"RESISTANCE was inspired largely by James B. Baker's story, "Who Made The Forest?" and J. Alan Erwine's stories, "Awakening," and "The Awakening of Anger." Also influential in the development of my idea was Andree Gendron's art on the Sargassos (this haunting rendering of the trees was great inspiration) and McBeth's art which depicted the muck creature as something that was evolving ... and as is usual for me ... once the idea came ... well, I ran with it."

After conquering the pull of the muck, its mind began to thaw. "It" became "he" after becoming oriented to himself and his surroundings. Almost immediately, he felt wind on his body, cooling and drying his slick, wet skin. His black flesh, with its large and vivid yellow spots, glistened beneath the patches of sunlight that found him through the forest canopy. This planet has a good rotation. That could be useful.

Rustling sounds in the vast forest around him caused him to turn. He watched the rest of his flock as they emerged one by one and moved forward with him, further away from the sticky black mud and the massive grove of giant, dead trees. The trees made him shudder. The enormous fronds were still green, but drooped heavily, like exhausted sentinels. He observed that several of his throng gave the mammoth trees a wide, fearful berth. He tilted his large head in a gesture of approval. He sensed the flocks' fear …and their anger.

Their memory of the trees is fully intact. That could prove to be useful, too.

He took in the bright, light-dappled planet as he turned in circles -- his movements slow and stiff at first -- unused to such freedom of movement after so long beneath the weight of an ocean. He gained a bi-ped stance and held his fore and mid-limbs aloft. We have made it to our new home world! We made it to Promar!

He studied his surroundings, marveling at sight and color, remembering a time when he was blind -- when they all were blind -- but that was back on Jade ... Jade, where sentient trees had repressed them. Jade -- where the trees had underestimated them. Yes, we were underestimated. We were merely blind bottom-dwellers in your vast, black ocean but that time is no more. We discovered we have eyes and we have a will of our own.

He looked up into the sky with newly developed eyes. He looked into the direction where his eyes were naturally drawn again and again, sometimes by his own desire and sometimes by the pull of the will of Jade's domineering trees, the Sargassos. He stared at the massive, haze-cloaked planet. Even now, he felt the force of the Sargassos as they attempted to hook the flocks' minds. The pull was powerful, even here, on this planet full of the dead ones -- the planet where they came to die. This was the planet where they lived but were no longer powerful and self-aware.

The pull of the trees' will, even from this distance stirred his considerable rage. The flock reacted to his anger. (He felt the waves of anger coming from within them.) He was their leader and his rage had been large enough to ignite resistance and awaken his race from the mind-killing trees.

Suddenly, in the midst of his thoughts, he felt dizzy and his rimmed eating orifice began to rapidly open and close. He fell to the forest floor, struggling for air. No! I did not come this far to die now! I did not lead my race here to die! No, no, no! As he writhed upon the ground, there was a deep shudder along the open flaps lining his ribs as his gills sealed themselves off. His chest felt like it would explode. He heard the others fall around him as they shared the same misery.

Within his keen mind, he heard several of them call his name in desperation and terror. Sadup! Sadup, help me! What is happening? I can't breathe!

The bright new world around him began to fade and Sadup wondered if they had made it off of Jade just to die here … and then his body answered the question for him. His eater opened wide and, after an instinctive intake of air, his lungs inflated for the first time. It hurts! Oh, it hurts! He let out a watery scream and coughed up muck and the last of Jade's stagnant ocean waters in thick, nasty ropes of mucus.

The burning in his chest gradually subsided as his body began a process it had never needed before -- the process of land-breathing. Sadup relaxed and sent a calming meditation to comfort the rest of the flock to lessen their anxiety over the process.

He sensed the presence of another of his flock nearing him and he turned his massive head as Calom, a large male, lumbered awkwardly toward him. Calom opened his eater and gasped, "Ssss …. Ahhh … Omm … Beeee …"

The sounds that came from Calom's eater startled them both -- an exterior sound to express an interior thought. There was a stillness to Sadup's mind that he found strange until he realized it was the lack of the abuse of the Sargasso will. A realization dawned upon him. His flesh rippled and his body trembled with the knowledge. They do not hear! They do not hear exterior sounds!

He conveyed this thought to Calom, using frantic motions with his limbs and crude, rusty sounds from his throat. He continued until he knew Calom understood by the widening of his golden eyes.

Sadup rose from the ground. We have work to do to develop an exterior language and then we must transmit this information to the members of our flock who are still trapped on Jade.

He sent their newly acquired knowledge in small, telepathic bursts to hide as much of it as he could from the Sargassos. The mental stir was mild … but he could tell the trees knew something was happening -- something entirely new to them. The Sargassos were being met with resistance.

Resistance was something that had begun with Sadup. He found it a long time ago beneath Jade's jet black ocean that had always been his home and prison. He found resistance when another consciousness had visited Jade, a strange presence (a visitor) that had probed the planet and then departed. The introduction of that outer consciousness … was the beginning of Sadup's awakening. Sadup had been rutting with his favorite female, Min, when he felt a glimmer of a thought -- a glimmer that was not a part of his own thoughts. He kept his own thoughts deeply hidden from the Sargassos because he was not allowed to have them, but this brief alien presence had thoughts that were different than anything on Jade … and it had ideas that were illuminating, to say the least. This "being" mumbled its observations to itself but Sadup overheard them and he paid close attention. Strangely, the presence never detected Sadup and his kind on the silted floor of Jade's ocean and that being would never have guessed the enormity of its impact on Sadup and his flock.

Slowly, Sadup became dissatisfied, wanting the freedom to think his own thoughts as the alien had done. He began to transmit his dissatisfaction to the others of his kind and they awakened too as they learned Anger … through Anger … they learned Resistance. Resistance became their mission.

Several of his kind volunteered to help Sadup come up with a plan to get past the vast horizontal dam created by the network of thick, Sargasso fronds. This dam was the locked gate of their oceanic prison. Learning to move and live in shallower depths was a gradual process.

Through observation of the trees, Sadup learned that the old ones went off-planet to die. A brief hole was created in the dam when an old one left. This gave Sadup an idea.

He knew the real possibility existed that he would not survive what he proposed to several members of his kind, but he had to know. He had to do it. A large number of his kind, both male and female, joined him in his quest.

Sadup and the flock waited for an old one to weaken and they attached themselves to the ropy, tongue-like tendrils beneath the water as the tree was launched off the planet. When the tree's roots were driven into the mucky ground on the new world, so was Sadup and the flock -- buried deep in Promar's black muck until they fought their way up.

Mighty Sadup, what will we do now that we are on Promar? How will we live? What will we eat? Is there prey we can hunt? What will become of the rest of our flock on Jade? What has our Resistance accomplished? Many mental voices currently spoke up from the flock.

Sadup forgave the mild dissent, because he understood their fear. The trip to Promar had been a long and frightening journey, clinging to the roots of a dying Sargasso. Hunger gnawed at his belly as it did the rest of the flock. We will find sustenance and we will multiply to build our numbers. We will survive and we will find a way for our brothers and sisters to join us. Several among the flock mentally squabbled about how to look for food. Sadup signaled Calom to accompany him as he wandered back toward the Sargasso graveyard grove. Sadup felt Calom's curious gaze upon him as he led his comrade back toward the trees. Sadup studied the trees as he struggled to remember something -- an observation -- the alien visitor had mumbled while studying Jade. The alien had said something that had not seemed important until now.

"… to the extent the trees were flora, they were nourished hydroponically. To the extent they were fauna, they were meat eaters …"

Yes, that's the answer! Sadup thought as he dropped down on all six and began to dig at the base of one of the giants. He felt a shiver of suspicion within his mind coming from the trees on Jade … and then he felt the first stirrings of fear. The Sargassos wanted to know what he was thinking. They wanted to know what he was doing.

Sadup's breathing increased as he dug with his clawed appendages until he was down far enough to find a root -- a smaller tendril as big around as he was. He signaled Calom to help him. At first Calom hesitated (Sadup could see the superstitious fear in Calom's eyes) but after a moment Calom's anger at the trees motivated him. Together, they hacked at the root until they severed a large portion of it. Sargasso blood was green until oxygenated … then it turned as black as the muck it was buried in … as black as Jade's ocean … as black as blindness.

Sadup readied himself to do what he meant to do. Again, he just had to know. Calom grabbed one of Sadup's claws to stay him for a moment. Should we dare do this thing? If this doesn't kill you …what does this mean? Calom's eyes asked of Sadup.

Sadup knew something of what this action would mean -- if he didn't die from it, of course -- but he knew his answer would only frighten Calom. He knew Calom would not be ready for the full truth of Resistance.

After some time had passed, Sadup and Calom returned to the others with their limbs full of bloody Sargasso roots and severed fronds. Sadup sensed the flock's amazement at the aura of power that now exuded from him and Calom.

Sadup made certain all of the flock had a good portion of the Sargasso flesh and he instructed them to do what he had already done. While they hesitantly obeyed, he began to send a powerful message -- a vital message -- to their brothers and sisters on Jade. He sent them a message that was the ultimate in Resistance. Eat …eat and live.