by Sharon Lee
If he'd been half asleep moments before, now he was one quarter asleep. His muscles still lounged, and his eyes, but his ears recalled a distant mammalian heritage and would have twisted like those of a fox if they could . . . for there was something there, something that hadn't been there in the days of his walk, or the nearer days of his hibernation—something he was hearing as if through a template.
He agreed with himself somewhere deep in the near-sleep: a template. A template not of sight, but of sound and vibration. An old template that shuffled a million years of experience and separated the sounds and shifted other templates to form a nearest match.
Flying thing.
Not a fox's template though. Not usually heard through ear, but through branches.
Flying thing.
He willed his eyes open, did Jela, who found his name then, and his duty, but his lids remained closed, so he listened harder, for this was a template recently used, despite its age, and he must connect it to the sound in the root and branches and—
Then there was thunder enough to open his eyes, and his ears were his, and to his wakeful mind the pattern came: sonic boom.
He shed sleep entirely then, and glanced at the tree, which had been shading him as best it might.
"Flying things, my friend? And dragons?" He laughed, to hear his voice sounding remarkably like the dragons of the dream. "Dragons and now spaceships? What a fine delirium you bring!"
His eye caught the line of a single narrow contrail in the sky, floating with no obvious sign of an attached craft. It looked like they were heading away from him—to the place he'd touched down. Else they were headed in the other direction. Directly for him.
Sighing, Jela the soldier reached for his sun shades, tapped the knife on his belt for comfort, and drew the gun to be sure the barrel was not full of sand, nor the charge useless.
"Field of fire," he remarked to the tree, "favors both of us. If it isn't someone we know and they can read the signs, they'll have an idea where I am, so I'll be just a little bit someplace else. If they're bright, they'll expect it, but hey, I've got the rescue beacons on.
"You . . . I'm going to camouflage as best I can."
His handiwork, when admired from a distance, appeared to be another random pile of debris, though his tracks around it were hard to disguise entirely. He'd used his vest to sweep the more obvious tracks into smudges, and left the beacon on. He took one transceiver, leaving all the other powered items in the den, where they'd either not be noticed or, if detected, where they'd serve to convince anyone oncoming that he was sensibly in the shade.
He was not exactly sensibly in the shade, though he had some of it. That wouldn't be a problem for much longer today, in any case, since the sun would soon be on the horizon.
His choice was a gully where the meandering of the stream bed had made a short-lived branch; there, looking across at the tree, he laid out his pistol and his backup, and emptied his pockets of anything that might weigh him down if he needed to move fast.
He laughed mirthlessly, no doubt in his mind that he was running on adrenaline and hope, knowing too that his chance of moving with speed or stealth was pretty slim, this far into no rations.
It was then that he felt the ship, as if large welcome wings were overhead. There was a whine of the wind, and some slight hissing—remarkably like that of the CC-456s he'd known for decades.
It swept in low over the tiny campsite, its wings not all that large—indeed the ship itself was not all that large!—did a half-turn, displaying a single black digit on each of its stubby maneuvering wings, then another half turn—incidentally bringing the nose cannon to bear on the campsite. Then it hissed itself quietly into the empty ocean, and was still for very nearly eight full seconds, at which point Corporal Kinto jumped out the open hatch, slipping on the shifting sand with an obscenity.
Four
On the ground, Star 475A
Mission time: 14.5 planet days and counting
"That's an order, Jela. Prepare to embark." Chief Pilot Contado's voice was getting quieter, which was not a good sign.
"We're not done here." Jela's voice also got quieter. He was standing on top of his den, half-facing the tree, what was left of his kit packed into his pockets.
Contado stood beside the tree, towering over it, his permanent grimace accentuated by his squinted eyes in the shadows of the low sun. He was pointedly ignoring Jela's inclusion of the tree in the "we" of his intent.
Around Jela were the remains of the hasty moist meal they'd given him, along with discarded med-packs—they'd hit him with doses of vitamins, inhalants of stim, sublinguals of anti-virals— and three empty water bulbs.
Sated in many ways, refreshed naturally and artificially, shaded by his rescuers' craft, Jela felt stronger than he had in days, and as stubborn as the trees he'd followed to the ocean of sand.
"I will take the tree with me," he said, very quietly indeed.
"On board, dammit! Our launch window . . . " This was said loudly—meaning Jela had made a gain . . .
"That launch window is an arbitrary time chosen by the pilot. You're working with guesses. There's nothing yet on the sensors . . . ."
"Troop, this is not a biologicals run. I'm not . . . "
"Chief, this tree saved my life. It and its kin fought off the sheriekas for . . . who knows how long . . . for dozens of centuries! There's no other reason I can think of that this system was left alone for so long, and why it's got so much attention now. We can't simply leave it unprotected."
From inside the ship—off-com but still clearly audible—came Kinto's voice: "He wants to protect it, give him another gun and put him in charge. I told you it wasn't worth coming back for him . . . "
There was a brangle of voices from within the ship and then:
"Just moments to sundown, Chief. I've set a countdown, and Kinto's doing the pre-flights in case we need to boost directly to rendezvous."
This new voice on the comms was Junior Pilot Tetran; and Jela bet himself that in addition to the pre-flights Kinto now owned either a bruise or a run of make-work when they got back to base— or both.
Chief Pilot Contado looked at the tree, and at Jela, and then at the ship and beyond, holding a hand above his eyes.
"Chief, as a bonus—I mean as recompense for being shot down while saving both the commander and the Trident, you can arrange it for me—" Jela murmured.
There was a gasp at that, that he should so blatantly claim such a thing, but he pushed on, defiant.
"And I promised, when I ate the fruit . . . I promised I'd save it if I could! All I need, sir, is . . . "
Contado cut him off with a slash of the hand and a disdainful grunt.
"Troop, if you insist on it, it's yours. You have until the ship lifts to take your souvenir. The quartermaster will charge carrying fees against your account—I'll not have that thing dignified as a specimen—and you'll report for trauma testing as soon as we arrive at an appropriate location."
"I'd prefer to lift in daylight!" came the junior pilot's voice, merciless.
Jela broke toward the tree, survival knife and blanket out, hoping he didn't kill the fool thing trying to save it!
"We lift with or without you, Jela," said the Chief Pilot, and the wind carried his voice elsewhere, unanswered.
* * *
JELA WAS NOT A gardener, nor a tree surgeon, and if ever he'd felt a lack of training in his life it was now, on his knees on an alien planet, battle-knife in hand, facing the tree that had intentionally saved his life. His utility blanket was laid out beside it, and he fully intended to wrap the tree in that to carry it.
"Thank you," he said, bowing, and tried to recall a life's worth of half-heard lore of those who had tread the forests on other worlds.
And then, as there was absolutely nothing else to do, he began to dig a trench with the knife, cutting into the earth as he had been trained, recalling now the proper method of slicing through the outer roots quickly. The trainin
g—how best to avoid entangling the blade, how to get under the over-roots so that they might be preserved as camouflage or cover—came back, reinforced by the experience of digging for his life under fire.
He knew that he shouldn't take the tree entirely from the earth, that he needed to keep soil around some of the roots—but how should he know how much?
The dirt surprised him, being drier even than he'd been expecting. He trenched the first circle around the tree hurriedly, realized that the sandy soil wasn't likely to hold together anyway, and dug a new trench barely three hand-spans away from the spindly trunk.
As he dug he realized he was talking to the tree, soothing it, as if it could understand—as if it were a child, or a pet.
What cheek I have, to tell the king of a planet to be calm while I dig it out of its safety!
Despite that, he continued to talk—perhaps for his own comfort, to assure himself that what he did was right and correct.
"We'll get you out of here soon," he murmured. "Won't be long and you'll see the dragon's eye view . . . ."
The breeze began to pick up, as it always did at dusk, and the scents that played across his nose were those of sand and dirt and some sweetness he could not identify at first, until he realized it was the scent—the taste even—of the tree's gift he'd eaten . . .
Another turn around the tree, and Jela's blade was much deeper, but digging toward the center. The sounds from the ship were familiar enough, and they were the sounds of vents being closed, of the testing of mechanical components, of checking readiness for lift.
It was during the third turn around the tree that Jela could hear several of the hatches closing; and during that turn he realized that much of what he'd thought was a ball of dirt was in fact a bulbous part of the tree's tap root. It was easily twelve times the diameter of the portion above the ground, and as he dug away he could feel that it likely weighed more than the visible stalk above as well.
Finally he reached beneath, found several strong cord-like roots leading deep into the bowels of the planet. He hesitated, not knowing which life-lines were critical, nor even knowing how to test—and in that moment of hesitation he felt the tree shift as if some inner ballast had moved. Then, with a sharp snap, the tree lurched and the roots he'd been concerned about were severed, his blade a hand-width or more from the spot.
The full weight of tree and remaining roots descended into his hands, and he staggered, nearly pulled down into the pit he'd dug.
With back-straining effort he gathered the tree to him, feeling the unexpected mass of that head-sized bulb, shaped like some giant onion beneath his hands.
Now the sounds of ship generators revving came to him, and he wrestled the tree out of the ungiving ground and with a single motion wrapped it in the blanket and stood, moving at a run toward the ship.
Corporal Kinto stood guard at the last open hatch, eyes studiously on the hatch's status display, hand on the emergency close button.
"He's in!" Kinto said to the air, and then the Chief Pilot's voice came across the intercom. "We lift on a count of twenty-four."
Kinto glared around the branches at Jela then, and smiled an ugly smile.
"Even a Hero shouldn't order a Chief Pilot about, Jela. I anticipate your trial!"
* * *
THEY LIFTED. THE lander crew had allowed him to strap the tree into the jump seat beside him; and then they ignored him: Ignored his careful dusting of the leaves, his positioning of the plant where it could reap whatever feeble grace the ship's lights might bring it, ignored his use of camp-cup to dampen the sandy roots . . . and they ignored his talking, for his words were all for the tree. To Corporal Kinto, he had nothing to say. Contado and Tetran being dutifully occupied at their stations, he—a passenger—should not distract them with chatter. So he whispered good tidings and calm words to the tree, which was departing not only its home world and its honorable dead, but the very soil that had nourished it.
* * *
THE TRANSFER TO the Trident was awkward. He was left to negotiate himself and the tree through the transfer port, and emerging, arms full of trunk and branches, he'd been unable to properly acknowledge the captain. Then, as a pilot returning without his craft, there were the docking logs to sign, certifying his ship lost due to enemy action, which duty he performed clumsily, tree propped on a hip, log tipped at an unstable angle, while the quartermaster displayed an unlikely degree of interest in his secondary screens.
None of his wing met him, which he thought a bad sign, and he'd been directed not to his own billet but to the pilot's lounge, escorted by the assistant quartermaster.
"I should go to my quarters, change uniforms, clean myself . . . "
His escort cut him off sharply.
"Troop, you're just about at the limit, you ought to know," she snapped. "Took the pilots a lot of jawing to convince the captain to come back this way long enough to pick up your signal. Besides, there's no guarantee you've got quarters to go back to . . . "
That last sounded bad—worse than being at the limit of what would be officially tolerated. He was old friends with the limit. No quarters, though—
With him up ahead in the corridor, there wasn't a good way to get a look at his escort's face, to see if she was having some fun with him, and just then they reached a junction in the passageway and had to make way for pilots wearing duty cards. Jela managed to hide his face in the branches, pleased that the youngsters—for they were both rookies—could not see his reaction to the gaudy tattoos they wore on their faces. It was while looking away that he saw two of the hatches in the passage dogged to yellow, and another dogged to red.
"Took a hit?" he said over his shoulder as they continued. "I thought—"
"Your boat took most of it." Her voice was gentler now, as if she gave due respect to duty done, and done well. "But there was still some pretty energetic debris, and a bad shot from one of ours, too."
Jela grimaced, partly from the news and partly from the exertion of carrying the tree. He'd have sworn it had been much lighter when he'd grabbed it out of the ground.
Forced to the side of the passage once more by through traffic he leaned against the metal wall, resting for a moment, until a tap on the shoulder reminded him that he was on ship's business and not his own.
Moving forward, he vaguely wondered which—if any—of his belongings might have survived, but then let that thought go; he was here, and the tree was here, and that was more than he had a right to expect, after all.
They came at last to the pilots lounge. The hatch was uncharacteristically dogged—to green at least!—but with ship's air at risk it was only a common-sense precaution. He had time to note that his wing's insignia was pasted roughly to the door, then the assistant quartermaster reached past him to rap—which was her right, after all, to have a lesser open for her from within.
The hatch swung wide, an unexpected hand between his shoulders sent him through, half-stumbling, and he looked, quick eyes raking past the scraggly leaves of the tree, taking in the six empty helmets sitting with unsheathed blades beside them on a table, and five faces—familiar, strained, concerned, watching him.
His knees shook. He locked them, refusing to fall, but . . .
Six? Six gone?
Corporal Bicra it was who gently took the tree from him, and Under Sergeant Vondahl who led the salute.
With Jela, they numbered six—the smallest number Command would recognize as a wing.
And as luck would have it, he was now eldest in troop, and senior in rank.
He returned the salute uncertainly, and sat heavily in the chair beside the tree.
"Report," he said, not at all wishing to hear the tale.
Five
Trident
Isolation Ward
THE MED TECH WAS adamant, the while admitting Jela's basic understanding of the theory of contagion.
Yes, many diseases could be spread—could have been spread already—by the mere passage of an infected person, su
ch as Jela, bearing an infectious object, such as the tree, through the ship.
That Jela had been escorted by the assistant quartermaster, and welcomed into the temporary wing wardroom was unfortunate. That no one had yet died of some hideous, unknown disease since his return to the ship was not proof positive that no one would.
More to the point, several standard protocols had been abused and the med tech was voluble in their listing.
First and foremost, Jela should not have been permitted to land on the planet without a thorough reevaluation of the biological information from the old surveys.
Secondly, neither Jela nor the tree should have been permitted back into the pick-up ship without disinfection.
Thirdly and most annoying to the tech, as Jela read it, neither he nor the tree should be aboard now without having been disinfected.
The tech knew the rules and had the ear of someone on staff; and that someone had been appropriately notified, dignified, and horrified.
And so it was that the second day of Jela's reign as Acting Wingleader was spent in an isolation tunnel. The double-walled see-through chamber was inflated inside an ordinary infirmary room. The tree, within a double-walled flex-glass cubicle, was isolated all the more within that chamber while various tests were done on the dirt it called its own. At least they'd seen the wisdom of leaving the tree were Jela could watch it—if it turned blue or purple or became infested with bugs in its chamber he'd be right there to see it.
He hadn't pointed out to the med tech that no one knew exactly how long it might take a scruffy-looking tree of unknown genus to exhibit signs of parasitism, decay, or the like, but he had managed to get the tech to agree to a watering system for the plant so it wouldn't give a "false positive" that might have the fleet isolating the whole ship . . . .
Luckily, the tech admitted the biotic sanctity of electronic communications, so Jela's small command was able at least to speak with him when required and otherwise keep his comm-screen active with the news and goings-on of the group.
