by Amy Thomson
Two and a half meters down, a wide shelflike projection partially blocked the hollow. It was covered with dark brown beetle-like insects feeding on decayed leaf litter. These bugs were what she had seen moving in the light from the glow-fungus. As Juna carefully eased her way past the obstruction, a bright yellow snake with vivid red bands bordered by thin green stripes lifted its head out of the leaf litter and regarded her alertly. Juna froze. It was a tiakan. Its bite was extremely poisonous. The Tendu could counteract the poison, but it took months for all of the effects to wear off. She watched it watch her for a very long time. At last the snake lowered its head and crept off, backwards. The motion was odd and very unsnakelike. Gingerly she unhooked the light from the rope and held it closer. She let out the breath that she had been holding, and laughed. It was a harmless giant millipede, its tail colored to resemble a tiakan’s head. Using a long bamboo probe, Juna stirred the leaf litter around the anthropod. It lifted its tail again, mimicking the poisonous snake. The illusion was almost perfect.
She gave the rope two tugs, the signal to lower her farther into the darkness. For a moment, the light from the glow-fungus was cut off by the projection. Her pupils widened, but the darkness was nearly absolute. Something wet and slimy fluttered past her, chirring and squeaking. She screamed. The sound was swallowed by the soft, rotting wood on the inside of the tree. Then the glow-fungus slid past the projection, and Juna saw that she had disturbed a colony of frog-bats. They were ugly but harmless. Conditions inside the tree were perfect for them. They needed a very hot, humid environment. The temperature had to be almost 35 degrees Celsius, and the air was saturated with moisture.
As she continued her descent, she had time to survey the inner surface of the tree. It was covered with a variety of different kinds of fungi. Clouds of tiny insects swarmed around her light. The walls opened out as she continued descending. It was like being in a cave. Great plates of multicolored fungi hung down like stalactites. Several different species of frog-bats made the tree their home. They clung between the fungal stalactites, chittering uneasily at her invasion. Their guano rained down on her head. She wiped it off with a sweaty palm and continued her descent. This reeking wooden cavern was a far cry from Narmolom’s comfortable, well-lit village tree.
At last the bottom of the cavity came into sight. Something fled squeaking at her approach. She jerked the rope three times, the signal to stop, and hung a couple of feet above the guano-covered floor. The fleeing animal paused at the edge of a dark hole. It was the size and shape of a large hairless rat, white with blotchy yellow patches. It was a gootara, an amphibian like the batlike creatures she had startled in her descent. The female laid its eggs in a pouch on the male’s abdomen, where he fertilized them. The eggs hatched and the young lived in the male’s pouch until they finished developing and were old enough to survive on their own. She pushed off from a projecting rib and grasped a woody knob on the other side of the tree to look more closely at the gootara, but the creature fled down the passageway.
Juna reached down with a bamboo probe and stirred the guano, disturbing a seething sea, of insects and worms that burrowed frantically into the detritus. There was plenty of food for the gootara down here. She dug further, trying to see how deep the layer of guano was, and whether there was wood or earth underneath. She struck earth about fifteen centimeters down, densely packed with roots. The guano was evidently a major source of nutrients for the gauware tree. Sequestered inside the tree like this, it was held for the exclusive use of the gauware tree. Perhaps this was what Johito had wanted her to find.
Juna unhooked the glow-fungus and shone it down the passageway formed by the hollow root of the tree. Several other hollow roots radiated out of the central cavern. She wondered what other creatures used these underground passageways through the jungle. She put the glow-fungus back in its case of nutrient solution, and hung there in the dark, listening. There were crisp rustling and popping sounds around and below her. The hole at the top of the tree was only a dim, distant circle of light. The outside world seemed very far away from this dark, stinking, bug-infested hell.
At last her eyes grew used to the darkness and she could make out, faintly, the bulges and irregularities on the inside of the tree trunk. Something rustled behind her. The rope swayed as she turned her head to look. Peering through the darkness, she could make out only a vague shape. She pulled out the glow-fungus.
Fresh from its bath in the nutrient solution, the fungus glowed brightly, revealing a huge lobsterlike creature, twice as long as her hand. Its eyes reflected the light as it backed into a crevice, its long feelers waving. Several other land lobsters were peering out from a root cavity. Instead of claws, the lobsters had immensely long, powerful mantislike arms. She jumped like a startled mouse as one of the creatures snatched a many-legged white beetle the size of her palm from the litter on the floor, and carried it to its jaws. She heard the rustle of chitin and wings as the big beetle struggled to escape, then the implacable crunching noise as the land lobster mechanically dispatched its prey, its eyes never leaving her.
Juna shuddered. She hated bugs, and there were too many of them in this awful hole. A sudden surge of claustrophobia gripped her. It was time to go. Hopefully Johito would be satisfied by her investigation of the hidden world of the tree.
To her surprise, the sun was touching the treetops when she emerged from the tree. She felt the cool breeze on her skin and took a deep breath. Never had fresh air smelled and tasted so good. Moki embraced her with his free hand, and Anito brushed her shoulder, relief evident on her skin. Moki coiled the rope and.slung it over his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” Juna said. “I want to find a stream and wash off.” She was black with filth, relieved only by splotches and streaks of brown guano from the frog-bats.
They headed for a nearby waterfall. Juna stood underneath it in the last golden rays of the sun, feeling the cool water blast away the accumulation of grime on her skin. She dove into the pool below the falls and emerged, clean and dripping. Looking up, she noticed that night birds and bats were already beginning to flicker through the trees overhead. Johito would be waiting for them at the other tree.
Suddenly she was struck by an idea. Juna laughed. Let Johito wait. She had just thought of another portion of the ecosystem that she needed to observe.
“Anito, can we build a nest in the hollow gauware tree tonight? I want to see what happens to the tree at night.”
Anito flickered agreement. “We’d better hurry, though. It’s getting dark.”
They built a nest in the gauware tree she had climbed inside of. They took turns watching through the night, waiting for a rustling nearby, then uncapping the glow-fungus to see what was there. Often they were rewarded by a glimpse of some visiting creature. They catalogued five species of larger animals new to the tree, as well as numerous insects, drawn by the light of the glow-fungus.
Johito met them as they returned to the village, tired but happy.
“Where were you last night?” Johito asked them, ochre concern warring with yellow irritation on her skin.
“We were out studying your atwa,” Anito said.
“We’ve learned a great deal,” Juna added. “May we tell you now, or would you rather wait until tonight?” She hefted a full gathering bag, bulging with fruit and game. “We’ve brought breakfast. It isn’t much, but—”
“Thank you,” Johito said. “I can listen now.”
They followed Johito down to her room and sat down. Moki and Johito’s bami set about preparing breakfast.
“So, what did you learn about the tree?” Johito asked, ignoring the usual polite preliminaries.
Juna told Johito about her trip into the hollow gauware tree, and their night watch. She listed the species they’d found and speculated on the nutrients the tree got from the guano of the animals dwelling inside it, She ignored the breakfast set before them, though her stomach was hollow with hunger.
At last she was through. J
ohito regarded them for a very long moment.
“Well,” she said at last. “Eat a big breakfast. Today will be long. You have a lot to learn.”
Juna looked at Anito, who nodded at her. She had won the first battle. Johito was going to teach Juna about her atwa.
She ate hugely, savoring her victory. When she was finished, Johito took her out and showed her everything she had missed about the gauware tree.
To Juna’s satisfaction, most of what Johito had to show her were things she couldn’t have observed. Because the gauware tree was not in bloom this time of year, the network of pollinators, pollen thieves, and their predators and parasites was not there to be discovered. Also the large breeding colonies of darru beetles that filled the inside of the hollow trees wouldn’t congregate until a month before the next flood season.
Still there were surprises, such as a complex symbiotic relationship between the nocturnal araus and the brilliant ngulla birds. The ngulla birds fed on a species of flying insect that laid its eggs on the arau chicks, weakening and killing them. In return, the arau provided warning of nocturnal predators to the sleeping ngulla. That relationship would have taken months of study to discover.
They spent the whole day in the gauware tree, stopping only for a brief, light lunch of fruit, greens, and honey. Juna’s brain was whirling by the time the sun touched the treetops. Johito looked like she was ready to go on all night, but Anito intervened, pleading exhaustion.
“We were up all night, kene,” she said. “I don’t think that two nights in a row would be wise.”
“Tomorrow then,” Johito said. “We will meet in my room for breakfast. Moki and Eerin will tell me what they have learned today. If it is satisfactory, then the lessons will continue.”
Juna was glad that she’d had the presence of mind to record Johito’s lessons. She and Moki managed to review them briefly that night, before exhaustion claimed them both.
The review the following morning was grueling and minute. Juna remembered her harrowing Ph.D. defense. Compared to Johito, her professors had been vague and undemanding. Her stomach was in knots by the time Johito finished her interrogation.
It never got any easier. Several times, Johito suspended lessons abruptly, claiming to have lost patience with them, sending them back to review what they had already learned. Always there was some simple fact that they had failed to take into consideration. Johito’s skin remained expressionless. Her words were simple black patterns on neutral green skin. It was impossible to tell how they were doing until she either passed or failed them. By the end of the month their nerves were shot. They flared angrily at each other at the slightest provocation. Even linking failed to ease the tension.
Ukatonen showed up four days before Johito was due to pass judgment. He took one look at them and pulled rank, claiming he needed them for some work he was doing in the wild lands. He took them to a lovely spot in the middle of the wild lands and demanded the whole story.
“No wonder you’re so tired. Rest, eat, relax, link. You need it, all of you.”
“But Johito—” Juna began.
“Johito can wait until you’re back in harmony. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help.”
“We did all right,” Anito said. “Eerin and Moki have both learned an enormous amount about Johito’s atwa.”
“I’m sure they have, but perhaps I could have done something…”
“This was the best bargain we could get. At least I’ve had another month here in Narmolom.”
“Johito hasn’t exiled us from the village yet,” Juna said. “We don’t know what she’s thinking. She may let us stay.”
“The whole village is talking about how hard you’ve been working,” Ukatonen said. “Johito will lose face if she can’t prove that you don’t know her atwa.”
Anito brightened considerably at that thought. “Do you think we’ll get to stay?”
“Perhaps. Everything depends on Johito, and no one knows what she thinks. However, you need to be relaxed and calm when you go in for judgment. Stay here and enjoy yourselves. We’ll go back tomorrow and I’ll see what I can do behind the scenes.”
They returned to the village feeling rested, calmer, and more even-tempered. Johito greeted them as though they had never left. They spent the afternoon with her learning about several parasitic plants that lived on the kandar tree, another species that was part of her atwa. Several of these plants produced food; others provided crucial food sources for animals in other atwas. Ukatonen came with them, but the presence of the enkar appeared to make no difference to Johito. She continued to lecture them in the same impassive patterns she’d used all month. At sunset they returned to the village, where they ate and reviewed their lessons. The next day Ukatonen stayed behind to learn more about the situation from the other villagers.
He had dinner waiting for them when they returned.
“There’s nothing I can do. Miato has told me that this is an internal matter, to be decided by the village.”
Anito’s ears lifted at this.
“Miato’s right,” Ukatonen continued. “Unless someone asks me for a judgment, I can only offer suggestions, and I have asked too much of this village already.”
“I could—” Anito began, but Ukatonen rippled negation.
“Don’t ask for judgment. I would refuse.” He darkened with shame. “I am too close to you to be impartial. Even if I felt I could be fair, the judgment would be contested.”
Juna touched Anito on the shoulder. “Ukatonen’s right. Let me win this on my own. It will mean more to the villagers and to me if I can.”
Anito looked at her for a long moment, then rippled the Tendu equivalent of a shrug. “All right.”
Juna and Moki studied far into the night, going to bed only after Anito threatened to take the computer away from them. Anito linked with them, pushing them into a deep dreamless sleep.
The next morning Johito summoned them to the bottom of the tree. A group of elders were waiting with Johito. Juna recognized them. They either shared Johito’s atwa or worked in closely related atwas.
“Tell us about my atwa,” Johito directed.
For the rest of the day, Juna, and to a lesser extent, Moki, were questioned about Johito’s atwa. Lunch and dinner were brought down, but the interrogation was ceaseless. Juna was tired and her skin felt sore and tight from all the talking she’d done. At last the questions came to a halt. Johito and the others huddled to confer. Juna leaned back against the side of the tree, too tired to care that the aliens could see her exhaustion. She was almost too tired to care about what Johito decided. Anito squatted beside her, and held out a piece of honeycomb. By the time the elders’ conference was over, she was feeling better.
The elders sat back down, except for Johito, who moved forward. “Eerin has learned enough to please me,” she announced. “Moki must learn more, but he is young. Eerin may stay.”
Juna embraced Moki, weak with relief and exhaustion. They clung together for a moment; then Juna rose to speak.
“Thank you, kene. You have taught me well,” she said. It was truth of a sort. Once Johito had decided that Juna was worthy of her teaching, she was a painstaking and thorough teacher, even though she had never spared either of them a word of encouragement.
Johito flickered pleased acknowledgment at the compliment. Juna swallowed her anger. She would only lose the respect that she’d worked so hard to gain.
“We must go now, kene. We are very tired.” Juna motioned to Moki and the two of them climbed slowly up to their room, leaving Anito behind to make whatever polite excuses were needed. Juna was sick of excuses and politeness and face and all of these alien rituals. She wanted to sleep for a week, longer if they would let her, and wake up somewhere familiar and undemanding.
She slept until late the next afternoon, and rose to find a substantial meal laid out for her. Her skin still ached. It hurt to talk. She ate, washed, and stretched, then sat around for a while, enjoying the solitude. She tho
ught about listening to some music or reading a book, but she’d spent so much time working with the computer lately that she didn’t have the energy to turn it on. At last, she crawled back into bed and fell asleep.
She slept through the night. Anito woke her for breakfast. It was a relief to linger over breakfast without worrying over the day’s lesson.
“What shall we do today?” she asked Anito.
“Ukatonen invited us to go hunting with him.”
They met the enkar in the bowl of the tree’s crotch, and swung off through the canopy together. They found a plump, unwary muwa hanging in a patch of sunlight, clinging to a branch with its head buried in the feathers between its forelegs. Juna dispatched it just as it woke. She and Moki settled into the wide crotch of a tree to butcher it. Ukatonen and Anito soon returned with a brace of large birds, which they gutted and hung in the shade to bleed dry. They sat in the tree, eating lunch, while the blood from their kills pattered onto the forest floor below.
“It’s about time that we returned to Lyanan,” Ukatonen told them.
“So soon?” Anito said.
“It’s almost the end of the dry season. I don’t want to wait much longer.”
Anito clouded over with regret. “You’re right, but I have so little time left in Narmolom.”
“Why don’t you stay here?” Juna suggested. “Ukatonen can look after us well enough. You deserve some time off.”
