The human favored him with that infuriatingly mordant smile of his. “How do we know they haven’t?” He turned the same expression on Jemunu-jah, who was no less pleased to be on the receiving end of it. “Awareness and intelligence are a two-way proposition.”
Both ears flicked forward. “Are you implying that Sakuntala not smart enough to realize when they are being talked to?”
“Hey, the Viisiiviisii is your ancestral home. You big-ears evolved having to watch out for much more overtly threatening nasties. Maybe this one particularly highly evolved strain of pannula did try to make contact with your kind once or twice over the millennia. You knock on somebody’s door for that long and they continue to ignore you, eventually you’re going to get tired of trying. Or maybe the pannula, if they are real slow maturing, are just reaching the point where they feel able to try to make contact.” He shrugged. “Or maybe they just weren’t interested in making contact with people who regarded their manifestations of consciousness as belonging to unnamed ‘forest spirits,’ and chose to wait for some real intelligence to come along. Like me.” Ignoring their simmering indignation, he continued to play finger tag with the agreeable rhizomorphs.
Swallowing his resentment, Jemunu-jah moved to peer over the human’s shoulder. “If by some chance you right and pannula is somehow some kind of sentient, how we make contact? Pannula is fungus. Has no eyes, no ears, no mouth. Only filaments.”
“That might be enough. In ancient times, there used to be humans who couldn’t see, hear, or speak. That didn’t mean they were any less intelligent. They learned to communicate solely via touch. Maybe all this species can do is respond to my hand and finger movements, but it’s a start.”