AELIN
Inside Dauntha’s quarters on Ulio Station, Aelin gradually began to feel like a green priest again. A year ago, when he joined Lee Iswander in his first bloater-extraction field, Aelin had sworn not to reveal the source of ekti-X. Back then, he hadn’t known what he was agreeing to, and now he didn’t dare call attention to the source lest he trigger hundreds of copycat operations.
With the expansion of the Confederation after the Elemental War, freelance green priests were in demand on starships and isolated colonies to provide instantaneous communication via telink. Dauntha had seen a need at Ulio Station, with so many visitors and traders wanting to send personal messages or business communiqués. After coming here, she sat with her treeling and took visitors one by one, every hour of the day. She spoke to her clients, found out what sort of mood or message they needed, then used her treeling to pass the word throughout the extensive verdani network.
Right now, Aelin observed as a man with red hair and a bushy beard sat across from her, all business, no casual conversation. “I need to send a message to my company headquarters on Herren 3. There is a green priest stationed on the opposite continent, but he can convey the message once he receives it from you.”
Dauntha nudged the treeling in Aelin’s direction. “My partner will make contact. He can relay your words.”
Aelin hesitated, but of course he knew how to do this. He had been pressed into service as a green priest many times. Redbeard didn’t seem to care one way or another.
“The verdani mind will know the name of the green priest on Herren 3,” Dauntha said, as if to reassure Aelin. “You can find him.”
He touched the treeling, established a connection, then looked up at the bearded man. “What is it you wish to say?”
“It’s a manifest. The numbers have to be accurate.”
“I will transmit them accurately.”
Redbeard rattled off numbers from memory. “For manifest one, we need two hundred hexagonal foam structural blocks for an outpost on Ikbir. We also need seventy-five silicon cylinders with optical enhancements. End order.” Redbeard paused as Aelin repeated the words into the tree, then he started again. “Manifest two. One hundred interlocked solar panels to Dremen. I didn’t promise them the new model panels, so you can unload from our stockpile. Manifest three—”
The trader continued for some time, reciting orders and inventory numbers. He finished without any additional pleasantries, paid the minimal fee, and left.
Aelin realized he was smiling. It felt good to have a purpose again, even to serve trivial business matters like this. However, even though he had come home to the verdani network, he felt as if he had moved in a different direction after his exposure to the eerie bloater consciousness. When he first took the green, the verdani had seemed like an infinite and omniscient mind, but now the worldforest seemed just a fragment of even greater possibilities. The trees were thirsty for knowledge as well, but Aelin could not reveal the secret of the bloaters.
Dauntha relaxed with her cup of hot klee, regarded the forestscape she had painted on her walls. “You are hiding something inside, Aelin. I can sense it. Green priests aren’t comfortable with secrets.”
“I want to tell you. It’s something so wondrous.…” Those exotic nodules had shattered the walls of understanding and reality around him and opened Aelin’s mind to more questions than he had ever conceived possible. He knew how important the bloaters were—even if he didn’t understand what they were.
He told her as much as he could. “There’s something out in space, something miraculous hiding between the stars where no one can see. They’re called bloaters, and…” He heaved a sigh, not daring to reveal more. “What I learned from them is beyond even what the worldforest has given me.”
Dauntha was somehow not surprised. “Out here at Ulio we see a lot of things. I’ll often just listen through my treeling, watch the worldforest mind.” She rested her fingers against the fine gold bark. “I have sensed something, too. It is subtle, but the worldforest mind is disturbed … even confused. And I am very concerned for it.”