The schlu are far more advanced than humans, which is not surprising since they have had far longer for evolution to work its magic. The first schlu traversed the river valleys of their planet ten million years before the first human walked on Earth. Their evolution occurred more rapidly than did humans’ adaptations to Earth, t00, so it might well be argued that they are far beyond ten million years ahead of humans on the evolutionary scale. But, then, comparing human to schlu evolution is akin to comparing apples to orangutans; their paths are so wildly divergent as to be utterly alien to one another.
When we first encountered the schlu, or rather when they first encountered us, we were both entranced and terrified. A deep space mission launched in late 2124 had traveled more than two billion miles by early 2135 when the flight crew observed what they described as “a thick membrane, appearing to be some type of waxy substance, forming around the craft.”
We know now the “membrane” was some sort of packaging material, preparing the spacecraft for interdimensional travel. Without it, the craft and all aboard would have been vaporized instantly as the schlu transferred the mission module twenty-eight billion miles deeper into the galaxy to their planet. Light would take forty-one hours to travel that distance, but interdimensional travel allowed the ship and its occupants to arrive at the destination, for all intents and purposes, at the same time they left.
Major Evester Holmantrout was the author of the “thick membrane” message to the earth base and the commander of the mission. He was the one who first attempted to communicate with the schlu, once the ship had been deposited on the surface of the planet. Though by schlu measures, his communications were crude and undeveloped, the schlu were able to understand him. Making him understand them was a more difficult task. Their communications consist not only of making sounds, but altering their body temperature in ways that are sensed by other schlu. A third component, with emitting light from translucent globes above their eyes, added to the complexity.
To give you some sense of the difficulty Homantrout had in understanding the schlu, consider this. A specific sound that we might hear as “bubble,” coupled with a lowering of body temperature and emitting dim blue light from the globes, might be a schlu concept for “friend.” But that same sound and same dim blue light, when combined with a slight elevation in temperature, might be a schlu communication meaning “nearest star.”
[THIS COULD GET COMPLEX, FAST. AND IT COULD GIVE ME A COMPLEX, FAST. WHICH IS A SUGGESTION THAT I MIGHT BE ABLE TO LOSE WEIGHT, IF I JUST FAST.]
