1

They located the downed ’plane after sixteen hours of searching…! They found Raj first, still in his chair, in deep shock and severely dehydrated, but otherwise unharmed… It took another half an hour to reach the main body of the aircraft, and when they did there was nothing they could do for Sal…! The forked crown of a pseudo-tree had smashed through the canopy and crushed the side of his head. Death would presumably have been instantaneous. The whole canopy had been torn free on Raj’s side, before the aircraft’s progress had been arrested by a thicket of pseudo-plant trunks… It was probably at this point that Raj’s chair had come loose, flown through a gap between the trunks and deposited him, miraculously the right way up, in the small clearing where they’d found him. The boy would never regain any memory of the crash, and although he still smiled, a piece of him was left behind in the grove on that day…
Marta and Jorja had grabbed hold of Priya to stop her reaching the cockpit. She‘d fought them at first but then ceased struggling,
“I want to see him…” she said simply, so they released her arms,
“He looks like he’s sleeping…” was all she said, and it was true, there was a serenity to his expression that belied the violence of his passing,
“I want to go home now…”
The children had a discussion while Priya sat staring into space. Eventually they decided that Marta should fly both Raj and Priya back to the Dome in aircraft one. They’d got the boy out of his chair and onto a stretcher, Raj could ride in the stretcher pod, while Priya rode in the cab. It took twenty minutes to set this up before they guided the passive girl into her seat,
“This is Raj’s drip, Priya, can you hold it while we fly you back to the Dome…?” prompted Jorja, who was supervising the operation…
The girl said nothing but held on to the bag as if her life depended on it,
“More gently, Priya, you don’t want to squash it…”
Once they were in the air Marta kept glancing over to her friend who stared straight ahead and clutched the drip bag,
‘She’s in shock…!’ thought Marta, but they all were…
The thing they had dreaded had finally happened, not as a result of one of the many reckless things she and Rai had done over the past few years, not from any hostile action by an Alphane lifeform, but from a stupid accident…
Sal was the best, and the safest pilot of all of them. Marta simply couldn’t believe it was an error on his part, and the weather had been perfect…so that left mechanical failure…! They’d contacted the Dome as soon as they’d located the ’plane, and Mission AI was sending out one of the ‘big machines’, some kind of heavy lifting gear, to retrieve the broken flyer…but it would take hours for it to reach the crash site…
Marta was starting her approach…Priya hadn’t said anything, in fact she’d barely moved since they’d taken off. But looking more closely, Marta could see she was trembling,
“I didn’t say goodbye…”
Marta started,
“…I’m sorry…!”
“I didn’t say goodbye…this morning, there was just so much going on, I just didn’t have time…” she looked at Marta for the first time, the pain now visible in her eyes,
“Marta, why didn’t I say goodbye…?”
There was nothing she could say…nothing that could possibly help, and she had to concentrate on landing the aircraft… The landing field couldn’t arrive quickly enough…
Nurse Gee and cohorts were waiting on the field,
“She’s in shock…” said Marta as soon as the canopy had sprung open,
“We’ll take it from here, my dear…” said Gee. Later, Marta felt a profound sense of guilt that she hadn’t thought to mention Raj’s condition…
Junior nursemaids moved in efficiently and unobtrusively, administering sedatives and gently guiding her friend from the ’plane and ushering her to the Dome. Other nursemaids were busy removing the boy from the gondola and transporting his stretcher inside. Once all that had happened, she felt completely empty,
“I guess I’d better get out there again…”
“Are you sure, my dear…?”
The girl nodded mutely…
Gee seemed rather relieved,
“We have a number of items for you to take back…”
On cue, one of the semi-sentient draught robots appeared, towing behind it all the wherewithal needed to set up camp… Without needing prompting the machine started to load it all into the flyer. It occurred to her then that the loss of the ’plane in itself was a crisis, the craft she was piloting was now the only means by which they could reach the others quickly. They would have to wait at the site until the recovery vehicle arrived…
She felt better as soon as she was in the air, just to be doing something meant she didn’t have to think…
She only just made it. Alph slipped below the horizon with her still ten minutes away, and the ’plane was dangerously low on juice by the time she made her dusty and bumpy landing in the clearing,
“We weren’t sure you were coming back…” said Han,
“I’ve got the stuff for us to set up camp, the recovery vehicle will be here in four hours…” the girl sighed, “…but there’s nothing much else we can do until it gets light…”
Even with the portable lights Marta had brought with her, making camp in the profound darkness was awkward and arduous. None of the primary stars were in the sky, not even Prox…! Nobody felt like eating, and exhaustion kicked in…
When they awoke, they found the recovery vehicle waiting patiently for instructions on the edge of the grove, parked by their two rovas. The sheer size of the vehicle meant getting it to the crash site was going to be difficult. Eventually, they managed to navigate a route that would cause the minimum damage to the grove, but inevitably some pods had to make way. Just after ten, a lone crusty appeared… Rai reached nervously for his rifle, but it stopped roughly one hundred metres away and just watched them…
They felt their friend’s absence keenly, eleven had become ten, and the void left by his death was tangible…

2

Before they could all return there was the question of who was going to ride back alone. Marta had driven out with Priya in rova one, now Priya was gone, and an odd number remained. Han and Su-Ying were going back in rova two, and Marta assumed Jorja would accompany Rai who was flying back their remaining aircraft. So she was surprised when she was approached by Jorja, the girl appeared almost shy when she asked,
“Do you mind if I ride with you…?”
For a second Marta was so taken aback that she didn’t answer,
“…no, of course not…I just assumed…”
“Rai needs to get back as quickly as possible…” the younger girl said by way of explanation, “…and I thought we could talk…!”
“OK…” said Marta cautiously,
“It’s just that we’re her best friends…and she’s going to need our support to get through this, so I thought it would be better if we weren’t so…distant…! Because she’s going to need both of us… So, I thought we should talk, that’s all…”
Marta couldn’t think of anything to say, but the other girl was looking at her expectantly, and she forced her brain into action,
“Uh… Yes, of course… The thought just occurred to me, should we really be flying the ’plane anyway…”
Jorja frowned, so she tried to clarify,
“…I mean, we don’t know what caused the accident…I don’t think Sal would have made an error… He was such a good pilot, and that leaves a mechanical failure…”
Jorja’s frown had deepened through this exchange and Marta now wished she’d kept her mouth shut,
“Yes, we wondered that, but Rai radioed Nurse Gee while you were having lunch, and she said there was no danger… She was confident that the ’plane was safe, and after all, you’ve flown it several times since the accident…”
Jorja sounded confident, but Marta’s silent misgivings remained,
‘How can they know this…? Since they don’t know the cause of the accident…or maybe they do, and they’re just not telling us…’
They had reached had the rova and were strapping themselves in. Marta looked over at the recovery vehicle which was still patiently awaiting orders. The wrecked aircraft was now secured on the machine’s cargo platform…it looked like an enormous squashed insect…
It had taken them several hours that morning to retrieve the ’plane, wedged as it was between several large pods… A second crusty had joined the first in maintaining a watching brief…Han had also noticed a big increase in shortwave pod ‘chatter’, presumably indicating communication between the grove and the two pseudo-crustaceans… Then, the most amazing thing happened…! The pods surrounding the ’plane began to move…slowly but perceptibly they were drawing back, bending themselves away from the wreckage, some of the smaller ones apparently withdrawing into the ground,
“…It’s helping us…!” said Marta, in an awed voice, “…presumably the crusties are acting as its eyes, but it wants us to be able to remove the aircraft…”
Han, who was next to her, shrugged in his usual undemonstrative fashion,
“It must regard the aircraft as some sort of foreign body which it needs to expel…”
She hid her irritation, aware that Han was the most sceptical of all of them when it came to the question of ‘pod intelligence’,
“…but you must admit it’s clearly coordinating its actions with the crusties, whatever its motivations…!”
Han’s grunt had signalled an end to the conversation rather than agreement…

---

They were now under way, Han taking the lead in rova two. He had sent a signal to the recovery vehicle’s ‘brain’ ordering it to return to the Dome, Marta and Jorja were bringing up the rear,
“…it doesn’t seem real..!” said Jorja after a few minutes,
“…I keep expecting him to be on the radio or to ’face me saying it was all a joke…I want to wake up and find out that I imagined all this…I just can’t believe he’s gone…I mean he’s dead…finito! We’ve just never had to face that…!”
The hardest part of all, and something which Jorja had personally taken charge of, had been the removal of the body…
One of the things Marta had brought with her from the Dome had been the ’body bag’, a new, frightening, and thoroughly unwelcome concept…
Freeing Sal from the wrecked cockpit had been difficult, and heartbreaking…! Marta was glad now that they’d taken Priya back to the Dome, she shouldn’t have to see this…but then again neither should any of them…
The recovery vehicle had used its robotic arm to remove what was left of the canopy, a task made infinitely easier by the withdrawal of the surrounding pods… But the boy was still wedged in the remains of his seat… The children knew about rigor mortis as an abstract concept, but weren’t prepared for the grisly reality of trying to move a rigid cadaver…and Sal was cold…
At that point Marta couldn’t take it any longer,
“…but we’re damaging him…”
Jorja took charge,
“Look Marta, we can’t leave him in the cockpit…it wouldn’t be right…!”
She left unspoken the knowledge that Sal was now beyond all pain and suffering, but it hung in the air… Marta found the strength to ignore the awful cracking sounds as they finally dragged him clear…

---

“I suppose we’ll have to have a ceremony…” Marta felt Jorja tense beside her, “…like they do back on Earth…”
And then the awful irony of it struck her, Priya had been looking forward to her ‘wedding day’, but instead would now face her love’s funeral,
“How’s she going to cope…? How are we going to cope…? It’s so sad…so terrible…! Why did it have to happen…? Why Sal…? He was just so careful…he never took risks… I just can’t bear it…!”
Jorja broke off at that point, tears streaming down her face… Marta put a consoling hand on her shoulder…but this gesture felt awkward…! The whole ‘Jorja is my best buddy rather than my sworn enemy’ routine was just too new…!
She knew, subconsciously, that she was waiting for the point when Jorja would start talking about them…about their relationship…
Then she looked, really looked, at the girl next to her for the first time in…who knows how long…! In two years the spoilt child had become a woman; she couldn’t help comparing herself unfavourably with the female beside her!
Marta, ’though pretty, had essentially retained the boyish figure of her girlhood… She was taller and had a few new bumps and curves, but Jorja had been transformed and now had the figure of a women rather than a teenager. Marta felt thoroughly intimidated by her sheer femininity…! Guiltily, she felt glad, and relieved, that Jorge couldn’t see this transformation…or at least not in the sense that everybody else could… She didn’t quite put it this way to herself, but she felt the ‘threat’ posed by the younger girl,
‘Do I really want to be friends with her…? Do I really want her to get close to me…and to Jorge…? No, stop it…! You’re doing this for Priya…!”
She found she was beginning to wander off the trail, and resolved to concentrate on her driving… Maybe Jorja intuited something of what she was feeling because at this point she said,
“Look, I know we haven’t been the best of friends…but partly that’s down to Rai, he just never liked you, for some reason, and I just fell in with him, really… And he’s better…he’s not quite so unreasonable now… He’s finally growing up, accepting that he really is a father has helped…and Marta, I do admire you…we all do, secretly… You’ve always been the one that did the things we were too afraid to do, that we didn’t even think were possible…and we were so scared when you went missing…and when you had your ‘trouble’… And what’s happened has just brought it all home to me, really…I now know what it’s like to lose someone… So please, I want us to be friends, for Priya…for all of us…! Can you do that…?”
Marta had stopped the vehicle without being aware of it, she also found she was crying… Jorja put her arms around her and let her sob…

3

Priya was sleeping when they got back. The nursemaid on duty explained that the sedative would have worn off by mid-morning, and suggested they come back then. As it turned out Jorja was on Mission that morning, so Marta went alone…
Her friend was sitting up in bed when she got to the infirmary, but despite assurances that the drug would have worn off, she didn’t look all there,
“How are you…?” said Marta tentatively.
Her friend seemed to be dredging up her response from uncharted depths. Abruptly she started talking,
“…it doesn’t seem real, nothing seems real… I feel like I’m in this really, really vivid dream, and I’m going to wake up any second…and everything will be alright again…but then I don’t wake up, and I go to sleep and I hope things will be different in the morning…if I can just wake up from this dream…”
Marta could see the tension in the corners of the girl’s mouth…she didn’t look like she’d been able to cry, and maybe that was the problem,
‘She still hasn’t really accepted what’s happened…’
“I’m so sorry…” said Marta haltingly, “…we all loved Sal…he was the nicest, the most reliable…the best of all of us, and it’s just not fair…”
She was the verge of tears herself, and she hadn’t meant to say so much…it just all came out in a rush…
Priya’s eyes had a glassy, unfocused look, and she didn’t seem to have taken in any of what Marta had said, judging by her reply,
“…I mean, he’s been there my whole life…he was my hatch-mate… I know you and Jorge were hatch-mates, but it’s not the same because you met him later…and I know that it was wonderful that it happened, but me and him were just always together… For as long as I can remember it was the two of us, and I knew he was always going to be mine…that we were made for each other…and when I saved him from that crusty I just remember thinking ‘he’s mine, you’re not going to take him away from me’…but this time I couldn’t protect him because I wasn’t even there… Why couldn’t I protect him, Marta…?”
The pain was now back in her eyes,
“It’s not your fault…there wasn’t anything you could have done…”
“….and we were going to spend our whole life together……we were going to have children, lots of children…but, I never even got to touch him properly, to have him touch me…we decided we should wait…until it was right…until we were old enough…but now that’s never going to happen, none of that’s going to happen… And I just don’t know what I’m going to do…!” she turned her head to her friend for the first time,
“What am I going to do without him…?”
The sheer magnitude of her friend’s loss was just beginning to come home to Marta…because of course they were made for each other… She noticed that Priya still hadn’t used his name, as if naming him would break the spell and she would finally have to admit he was dead…dead for ever. She cleared her throat and took her friend’s hand,
“He’ll always be with us, Priya…in our hearts for as long as we live… While we live, so will he…but, don’t be afraid to cry…”
“I’m afraid that if I do, I will never be able to stop…and then he really will be gone…”
*******
Priya was discharged after three days, but still bore that other-worldly look in her eyes, leading her friends to believe that she was still heavily sedated, with the drugs now directly administered by her interface. The day of the funeral was looming. The Nurses had taken charge of Sal’s body as soon as they’d arrived back from the crash site. Presumably they did an autopsy, although the cause of death was plain, but nobody knew, for sure…
On the day Priya was discharged, Nurse Gee announced that the funeral would take place at the end of the week, the venue would be the large subsurface hall they had used for the naming ceremony. She had also asked for suggestions from the children on the form it should take.

---

“How’s she coping…?”
Marta sighed,
“I don’t think she is…! She’s just sort of shut down…! She won’t talk about it…I try to talk about how she feels, or raise the subject of the funeral, and it’s just as if she hasn’t heard me…she just starts talking about something else…! And it’s not just me…! Jorja just gets the same thing, and everybody else is scared to say anything…!”
“…including me…!” confessed Jorge,
“…I was worried when she wouldn’t say his name…now, it’s as if he never existed…”
“Can’t the Nurses do something…? You’d have thought Mission AI would have anticipated this scenario, and would have something in place…”
“You’d have thought…! When I tackled Nurse Gee on this, she just froze for a second, you know, the way she used to do when you asked her anything really difficult when we were kids…then she just said ‘time will heal’…!”
“But, just keeping her on medication…they can’t do that forever, surely…! Don’t they have access to specialist programmes, things to deal with psychological problems…?”
“I always thought they did…! But, it’s as if they’re just hoping for the best…”
“So, what are we going to do about tomorrow…? She’s got to go, surely…!”
”I talked about that with Jorja…we’re just going to have to go to her bunk, and take her to the funeral ourselves…”
“What if she won’t go…?”
“We’re hoping if she gets hysterical, her ’face will just pump her full of more tranquilisers…!”

---

In the end, that’s what they did..! The ceremony was set for 10.00 on Sunday, and they arrived at her bunk at 09.30,
“We’ve come to help you get ready…” said Jorja brightly,
“…but, I’m not going anywhere…!”
“Priya, the funeral…it’s today…in half an hour, you have to go… You have to say goodbye to him…”
Their friend looked at them uncomprehendingly,
“But, I can’t…! He’s all I have…!”
Marta looked helplessly at Jorja,
“Where’s the chodan nursemaids when you need them…!”
Jorja tried again,
“Priya…! Sal is gone…you have to say goodbye…”
The girl was looking at her hands, clasping and unclasping them mechanically…
Jorja nodded at Marta and they grasped her firmly by both arms…at first she struggled, but then lapsed into apathy,
“At least, she’s dressed…”
“These clothes will have to do… Can we do something with her hair…?”
Ten minutes later she was presentable…

---

The familiar chamber had been utterly transformed, so much so that that Marta hesitated thinking they were in the wrong place… The whole room had been hung with black drapes, and Sal’s body was laid on a silver dais, illuminated by a single spotlight, his head towards them… Marta was amazed,
“…it looks like a film set…” she whispered to Jorja, who frowned and motioned towards the uncomprehending Priya…
They had been met at the door by an unsmiling Han, acting as usher. He handed each of them a candle and a large white lily…Priya had failed to react at all when these were offered to her, so Marta had ended up taking them for her…
Their friend had meekly accompanied them after her brief struggle, but she was now beginning to register her surroundings, and had started to shake… A low moan came from her lips, an eerie keening sound in the large space, but given a curiously dead timbre by the hanging drapes…
The other children (minus the twins) were gathered in the gloom, along with numerous nursemaids. A second spot picked out Nurse Gee behind a silver lectern, stage right. A hush had descended, broken intermittently by Priya’s sobs. The scene reminded Marta of an old film she had viewed one interminable afternoon, she thought it was called the Phantom of the Opera… Gee looked out expectantly from behind her pulpit, the proceedings were about to begin,
“We are gathered here to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of our brother, Salvatore…” the nursemaid’s sonorous tones filled the chamber,
“…our brother had accepted the sacraments of the church of his homeland, and his service will follow the forms of the Roman Church…”
Gee paused dramatically, the scent of incense filled the air…and a huge holographic crucifix flared dramatically into life before the wall at Sal’s feet,
“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis…”
The stately, remorseless progress of the litany seemed to have a calming, almost hypnotic effect on Priya… Once the misas was completed, Nurse Gee invited the children up one by one to lay their flowers on Sal’s body and deliver a brief eulogy……it was accepted tacitly that Priya would be last…
Han went first,
“…Sal…I don’t know what to say…you were my flying buddy…I’d never have admitted it, but you were the best pilot…the best out of all of us, nothing will be the same… I’ll miss you, hom…!”
Rai followed, then Su-Ying… Raj went up to lay his flower but did not speak… Jorge delivered a prepared speech, and then it was just the three of them… Jorja looked at Marta,
“I’ll go next….just look after her, huh…!”
Jorja made her way awkwardly up to the silver bier, paused to look at Sal and then laid her flower…she turned to face the congregation,
“Sal was the nicest, the bravest, the most helpful…” the girl paused and swallowed hard, “…the most reliable… If any us was going to die, it shouldn’t have been him…! I just hope that there is something good after all this…and that you’re there, Sal…”
And then it was Marta’s turn…her progress to the front had a dreamlike quality… She looked down at Sal’s body…whatever the Nurses had done, it wasn’t Sal…it looked like a crude facsimile, like a wax dummy…the girl suppressed a shudder and turned to face her audience,
“Uh…this is the day we thought would never come, ’though why I don’t know… We’re on a new world, a new kind of world…but the facts of life haven’t changed… Sal will go down in history, our history…the first person to die on our world… I want us to remember him…to remember him for the wonderful person that he was…to remember him as a hero…” she paused,
“…they said that Sal never took risks, except that he did, he took risks for others, like when he landed the ’plane in that canyon to rescue Rai and Jorja…like when he got me back to the Dome when I nearly died…he took risks alright, but not out of childish braggadocio…” here, she couldn’t resist a peek at Rai,
“…but always for the good of the team…! How are we ever going to replace you, Sal…?” she turned to lay her flower,
“Rest in peace, mate…!”
Marta made her way back to Jorja and Priya…the others waited,
“…we have to help her…” whispered Jorja
Gently, they took her by the shoulders and guided her forward,
“Priya, its time to say goodbye…”
The flower dangled from her nerveless fingers, the pain and fear grew in her eyes as she neared the body…
Her two helpers stepped back, and Priya stood there, swaying slightly…with infinite slowness she placed the flower on his chest before resting her hand with infinite tenderness on his cheek,
“Goodbye, my love…I tried to keep you safe, but it wasn’t to be…it just wasn’t to be…”
Her shoulders slumped, her body seemed to fold… Marta reached her friend marginally before Jorja and they gently laid her at her love’s feet…

4

A long time later Jorge was talking to Marta in the Garden,
“So, how’s she bearing up…?”
“She copes…she does her job, but the light has gone out…she never smiles or jokes…and I’m acutely conscious that she’s the one who’s left out…”
Marta looked at him wearily,
“Whenever she looks at me and you, or Rai and Jorja…she’s reminded of what she’s lost, what she can’t now have…and it just takes the joy out of the day…”
They sat in silence for while, holding hands, conscious of what they had, and how easily it could be lost…
Jorge broke the silence,
“I never got ’round to asking you, with everything that happened…”
“Ask me what…?”
“About some of the things you said, after you linked to the pod…about the nature of time…”
“…that’s an odd thing to bring up…!”
“You know me, always with the science…”
It was a few minutes before Jorge spoke again,
“…I couldn’t help being intrigued, ’though, by some of the things you said, and some of the things you didn’t say…about your experience…being linked to the pod… I mean, I questioned Rai about his experience, but it didn’t appear to be on the same level… Basically, the pseudo-plants just seemed to show him various views of the planet, presumably seen through the eyes of different pseudo-crustaceans…”
Jorge sighed before continuing,
“…but the pods seemed to have engaged you in some kind of metaphysical debate… I just wanted to ask you about that, that’s all…!”
Marta smiled and took his hand again,
“…I’m sorry for being so reluctant…but it’s difficult…”
“…I know it must be hard to recall…”
“It’s not that…I remember it all…in fact, I remember it more clearly with every passing day…it’s just…”
Marta looked closely at him,
“…it’s just when you have a view of the world, when you think you know how it works, what’s really going on…and then something comes along and turns it on its head…and you realise that everything you thought you knew, might be totally wrong…that the truth is completely different… Well, that’s how I’m feeling right now…”
Jorge said nothing, not wishing to break the spell that now seemed to have taken hold, permeating the space where they sat,
“…I’m a rationalist, Jorge…! I believe in science, I believe in a whole series of scientific truths…I’ve tried to live my life by them, in fact… But what the pods, what this intelligence we share the planet with, showed me…has just ripped everything up… It’s just pulled the rug out from under my feet…from all our feet, in fact…! It didn’t occur to me the time, but it wasn’t just finding out the truth about our origins that knocked me for six…but realising that my whole view of…of everything, is fundamentally flawed…! That essentially things are not how we think they are…”
Marta’s eyes had a far-away look. For a while she said nothing, but presently she started speaking again,
“….of course, it’s not just the nature of time that’s different from what we think we know…! Time, if you accept the pod view of creation, is circular…it’s all happened before…and God know’s how many times the cycle has been repeated, maybe the pods know…but, time and space are linked….I’ll rephrase that…! Time and space are essentially different aspects of the same thing, and if time is limited and cyclical, then surely space must too…! Our idea of an infinite, expanding universe must be an illusion…at least, this is what I think my vision of the cosmic worm…the Midgard Serpent, encircling the cosmos, was supposed to show me…! I think they were telling me that Earth…the Sol system, and the Alpha system, are all there is…! All the things we think we see, that lie beyond…the stars…the nebulae…the galaxies…are just… lights in the sky…”
“I find that all rather depressing…” said the boy,
“But it does explain one or two things…”
“How so…?”
“Well…don’t you think it’s all rather unlikely, in an infinite universe…that on the first planet we land on, we find not one, but two intelligent lifeforms…it surely can’t be coincidence…”
“I’m not sure what you mean…?”
“Well, hasn’t it occurred to you that this might all have been arranged for us…”

---

The following day they approached Nurse Gee with what Marta insisted on calling her ‘modest proposal’…! To their astonishment the nursemaid was supportive,
“…we have been thinking along similar lines ourselves…once again, Marta, I congratulate you on being ahead of the curve…”
The girl was temporarily at a loss for words, this was the last thing she had expected,
“You did hear me right, Nurse Gee? I said I want to approach the pods and link with them again…!”
“I understand you perfectly, my dear…! We are aware of the risks, but this time it will under our supervision…under controlled conditions…and we have determined that the likely benefits outway the risks…!”
“…and you understand and accept the reasons why I want to do this…?”
“We are not without understanding…” Gee’s eyes twinkled at this point, indicating humour,
“…and despite your suspicions to the contrary, we do have ethical principles, these are written into our core programme…and the ethical implications of exploiting an intelligent species, as a food supply, have been troubling us…!”
‘…not to mention the implications should the indigenous lifeforms become actively hostile…’ said Marta to herself, her nursemaid hadn’t finished, however,
“…we have determined that the time is now right to expand our operations, to start the transition from a scientific expedition to a putative colony…and for this, we will need the cooperation of the indigenous lifeforms, not their opposition… For this reason your proposal that we seek some form of symbiotic relationship with the pseudo-plants is acceptable to us…and you are our obvious emissary, my dear…!”
Nurse Gee had subtly altered the pitch and timbre of her voice, indicating an important pronouncement was forthcoming,
“…our developments in agriculture, our need to increase our food supply to support an imminent expansion of our population…all these factors indicate that the time is right to establish outposts elsewhere on the planet… Time to leave the womb, my dears, and be born into the world…!”

Coda

Time accelerated, and she stood before Oswald once more…this time thoroughly monitored and tracked…and the creature showed her a vision….of a singular awareness…of a long apprenticeship on a world newly made…of those that chose a different path, bending nature to their will…of the coming of the ice…and the brightness in the sky…of the fusing… She knows again what she must do…imbibe the sacrament and the way becomes clear…through the forest to the chamber, where she lies before the altar… She feels the sting of the umbilicus and space around her loses its meaning…a vague, warm sense of the totality of things enfolds her…

She is standing viewing what can only be described as a plantation, the twins play at her feet… Jorge is standing beside her, made whole by the augments newly installed in his body…crops, hectares and hectares of crops, stretch out to a misty purple horizon… The sun warms her face, she feels the curve of her belly beneath her fingers, the curve of the world on which she stands beneath her feet……

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