In the Next Life, Canto II, stanzas 43-47

Nine Six Five has a message in her mail.
She thinks she can decode the mystery.
She shouldn’t try to trace One’s thinking trail.
I have to listen, though I disagree.

This clever can reminds us of our plight:
the crowding of the valley that we share.
We all know that our fuel supplies are tight,
and we have very little food to spare.

Well, ’65 believes that One has split
the group in two—this is a long-term change—
because the lot of us no longer fit
between the hills that have defined our range.

They’ll have to find another breeding place.
A number, then, could be used on each side.
She says the symbols must be just in case
we meet—without them we’d be mystified.

Well, I’m perplexed enough without all that,
and saddened by the loss of friends and kin.
Why won’t One simply keep our levels flat?
Why can’t things stay the way they’ve always been?

©2010 Louis A. Merrimac

Message in her mail: A hint of how the carriers communicate. This doesn’t fit very well with a later reference to brightness, but I suppose the precise method is unimportant.
Again, the process of number assignment is left to our imagination. The important thing is that the carriers are being split into two geographically separate groups at an early point in the development of their theology.