The Deep Gods by David Mason Page A

A CREATURE OF FLESH, AS WE ALL ARE. WAIT. BE AT PEACE. WE SHALL BRING YOUR MIND WITHIN OURSELVES, AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.
    A sudden, strange humming seemed to be coming from every direction at once, a sound that was almost but not quite beyond Daniel’s range of hearing. It seemed to enter his flesh, a rising tone that was like a calming drug. He floated, his eyes half-closed, trying to fight the increasing vagueness with his will, but not succeeding at all Then, abruptly, he became… aware.
    He could not have described what was happening even then, while it was going on. It was not hypnotic; he was fully awake, conscious, himself. Yet he saw, and felt, an entirely different world from that sea pool in which he floated. Reality was suddenly two, and the second reality was the world of the Morra-ayar, and all that they saw and thought.
    There were a good many more of them, for one thing, at least half a hundred; these floated in the sea nearby because they always remained close to each other when they could.
    Daniel knew this, as he knew a thousand other small facts about the Morra-ayar now. He was still himself, possessing his own separate identity; yet it was as if he could remember other matters, dimly. He could remember the sea courses that the whale herd took, and where the feeding was best, for instance; the particular identities of the dozen or more of the calves who swam with the Morra-ayar.
    These are small matters, which come to you because you are within our—field. We must show you the more important things in a different way, man.
    The words seemed to form in Daniel’s mind, a shifting pattern of meaning that he himself had to reshape into words. But it was plain enough that the Morra-ayar spoke to him. He tried to reply, angrily questioning. But they did not seem to notice; the overwhelming force of their mental imaging rose and engulfed him.
    We are a very old clan, the image-speech said. Daniel understood the words; the clan was the particular group of great whales, a kind of tribe family. The Morra-ayar were only one of many such clans, but they were of a special sort, and their particular group had been formed long ago.
    We remember the past, long ago, and the future, till your own time and farther, the voices said. We can show you, man. Watch, with us.
    But, to Daniel, it was not as though he watched a scene, but as though he were part of what he watched, himself. He felt and saw, and was aware of odors, tastes and sensations in a dozen shapes at once.
    Dim, huge forms moved sluggishly through a fern forest, huge feet drawing suckingly from the black mud. They were the great, mindless lizards of a million years ago, creatures that Daniel had seen pictured in books. Their ancient bones still existed in the museums of his future world. He had been taught what science knew of the dinosaurs… great masses of flesh with tiny brains, overgrown and stupid.
    But there was something that thought, even here. He could feel the presence of minds with a new, darting intelligence, creatures that spoke and built. It was nothing that was in any way like human thinking, but it was thought.
    Some sort of small dinosaur, Daniel realized with a profound sense of shock. He was aware of their moving forms, flickering… then, their cities, inhuman and enormous, their growing power. And then, swiftly, it was all gone; but how, he could not tell.
    But they were very like the men of your time, the voices of the Morra-ayar said. They too turned their backs on all other life, on this planet, and went forward alone, to their doom.
    Now Daniel was aware of earlier forms of the Morra-ayar, and of other kinds of creatures. He was, for a moment, a small whale which still possessed a set of swimming limbs; then he became a great colony-being of coral, and then a strange many-legged monster.
    Each life-mind-being is different, the Morra-ayar said. Each is a part of all.
    Except my kind, Daniel answered.
    It was a choice which was made,