Today, Cole had decided, he would scale The Chaplain. It was no small task, to ascend that uncanny spire, that towered over the masses below, as static and immovable as they were dynamic and amorphous. But then, it was also said that no small reward waited for those who made it to the Chaplain's upper reaches: answers.

This might seem no great treasure to most of the denizens of gray Nova Bali, writhing worm-like in the pale light of the Twisting Moon, their curiosity long since submerged by the endless sensory distractions afforded them by their ever-changing bodies.

But to Cole, it was all that mattered. Questions formed the very core of his being, and no matter how many times the Twisting Moon stretched and molded his flesh or cracked his bones into new shapes, no matter how his ephemeral body tried to distract him with new sensations ranging from overpowering bliss to lazy contentment, in the end, he always came back to his questions.

What am I? What was I? Today he was a sinuous thing, low to the ground, pulling himself forward with seven many-jointed arms. Tomorrow, he would be something else. He could not remember a time when that was not so, and yet he could not escape the thought that he had once been something both more and less permanent.

Today's body was, fortunately, ideal for ascending the Chaplain. With the benefit of seven circular hands that tightly gripped the tower's flesh, Cole moved up the skin of the great edifice with alacrity. That was another question: why did the tower alone have skin and sinew? The other fixed structures on Nova Bali were dead things of metal and stone, whose purpose was inscrutable to the Nova Balinese.

At last, Cole clambered up to the top of the tower, where a round bulb spread out at its summit. He had thought to climb up the outside of this, but to his surprise, the dark bumpy hollows in its surface, now that he was close to them, were revealed to be openings that led inside the Chaplain.

Within, he found himself in a hollow chamber, his surroundings barely visible even to Cole's large round eyes, which the Moon had made especially keen, today. His mind called out hesitantly. Part of him feared that the reply, if there was one, would be like that of the other denizens of Nova Bali: perfunctory, disinterested, or else nearly insensible with euphoria.

Instead his mind filled with an idea that was both foreign and strangely familiar to him.

"Welcome."

Welcome. It meant that, to the Chaplain, it was good that he was here. That this place was better for his presence. Why did that feel so...warm?

"It has been some time since I had a visitor."

Time. That was what it was called when the Twisted Moon rose and fell. But it could also be more than that, or less than that -- it implied so much, as a concept! There was so much that Cole wanted to know, so much that he felt he once had known.

"What am I? What are you?" Cole's mind wailed his questions, his hunger for the answer becoming nearly overwhelming, so close to his goal.

"In one sense, the answer to those questions is the same." The Chaplain thought to Cole, gently. "I am, and you are...a human being."

"What does it mean," Cole pressed, "To be...a human being?"

Another wave of strange warmth washed over him from the Chaplain. And to his surprise, he dimly remembered its name. Humor?

"That, my friend, will take a little longer."