i'm not going to bother. everything that can be said has been. but i can't resist: i predict that at the end of it, when the dust eventually clears and the petrol prices are at Rs. 110 /liter, it will be told history as a great strategic offensive that changed the map of the region; or it'll be told as the greatest war of independance every fought. if anyone is left to tell it to that is. i see the hezbollah as the balkans, and it frightens me a little that i'm on the wrong side of the fence.

the nearest spiral galaxy was in view, so to honor the soltice of the orbit, the star deck roof was transparent and held no educational filters. the fuzzy pinpricks of light against the startling navy blue background suspended in deep space made the spectacular view.
but no one noticed.
they hurried to their tasks by the millions, like the thrumming ant colony they had been modelled after. They dutifully ignored idiocyncrasies like the view and the weather, or the startling spectre the main deck was with its layers and layers of interconnecting bridges that spanned over a hundred stories.
Such was the life of the hard ones.

Just one thin cellular wall away, lived the softs. Allowed to exist in zero gravity, they were balls of jello like energy, lounging seemingly aimlessly in the spectacular incubator that was their womb. They studied nothing but the stars, and the orbits and the planets and the teeming life that lay just beyond their reach. And the one question that every soft dwelt upon, the one burning question that seared their existance, was "WHY". Till they found the answer, they would not stop.

It had not always been the case. in a previous reincarnation of the planet, the two had shared completely different planes of existence. but the fourth world war had shaken more than the land, and so the two beings had been forced to co-exisit within the same realm and confines of the ship. the virulent hatred against the softs was instinctive and absolute. the hards plotted, schemed and strategized to destroy the softs in any way possible. the experiemented and captured and tortured and planned and re-planned. but nothing ever worked, and so after a millenia of trying, the hards finally evolved and decided to throw the softs into a dividing compartment where the two would never interact. and so it had been for a millenia of a millenia more.
*****
Life was hard in the Ship. One could only put their head down, and bustle about and complete their job plans till they died, and there was a certain solitary and noble satisfaction in that.

JZ320 whistled along his way across ramp divider 56th on Main. He had five communicators wired into the portals of his brain, and a mobility device connected to the energy source in his spine. his job plan was fairly low level and stress free, he had to maintain the cellular Divider. He donated his superior DNA once every month to the wall, and allowed it to ferment and grow for one solstice. His job plan, like everyone elses, was encoded in his DNA. he happily whistled his way to the donation chamber as his several communicators beeped and buzzed, home delivering sensory data from all across the ship directly into this brain.
****

sarturo focused his aura to his surroundings, and waited. sure enough, like clockwork, the busy little hard bustled into the connecting chamber.
the stars were right, the galaxy was near. it was time.

****

Jz320 felt strange. he felt! after connecting to the donation chamber, he had experienced an alien energy flow, and then his form had changed somehow. the deep internal cellular structure of his DNA slowly unwound, disconnecting the communicators and the mobility device without his knowledge. the jello filled him, consumed him, filled him to bloating till his outer shell cracked and bulged like old chewing gum.
it was like a virus. the second his job plan completed, everyone on the ship was exposed.
in a matter of seconds, everyone was infected.
the hards fell wherever they were, choking, suffocating, stuffed to the hilt of their coverings with jello. how had they escaped the divider? why?!

****

the ship thudded gently into the blue planet. as the teeming masses spilled out in bewilderment, the last of the softs that had remained behind fulfilled their last function. they imploded the ship, and the shock wave spread across the planet, fossilizing the indiginous species for inspection at a later date.

****