by Audrey Faye
I closed my eyes and sighed, remembering his jerking reaction when I’d made my offhand comment to Nikki about waking up in gardens with no idea why I was there. A classic emergence symptom for Grower Talents—but I’d been eight years old and surrounded by people who knew and loved me. Jerome would have faced all that much older, and far more alone.
Growers weren’t born to walk alone. This one had chosen to—for decades.
I could feel my chakras tensing and inhaled, breathing the calm of tea and home into my belly.
I had no idea how to help the complicated, distant man of many masks, and I was terribly afraid KarmaCorp wouldn’t know either. I didn’t want him broken. There had to be a better answer here than a dug-up tree and a man dragged off to what he would see as the dungeons of hell.
But I couldn’t let him run loose, either. Not when he and his tree could bring the quadrant’s best Grower to her knees.
The knock on my door panel took me by surprise—at home, pretty much everyone just walked in. I dug myself out of fear and melancholy as best as I could and shifted to face my visitor. “Come.”
I smiled as the shadow of Nikki Jeffert crossed the threshold. She was excellent medicine for what was trying to ail me.
“I won’t stay long.” She held up a small green container. “I heard some of what you told the admin team, and it reminded me heaps of this little guy. You’re feistier than you look.”
“If he knows anything about Federation legal clauses, I could totally use his help.” I waved her in the general direction of the other chair in the room—an invitation none of my friends would have needed.
She set the spiky plant down on the table by my teapot. “I have to get back—I have some cultures on a timer. Will the legal stuff work?”
There was a very good brain inside a certain lab tech’s head. Good enough to deserve the truth. I tried to sink my head back into the confrontation in the cafeteria—the rest needed to stay under wraps, at least until I decided what to do about it. “Not for long.”
She grimaced. “How can I help?”
“You already are.” I met her eyes. “The admins weren’t the only one putting on a show in the caf.” Which was something I very much wanted to encourage. Baby rebels were exactly what the soil of this particular community needed.
“That’s nothing.” She shrugged a little and tried to hide herself in the shadows of a room that didn’t have any. “Shaking things up a little, is all.”
I reached down to touch the head of a spiky plant. Someone was learning lessons from her green, growing things.
“I don’t know if you can take him with you. Probably not.” Nikki looked a little sad about that. “But you appreciate him, and nobody else does. They all think he’s a nasty, evil bully.”
Good and evil were firmly a matter of perspective, especially where plants were concerned. “He’s a survivor, and all communities need those—he just needs to learn some manners.”
She laughed. “The little bugger’s got a really thick skull.”
I grinned. “My roommate would say that’s just a matter of finding the right drill.”
“Ha—haven’t tried that.” Nikki eyed the little pot musingly.
“You’ll get there in your own way. You’ve got a real affinity for understanding plants.”
She smiled, cheeks a little pink. “Thank you. Can I ask you something?”
I rolled my eyes. “What, you think I’m going to say no?”
Her discomfort fled as she laughed. “I was wondering about my dream.”
The forest primeval, and the child comforted in her grove of wise elders. “It sounded really beautiful.”
“You think it came from the tree?” Nikki sounded uncertain.
I wasn’t. “Absolutely.”
She frowned. “It was so different from everyone else’s. I thought maybe I’d just made it up.”
Sometimes my job is really cool. I leaned forward and grasped one of those moments with both hands. “It was so different because of you. Most of the other people here felt this alien presence slink into their minds and it scared them silly. You have a gorgeously flexible, empathetic mind, and that let you feel the true emotions of what the willow was dreaming and enjoy them.”
And the willow had been having a nice dream, but I didn’t bother to say that. It wasn’t the part that mattered.
The lab tech looked at me with something akin to wonder.
I kept my head shake to myself. Talent didn’t always pick the right hearts. Although I wasn’t ready to give up on Jerome’s just yet.
Nikki just stood at the door, a dopey smile on her face.
I smiled back, enjoying every bit of who she was. “Do your lab cultures need you that fast, or can you stay for tea?”
She jumped and glanced at her tablet, grimacing. “Can’t, sorry.”
I waved her off. It might be for the best—she’d absorb my words better if I wasn’t around to be a distraction. “Next time.”
“I will.” She grinned and headed off, the automatic panel sliding shut behind her.
I stared at the boring green door, musing. She had a fine hand with nasty, evil bullies—and she’d gotten me to thinking.
Rogue Talents were often seen in much the same way as Nikki’s spiky little invader—judged by the damage they caused instead of the potential they offered. And the same could probably be said for the willow. The Basturs were all too ready to uproot her and stick her into a stasis bag.
I understood, far better than they did, that she was dangerous. But I also knew she was a tree that had figured out a unique way to communicate with human beings. Somewhere in her symbiotic gene splices and the workings of an untrained Talent, something breathtaking had emerged—even if right now, it just looked like a mad soup of rogue Talent and teenage-willow angst.
I took a sip of Mundi’s tea. It was time to pick up the strands of my nascent spider web and start sending a message. One Nikki had just very nicely written for me.
See beyond the spikes. See to the lovable, vulnerable, worthwhile souls underneath. See something worth knowing—and worth saving.
A plea for man and tree both.
18
I’d been called onto the carpet in the offices of far scarier people than Mary Louise Bastur—but this morning, that felt plenty ominous.
I stepped out of my quarters off-kilter and grumpy. I’d been awoken by the priority message on my tablet, which meant I was facing skydawn with the sleep barely scrubbed off my face and an empty, complaining belly. That was no way to enter into battle, priority message demanding my presence or not.
I rubbed my eyes one more time and then I did what all good Lightbodies do when they’re under siege—I headed for the cafeteria. My family believed deeply that food helped with pretty much everything, and my cells were shaking with the need for an infusion of calories. If I could collect a little comfort or tug on a few lines of my spider web while I was at it, so much the better.
I stumbled into line, groggy and disheveled, and grabbed a bowl. I could already smell oatmeal, and if there was a little honey to add to it, I would be a much cheerier Grower in just a few minutes.
The line was very quiet this morning, but I didn’t have any extra energy to sniff out what was going on. A few random spoonfuls of stuff into my bowl later, I turned to make my way to a table and some company to share my breakfast. The caf wasn’t very full yet, and no one was making eye contact—with me, or with anyone else.
I scowled, found an empty table, and threw myself into a chair. There was no time to deal with any of this right now—I had power-tripping bureaucrats to deal with, my head hurt again, and my belly was screaming for food.
First things first. I slid a packet of dehydrated chamomile flowers out of my bag—Toli had given me enough for a steady supply once she’d seen how well dried flower bits helped my head. I added some to the steaming water in my mug and loosed a trickle of Talent, just enough to steep the tea in seconds instead
of the forty minutes any of my aunties would have insisted on.
I didn’t have forty minutes to wait.
When I picked up the mug, I could feel the tears under my eyelids. That smell had always meant comfort, love, and the absolute assurance that whatever ailed you would be all right.
I took a swallow, prepared to take in goodness in a bitter guise—and nearly choked as my body tried to reject what I had already swallowed. The tea was like swamp water—if swamp water was full of prickly, agitated toxins, ones that were rejecting me at least as much as the muscles of my throat had rejected it.
I set down the cup, shakier than I wanted to admit. My Grower self was belatedly realizing what had happened—my bag of dried chamomile had been in the garden with me when Jerome and his tree rejected my help yesterday. Clearly the flowers had absorbed something of what had happened there, and it had shifted their resonances badly.
My grumpy-woman self, who just wanted a little TLC, felt picked on by some dried flowers.
I stabbed my spoon into the mountain of oatmeal, honey, and strawberries in my bowl and cursed as it slopped over the edges. This was really not my morning. I reached for a strawberry that had escaped over the edge of the spoon and hit the table. They were my favorite, and their red, sweet goodness was exactly what I needed to fight the powers of darkness that had dragged me out of bed.
And then the strawberry hissed under my fingers. I stared at it, nonplussed, and then reached a finger back out. This time my Talent was awake enough to hear clearly. One red berry that wanted nothing to do with me.
I felt like I’d fallen into a bad vid. And then I remembered the feel of the dirt under my feet in Jerome’s garden. Alarm bells ringing, I touched a fingertip to a bare patch on my hill of oatmeal, and then to a streak of honey running down its side.
All bearing the same message. If I ate real food this morning, I’d be fighting every single bite.
I pushed back from table, knowing someone was acting out trainee-school fantasies, and just as twisted up by it as I would have been back then. My breakfast had just hissed at me and I felt well and truly kicked in the knees.
I didn’t know if this was Jerome acting, or his willow, or both, but it felt intentional, it felt targeted, and it was very well aimed. They were cutting me off from all my sources of nutrition, all my good soil. I pulled energy from the people and the green, growing things around me—without them, I felt utterly bereft. Abandoned, left to drift in a world where nothing cared.
I swallowed, hard. My family adopted orphans, and somehow I’d thought that meant I understood a little of what they went through. The awful, hollow vacancy inside my ribs was making very clear that I’d never had any idea. It wasn’t just the terrible feeling of being alone—it was knowing that in every moment, success or failure began and ended with what I had inside me and what it could do. If I ran out of energy, of skill, of will, there was no one else waiting to pick me up, dust me off, and help me try again.
Fixers worked alone—but until today, I hadn’t actually known what that meant.
I took a deep, shaky breath. I was beginning to get a very clear sense of just how much trouble I was in.
And I still had the Basturs to contend with.
-o0o-
I looked at the three people already assembled in Mary Louise’s office and managed not to throw a Grower temper tantrum. Barely. She’d taken the position of power behind her desk—annoyed, regal, and more than ready to slap me down. John Bastur looked his usual, amiable, untrustworthy self. The lab tech who’d been dumb enough to take some legal courses just looked sick.
Clearly, this wasn’t going to be a friendly meeting.
I looked at Mary Louise. “Have you heard from judiciary dispatch?” I might be on the peon side of the desk, but I didn’t need to act like it.
“That plan has been superseded.”
Judging from the look on her face, I wasn’t going to like what had replaced it. I raised a polite eyebrow.
“We are declaring a state of emergency on Xirtaxis Minor. Level Two.” Her lips allowed a small, gloating smile. “All visitors and non-essential personnel will be evacuated from the biome immediately.”
John leaned forward, ever the helpful bureaucrat. “A shuttle will be arriving in sixteen hours. It will take all evacuees to Dowager Station. The Indigo will rendezvous with you there—they’ve already been notified.”
How nice of them to take care of my travel plans.
Mary Louise’s smile iced over. “We will remain here, along with other key scientists, to help examine and contain the danger.”
I didn’t need a translation for that. In sixteen hours, one willow tree was going to find herself summarily dumped into stasis.
Or that was their plan. At some point they would discover they’d lit a bonfire under a rogue Talent with something to protect.
I spent a fraction of a second contemplating whether or not to tell the Basturs who the real problem was—and decided that if they couldn’t handle a homicidal tree, there was no way in the galaxy they were equipped to deal with an untrained, threatened Grower.
That was my job.
And I had sixteen hours to do it.
19
Nothing in me wanted to do this—and everything knew I had to. I headed for the medical bay on the dead run, presuming I didn’t have much time. If growing up with the aunties had taught me anything, it was the enormous value of never letting them catch you.
Glenn looked up as I crashed through his door, eyes wide. “Tee—what’s the problem?” He was already grabbing for his medical bag.
I waved my hands around ineptly and tried to catch my breath. “Not that kind of emergency. I need to use your comm system.” He would have a fast channel, and one the Basturs couldn’t touch.
His eyes went back to wide and confused. “Of course. This way.”
I blessed his level head, even though he had no idea what was going on. “I need to send a stat message to KarmaCorp.” Sixteen hours wasn’t very much time, even for Yesenia Mayes.
“Okay.” He was already pairing his tablet to a screen on the wall. “Regular comm relays won’t pass messages for another three or four hours, but I can run you through the priority medical channel—that should reach Stardust Prime in a couple of hours.”
“That works.” I took a deep breath, trying to assemble my thoughts. Yesenia would grind me into soil additive if I sent her gibberish. “Can we do video?” It was a long shot—most biome-level habitats didn’t have the bandwidth, but I made a lot more sense in person than in written form, especially when I was in a hurry.
“Yes.” Glenn pulled up several screen menus, his actions crisp and efficient. “I’ll queue you up a spot in the priority channel. I’ll have to stay—it requires my thumbprint to record and send.”
Standard medium-high security.
He reached to draw a sound curtain around me.
I waved him off. “You’re welcome to listen.” I might as well get scuttlebutt flowing with some actual facts.
He looked surprised, but pulled over a stool, staying out of camera range.
I hovered my finger on the record function and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to send this message—once I did, I would be starting a chain of events in motion that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not after hearing Kish’s stories. Those of us born knowing what Talent was still sometimes had a hard transition. My roommate had taken five years to trust again after KarmaCorp had ripped her away from everything she’d known. A grown man, and one with very little trust and something to protect?
Hell was coming for Jerome Salmera, even if it came with the very best of intentions.
But the protocols on this were as clear as Erythrian glass. I needed to report, and I needed to do it right now. Fixers weren’t lone rangers. We, too, worked as part of a team. A rogue Talent who could challenge my skills and intended to put up a fight was going to require a team, and a good one.
I’d also, belatedly, rem
embered Yesenia’s words. Identify the problem. Fix it if you are able. I wasn’t able. This just wasn’t something one Grower with her roots shriveling could fight.
I opened my eyes and tapped the video on. “Journeyman Tyra Lightbody, reporting to Director Yesenia Mayes. I have been on Xirtaxis Minor for three days now, and have uncovered the root cause of the issues here. The lead research scientist, Dr. Jerome—” I broke off at the thud beside me and turned just in time to see Glenn’s head, clutched in his hands, take a nasty hit on the floor.
I didn’t have to ask why. I could feel the energy flowing from the big potted plant in the corner. Or rather, from the Xirtaxis Minor dirt that it grew in. And this time, it wasn’t a tree behind the attack, or at least it wasn’t only a tree. This one had Grower Talent stamped all over it.
I dove for the floor, cradling Glenn’s head in my hands, reaching for the skill that would remind his cells how to knit together. I wasn’t much of a healer, but I would do what I could.
And then I remembered that I was a KarmaCorp Grower—I knew how to work with dirt too. Even foreign dirt that very actively disliked me.
I jammed my fingers into the soil of the potted plant. The pulse of Talent I sent wasn’t gentle or subtle or nuanced. It was a lance of short, sharp clarity. Be who you are. Not who he is.
The dirt shuddered.
I pushed harder, reaching for the parts of the soil that had been here long before Jerome Salmera. Water. Minerals. Infinitesimal bits of rock. Things that knew time as a stretch so long that a few years in a garden were less than a blink. Life that easily remembered who it was, who it would always be.
I reminded—and then I pulsed that energy through the rest of the soil, the decomposed plants that provided the soil’s richness and remembered the man who had made them all too well. Dirt always remembers the gardener.
I needed this particular dirt to forget.
Glenn groaned, his arms beginning to shake. Seizure. The attack wasn’t aiming to kill—that much I could read clearly. But its aim wasn’t all that good, and the line between unconscious and dead is a highly individual one.
