When he came to, the first thing Josh felt when he came to was his dorsal appendage. It was lying under him so he stretched it out and flexed its three extensions. They seemed not so much like three fingers but more like three thumbs all working in opposition to the other two. That was when Josh became aware of the 360 degree vision. It was a little disconcerting at first to see in every direction. Josh�s first impulse was to blink but then he remembered that he had no eye lids. The �Sluggs�, as his colleagues called them, generally turned their eyes inward instead of blinking. With a thought he did so and was able to take in the vision in the round experience. Josh then moved his other three appendages: ventral, right and left. The transfer of consciousness seemed to be a better success than he thought it would be. The body he was in felt like his own. Well, actually it was. He had worked so hard to configure the matter energy conversion devise to take his body and consciousness and restructure it into another form. One mistake and he would have come out a non-viable monster. But it seemed to work. If only his colleagues could see him now. Dr. Joshua Gonzoles, Phi Beta Cappa and Valedictorian of the Martian University of Arts and Sciences transformed into a 200 pound gastropod!

Josh shut his dorsal eye and pointed the other two forward as he had often seen the Sluggs do. The experience of binocular vision was strangely reassuring. As Josh made his way toward the village he had a lot of time to think. One never realizes what an advantage being a biped is until one has to crawl on one's belly for three kilometers. Josh had not considered the crawl when he chose this site to materialize. He had only thought about its isolation. It wouldn�t do to have one of the natives see him form out of nothing. That would ruin the whole experiment. Or was it really an intervention? Either way he would soon see how well it worked and if the ends would justify the means. Josh was a scientist and scientists are supposed to be passive observers especially where a primitive society in it earliest stages of forming is involved, but he couldn�t just stand by and watch a society of intelligent beings die out for reasons they didn�t understand.

It had been about two earth years before when he had discovered the problem. The Sluggs� food supply was slowly being contaminated. Previous studies of this planet had observed this kind of slow contamination, but the Sluggs had always moved on to another location before the situation became critical. By instinct the Sluggs cultivated algae in pools of water that existed all over the planet. As time went by the concentration of algae caused certain chemicals to build up in the water. These chemicals would eventually cause the algae to die out. Yet whenever the chemical levels reached a certain point the tribe would take some of the algae and move to another pool and start cultivating it there. It would take generations for the levels to necessitate a move and the behavior appeared to be instinctual. Thus it had been going on as long as humans had been observing them and probably for millennia before.

The group that Josh was studying, however, had developed a culture and technology beyond any of the other tribes. They had artisans and craftsmen and had even the rudiments of a written language. None of these things had been seen before and they marked a huge step in the development of their species. But they were showing no signs of moving. The levels were more toxic than had been recorded anywhere. They needed to move by stages to a new pool to cultivate their algae or cultivate and transport it. It was their instinct to move at a certain time and that was right for them, but this group seemed to have turned off that instinct and were in danger of becoming extinct. Oh, there were other tribes of Sluggs all over the planet, but no one would carry on the literature, art and ideas that this group had developed. Civilization would die and it might take millennia for it to reappear.

It took a while but Josh to realized that the only way to convince them to move without damaging their society would be to become one of them. Appearing in his natural form would scare them and he would probably be unable to communicate effectively. It would irreparably damage their developing culture as much as letting it die out. He would have to know them personally. After years of intensive research and observation from orbit and from hidden locations he knew all that there was to know about their society and biology except actually experiencing their world from their viewpoint. So Josh decided to try something never done before. He took his huge database on Slugg anatomy and biochemistry and wrote a program to produce a typical working Slugg body by using an energy matter transference devise. This devise was usually used to transform waste materials into energy for fuel and energy into useful materials. At its best it had produced a steak and egg breakfast or a molecular computer chip. No one had ever tried it for anything more complex than replacement organs.

The first of these new lessons Josh learned from his new life as a Slugg was making itself clear. His stomach or rather digestive tract was empty. He would have to set up residence and he would be stuck here for years probably. By taking another form he had burned his bridges. The message he had sent out just prior to taking this step explained everything. It even contained schematics for the changes he had made in the matter energy conversion equipment. It would still take years for a �rescue party� to arrive. And even if he could construct a com system, the computer on the ship would never recognize him. He would not even be speaking English.

Slowly but surely the town appeared over the horizon. This is where he must start. Just communicating with whoever or whatever he could. Telling them of the need to move. He went straight to the pool led mainly by his new appetite for algae. But there he found the workers who collected the algae for the others to eat. �Do you want to keep eating or do you want to die,� Josh announced in the squeaks and clicks which were now his native language. They all looked at him strange. �Do you want to live or die?� he rephrased his question. One of the workers held up three clumps of algae. We eat and we live.� �But how long will you eat?� Another responded, �This stranger speaks in riddles.� Josh pushed the attempt. He could not explain to them the cause of their peril without introducing to them ideas beyond them. �There are forces you don�t know or understand. How does the sun rise or the rain fall? We don�t know, but it does. So there are forces at work that I cannot explain that will destroy your life if you do not do as the ancients did. We must move from this place to another pool according to the wisdom of the ages.� By now his voice had gathered a small crowd of workers and passers by. �Our forbears and those before moved from place to place every few generations. We have seen others continue to do that. We must do it too. We must leave this place and take the gifts it has given with us. If we do not the forces I speak of will destroy us and all we have.� �Who are you?� one older members of the community asked. �I come from there� Josh pointed out into waste land he had come from with three of his appendages. It was not a lie but it was incomplete. He had come from that direction and if you went straight not following the curve of the planet you would eventual reach out into space.

Another in the crowd added his question. �How can you know these things and not be able to explain them to us?� Josh responded, �I wish I could explain them to you but I cannot. You must believe me or you will all perish.� Just then the confrontation was interrupted by a family carrying a juvenile to be placed in the waste. That was their custom when one grew sick and died. Josh had witnessed it often from orbit. One of the many ailments that the people struggled with was a form of sleep apnea that resembled sudden infant death syndrome. But the burials were always quick. �Stop and lower the child.� The Sluggs looked at Josh or what ever he had become. Then one of the bystanders yelled, �Do it and let�s see if he really knows what he is talking about.� He knew from his study of their physiology that a form of primitive CPR would revive the child. He pushed with three of his four limbs on her cardiac cavity and then she breathed and opened her eyes.

The entire crowd gasped in disbelief. The large algae gatherer who had first responded to his calls insisted that Josh go to his dwelling. Sluggs came from near and far to be healed. He was resistent to hs role as a healer yet his knowledge of their physiology and his compassion compelled him to. through it all Josh insisted that everyone hear the message that they must follow the wisdom of their ancestors and move their entire civilization or they would die. Josh knew he had time so he didn�t push the issue. It would be three maybe four years before the levels got so toxic that there would be no hope of recovering the algae growth without widespread famine. For years Josh spoke and many believed him. But others doubted.

Finally it was getting too late. Three years had passed and Josh began a campaign of civil disobedience to get the Sluggs to move. It was at that point that he had ruffled too many of the leaders and they decided to have him put away. They incited a mob and took him by night. In the morning the mob and city leaders sent him to the edge of the oasis and sent him out into the waste. �You came from the waste. Return there!� they shouted, �You want to move so bad, then move yourself.� He had seen this before. It was the ultimate form of capital punishment for a creature that was mostly stomach: to be sent out to die of starvation. Josh knew that another oasis existed about 10 kilometers to the east so there he headed. But after about 6 or 7 he collapsed and lost consciousness.

Josh awoke to a noise that sounded familiar but that he did not at first recognize. It was a man, a human! By the white uniform and the shimmer of the isolation field he knew it was one of his associates come to rescue him. They had a translator devise. �Josh we are still working on the modification to turn you back into yourself...� Josh looked around and saw that he was still in the middle of the waste. �...so it will take some time. We needed to repair and revive you so that we did not lose your consciousness. We know what you were doing. I can�t believe you would do such a thing.�

After they transported Josh back to the ship and transformed his body back he looked at his hands: two of them with five fingers! The sensation of blinking felt so refreshing and yet strange after three years. �Dr. Gonzolas, you have to see this!� Josh looked at the monitor. In it a small group of artisans, scribes and workers were setting out on a trek. They were moving to another pool. Others were staying behind but at least the ones that were moving would set up another outpost. Hopefully when the time came the others would realize the error of their ways and join the group that had listened and were now following the path of their ancestors.

Some of Josh�s fellow scientists did not understand why Josh did it. He could have simply watched them die out and had a wonderful paper on the death of a budding civilization. Why risk your life like that? But Josh knew that becoming one of them was the only way to lead them where they needed to go.