In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 265-269

If nothing else, these musings occupied
our hero as he readied Seven Six
for her role in the coming homicide—
a part he’d recently put in the mix.

They helped distract his mind away from grief,
the journey being lonely to the town
where he had gone in old days with his chief
to pick up food and lay transistors down.

He’d never learned how, long ere he was born,
the ancestors of Darna first took in
what carriers would take in trade for corn,
and how communications could begin.

At first, presumably, they’d merely dealt
with humans, who would understand their need.
The carriers would copy those who dwelt
within their bellies when they would succeed.

What mattered to him when he first passed through
was that the traders did, in fact, transact.
This time the place had one main feature, too:
Its carriers were ripe to be attacked.

Her role: We never learn what part 76 was to play, as the curtain comes down before she is ever called to the stage.
They’d: The antecedent for this pronoun has to be the ancestors of Darna.

©2011 Louis A. Merrimac