Portal Jumpers

by Chloe Garner

  “Why did the protest get so heated, if this is how they normally work?” Cassie asked.

  “Because this isn’t part of a normal settlement expansion,” Jesse said.

  “What is it?” Cassie asked.

  Jesse shook his head.

  “Filling in the blanks, it sounds like they’ve had progressive power creep from their most recent leader, who is reluctant to give up power. He’s planning cities for tourists to visit and ex-patriots to live in, growing the population with a new kind of people and tipping the voting preference. I expect he figures he can use land rights to bribe himself a voting majority, or at least an economic one big enough to keep the voting majority from doing anything about it.”

  “They do have elections, though?”

  “Not recently,” he said.

  “Why don’t they do something about it?” Cassie asked.

  “What would you do?” Jesse asked back, not watching her. The surge of indignance quailed before the hard core of fear and passivity that had replaced who she had been before. She struggled with it for a moment, but it won. She didn’t answer.

  They walked on.

  The Pixie planet was called Anath, and Cassie and Jesse had to jump cross planet to get to the little village that supported its sanctuary, but it was there. They walked out a much smaller dirt path to a great gate. It was at least four or five times Cassie’s hight, and wide enough for two cars to pass each other between its posts. Inside of that, there was a wide yard full of well-tended little plants that lived tight against the ground, somewhere between grass and strawberry plants. Jesse nodded toward it, when he saw Cassie admiring the tidy plants.

  “They’ve identified more than a hundred different biomes on the planet,” he told her. “That’s imported from another region here on Yan that requires more rain, but they use it as a buffer in between the native plants and the imported ones. It will choke out almost anything else, as long as it’s healthy.”

  “They take it seriously.”

  “They do.”

  Inside of the yard, there was a building, most like a greenhouse, but artistically formed in curved sheets of alternately frosted and clear glass. Jesse pushed open a pair of doors and they stood for a moment in an anteroom.

  “The air is to knock off any loose plant matter,” he said just as a sharp burst of wind blew up through the floor. Cassie fought the urge to spread her wings, knowing it would just slam her into the ceiling, and then the wind changed directions, blowing hard out of the ceiling. She felt the edge of terror, but held it off long enough to outlast the air current. The second set of doors opened automatically and Cassie wonderingly entered a great forest.

  This was not like the one outside: dry, old, and quiet. This was young, with vigorous trees competing with each other to catch light as tiny streams of water played across roots like splayed toes around the trunks of the trees. She heard musical noises as animals somewhere called to each other, and the buzzing of insect life, or whatever analogue Anath would have had for it. Light refracted off of falling water and mists forming spontaneously here or there, and some of the more petite trees were in bloom with lavender and mint colored growths that might have been robust flowers or fragile fruits or something else entirely, Cassie couldn’t be sure. Her toes found their way down between the roots of the trees, into cool, mossy crevices that felt familiar and strange at the same time.

  Someone approached with a distinctive curator’s stride, despite his four legs, and Cassie turned to look at him. He gave her a look of astonishment and asked Jesse a question. Cassie, embarrassed, fled as Jesse answered.

  A smell caught her attention as she flew, and she turned aside, following it.

  Her mouth began to water as she approached a tree with wide, spreading branches heavy with clusters of dark purple berries. She thought about consulting with Jesse before she ate to make sure that the fruit wasn’t poisonous - that would have been the wisest thing to do - but she couldn’t bring herself to. She didn’t really want him involved, and at this distance, the thought of food made her weak. She filled her hands with berries and crammed them into her mouth, wiping her face on the back of her arm before going back to the higher branches of the tree, weaving through a maze of branches as she ate. When Jesse finally found her much later, she was asleep in the upper reaches of the tree, her entire front stained purple.

  “What did you tell him about me?” Cassie asked as they sat at a table in the curator’s office.

  “That you kept your explanations private,” Jesse said. Cassie had allowed herself to be talked into sitting down with the man, a Stelf from Onaghan, whatever that meant, because he had been more excited to meet her than he had been upset about her eating from his cherished trees. Jesse was concerned what the Stelf might do, though, if he took the time to be insulted by her behavior.

  Cassie couldn’t care less what he thought of her behavior. The tree was there, full of fruit - full to bursting - and to leave it there like that was an insult to the tree. No less, it might cause injury, that weight of fruit with no one there to relieve the tree. She was indignant that anyone could be insulted by the consumption of ripe fruit, and at the same time surprised and amused by the passion of her convictions.

  She’d never really cared about plants before.

  Maugh settled himself across the desk from her, coiling his back legs and propping himself up on them, his eyes flicking excitedly to Jesse as he asked a question.

  “He wants to know how long you’ve been away from Anath,” Jesse said.

  “I’ve never been there,” Cassie answered. Jesse raised an eyebrow, then translated. Maugh got very excited about this, the fur down the back of his head rustling audibly. Cassie waited as he composed himself.

  “Where were you born?” Jesse translated the next question.

  “That’s personal,” she answered. Jesse seemed happier with this answer, though Maugh wasn’t.

  “Have you ever met another Pixie?”

  “No.”

  Maugh grew more disappointed.

  “So you know nothing about Anath?”

  She shook her head.

  “They have good fruit.”

  Jesse smiled as he translated. Maugh gave her a strange expression that she guessed might have been displeasure.

  “What language is it that you are speaking?”

  “English,” she said.

  “Where is it from?”

  “A planet I’m sure you’ve never heard of.”

  “Tell me,” he insisted. She shook her head, turning away as her nerve deserted her. Jesse said something, and she glanced at him, unable to look up.

  “I told him that even the best-socialized Pixies are still very shy,” he said. “And he asked if I breed Pixies.”

  There was a short flare of rage, then she found herself standing against the wall.

  “He’s curious, Cass,” Jesse said. “It isn’t intended to be an interrogation.”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  Jesse said a few more words and then put a hand on her shoulder, leading her back out into the sanctuary.

  “He says you’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” he said. “And offered to let us take fruit with us when we leave, so long as he verifies that all of the seeds are out of it, first.”

  The feeling of having a hot spotlight pointed at her slowly faded as she walked through the humid enclosure around enthusiastic trees and under long, trailing fronds of deep-colored purple and green moss. It was warmer in the enclosure than it had been outside, but the mists felt cool against her skin. She took off again, slowly ascending through the rambunctious tangles of tree limbs until she hit the highest reaches of greenery, landing on the highest tree branch tentatively, holding most of her weight with her wings as the tree swayed ever so slightly. There should have been a breeze up here, she could feel it. Down at ground level, sure, the air should have been hot and tight, buzzing and humid,
but up here the air should have been cool with the water and moving. Maybe with enough energy that flying might have been hard. She would have sat up here and watched the stars go by.

  Instead, the glass box held in the heat and held out the breeze, and she stared up at a sky that bleached almost white through the glass.

  It was the feeling of being incomplete, but it was better than anywhere else she’d been, from inside this tiny body. She reached up one lilac-colored hand, four slender fingers almost transparent in the sunlight, then dropped, lilting from branch to branch at random. She wasn’t great at it, yet, this half-control with her wings, but much like her experience with being Adena Lampak, it felt like discovering a new world, this one above-ground. Unlike swimming, she’d never been much for climbing trees. When she needed to, she did, but she hadn’t known any good climbing trees as a child, and the air force hadn’t trained her on scaling anything other than walls, poles, and ropes.

  This lightness on her feet was novel, like an effortless sprint, the sensation that ballet was invented to invoke, she thought. Compounded by the slenderness of her limbs and the rest of her body, it felt like she could race on clouds, if she wanted to.

  Jesse waited for her at the exit with a large box that was likely full of purple berries. He seemed patient, but for a moment Cassie felt bad, leaving him to sit like that while she explored. He waved at her as she approached.

  “You look good here,” he said. “Like you belong.”

  “Because purple skin is kind of a stand-out on Earth?” she asked. He laughed and nodded.

  “I’d notice you pretty quickly.”

  He opened the first door for her, and again a blast of air nearly lifted her from the floor before the external doors opened and they left the building.

  “So how many of these things do they have?” Cassie asked as they meandered down the path back toward the nearest village.

  “Hundreds,” Jesse told her.

  “Do they have one for Palta?” she asked. He frowned and shook his head.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “I’d like to see it, if they do,” she said. “I want to see the trees.”

  He laughed.

  “Newfound appreciation?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded, whistling for a moment.

  “I’ll check when we get back to the tourist office.”

  Something tugged at her mentally, a strange scent and an off vibration, and she flew into the woods without thinking, hiding up in the wide boughs of the first tree off the path. Jesse followed her path with his eyes, then shrugged and continued on as a two-legged foreign terrestrial came into view. Cassie lay flat on the branch, staying behind it so that she couldn’t see the pink-skinned man any longer, straining to hear the word noises he made in hopes of making sense of them.

  “…come back with me…”

  “…saved my father…”

  Her implant still wasn’t working right, but it was adapting to her new brain, and, while it was slow and only gave her partial understanding of the words themselves, she was beginning to be able to pull meaning out of the phrases. That and, when she peeked around the tree, she could see that Jesse had fallen into step with the foreign-terrestrial. She was a bit stung that he didn’t seem to be checking to make sure she would follow, but couldn’t take it too personally, given that she was the one who had fled without a word.

  She flitted from tree to tree, keeping her distance and trying to keep the sound of her wings to a minimum, but Jesse and the stranger were talking, heads leaned in toward each other as they walked, and there seemed to be little risk they would hear her.

  The noise of language drifted up to her from time to time as the air shifted, and she caught snatches of meaning.

  Something about the foreign terrestrial’s family, pleasantries under other circumstances, but rather more serious, if she read the tone and body language right.

  Asking Jesse’s plans.

  Stuff about geography that escaped her.

  Jesse asked questions about motivation and plans; his language was thick and difficult, maybe technical. The foreign terrestrial seemed intimidated by it. His answers were high-pitched and quick, evasive. Cassie didn’t think he was hiding something. If she read him right, he was terrified.

  She felt sorry for him, and more empathetic than she might have been at any other point in her life. She hoped that Jesse would take pity and help them.

  There was a small internal battle at the thought of her pushing him into saving them when she, herself, was entirely unwilling to take any risk of any kind, to the point that she fled at the sound of approaching footsteps. In the end, she decided to fly ahead, scouting, if she couldn’t do anything else.

  The path eventually passed the edge of the forest, where they had clear-cut the great trees to make room for the small settlement at the hub of the local paths. Cassie sat in the crook of a tree where its trunk had split into two, centuries before, waiting for Jesse and his new friend to go by. They were maybe fifteen minutes behind her, still talking, then Jesse signaled for the pink man to go on without him. Jesse loitered at the edge of the woods for a few minutes and Cassie waited until the stranger was out of sight to join him.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We have a place to stay tonight,” he told her.

  “We?”

  “Well, I, but I’ll leave the window open,” he said with humor.

  “Who is he?”

  “His family is one of the first settling families here,” Jesse said, turning his head to look after the man who had left. “Apparently his father was with the protesters that we saw earlier.”

  “He said you saved them,” Cassie said. Jesse shrugged.

  “I quoted some archaic legal policy and intergalactic law. Might have made some of it up. It scared the soldiers off well enough, but it isn’t going to change anything, long term.”

  “What does he want?” Cassie asked. Jesse sucked on a tooth.

  “Says he wants to show his appreciation.”

  “What does he really want?” Cassie asked.

  “They have no idea how to stage a rebellion,” Jesse said. “The leaders are apparently the local civic leaders.” He grinned and shook his head. “Using the members of the establishment is never the way to stage a revolution.”

  “We did fine,” Cassie said. He grunted.

  “You have an ego the size of Mars.”

  “In fairness, I’m not entirely sure how big Mars is,” she said. “You’re going to help them, though, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t save the whole universe,” he said.

  “You saved the Kenzi. And the Adena Lampak.”

  “They chose this,” he told her. “I asked him how it happened, and it’s just as bad as I thought. Slow power creep that they’re way too late to try to fight now. Not them.”

  “So teach them,” Cassie said. He looked at her with a mix of exasperation and something that might have been fear.

  “I don’t have time.”

  For a moment, she had forgotten.

  “I understand.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll stay with them tonight, we’ll see if they have a Palta garden tomorrow, and then we’ll go back and see what Troy and Slav have.”

  “There’s nothing you can do in just a couple of days? Just to teach them how to fix it?”

  “Cassie, I’ve got to get you better,” he said. “Maybe after that, we can come back and I’ll see what I can do.” He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “Heck, they need you more than they need me. I’m not passionate about this kind of thing like you are. They need you to teach them how to care.”

  “They just took a beating in the name of a bunch of trees,” Cassie said. “They care.”

  He knelt.

  “I’m not going to stand by and watch whatever Mab did to you take its course,” he said. He took her arms. “You needed the space, and it’s helped a lot. But we c
an’t stay. We need to get you back so we can get you better.”

  “Just give them a couple of days,” she said. He finally shook his head.

  “No.”

  He stood, leaving the box of fruit at her feet.

  “I’m going to go. You should follow me until I get there, so you know where I’m staying. I’ll leave a window open for you after dinner. Shouldn’t be more than an hour. You eat here and stay where you’re happy and safe. Okay?”

  She sucked on her lip.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  He nodded, squeezing her arms, then turned. She took off, lilting in the light breeze well above the village, tracking Jesse to a small house that looked like all of its neighbors, then she dropped back to the treeline, opening the box and greedily devouring fruit until she couldn’t stay awake any longer, lasting just long enough to make it up to the highest branches of the trees, where the branches grew small and thick. She curled up in a secure section of enmeshed branches and fell asleep.

  When she woke, it was dark. An empty field of stars provided a dim light that turned the canopy around her into a vast sea of flashing silver. She sat for a long time, just reading the scent of the breeze. Jesse hadn’t been kidding; there wasn’t much to read. The trees here were nearly as tall as the ones where they had started, but the texture of the bark was different and the leaves were thicker and a deeper green. They smelled different, too. Other than them, though, the next kind of tree was miles and miles away, only a hint of scent in a rich perfume of healthy and same. Just at the far edge of her vision, where the curve of the planet took away the tops of the trees, there was a gap. Probably a downed tree, where it had taken out the ones around it, coming down.

  She stayed above the canopy for a moment, seeing and smelling and feeling, and then turned, taking her time making her way back to the village and the house where Jesse was staying. They had all of the windows open in the temperate evening, but she could find Jesse easily by smell. She made her way through the open window - no screens because there were no bugs and the trees were too far for any potential seasonal leaf litter to be an issue - hand over hand over foot, finding the transition between flying and walking to be much blurrier than she would have guessed, and much more convenient. Jesse was waiting up for her.