five hundred Eau seasons in age. Warm@Amber@Resonance speaks of other Flouwen that are much older than it, such as Sour#Sapphire#Coo. Flouwen possess mathematical abilities far exceeding our own. Despite their intellect, they lack any desire to make real use of it, other than to work on math problems or to study the stars; they just don't see the point in studying anything else. They do not have any concept of technology. They refer to the Dragonfly as a "giant talking rock" and name it "Floating Rock". Flouwen do not appear to have a strong social structure. They tend to treat one another equally, though mathematics proficiency appears to confer a heightened social status. Roaring☆Hot☆Vermillion is described as the nominal leader of the Flouwen pod encountered in this novel, though some other Flouwen are equal to it in status. While younger Flouwen seem to have large amounts of free time, their elders spend long periods of time in rock form, contemplating and solving mathematical problems. The older Flouwen often hold higher social status as a result of their perceived higher knowledge in mathematics. Although Flouwen do not seem to physically age, they reveal that it's possible that their ages are reflected in the amount of time they spend contemplating in rock form. Perhaps the actual population of the Flouwen is much larger than it appears, because there are many off working on problems. Some may never find solutions to their problems, so they will never return, thus completing their life cycle. The Flouwens' time to solve a problem is limited because they slowly weather away as time passes. Flouwen are also capable of splitting off sections of themselves which continue to function as sentient beings. Three of these Flouwen buds assist the humans in exploring the rest of the Barnard system in the sequels. Rocheworld shape Rocheworld is a double planet in which the two elements are close enough that they share an atmosphere. Each element is also deformed into an egg shape by the gravity of the other. James (the Christmas Bush) Rocheworld's human explorers are aided by the Dragonfly's artificial intelligence system, James. The physical extension of James is the Christmas Bush. The Christmas Bush is both a modular robot and a bush robot which both communicates through and is powered by a network of laser transceivers on its body. The Christmas Bush is similar to some recursive fractal