VII. SOURCE
Beyond the thick layer of the great inner wall is a vast, expanse of open ground that gave Alex the idea to name it the Great Plaza. Before he can even take in the sight, Alex dove behind one of their wheeled boxes. The sentry seemed to notice him dart by. It approached the box’s side with its claws raised.
“Uh-oh”, Alex mumbled.
He sprinted towards another box parked nearby.
The sentry, finding nothing behind the first box, returned to his post. Alex observed that the boxes are made out of a strange material— something that resembled a solid plastic. But, unlike any plastic, it seemed to Alex as if it was carved straight out of a quarry. There is also a crystalline quality in the material. When he looked up, he was amazed to see multitudes of SenRets, busying themselves all over the plaza.
On one side, Alex can see a group of larger SenRets, clawing at an unpaved soil.
Probably digging, Alex thought. To his far right, two tall towers of about a hundred feet in diameter rose from the ground, with SenRets coming in and out, carrying strange-looking objects. Almost obscured to his view is a wide, cylindrical building. He saw two SenRets coming out of the building, each pushing a wheeled box that contained another SenRet. Off to the left, half a dozen SenRets were hoisting large pieces of stones on top of other stones already set on the ground. One of them was using an Eik like a scaffold. A large area of the plaza contained a circular parapet on its perimeter, housing hundreds of large and small Eik-cud Rebburs. Several SenRets were pushing wheeled boxes all around. However, all of these details of the plaza seemed trivial compared to the majestic sight that surrounded the whole of the Great ReTarcan Plateau.
Hundreds of stalks that rose from the ground rose toward the sky. Each one is about 12 feet in circumference, with the height of about 90 feet. All of the stalks are whitish pink, lined with barbs that contain scarlet wart-like projections. The stalks glowed faintly in reddish bioluminescence. Alex shuddered after seeing the stalks are pulsate—and that their ends are swaying slowly as if in rhythm with some subsonic music. The stalks— apparently made up of living tissues—are very much alive.
As Alex watched, a new stalk sprouted from a hole on the ground. It rose to its full-height in a matter of split seconds. All the SenRets around the stalk stopped to raise their heads and their claws as if revering the stalk.
That is when it hit him: the stalks are body parts of the Great ReTarcan itself. They probably go all the way down to the planet’s core, attached directly to the enormous body of the Great ReTarcan.
On several stalks, the ‘warts’ protruded, and eventually, they dislodged – falling to the ground where the SenRetscollected and stuffed them into the wheeled boxes. After a minute or so, more ‘warts’ fell.
Food, Alex thought excitedly. He guessed that he had found the main producer of food for the ReTarcan organisms.
Their God provides.
