Over the first decades, MorningLightMountain began to shape and fortify its valley. In those days there were few non-Prime life-forms left in the equatorial lands. Those that did still inhabit the valley such as the birds and a few rodentlike creatures were swiftly hunted down and exterminated—no immotile would tolerate competition for its own resources. The wild jungle was gradually cut back, the swamps drained into a network of canals that irrigated the big ferns that motiles ate. Stone was quarried, and used to construct a simple igloo-dome over the immotile as protection from the elements and any rogue predators from other territories. Metal ores were mined, and fires were used to forge crude weapon tips. The congregation pool was dredged and lined with stone.
After forty-five years of unrestricted growth, MorningLightMountain was reaching the limits of its management capacity. Over a thousand motiles were at work in the valley, and supervision was becoming difficult. A second immotile was amalgamated to compensate for the shortfall. MorningLightMountain’s pool and dome were extended, and four motiles brought together a couple of meters away from it. While the amalgamation was progressing, MorningLightMountain had six of its nerve receptors linked with those motiles undergoing the merger, pushing its thoughts into the new-growing brain. When it was all over, the two were permanently linked by four nerve receptors, producing an immotile duo with a much expanded mental capacity, and capable of organizing many herds of motiles.
A new phase of productivity began. The valley, when properly agrarianized, was capable of supporting thousands of motiles. To MorningLightMountain’s disappointment, however, it took almost all of its motiles just to keep the valley maintained. Thirty-five years later, a third immotile was amalgamated next to the initial duo. That was around the time it began to trade with immotiles of surrounding territories. Metal ores were exchanged for the use of soldier herds to repel a territory that was starting to encroach the top of the valley ramparts. Food ferns were swapped for hardwood trunks that made better spears and clubs. Ideas were bartered, chief among them the concept of plows and crop rotation brought in from immotiles thousands of kilometers away. It was the start of true agriculture for the Prime civilization, and the associated revolution that the innovation always introduced. The amount of produce that could be grown by a motile doubled within a decade. Seeing the possibility of the concept, the immotiles began to experiment, studying how the plants grew, what soils were best. MorningLightMountain itself was the one who worked out cross-pollination as a method of increasing yield and breeding new varieties. It was the start of the scientific method, and all that implied.
MorningLightMountain amalgamated its twenty-ninth immotile a decade after it began sowing crops. Twenty years later, a thousand years after it had begun its original singleton life, the number of connected units in the group reached forty, an unheard-of rate of expansion. Its linked brains were abuzz with ideas and thoughts as it observed its immediate universe with ever more scrutiny.
On the edge of the tropics, Prime immotiles were pushing farther and farther into the temperate lands, armed with their new knowledge and understanding of nature. Fire made it possible for them to live farther and farther from their original climate. Heated buildings, cultivated fields, canals, bridges, saws, and axes helped them travel farther and farther to establish allied territories.
Inevitably, as they began to grasp the principles of construction, and strength of materials, mathematical tools were developed to aid fabrication. For creatures that were essentially a giant brain, mathematics pushed them into their primacy—it was the key to understanding everything. They devoted themselves to it with a devotion that was almost religious. All the elements were now in place for the mechanical age to begin. When that happened, the pace of change was very, very swift.
