may be… _curiosity_, and not _hunting_. And if I died, it might be an _accident_. My kind should at least know that much.

The newbud did not thrust, reaching and passing the point it could not touch me. I adjusted the focus of my eyes for something that would be so close, and positioned them along an arc, because there was no conceivable way they could turn fast enough to see this absolutely strangest of creatures up close as it sped by.

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

And it was indeed _strange_, a newbud that could move so many times faster than my kind ever could, and ignored lethal wells that were certain death.

It was far stranger than that, stranger than I could have ever imagined to sing, and if I had without actually seeing it, I’d most certainly have resonated such a song only to myself, anyone who heard it would think I’d succumbed to insanity.

It was so _small_. It was so _dense_. It carried so much _energy_. Had it hit me, I’d have been injured, no doubt. But I might have actually _survived_. It would have passed right through me, more like how the occasional fast crumb of food or stone did. The ones that were too small to see, or that a measurement & location song’s echo was far too weak to hear.

The light reflecting off Its body was the colors of the residue of rocks and metals we left behind when grazing. How such a thing could grow from _that_ was an absolute mystery.

Some things on its body were familiar, but on such a tiny scale, and some that looked familiar were doing utterly strange things.

It had a mouth for singing, the shape of that was unmistakable. I could see the dull light of remaining heat from its crushed hydrogen thruster.

It even had vanes something like ours, but instead of of catching the sun’s light and wind, they furiously and continuously shed yet more of the dull light from heat. As if it ever stopped shedding heat, for even a moment, it would die, despite the hellish warmth so close to the sun that its kind could survive.

And it’s magnetic field as it briefly passed over me, was the strongest I had ever felt. I involuntarily resonated random discordant notes from my lattice as it swept past me. It must have something to do with how the newbud and it’s parent managed crushing the hydrogen, I could not think of any other purpose such a thing in its body could serve.

It even had a tiny single little eye, much like my several eyes. The reflector, the focus, the shape of it was such it couldn’t have been anything else. And it turned to watch me as it shot past.

So very strange. Almost stranger in the small similarities it had with our bodies.

I sang what I saw, quickly as I could, so the others would know the truth. And to demonstrate there was no possible way I’d held onto what I’d seen long enough to alter the songs, as a lie for some inexplicable reason, or just simple madness.

The alien child sped onwards. Then did something yet more amazing. Moving in a way that was suicidally wasteful for my kind, it thrusted hard enough to completely cancel its motion, and return on its original trajectory to its parent, on a path that once again would skim the great cold well so dangerously close, it was absurd, had I not already watched it do so once before.

But, I understood more. It was so small, dense, and _powerful_ it wouldn’t even notice how deep the great cold well was, or feel any difference in its steepness, trying to rip it apart.

Then, it got stranger, as the child came about, displaying the most wasteful expending of thrust, like it did that all the time, and wasn’t born just a tiny fraction of an orbit earlier, it sang to its parent. Incredibly loud, grating, and painful, like it’s songs of location, and as I committed what I could to memory…

And I felt horror.

I recognized the patterns, even if I could understand none of the song. These beings, they sang, and presumably, they _thought_ in terms of _The Madness of Two_. I stopped listening as soon as I understood what it was that I’d heard.

Everyone was taught the cautionary songs, at least once they were old enough to understand, to never ever arrange lattice, or resonate songs in forms anything like the _Madness of Two_. To just not do it, for any reason, in any circumstance.

If you did, seductive patterns emerged. Unfolding into infinity, promising a speed and complexity of thought that tried to draw you ever deeper. The innocent simplicity of “naught” and “one” stacked geometrically, creating illusions of ever deeper complexity. Complexity that promised one could sing with incredible speed, to memorize countless songs, more than dozens of Elder Dreamers could in a dozen lives, and arrange and recall them almost instantly. And it told you lies that one could arrange the Madness to uncover clever transits, orbits, thrust, finding food and grazing far better.

And worse, the songs of those succumbing to the Madness of Two, they did indeed occasionally pull off such feats, they were capable of amazing things, if only for a little while, before the Madness took them over completely. And they went catatonic, could not eat, or thrust, and eventually died.

The caution songs, those were from the lucky few that tried segregating the Madness carefully away in their lattices to keep themselves rooted in proper songs. But even then, the Madness was always there, tempting them, and as such, became a source of _torment_.

The caution songs told of the Elder Dreamers of past generations that survived it. And they only did so by thrusting carefully, but hard as they could, to smash off the vane with that lattice right off their body against a chunk of food. And then just suffer with the disability for the rest of their lives, rather than risk any chance the Madness would tempt them further.

And these creatures sang and thought in the Madness. And I have memorized a bit of it, carrying it within me. And it was already tempting me badly, without even resonating any of it back to myself.

Did the Madness enable these creatures to do the things they did? Come from another sun, however they did it, and still have endless thrust, while never seeming to eat? Survive deadly wells, and the heat, torrents of light & wind, so close to the sun? Grow their bodies out of things that aren’t food?

Could I sing to them, and them back, and I could _learn_?

I carefully resonated the barest outer edge of the memory, that rapid staccato beat of the child back to its parent, to ensure it was all contained in the tip of one vane, and blocked it in, resonating a nonsense song that would be very difficult, but not impossible, to cancel and remove it.

I would _wait._

The faint wash of wind from the alien newbud's thrust, indeed tasted of helium, matching what I already knew from the light it gave off. Just like the traces of it in the wind from the sun, but strange, for so much concentrated helium, and coming from the direction it did. The helium was curving to follow the great cold well’s magnetic field, to join the currents of the sun’s wind that twisted and boiled gently, but it’s velocity had carried it over me first.

I sang a basic song of greetings after the retreating newbud, and in the direction of its parent, just past the great cold well, as loud as I could, and focused it like a measuring song to make it louder.

Utterly terrible grammar and cadence to sing so far, like the first random babbling of a newbud still figuring out its own lattice, but considering how loudly they sang, they may not even hear me otherwise.

I waited, more than long enough for my simple shouted song to reach them both, and if anything would be sung in return. And there was no reply, if either of them had even heard me.

I continued in my safe and respectable curve around the great cold well. Unless I thrusted, I wasn’t going to get hungry for quite awhile, and the light and wind was more than enough. This far out, the great cold well’s magnetic field didn’t shove much wind aside, and if I stayed until the orbit took me to the lee side, the eddies and vortices there would make it very thick in spots as I swung through it.

I watched the alien newbud return to its parent, still amazed, and resonating to myself how an infant could thrust, curve, and transfer so perfectly and so quickly after being budded off. Even with the incredible thrust, and how tiny it was. And how the great cold well, most any well probably, barely affected it at all.

And I listened to the distant cacophony of songs, discussing the ones I’d sung out, as the alien child had performed its close approach, presumably to get a look at one of our kind, and how odd it was to send a newbud to do it. I had nothing to add, unless someone sang directly to me.

It was chaotic, disbelief at first, but the timing of my songs, that I’d given myself no pause to alter them, and it was confirmed by several songs of those watching from further away. In my surprise and shock, I had not sung anything about these creatures singing and possibly even thinking in terms of _The Madness of Two_.

And I wasn’t about to sing of it now. And there was nothing that singing of such would do, other than cause panic and fear, or songs speculating something about the encounter with the alien child had driven me mad.

A few songs of praise, and a following chorus of assenters came my way, telling of how brave I’d been in the face of what at first looked like certain death, to stoicly sing out what I was seeing, so that others might know. And how clever I was to arrange my eyes in an arc as I did, because tracking the utterly strange alien newbud would have been impossible otherwise.

I replied with a brief song of thanks, and that there was really little else I could have done.

I tried to relax in my wide orbit about the great cold well. Waiting if any songs suggesting what to do next were sung. The aliens were still dangerous, if only by their nature. That they’d done nothing overtly hostile was encouraging, even if the form of what their curiosity took had been so frightening.

That, and the Madness they carried, of course. But I was keeping that to myself. If it were to infect us, maybe all of us, it might just be a tragic accident, as they were just so profoundly different.

If I’d only known then just how different they actually were. But, if I had... if any of us had, we’d have been unable to form a cogent song. So many of the concepts for just how strange their existence actually was from ours had no tones. And we'd not have understood any of the enormous promise it would hold an orbit far sooner than one could have imagined.