Chapter 16 #3
I spread my wings so the sunlight gleamed on my bright feathers. I was not a vain man, but if she found my feathers pretty, I was not above showing them off.
“Just stretching,” I fibbed with a smile, without caring that she could tell I had shown off for her. “It feels good to fly.”
“I can well imagine.” She looked around at the treetops and valley below. “Everything’s been so quiet. I wonder if they’re waiting to see how we react to the station transformation?”
“Possibly.” I set my lat’sar case on the grass about three meters from Elena’s equipment. Forux was sniffing his way around the roof, his tails fanned out. “It is difficult to guess what living plasma might think or do, if indeed that is what we are dealing with.”
“Despite being very different life forms, they seem to understand at least some Alliance Standard, so they’ve made an effort to learn how to communicate.
” She activated a portable scanner and positioned it on the grass.
“We’re relying on their ability to communicate with us, though, since so far we have no idea how plasma communicates.
I took several courses in biolinguistics as part of my mycology studies.
They focused primarily on how fungi communicate, obviously. ”
“How do fungi communicate?” I asked as I knelt to set up my own equipment. “I confess, I know very little about that subject—far less than you now know about upper-atmospheric plasma discharges.”
“For starters, the number of species of fungi on each known planet ranges from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand,” she said.
“Even on planets with little other life, fungi can be found. No one knows how many species of fungi exist just on Alliance planets and moons, but it’s surely in the millions.
Even with all that biodiversity, most fungi share some key characteristics. ”
“Such as how they communicate?”
“Yes.” Elena smiled. “Fungi conduct electrical impulses through filamentous structures called hyphae that form mycelial networks. Hyphae function much like how nerve cells transmit information in humans. Fungi also release chemical signals, including pheromones, to communicate with each other and other organisms. Their communication seems to focus on food sources, potential threats, and mating.”
“Those are the basic needs of most organisms,” I observed. “And it strongly suggests at least a basic ability to process information as well as pass it on.”
“Not just pass it on. Through these networks, fungi communicate, exchanging nutrients, water, and signaling molecules. It allows them to coordinate their growth, reproduction, and defense strategies. And in symbiotic relationships with other organisms like plants, fungi help absorb nutrients and water while plants provide fungi with resources produced during photosynthesis.” She spread her hands to indicate the forest around the station.
“This forest is an ecosystem, but via its fungi, it’s essentially a neural network. ”
I shook my head in amazement and crouched to adjust the settings on an imaging device. “This is all absolutely fascinating.”
A pause, then: “Yes, it is.”
Elena’s grim tone made me swivel to face her. She set an empty specimen container in her lap and studied me. All the joy had vanished from her expression. My hearts wrenched.
“You know, I can’t help but remember the number of times you disparaged my field of study without actually knowing much about fungi or what I do,” she said. “I wish I could say it didn’t hurt every time, but it did.”
“I am sorry.” Balancing on the balls of my feet, I dropped my head, my forearms on my thighs. “I make no excuses. My words and actions were reprehensible. I cannot make it right, though I desperately wish I could.”
“I know you do.” She took a deep breath, exhaled, and leaned back on her hands to gaze at the sky. “Well, I’m set up. Now all we need is a visitor.” Her tone and body language indicated she did not want to continue our conversation.
A kind of helplessness left my gut feeling hollow.
Our undeniable mutual attraction, the complimentary way in which our minds worked, the peace we felt in each other’s presence—all those were wonderfully good things about being true mates. She was everything I could have dreamed of in a partner.
But I had so thoroughly bungled everything, and hurt her so deeply, and forced her to hate me.
Elena could not be expected to forgive me, much less trust me or be interested in any kind of relationship.
As for a lifetime together…the very thought was ludicrous, no matter how much desire we shared in unguarded moments.
I had never wished I had fewer hearts than my creators had given me until this moment, when both ached so intensely that I felt short of breath.
In the meantime, Forux completed his thorough olfactory investigation of the roof and returned to Elena’s side. He curled up with his head on her thigh. What I would give to be able to do the same.
Instead, I settled in and did my best to focus on calibrating each piece of equipment to maximize its ability to potentially record and analyze any korae that appeared—but none did, even after Elena called out greetings and invited company.
In the end, we sat in silence for more than two hours, each engrossed in our own research.
Just as I was about to cautiously inquire whether she wanted to take a break for a midday meal, Elena’s voice startled me. “You could play your lat’sar,” she said.
I looked up from my study of images and data recorded during the spectacular and complex korae displays from the night she had been burned.
She set her own datapad in her lap. Its screen showed an analysis in progress of a sample of lavender lichen.
“One of the tendrils came to watch you play in the forest,” she said, her tone and expression neutral.
My hearts ached at her detachment, but I could not argue that I had more than earned it.
“Maybe music will earn us a visitor,” she added. “That’s why you brought it up here, right?”
“That is true.” I slid my lat’sar case closer and opened it. “I will need to warm up before I play.”
“Go ahead.” She returned her attention to her datapad, one hand scratching Forux absently behind his ears. “I’ve never heard a lat’sar played in person, so this will be a treat.”
I had not played for anyone else’s ears but my own in a very long time. And very unexpectedly, the prospect of playing for Elena in particular caused a ball of nervous tension to form in my belly.
To ease my apprehension, I focused on the familiar process of preparing the instrument and warming up as Elena alternated between reading her datapad and scanning our surroundings for any hint of visitors.
Once I began my scales, she seemed to relax and even smiled a little as she stroked Forux’s fur.
What would I play for her first? The Sea Winds, my favorite and most challenging piece? Or would she interpret my choice as showing off? Perhaps I should choose something more freeform—more emotional and less technical.
Or…
The breeze swirled around us. I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and listened to the wind and the rustle of leaves, the music of Hyderia.
Yes, I was playing to try to draw in visitors, but more than that I was playing for Elena, who had never heard a lat’sar in person before, and whose heart I would give anything to lighten and soften.
I pictured Elena’s expression of pure wonder and delight when she looked at her beloved fungi. I wanted to play not technically, not mathematically, but with that kind of joy. The joy I had felt when I opened my eyes earlier today and beheld Elena sleeping peacefully under my wing.
I fixed that image in my my mind, kept my eyes closed, and drew my bow across the lat’sar’s strings. The chord that emerged was pure and floated on the wind as if it belonged there.
I left precision and mechanics behind and played instead from my aching hearts.