Roots of Forgiveness
The filaments they'd burned through only a day earlier had already begun to knit. Chainmail-style rings of vegetation in pastel shades of lavender and eggplant grasped across the blackened earth, straining to close the gap torn by the digging tools. The plants visibly grew as Boman and his team watched.
"This planet's amazing. A single organism with ridiculous diversity, and so many unique niches... but every sample we cut dies," Chandrika said from Boman's left. Her round face in shadow, she gestured toward a silver tarp held tight to the ground by four mechanical spider-like machines. Doughy clumps of flora rotted in the center, the unusual aromas of sour cherry and fresh-cut grass lingering on the air.
"There's a dozen gigantic root clusters at the southern pole, pale tubers thick as redwoods poking out of the permafrost," she continued. "They're the only anchor we've found. It's all connected from there; everything, the whole planet."
"Definitely unique." Distracted, Boman tossed a handful of sensor drones into the air. The bee-shaped robots scattered like his thoughts.
He hadn't been sure he'd recognize her. She'd been so young when he'd left, but there were unmistakable traces of her mother in Chandrika's wide, dark features. The way she brushed unconsciously at the front of her short hair, the pursing of her lips when she got excited; he could almost see the three-year-old he remembered, and it made him want to cry.
Relativity had carried him more than sixty years from Earth, aging him only four. His daughter had taken a different path, leaving Earth decades later, but traveling closer to the speed of light. She looked forty in subjective years. Boman was only thirty-one.
"Devi, our botanist, thinks it hibernates somehow." Chandrika bent to touch the moist earth.
"It'd take quite a trick to get through summer on this planet." He watched her movements. She seemed so familiar, a dozen little gestures reminding Boman of a past he'd abandoned, a world and time he thought he'd never see again.
"That's just it," she said. "The system's broken. Something happened. We don't know what, but this world will die in fourteen days."
He nodded. The planet's crazy orbit would swing it between its bloated primary and its smaller secondary stars. The brief but intense summer would scorch the surface clean, leaving nothing alive.
She caught him staring, studying her face. "Relativity's a bitch, isn't it?"
"I wasn't...."
But he had been wondering, imagining how this woman could be the daughter he'd left behind. She'd aged half a lifetime. Her memories of him were buried in a past deeper than his own existence, and he had no idea if she remembered him at all. He'd been too shocked to ask at their first meeting. Chandrika had been all business, a ship's commander speaking to a junior officer. She'd greeted him with courtesy, offered to show him their progress on the planet, but had never mentioned their shared history.
"It's okay. It's a lot to process. I understand." She tried to smile, but her expression only looked troubled.
They stood in the gap Chandrika's team had tilled. Fat bulbs had blossomed overnight from a scattering of vertical tendrils, pointed tips quivering in the faint breezes cascading from the displacer platform behind. The light scent of sage filtered through the shimmering transport field, air passing from Boman's ship in orbit to the planet's surface.
In a few minutes, the scent would change and become something unfamiliar as the displacer linked with Chandrika's craft. Her team would arrive.
Boman welcomed the intrusion. Other voices would ease the awkwardness he felt.
#
"We're working to preserve something. If we had more time...." Chandrika squinted, staring at the sharp blue pinpoint of the newly risen second sun on the horizon. That point would grow quickly in the next few days. Soon, the surface would become unviable for any form of life.
Her ship had arrived first, beating Boman's mission by weeks. Chandrika claimed she hadn't been aware of his presence on the crew, but the coincidence troubled him. If she'd been seeking him out, she should have said something by now.
He leaned in, inspecting the nearest stalk. It had the appearance of bamboo, but mottled with splashes of dark lilac. A teardrop-shaped bulb rested on top. The whole thing swayed precariously, as if it were ready to fall over.
The scent of sour cherry struck him, strong and cloying. The bulb he'd been inspecting expanded. It hissed, convulsing, and then exploded with a popping snap.
"Down!"
Chandrika ducked. Boman threw an arm around her, and dragged her to the ground. She shoved him off. He let go, and she scrambled away.
"I don't need your protection, father!" She growled, brushing angrily at the dirt on her uniform.
Boman glanced away, embarrassed. It was his job to notice everything, piecing together the puzzles others might overlook, but all he could see was the rage he'd noticed in his daughter's eyes. She hated him.
The bulbs had launched twenty meters into the air, unfurling as they rose, blossoming into stiff-bladed flowers in intense shades of emerald. At the height of their ascension, they began to spin, falling slowly back into the foliage with muted snaps.
"Amazing...." Chandrika seemed to have forgotten her anger, moving closer, wading into the fringes of vegetation. "They landed perfectly into the empty sockets as if they were spacecraft docking."
She fingered the stiff petals, her eyes narrowing. "But... this one, it came from that stalk over there. And that one from further down."
"They switched places?"
"I think so," she whispered, her gaze the expression of a child who'd learned a new trick.
"Did we just witness an information exchange?" Boman tapped the patch behind his right ear, accessing his ship's AI. AI-Khmer relayed the feeds from the sensor bees. They played like recent memories into Bowman's mind, showing the newly ejected blossoms swapping positions, guided by invisible pheromone trails. It was remarkable, and it was almost enough to distract him from his daughter.
#
Long tubes snaked from the turbulent water at the edge of the planet's great ocean, stretching in massive loops across bleached dunes and through sun-parched desert. Further in, thick leaves the size of buildings leaned crazily over a moss-like carpet, while soft, peach-colored spheres rolled like cold tar across the ever-present, lavender-tinted grass.
They'd moved on to the next drop site, displacing up to the orbiting vessel and back down half a continent away in a matter of seconds. Chandrika was eager to show Boman their progress, but unwilling to talk about their past.
"The loops are heat sinks. The organism is restructuring the temperature here, evening it out for the little spheres who seem to be an attempt at hybridization," Chandrika said. "It's actively trying to impact its environment."
Boman followed her as she marched closer to the nearest leaf base. Two women and one man in the uniforms of Chandrika's mission had positioned a transparent container beside one of the spheres, and together they used long paddles to coax it inside. Close up, the organism appeared to be a tightly-knit bundle of branches, like a terrestrial tumbleweed, but this one moved as if alive.
"The sphere definitely has animal-like traits," Boman whispered, sharing in the feeling this was something special, that this mattered. Chandrika was right. This could be a connection to potential sapient life, or at least the first grasping stages.
"We're trying to save something. If we can re-seed after perihelion, this planet-wide organism might be able to pick up where it left off." The nearest woman smiled, revealing tiny white teeth. Boman couldn't remember her name. He'd met too many new people in the last few days, and it wouldn't matter once their missions separated.
"Eight hundred years of spring for only a few weeks of summer, not a bad deal--until something goes wrong."
Together, the three crew members tipped the organism into the box. It shook a moment, rolling slowly as if examining its surroundings. Boman exhaled, unaware he'd been holding his breath.
"It's... looking... good...."
The creature struck the box's edge. It rolled against the opposite side, and then shuddered, its color fading to a muddy rose. It spun once, slowly in place, and then deflated like a punctured beach ball before their eyes. Boman caught the scent of sour cherry as the crew members sagged, and Chandrika turned away.
"Damn! Every time," she growled. "It's all or nothing with this organism. I can't save it. I can't box up this entire planet!"
She looked so much like the petulant child of Boman's memories, the little girl with storm in her eyes on those rare occasions when her intellect alone hadn't been enough to propel her over whatever hurtles she'd faced. Seeing her now, like this, made him ache for the past, for closure of some kind.
"Listen." He gently grasped her arm, willing her to look him in the eyes. "We need to talk."
"What we need to do is move on to the next site." She pulled away, glancing quickly at her crew before marching out from under the giant leaf's shade. "We have to record what we can before it's too late. The people back home will want to see this."
"It's not about the people back home. It's about us. Here. Now." He spoke to her retreating back. Tension held him in place. If he could just get her to understand....
She turned, fury distorting her features until Boman could no longer see traces of her mother in those black eyes. Instead, he saw himself, the angry young man who'd thrown his present away for a ride into the future.
"I came out here for my own reasons." Chandrika's tone sounded harsh, almost mechanical. It was as if she'd practiced her words many times before using them on Boman. "It has nothing to do with anyone back home, and it has nothing to do with you!"
She stormed off. He followed, running to keep up as she headed for the displacer array. The collection of fluorescent orange cubes looked like dice tossed by the hands of a giant, so out of place on this world of purples and greens.
"Wait! Chandrika, I'm sorry."
She stopped suddenly. "There it is! I've been waiting for you to say it since your ship entered orbit. You're sorry? Great. Do you feel better now you've gotten that off your chest?"
"I don't know what to feel," he admitted. He swallowed, taking a step backward. This wasn't going the way he'd hoped. "I never expected to have to...."
"Apologize? Or ever see me again? Which one?" Chandrika snapped, hands on her hips.
Boman's thoughts swirled like mud as he searched desperately for an answer. His hands trembled. Chandrika stared at him, as if daring him to say something, but he just stood there, breath catching in his throat, gasping as if all the air on the planet had suddenly vanished.
How could he tell her he'd spent months doubting his decision to leave Earth, and that it hadn't been by choice, but necessity? Things had been bad in the Central Districts. Chandrika had just been born. The terms of his indenture would have made her a slave, and he'd have lost her either way. So he took the contract, made the deal that would ensure their future by taking him away from it.
"I thought so." Chandrika spun, stamping away in the direction of the displacer.
"Wait...."
"I spent the first half of my life missing you," she said, lifting her small hands, positioning herself on the pebbled, garnet-colored displacer mat. "And the second trying not to hate you. I understand your reasons. I do, but seeing you again...."
The barrier congealed, wrapping like thick black plastic around her. Then it collapsed, taking Chandrika with it.
#
Boman skimmed the news from Earth; small wars, even smaller advancements. Names, places, and people became less familiar as his mission had skipped through relativistic time. For some reason, he'd expected the future to have overwhelmed him, but the gulf didn't seem as wide as he'd feared. It made his thoughts drift to Chandrika. His first attempts to mend the rift between them had been awkward. He'd expected something else; more from himself, more from her. He'd tried to hide from the confrontation, but even when it came, it hadn't mattered. It was obvious she hadn't forgiven him, and he doubted she ever would.
"Do you have a moment?" Chandrika's voice came softly through the door. She was outside his suite.
"I thought you'd still be on the surface," he said, letting her in. His heart raced. There was so much he wanted to say, so much left unresolved from a world he thought lost to him. "There isn't much time left."
Chandrika sighed, her face impassive, and her dark eyes disinterested, almost bored. "I'm heading back down in an hour. I'm here now on... personal business. Mom wanted me to give these to you."
He raised an eyebrow. Chandrika touched a patch of pale skin on the side of her neck, and Boman felt the familiar sensation of memory as information streamed into his mind from the AI interface. Images, sounds, smells--they all rushed in, a thick tapestry, rich with texture, overflowing with depth. Messages from a woman many years dead.
He staggered, sorrow and regret flooding his mind. A lifetime of experiences filled him to bursting, and he fell. Chandrika caught his arm. She supported him as he dropped to the ground, overcome.
"Are you okay?" Genuine concern crossed her features, softening the hard lines of suppressed anger. "I didn't know it would hit you like that. Take a minute."
"She died so young," he gasped, snippets of a life he'd missed slowly fading from his thoughts.
"Ovarian cancer. It could've been cured. She knew, but she never told me, afraid her illness would interfere with my studies."
"That's why you joined," Boman said. "For the bonus. To pay for treatments."
She nodded, her gaze traveling to a shelf at the far end of the long living area. A fifteen-centimeter-high woman pushed a little girl on a swing. The two played together, laughing, their joy plainly visible through the near perfect hologram. Boman had recorded that. It'd been their last outing as a family before he'd shipped out, and there wasn't a day he didn't sit in front of it and wonder what he'd given up.
"By the time I found out, it was too late. No amount of money could cure her," Chandrika said.
Boman pulled himself onto a low couch, the memory of loss still fresh. His mind throbbed with uncertainty. Had he made the wrong decision by leaving Earth? There might've been some other way, some loophole that would've allowed him to save his family from a lifetime of servitude.
"It was the right choice." His wife's voice, heard in a memory, sounded small, far away in both space and time. He'd unintentionally called up one of her later letters. "Your sacrifice gave us a chance. We had a better life, a good life because of you, and I understood why you had to do it. I know, in time, Chandrika will too. That's why I'm giving her these letters."
"She knew," he whispered.
"Before I did," Chandrika's frown softened. "I hadn't even thought of going off world when she made these recordings."
"Listen," Boman said. His confidence had returned, bolstered by the words of a long dead woman. "I screwed up. I should've tried harder to connect with you when you first arrived, to set things right from the very start. I buried my head in the sand, too afraid of the past to see the future. I know you don't want to hear I'm sorry, so I'll just tell you how proud I am of you instead."
"You don't get to--" She started, but he cut her off.
"Head in the sand!" He hopped to his feet, almost falling over. The memory of an ostrich, its long, slender neck dipping under the sand to turn its eggs, entered his mind. It reminded him so much of the pale tubers partially buried under the planet's pole that he started to laugh. "That's the answer you've been looking for."
#
"It's not expanding outward, it's burrowing in!" The cold struck him like a slap across the face. Boman pulled up his collar, and ran a hand over the immense grey root. The planetary organism was literally trying to bury its head beneath the frost.
Chandrika stood on a ledge of ice. Beyond her, a dozen members from each crew directed drilling rigs, guiding the blade-armed machines as they carefully widened tunnels, freeing the enormous roots so they could plunge deeper into darkness.
"It hides in summer! At least that's what it was attempting before it got stuck. It's grown too big for the caverns, but it was still trying, actively seeking a way. Imagine what that means." She smiled for the first time since they'd met.
"It's only a matter of time...."
"Until it becomes self-aware, and then possibly intelligent in the way we so desperately need it to be." Her voice took on an awed quality. Her eyes glittered, thoughts of making first contact visible in her expression. "Until we can talk to it, share our experiences, tell the organism it's not alone--and know we're not alone either."
Her breath hung in the air between them. Boman rubbed his hands together, wishing for the warmer weather of the equatorial jungle. This was why they were out here, why mankind had sent so many missions on one way trips through relativity to find something beyond themselves, someone or some thing to tell them they weren't alone in the universe.
"Listen," he started. "I just wanted you to know--"
"I'm not mad, not anymore," she interrupted. "I thought I was over you a long time ago, but seeing you here, knowing you'd never be able to see me as the same little girl who'd waved goodbye to her daddy all those years ago... maybe it would've been better if we'd never met."
He looked away. He didn't want her to see his tears.
"Your mother didn't think that. She always knew you'd find me."
He turned back in time to see Chandrika nod. She held out a hand. He took it, surprised at the warmth of her skin.