* * * * *
Our procession marches quietly forward for hours. Marlena and I share no conversation, and even the mudders refrain from grunting as they stomp forward with their backs laden with the weight of Teddy Jackson’s supplies. We give the jungle only the sound of Teddy’s whistling melody, which the grove selfishly absorbs without returning even an echo. Our progress is easy, for the grove opens its path to accept us, and our feet find nothing to trip upon as the jungle withdraws so completely to reveal landscape previously scraped flat by the obliterators’ machines before the grove expanded to reclaim the acreage. The grove knits and knots back together behind our line, forcing us to rely on whatever information our Spartans’ sensors can give us if we hope to have any idea of our position or bearing upon Tybalt. Teddy shows no concerns as he keeps whistling along, but I feel like a tasty morsel all buttered-up and dressed for a monster’s maw.
The grove bathes us in orange, pulsating glow, warming our skin so that human and mudder sweat as we move forward. The foliage twists tightly together and hides any indication of whatever sky drifts above the jungle. The grove focusses its illumination to unveil our path, while the remainder of the jungle dims into brooding shadow.
“Hold up!” Teddy quickly raises his laser rifle.
The assault cannons of our Spartan sentry positioned at our line’s vanguard begin to spin and hum, readying the weapon to unleash its firepower in a fraction of a second.
Marlena hurries to her father’s side. “What do you see?”
Teddy swivels his rifle to the right side of our trail. “Something’s moving among those vines.”
I summon all my courage to speak to the Spartan. “What do you see?”
“My sensors perceive no signature of any kind,” the robot calmly answers.
Teddy’s rifle centers upon a bulbous mass emerging upon a vine. Our line freezes to a standstill as I watch that swelling grow larger and larger. An internal light of pearl pulses beneath the growth’s translucent skin, revealing a swirling fluid of clouds and mist. Several other growths appear on neighboring vines. Some are pearl in color like the first bulb that continues to swell, but others are silver, copper and gold. All of them pulse and add their colors to the light illuminating the grove as the temperature increases with the emergence of each new bulb.
Marlena draws a breath. “Shapes are forming inside those orbs.”
The filmy mist within each bulb clears as the baubles enlarge to their final sizes, revealing strange, alien forms held within. One orb encases a large creature whose set of turquoise wings reminds me of the illustrations of butterflies contained in my elementary school’s spelling primers. The film within another growth evaporates to reveal the shape of a furry and eyeless animal, covered in scales shaped like shovels evolved for burrowing beneath the ground. The bulbs amaze us with the colors of a brilliant, two-headed lizard covered in eyes that grow from its hide like warts. The largest bauble envelopes a giant creature that makes even our robotic sentries seem small, a turtle-like animal whose massive shell and muscular limbs suggest enormous power.
I wildly click away with my simple camera to capture all the images I can of the alien life-forms held within those growths. Earth subscribers relish the stories of Teddy’s old expeditions because they brim with wildlife, because they are filled with creatures like those long lost to our native world. I’ve always been a confident writer, one who doesn’t lack the confidence to bend the rules of grammar and mechanics to press an impression; yet I fear I’ll lack the skill to convey the strangeness of those animals that coalesce within each of those bulbs.
“Amazing,” Marlena’s eyes widen in the grove’s light. “Do you think the grove might’ve trapped all those animals?”
I shudder. “That’s an unpleasant thought.”
“The animals seem preserved,” comments Teddy.
“How did they get in there?” Marlena asks. “And are they dead or alive?”
Teddy scratches at his beard. “There couldn’t have been anything in those bulbs but film and fluid a second ago. We watched those bulbs grow.”
“Maybe the grove’s trying to tell us something,” Marlena whispers.
I feel the grove closing in around us as I stare at those strange creatures held within each bauble that swells upon a vine. I don’t like that sensation that another intelligence is looking over my shoulder, and I don’t like standing in one place, just waiting for one of those vines to grab at my ankles and pull me into the thick jungle. The grove perhaps senses my unease, for just as I’m about to express my desire to move forward, the bulbs that have attracted our attention, and my dread, fill again with mist to shroud those forms before the bulbs shrink and retreat back into the vines from which they originated.
The grove doesn’t forget about Teddy and Marlena’s curiosity, and new bulbs continue to emerge on either side of our path as our expedition moves forward. The creatures become more exotic within each new growth. A strange mass of fingered tentacles fills every inch of the largest bulb yet grown by the grove, while smaller orbs hold small creatures that look little more to me than thin paper wrinkled across a flat skeleton. Other bulbs hold bird-like animals of bright plumage with elongated, streamlined beaks and massive wings that stretch from the front to the rear of our marching line. Like most children born in the days after Earth was irreversibly tipped towards oblivion, I’ve wasted hours in library archives and marveled at page upon page of all the wonderful creatures lost to our thirsty and hungry world. I consider my imagination to be more powerful than that of most man and mudder, but I could never have dreamed of the variety of life the grove’s bulbs show to us. Some animals are giants, and others are barely perceptible to my eyes. Some are dull and dark, while other shimmer in rainbow colors. Some possess feather appendages, and others are built entirely of spines.
I shake my head. “This world must’ve teemed with wildlife when the obliterators first landed on it. I’m guessing there must’ve been hundreds of eco-systems to support such life.”
Marlena’s eyes again thrill my heart when they turn towards me. “Zane, I’m not so sure we’re looking at species from a single planet. I doubt any single world could support such a variety of wildlife. I think these creatures have been gathered from other planets.”
“How can that be?” I ask.
Marlena shrugs. “Maybe someone gathered them together and brought them here.”
I chuckle. “That’s crazy.”
Marlena’s eyebrow arches. “Is it?”
Marlena’s response reminds me of her father’s viewing cabin upon his star yacht, whose walls are adorned with the stuffed heads and mounted horns of so many alien creatures that hunter claimed during his golden, glorious days of safari. Teddy’s trophies also included so many colorful and winged creatures, so many graceful animal runners, so many snarling, alien predators. I don’t forget Teddy’s pride when he described the hunts that came before our expedition to Tybalt. I remember how his face glowed with joy while I considered his collection.
“You think we’re walking through someone else’s trophy room.”
Marlena nods. “I sure do, Zane. There’s definitely intelligence in this grove, an intelligence that’s going to force the obliterators to stop before they destroy one more wonderful thing.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I reply.
Marlena shrugs and redirects her magical eyes towards the bulbs that continue to sprout about the glowing grove. I want to tell her about the obliterators’ plans for a new Eden, how the grove keeps humanity from achieving a new home far more wonderful than anything Earth ever was, one filled with the very animals we believed forever lost to our kind. Only I fear that I would then be forced to also tell Marlena that the obliterators ask us to hunt a human as well as a monster, and I too much fear how Marlena will regard me for thinking the killing of a woman a reasonable price to pay for the realization of humanity’s hopes.
So I keep quiet along with the rest of Ted
dy’s expedition as we proceed deeper into the grove. I marvel at all the animals and their strange, alien faces the grove displays to us, and I dream what the hunter responsible for gathering such a collection might look like should we happen upon him.
And my imagination paints a very frightening face.
* * * * *