“Several years ago, we worked with a loremaster to find any records that might be pertinent to our research. Census, birth data—anything vaguely anthropological that could give us clues about the quiets. This map you’re looking at might be five hundred years old.”
Pattie studied the maps more closely, noticing that indeed, many similarities existed between them. Each map had similar chunks of the township perimeter outlined. Just how similar is the question. Butting the padds against each other, she transmitted the data from the older padd to the newer one. With a few quick commands, she had pulled up a projection of the maps: the overlaid trees appeared in the air. The highlighted sections appeared as virtual concentric circles, with the younger tree forming a blue perimeter just inside the yellow perimeter of the older tree.
“Even when you figure in tree growth, the resemblance is uncanny,” Pattie said finally. “What was this map for, anyway?”
“Population distribution,” Zoë said. Sensing Pattie’s confusion, she continued, “In previous centuries, quiets tended to be isolated from the general population. Why? I can’t say, but this old map indicates that the quiets’ paddocks are clustered together in the highlighted areas.”
“So, long ago, the quiets lived along the perimeter, but specifically near these areas that have been recently damaged.”
Zoë nodded.
Pattie’s mind raced through possible connections between the events of the past few days and a faraway time. “Can we even make a connection between these two maps?” she said, thinking aloud.
“On the surface, the two scenarios don’t appear to be related, but I think the similarities are too uncanny to be ignored.”
“We might find answers in history—”
“If Nasat were better about keeping their history. Your kindred don’t believe in preserving the past,” Zoë said philosophically. “And yet, here you see that there might be a link, however tenuous, between whatever is happening now and what happened then.”
After her disastrous appearance at the meeting, Pattie had resolved to walk away from the investigation—especially since it seemed like she was bringing more confusion than clarity to the problem. But seeing these maps…She considered her options and made a decision.
“So, do you have any other records that might be of use?”
* * *
How far into the dark cycle they worked before the door chime sounded, Pattie couldn’t say. Neither of them had known precisely what they were looking for. Before long, Pattie’s nest area was overrun with padds, hand-drawn charts and graphs, scrolls, data chips, and holos from Nasat history. She had been deeply absorbed in the earliest recorded township map when Tarak appeared in the doorway.
“The governor’s here,” he said.
“I have to apologize to—”
“He’s not here for you, he’s here for Zoë and me.”
Pattie and Zoë exchanged puzzled looks. Zoë shoved aside the census data for Nasat Year 1647 and followed Tarak into the receiving room.
Resisting the impulse to spy, Pattie dropped her gaze to the map she held with four of her limbs. Though the primitive rendering failed to offer a computerized map’s precision, the proportions and scale were such that she could approximate what the mother-tree (and township) looked like nearly a millennium ago. The cartographer had inked in the outlines of where future decks would be built. Pattie noted with amusement that the mapmaker had only anticipated another eight decks after the original four. How could they have foreseen the day when we’d have more than twenty? Nasat pictographs formed the map’s border, providing a narrative or instructions. She was far from an expert in interpreting pictographs, but she could translate enough to figure out the general idea.
“…and on this day, we raise this township, mindful of the promises made by kindred past…”
What promises? Pattie thought.
Muffled voices came from the receiving room. Pattie wondered what problem the governor had brought to Zoë and Tarak. It doesn’t matter to me anyhow. She forced her attention back to the map.
An idea occurred to her. She waved a scanning wand over the old parchment and loaded the scanned record into her padd. It took only minutes to convert the drawing into three dimensions. A press of her thumb and all three map projections—each outlined in a different color—appeared in the air, spinning side by side. Overlaying one tree atop another was simple. Pattie gazed at the intertwined multi-colored lines, muttering aloud, “What am I supposed to see? It’s right in front of me, I know it is….”
“Pattie?” Zoë poked her head around the corner.
She looked up from her maps.
“I need you to come with us. I’ll explain later.”
* * *
Not much was said on the way to the attender health center. No one had offered an explanation on why this was relevant to Pattie. For Zoë and Tarak, however, she would comply without question. The governor had acknowledged her once, briefly, when he said, “You certainly know how to stir things up, don’t you?”
She assumed he was referring to her outspokenness in the investigation briefing. Before she could reply, he’d moved ahead on the conveyor to stand with his aides.
As soon as they arrived, Pattie recognized the health facility as being the preeminent research center in the forest quadrant. Tarak had done his attender fellowship here when he’d first started his research. On their way in, they passed by a pair of security services officers, which struck Pattie as strange. Since when do health facilities require protecting? A turbolift and back hallway later, the group arrived at another security checkpoint before entering a patient’s room.
A Red shell Nasat lay on the biobed, body rigid, neural-feedback sensors attached along the ridges of his skull. With eye membranes rolled nearly into his sockets, his coal-black eyes stared, unblinkingly, at the ceiling. Attenders stood on various sides of the bed, each monitoring different physiological functions. Tarak approached one of them—a Green shell—and began talking in hushed tones with her.
Surveying the room, Pattie gathered that whoever this Nasat was, he had sustained serious neurological injuries. On a monitor, she studied the color patterns that showed brain activity, discovering that every quadrant glowed red and orange, indicating that every neuron and synapse was firing steadily, without respite. You can’t survive that kind of biochemical overload, she thought. She shifted nervously, remembering her own brief encounter in the forest. Maybe that’s why I’m here.
Pattie watched as Tarak used his own tricorder to take readings. Gesturing for Zoë to begin her work, he examined the monitor readouts while Zoë wrapped her hand around the injured Nasat’s, studying him intently. After a few moments, they conversed quietly. Zoë gestured animatedly with her hands; Tarak shook his head.
“I’m afraid we don’t have much to add to your diagnosis,” Tarak said, spinning a monitor around for the governor to see. He pointed to the erratically fluctuating brainwaves scrolling across the bottom of the screen. “Resequencing cannot address this degree of neural chemical breakdown. Given time, the brain might be able to restore equilibrium. Time, I’m afraid, is all we can offer.”
“What about stabilizing the cortical activity?” one of the attenders asked. “I know part of what you’ve done in your research involves building new neuro-chemical pathways—”
“With a conscious, willing subject who has the ability to apply focused effort over an extended period of time,” Tarak said. “We could work with him if he recovers—”
“To put it simply, Governor,” Zoë interrupted, “this Nasat’s brain has been so overstimulated that irreparable damage might have been done to the tissues. As Tarak said, waiting is the only option.”
Pattie didn’t generally consider herself to be obtuse, but she remained unclear as to precisely why she’d been included on this visit. Her soft friends were well-known in the forest quadrant for having neurological expertise. Why the governor would call them was obvious. Maybe they
thought she might lend some insight based on her own experiences, including her most recent bout of muteness. Or maybe, she considered cynically, the governor didn’t want her to get into trouble if they left her at the paddock unsupervised. The thought tainted her mood with a bit of petulance. Intending to find out once and for all, she leaned forward, raising a limb to get Tarak or the governor’s attention—
Zoë shot her a look that admonished patience.
Tarak, Zoë, and the governor clustered with the attenders, talking for a moment longer.
When the group broke, the governor said, “Let’s go outside and talk, shall we?”
They filed behind an orderly who guided them to a vacant suite. Once the orderly had returned to duty, the discussion began.
Pattie opened her mouth to speak, when Zoë quickly cut her off.
“Where did you find the Red in there?” She glared meaningfully at Pattie.
“On the security netting about two kilometers from the township,” the governor said. “Not much improvement from when we found him, unfortunately.”
“And you know for a fact that he was one that went missing during the quakes?” Zoë persisted.
Now it becomes interesting, Pattie thought, becoming intrigued.
“We were able to confirm ID when we found him. He had been in his paddock—in his nest. One of his neighbors confirmed that when he vanished,” one of the governor’s aides said. “How he came to be in this state…well, that’s the part that worries us.”
He felt a presence. He felt a presence and heard a sound that pierced him to the core, Pattie thought. And the part where I come in…
“Excuse me, but I think I might have some insight to offer here,” Pattie began. She related her experience while working on the investigation and the resultant symptoms.
The governor didn’t bother hiding his surprise. “Could other Nasat have had similar experiences?”
Pattie waved her antenna. “Possibly. Based on what we saw in the Red shell, I’d say definitely. Any clue what happened to the Red?”
No answer. The governor looked to his aides for a response. They both raised their limbs in frustration. “Fine, then,” he said, “I’ll tell them. Security services discovered several holes in the security netting. Cut from beneath. From the bottom.” He paused to let Pattie digest the information.
“How soon do you want me to go down?” Pattie asked.
* * *
Because of the general population’s concerns about trekking to the forest floor, the governor had ordered the team’s formation to remain secret. The group would meet at Zoë and Tarak’s lab and would head down to the observation decks in smaller groups to avoid incurring public attention. Several from the investigation, such as Y29—who had, incidentally, agreed with Pattie at the meeting—would be going, along with security services. The team risked encountering the same force that Pattie had, so the governor had asked Tarak if he would join the team’s attender in providing health services. Equipment would be beamed down to the spot beneath the break in the security net. Because of unpredictable conditions on the floor, the team would hike on foot to the equipment. The most recent surveys of the floor were loaded into their navigation equipment, but all of them knew that the whims of nature constantly changed the territory.
Pattie, Y29, and Tarak were the last to leave. Pattie had touched her thumb to her forehead, and to Zoë’s ear before Zoë’s eyes welled up. She threw her arms around Pattie’s shell, squeezing her tightly. “Come back,” she whispered, then disappeared into her private rooms, with Tarak following close behind. Pattie pulled Y29 out into the public passageway, offering a little privacy to the couple. After a few moments, Tarak emerged, his carrypack secure, walking stick in hand. “We should be leaving.”
And they began the long journey into the dark.
Chapter 7
The weathered observation deck felt slippery beneath Pattie’s feet, the splintering planks wet with dew. Nervously, the team huddled near the center of the deck platform, all of them wanting to avoid the rickety railings. Here, beneath the security netting, the eerie, gray twilight that passed for day had to suffice until night fell when wrist-lamps could be used. None of them knew how far they would travel or how long they would be gone. Even if new supplies could be transported down, the feasibility of doing so was unknown. Conserving resources was a paramount concern.
On the team commander’s signal, they began silently filing down the well-worn steps to the bottom. When Pattie’s turn came, she descended, all the while marveling at the work of her ancestors. The platform—these steps that had been carved into the tree itself—predated the township by several hundred years. If the stories were true, the Nasat of the last millennium had scrambled up into the trees to escape their predators’ pursuit. A lookout, stationed up on a makeshift platform, would warn the kindred of impending danger. They did everything they could to climb up, so we’re climbing back down. Maybe we haven’t learned as much as we hoped, Pattie thought wryly.
They traveled slowly, pausing occasionally when one of the team members would lose footing. Pattie used these opportunities to study the verdant mosses growing in the crevices of the tree bark. Seemingly innocent vine tendrils crawled tentatively around shrubby brush, twining over and under, slowly strangling their host. Pairs of glowing yellow eyes appeared in the shadows. A noise would send the creature scampering off. The wall of humidity rising around them took the most getting used to. Pattie, in particular, after living in the regulated atmospheres of starships for so long, had some trouble adjusting. The deeper into the understory they traveled, the more sodden, the more thickly dense the sweltering air became. Condensation dripped off the shell of the Nasat above Pattie; she was certain drops rolled off her own shell on the Nasat below her. The sheer volume of decomposing plant life and sour animal wastes, the overripe perfume of rotting flowers and fruit nearly overwhelmed Pattie.
When they reached the bottom, the team leader, a security services officer named D6 Blue, organized the group into smaller units of five, assigning one individual in each group the responsibility for keeping track of the others. He dispatched several security shells into the forest to survey the perimeter. While they were out on reconnaissance, he checked all the tricorders in the group, making sure that everyone had the same coordinates programmed into their navigational sensors. A locating beacon had been attached to the equipment about twenty-five kilometers from where they’d descended, making it simpler for the team to fix on their destination. The plan was to set up camp once they arrived. Where and how far into the forest the team would go the following day had yet to be determined. They hoped that they would find some kind of clue that would help them track whatever had invaded the township, but they couldn’t be certain.
The scouts returned, reporting nothing unusual. D6 ordered the group to move out.
* * *
Each step required caution. Low-lying mists carpeting the marshy ground hid elaborate crisscrossing root systems. Pools of algae-laden waters lurked in every hollow and divot. Tarak perpetually kept his hand in front of his face as clouds of gnats swarmed in his eyes, nose, and ears. A constant chorus of neek-breek, breek-neek rang in Pattie’s ears until she had little room for her own thoughts. But staying focused on the path was critical. One misstep could result in a soaked carrypack, a broken limb, or other, more serious injuries. Long, feathery leaves shrouded the path ahead. Other rubbery textured fronds were large enough to smother Pattie—or any other Nasat—should they fall. Brimming with sticky nectar, pitcher leaves (the size of starship consoles, Pattie noted with awe), temporarily blinded any kindred unfortunate enough to trip and stumble into a pollen-heavy stamen. Whatever awaited them on the forest floor was well hidden.
Pattie, Y29 Brown, Tarak, and their other team members, F2 Red and W37 Yellow, said little as they walked. The heavy humidity sapped Pattie’s energy, and she assumed the others felt similarly. The smallest movement seemed to require such concentration t
hat Pattie felt like she trudged along at a skagoh’s pace.
A stagnant pool. A reed bed. Step beneath the gnarled root nodules. Careful there—don’t lose your pack. Another pool. Duck down to crawl under another root.
Time dragged by. The decaying leaves of the variegated ferns blurred together in one fetid, brown-green swamp.
Over the hours, daylight dimmed slowly, from dank grayness to murky dusk. As the rotting quagmire became more difficult to discern from the mud, Pattie nearly slipped into a peaty bog. She picked wet leaves off her limbs but was unable to scrape the slime out of her joints. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, she thought. Pushing aside her discomfort, she trudged on, counting on the promise of her tricorder that base camp was only another kilometer away.
* * *
Finding stable ground to set up equipment had proved nearly impossible. D6 Blue ordered most work surfaces suspended between roots or laid over fallen trees. Usually, Nasat sleeping nests could be easily made up using the forest materials. Under these circumstances, however, there was a fear that an unexpected thunderstorm or ground shift would endanger any Nasat resting in a nest. Makeshift hammocks where they could curl up would have to suffice. As an additional protection, Tarak had devised a type of neural shielding, modeled after an instrument he used in his lab to limit the brain’s ability to respond to certain stimuli. While not entirely foolproof, the shielding would scatter any large concentrations of specific energy frequencies. He’d chosen what frequencies to protect against based on Pattie’s encounter.
The business of organizing camp consumed the rest of daylight. By the time Pattie was ready to take her night cycle meal, darkness had fallen and they were sipping their plates of fruit pulp by wrist-lamps. She and Tarak had been invited to join D6 after their meal, presumably to lay out a plan for the following days. They found the team leader standing behind a table, padds spread out before him, conversing animatedly with a botanist who had come along as a consultant.
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