«Wait,» I said, an idea coming to me. «Are you saying that you don't always take violent shapes?»
«You have so many questions,» it said. «Ask one more, if you like, and then I must go.»
«Why do you kill your creators?» I asked. «Why not let them live? There must have been more to Irvane than you.»
«Death is our mordant,» it said. «We're transient without it; the death of our creators fixes us in our forms until we die ourselves. Don't your people have a saying that you can't be a man until your father is dead?» It giggled unpleasantly.
«Do your people have sayings of your own?» I wondered. «Or are you all just puppets, made from the imaginations of real persons?»
Anger knotted the tiny features. Its hands hooked into claws and it leaned toward me, startling me. My finger twitched on the trigger and the goblin was knocked back and shattered into fragments.
Its head remained intact for a moment, and it mouthed silent curses at me, until it suddenly sagged and melted into the ground, a tangle of squirming white shapes.
None of the creatures approached me again. But an idea stayed with me.
I searched Jang's old cabin and found his stash of cannabis. I chose a pipe of living stone from the catalog of artifacts. I permanently disabled the ship's drive, in case I become disoriented when the nanomonitor in my brain starts to drift.
And to show my resolve.
I smoke now twice a night, primarily for the act's symbolic import, but I have convinced myself that I feel a very subtle change in myself. Perhaps it's only a twinge of hope. One evening I fell asleep sitting by the perimeter, amazingly enough, and had another dream of Suhaili. When I woke suddenly and looked about, I thought that the ground on the far side of the perimeter had shifted in some nearly indetectable manner.
Someday soon, I'll see the ground twitch, and white stone will move toward me. I believe this firmly.
I know I have to cleanse myself of all my hates, and all my bitterness. I have to remake myself, I have to learn to dream deep dreams again. Every afternoon, I watch the scenes from the colony's stack, with all the ugly parts removed, so that I can see the colonists living their quiet and beautiful lives. I've come to know many of the faces as well as if they belonged to living friends.
I've almost stopped watching the monsters at their play, though I occasionally look out to see if any new ones might have miraculously appeared. If that happens, I suppose I've made a mistake.
I spend a goodly amount of time maintaining the ship's security perimeter, lest an old one come to cut short my experiment.
Months may pass before they send a ship to investigate our disappearance. Years, perhaps. Many years.
I may be inviting madness and death, but since I cannot really imagine these things, the risk seems acceptable. I think of what I might gain, not what I might lose, because I have already lost everything that meant anything to me.
If I'm given enough time and enough grace, I might see Suhaili the Pipemaker and her people rise again from the stones.