Exhausted, I sat down by the door. Everyone else was decontaminating their suits and stripping down, but even those motions were too much for me. I could only think of all the disasters we had barely averted.
Carefully, Ibra removed the bright orange helmet, still wet, and crouched down next to me. “You okay?”
“Just tired,” I lied. “When the next storm rolls in we’ll have to go back out there and plant the grasses. This is just one site, and you have three more to visit. How do you do this all the time?”
Ibra smiled. “Wait till we go check the levels at some of the older sites. You’ll see then. It’s worth it, to see the Desert bloom. Are you sure you want to be an archeologist like Katharos? You’re pretty good at this. You probably saved Dawith’s hands. Dawith would have stayed until it was finished. Dawith is always last.”
I could see tension lines around those familiar brown eyes as Ibra watched me, as if the smile wouldn’t quite stick. How strange it would have been for the Desert to burn the hands of both architects of the Green Belt. I felt chilled, and suddenly wanted to pray, but didn’t know what Face of God I wanted to call to, Ibra’s or Dawith’s or some other.
I smiled at Ibra, trying to reassure myself. “We’ll see if I change my mind when I’ve seen the finished product.”
“The work is never finished,” Ibra replied solemnly, reaching for my hand. Our contaminated-glove fingers met, but I felt the familiar tight squeeze through the glove just the same as it had been since childhood, the fingers that were not quite like everyone else’s. “But at least it is begun. Come on, let’s get you unsuited and put some food in you, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
As the students ate and Dawith watched the weather radar with rain-swollen hands, Ibra and I sat together in quiet, content to wait as sunlight made the Desert bloom outside.
The Seven Species
Aleksei Valentín
Skeletal, fruitless trees litter the world
with fallow fields, nothing left for widows and orphans to glean.
But I was given a sacred task:
a hopeless one, it seemed,
when the desert blew across gentle green places
we had carved from her edges and made fruitful,
as if demanding back the space we had only ever borrowed.
Of everyone, I was chosen, my name the ordained sign:
עֲרָבָה, Arava, willow and desert,
among the plants of Sukkot, chosen for beauty,
gathered with prayers for water, filled with secrets,
the miracle of living exposed and vulnerable yet unharmed.
It took years for the rains to come again, for the crisis to pass,
and for people to return to the land, bearing tools ready for farming,
newly developed and prepared to sway with the unsteady world.
The desert has stepped back, and at last I have come forward.
I have held the crimson box of holy treasure
for longer than any lifetime,
long generations bound in exile,
this land nothing but a dream for many, but my dreams were different.
Given the years and merits of the Patriarchs,
I alone remember the shade of ancient trees.
We are a people of memory
so I have carried the kernels of what sustains us,
seven precious seeds:
wheat, barley, grape, fig, pomegranate, olive, and date.
I carry them in a sacred box, like the Aron haBrit,
but this covenant is with the land of our ancestors,
with our people and all we once knew.
The land must be made green again, not with new crops,
but with these crops, what grows to feed the soul of Israel.
Wheat, to feed and nourish the human soul and body.
Barley, to feed our animals and our animal instincts that bind us to the earth.
Grape, to make wine and make joy,
to bring color and revelation to the world.
Fig, to hold us together as a people and know the world,
to put our souls to the task of life.
Pomegranate, to be filled with deeds of goodness and to rejoice in beauty.
Olive, to struggle with God, and when pressed, yield liquid gold of faith.
Date, to remind us it takes time to blossom,
but we will come forth in our hour of peace.
I have carried this box of holiness and wisdom,
sometimes light as air, sometimes heavy as guilt,
as everyone I know passes away
and my people become beloved strangers to me.
Still I remain, chosen to remember what cannot be forgotten.
As the desert blooms again, as my people dig the earth,
I know the box was never mine to keep, only to tend,
to give away, ancient as the oldest date palm.
Let my words be sweet, let us bend to become fruitful,
let Israel be sustained by her blessed gifts of spirit into body
bringing holy light to soil so that even this dry dust becomes a sacred thing.
When the crops flourish from the seed,
when sanctity and memory ripen on the trees,
I know my charge is lifted. I have been the priestess of green memory,
serving the spirit of God as She hovered over us in our fear and hunger,
and held us safe until it turned to us once more
to make Israel a green land, faith and wisdom planted on the same tree
holy earth fed by irrigation systems,
and watched with technology I am too tired to understand.
I am the oldest now, and I am ready.
I am ready to take my turn beneath the soil,
to rest beneath the Mount of Olives,
and leave my holy task to bloom above me, splendor once again.
The Trees Between
Karyn L. Stecyk
The initial jerk from the primary wave had been stronger than anticipated and sent Miraiha careening into a sapling for support. The shock made her heart skip a beat, but feeling the force in this world was a promising sign.
“Did it work?” Miraiha wondered aloud.
“Felt like it,” Trent said inside her head.
She jumped at his voice. Miraiha didn’t realize she had sent her thoughts through the grove’s communications channel. A communion of people and link-trees, she had relayed her feelings to everything. She scolded herself. A leader voicing doubts in a time of crisis was never good. She wrung her hands and suddenly realized how cold her fingers were.
“Rosela,” Miraiha said, willing authority back into her tone. “Check the outer ring for seismic recordings.”
“On it.”
“Leaves still online?” Miraiha sent the query through New Gaia, the artificial reality that absorbed the seismic energy, and to the others in the grove’s network. This was the first true field test of seismic disaster mitigation, and she wasn’t sure how well the auxiliary systems would hold.
She crossed her fingers. Seismologists had forecast the superquake for decades. The last event flattened sixty percent of the city and took two hundred thousand lives, and yet the city did nothing more than implement stricter building codes. She imagined the quake’s tendrils thrusting through water and soil, uprooting everything, bent on destroying their homes once and for all. Thinking about failure wrung her gut like a wet cloth.
Status reports from each of the seven hundred ash trees linked to their individual hosts trickled into Yggdrasil, Miraiha’s vessel, and therefore into her consciousness. All canopies continued recycling run-off gases from the city and nearby farms and pumping sulfur into the atmosphere. Although an important system, its simplicity contrasted with the technological complexities of the grove’s primary functions: to absorb and redirect seismic energy into an alternate reality.
Trent opened a private channel between him and Miraiha. “Listen,
Miraiha, don’t worry so much. If Cradle’s canopies can survive the typhoons we’ve been getting, they can survive this.”
“Quakes can do damage where you least expect it.”
Trent sighed. “Yes, we understand that. That day never fades.” Miraiha didn’t want to remember. “That’s why I’m here. We’re not risking our lives blindly. We fought alongside you for years. We believe in this. And we believe in you. You need to, too.”
Miraiha considered his words. The three of them together, she, Trent, and Rosela, had realized they could never prevent a fault from slipping but could always be more prepared. The government had been skeptical, but multi-functionality was the key to securing land and funding: atmospheric treatments via leaves, combined with a sprawling root system, a lattice that hindered liquefaction and held both soil and solid rock together. She had spearheaded the sowing of Sisters’ Cradle, the first grove, just north of the reclaimed island peninsula and encapsulating the city. When they had engineered the link-trees, she didn’t doubt their effectiveness. Why did she now?
“You’re right,” Miraiha sighed. “I need to refocus. Yggdrasil—Cradle—depends on me. Thanks for the reminder.”
“We all depend on you, but don’t forget this relationship is mutual.” His voice was an early sunrise, light and promising. Miraiha could picture his gentle smile. “I’m always here to pass tea if you need me, Mirai.”
Miraiha chuckled. During their endless nights in study rooms as students, they’d pass around a pot of tea—but only when someone hit a mental wall or looked about to fall asleep. She recalled one exhausting night when Trent had kept passing to her as a joke, and their fingers lingered on the handle longer than usual.
“Great news,” Rosela announced, voice teeming with elation. Miraiha’s pensiveness fell away and she thanked Trent for his support. “No seismic activity registered at any points beyond the grove. Complete mitigation.”
“Excellent,” Miraiha said with a smile. “We might just pull this off.”
“Roger that.”
With the communication channels quieted, Miraiha relaxed.
Deep in meditation within Yggdrasil’s pod, she re-centered herself. Sisters’ Cradle had been successful in redirecting the ground’s innate power into New Gaia. This time, the seismic waves had met resistance, a resistance led by the sacred union of Miraiha and her link-tree. The waves reared back in disgust before being sucked away into other channels where damage was minimized. Despite being weakened from drought, the grove was proving its worth, proving that meaningful bonds within and between worlds could still be formed.
No longer would roadways fall atop one another, crushing civilians stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ground wouldn’t swallow buildings or topple them like dominos. This time, her family would be safe—everyone’s families would be safe. The city would breathe easy, not gasp for air laden with dust and embers and tears.
Miraiha looked out over the sun-kissed hills that rolled into grasslands and verdurous mountains, which parted just enough to flash the shimmering sea beyond, and walked down to the damp sand trimming the stream. The landscape she had spent months programming, all the while aware of its eminent destruction. Once the seismic energy was absorbed by the link-trees, her code’s functions would transform it to pass through the channels connecting to New Gaia. There, the energy would be released. A tinge of guilt crawled through her insides. She questioned why she would destroy the one world she could explore free of hoverchairs or robotic appendages that made her skin itch. A world untouched by pollution with a horizon unbroken by cityscapes. New Gaia was as much Cradle’s world as it was hers, and it was soon to be ravaged by the natural disasters her primary world could no longer endure. She hoped the grove understood and that their bond of trust wouldn’t waver.
Yet nature denied direct dissolution of its wild forces, and there was no other choice but to channel the raw seismic energy into New Gaia. Energy required space to run free as nature intended; New Gaia could provide.
Stream water lapped at Miraiha’s toes. The cool sensation was one she could only feel here. She caught herself and shunted the emotions aside to brace her body and mind for the secondary and subsequent surface waves. She willed her comrades to do the same. Seismology studies taught her that the most violent and destructive components of the quake had yet to come.
The secondary seismic wave sheared the rock, twisted the grove’s roots, strained them. The shaking threatened to tear Miraiha from her trance, but she sank deeper into Yggdrasil and fought back the dread rumbling in her core. Her focus was imperative to transferring the energy to New Gaia. If she faltered, the connection could break. And she wasn’t certain the others could keep the alternate world spinning without her. She had designed it, had a flawless synchronicity with it that her companions envied.
The surface waves swung the planet’s crust side-to-side. Miraiha was thrown off balance and a full step into the stream. Cold water splashed up her thighs. Pebbles jittered across the ground as it moaned, cracked, and ruptured before her eyes. The image was replaced with memories of splitting cement and screeching metal. Memories of being pinned beneath fallen ceiling and unable to reach—
She supported herself against a boulder protruding from the bank and tried to regain a crystalline state of being. The spiritual, physical, and emotional draw made her veins magma. The same sensation consumed Cradle’s root system.
Within the vastness of her consciousness, a connection severed—a tree snapped, its host crushed by the shearing forces. Despite being only one of hundreds, the loss was a knee to the gut. The network in that region flickered, but Rosela and Trent bridged the gap.
“How did—” Miraiha started, impressed at their reflexes. “Never mind. Is the connection stable?”
“Trying to keep it that way,” said Trent. Each word was a standalone pulse.
“Could use an extra link in kyu-twelve fourteen-eff,” Rosela said, voice strained.
Amid the continuous tremors, trees both north and south of the endangered quadrant offered their support. In the primary world, roots shot toward each other, coiling into thick braids and spinning nets to catch the propagating waves. Miraiha would have stretched Yggdrasil as well, but being the heart of the grove mandated her focus remain where it was.
Brief moments of stillness allowed the link-trees and their partners to catch their breath and reconnect. Rolling waves threw ground both horizontal and vertical. Yet despite their intensity, the grove met them with a peaceful calm. Rather than stifle it, Sisters’ Cradle acknowledged and channeled the planet’s stress and anger. It was a practice in acceptance long overdue.
As the final currents subsided, Miraiha sat on the grass in a semi-circle of violet flowers. She reached out to both worlds. Her lips parted in exultation. She offered understanding and oneness.
“Peace, harmony, serenity, I pledge,” the words came in ceremonial drumbeats, a mantra. “With all my being, everything I was, am, and will be, I swear to do whatever necessary to reverse the damage wreaked by my ancestors. Again together, we will thrive. A single harmonious spirit.”
Her energy graced New Gaia’s clouds and soothed its open wounds. It oozed from Yggdrasil’s roots and canopy, seeped into soil and air far beyond. She could feel the grove’s collective soul beat within her. Others were with her, shared her promise. She repeated the words over and over.
“Peace, harmony, serenity, I pledge. . . .”
§
Something twitched at the edge of Miraiha’s mind. A slight tapping. She recognized the movement as outside New Gaia, but let it float by, labeling it inconsequential. While awaiting the aftershocks, she wondered whether their efforts had been enough to keep their city and people alive. The tapping continued, exploding into a loud knocking she could no longer ignore.
Sitting in the pod in the center of her link-tree, Miraiha’s eyes shot open. The purple blossoms, whispering stream, luscious mountains, and broken ground—vanished. They
were replaced by fibrous walls coated in sleek link-conductivity film. The xylem and phloem carrying nutrients for the tree’s biological components wrapped around the pod like arteries circling a heart. They tangled with thick electrical cables. An array of orange holo-images spanned before her, showing data from the grove and the seismic recordings from all stations and drones in the region that Rosela had forwarded to her.
Another thud sounded behind her. Drenched in sweat that curled her dark hair and stung her eyes, she turned toward the sound. Yggdrasil didn’t like visitors. Communion with a link-tree was sacred; one tree, one person. Balance was key. She twisted a fleshy growth on the floor and the hatch unlocked.
“This had better be important,” Miraiha growled, but fatigue tainted the command of her voice.
“Fire,” Miraiha’s aunt, Nell, said. Exasperation cross-hatched her face. “There’s a fire encroaching. Couldn’t reach you on normal channels. Came as fast as I could. Evacuation’s been issued for the whole area. You can’t stay here.”
“A fire? Did we fail?”
“Against the quake? No. The city stands strong as ever. For now.” She wiped at her brow. “Fire’s coming from the hills.”
Miraiha shook her head. “I can’t abandon Sisters’ Cradle. There’ll be aftershocks. We must mitigate them.”
“The whole grove will burn down.”
Miraiha met her aunt’s gaze. Distress glazed her eyes. She knew what she was thinking, what she was remembering. Miraiha wet her lips. “This fire, did the quake start it? Did a remote power line break?”
“We don’t know what sparked it, could have been anything in this drought—but it doesn’t matter. We have to evacuate.”
“I can’t do that,” Miraiha said, returning her attention to the data in front of her. “This is my place. I won’t let Yggdrasil burn. I can’t let the city fall. You said yourself that it still stands. How do you expect us to just pack up and leave now? The grove cannot stand on its own.”
Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation Page 13