<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t visited Virgilian before.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t really authorized, in my non-official status.\u00a0 But with the arrival of the full settlement team, there was a big orientation tour and I found my name on the list to beam down.\u00a0 I could only speculate as to who had added me, or why.<\/p>\n I\u2019d been reading everything from the work reports.\u00a0 While the photos that came back looked a lot like Earth \u2013 an Earth where the trees were mostly whitish in color, indicating a lack of chlorophyll, which in turn indicated a different way of processing solar energy.\u00a0 The sat scans indicated large groves of low, wide-spreading trees in the area of the proposed settlement.\u00a0 Both the thick trunks and the branches \u2013 which widened into palm-like flaps \u2013 were found to be devices for storing moisture, so that if you were thirsty, you could cut a small incision and tap a sap-like substance that was rich in nutrients.<\/p>\n Coupled with the mild climate, it came across kind of like the land of milk and honey.<\/p>\n As a gal facing some relocation choices in her future, I was naturally curious. \u00a0The rustic qualities weren\u2019t exactly my first choice, and it was a really long way from Earth, but I was trying to keep an open mind.\u00a0\u00a0 If nothing else, my faith in my own adaptability had grown a lot in the past few months.<\/p>\n As much as anything I wanted the chance to size up the new settlers.\u00a0 I was kind of hoping against hope that they\u2019d turn out to be a hip and appealing bunch.\u00a0 There were some mighty appealing people where I was.\u00a0 I thought I might make some better decisions if I had something comparable to weigh against that fact.<\/p>\n This was very much on my mind as I found myself materializing onto a make-shift platform on the planet\u2019s surface.\u00a0 There were a lot of people milling around.\u00a0 Everything felt a little disorganized.\u00a0 I stepped off the platform, and the transporter tech gestured me toward a doorway.\u00a0 I went out into the sun.<\/p>\n Sun. \u00a0Actual sun, warm on my skin.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t realized how much I missed that.<\/p>\n Looking around, I saw a cluster of strangers over by a temporary building, a large white structure that I knew was to serve as the center of the colony while the permanent structures were built.\u00a0 As I hesitated, feeling yet again like the odd one out, I saw Jim and Bones talking together.\u00a0 Bones waved, and I went over.<\/p>\n It was only a few days after Jim and I had had our little do-si-do in the hallway.\u00a0 I\u2019d spent way too much time reliving that little scene, getting way too much guilty enjoyment out of it, so my smile toward him was a bit shaky.\u00a0 Bones just beamed at me, his own claim of friendship solidly established.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, can I interest you gentlemen in some prime real estate?\u201d I asked, as usual trying to hide behind a joke.<\/p>\n They both smiled, and had a few snide comments of their own, which they kept almost to a whisper, leaning in conspiratorially, as we shared a few laughs at Kandel\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t surprise me, Jim\u2019s need to privately vent that frustration, a frustration that had only grown since I\u2019d talked to him that night.\u00a0 I\u2019d heard the rumblings, just before we beamed down, about a little power clash between Kandel and the new arrived governor, who disagreed with where Kandel had decided to locate the permanent community building.<\/p>\n Kandel, for once getting a decision right, had staked out a location on a broad flat field, which allowed for other support buildings to be located nearby. The new governor took one look at the site and pronounced it aesthetically unacceptable.\u00a0 Apparently he thought it would be much more pleasing to set the main building in the middle of a grove of those whitish, gently wafting trees.<\/p>\n Jim looked over my shoulder toward where heated voices were being raised, and frowned.\u00a0 \u201cDamn it,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI thought we\u2019d settled this\u2026\u201d and without any explanation to either of us, he walked off to where Kandel and two others were deep in some argument.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019d better go, too,\u201d Bones smiled at me.\u00a0 \u201cNo telling what those idiots might do to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n I was left standing alone, not very concerned with their diplomatic challenges.\u00a0 They\u2019d gone in the direction of the crowd.\u00a0 I walked into the deserted grove, drawn by the sense of tranquility, those wafting pale fronds, all around.\u00a0 For some reason it reminded me of an underwater scene, where beds of kelp sway in the water.\u00a0 I stood there a few moments, breathing in some sense of stillness and calm.<\/p>\n My peaceful reverie was interrupted by a surveyor, who clomped into the center of the grove, giving me nothing more than a cursory glance, or more accurately a surly glance while cursing a blue streak under his breath.\u00a0 He carried a bundle of survey stakes over his shoulder and was clearly very annoyed at having to re-do his work.\u00a0 I took it that the new Governor had won the argument with Kandel.\u00a0 The surveyor started plotting the building all over again, smack in the center of the grove.<\/p>\n I felt the sudden tension all around me, and hastily made my way out, walking down to the stream on the far side of the grove, where the burbling sounds of water began to sooth my spirits again.\u00a0 I found a grassy place to sit, and admitted to myself that I had no interest at all in this place as a new home.\u00a0 That inner confession, though it did nothing to clarify my long term outlook, for the moment made me happy, and I drifted off into contemplation, a million miles from the nit-picky problems of the colonists.<\/p>\n It was maybe a half hour later when I reluctantly wandered back toward the crowd.\u00a0 The newcomers were all sitting together, just out of my hearing, earnestly talking about something.\u00a0 I skirted the gathering and wandered back toward the clearing in the grove, not seeing the surveyor now.<\/p>\n But something wasn\u2019t right.\u00a0 Something felt very weird, very\u2026off.\u00a0 I remembered how tranquil I\u2019d felt standing here before, how disruptive the surveyor\u2019s resentful muttering had seemed.<\/p>\n And another thing \u2013 what the hell was this?\u00a0 The ground in the clearing, which I swear had been mostly flat, was now a tangle of roots.\u00a0 I tripped on one \u2013 a ropey vine-like thing, maybe 5-6 inches thick, as if it rose up beneath me of its own accord.\u00a0 I went down on hands and knees, landing crooked as another root seemed to yield under my weight, so I twisted my wrist and felt my hip bang against the knotty surface.\u00a0 Feeling both stupid and in pain, I looked around to see if anyone had seen me fall.\u00a0 No one.\u00a0 But, maybe eight or ten feet away, I saw a lumpy shape, something blue with dark streaks, sticking out from under another tangle of roots.\u00a0 The roots themselves seemed to be slightly\u2026 undulating as I looked, though I thought it must be the effect of the fall making me woozy.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The blue of the lump was the blue of the jacket the surveyor was wearing.\u00a0 The dark streaks were blood.\u00a0 And the surveyor was lying crushed under a massive root that hadn\u2019t been there half an hour before.<\/p>\n And as I lay not far away from what could only be a dead man, wrist throbbing, hip jammed against some knobby, irregular surface, I felt the very ground beneath me; I felt\u2026 movement.\u00a0 Felt something creeping up around my ankle, tight, deliberate.\u00a0 Vise-like, and \u2026conscious.<\/p>\n I started to cry out, but something stopped me, even as my mouth opened.\u00a0 I felt something as my palms touched the earth, something like a pulse, an underlying\u2026 heartbeat.<\/p>\n Something inside made me take a deep breath and \u2026 relax into the sensation, the way you do when you encounter a strange dog, whose ways you can\u2019t predict.\u00a0 Stop, let your own defensiveness and suspicion and hostility drain away.\u00a0 Stay calm.\u00a0 Hold out a hand.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s what I did. I felt the twisting ground beneath me, around me, felt it respond.\u00a0 That\u2019s when it hit me:\u00a0 Aspen groves.\u00a0 The dream.<\/p>\n Aspen groves can grow to cover whole hillsides, all those glowing, golden trees with their small, round, shimmering leaves.\u00a0 But aspen groves are not a collection of individual trees.\u00a0 They\u2019re one of the world\u2019s largest organisms, a whole, connected by root systems that can spread over a vast area.<\/p>\n And as it hit me, the white fronds all around me stirred, as with a gentle breeze, though there was none that afternoon.\u00a0 This place \u2013 this thing – was alive.\u00a0 The grove was an organism to itself.\u00a0 I was amazed, and let myself into this receptive state even further, lying with my cheek to the dirt, even as my wrist throbbed horribly, and my knee jammed tightly against something hard and unyielding.<\/p>\n I closed my eyes, and tried to channel love, and respect, to ask what this conscious entity wanted.\u00a0 Tried to explain that it was not the intention of the newcomers to harm them.\u00a0 Harm it.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 At least I hoped like hell no one intended harm.<\/p>\n There I lay, intently quiet and still, so it wasn\u2019t my scream but someone else\u2019s that broke the spell.\u00a0 Someone had seen the body.\u00a0 Well, both our bodies, except the surveyor really was dead by the time they could extract him from the tangle of tough roots that had crushed him.\u00a0 The roots around me felt like they had loosened, enough for me to free my foot, anyway.<\/p>\n Then I saw someone come forward with a blade, like a hatchet, to cut the roots away.\u00a0 \u201cNo!\u201d I yelled, scrambling frantically but painfully to free myself.\u00a0 \u201cNo!\u00a0 Don\u2019t!\u201d<\/p>\n Someone pulled me out.\u00a0 Dr. Chiddattra, newly arrived chief medical officer for the colony, having seen that the other body was beyond her care, rushed over to me and took charge.\u00a0 She was obviously a take-charge kind of woman.\u00a0 But while she fussed over me, Spock arrived on the scene, and I caught his eye and gestured frantically.\u00a0 He elbowed his way through a gathering crowd of useless on-lookers, and looked a little surprised when I<\/p>\n yanked on the hem of his jacket to pull him down to where I still sat, my ankle swollen and throbbing.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t care about that at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cTell them they can\u2019t build in the grove,\u201d I whispered in his ear, now fighting waves of pain as my injuries rose to the surface of consciousness.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s all one thing, one organism, and\u2026 it\u2019s conscious, Spock.\u00a0 I talked to it.\u201d\u00a0 I pulled apart far enough to look into his face, daring him to disbelieve me, daring him not to take me seriously.\u00a0 But his look was thoughtful, as was his nod.<\/p>\n He stood and stepped aside, talking quietly into his communicator for a second.\u00a0 I managed to catch the word \u201cCaptain\u201d, that\u2019s all.\u00a0 He nodded in response to some command or suggestion. Then, rather strangely, he seemed to scan the crowd before stepping back over to me.\u00a0 He bent down and practically shoved Dr. Chiddattra out of the way as he scooped me up, effortlessly, strong hands under my arms, bracing my weight away from the injured ankle.\u00a0 He ignored her angry protestations as he gave a terse order to beam the two of us back to the ship.<\/p>\n Once there, he immediately handed me over to the waiting medics, turned, and mounted the transport platform again to return to the planet\u2019s surface.\u00a0 Why had he bothered?\u00a0 Admittedly it was a rather thrilling rescue, but hardly necessary.<\/p>\n If the pain had been a little less intense, I would have been embarrassed to have boarded ship a second time in such a dizzy state.\u00a0 As it was, I wasn\u2019t sure I actually heard what he said in such a low voice, as he delivered me to the others.\u00a0 I think he said, \u201cYou\u2019ll be safe here.\u201d<\/p>\n I also thought I heard, before I passed out, \u201cWell done, Hani.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 next > \u00a0I dreamed of Aspen groves the night before, though nothing about dead bodies. I hadn\u2019t visited Virgilian before.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t really authorized, in my non-official status.\u00a0 But with the arrival of … Continue reading ![\"300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17\"](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0I dreamed of Aspen groves the night before, though nothing about dead bodies.<\/p>\n