A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, overlaid upon itself
“Well, they just reminded us of Earth's baby eucalyptus leaves so much...”
Famous last words that never had to be spoken because my husband called me in time.
Eucalyptal Golems were the trade names they were going to have before Kirk and Dixon Shipping blew the whole plan up. Enterprising prospectorss for gift items noticed the familiar resemblance these beings have with a well-known Earth plant, and that they were abundant enough to be harvested sustainably. So far, so good.
However, it is significant that the beings are native to Keayup 4 as massive trees, but are far more abundant on Keayup 5 as a dwarf trees, in vast dwarf forests that are not original to the fifth planet. One might what those forests thus displaced, but there was no one on Keayup 5 to ask … which was a red flag all by itself.
My husband, Capt. Rufus Dixon, is the Dixon half of Kirk and Dixon Shipping, and the COO of the company – he manages operations with his team, and part of that is clearing offers for the company to ship goods.
Live items are a general no, but it was the comment of a fellow shipper that got his attention.
“Capt. Dixon, you don't know what you are missing – we are going to be running the plants and the archaeological goodies underneath.”
“So, we've got gift-sized plants growing in forests not native to the planet, forests under which there were apparently settlements recent enough to yield beautiful salable items – that's a red flag,” he said to me.
“I'll let Uncle Benjamin and the rest of the team know,” I said. “We're on it.”
“It's so nice being a captain married to a captain, Captain Biles-Dixon,” he said to me. “We just get things done!”
“Yes, Captain Dixon, we do,” I said, and blew him a kiss before signing off and calling my uncle, Admiral Benjamin Banneker-Jackson.
My uncle was much calmer than his colleague and second-in-command on the project I just called Settlement Faux Pas Madness in my head before the official name was applied.
“You pull up a whole tree root attached to a humanoid toilet and you don't immediately know there is a problem? Is there anybody but Admiral Kirk's kid cousin and your husband that has any sense in the commercial fleet?” Commodore Wilhelm Allemande thundered when he heard.
“They hold it down the best they can,” I said, “but with the major holidays in Earth's end-of-year cycle coming, you know businesses are trying to get set up.”
“Set up to die!” the commodore said as his younger cousin, Commander Helmut Allemande, did his thing as ship's chief science officer and came with a preliminary report.
“Admiral, Commodore, and Captain,” he said, “I have pulled preliminary satellite data from Keayup 5, and it does indeed appear that the forests were once settlements, for scanning underneath shows large collections of minerals and composites that are arranged to suggest the infrastructure of residential and commercial areas. It appeared that the beings in question quite quickly overgrew the settlements, within no more than the last 150 years.
“On checking the historical data, it appears that there was a civil war 400 years ago that caused a settlement of native Keayupi from the fourth planet to desire to settle the fifth, and this succeeded. Some 200 years later, apparently, the old quarrels were put to bed, and the fourth planet sent gifts from home to make the new planet and its terraforming go more smoothly. However, this particular being behaved differently on the fifth planet than on the fourth – it metabolizes the local minerals and adapts to the weather in dwarf form, but also produces thirty-five times more cyanide to protect itself from the pests in its new habitat. It does exceedingly well, but also kills everything around it at maturity – prolonged contact with even its respiration processes in a high enough concentration will eventually lead to a fatal exposure.”
My first officer paused, and lowered his basso profundo to its deepest gravity.
“Sirs and Madam, there are two other facts to note. The first is that the oldest growth of these plants is at the edges of every settlement, and the newest is roughly at the cities' center. This means that the prevailing wind from any direction would have been blowing over these trees into the cities. The second is that although there is abundant evidence that supports the known fact that original settlers made safe journeys from Keayup 4 to Keayup 5, there is absolutely no evidence that anyone ever returned, or that anyone from Keayup 4 ever checked to see if anything was wrong while those plants were coming to maturity. The official record is as if suddenly on one day everything went wrong, but given the growth patterns of these plants, that cannot be possible.”
“We could be looking at an ancient settling of a quarrel, all right,” Adm. Banneker-Jackson said, “but not the way the official record says, and if that is true, your husband's commercial colleagues are in danger for more than one reason, Captain Biles-Dixon. I will inform Admiral Elian Bodega of these discoveries and have him have the regional governor shut all prospecting of those plants and any artifacts from them, and also alert him to quietly put a hold on Keayup 4's application to join the consortium until we can find out more information about what really happened on Keayup 5."
Adm. Bodega got back to us in 12 hours.
“I'm putting Commodore Allemande in command of the Amanirenas temporarily, Captain Biles-Dixon, so that competitors to Kirk and Dixon Shipping don't pitch a fit for no reason when all of you show up in support of the Denmark Vesey to make sure all plans to ship those plants cease. I want your team to get down on Keayup 4 and check out those trees in their native habitat, and then have a look at them on Keayup 5 for yourself. Something tells me the trees have the answer that no one else will give us.”
Adm. Bodega was making official what my uncle had said that evening.
“Doesn't that look like it has a face to you?” the rear admiral had said to the full fleet admiral.
“Actually, more than one – if these beings are sentient on top of the rest of this,” the full fleet admiral said and shook his head to finish the sentence.
Sure enough … aboard the Amanirenas as part of our new science team was Lieutenant Commander T'Gau, a Vulcan officer and powerful telepath, and she beamed down with me and the away team to both Keayup 4 and Keayup 5. So, while we made all the proper noises about wanting to protect the habitat of the system and we're sorry about the mess, she hugged the oldest such trees on Keayup 4 where it was safe to make such close contact, and more distantly communicated with the trees on Keayup 5.
“They do not understand the universe in the way that we do,” Lt. Cmdr. T'Gau reported to me, “but the oldest trees on Keayup 4 remember being separated from their seedlings and not understanding why that had to happen, and their seedlings on Keayup 5 are ready to die because they have been so embattled and embittered, and they are sad that they had to train their children to be bitter in order not to be eaten alive. The younger trees are aware of their parents' and grandparents' and great-grandparents' unhappiness in addition to their own, and want to go home although they have never seen their native home. They are tired of killing. The older trees also remember when the big bugs died, if you will – in our time, it would have been between 153 and 167 years ago.”
The rest of the science team, armed with this information, tested the artifacts we had recovered before they could be shipped off world, and also made more detailed scanning. What was revealed was something like Pompeii – one day, those trees matured, and death blew through them into every town. Cyanide gas is quick, so people and animals lay where they fell, and their bones were all in good order since nothing had escaped the cyanide that had to breathe. So many insects also had died – from the “little bugs” to the “big bugs,” all had died.
“Pretty clear case for genocide and enslavement of another sentient being to make it happen,” Adm. Bodega said grimly, “but we cannot interfere with an independent civilization's affairs. The only leverage we have is Keayup 4's application to the consortium – of course we cannot admit them without a full investigation and resolution of the matter, but they just as soon can withdraw their application and benefit from having us all around them while keeping their big secrets.”
Cdre. Allemande bristled at this.
“Well, how bad do they want in?” he said. “Is it all about the trading value, or do they care about the life-honoring part that we do?”
“And,” my uncle said thoughtfully, “how much does the younger generation know about their own history? 150 years is a long time, especially if one generation did something and had no one to stop them from covering it up.”
“Look, you admirals are ranked higher than me for a reason, and you're still young with clear minds – you get the big bucks to figure these things out!” the commodore said. “So, we have a small lever – use it! And now that we are done with all this reconnaissance, will you please give Captain Biles-Dixon her ship back? All these extra bells and whistles these new ships have – it takes me five minutes to even figure out what button to push!”
I got my ship back, and the small lever was skillfully used … it took 15 years, but the Keayupi came to terms with their own history, and sent a rescue for the only beings left that could be rescued: their sentient trees. They are now known as the Great Memorial Trees, reminding their people of the darkest moments of their history, and also when they decided to bring the truth, and themselves, into the light.