Life Force, Suffering, Sacrifice, Everyone
"Far Journeys" by Robert A. Monroe
"It was at that moment he discovered the Difference. The Fourth Crop unit was not struggling in Conflict over an ingestible remnant of a weaker Fourth Crop unit or a tasty frond from a nearby Second Crop stem—or to avoid termination of life and ingestion by the other conflicting Fourth Crop unit.
It was in Conflict to protect and save from life termination three of its own newly generated species huddled under a large Second Crop unit waiting for the outcome. There was no doubt about it. This was the action that produced the flashes of distilled Loosh."
"The sun is setting and I am sitting alone in the sand outside our tent. The desert is cooling now, and soon it will be dark and it will become very cold. I have built a fire from camel dung so that we will be warm . . . yes, I am Shola, and my woman and our two offspring, a boy and a girl, are in the tent behind me. We are dying. I can see the village in the distance and the cooking fires are glowing in the twilight. We came with goods to trade but they would not let us enter. They cast stones at us to keep us away. We could not go across the desert to another village because we had little water and we are ill. Now after these many days, we have no water and no food. We have survived this far only by eating camel dung, something only a dog would do. Our two camels will live and we will die. They cannot catch the illness, the plague that brings the open sores on our skin which do not heal. I would kill the camels to eat, but they are old friends. We do not eat old friends to continue our own existence. It does not matter now. Food and water will not help. The illness is taking us along the course to death. There is nothing to be done. I do not want to crawl into the tent for fear they are gone, all of my family. I do not want to know I am alone. We have done so many things together, the pains and the joys we have shared . . . the working and being together, my woman and the young ones ... no illness, no death can remove the bond that grew and blossomed among us . . ."