Interference

by Sue Burke

  “Wow. A lot of it,” he says.

  I do not know what to think, only what I feel. More bamboo. More of me. I am not alone. If this is correct.

  He calls for more views from previous scans of that specific area from different angles. This one is fairly directly above the area. Another is at an angle in early morning daylight. He asks for high resolution at the edges of what seem to be stands of bamboo. Yes, rainbow-striped stems, large ones, and many too small to identify the separate colors, but clearly bamboo. Forests of bamboo.

  A civilization. My civilization. My people. There, on that continent.

  These humans can fly. They must go to Laurentia. I must meet these—these people, these bamboo. I am not alone.

  There are more of me. I was never alone.

  Here in this valley, waves of wind toss my branches. Below them, my service animals work. They are my friends, my equals, my partners, my beloved, but never like me. All my seeds are self-fertilized. All my thoughts, except for some centuries-old roots, are my own. All my accomplishments are solitary. Until now.

  I have been lonely for my entire life. I knew that, I ached over it, and now, my life is different.

  And it is the same. I have a city to help lead and conflicts to manage. And a party to enjoy tonight. I have something to celebrate, and I must make arrangements for that.

  With scent, I invite Queen Thunderclap into the greenhouse, and as she enters, I catch a whiff of sadness and uncertainty. Glassmakers sometimes scent inadvertently, like the facial expressions of Humans, and it rarely serves to ask someone why they are sad. Instead I say, “Mother, will you make something for me and burn it at the festival?”

  “Anything.”

  “I am thinking of perhaps a small wooden box with nothing in it.”

  I have selected that because I now have something instead of nothing, and I commit myself to the change of exploring this new way of being. As a woodworker, she can create this without difficulty.

  “Easy to do. Perhaps I do not say it is for you when I throw it in the fire? Earthlings think you do not exist, but they are not sure.”

  “Earthlings do not know what to believe about me. They think perhaps I am a god that you secretly worship.”

  She laughs sweetly.

  “You are right,” I say. “Perhaps this should not be announced. But you can tell others discreetly if you wish.” She enjoys gossip. This will be a fine secret to share.

  “You never participate in the fire before.”

  “Rarely. I have learned something that makes me very happy.”

  “If you are happy, I am happy.”

  “Warmth and food.”

  “Water and sunshine. I go make you it now.”

  She smells happier as she leaves. I hope I have done her some good in exchange for her service to me.

  I continue to observe with new and old senses. Meals are prepared for the festival, including the traditional traveler’s meal: roasted trilobites and wild onions, and my dried fruit, but only the fruit is eaten with gusto. Cooks bustle to create additional, more delectable dishes in quantity. Lettuce is especially plentiful this spring.

  Lumberjacks arrange the fire out in a field that could use ashes as fertilizer. They want it to burn fast and spectacularly, and they place hydrogen seeds inside some images to explode. The location caused a small controversy this year since it is some distance from the city, but in its favor, it offers more room for performances.

  Dancers are making their final rehearsals. In a fallow field next to the city wall, children and fippokats practice a complex exchange of partners that involves synchronized jumping. It should thrill onlookers. My nearest stems enjoy the sight and vibrations.

  Inside the city, stilt walkers prepare their participation in the festivities. Originally, stilts let Pacifists imitate the taller, slimmer, First Generation Human colonists. Now Earthlings are back, a head and shoulders taller than most Pacifists, and Zivon, one of the Earthling anthropologists, has joined the stilt walkers, asking about their inherited information concerning the Parents. Velma, who has finished examining planetary scans, is recording their replies.

  “Well,” says Geraldine, “they were tall and frail. Sickly. They all died back in the old village and couldn’t manage the trip here, even though they wanted to come.”

  History tells a slightly different story. The remaining elderly First Generation Humans refused to come because they were afraid of me. But Geraldine is no scholar, and I have no self-interest in correcting many common beliefs.

  “What do you know of Earth?” Zivon asks. He stands face-to-face with her as she wobbles on the stilts.

  Geraldine scowls. She takes a few steps to maintain her balance. “They say it was hard to live there.” She turns around, almost falling in the process. “Oh, and there were millions and millions of people there.”

  Zivon’s face remains encouragingly interested, but he sends to Velma, “More like billions.”

  Mirlo walks past, heading toward the kitchen.

  Velma connects. “Hey, analyze this.” She shows him the forest of rainbow bamboo in Laurentia, then returns to recording the stilt walker practice.

  Mirlo receives the image, then freezes. He seems to stare blankly at the air for a long time. Then, slowly, he begins to grin. He looks around and spots one of my stems. He is about to speak to me, then stops. He does not want to initiate conversation in public, but I realize he does not know how to initiate contact with me via radio.

  I know what he wants to tell me, but how should I react? What would be best for me?

  “Mirlo,” I send, “do you want to speak to me?”

  He jumps a little, startled. He sends, “How do you know?”

  “I have eyes on every trunk, and minds in every root. I am talking to one other person and three plants right now. I think. Distributed consciousness is not always distributed equally. But I am also here, now, with you.”

  “Can you see these pictures?” He sends them to me, excuses himself from Velma, and takes a few steps away. Earthlings are used to someone in their midst pausing to have a radio conversation.

  “Yes,” I say, “I can see them, but I do not recognize that grove. Where is it?”

  “On another continent.”

  I pause, as if reflecting. “I do not understand.”

  “Here.” He shows me a view of Pax as a globe with an area marked by a red circle. “We are here, in this valley in the mountains by the sea. This picture is from here, a place we call Laurentia.” Another red circle forms on a wide, flat peninsula on another body of land far away.

  “I am not there,” I answer. “I am only here. There is only one of me.”

  “No, look,” he says, his face full of happiness and excitement. He moves the picture to show how much of the distinctive foliage can be seen. “There’s a lot of rainbow bamboo. A major community.”

  Velma interrupts. The stilt walkers have finished their practice. “What do you think? That’s a find, right? More of that pretty bamboo.”

  Mirlo blinks. “Yes. This is amazing. It will mean a lot to the people here.”

  “I hope they like it,” she says. “I gotta go. Big party tonight. We have to plan our documentation.”

  “Thanks,” Mirlo says.

  “I want to meet those trees,” I send. “I want to know all about them. You can understand.”

  “Of course. They’re your species.” He looks at my stem, then up at my leaves. “Wait, you said ‘meet.’ How would you do that?”

  “I would send my animal partners. I would send you.”

  “I want to go!” He turns toward the laboratory. “But first I have to learn all we can about the trip. Plan an investigation. This will take a while.”

  “I live for centuries. I can wait, although I am very eager. And you should not forget to eat lunch. Thinking is more efficient with food.”

  “Oh.” He smiles and turns back toward the kitchen. “Yeah. Lunch. Thanks.”

 
I think I handled that well, but I have one more thing to say. The woman who leads the Philosopher’s Club asked me to help spread certain information. “I have something to ask of you for tonight, Mirlo. This is difficult to explain. Traditionally, for Humans, the festival can be prelude to amorous incidents.” I word it that way because Earthlings are not as blunt as Pacifists, especially about reproductive acts. “The Humans here need renewed genetic material. If the opportunity arises, please help Pax.”

  Mirlo’s face and body tense. He is reflecting cultural differences, as the anthropologists are fond of saying.

  “That makes scientific sense,” he says, looking down. “I’ll … yes.” He leaves, his face full of uncertainty. I have given him many things to think about.

  In another part of the city, Om has come to talk to Pollux. They rarely interact rationally, and Om receives mental health support from the network itself. Pollux, who does not, looks at him with an expression of fear, but not as much fear as he usually displays in the company of Pacifists. Om stands in front of him in a stance of intimidation: with his hands on his hips to appear larger, and standing a little too close, both to invade Pollux’s space and to impede his ability to stand and achieve equal footing—this in addition to the aggression of his facial expression and the angle at which he holds his head. Pollux shrinks back.

  “You’ve heard from Earth,” Om says.

  “Nothing interesting.”

  “Share it.”

  “Music. And climate, a shift in the climate again.”

  Om leans slightly forward. “Government.”

  “Government.” He looks away and does nothing, neither moves nor sends anything.

  “Bad news, then.”

  “Mars. The … the Mars War is over.”

  Om smiles. “Who won?”

  “I don’t know. I need to look at the report again.” He stares at the end of the bench.

  “We can do that together. Can’t we?”

  “Government news is classified.”

  “But if the government has changed, you’ve lost your classification, and it would fall on me as the chairman. Let’s see it.” Om sits down on the same bench, a little too close.

  Pollux looks away again.

  Om stares as if he is reading something.

  “We have to go back,” Pollux says.

  Om continues to read a while before answering, “No.”

  “But the government has changed. Our mission’s canceled.”

  “What happens a hundred light-years away doesn’t matter now, except that now you’re nobody. You’ve lost your rank, and I’m in charge.”

  “I still represent the government. Whichever one there is.”

  “Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. Tolstoy said that, Leo Tolstoy. Heard of him? Nineteenth century. The government made me do and say repugnant things in exchange for a simulacrum of freedom. No more. No more violence. That’s also from Tolstoy.”

  “We have to go back. Our mission is over. We have orders. You saw them.”

  “We’ll go back when I say.” He stands up. “And you. You’re not terribly useful. But maybe you can do some good.”

  Pollux squints up at him. “I’m the ranking government observer.”

  “Your rank is assistant anthropologist. That puts you above data techs, below pilots.” He begins to walk away. He stares for a moment.

  Over the radio connection, I hear Pollux giving orders to the central system as fast as he can. Om issues counterorders, and the report is made public.

  “You can’t stop me anymore,” Om says, “so don’t bother trying.”

  I witness another moment in which the action takes place within the space of information. I am not certain how decisions are made there, how actions are carried out, but Om prevails. In any case, I do not know how other members of the mission will react to the report.

  Om leaves. Pollux goes to his house. I will need to watch them both, and now Velma notices the report, reads it, and notifies all the members at once. “Mars won! Look.”

  That is all they talk about for the rest of the afternoon, in addition, of course, to the festival. Some express their joy, but they do not express it to everyone. A few express regret. Mirlo is delighted but hides that from the Mu Rees. Yet soon the Spring Festival commands their attention.

  And mine. We plants have yet to celebrate our Spring Festival. We are waiting for warmer weather, for although some plants obey the angle of light as the sunlight shifts, most of the rest, including the belowground ecology, respond to warm moisture, which has yet to come. The forest and fields are mostly quiet, and in about two hours, the sun will set.

  I will pay close attention to the border with the Coral Plains tonight, as well as attend the festival as an involved observer. I see Queen Thunderclap showing my box to other queens and, downwind, I detect spicy puffs of curiosity. Little Rattle picks up the box and shakes it and seems perplexed when it makes no noise. The babble of voices of the festival is already too loud to hear even queen voices from where I am, off to the sides in patches of garden.

  The plaza is crowded. The wide stone-and-brick walls at its side will be used to serve the feast, and the traditional meal awaits at the head of the plaza.

  A few Earthlings stand together close to one of the entrances, and they are broadcasting their discussion, so I listen in:

  “That was a century ago. In fact one hundred sixteen years and almost three months.”

  “And if we left now, we’d get there a century later than that. Anything could happen.”

  “But something did. We may as well enjoy it.”

  “Why go back at all?” Velma says.

  “What? Explain yourself,” Mu Ree Fa says. “What did you mean by questioning whether we should return to Earth?” This remark comes with a notice to others to pay attention. He wants everyone in the mission involved.

  “We’re here, it’s safe, it’s nice, we survived,” she says. “And they treat women like equals here. Going back, I mean, what would we discover? It could be even worse than when we left.”

  “You know what you agreed to,” Fa says.

  “You know what we secretly agreed to, which was to escape. We did. Why go back?”

  Some distance away, Karola is talking with an anthropologist. They have both stopped and are listening to Velma and Mu.

  “Did you hear that?” the anthropologist says. “Velma doesn’t want to go back.”

  After a long moment, Karola answers, “Do you?”

  “Well. I need to know more. First we weren’t getting messages, now we get this.”

  “I was sure Mars would lose. You don’t need Velma to get back, anyway.”

  “Without her, we’d have room to take more samples. Maybe someone native.”

  I look for Mirlo. Being an Earthling, he’s tall enough to find relatively easily, but his radio is turned off. He is in the crowd talking to a young Pax woman named Paloma. He seems very serious, and she is smiling. She steps closer and touches his forearm. He still looks serious. She says something with a lot of wide gestures. He smiles a little. I hope they are talking about procreation.

  I see Om, outside the plaza with the stilt walkers, recording his thoughts for future publication on Earth:

  Earth and its inhabitants receded from Pax memories to become nothing more than vague ideas of height and frailty and failure, since the colony’s very founders considered Earth a planet ruined and its people doomed: they had escaped an oversize, decaying society. The founders, in turn, became the embodiment to their children of what they had tried to escape. For the Spring Festival, this concept of Earth returns as the so-called Parents will be the first to eat the meal that symbolizes exploration, maintaining the irony that while they were ultimately rejected by their children, their inaugural explorations led to this now prosperous city. Yet the term “parent” is an insult, and the reenactors wear rags, their faces painted to look pale and haggard with hunger.

>   I am surprised. He has understood the history more or less correctly. It seems, though, that he is not attentive to the conflict that has just arisen among his mission. He may have that part of his radio reception turned off, which is irresponsible since he will have to become involved eventually.

  Pollux rushes over to Velma. “This is treason,” he says, and sends for all to hear.

  “You’re not dangerous anymore,” she answers.

  “I still have the power to make judicial decisions.”

  “That’s right,” Mu Ree Fa says.

  “And I have the power to quit. Or is Haus going to shoot me?”

  Om says, “What makes you sure the natives will want you?”

  I was wrong. He is listening in.

  He adds, “Look at the stilt walkers. They represent the original colonists, Earthlings. Like us.”

  Velma peers over at the beginning of the show. The Parent imitators enter the plaza, greeted by derisive shouts.

  Om returns his attention to his publication and records:

  Like buffoons, they respond to derision by inviting more of it, by wobbling and shouting insults back in ritualized anger. One chases a group of taunting boys, and when they easily outrun him, he hurls threats at them. Another Parent is surrounded by a ring of mocking dancers. Even Ladybird, who ordinarily maintains a front of goodwill and concern, joins in, organizing a satiric chant, “Children never speak. Children never vote.” Finally some youngsters begin to pester the Parents: “Look, food. Lots of food. You can eat. You’re hungry. We have food.” They indicate the “traveler’s meal” at the head of the plaza. Soon the Parents wobble over, manifesting exaggerated enthusiasm over what they might have considered delicacies but current Pacifist eyes appraise as less than second-best.

  “So you see,” Om says, “the natives might not want you to stay.”

  “They’ve always treated me well,” Velma said. “Nobody likes Pollux. I’ve seen that. But the rest of us, it’s different. We’re individuals, they know that.”

  “That was history, that little show,” an anthropologist says. “The present really is different.”

  Zivon shakes his head. “Everyone here belongs to a group, a generation, a family, a work team, something. And we have our group. Big, clumsy, stupid. Pacifists are always trying to help me do things, as if I’m handicapped.”