Aarvo stared at the grokr at the bottom of the crater. His eyes glided over the red plates of his carapace and his mind went back to the strange green plates he had found when he had unearthed the lenses of his starlooker. The ones on the near side were smaller and of a different color, but he could have sworn that they really looked like the red ones of this grokr. If so, then...
With one click he jumped down and headed towards the bottom of the pit, sliding along the inner ridge of the crater. When he got close enough to the grokr, he let out a flaming burst from his jets and jumped on its back. He made his way to the head, lowered himself down the face, along the depression between the big central eyes, and settled down with his feet on the ledge that jutted out over the four smaller eyes. From there, he could look directly into the crystal dome of one of the larger eyes, a few palms from him. He blew the dust away, and peeked through: the inside of the eye looked like a tunnel that receded into the darkness, funneling toward a small silver pupil.
He placed the sharp tip of his index finger against the crystal bubble, and drew a circle following the outline of the eye. When he closed the circle, the lens came off. He grabbed it, carried it down, and placed it in the sand.
Now that he'd cut off that beautiful eye, he regretted it a little bit. It seemed disrespectful to have disfigured the likeness of a creature that had remained intact all that time. On the other hand, it wasn't like he had spoiled the view for someone else—he was the only one on the whole planet. Also, the grokr was stone-dead—only a piece of inert rock that couldn't feel anything. That said, how would he like it if someone came and plucked out one of his eyes while he was dead? The thought gave him the chills. He glanced at the grotesque hole he had cut in the face of the grokr and saw the reflection of another lens inside.
Curiosity wiped out all of his qualms. He jumped back on the snout of the grokr and peered into the hollow socket. He stretched out his hand and felt his fingers ticking against the hard, transparent surface of another lens. He laid down his sharp index finger again, and cut the crystal. Then he removed the lens and stuck it in the sand near the first one.
He turned around and wondered how many more lenses were stacked inside the grokr's eye socket. He went back to work, extracted three more lenses of decreasing sizes and a strange and concave last one. He aligned them in the sand from the largest to the smallest and stood admiring his discovery. They were in every way like his starlooker, only arranged in a more complex fashion. Would they work the same way? Did the fact that they were more meant they would magnify more?
He quickly placed the lenses on the mountain ridge so that they would point toward the sky, then looked through them, but all he could see was a dark blotch. He tried to get them closer and further apart, but he still couldn't focus on anything. Yet, the grokr must have been able to see well, otherwise how was it going to go about? Did it really see that way? Suddenly, he realized there was an easy way to find out.
He turned around and looked at the grokr's fate: all that was left of the eye was an empty socket: a black tunnel that plunged into the head of the monster. If he sneaked in, he thought, perhaps he'd find his way to the other eye, and then...
A shiver crawled up his back. Thinking of sneaking into the head of that beast felt like a completely outrageous thing to do. Yet, if it worked...
With excitement tingling through his arms, he jumped back on the snout of the grokr and sneaked into the empty socket.
Soon I'll see what you see, he thought. I'll be a thought inside your head—one you never thought you'd think. He grinned at the audacity of his plan. He felt strangely reckless and wondered if that sudden change of mood belonged to him or if it was a trick of the old grokr who was beating him at his own game, sneaking something of itself into his thoughts.
He managed to get to the end of the eye-tunnel and squeezed out of the opening. He felt as if he was looking for the first time into a mysterious world, a hidden underground kingdom, secret and unfathomable as the thoughts of the being who had once wandered there. He shifted to let some light in and saw a strange structure in front of him: a white and translucent ring suspended in mid-ether by four rods of the same material.
He wriggled out of the narrow opening and lowered to the ground with his arms and hands. At his touch, a puff of dust rose around him, turning the light into a curtain of chaotic, floating pillars. He stood up and felt the floor welcoming him with a comfortable give.
He moved so as not to block the light and observed that the tallest tie-rods holding the strange white ring stretched out to the ceiling, sinking into knotty vaults of the same translucent material, while the lower ones sank into the soft gray blanket of dust at his feet.
He approached the ring hanging in front of him and touched it: it was cold, almost as cold as ice. He drove his sharp fingers into it and cut a out an irregular splinter that had the consistency of a moonstone.
"Icerock" he murmured—he decided to call the strange material that way.
He looked up: around him, the icerock stretched out over all the walls, rippling and twisting in ever-changing translucent vaults, like rows of horizons within each other down to infinity. The few bare spots in the crowded structure revealed the reddish plates of the inside of the grokr's skull.
Aarvo grinned. It was almost like that time he had split some stones and found them hollow inside, lined with clusters of colored crystal that tasted sweet and sour. The smile faded from his lips at the mere thought of tasting the icerock—it was already disturbing enough to walk through the shell of a dead beast, without having to think to take taking a bite of it. Then another equally revolting doubt seized him: what if the gems of the empty stones he had tasted that time had been nothing more than the bowels of some forgotten beast?
He shook with a shiver and pushed those thoughts away, ready to resume his exploration. To his left, the path was blocked by a wall of carapace, or maybe it was bone, he wasn't sure. He made his way to the right, under the tie-rods and out of the ray of light that came in through the eye socket. He blinked until his eyes got used to the dimmer, more diffused light, and a strange feeling took hold of him: he almost felt as if he could feel the intricate space around him, as if he could feel the entire body of the grokr from where he was. He didn't know how it could be possible, but the feeling was so clear that it left him no doubt. He followed the inner outline of the skull with its vaults and translucent walls. Went through a narrow passage and came out into an opening. He followed it as it curved left and soon found himself behind the ring and the icerock tie-rods on the other side, backlit by the rays entering through the lenses of the left eye.
"Well, here we are!" he muttered. Now that the target was within reach, he was no longer in such a hurry to reach it. He had imagined a difficult route through a labyrinth of vaults, niches and forking paths, before arriving at his prize. Having arrived there so easily, he felt robbed of the excitement of the adventure he had anticipated. He wanted to bask a little more in the mystery of this alien place. He turned around and again in front of him, beyond the reach of light, felt a gaping space of large caves calling to him.
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