“Heesa, that is so.” Jemunu-jah regarded the shorter Deyzara. “What he said has merit, however. How are we to describe pannula in our official statement?”
Masurathoo gazed out into the forest. Below, something long and green made a half-hidden leap, leaving behind rain-dappled ripples on the surface of the water. It came nowhere near reaching the floor of the porch. “Do you think it is sentient?”
Jemunu-jah pondered the question. “The human is convinced. I am not. My people have always been aware of certain presences in the forest. There no stories of any pannula consciously trying to help them.”
“Maybe they did not need help,” the Deyzara pointed out. “Or maybe the timing wasn’t right, or the moment of contact. Or perhaps, being so familiar with your kind, the pannula was not interested. It might have taken the arrival of an entirely new species, like Hasa’s, combined with just the right circumstances, like our helplessness and isolation, to induce it to make itself known.”
Jemunu-jah was still not convinced. “The Sakuntala eat fungi. We do not talk to them.”
“That may have to change.” Rising from his seat, whose motion he carefully stilled so as not to offend any watching Sakuntala, Masurathoo walked to the open edge of the porch. Alive with haunting sounds, masked by rain and mist, the southern Viisiiviisii emerged from the waters of ten thousand conjoined rivers.
“Do you not realize what it means if the human is right about the pannula? It would completely change the sociopolitical dynamic on Fluva.”