The Puppet's Strings

Crivsola sat in the courtyard outside her home, slowly bending and straightening her arm, watching it as though seeing it for the first time. She had established that the body had a rigid frame, that the frame was made of many pieces, and that the pieces met at joints of various types. But the frame did not move itself. Something else was responsible.

The Bulge

She bent her arm at the elbow and looked at the front of her upper arm. The soft material between the skin and the frame was bulging — swelling outward, becoming visibly rounder and harder to the touch. She pressed it. Firm. Almost rigid.

She straightened her arm. The bulge vanished. The front of the upper arm went soft again.

She bent once more. The bulge returned.

The Other Side

Then she noticed something else. When the front of her upper arm bulged, the back of her upper arm went soft. When she straightened and the front went soft, the back firmed up slightly.

When the arm bends, something on the front of the upper arm shortens and hardens. When it straightens, something on the back does the same.

She repeated this dozens of times. The pattern was perfectly reliable. Bend — front bulges. Straighten — back firms. Every single time, without exception.

The Puppet

"It is pulling," Crivsola said aloud.

Tszuvok, who was whittling a small figure nearby, looked up.

"The soft material on the front of my arm — it is not just sitting there. When I bend my elbow, it contracts. It gets shorter and thicker. And because it is attached to the frame on both sides of the joint, when it shortens, it pulls the lower frame-piece toward the upper one."

She held up her arm and demonstrated. "Like a puppet. The puppet's limbs are rigid — they are the frame. But the puppet does not move itself. Someone above pulls on strings, and the strings move the frame."

Tszuvok set down his whittling knife. "The body has strings."

"The body has strings. They are hidden under the skin, attached to the frame pieces. When a string shortens, it pulls on the frame and the joint bends."

Testing Further

They spent the rest of the afternoon mapping the strings the same way they had mapped the frame. Tszuvok flexed his leg and Crivsola watched the front of his thigh bulge. He pointed his foot and she saw the back of his calf harden. She clenched her jaw and felt the sides of her face firm up.

Everywhere the body moved, there were pulling-strings responsible for the motion. They lay between the skin and the frame, attached to the hard pieces on either side of a joint. When they shortened, the joint bent. When they relaxed, the joint could straighten.

The body is a puppet — a frame of hard pieces, moved by soft strings that can contract and relax.

"But here is what I do not understand," Tszuvok said, turning his arm back and forth. "A puppet has someone pulling the strings from above. What tells our strings when to pull?"

It was a good question — one Crivsola filed away for later. For now, there was a more immediate puzzle. She bent her arm, then tried to straighten it by relaxing the front string. The arm dropped loosely. It did not spring back to straight.

"The front string pulls it closed," she said. "But relaxing the front string does not push it open. It just goes limp."

She frowned. If the strings could only pull, how did the arm straighten again? Something had to pull it the other direction. She looked at the back of her arm, where she had noticed the firming when the arm straightened.

The answer was already in her data. She just had to see it.