Synthesis

by Rexx Deane

  A few minutes later he had a mouth-watering broth simmering in the mess tin, and – more importantly – comfortable legs.

  ‘I have a question for you,’ the cube said.

  He looked up from stirring. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Would you give me a name?’

  ‘A name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why on Earth would you want a name?’

  ‘I believe it may help you to accept my presence more easily.’

  ‘I do accept your presence – what makes you think I don’t?’

  ‘I apologise. I meant no offence. I simply inferred that your distrust of technology might cause you some discomfort in my presence, and as you have not spoken much over the last few hours, I thought you might have found my presence upsetting.’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  The cube didn’t respond. One light faintly pulsed, as though it was about to speak but had changed its mind.

  ‘It really is fine … Honestly.’ He rubbed the back of his neck. Why did he feel like he had to reassure the thing? ‘If you really want a name, I’ll try to think of one.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Aryx resumed stirring the broth in the dim light of the burner. What a weird situation. It was like being on some kind of twisted camping trip, with a computer. A camping trip – minus the planning.

  ‘There really is no need to reassure me,’ the cube said. ‘I have no feelings to hurt. I simply deemed it necessary for you to trust me, given that we appear to be alone on this very large and unusual planet.’

  ‘Thanks for spoiling the moment. Was that a joke?’

  The cube’s tone was flat. ‘Clearly not.’

  Aryx laughed. ‘Let me guess, yet another teaching from your mentors? They seem to have got sarcasm down to a tee.’

  ‘I do not understand what you mean.’

  ‘It sounded like you were trying to be humorous, but then ended up being sarcastic.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Just forget it. I’m sure you’ll wrap your neuromorphic chipset around it eventually.’ He turned the burner down to give a faint light and ate the broth in silence. When he’d finished, he spread out the canvas vegetable-sack-sheet and lay on it. The rock was hard, but it would have to do.

  He placed the cube near the mobipack and turned off the burner. ‘Good night, Jim-Bob,’ he said, pulling the foil blanket over himself.

  ‘Is that my new name?’

  ‘No. Now, shut up and let me sleep.’

  ***

  Sebastian supported Tolinar’s weight as he hobbled along on the makeshift crutch. The alien seldom spoke, and grunted occasionally with the effort of walking on the broken leg. Was Tolinar male or female? It had seemed rude to ask, but his height was comparable to Sebastian’s and his voice lower than any Human female’s, so Sebastian settled on male.

  Smoke twirled up from the horizon, but the trees ahead ended abruptly where the ground dropped away, leaving a ledge that looked out over the surrounding forest. Roots protruded from the face of the earthy cliff, grasping at the open air. Tolinar continued parallel to the ledge and Sebastian’s gaze traced it to a point some miles away to the left, where it sloped down and met the densely forested region below. Beyond that, in the direction from which the ship had come, the trees were sharply replaced with grassland where the terrain seemed to fall away further. How would Aryx get back to the Ultima with cliffs like that in the way? He could be wounded and bleeding to death, and there was nothing Sebastian could do about it.

  Tolinar changed direction, drawing Sebastian and his thoughts with him. They were heading towards another pile of boulders near the cliff edge; stones stacked around a hole as if to mark an entrance. Tolinar sat on one of the boulders by the opening and Sebastian peered in.

  Roughly hewn, red sandstone steps led down into the darkness, curving to the right, away from the cliff face. Something other than hunger rumbled in his stomach.

  A vague, indescribable fear.

  ‘Light,’ Tolinar said.

  How was he going to get light down there? He had no torch … Of course! He dropped the rucksack to the floor and rifled through it, taking out the miner’s lamp his grandfather gave him and the bottle of oil he found in Chopwood. The lamp was polished and clean, the brass around the base and trim bright and shiny and, as he slid the locking bar upward and unscrewed the reservoir, the comforting memory of his birthday replaced the fear in his belly. He filled the lamp to the brim and took the multi-tool from his belt.

  Holding the magnesium strike next to the wick, he dragged the blade across its rough surface – Gods, how his arm hurt when he did that – and a shower of sparks streamed over it. The tuft of fabric burst into life. He dropped the glass over the flame and secured the casement as a gust of wind threatened to blow out the little wisp.

  Tolinar looked up. ‘A storm is coming,’ he said, between deep breaths. ‘We must move.’

  Carrying the lamp, Sebastian pulled Tolinar up to his shoulder and the two began to descend the steep stairway as the skies darkened – the storm was going to be bad.

  The air cooled as they moved down into the tunnel. Twisted roots protruded from the mixture of soil and stone, casting eerie shadows in the dim light. He caught the faint aroma of dusty rain-soaked soil drifting down the stairs. Aryx had once called it petrichor. He put his hand to his head as something wet touched his scalp. Water had begun to drip from the soil above.

  Tolinar tugged at him. ‘Move quicker. The ceiling may collapse.’

  Sebastian tried to ignore the agony in his arm. If only he had more anaestheptic spray. Carrying the lamp wasn’t helping his wound to heal. In fact, it hadn’t felt like it was getting better at all.

  Even though he dragged the injured leg while he walked with the makeshift crutch, Tolinar’s steps seemed sure and certain, as though he knew the route well. Sebastian picked up the pace as the Folian hurried on. Conversation would be good about now, but Tolinar’s manner wasn’t conducive to questioning. At least his health wasn’t deteriorating.

  After what seemed an age, the stairway opened out onto a dusty red floor that crawled away into the darkness beyond the lamp’s reach. Tolinar’s shuffling footsteps echoed faintly. They surely must have descended enough steps to be at the base of the cliff by now.

  The Folian’s breathing became heavy and laboured. ‘Need rest.’ He sat on the end of a large boulder that projected from the shadows.

  Sebastian needed answers, and if he didn’t get them soon his head was going to explode. He went to speak, but Tolinar’s laboured breathing put him off again. Why did this planet look like a gas giant when it was covered in trees? Why hadn’t it looked like it when the colonists made their way here, and where were they?

  Tolinar stared at him: a piercing gaze. ‘You have … questions.’ It was more statement than question.

  ‘Yes, many – I can ask them when we find your people.’

  ‘Very well. I will rest.’ Tolinar closed his eyes.

  Uncomfortable on the hard stone, Sebastian shifted and absent-mindedly scuffed the dusty floor of the cavern with his toe. Something glinted in the red sand at his feet.

  He bent down and brushed the sand away from an inch-long milky, yet translucent, bluish-white crystal, with irregular, almost carved, facets. He picked it up and a tingle, a vibration like current through a badly-earthed appliance, ran through his fingers.

  Tolinar murmured something as though disturbed.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Sebastian dropped the crystal into one of the pouches on his belt for later study.

  ‘A little longer.’ Tolinar said, his eyes still closed.

  Sebastian waited in silence but felt uneasy despite the company. The cave was strangely familiar, as though he’d been there before, like déjà vu, but more concrete – he couldn’t put his finger on it. Whatever it was, it was unpleasant.

  ***

  Sebastian felt like he’d been waiting in the cave all day for Tolinar to
get his strength back. In the dim light of the lamp, his thoughts drifted to Aryx. Concern for his safety grew and a knot of guilt tied his insides; he was sitting doing nothing while Aryx could be injured, or worse.

  Tolinar stirred.

  Thank the Gods! ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He helped Tolinar back onto the crutch. His face had regained some of its golden colour, but it could easily have been an effect of the light.

  He stared into the darkness beyond the immediate patch of sand illuminated by the lamp – even the base of the stairway from which they’d entered remained shrouded in deep shadow. ‘Which way now?’

  Tolinar held his head at an angle, as though listening. ‘This way,’ he said, and moved off.

  After several minutes of walking through the black expanse of the cavern, cave walls appeared, tapering in to form a narrow, winding passage with smaller tunnels branching off in different directions at irregular intervals. Tolinar led him with a quiet certainty; he never backtracked or questioned his choice of direction at any of the junctions they took. The air in the tunnel gradually warmed with a gentle breeze from ahead. They turned a sharp left-hand bend and the passage widened to a cavern. Angular crags, revealed by a distant light, pointed to the mouth of the cave and the smell of damp soil once again greeted them as they stepped out into drizzly sunlight at the base of the cliff.

  Rubble and rocky debris lay strewn amongst the trees. Several of the larger trees carried old wounds where the branches had ripped off and now littered the ground. It was almost as though the cliff had suddenly risen out of the landscape and caused the rockfall.

  ‘Did this occur recently?’

  Tolinar stopped and appeared to count in his head. ‘About sixty Earth-years ago. It was not a good time.’

  ‘Were the caves already here, before the land subsided?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where do the other tunnels go?’

  ‘We do not know.’

  There was something strange in the alien’s voice – was he holding out on him? Sebastian glanced at the still-burning lamp. ‘Just a moment,’ he said, and opened the lamp and pinched the wick, extinguishing the flame. A sharp pain shot through his arm as he refastened the glass, and he winced. ‘Shit, that hurt. I need to sit a minute.’

  Tolinar moved to a boulder beneath a large oak tree. It had several creases and folds in the bark that gave the impression of a figure; maybe the formation was common on this planet.

  Sebastian sat next to Tolinar and unwrapped the bandages on his arm. The foul odour of rotting flesh hit him as he peeled them away and a green ichor oozed out, hanging in long glutinous strands from the cloth. He winced and turned his head.

  ‘You should have used the medicine for yourself.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, you needed it more than me. There’s more on my ship, if I make it that far.’

  ‘Our people are close by. They will help.’

  ‘We’d best get a move on, then.’ Sebastian put the lamp in the rucksack and, having no clean bandage, left the wound uncovered. After all, the fresh air might do it good.

  He helped Tolinar up and they headed away from the cliff through the dense woodland. The trees to their left gradually thinned out and gave way to open grassland. Tolinar led Sebastian deeper into the forest and, after several metres, they crossed a broad strip of low, tangled foliage.

  They continued for half a mile along the avenue and came to a stop in front of a birch tree, the trunk of which was about the same size as the one Aryx hugged in Chopwood. The bottom half of the trunk had a split up the middle, like two smaller trunks fused together. A few inches above the now-familiar y-shaped crease sat a small dimple.

  Sebastian stepped back. This tree … it couldn’t be.

  His gaze continued up to where the trunk tapered a little, then widened again. Two smooth bumps protruded several inches above the dimple, and higher still, it split out into two prominent branches with numerous smaller limbs coming off it. The shape was distinct: the body of a humanoid female, entombed in the bark with her arms upstretched.

  Tolinar bowed, facing the tree. ‘We have brought him, Shiliri.’

  ‘Who are you talking to?’

  The Folian straightened and, still facing the tree, took the wreath from his head and held it up. The fruit on it was much larger now than when Sebastian first noticed it back on the station. It didn’t seem possible, but they were now the size of satsumas – had they been growing the entire time?

  ‘Sebastian has demonstrated his integrity,’ Tolinar said, facing the tree. ‘He has sacrificed his own health to preserve ours. We offer you our experience.’

  ‘I accept the calyx you offer, beloved Tolinar.’ The unseen speaker’s voice sounded both male and female, with tones – the voices of a choir – laughing and singing quietly to themselves in the background; an ancient voice, conveying wisdom and compassion, full of concern.

  Was the voice coming from the tree itself, somewhere behind it, or in his head? While he watched, the fruit on the headdress Tolinar held up withered and shrivelled, until they were completely gone. Unexpectedly light-headed, Sebastian put his hand out to steady himself against a tree. Was he hallucinating as a side effect of his wound?

  Tolinar turned to face him. ‘We present the Folians.’

  The voice of the tree caressed his thoughts. ‘Greetings, dear Sebastian, and welcome to Achene, our homeworld. My name is Shiliri.’ There was the faint impression of a face visible against – or in – the bark.

  ‘Greetings,’ he said, bowing stiffly out of respect for the reverence Tolinar clearly held for the being.

  ‘You have a great many questions,’ Shiliri sang softly. ‘Firstly, you should know that the calyx the Karrikin wear stores the experiences of their senses and allows them to pass knowledge of events directly to us. You have shown compassion and selflessness, and through this demonstration of your willingness to give yourself freely for the benefit of others, I know that you wish us no harm.’

  ‘I … I thought Tolinar was a Folian.’

  ‘A belief we allow to persist for our own safety. Our consciousness is bound to these host trees. We move between them but cannot easily leave this planet. Instead, we use Tolinar’s people, the Karrikin, as our emissaries and ambassadors. They wear the calyx so that we may experience other worlds and races through the memories stored within the fruit.’

  ‘So, the humanoid trees are your bodies?’

  ‘That is correct. We can exist for a brief time in other trees and plants, but it places great demands on us to do so.’

  Sebastian looked at Tolinar. ‘Was he a test, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tolinar said. ‘Please forgive us. Our wounds are an illusion.’

  A loud hum rumbled from the torso of the ancient birch, vibrating through Sebastian’s teeth, and unintelligible words, spoken in a hundred different voices, issued forth. The air around the tree shimmered like a heat haze, and in the blink of an eye Tolinar’s wounds were gone. The Karrikin straightened, unwrapped the clean bandages from his leg and handed them to Sebastian.

  ‘You must dress your wound for the time being.’

  Sebastian’s disorientation returned and he took a deep breath. He needed time to register what his senses were telling him. This was too strange. This was no technology.

  ‘That was magic … thaumaturgy … Can you use it to heal my wound?’

  ‘No,’ Shiliri said. ‘Tolinar’s appearance was merely an illusion. Thaumaturgy is very specific and is difficult to tailor to other beings for those purposes. We have other, more practical, methods for healing at the Cambium. Follow us. We will converse on the way.’ A shimmering, diaphanous blue light, barely visible against the forest background, drifted from the trunk of the birch and into another tree farther along the avenue.

  Tolinar headed in the same direction, no longer limping now the pretence was over.

  Sebastian followed, wrapping the bandage around his arm a
s he went. He couldn’t contain the questions any longer. ‘This planet looks like a gas giant from space – for your protection, I assume?’

  ‘Yes. It is a simple but effective illusion.’ Shiliri spoke as she drifted from tree to tree. Given the first tree he’d seen her in looked female, it seemed appropriate to think of the consciousness that way, too. ‘We regret that it caused you to crash … which brings us to another issue – why you are here.’

  ‘I came to seek your aid. A man named Duggan Simmons sent me. He said you may be able to help me find out what happened on Tenebrae station.’

  ‘The explosion,’ Tolinar said.

  ‘A terrible tragedy. How can we help?’

  Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Initially I thought that one of the Folians— I mean Karrikin – may have been responsible …’

  Tolinar’s eyes widened.

  ‘… only because our security footage showed a blurry person outside the lab. It reminded me of the way your ships appeared in photographs my friend had taken, but I dismissed that idea when I saw the earlier image I’d taken of Tolinar was clear. Your ship and ambassadors were also not in the area at the time of the explosion. We found traces of a powdery white mineral at the scene, carbyne, and traced it to Duggan. He refers to it as orichalcum.’

  ‘The mineral exists here, also,’ Shiliri said.

  ‘I thought it might. Duggan says he wasn’t on the station, and without evidence to place him there or corroborate either way, against my better judgement I’m tempted to believe him—’ Sebastian unhooked his foot from a creeping vine. ‘He believes you may be able to determine what happened in the lab, and he also thinks the person in the video might be a magic user, a thaumaturge.’

  ‘We may be able help you, but it will require the efforts of our elders in the Hesperidium. Once we have tended to your wound at the Cambium, we will proceed there.’

  Sebastian nodded. ‘Thank you. I’ve got another question, if you don’t mind. The blurring effect in the video, the way your ships use anti-gravity – I mean, the way they float – there’s no technology for either of those things. The floating I can understand, if you use magnetics, but if that was the case I’d have needed the specs for your ships to integrate them with our systems.’