She didn’t think of herself as Tomaya. Seemed, when she thought back, that the entire notion of a “name” defied rational sense. Life made so much more sense now, shared as it was, being part of limitless thought and understanding, the Song, and the One. She and the children were growing, rapidly. In the few moons since the Pod had become home, they were all changing, learning, acting as the “hands” for the One.

She was old enough, had better memories of Ashanti than the other children, and knew what it meant to have crossed the stars inside a container. Like the Pod was a container. A safe haven. A place where the hungry tentacles of predators couldn’t reach.

But now, with human hands and bodies, the One could adapt; it could begin to profit from the lessons the humans had carried to it from across the stars. Humans had proved that the physical world could be manipulated, transformed, and adapted to serve the One. That threats like predators could be eliminated by violence. Already Tomaya had employed her body to make changes in the Pod, to open and close doors, to employ tools—a fascinating concept, tools—and as she did, the One learned, explored, and marveled.

There was so much to learn.

But the One was patient. First the humans had to be protected, allowed to grow and mature until they could reproduce. Only when enough of them existed could they finally be risked outside the Pod’s protective walls. In the meantime, there were too many wonderful mysteries within the Pod’s impregnable sialon walls. Mysteries that needed to be investigated. Like UUVs, the submarine, and the fascinating machines. That study alone would take years.

But more the point, the One, which had always needed to disperse into individual cells to survive predation, was suddenly able to reflect in peace. As predators sent tentacles to feel down the sialon walls in fruitless quest, The One no longer needed to separate and flee as a thought was coming together. Now it could concentrate billions of cells upon billions of cells without interruption. Flex its intelligence.

And in the process, it could contemplate miracles. Like the stunning new knowledge that isolated organisms like humans, each alone in its body, limited in its senses and communication, could create something as remarkable as the Pod, and more amazing, carry it across the stars.

If creatures that limited could accomplish such great things, what incredible heights could the One aspire to now that it had a redoubt that allowed it to learn, to understand, and to create? Especially now that it had harnessed humans with their remarkable bodies? Bodies that could collect, carry, and accumulate, make and use tools, create weapons, and manufacture machines? Using humans, the One could manipulate and manage its environment for the first time ever.

The future, once a mere abstract, had forever changed. The possibilities limitless.