Alien Earth. Megan Lindholm
down and opening the dirt up to the sky again. People out harvesting wild grass seed to try to get it to grow in the bare places. Finally, everyone trying when it was already too late.
Somewhere, in Tug’s part of the ship, the Arthroplana did something, made some adjustment to his metabolism. Raef felt his control slip away, felt his mind slip back up to the silly dreams that made no sense. His dreams swarmed up around him, taking over his mind. He supposed it was as it should be. Tug was watching over him, as Tug always did, as Tug always would. The oldest Human in existence twitched once and then slept inside a womb chamber inside a creature that the Arthroplana called Beastships and the Humans had called Lifeboats.
Connie dreamed of the creche. She was in the nap yard with the rest of her generation. Twelve 10-year-olds rested in the warm sun, each lazing on his or her own patch of kifa moss. They were spread out over a large area, for there were many empty patches. Her generation was smaller than most. Less children were needed these days than in olden days. But that was no reason to disturb the unused kifa patches, for they were always in perfect harmony with the environment. At the four corners of each kifa patch were the four different plants that nourished and sheltered the kifa even as they took nutrients in from the kifa’s waste products, in a perfect balance of exchanges. (We must all strive to be as perfect as our kifa patch.) At the southwest corner of each kifa patch were the tall fronds of the giraffe plant, and each giraffe plant sported a swollen yellow bud. Soon they would open. Nan, one of the younger nurturers, had told them so. And she had told them all to watch their buds very carefully during this rest time and see what happened. Something very important was going to happen, and afterward, Daniel would explain it to them.
Connie liked Daniel. He was new. Their old co-op teacher had gotten all weepy and crabby and gone away to be something else. She had been older than Nan or Susie or Damon, almost sixty. So when she went through her change, no one was surprised. Everyone had already learned about it in Human bio, so they’d known what to expect. People who changed smelled different, Damon had told them. Boys got more hair and bigger muscles. Women got breasts and bigger butts. Everyone got more emotional at first, and then more serious afterward. But they were still people, even if they didn’t look like boys and girls anymore. They were men and women, and someday everyone in Connie’s generation would be men and women, too.
When they got older, they would leave creche and go to Junior and then on to the University. Once they went to Junior, they wouldn’t live in a school creche anymore. They’d move to a dorm with generations from all over Castor, and they’d all go to school together. After school, they’d work in the settlement and they’d see people of all different ages and work alongside them and be friends with them. Daniel had told them so.
The giraffe bud was very fat and swollen. Connie wished she could reach up and pop it, just for fun. She was tired of waiting for it to do something on its own. But once, when a boy named Jerry had pulled up three sweetleaf plants to see what their roots looked like, the whole generation had gotten in trouble. Jerry had to go to a special creche for unadjusted children, and the rest of them had had double classes in co-op life for three months.
“Mine’s opening!” Marta yelled. Connie sat up and examined her giraffe bud carefully. Sure enough, the tips of the petals were curling back to expose a single fat yellow seed, glistening and wet in the depths of the flower’s tube. Slowly the petals of the flower uncurled into a star shape. They gently quivered, although Connie felt no wind. A sweet fragrance filled the nap yard. The quivering continued as the flowers slowly turned on their stems, questioning the air around them. The children sat perfectly still on the moss, waiting and watching.
One by one across the nap yard the flowers stilled themselves. The stillness stretched out endlessly, but still the children remained motionless, waiting. All must cooperate for life to continue in balance. Gradually the yellow petals drooped and then fell from their blossoms to lie on the bare soil at the base of the plant. Connie watched in disappointment as the seed pod on her giraffe plant darkened, and then fell with a damp plop to lie beside the flower petals that had sheltered it.
“Looky mine!” called Angelo, and eleven heads turned to watch. Of all the flowers, only Angelo’s still quivered and strained. As Connie watched, the flower turned slowly until it faced away from Angelo’s moss patch. The empty moss patch beside Angelo’s was an unhealthy green that clashed with the uniform green of the other moss patches. The reason was obvious. The last windstorm that had lashed the nap yard had flattened the kifa patch’s symbiotic giraffe plant. Connie’s giraffe plant had suffered from the lashing of the wind, but under her care, it had survived. No child slept on that kifa moss; the giraffe plant had had no human to nurse it back to health. Already, most of its delicate fronds had been reabsorbed into the earth.
Angelo’s giraffe bud gave a final quiver as it oriented itself toward the dead giraffe plant. Then it, too, grew still. Slowly its delicate yellow petals fell, baring the fat green seed. Everyone waited in silence, but the seed did not fall.
“Well. What do you suppose will happen next?”
Connie started, as did the other children. They turned to find Daniel watching them all.
It was Teddy’s turn to speak an answer first, and he did. “The seed will grow where the old giraffe plant was.”
“That’s right, Teddy,” Daniel confirmed the obvious. “But not right away. Let’s look at everything that happened, in order. First, there was a big storm. All the plants had a bad day. Some were hurt. Then what happened?”
Silence. It was Angelo’s turn to answer, but he was staring at his seed.
“Angelo?” Daniel prompted gently.
“Oh. All the giraffe plants made seeds?”
“Right. Why do you suppose they did that?”
Connie’s turn. “Uh, maybe because they got kind of smashed in the storm, so they knew that maybe some of them would stop being alive.”
“That’s right. The storm was the biological stimulus that made them all make seeds. Today was a nice still day, with no wind, and all the seeds were ripe. So, what did they do?”
“Opened up.” Gabriel never spoke a word more than was necessary.
“That’s right. They opened up and then they all quivered. What did we notice when they quivered?”
“They were pretty, like dancers?” Marta whispered her answer. It was wrong. Marta was almost always wrong, but she still had to be given her chance to answer. And Daniel always tried to make it seem like she was kind of right. He was that kind of teacher.
“Of course, Marta. They were beautiful, like dancers, and they smelled pretty, too. And that pretty smell was how the giraffe plants say to each other, ‘I’m still alive and fine. Don’t send a seed over here!’”
Even Connie had to giggle at the funny voice Daniel used when he tried to be a giraffe plant talking.
“But,” he said, suddenly serious. “One giraffe plant couldn’t send that message.” He spoke quickly now, to get past the bad part. “It was dead. A seed was needed there. And when Angelo’s plant didn’t find any pretty smell coming from its direction, it turned toward the no-smell place. Now”—and Daniel’s voice suddenly got cheery again—“this is what will happen. Angelo’s plant will send the seed over there on a long stalk. We’ll all have to be very careful for a time, whenever we walk past Angelo’s kifa patch, to make sure we don’t step on that stalk or hurt it in any way. Soon the seed will get to where the old giraffe plant was, and the stalk will push it down into the dirt. Then a new giraffe plant will grow and that kifa moss will come back into balance again and be all healthy.”
Daniel looked at each child in turn. “Did you all notice that all the plants opened their flowers at once? That’s so they all have the same chance to spread a seed. But of course the chance always goes to the plant most likely to succeed.”
“Daniel?”
Everyone turned to look at Sherry. It was her turn to answer, but Daniel hadn’t asked a question.