Chapter 2: Trio

The moment I feel the Colony land, I exit into the world. There's no time to lose.

We've landed in the cavern again, were we found the Blue Colony yesterday. The Leader must be eager to complete some of the tasks we started here.

But I have my own task this morning.

The Leader usually takes some time to show himself to start the day, so I have a few minutes. I just have to figure out how to do it.

We've been kept busy for the past few days. The Leader is doing a good job with feeding both our Colonies and his. So I haven't had much of a chance to talk with the Yellow First or Blue First. I'm sure they have a lot of questions for me.

But how will I call them from their Colonies? I don't want to call any followers, just the Firsts. But there really aren't a lot of words that can mean that. There isn't even a word for First, because the First is also the Leader, until us.

Maybe that will be good enough.

"leader?"

The Blue First instantly pokes his head out of the Blue Colony.

"leader?"

I wave and beckon. He slides down to the ground. I haven't seen much of him, but he seems like an eager one.

"leader?"

The Yellow First slowly comes out. I watched him get plucked those days ago, I've seem him quite a bit. He seems patient and careful.

There isn't nearly enough words for us to say what we need to. But that's what the confluence is for. I hold out my hands to signal the initiation.

The Blue First nods and takes one hand. The Yellow First hesitates, but follows.

[*]

There are three minds.

The Blue First is eager. The other two are a few days older, so he can't wait to get caught up with what happened before he was plucked.

The Yellow First is timid. He doesn't really want to be here, he doesn't like the idea of sharing his mind with others. But he knows this is a good idea.

The Red First acknowledges the other two, and begins to show his memories of his first day. Not just the visuals, but the emotions and thoughts, of how he was plucked and discovered the strange difference between "First" and "Leader". He continues to show the memories he thinks are important to share: of the Leader making mistakes, losing dozens of followers to predators or the environment, and then how he learned and did better the next time, losing few or none.

The Blue First is excited. Look how fast the Leader learns, look how many predators have been taken down and used as food, look how many followers have already grown and bloomed in the past few days. The Leader will surely make our Colonies very prosperous.

The Yellow First is instead confused. How does a Leader not know that we cannot breathe water? How does a Leader think that attacking a large predator head-on is a wise move? How does a Leader not respect the danger of bomb rocks? It is good that he learns, but he should have known all this from the beginning, like we do.

The Blue First shakes it off. If the Leader is learning, what is the problem? Why does it matter that he did not know, if he does know now? After all, he is very different from the rest of us. The rules are already different for him - he is made of red metal and crystal, but fears fire and can breathe water, and has a bud but does not drink nectar even when presented to him. He may be as confused about us as we are him.

The Yellow First is having trouble making clear thoughts. There's a general uncertainty there, but he can't put his finger on anything specific. He has no problem with the Leader, but something he can't find is bothering him.

The Red First agrees that something is off, but what could we even do about it? If we abandoned him, he would surely die, and we would have no true Leader.

The Blue First has a thought. Why does the Leader have no followers like him? We feed his Colony, with this strange metal food much larger than anything we would normally go for, yet she never makes any sprouts.

The Yellow First has an idea. The Leader's Colony looks slightly different every day. In fact, he thinks he saw one of the things we fed to her, later attached to her. Maybe she is injured, and she needs to be healed before she can produce any sprouts. This might also explain the angry smoke she produces as she flies.

The Red First shares this idea. He brings forth the memory of the first metal food, the one that completely flipped the Leader's Colony over and appeared on her new bottom, and how the Leader proceeded to spend time doing something with her and it. He also now remembers seeing him do something similar a few other times, though with less drastic results. If we are collecting things to help heal her, this would all make sense.

The Yellow First decides that he feels better about the Leader, now that we believe he's trying to help his Colony without having any of his own followers.

The Blue First has a new idea: just find a changing flower, to change some of our followers into some of the Leader's. Changing flowers can grow anywhere, and we've already seen a couple of ours, though the Leader hasn't used any yet. So we just need to be on the lookout for one made of red and metal, or maybe red and the sand-like colour he also is.

The Red First doubts that it would be that easy, but agrees this is something to look out for.

The Yellow First suggests that we will have to be careful. Since we never grew into Leaders, we look just the same as any other follower. If we aren't careful, the Leader might grab us. To a First who is not a Leader, a changing flower may as well be death.

The Blue First had not thought of this before and is immediately scared. Getting turned into a follower, new colour or not, would be worse than death.

The Red First is also worried, but he thinks it should be easy enough to stay near the back of the group if a changing flower is near. Followers are naturally excited to be changed as long as their numbers are high enough, and a changing flower can only do so many in a day. And even in the worst case, the Leader seems to be reasonable. Whenever he sees something new, he is always cautious. If he sees one of us backing off when the others all advance, he should take notice.

The Blue First decides this is good enough and calms down. He thinks we can now move on to something else: how do we all like being a First but not a Leader? He's a bit upset that he doesn't get to be a Leader, but he also sees it as a way to learn without too much risk. If the Leader goes down, he's ready to take over.

The Red First is conflicted. He'd rather have been a follower to begin with, but it wasn't really for any particular reason. Having seen over the last few days what followers are like, he's glad to not be one of them. But on the other hand, he also remembers how it felt to lose so many followers in the early going, and doesn't really want that kind of responsibility over the people of his Colony.

The Yellow First is also uncertain. He also saw firsthand what happens when a Leader makes mistakes, and doesn't want that sort of thing to be his fault. But he also knows that you can't make things turn out how you want if you're not the one giving the orders. Then again, if he was a follower, he wouldn't be smart enough to be aware of that, or to have this debate.

The Blue First practically scoffs. He doesn't understand how the followers can be so stupid, so devoted to the Leader that they walk right into death without a single thought. No wonder we feel obligated to make so many of them - hundreds would die every day if we let them.

The Yellow First doesn't get it either, but thinks there must be a reason for it. Maybe the Colony finds it difficult to house and control so many if they all have their own different thoughts and opinions. Maybe we'd have to bring her a lot more food to make smart ones, compared to dumb ones. Or maybe they will get smarter over the days and moons, if we help them survive.

The Red First finds a worry. We can use a lot of things as food, but the Leader seems to only use strange metal things. What happens if we can't find any more? They don't seem very common.

The Blue First isn't worried. A Colony can go a few days without food, even an injured one. And we've never actually tried to give the Leader's Colony any of our food, because we need it for ourselves. Maybe we can try that in a few days, since the Red and Yellow numbers are doing very well, and the Blue numbers will catch up soon enough.

The Yellow First has a correction, and shows a memory. He was carrying a small pellet alone and decided to try giving it to the Leader's Colony. But nothing happened. The Colony did not accept the pellet. He tried leaving it in different places but nothing worked. After a few moments, two followers that had been plucking grass came by and took the pellet for themselves.

The Blue First still isn't worried. If a Colony is sick or injured, it would make sense for her to not want food she doesn't prefer. Besides, there's no need to worry about a problem that might never happen.

The Red First thinks the Blue First is too dismissive of the possibility, but does agree that there's nothing productive they can do with this information. We should worry about today's problems, not tomorrow's.

The Yellow First can't think of anything to add to that.

Someone thinks we should do this every few days. We can't really tell who because it feels like all three of us had the idea at the same time. Which is good, because it means we agree. Every three days makes sense. If we can't for some reason, we'll try again the next day until we can.

The three minds start to pull away from themselves.

[*]

I'm only myself again.

It was a lot weirder to be confluencing with two other Firsts instead of just my Colony, and from the looks on their faces, they think the same. We kept our eyes closed, but I could still feel all of our hands and feet and stems and flowers at once.

It's good that we were able to do this, to learn that the other two are in the same position as me, and while they don't share all my opinions they share enough to know we agree on our goals and thoughts on the Leader.

We take one last glance at each other before returning into our Colonies. Our Leader will fetch us soon.

I saw a curious sight this morning, shortly before beginning the day's search. Three Pikmin, one of each colour, stepped out of their Onions and met in the middle. They then held hands and stood still for about two minutes, before returning from whence they came.

What sort of ritual could this be? Are they sharing pheromones? Communicating? Mixing pollen? It could be any number of behaviours, basic or advanced. But for what reason could it be only one of each?

The life on this planet never ceases to amaze.