Time and Dirt
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Day 28
Heliopause Colony on Planet Vertumna, Medbay
“Solane, psst, are you awake? I can’t tell... it’s dark and I don’t want to turn on the light and let anyone know I’m here. I know it’s super late. Probably just before midnight... but I couldn’t risk coming earlier, sorry. It was too dangerous. But I did bring food! A bunch of different delicious things. From the kitchen and from outside the colony.
Okay, let me explain. A... a lot has happened in the past day and half that I was gone. And I saw so many beautiful things, it almost makes up for all the pain. After I had stepped outside yesterday and taken some steps towards our fields and garden I saw what that noise was, Governor-pretender Lum had gathered some tired and grumpy soldiers to ... wait, is there someone outside, or am I imagining it? I thought I had heard something. Probably not, though. Can’t be sure, but...
I’ll just try to be quieter, I guess. Although I’m really excited about some of the things I saw. A lot, actually! And I don’t even know if I shouldn’t talk about them first. But it’s probably better to tell it all in order, right? Less confusing, heh.
So, there were those soldiers near Geoponics when I arrived there, armed with all the saws, axes and shovels the shed in the barn could provide, looking like they, well, wanted to say ‘Sir, Commander, why are we being with work in the fields this early in the morning? We aren’t *farmers*, sir!’ but were too cowardly or something to actually do that, and ended up just giving their clueless leader and then me looks so dirty they rivaled our compost heaps!
It sounds funny now, but at the time it was of course terrifying since I am, well, not exactly adept at fighting. I mean, I didn’t even like it much in the Vertumnalia festival competitions! And these people don’t exactly respect pacifism, I mean they have called me so many weird and annoying names in the past just because I refuse to play their games of violence! ... Oops, I meant to keep quiet, sorry.
...
At least I can’t hear footsteps or anything coming, just the same whirring and pulsating noises of all the devices here still running at night. Now that actually gives me a weird sense of relief ... Anyway, I wasn’t sure what to do, but it was obvious they weren’t up to anything good, so I just stood and listened. The shovel warriors were told that they needed to destroy the fruit trees and berry bushes for the ‘*safety* and *future* of the colony’, that it was a ‘*necessary* preparation’ for the next step of their plan or something.
Yeah, it turned my stomach, Solane. Maybe it was actually a good thing I hadn’t eaten breakfast that day. And soon we’ll do it together again, right?
But I knew I had to intervene at that moment. Who else would? It’s not like I could trust someone to stand up for some of the most vulnerable and defenseless members of our colony. Although some of them do have thorns or prickles... those are less defenseless, at least. Which the soldiers did quickly find out, those with no gloves especially quickly, even! Seeing their faces was priceless.
And it gave me the strength to speak up! I said I would *strike* unless they stopped. And that they could try to do all the farming and yard work themselves then. Loudly, clearly, and only with a bit of trepidation in my voice... I think. Then... everything became so eerily quiet for a bit, before their leader Lum well, tried to laugh, I think? But it came out like he was just wheezing all the time, unable to sneeze properly. I was almost concerned he might fall over and cause chaos, but... sadly he didn’t after all.
Still, he was a pathetic sight. His face seemed weirdly tense, his eyes darting back and fort between me and the other thugs he was trying to command and his whole body anxious? I knew I couldn’t back off now, and he was making it easier for me. After some moments he very weakly raised a finger in my direction and told his followers to arrest me in a loud voice that made it seem like he was about to cry. I wasn’t sure if he maybe just sounded like that when screaming orders or ... but regardless, I still remained standing. Trying to stare him down. Okay, Solane, I admit, it was also to drown doubts in me before they could emerge.
Honestly, I don’t know where I got the determination to take on a whole dozen of members of the Cruelty Club, but I felt like it actually seemed to work at first! They all actually began laughing.
But then I realized that laughing could mean a lot of things, and had to admit I had no idea what to expect next. I think I had never been this nervous in my life, really. Solane, you know how even the yearly xeno attacks have never made me anxious? Those make at least sense... sadly, and come with a predictable regularity. They’re horrible, but I can’t blame them for attacking considering what we are doing here. Humans, though? We’re totally *un*predictable. Meet someone in the same place, at the same time on two different days and we can act totally different. And if you then add fiery sticks... may the stars look at you with pity, because humans like that will not.
... But at least Coward Lum got their attention first by repeating his order, with just slightly more steadiness in his voice. Uh, and the soldiers didn’t like that. They started loudly complaining and even mocking his plans, exclaiming how they did not practice every day at the garrison to be sent to do farmwork. Ugh.
I wish I could have schooled them right there on how they maybe shouldn’t look down on the work that lets them run around and brandishing their plasma vomiters but... if they had to go a few days with barely anything to eat, maybe they would finally stop that, right? ... Okay, I admit I was too scared to say that. But it’s true! Or well, it would be good if we could make them stop *some* way before they take things further and do who knows what.
Could I have run away? Sure, but that would have made it all pointless, wouldn’t it? Plus Tiki was still in the garden and I was worried about it. And you know what? It got even more tense. It was... probably the worst morning I ever had. But I promise you it got better later! Even if I would have had trouble believing that in the moment. Especially after Pretender Lum shouted something about insubordination and got his soldiers even angrier. Honestly, how did he even get leader of soldiers if he’s so bad at talking to them, too?
I wished I could have told him that then... but I couldn’t. I wasn’t just outnumbered, but would have been viewed as nothing but a kid to be laughed at. Sometimes I really wish I was older already or something. Maybe more people would take me seriously then. Ugh, and then that one soldier Vace made some *joke* about how being in prison would mean I was getting off lightly, that I should be made useful to them and grow their food rather than *enjoy special treatment* and get it delivered, not having to do anything for it, and then everyone laughed at me anyway! I honestly think he was trying to make up for his insecurities about still looking like 13 at 19.
Then he made a move towards me, and his soldier friends followed... I had to run away, but still had to make sure Tiki would be safe, so I couldn’t just make a dash back to my room or to you... I’m sorry, Solane, sometimes I really wish the garden and you weren’t at opposite ends of the colony... Heh, that’s already two wishes! Now for my third I of course want you back in the garden soon. But I think I’ll get that at least fulfilled soon enough.
You know, I don’t think I ever ran as fast in my life in that moment. At least I know my way around the fields and could avoid the muddiest spots and gooey weeds whereas the soldiers kept getting their boots stuck in the crop rows and fungal and weed goo all over their uniforms. They kept retching and cursing, as if they had never had to pass through any terrain like that before! Or maybe they just like complaining, who knows. But it slowed them down enough it allowed me to get to Tiki’s small house just in time to get your pink little friend! The house is just made from a few old crates I had nailed together last week in a rare spare moment, it really deserves better. Probably wouldn’t last for a long time anyway in the rain, but I couldn’t think of anything better that could be safe...
Anyway, a moment later I realized that the soldiers had caught up to me and I was being surrounded, since the trellis for climbing plants blocked my way on one side, one of the greenhouses blocked it on the other, and the colony wall was right behind me. But then, Solane, I heard someone call my name from that direction, or actually abothve me. I turned around and searched for its origin, until my eyes met Dys’ at the top of the walls. He pointed down at the drainage pipe and told me to climb through it. I let Tiki escapoe through it first. And you know what, Solane? I actually fitted through with just a bit of difficulty as well! Maybe being smaller has its advantages after all. The only thing that could reach me after that were some sad insults the soldiers were throwing at me.
Dys was already waiting for me at the other side, having somehow climbed down the walls. We started to slowly move alongside them, to not be easy to notice for the soldiers on lookout duty, when it started to rain.
‘You aren’t afraid to get wet, are you?’ he asked quietly, smirking at me the whole time. He knew I wasn’t, of course, he probably even saw me work during the rain from his favorite spot on top of the walls the past weeks. And I never even noticed! If I had thought of that I wouldn’t have needed to search for him so much... but maybe he didn’t want to be found. Maybe he wanted to approach me on his own terms, observing me like you might observe a xeno in the wilderness? Who you only get close to when you are sure it’s safe.
I smiled back at him and with Tiki now on my shoulder again we walked in silence away from the colony, hiding in various shrubs and behind the bulbous thick lower part of some mushwood tree trunks. Dys was really adept at it, you can tell he used to sneak out all the time! I remember you told me about that, and that you once even followed him through the same drainpipe when you were 12 and he was 11. Even though I know that at first, in our first year here the mere mention of the outside and the *monsters* living there was enough to startle you and make you shudder, heh.
...Sorry, I don’t mean to make fun of you, Solane. I, I know you quickly felt ashamed you felt that way and tried to work on just getting braver, and tougher, to not have to hide in the creche every year during the xeno attack. Even though I always thought you were fine the way you are... And didn’t like you joining in on the fighting. Either way, working in the field was a good workout, wasn’t it? You kept pushing yourself far more than anyone else helping out in Geoponics... far more than your parents ever asked of you, too. I was so glad to have you there.
But it’s actually not even that unreasonable to be wary about all the unknown beings you might encounter on a new planet you had only ever heard of in stories before, isn’t it? Especially when you’re just 10. I guess I just tried to be more optimistic... and didn’t even want to hear about Dys’ talk about the *monsters* outside from you. You believed him right away, even if he didn’t believe you did. I thought he was just making up things to scare people, but I was wrong. He had just made them sound worse than they are... or maybe more interesting to him. I don’t know, even after spending some time with him now he seems weird. Almost more of a mystery than before.
Hey, is that what drew you to him in the first place? I know you couldn’t help but wander around everywhere when you weren’t in the fields, and there you kept asking more questions than anyone could answer. And Dys just gave you a lot more questions to think about, didn’t he? So did your curiosity eventually overwhelm your anxiety, and make you want to become a junior explorer, too?
You know, now that Dys did show me what was beyond our fields and walls, I wish I had seen it all sooner, too. I mean, not like I really could, since I was busy learning everything I could about our crops, weeds and animals, and how to look after them, because it’s really where I feel at home and I wanted to make sure I could one day take over from your parents. I didn’t think it would be this soon, of course...
But still, I had no idea how beautiful it truly is out there, you know? Like, you did try to tell me and share your enthusiasm about your own discoveries with me and everything else it made you feel, and I enjoyed hearing about them and thought I was getting an idea of what it was like outside, and now I realize how little I actually understood.
Both suns had even’t risen yet when we crossed over from the undergrowth near the colony walls and its long shadow to the open plains in front of the gates, so the isolated trees and especially the shorter cloud trees were still casting long shadows as well. Those we could use to be a bit less visible to some of the soldiers I saw swarming out, and the expedition vehicles driving past on the path. The rain did make our footsteps visible, but it also seemed to make all the soldiers and most other people who were outside miserable and unwilling to stop and look around much. Almost no one looked like they actually wanted to be where they were.
Except for Dys. He didn’t seem to mind the rain, or even really notice it. Just had this look of utter ... disgust on his perpetually stony face as he watched them while skipping from tree to tree. Sometimes he seemed to be listening to the abrasive sounds and noises they and their machines, plasma rifles, tracked vehicles and what not made, harsh buzzing and cutting, incessant beeping, not any better than *in* the colony, just obnoxious in an unsettlingly different way. I think he was using them to judge what direction to go to.
Although I had my eyes fixated on the trees instead, Solane. All of them were so much larger already than what was growing inside the colony, especially now that the newer people from the Helios have cut down so many of the old tall ones that used to grow near Geoponics, behind our old Command building that didn’t survive that one xeno attack... The trees were honestly really awe-inspiring for their size alone, but their white caps, or I should say foliage, since it’s not mushwood, formed a single elongated cloud-like clump. I guess that’s where their name is from! From below it looked fluffier and softer than a pillow.
But before... before I could climb on it or do anything... because, you know, my mother wasn’t around to chide me and tell me to restrict myself to ‘ground-based acts on bravery’ or anything, heh, Dys shoved me to the side. Not as much so I wouldn’t alert any of the soldiers or expeditioners on the path close to us to our presence, although I guess maybe that as well, but to point my attention to something in the distance. At first I thought it was just a part of the landscape that was just grassland that was now purple from being so waterlogged after being orange-red during the hottest months of Dust and so brightly pink during the Pollen season.
And then I noticed all the stumps in mostly neat rows on it. Those were from mushwood trees that had apparently been cut down recently. Dys said the cutting pushed ever further into the wilderness, pointing to how closer to the colony the rows were in perfect straight lines, while further out they were much more irregular. Evidence of how in many spots trees had been replanted several times before in, whereas other ones had been natural, wild growth that had been taken down only this year. A large vehicle loaded with logs on a flat platform behind it was being driven to what seemed to be a large workshop in the distance with an unusual triangular roof.
According to Dys, it’s unusual for logs to be ... *harvested* this late in the year, usually all the water they are absorbing in Wet makes them useless... well, to humans anyway. Many late-year agarics, plants and so much else relish the, uh, wetness and even depend on it for proper growth, and many xenos in turns depend on them to thrive and not starve. He assumed something must really be making the colony need much more wood that it’s willing to put up with ostensibly ‘lower-quality’ logs. But he couldn’t tell me what that might be, and I have no idea either. Solane, it just opened up a pit in my stomach, you know?
Also, I wondered what they even did with the caps of the mushtrees. Has anyone even checked if they aren’t edible the way many of the smaller mushrooms with a much shorter stem are? We had that big famine and instead of seeing if we can eat the things around already growing our colony you were sent to collect berries in a distant valley and when that didn’t yield much we just increasingly desperatedly to make our Earth crops grow because the adults didn’t trust the native ones...
You know, I must have started to linger on that scene too much, probably lost in thought just like... right now, heh, because Dys pushed me away, under another cloudtree. Couldn’t tell if it was because he thought I was getting *too* emotional about it or whether he felt we were getting too exposed standing in the open, and before I could ask he was already halfway to where a proper mushwood forest began.
Now this is where it got really exciting, Solane! It’s hard for me to describe everything I saw. There’s just so much! I think I saw more in a single day there than I would have seen in a lifetime inside the colony. Or heard. Or smelled... Honestly, the smells were already overwhelming before we had even properly entered the forest. Inside, they were downright dizzying! I felt like, like... I had lived my whole life just knowing a single or two colors and now I was seeing a rainbow for the first time ever!
Like, I thought some of our Earth flowers had a strong scent, but that was nothing compared to the ones currently blooming in the forest. Under all the different kinds of mushtrees, many of which I had never seen before, and even stranger ... really tall lifeforms the reddish, mossy undergrowth was full of fungal shrubs and flowers in all shades of purple and blue with bright yellow and green flowers. But you notice them even more easily via their smells! Sweet, even sickly sweet, or sharper than the strongest herbs we have on the fields! And some so... tangy, I think? Or maybe zesty. It’s hard to talk about things you feel you don’t have the right words for... Oh, but aside from the flowers there were so many other smells, too. Like the many fungi growing next to them. Many were rotting, had almost turned entirely to goo, but even their rot smell was so... comforting. It’s like you could feel new and old life was feeding on them, and thriving. And the trees themselves, they have less strong smells, kind of staying more in the background, like a foundation. Uh, a bit like spinach and lettuce leaves in a salad, I guess?
If only you’d been there... but I’m sure I can get Dys to show you as well. Oh wait, you’ve probably already been there many times, right, Solane? It must be familiar to you, and like me now you never could really explain what it’s like to be there. But I want to try anyway, it would help me not forget about any of it, too! ... And some day we’ll go back together. Okay?
...
Solane, please answer me...
I can’t understand your xeno groans, I’m sorry, I couldn’t understand the ones of the forest either... They all called out to me in their strange voices, not just the cries of the wild hopeyes and the lisps of Tiki’s distant relatives that it always excitedly replied to, even the flowers did with their bubbling noises, and the mushrooms and the trees, they ... they didn’t make *noises* but their smells were clearly trying to say something, I noticed it changed noticeably the whole time while we were there.
At first it had that raw potato smell with radishes mixed in, then it seemed to change to some delicious spices that I couldn’t place, then I noticed some vile biting chemical smell, like from what you would use to clean the greenhouse with, and so many other ones, and then the first ones again... of course it might have just been my imagination. But it seemed too orderly and not at all random or simply like the normal ‘don’t eat me’ warn signals I knew about. If you could only tell me what you think about that, since I know you researched fungi in the xenobotany lab...
...
Anyway, Dys didn’t talk much the first hour or so we walked in the forest, he just kept walking weirdly fast two steps to my side, sometimes looking to me as if he was checking that I was still there. He seemed like a very different person, much less gloomier and even with actual smiles sometimes! Just not any more talkative, really.
That only changed we arrived at a creek, and were both looking at the water rushing past us. At first I was worried the still falling rain might make it overflow shortly, but then I noticed how there were all these *completely* different plants and flowers at its banks, which managed to distract from that entirely. I kneeled down to look at them closer, and that’s when he finally said:
‘You remind me of myself when I was first here at 9.’ and I just looked at him.
Like, is this where he so often disappeared to, years before he was allowed to officially go on expeditions? And he managed to avoid getting lost, and avoid all the threats out here even though he could not have known anything about this place... And then, as if he read my mind or something, or maybe the fungi could and told him, he said:
‘I know you think it must have been *super* dangerous or something. Especially for a small child. Everyone in the colony feared the *wilderness*, all of the adults did at least. Some just tried to hide it. And told us to fear it.’
I remember he then threw a small stone into the creek, weirdly violently, and in the rain we couldn’t even hear it properly! And then he turned to look at my face and said:
‘So everyone did. And Solane was the worst about it. Probably wouldn’t even have dared to go outside even if the adults would have let them... ...and yet they were also the only one to show a real interest in what I was talking about.’
At which he threw another, larger stone, and this one actually made a loud gulping sound that resembled my own reaction at the even bigger amount of force he had used. But he didn’t notice and just kept talking. I remember what he said next, too.
‘Weird child. And that’s coming from another weirdo. ... But at least it meant someone in the colony was open to the idea that it wasn’t all a happy existence we were having.’
At that point I couldn’t help but argue... sadly. That things weren’t always all bad, we had some really happy moments, too... at least at first. Of course, then there were the xeno attacks almost every year and I know it was probably even kind of our fault they happened considering how aggressively we expanded and how our expeditions, um, intruded in their territories a lot and it was horrible what that all led to, but I always tried my best to live in peace, and I know your parents did, too, and many other people. Tammy surely would have as well, and...
Ugh, he then accused of only caring about the colony and what’s happening in it anyway! That he took me to see the world beyond it because I only seemed to get upset about when bad things started happening to ‘my’ garden and the fields, not even knowing what was happening outside. I told him I was busy all day and it was my job to care about them, that no one else was even left to do it now... I mean as long as you are still resting here, Solane. Please, I want you to get well soon, of course, but I know you still need more rest. I can deal with this, I promise.
And then he told me that there’s no point anymore, that it’s too late now anyway to save our plant children, even if he knows it’s sad for me, and then his voice kind of trailed off and he went awkwardly quiet. It was better, too, if he had said much more I would wanted to just push him into the creek the way he talked... I guess that kind of cynicism and pessimism is part of why he was almost always so alone, too.
But then why did he care about what I thought? Why go through all the trouble to show me the forest? Not that I wasn’t happy about it, it was great to see it. And like, it was much more than I even had hoped from him, too, it’s just, why. Ugh, too many questions. I just don’t understand him, Solane. Did you ever? Or did you just have to accept you couldn’t...
After that we just went to both being quiet. The rain stopped, too, but I was still feeling kind of grumpy, honestly. No clue what he must have felt, but he was still in a mood for talking. Telling me more about everything growing in the forest, how everything, every fungal plant, every agaric, every mushtree, every xeno and every other living being was connected via complicated, often symbiotic relationships and communicated underground via massive myco-... myco-something, like, uhh... well, the root networks of fungi? They stretch on for kilometers and transport nutrients, water from fungi to fungi, but also plant to plant, and more. And, they can also communicate with each other and warn each other about threats! I asked him how he knew that. He didn’t tell me.
But he did tell me that above the ground all the *symbionts*, as he called living beings in symbiosis, communicated via smell and sound, and that maybe one day he could show me ... when I am ready. I hope he doesn’t think of me as an immature child, too. I mean, he’s even two years younger than me! It would be strange, wouldn’t it... He probably thought it was a lot for me to take in on one day, and yeah, to be honest it kind of was.
I did know already that everything here, except for us, is to a large degree fungi, even the xenos. You also had proven all of that with research in the xenobotany lab, I remember! But it’s also obvious if you just look a bit around. Tiki has mushrooms growing on it, and the native plants... not just the mushwood trees with their mushroom cap crowns, but also the weeds and flowers, many have these gills below their leaves, to release spores. It’s what makes pollen season so thick with pink spores every year, isn’t it?
And even our Earth plants are, if I remember correctly, at least in a close symbiotic relationship with fungi. I think one of your fun biology facts said that some of them could have up to twelve different fungi on a single leaf, and then have entirely different ones on other ones? Or was it even more... But everything here is apparently working and living together even more tightly than I thought, the forest is basically in some way one organism! Do you think we could ever integrate ourselves this well to the world around us, too? Would be better, wouldn’t it...
It was already getting towards noon, but I felt I couldn’t risk returning to the colony yet, as much as I would have wanted to come back immediately to be able to tell you about all this much sooner! So I spent the next hours collecting some food with Dys for some lunch. I mean, in practice it was just him, I wasn’t much use there, sadly, even after he had told me what to look for and where to look for it. He said he thought that’s normal and that I would be getting better soon if I kept at it, and that he would be able to collect enough mushrooms and berries and other fruits for both of us. And that he also knew what other things there were to eat here. He... uh, knew a disturbing amount about what was apparently *edible* although I’m not sure I would agree with all of it. He even suggested we eat some xenos...
Fortunately, the heavy rains and thunderstorms of Wet make mushrooms appear as numerous as weeds on a field. And in a forest they’re more than welcome! Then there were also so many bobberfruits, although they look a bit different in a forest compared to the plains and fields I had seen them before outside the colony walls. And they taste a lot better, too! Even if they’re smaller, they have so much more flavor. We also saw many other fruits, although a lot of them were poisonous, sadly. But instead we gathered a lot of nutlets from various shrubs, and roasted them on a campfire later with the mushrooms and berries and some greenery Dys had foraged. It was really good, like amazing, honestly, after eating what felt like almost nothing but soy for so long now...
I was very glad he didn’t try to persuade me to try hunting, although he said you can’t survive on foraging alone for long, especially at the beginning of the year, in Quiet and early Pollen. Ugh, I want to hope he’s wrong or was just teasing me, but considering who we’re talking about here, probably not. There has to be a way, though. It just doesn’t feel right otherwise, Solane.
After eating, he told me I hadn’t actually seen anything yet, and tried to show me more. It was so much, I honestly can’t even remember most of it anymore. It was a blur of fungal trees weirder than I could have ever imagined, often with many other fungi growing on their side or emerging from a hole in their stem, and plants with the strangest fruits, some were clearly imitating mushrooms for some reason, other ones had just bizarre unnatural shapes that looked more like an out-of-control art project...
We didn’t see many xenos, but Dys said this was because they were skittish, especially around humans, and that my steps were just too loud and my presence too obvious. I couldn’t even argue with that, I guess it’s not something I usually pay any attention to... But I’d like to work on that. I want to see rare xenos just like the ones you saw on your expeditions!
The one thing I definitely remember welll was when in late afternoon we had reached the edge of the forest, overlooking a massive system of gorges and ridges from a cliff, in bright orange, ochre and purple. I couldn’t see much from afar, but it seemed to have almost completely different vegetation. Made sense, of course, with a different environment, but I still found it fascinating how much variety there is in life in such a short area that was in walking distance! Dys gathered some food for dinner and I tried to set up camp for the night, although he had to help with that as well... He’s done it so much and I had never even set foot in a tent, so it wasn’t surprising, but I still felt a bit embarrassed. I was getting so tired I barely could pay attention to how the nightsky is so much more impressive and downright mesmerizing when you get far away from the lights of the colony.
Now I definitely know what you saw in expeditions, and I can’t wait to go on one together some time. We’ll make it work, somehow! Maybe during Vertumnalia, when we get some time off together? Right after the mid-Dust harvest there should not be as much to do in the fields either, once the intermediate crops are sowed. Or maybe some time in Quiet already? There’s that brief period when there’s not much going on in the greenhouses, except for green onion production.
...
Ugh, what’s that horrible clanging sound in the distance? Did Dr. Instance take one of those really archaic alarm ringers with her? Those weird large standalone clocks Earth people used centuries ago? One of my fathers once showed me some holovideos of weird contraptions people used for everyday things in the 20th century, and teased me with the sound of their ringing...
Wait, why would it ring now? Let me check the time. It’s ... only midnight? Who...
...
Oh no, no, steps? I can’t be hearing that now. Uhhh, where... okay, let me just hide under the medbed and throw a blanket over the edge. Stars...