Interference

by Sue Burke

  “Where are you?” I sent.

  “Go out the west gate.”

  I passed a few colonists on my way. They greeted me more or less politely and didn’t seem surprised to see an Earthling wandering around so early. I wasn’t sure of the way to the gate and got lost once. But Arthur wasn’t there, either. The sky had grown bright enough that I could see more easily.

  “Keep going. Take the path straight ahead, then the branch on the right that leads up a little hill. There’s a grove of rainbow bamboo at the top.”

  “I know where that is.” That was where I had taken my samples.

  The path led through a field of what colonists called yams, where the plants were now young shoots. Spiny glowing caterpillars crawled among them, and a bat swooped low and called out to me. The bats spoke a language that the colonists understood.

  I sent the sound to Arthur. “What did it say?”

  “A greeting. It contains the offer to be of service. The bat must be hungry. They carry messages in exchange for food.”

  It circled around me again, calling, then flew off. In the fields, lizards were chirping, noises that sounded like little chimes. A bird was barking near the path. I tried to spot it, knowing it would look so much like a clump of dried weeds that I probably wouldn’t identify it. But even the weeds had nerves. Even these yams. And that felt … right, like something I had always been searching for and was finally going to find. The landscape abounded with sentient entities.

  “You know,” I sent, “I have a lot to learn about this place, but it feels familiar. On Earth, we were in a place called Dee Cee that was surrounded by a forest, and it feels like that. I loved to walk in the forest there.”

  “From the beginning, the colonists felt like they were at home here.”

  He said “the colonists.” Not “we.” That was odd.

  The field ended with a line of palms and what looked like shrubs but were really a benign coral—in the forest and not the plains? The path headed uphill, through some thistles. Familiar, too, thistles, like a fence around the bamboo. Finally I reached the grove, which had a little grassy space at one side. Boughs reached out like arms ready to hug me. But no one was there. I pulled out my breakfast and prepared to wait.

  “Thank you for coming.” The voice was different this time, as if Pax lizards could speak in their chimes. “Sit down and we can watch the sunrise together.”

  Many people mastered the trick of sending in a different voice. So this could still be Arthur. Or—I gasped with hope.

  “Who are you? You’re not Arthur. Who?”

  “Stevland. It is a pleasure to be able to introduce myself to you. You are aware that I use radio, and I have learned to use your transmissions. It is like having roots that touch people, much as my roots touch other plants. I can speak to you as I might to a locustwood tree, although we have much more to discuss.”

  I held my breath. Stevland! I could talk to Stevland, to a plant. Or it might be a trick. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “With you. I wish to speak with you, that is, to listen as well as to talk. But first I wish to say that you chose well two nights ago here when you took a sample of me, a young but mature stalk, large enough to be revealing but small enough to hide. And then you tossed it down the gift center.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I am not angry.”

  “Did it hurt when I cut you?”

  “A little. But deer are now nibbling some new leaves nearby. If it hurts too much, I can cut the connection. I am a plant, not an animal, so all my parts are disposable. Indeed, most are temporary, especially those aboveground. What did you learn from me?”

  “You have eyes. You can see.”

  “Correct. I see that you are wearing a scarf patterned after me, and you have bread and a piece of fruit, but you seem too awed to eat.”

  True. And I was hungry. Or I had been. Now I had questions.

  “I know that you have nerves in your stalks and ganglia in your roots. Is that where you think, in your roots?”

  “Correct. I photosynthesize in my leaves, and it is morning. Sunshine and water give me strength.”

  “How does that feel?” I’d always wanted to know.

  “It is like power flowing from my leaves to my roots, and from what I have learned, it is much like the satisfaction that food gives to you.”

  At that moment, it seemed like the time to eat some bread. I sat there, looking up as I chewed, as sunlight began to sparkle on his upper leaves. His leaves—he, not an it anymore. This plant was a person. A personality.

  “I think we can work together,” he said. “More than anything, I enjoy the company and stimulation of other intelligent beings, and I think we can become good friends. I do have one important request for you.”

  I knew before he asked that I would do anything for him.

  6

  STEVLAND—THE NEXT DAY

  A spark of ethylene freezes a few of my rootlets as the auxins are inhibited. The main locustwood speaker wants my attention and strikes where a patch of our roots overlap. It is odd that he should greet me in an almost nondestructive fashion. He is the new speaker for his grove of trees but already behaves typically for his species, with aggression. The biggest and most belligerent tree in the local grove becomes not merely the spokesman but the only breeding male, so the entire species aims for size and hostility.

  No doubt he wishes to ask about my service animals. The recent arrivals from Earth have created a noticeable change, to understate the situation absurdly.

  “We have a question,” he says.

  No demands? No bluster? He must be distressed. “Yes,” I answer. “A migratory group has arrived for a visit.”

  “We do not understand.”

  “The service animals. No doubt you have observed a change, but it is temporary.”

  “We are concerned about the fires.”

  “The fire tonight is for a celebration and will be strictly controlled.” I add, “As it is every year.” He ought to remember that.

  “These fires have already occurred. They were along the border with the Coral Plains.”

  Fires at the plains? I know nothing about that. But I keep my response calm, if only because an excited locustwood is a dangerous locustwood, and they get excited easily. “Tell me more.”

  “Our southern groves saw small fires over the past two nights. They started in the Coral Plains and did not spread into our forest, but five fires are too many. Our other groves can show you where. Your service animals must investigate.”

  “They will do so. Thank you for the notice.” Five. Fire is our greatest danger, although locustwoods tend to overreact. Swamp fires are not forest fires. Methane is the likely cause, since it can ignite spontaneously and at a low temperature, thus harmlessly, if that is what happened, yet such fires are uncommon. Five may be far too many.

  “But,” the locustwood continues, “about your animals, we have heard of odd movements and some new strange members. They can fly, for example, and they are not bats or cactuses.”

  “The visitors will eventually fly away, and the city will remain the same.”

  “And we wish to have the trunk of the previous speaker harvested.”

  I did not expect that. When the old speaker died, his death hastened by this rival’s quest to achieve speakerhood, we had agreed to leave the dead tree standing in honor of his service. “Why do you wish it removed?”

  “It lies in the way of new growth. Have your animals cut it down promptly. They will appreciate the wood.”

  Perhaps, for the speaker, it is a reminder of his dishonorable deeds to displace the incumbent. Or the dead tree may genuinely be in the way of new growth, new female trees for the speaker to add to his grove. But in any case, the wood has a remarkable pattern, called “checkerboard” by Humans and “plaid” by Glassmakers, and it can be used for items of beautiful utility and decoration, so this is good news for the city.

  I must not sound to
o agreeable, however, or the locustwood might interpret that as weakness. “I shall order it done. And we must set the quota for this year’s harvest. Perhaps, given your success, it can be expanded. Your wood is very useful.”

  “Provided it is only used for durable purposes. We do not wish to be burned any more than you.”

  “We will discuss this further.”

  “In the summer. Meanwhile, keep the fire tonight under control.”

  “We have sufficient experience.”

  “And keep your animals under control.”

  “Of course I will. I also have long experience with these species.”

  My deepest roots remind me that I have not always had successful experiences with these species, both with individuals and with groups. While I have extended my understanding in many ways over the years, this wisdom does not always serve in new situations, and every day is a new day with new problems.

  For example, I have begun to learn how to use this new radio feed, and I can easily understand why the Earthlings depend on it. It is like having a root that reaches inside people, though the operation of this radio is complex and requires energy.

  At the clinic, doctors and the medic are arguing over the care of an Earthling pilot, Mosegi, who has coccidioidomycosis, an illness we know well, so we have a stockpile of the cure, jars of white powder purified from some pineapples who produce a specific fungicide in exchange for the usual planting and care concessions. Actually, they are arguing not over the care but over the source of the treatment.

  “These pineapples,” an Earthling doctor says, using radio-based translation, “how did you discover their medicine?”

  “I don’t know,” says Ivan, our medic, although of course he does. I helped discover it and negotiated with the pineapples for its production, as I have also helped to find, develop, and procure many other medicines. “This came into use several generations ago. It’s been passed down with more concern about its use than its discoverers.”

  “You get a lot of different compounds from the pineapples.”

  “There are many kinds of pineapples.”

  “No, our botanist says there is only one variety. The RNA is identical, but they produce very different fruit, and you know a lot about it.”

  “They grow in different places. The sponges in the soil come in different types and form local colonies. That affects the plants that grow there. The farmers know all about this. They do the harvest.”

  An Earthling doctor sends via radio to Om: “I’m getting another stonewall here. Probably Stevland again.”

  I check the meaning of “stonewall” in the network, yet another of the radio’s amazing conveniences: “Delay or block a request, process, or person by refusing to answer questions or by giving evasive replies.” Ivan does not want to mention me.

  Om replies, “Well, we’ve learned one more thing, that this secret also involves medicine and its creation. By plants. Once again, there are plants involved. And probably Stevland. Good work.”

  They are looking for me, but would they believe me if they found me?

  At this moment, Ladybird is consulting an Earthling recording crew in the field where the bonfire will be held. Technicians record the exchange, and I watch it proceed.

  “Nakedness represents a willingness to change,” she says.

  “Do you know how that began?” the anthropologist says.

  “I think the custom began when the city was first settled, in the time of a moderator named Sylvia. Apparently the settlers in the original village went naked to show they were willing to move.”

  “Sylvia. Her knife is on display in the museum, with a list of moderators who possessed it, Tatiana and Lucille and Stevland. Were they all moderators?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why does it stop at Stevland?”

  “That was when the Glassmakers first came back. You know about the battle, and after that, many customs changed.” She smiles sweetly.

  One of the recorders sends a note, “Stevland was a moderator,” to a collection of notes about me in the computer. I look at these notes:

  “Sort of like Higgins, a semi-legendary figure.”

  “A taboo prevents his being spoken of.”

  “Perhaps some sort of superfarmer. Connected to crops or native vegetation. Perhaps a personification of ecology.”

  “The name for the rainbow bamboo.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Possibly a powerful deity.”

  They think I might be a god, a powerful god. That idea entertains me.

  Karola and Honey are sitting outside in a plaza next to one of my stalks, creating their representations to burn. Honey’s task was to domesticate Karola, and she has done a fine job. She has also given her love, which she seems to have lacked on Earth. Karola is creating sort of a stick figure, obviously a person. Custom forbids asking what someone’s contribution to the fire represents, but Karola might not know that, which may be why Honey asks.

  “A person on Earth,” Karola answers. “She’s legendary, a criminal, or they say she’s a criminal.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She killed a lot of people, and they keep her clone alive and punish her. Her name was Nancsi, and … well, I just never liked the legend, and they burn her image every year in a bonfire, maybe an effigy like these sticks but big, and I guess it doesn’t make sense to burn it in fire to change things, to end it by burning it in a fire, but that’s what I want to do, what I want to change. What’s yours?”

  I look up Nancsi in the network library and find much information and a recording. I still have difficulties interpreting images. Mirlo told me that the Human brain simply works differently, but I can learn to process the data since my roots can grow and adapt so easily. I must practice, however. As if reflected on a rippling river, I see Nancsi’s clone, her descendant, in punishment: naked, dirty, injured, and frightened. This is unspeakably horrible and Earthlike. I am glad Karola wishes it could end.

  Honey has made an elongated oval shape from soft wood. “It’s my finger, the piece I lost. Time to say goodbye and get used to living without it. There’s no going back!”

  In his lab, Mirlo has made a bundle of twigs tied by bark twine. I can observe him through a camera turned on to record an experiment that no one has turned off, even though neither he nor his companion is sending his thoughts. This way of viewing is intensely strange, peering through only one “eye” and listening through only one “ear.”

  “You have to get naked for it to work, you know,” a Mu Ree says.

  Mirlo blushes.

  “What does it mean, anyway, that thing?”

  Mirlo hesitates, then says, “Things I used to believe before I came here.”

  “Well, we don’t want to change. Except clothes. We need new clothes.”

  Om is with Queen Cheery as she oversees food preparation for the festival, Haus is with Jose as they hunt, and all others are working except Pollux. He sits and stares, listening to a feed. I have trouble hearing it because it is private, so I switch from the chip Queen Thunderclap stole to a radio receiver our technicians built two years ago from a quartz crystal. It can capture a wider range of frequencies; the chips have built-in limitations.

  I hear a voice that Karola has spoken of to Honey, the voice of the network, which occasionally speaks. She said it would sound like any normal Human voice, but it carries an identification as “Abacus” and possesses a kind of machine intelligence. It would seem alive, she said, but it is not and does only as ordered, orders that can be complex and even hidden.

  “[Something] received a report from Earth,” it says in a strong male voice. “It informs you of the conclusion of the war between Mars and Earth. It requires [something].”

  Pollux does not react as he listens to the report. I understand little because I do not know the history of the war and I have not fully mastered their language.

  “Earth government capitulation due to fifth column action. Reorganization
was reversed.” I have to look up “fifth column”: a clandestine subversive organization working to further an invader’s political and military aims. That is, traitors. And “reorganization” yields a long explanation about political and social changes that took place after something called the Great Loss, which would also take too much time to pursue in depth right now. What kind of action is required from Pollux?

  Pollux dismisses the report before he has heard it all, without reaction. He returns to sitting and staring, now in silence. If he were a Pacifist, I would recommend the medics pursue his mental health. My initial diagnosis is depression, although they understand emotional illnesses better. But do I want him well? And surely the Earthling doctor is aware of his condition, but he has not acted. Pollux is unpopular with many of the members of the mission. Observing him has led to more questions than answers.

  In a workshop, two technicians are reviewing data by scans of the surface of Pax from the orbiting spacecraft, and they are sharing it with anyone who will tune in. The images are intensely beautiful. I had known that Pax was a planet and knew what that meant, but to see it exceeds expectations. Blue seas, green islands, white snowcaps at the poles, and swirling clouds. I copy this vision into a root to enjoy at will in the future.

  “Nothing but forests,” says Velma, a technician specialized in recording. “Virgin, this whole planet is virgin.”

  Ernst, the technician team leader, orders a few changes in the image. “With false colors, you can see how the ecologies are different in different places. The science guys are going to love this.” He makes a few more adjustments. “Here, these are the parameters for this valley. Let’s look for a match.”

  After a moment, the scan rotates to a continent far to the east they have named Laurentia, then to a specific area.

  “Closer,” Ernst says.

  I see it before they do.

  “Look,” Velma says, “rainbow bamboo.”

  I am the only survivor. This cannot be.

  Ernst adjusts the resolution. Yes, arching branches like mine, colorful stems.