Geosapiology: a brief history of geogenesis, the Stones, and the Theory of Appeasement — Part Five
By K.A. Wiggins
Ending the rule of the Stones was not a simple proposition. Their increasingly massive forms had, over the course of generations and centuries, become inextricable parts of the landscape and lifestyles of survivors. Stones—increasingly sprawling, city and region-spanning edifices—were objects of reverence, fear, resentment, study, and authority. They provided shelter and structure, had fully put an end to large-scale armed conflict within the first decade of their existence, and had further replaced some measure of law enforcement.
They were also, slowly but surely, starving all living things. They took into themselves most organic—though not living—and inorganic matter to sustain their growth. Over time, this had stripped the soil of nutrients, altered microclimates and planet-spanning weather systems alike, and made both sewers and cemeteries obsolete. That the Stones seemed to harbour no hostility toward living organisms and to intend no harm—indeed, their initial effect had been a clear reduction in violence and loss of life—was small comfort in the face of the growing catastrophe.
Some people went mad. Sacrificed themselves and each other in a bid to cede the planet to their new alien or otherworldly or divine overlords. This had the effect of slightly easing pressure on the food supply but accomplished little else.
Stones did not defend themselves against attack. A newborn Stone could be plucked up from its birthplace and moved overland or off it, away from nutrients, drowned, shattered or crushed or ground into sand, and melted or blasted by explosions. They might survive still, but in their newest, least aware, and—crucially—smallest form, they were as vulnerable as they would ever be.
The larger they grew, the more they took in, the harder they were to damage. Even curbing their growth proved frustratingly out of reach—humans shed, continuously, shocking amounts of organic matter. The rest of the natural environment was likewise replete with resources for the living Stones to draw on—until it wasn’t.
Stones expanded steadily unless agitated into exponential growth spurts by stimulus—most commonly, violence—or constrained by the leaching of their environment. While their growth was careful to accommodate living creatures nearby, it still ate up arable land and gradually pushed people further from each other and productive soil.
Bombing and chemical attacks not only failed to cause lasting harm to the Stones, but further damaged surrounding ecosystems and dwindling food and water sources. Laser showed promise at first, but the Stones too readily healed their damage. Military force was not a solution.
Linguists and communication experts of all stripes were assembled. The Stones evidenced an awareness of their surroundings, an interest in living creatures, and an understanding of human power dynamics and concerns. Surely, they could be reasoned with?
But optical and sonic and mathematical and physical communication methods proved unproductive. The Stones did not respond.
Communication is a two-way street, and they did not emit light or sound or move in any discernible pattern that could be interpreted. For a while, much was made of a postdoctoral fellow’s translation of the vibrations of crystals into numeric code, but no living or dead language mapped to the outputs, and no patterns could be found among the vibrations of the various Stones studied. Musicians were then summoned. No response was observed to their harmonic entreaties.
A grad student examined the accretion patterns of sandStone growth and proposed a series of chalk art experiments, and a host of polyglots and famous artists and several mathematicians were duly summoned to scribble on Stones of various ages and in assorted locations, in the hopes that they might get the message and draw back.
Her advisor shook her head and declared the whole thing silly. Such advanced beings as the Stones couldn’t be expected to communicate in the equivalent of finger painting for humanity’s benefit. Clearly the geometry of the Stone’s accretion patterns was unique to each one and thus their truest form of communication.
So went the years and decades and centuries, the studies becoming increasingly desperate and the proposals increasingly outlandish as the Stones bore down upon the earth.
Meanwhile, perched in the foothills above an increasingly narrow and crowded strip of land between the mountains and the sea, one early Stone remained relatively modest. Centuries old now though it was, it had grown but little from its first form.
It's not that it took centuries for anyone to notice, or to ask why. It’s not even that it took that long to find the answer, or to document it. It’s that the answer was unacceptable and so was discarded, the papers and books on the subject buried, hypotheses struck from the record until time and desperation brought them once more to light.
Then the world looked to a land where stone had long been a thing of landmarks and warnings and promises, a thing of memory and ritual.
But if the greater part of humanity had been the type of species to listen and to learn, it would not have needed the Stones to begin with.
K.A. Wiggins (Kaie) is an award-winning Canadian speculative fiction author who can't stop inserting monsters (and magic) into local landscapes.
Best known for her gothic-dystopian YA+ Dark Fantasy series Threads of Dreams, in which a macabre (neurospicy) misfit storms monster-infested, post-eco-apocalypse Vancouver, her quietly subversive works have also appeared in Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Brave New Weird: Best New Weird Horror, Lightspeed Magazine, Strange Horizons, The NoSleep Podcast, Fantasy Magazine, and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, among others.
Kaie spends her days with books on the traditional unceded territory of the K’omoks and Pentlatch peoples, writing, working as a school library tech, teaching as a Creative Writing for Children Society educator, and leading the Children's Writers & Illustrators of British Columbia Society. Find her at kawiggins.com.
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