He was hardly outside when the knowing came that the flying hive of the "metal-secreters" had lifted from the Rock Hill back in his hunting ground. It was hurtling toward him almost with the speed of a meteorite, but when it arrived it landed as gently as the butterfly could have descended onto a flower.
The Nest commented: "So your emergency was Man himself . . . They have a device with them to permit communication." Nearly an hour passed before the butterfly was addressed again: "A Man is coming out now. I have told him about this world."
The butterfly watched with a touch of awe as the Man came out of the unplugged hole in the flying hive. Without his artificial exoskeleton, but with most of his body covered with brightly colored woven material, he still looked very odd—but not like some freakish creature who could secrete metal. The butterfly's senses informed him that, without his woven coverings, Man would appear rather drab: pink all over except for a scattering of dark hair and for the eyes which were small and one-faceted.
Still, there was an austere attractiveness in the Man's appearance and a startling grace in the way he crawled, precariously balanced on his rear legs. The Men had looked less graceful earlier in the morning, using all four legs to push their way through the flowers and the attacking bees, or to climb the steep side of Rock Hill. Apparently Man was designed to crawl best over level, unobstructed ground.
The Man advanced to stand before the butterfly, his small eyes studying the insect as the insect studied the Man. The wings seemed to fascinate the Man. When held in a resting, vertical position their tips were approximately a third as high off the ground as the top of the Man's head.
A series of sounds came from the Man's mouth.
"He is asking your name," explained the Nest. "That is an abstract symbol you would use to identify yourself, as an individual, from the other butterflies. I have explained that, while butterflies have individuality, you have no use for names because of the way you communicate."
"You (Man) may give me a name if you wish," said the butterfly.
"No," said the Man. "If you need no name, you should not have one. How can I serve you in a manner that suits your need?"
"I do not know. I came to the Nest to call you because the flying hive was a blank in my knowing of the now-moment. Perhaps I expected you to destroy the hive, or cause it to go elsewhere. But the hive is your contrivance, and this is your world. Thus I have nothing to ask."
"This is your world, butterfly," contradicted the Man. "Long ago, men gave it to you and left. I'm beginning to realize why they went away, even though there must be many mountains such as this on which men could live in comfort. We too must depart soon, for the same reason. And we will take our flying hive with us."
"The seasons of this world are not suited," the butterfly quoted, "for beings who live a hundred years."
"That is a minor problem," the man said. "Men are not as long-lived as you believe. Our hundred years, or season cycles, are very brief years compared to your own. This planet turns much more slowly on its axis and takes much longer to circle its sun than the planet that gave birth to both our species. Also, this planet's orbit is far more eccentric than that of our birth-planet, giving you brief, warm summers and very long, cold winters. Men restructured you genetically to fit in this environment as intelligent life. The ancient geneticists must have chosen you for this world because you metamorphose. You can survive the winter as a pupa or, in the case of spiders and some of the other insects, as an egg. That was long ago, according to the way man experiences time. We have lost all records of having populated this planet. Before our flying hive leaves, there is much about your life cycles we would like to re-learn."
"It will please us to tell you," said the butterfly. "There is a spider at my hunting ground who, I am certain, will delight in talking to you for a whole day." The butterfly was somewhat puzzled by the workings of the Man's mind. Evidently the Man had started to tell him the reason why the Men who had shaped the creatures had not stayed, and why now these Men would have to depart quickly. However, the Man had strayed from the subject. But perhaps the butterfly knew the reason without being told.
"Now that we know what the flying hive is," he said, "its blankness is far less disturbing. It is quite tolerable, in fact. You need not go quickly on that account."
"That is not why we must leave," said the Man. "If it were, we could solve our problem quite easily by allowing you to enter the flying hive and investigate its contents until it ceased to be a blank. You may do that, anyway, for that matter."
"Then why must you go?" the butterfly asked.
The Man replied hesitantly. "Because it may not be good for men to associate too much with you. Not bad for you, but bad for men. Tell me, butterfly, do you know that on the birth-planet men regarded you as the most beautiful creature in existence?"
"No."
"Neither did I—since I had never seen a butterfly until today. Nor even a picture of one. That is the reason for the incidents earlier this morning. I wish to apologize for not recognizing you and the ants and bees."
"That's all right," replied the butterfly. "We didn't recognize you either."
"Anyway, you are the most beautiful creature that I've ever seen on any world, excepting of course certain females of my own kind," the Man went on. "And in your mutated form, which has increased your size and given you a unique intelligence, you impress us as being—totally admirable. Man sees no other creature that way. And what men admire, they try to imitate in themselves."
He hesitated then finished hurriedly and almost angrily: "If men stayed here, they would wind up being fake butterflies, trying to look and think like you when they can do neither. It's best for us to stay away from your world and continue being men, whatever that may be."
The butterfly found this speech astonishing to the point of incomprehensibility, the final words no less than what came before. "But you made us as we are," he protested. "Surely you know your superiority to us."
"No."
"You do not know the now-moment," the butterfly persisted, "but isn't that for a reason similar to my not remembering in the manner of the spider? The thought comes to me that perhaps you combine remembering and knowing in a way I cannot comprehend, to know all moments that have been or will be."
The man made a sound signifying amusement. "That is a flattering thought. It attributes to us the supreme knowledge we sometimes imagine in our own gods—the hypothetical beings who created all life. No, we don't have that kind of knowing. And the fact that you have part of it is a reason why men must avoid you. They would tend to consider you half-gods."
This, to the butterfly, was monstrous. "But surely you must have some form of knowing . . ." he began.
The Man was shaking his head. "Men have seen much and learned much. And we know much. But not as you know."
Suddenly the butterfly understood and gazed at the Man with awe. To know the now-moment, he realized dimly, was a complete thing, and what was complete was limited to its totality. Man's knowing had no completeness—no limits—because Man did not even know himself.
Breathing hard in the thin mountain air, the butterfly marveled at the boundless wonder of Man.