Heat Seam

In which the Self encounters a mid-ocean ridge.

Shortly after the last appearance of the Singer, the component parts of the Self are exploring the local ocean with the paired objectives of finding territory for their multiplying population to live in, and dicovering what has happened to the Singer.

A part group has returned with news of a thing we didn't know there was. The Singer described the world near our wall as being cold, and spoke of other places that were warmer. We believe this part group has found such a place. It is hard and has holes, and the group gives us the belief that the wall there could be good despite the warmth, except for the constant shuddering that goes through it.

A wall that moves so frequently would damage the holes in it, and is no good to us. We ought to avoid the area...but what if the Singer stopped coming because of the cold? We should look for them in warmer places.

This is the first time the Self has discovered something unfamiliar, and the first time it has given the search for the Singer priority over the search for resources.

Of the two large part swarms we sent to the shaking wall, one has come back with its impressions. Both traced the path of the shuddering and found it coming from a place where the wall bulges outward along a line that took a full life to traverse. When the swarms reached its end they separated, to closely examine both sides of it.

This swarm reports the atmosphere heating gradaully along the increasing slope. Past the tip of the bulge, the heat changes suddenly from barely comfortable to intolerable. As bad as the atmosphere always is, in this place it is worse. Clouds of material spilling out of the bulge choke the parts with its bad taste.

The swarm did not find the Singer, which doesn't surprise us. We don't think the Singer would be anywhere so unpleasant.

Time passes quickly from the perspective of the Self. They aren't bothered by the extended absence of the second swarm, which lasts several lifetimes of their parts.

The other swarm has returned, with fewer parts than expected. It reports the same kind of long bulge on the other side, with the same conditions. Both sides meet along the line like the seam where two of our parts join, but with heat behind it instead of atmosphere.

The swarm tried to enter the seam to search for the Singer. While it was there, fountains of intense heat surged out toward it. The swarm disconnected and fled as unattached parts. Not all escaped.

We will instruct our swarms to keep a careful distance from the heat seam. The Singer never described any place as dangerous as this, so it is unlikely we will find them there. We have had the thought that the Singer may have tried to go into the heat seam and died there, but even if that happened it doesn't explain the Singer's absence. All of the voices at once could not have been attacked by the heat fountains without some surviving, as the second swarm proved. We must look elsewhere.

Time frame: ~24 million years in the past