knowledge was limited to the numerous 'house calls' he had made in his career as a troubleshooter. It mattered not how stealthily he moved, it was impossible to reach the industrial sector without some form of silicant contact. In fact, the more Sarazen mulled it over, the more it felt as if he were walking into a predictable fate. He stopped briefly and took rest by a small seter which grew in solitude. He looked at the withered and poorly conditioned organic and empathised with it. He sat and studied the seter for a while, the experience was strangely calming and it was only the sound of an approaching air carriage that broke his blissful meditation. Sarazen rolled his body over to the seter, using its bulk to disguise his silicant form from those on board the flying vessel. He watched with trepidation as the craft flew by along the path of the transit line and towards the high ground and Cole's dwelling. It was most certainly a wise decision to move on. The enforcers had no doubt been sent to find the wayward troubleshooter, but he had outwitted them once more.
Whilst half buried in the soft earth as he pressed his body into the ground to avoid detection, Sarazen’s attention was captured by the antics of a tiny organic with a multitude of legs and little else, who had crawled out from under a small flap of earth and organic detritus. It dwelt for a moment and looked Sarazen up and down as if to wonder what had caused such a disturbance to its subterranean activity and then, with great speed it shot back into to its earthy den. Sarazen was spellbound by the unusual behaviour and then curious. The organic’s den was a perfectly constructed for its purpose. It was imperceptible from the surface thus the organic was safe from the predators which sought to ingest its feeble body. Whilst it took solace in its underground habitat it could function within normal parameters whilst retaining the protection of its hidden lair. Sarazen thought that this was a most efficient way of doing its business; however, the organic was inherently different to that of the silicant. The silicant required the light of the Star to maintain functionality. To crawl into a dusty hole would be as good as self termination, without the light to reawaken the sleeping machine, it would remain dead to the world as long as it remained there. Sarazen stared long and hard at the now invisible den of the buried organic. The experience seemed to have a profound effect on his thought processes. For the first time, he realised that his way of thinking was not set. He no longer conformed to the rigid and basic programming of The Mother. There was now scope for imagination and fantasy. He could explore the endless possibilities, he could conjure images in his mind that were not derived wholly from his memory, they could be devised in part from his experiences but augmented using theoretical concepts buried deep within his psyche. He realised for the first time that there was more data to be unlocked that lay dormant somewhere deep in his data banks, and that information could be applied to offer new fascinating ideas and solutions to complex problems. The silicants believed that the light of the Star was required to recharge their power cells and that the dark phase signified a period of inactivity due to the lack of available power. No silicant had ever taken this problem to task, it was accepted as truth and never queried. Sarazen was now in the position to not only question the notion that the dark phase shut down was inexorable but he was in a place to be able rethink the logic behind it and offer an alternative. The strategic advantage that avoiding the dark phase shut down offered was beyond question. It would allow unprecedented freedom of movement, the ability to remain concealed in places other silicants dared not enter, and ultimately much like the leggy organic, safety and seclusion. Sarazen climbed to his feet and offered an acknowledging smile to the
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