“Who are you?” asked Anna.
“My name is Mr. Visitor,” said Mr. Visitor. He seemed very pleased by his name. “I’m looking for Mr. Hedge.”
Anna scowled.
“He’s in New Jersey,” she said, and closed the door.
Anna could see Mr. Visitor’s silhouette through the drapes over the door’s window, and she waited for him to leave so she could skulk back to the couch, but he remained motionless for some time. In fact, it was a while before he made any movement at all. A minute passed before she saw his shoulders sink, then he turned away from the door, took a few steps, and vanished.
For an instant her curiosity flared and she thought about opening the door to confirm he was still there and hadn’t disappeared in a puff of smoke. But she was overcome by a strong feeling of lethargy and a feeling that it didn’t really matter, so she returned to the couch and lay down.
At the same time, the world around, people began to disappear.
* * *
At first no one seemed to notice. One person would not show up to a job interview or a dentist appointment. Then another would leave for the lavatory or for lunch or to investigate a noise in another room and not come back. A few scattered incidents, like the opening scenes in a horror film but without the mutilated bodies and psychopathic murderers. It wasn't until people of prominence began to go missing that anyone really took notice.
News programs began spreading reports of disappearing officials, then ended abruptly when the reporters went missing. Law enforcement agents commenced investigations only to vanish themselves.
There were a lot of them. Several billion to be more precise. They were frantic when at last they realized something mysterious and methodical and strange was going on, but those who could do something or spread information were taken amongst the first, so news traveled slowly, and ultimately there was nothing to be done. Well planned, well executed.
All told, the extraction took slightly over six hours. The condensing of human civilization, gathering the abducted from all the ships into a single container, a thin glass beaker, took two minutes. The trip back to planet Plant took as long as it would have taken to toast a single slice of bread.
They were asleep now. Preserved, compacted, all of the mechanisms required to keep them living and unconscious were tiny enough to fit within the confines of a small vial. Along with the lot of humanity. And the vial was small enough to fit within an inside jacket pocket. And Hedge, formidable and round, was just small enough to fit within such a jacket.
As the designated Commander of the Abduction of Humanity fleet, it was Hedge’s responsibility to take their condensed species to the Records Vault for indefinite storage. There they would remain, alongside samples of dinosaur and dodo, sperm whale and brine shrimp, and countless other species from their world and others, until humanity was deemed ready to be reintroduced into the social fabric of the universe or if the plants found some use for them. To date, no species placed in storage had ever been revived.
Hedge made his way through the chest-high hedges on his way to the great spire where the records of countless other species were kept. He passed other plants in silence, each with their own urgent errands. It was sunny today, and breezy enough to blow away the mugginess. Bright and pleasant as some of the nicest days Hedge had spent with humanity. It seemed as though he would complete this mission without the slightest interruption. This was, to Hedge, a great relief.
"Hello, Hedge."
The voice was familiar, and when Hedge looked to the side there was John Elm, tall and imposing, striding alongside him.
"Hello, John."
Hedge tried to walk faster, worried John would begin asking him about what he was thinking and planning, but doing so with such a round body made him tired and John had no trouble keeping pace.
"Where is your weed, Hedge?" he asked.
"What weed?"
John was undeterred.
"The weed you've been carrying around with you. The one you brought back from the garden. The one you took on the ship. The one you were whispering to during the abduction. That weed."
"Oh," said Hedge. John had been watching more closely than Hedge suspected. "I don't have it any more. I took it back. It was just a weed."
They were fast approaching the empty swath around the spire and Hedge puffed with the effort as he tried to keep up a rapid pace. He could not outrun John, but he could shorten the encounter if he could get to the vault before John asked too many difficult questions.
"I see," said John. "I guess you're going to the records vault, then. You have the vial with you right now?"
"Yes," Hedge puffed. "To both."
John made a few gurgling noises in his throat as though two phrases were fighting for dominance and only the victor would emerge.
"Can I see it?" he asked at last.
"I'm afraid not," said Hedge quickly. "I can't afford to let anything happen."
"Yes, oh, yes," said John. He stopped. "I understand. Well, here we are. I suppose this is where we part ways."
"Yes, John," said Hedge, trying hard not to gasp. "I'm sorry we couldn't continue our discussion. Perhaps another time."
"Another time," John repeated.
Hedge turned away, face burning.
He approached the towering spire of the records vault, feeling John's eyes upon him until he passed into the wide chamber and strode to the solitary pneumatic tube that would whisk the vial a storage location.
He stood inside the building, out of view of John, his breath rasping, then continued on when he recovered.
A vaguely human plant sat in the center of several thousand labeled buttons. For as much as humans were despised, it was generally acknowledged that their basic arrangement of appendages was oftentimes quite handy.
The plant looked at him with a single eye situated at the intersection of its many limbs. Its empty gaze bespoke long exposure to a deep and numbing boredom so that it was scarcely aware of anything at all. There was no joy or sadness, it lacked all concept of such feelings. Existence was no more than just that, the plant simply Was and nothing else. Purely functional, like a snow shovel or a shoelace. Hedge felt a great swell of pity for the plant.
"Withdrawal," it asked in a slow, robotic tone. More statement than question.
Hedge shook his head in negation.
"Deposit."
The plant accepted this answer in silence. Withdrawals never happened.
There was no banter. No flimsy words to fill the silence. The other plant simply logged the information dispassionately, then continued the pre-programmed inquiry.
"Genus species."
"Homo sapiens sapiens," Hedge answered.
“Photoautotroph?”
“Omnivore.”
“Terrestrial?”
“Yes.”
“Quadrapedal?”
“Bipedal.”
The plant tugged on a few pulleys, pressed a button here and there, then handed him a label and a cushioned, cylindrical vessel.
"Place the vial in the vessel. Place the label on the vessel. Place the vessel in the tube."
Hedge took the vial from his pocket, pressed it into the vessel, pressed the label onto the vessel with his thumb, and set the vessel in the pneumatic tube in the center of the room. There was a momentary hesitation, then a sucking whoosh, and the vial was gone, spinning somewhere overhead through the spiderweb of connecting tubework on its course to permanent storage. He tried to watch it as long as he could, but could only track the vessel through the first two turns before he lost sight of it.
"Thank you," said the plant in disinterested monotone.
Rather than answer, Hedge simply turned and left. When he emerged, John Elm was nowhere to be seen.
Hedge meandered for a while through the hedges and shrubbery, aimlessly wandering. He looked about every once in a while, afraid he would see John Elm poke his head around the corner or find him peering over the bushes, watching. At last he stopped beside an outcr
opping of ferns with wide umbrella canopies hovering just above the ground and sat. Heaved a long breath.
"Okay," he said. "Now what?"
Situated just behind the first layer of foliage was a small, potted weed with two red leaves at its top. The stoppered mouth of a small vial protruded from the dark dirt beside the stem.
"Now," said the Plant of Ultimate Knowing, "we figure out where to put them."
A Brief Visit
I am an excellent guard, thought Trunk the guard. I am very excellent, he reasoned, because no one ever goes through the council entrance without first being announced.
Trunk stood outside the entrance to the Council of Plants. He was the only guard outside the council entrance because, he assumed, he was very good at what he did. What made one good at Trunk’s job, he decided, was to be very large, because that is what he was. Trunk had a stocky shape with thick brown bark and two long branches he would use to hold out in front of anyone who tried to enter the council without being announced. Nothing of the sort ever happened, but he imagined it would go something like that if it ever did.
Trunk must have nodded off, because abruptly there was a being standing in front of him. The creature had the look of several plant agents who recently returned to provide testimony that some far-off planet needed to be destroyed. Hyoo-munns or some such. Like those agents, he too carried a toaster. All his features appeared symmetrical except his mouth, which was slightly askew and maybe too large.
The character’s appearance was so peculiar Trunk realized with embarrassment that he’d forgotten his duty.
“Who are you?” asked Trunk. “Why are you here?”
“I am Mr. Visitor.” Mr. Visitor pointed to his feet. “I am here due to a slight miscalculation. I meant to be there.”
Mr. Visitor stared at the doors leading into the chamber.
“Have you been announced?” asked Trunk. When Mr. Visitor did not respond immediately, Trunk continued. “You cannot enter without being announced. It would be very bad if you entered before being announced.”
The two stood in silence for a moment, awaiting an announcement.
“How bad?” Mr. Visitor asked at last.
Trunk wanted very much to have a strong and compelling answer to this question, but since it had never happened before, he didn’t.
“I don’t know.”
“I see,” said Mr. Visitor. He looked down at his toaster and turned his thumb against the side. After a moment he pressed a lever on the side of the toaster and looked back up at Trunk. “My apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you.”
Mr. Visitor took a step forward.
At this point Trunk’s training took over and he slid his massive body between Mr. Visitor and the door. He held out a great, gnarled hand, against which he expected the visitor would run into, and, finding no way around him, admit defeat and wait until he’d been announced.
To Trunk’s surprise, there was nothing to strike his open hand but a warm wave of air. The visitor had gone. Trunk looked behind him, yet found nothing but the doors, still shut. The two footprints in the dirt remained, but no tracks led to, nor away from them. He waved a hand through the air above the footprints, suspecting the fellow might somehow have turned himself invisible, but only stirred up a faint odor of something burning that went away quickly.
“Hum,” said Trunk, perplexed.
He considered wandering from his post to search for Mr. Visitor, then considered the possibility that wandering from his post was exactly the result Mr. Visitor wanted. Trunk was too smart to be lured away, however, and he felt pleased that he had not been so gullible.
This sense of pleasure gave way to curiosity as a sound of uproar grew behind the doors. Knowing this was against protocol, but feeling clever and heroic at the moment, Trunk threw open the doors and lunged inside, confident he could resolve any issue.
A great deal of shouting was going on from the plants arranged throughout the council, full of bile and outrage, all of which seemed to be focused on a single point at the base of the room. At the epicenter Trunk found Mr. Visitor, looking back at him with his great crooked grin on his face.
Trunk’s mind boggled.
“Hello,” said Mr. Visitor pleasantly, as if his presence here was completely within the boundaries of protocol.
Trunk stood motionless, too flabbergasted to reply. As he stood, the incoherent howling of the council thundering down upon him became understandable when he began to pick out small chunks.
“Stop him!” they cried. “Catch him!”
“What are you doing in here?” Trunk asked at last.
“Warning them,” said Mr. Visitor. “That’s what I do. It never works, though. Are you familiar with a Mr. Hedge?”
Trunk thought.
“No.”
Mr. Visitor seemed disappointed but unsurprised.
“He is a very elusive character,” he confessed.
“I have to catch you,” said Trunk. “It’s my job.”
“I understand,” said Mr. Visitor.
Mr. Visitor was extremely polite, Trunk decided, despite the fact that the council seemed to think he meant to destroy them. It didn’t seem the case to Trunk, though. He expected a destroyer, such as the Fire-tailed Xiz, would appear more menacing. As a result, Trunk was only mildly disappointed when Mr. Visitor vanished when Trunk clapped his arms around the intruder, leaving behind another set of empty footprints and a smell of burning.
The clamor grew louder at Mr. Visitor’s disappearance, but Trunk knew he couldn’t do any more. So he left the council, closed the doors behind him, and resumed his duties. It didn’t make sense to get all worked up when they could always just ask the Plant of Ultimate Knowing what to do.
A New Garden
Hedge stared dully at the display as stars and systems and galaxies buzzed past, orange and blue nebula bursts of exploded suns still expanding after millions of years. His back and arms and butt were sore from sitting at the terminal, where it seemed he'd spent the past several days. It made him wonder how trees remained locked in a single position for their entire lifespan, sometimes hundreds of years, without becoming crabby and plagued by countless, lingering aches. The Plant of Ultimate Knowing was on the desk at his elbow, maybe watching, maybe asleep. Hedge couldn't tell.
It was quiet and dark in this gothic and grim complex where all of the data plant society had gathered was kept and made available to any who wished to peruse it.
Right now Hedge was browsing three-dimensional displays of star charts, searching. As the Plant of Ultimate Knowing had explained, stealing humanity was simple. Saving them would prove most difficult, and would require a great deal of legwork. Stealing humanity wasn't enough to save them. Now they needed to find a place to hide them. But despite the tremendous area that plants governed and explored there were very few systems capable of supporting more than the simplest forms of life, and of the few that could support them there were none that weren't already occupied or being watched.
Now, as he stared blankly at the star systems that flickered on the screen, Hedge understood why the plants governing the universe had time for little else. Universe had always been understood as a vast, all-encompassing term, but he'd never quite grasped the sheer enormity until he tried to rifle through the whole thing without knowing where to look, and thus having to look everywhere. There was just so much. Little wonder the plants where humans lived never bothered to evolve and left the rule of the planet to others. There was no time for relaxation, no time for joy. Maybe these plants were wisest, rather than those who sat in the Council chamber. And Hedge realized yet again why it was he so enjoyed his time with Anna. There were no disasters of galactic proportion to fret about, and never more than the slightest interruptio....
"There!"
The Plant of Ultimate Knowing's quiet but biting voice jerked him from his reverie.
Hedge blinked rapidly and his surroundings retook focus.
The scene had fixed
on a small star system with a single solar body and several planets of varying sizes. Some ringed with moons, others surrounded by rings of debris which might have been moons. They orbited a rather small, middle-aged star, which grew larger as the weed manipulated the view through means Hedge could not detect. When it stopped moving forward there was a planet in the center of the display, the third in the system and one of the smaller of them.
"That's it!" said the Plant.
"It's kind of small," Hedge observed.
"It's perfect."
Hedge shrugged and leaned in for a closer look. There were bands of white running across the blue planet, just as there had been on the old world, and continents were crusty plates of brown and green. Maybe there were animals there already, thought Hedge. Maybe some other sentient creature, perhaps, that could teach humanity to behave themselves. Maybe, with time, the Council of plants would forget their initial decision and allow humanity to join their administration. Or maybe humans would prove to be the doom of the universe after all and ruin it for everyone.
As he leaned closer, to see if he could detect any signs of civilization, the whole display went suddenly white, then shut off.
"What happened!?" cried Hedge.
Had the star gone suddenly nova as they were watching? The odds of such a coincidence were staggering. It was amazing and tragic. But the star was so small, and relatively young as well. It was neither old enough nor large enough to explode. Unless someone had blown it up.
"I erased it," said the Plant. "No one else should know. That should give us a head start."
Hedge let out a puff of air. That made sense. If there was no record of the system, the other plants couldn't very well go looking for humans there. Then again, if there were no record of the system, there was also no way of knowing where it was located.
"But how will we find it?"
"I can find it," the Plant assured him.
"What about when they discover this area of unexplored space? Won't they come to investigate to complete their records? What will we do then?"
"That's assuming anyone bothers to check. For all they know, it's just a very tiny, mostly vacant smudge of universe, just like the majority of the rest. The likelihood of being discovered and caught is very, very slim at best. The Universe, as I’m sure you know by now, is a very big place."
The Speaker for the Trees Page 8
