ARITA
Even though she was the daughter of King Peter and Queen Estarra, Arita felt like an outsider. She could see the lush forest around her, sense the majesty of the trees, and sometimes she even heard faint and eerie whispers inside her mind, but it was different from what the green priests said they experienced through telink. Her heart ached when she saw how happy the priests were—and most of all she missed her friend Collin. A green priest … gone now.
When they were younger, she and Collin had studied as acolytes reading aloud to the worldtrees. The two were close, definitely attracted to each other, and they might have become lovers if things had turned out differently, but after the forest accepted Collin as a green priest—and not her—he had gone with a group of isolationists to the uninhabited continent of the Wild.
Nevertheless, Arita remained fascinated with the forest, from a scientific standpoint, if nothing else. She spent time documenting plants and insects on Theroc and on other worlds; all of nature fascinated her, whether or not she could commune with the verdani mind.
Though she had just turned twenty, Arita was mature and resourceful. She had gone to the abandoned Klikiss world of Eljiid, she had seen the lavish botanical gardens on New Portugal, and she longed to see the gigantic Roamer terrarium dome inside Fireheart Station. For now, though, she contented herself with Theroc.
Whenever she had a question about the life cycle or the habits of a strange beetle or fungus, she could have just asked one of the green priests, who understood every interconnected thread of the ecosystem. But Arita didn’t want easy answers; she wanted to discover for herself and to add to the pool of knowledge. Her eventual goal was to create a comprehensive—though never complete—encyclopedia of natural history that others could review.
Kennebar, the stern leader of the isolationist green priests, dismissed all of her cataloguing work, claiming it was unnecessary. “Why bother to compile such a catalogue? Any green priest can simply give you an answer.”
Either Kennebar didn’t understand, or he was just being arrogant, flaunting his own access to infinite knowledge. “Because other people want to know. And not everyone has access to what the green priests know.”
And it was surprising that the green priests didn’t know everything either. The arrival of the Gardeners had raised many fascinating questions. Gracious and grateful, the alien refugees interacted with humans, just as curious about the green priests as the priests were curious about them. Even the gigantic trees wanted to know what they had forgotten in the distant past, and now they marveled at the memories the Onthos shared of their majestic homeworld. Feeling separate, Arita had watched Ohro and his fellow Gardeners revel in the forest. They built no structures, simply lived in the lush undergrowth—glad to be home.
Now, the Mage-Imperator’s green priest consort sat with one of the Onthos refugees at the base of a gigantic golden-barked tree. Smiling, Nira looked into the Gardener’s dark alien eyes. “I want to understand you, Ohro.”
“As does the worldforest,” said the alien. “We have shared all our memories with the verdani mind. Now it remembers much more than it did.”
As Arita watched, Nira spread her palms against the worldtree bark. “With telink, I can reach the thoughts of any green priest. And so can you.” She nodded to the alien. “Touch the tree. Let’s see where our thoughts go.”
The small-statured Gardener glanced at Arita, but he did not seem bothered that she was watching them. Ohro stared at the golden bark and pressed both of his palms against the huge bole.
Nira closed her eyes and did the same. Her brow furrowed. “I’m trying … I can see everything in the verdani mind. So many interconnected thoughts, but the Gardeners … why can’t I find you? I know you are here.”
“And yet we are not here,” said Ohro. “Just as when our people fused with the worldtrees to become pilots of verdani treeships to explore the Spiral Arm, we are separate. We have lost that part of the worldforest mind—but you know the trees have accepted us.”
Nira broke her contact with the tree, looking sad. “Yes, I know that. And I have seen the images of your wonderful homeworld that you shared. I wish we could have seen it in person.”
Ohro stood. “We need to rebuild our numbers. We are beginning to reconnect.” The Gardener startled Arita by turning to look directly at her. “Just as she is doing—even though she is not a green priest.”
Surprised, Arita brushed herself off and stepped closer to them. “I’m not connected at all. The trees rejected me.”
“Perhaps it is not what you think.” The Onthos leader sniffed and then reached up to touch her arm. She felt a tingle in his fingertips. “You are connected to other things. Powerful things.”
“That’s not true,” Arita said. Or was it? “I hear distant voices, but they are only the faintest of echoes—and it only happens sometimes. I can’t touch the trees like green priests can. I’m a failure.”
Ohro blinked his large black eyes, and his expression looked perplexed. “Maybe you are touching more than the verdani mind.”
Arita felt dizzy and confused as she strained to hear the light breeze of whispers inside her mind. She couldn’t understand words in the babel of sounds, could barely sense something there. But it was something, and it was not the trees. She had always thought those whispers were just echoes of the verdani, a taunting reminder of what she could never have.
But maybe …
The worldtrees had done something to her when they attempted to change her. What if they had opened her mind in a new way? Arita couldn’t be sure … but there were times in the utter silence, when she was far from anyone and completely alone, when Arita did feel as if someone or something was watching her from inside.
Something very different.