Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction Part 22

"I need you to drop your other projects and concentrate on the water problem." His eyes had that haunted I-wish-I-didn't-have-a-leaders.h.i.+p-position look to them. "The geology team is looking for aquifers; the engineers are making more dew traps, and the chemists are working on what can be extracted from the rock, but none of them are hopeful we can find or make enough water fast enough. Is there anything you've learned about the plants that might help?"

Lashawnda said, "They've spent millions of years learning how to conserve water. I don't think they'll give it up easily. Spencer and I are working on an experiment right now that ought to tell us more."

"Good. Let me know if you get results." He rushed from the room, and a few seconds later I heard him say to someone in another room, "Have you made any progress?""We'll need to sedate him if we want to work uninterrupted," she said.

"Whatis the experiment we're doing?"

"Electroencephalograph."

"An EEG on a plant?" I laughed.

She shrugged. "You wondered why a plant would need a nervous system. Let's find out if it's using it."

In the lab, Lashawanda bent over her equipment. "What do you make of that?" She pointed to the readouts on the screen. "Especially when I display it like this." She tapped a couple keys.

The monitor showed a series of moving graphs, like separate seismographs. "It could be anything. Sound waves maybe. Are those from the sensors we placed?"

"Yep. Now, watch this." She reached across her table and pressed a switch. Within a couple seconds, all the graphs showed activity so violent that the screen almost turned white. Gradually the graphs settled into the same patterns I'd seen at first.

I leaned closer and saw the readouts were numbered. The ones near the top of the screen corresponded to the sensors we'd placed at the far end of the gully. The bottom ones were nearest to the s.h.i.+p. "What did you do?"

"I shut the exterior vents into the equipment room. The change in the graphs happened when the hatches cut through the fungus stems connecting the growth in the s.h.i.+p to the ground."

"The plants felt that? They're thinking about it?"

"Not plants. A single organism. Maybe a planet-wide organism. I'll have to place more sensors. And yes, it's thinking."

The lines on the monitor continued vibrating. Itlooked like brain activity. "That's ridiculous. Why would a plant need a brain? There's no precedent."

"Maybe they didn't start out as plants. As the weather grew colder and it became harder and harder for animals to live high on the food chain, they became what we see now, a thinking, cooperative intelligence."

Lashawnda put her hands on the small of her back and pushed hard, her eyes closed. "A sentience wouldn't operate the same way non-thinking plants would. We just need to discover the difference." She opened a floor cabinet and took out a clear sample bag stuffed with waxy orange shapes.

I barely recognized it before she opened the bag, broke off a Papaver leaf, and pressed it against her inner arm.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and smiled "Marvin said, 'It's G.o.d at the end,' so I thought I'd give it a try. He wasn't too far off." She enunciated the words carefully, as if her hearing were abruptly acute. "The toxins are an outstanding opiate. Much more effective on pain than the rest of the stuff I've been taking. I don't think the gopher-rats suffer."

No recrimination would have been appropriate. Although it was most likely the leaves wouldn't affect her at all, the first time she did it she might have just as easily killed herself. "How long?" I took the bag from her hand. It wasn't dated. She'd smuggled it in."A couple of days."

"Is it addictive?"

She giggled, and I looked at her sharply. She seemed lucid and happy, not drugged.

"I don't know. I haven't tried quitting." She held her hand out. I gave her the bag. She said, "I wonder what an ent.i.ty as big as a planet thinks about? Howold would you guess it is?" The bag vanished into the cabinet. "Not very often I run into something older than me."

"Did you tell the medic about that?" I nodded toward the cabinet.

She levered herself up so she could sit on the counter. "I'm taking notes she can see afterwards. No need to bother her with it now. Besides, we have bigger problems. If First Chair is right, in a month we'll have died of thirst. How are we going to convince a plant to give us back the water it took?"

Sitting where she was, her heels against the cabinet doors, she looked like a young girl, but shadows under her eyes marked her face, and her skin appeared more drawn, as if she were thinning, becoming more fragile, and she was.

"How do you feel?" I asked. I had tried to maintain within myself her concentration, her ability to ignore the obvious fact, but I couldn't. I worried about the crew and the water they needed. But for me? I didn't care. Death would find Lashawnda before it took me.

She slid off the counter and tapped a code into her workstation. The recording of our landing came up again. Clouds of steam surged from the ground. She said, without meeting my eyes, "Look, Spencer. I can't avoid it. It's not going away. So all I can do is work and think and act like it's not there at all.

You're behaving as if I should be paralyzed in fear or something, but I'm not going to do that. There's still a quest or two for me in the last days, some effort of note."

I had no answer for that. We went to bed hours later, and when she held me, her arms trembled.

A nightmare woke me. In the dream I wandered through the twisted forest, but I wasn't scared. I was happy. I belonged. The crooked stems gave way before my ungloved hands. My chest was bare. No contamination suit or helmet or s.h.i.+rt. The air smelled sharp and frigid, like winter on a lake's edge where the wind sweeps across the ice, but I wasn't cold. I came upon a thick stand of trees, their narrow trunks forming a wall in front of me. I pushed and tugged at the unmoving branches. I'd never seen a clump of Papaver trees so large. Nothing seemed more important than penetrating that branched fortress. Finally I found a narrow gap where I could squeeze through. At first I wandered in the dark. Gradually shapes became visible: the towering stems forming a shadowy roof overhead, other branches reaching from side to side, and the room felt close.

"Spencer?" said Lashawnda.

"Yes?" I said, turning slowly in the vegetable room. Clumps of waxy-leafed plants covered the ground, but I couldn't see her.

"I'm here, Spencer," she said, and one of the clumps sat up.

I squinted. "It's too dark."

A dim light sparked to life, a pink diamond, like the last glimpse of the sunset we'd seen the day before, growing until the room became bright, revealing a skeleton-thin Lashawnda."I'm glad you came," she said.

I stepped closer, all the details clear in the ruddy light. Her eyes sparkled above sharp cheekbones. She smiled at me, the skin pulled tight across her face, her shoulders bony and narrow, barely human anymore. She wore no clothes, but she didn't need them. The plants hid her legs, and leaves covered her stomach and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Like the gopher-rat, she'd been absorbed.

"The plant is old, old, old," she said. "We think deep thoughts, all the way to Papaver's core."

I put my arm around her, the bone's hardness pressing against my hand.

In the dream, I was happy. In the dream, the plants sucking every drop of water from her was right.

"And, Spencer, this way I live forever."

I woke, stifling a scream.

She wasn't in bed.

In the decontamination unit, her suit was gone.

I don't remember how I got my suit on or how I got outside. Running, I pa.s.sed the empty water tanks, avoided the lichen-filled depressions, and plunged into the forest. The sun had barely cleared the horizon, pouring pink light through the skinny trees. I tripped. Knocked my face hard against the inside of my helmet. Staggering, I pushed on. The dream image hovered before me. Had the pain become too much for Lashawnda, and the promise of an opiate-loaded bed of leaves, eager to embrace her become too tempting? I imagined her nervous system, like a gopher-rat's, joining the plant consciousness. But who knew what the gopher-rats experienced, if they experienced anything at all? Maybe their lives were filled with nightmares of cold and immobility.

Trees slapped at my arms. Leaves slashed across my faceplate.

When I burst through the last line of trees at the clearing's edge, she was crouched, her back to me, shoulders and head down in the plants. I pictured her faceplate open, her eyes gone already, home for stabbing tendrils seeking the moist tissue behind.

"Don't do it!" I yelled.

Startled, she fell back, holding a sensor; her faceplate was closed. For a second she looked frightened.

Then she laughed. I gasped for breath while my air supply whined in my ear.

"What are you doing, Spencer?" A bag filled with the sensors we'd put on the plants sat on the ground beside her. She'd been retrieving them.

"You weren't . . . I mean, you're not . . . hurting yourself . . . you're okay?" I finally blurted.

She held me until I quit shaking and my respiration settled into a parody of regularity.

The sun had risen another handful of degrees. We stayed still so long that the plants turned away to face the light. She hugged me hard, then said, "I know how to find water."

I hugged her back.

"Can you carry the bag?" she said as she pushed herself to her feet. "It's getting darned heavy."

* * *The crew stood around the one-meter-deep depression beside an empty water tank. Like every sheltered spot, lichens covered the rock. Lashawnda supervised the engineers as they arranged the structure she'd sketched out for them, which was two long bars crossing the hole, holding an electric torch suspended above the pit's bottom.

First Chair stood with his arms crossed. "What do you mean, we should have figured out how to get water from the first day?"

Lashawnda sat in a chair someone had brought for her. "The plants here are cooperative. They're not just out for themselves like we're used to seeing. I watched the records of our landing. The ground steamed , but, as Spencer will tell you," she nodded to me, "you couldn't get an ounce of water out of a ton of the lichen no matter how hard you tried."

First Chair looked puzzled.

Lashawnda pressed a b.u.t.ton, and the electric torch began to glow. I could feel the heat on my face from ten meters away. Lashawnda said, "The plants were protecting each other, or, more accurately, protecting itself. They're geniuses at moving moisture."

In the pit, some of the yellow lichens began to turn brown, and then to smoke. Suddenly the bottom of the pit glistened, rivulets opened from cracks in the rock. Water quickly filled the bathtub-sized depression, covering the burning plants.

The crew cheered.

"The plant is trying to protect itself," Lashawnda said. "You better pump it out now, because as soon as the heat's off, it will be gone."

First Chair barked out orders, and soon pipes led from the hole into temporary tanks in the s.h.i.+p.

That night I held Lashawnda close, her backbone pressed against me; my lips brushed the back of her neck.

"Did you really think that I'd kill myself by throwing myself into the plants?"

She held my wrist, her fingers so delicate and light that I half feared they'd break.

"I didn't want to lose even a single day with you," I said.

Lashawnda didn't speak for a long time, but I knew she hadn't drifted into sleep. The room was so quiet I could hear her eyelashes flutter as she blinked. "I don't want to lose a day with you either." She pulled my arm around her tighter. "Four hundred years is a good, long time to live. I don't suppose when I do go that you could arrange for me to be buried in that clearing at the gully's end?"

I remembered how the plants had grasped her hand and arm, how attentive they were when she pa.s.sed.

"Sure," I said.

It occurred to me that I wanted to be buried there too, where the beings work together to save each other and share what they have to help the least of them.

"But we're not there yet," I said.Contributor Notes Steve Beaihas had over 500 appearances of short fiction and articles to date and has received nominations for both the Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America and the Stoker Award from the Horror Writers a.s.sociation as well as recognition fromThe Year's Best Fantasy and Horror . He is also the author of the non-fiction studyCensoring the Censors and the novelWidow's Walk. Dark Rhythms , a CD-ROM collection of previously published short fiction, including audio performances of each story, is currently available in both a signed and lettered edition from Lone Wolf Publications.

Additional projects include the soon-to-be-released novelsFuns.h.i.+ne City andNeighbor Hoods . Steve lives and works at Reservoir Studio in rural Indiana with his wife and children.

Arinn Dembopublished her first critical essay inThe New York Review of Science Fiction in 1991, and spent several years thereafter working as a freelance reviewer of computer games, books, comics, and movies. Her first short story was published inThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1996, and most recently she has published a novella in the horror anthologyDark Theatres . She is thirty-three years old, and currently lives in North Carolina, the youngest inmate of a Home for Incorrigible Old Broads.

Elisabeth DeVosis the author of a novel,The Seraphim Rising , as well as short fiction that has appeared inTalebones magazine. She tried to write a serious SF story for this anthology, but reverted to her usual blend of science-fantasy and humor, a tendency she blames on having grown up in Central Florida, where one can view s.p.a.ce shuttle launches from fantasy-filled amus.e.m.e.nt parks. She now lives in the Seattle area.

A. Alicia Dotycelebrates her first fiction publication with this story co-written with Therese Pieczynski.

She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology and Cancer Therapeutics from the University at Buffalo, Roswell Park Cancer Inst.i.tute Division, in the year 2000 and is currently a scientist at a biotech company in Rochester, NY. She is both tolerated and adored by a husband, two daughters, four cats, and a PDA named Majel.

Robert E. Fureyis a zoology professor currently at George Mason University. He lives near the nation's capital with his French-native wife and their young daughter. He's a rare amalgamation of Ernest Hemingway, Richard Burton, and Peter Parker (his specialty being arachnids). Rob's teaching, consulting work, and family ties take him frequently to Europe, Africa, and South America, and he holds a dual U.S.-Irish citizens.h.i.+p. Rob graduated Clarion West in 1997 and was recently published in the Lovecraftian horror anthologyDark Theatres.

David D. Levineattended Clarion West in 2000 and hasn't slowed down since. His stories have appeared in such publications asThe Year's Best Fantasy #2 ,The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ,Interzone , andApprentice Fantastic , and he is a winner of the James White Award, Writersof the Future, and the Phobos Fiction Contest. At this writing, he is a nominee for the 2003 John W.

Campbell Award for Best New Writer and awaits the results with fingers crossed. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he and his wife Kate Yule produce the highly-regarded science fiction fanzineBento . His web page ishttp://www.BentoPress.com .

Syne Mitch.e.l.lclaims no knowledge of which part of her subconscious created "Stately's Pleasure Dome." Perhaps she was channeling Spider Robinson, or was deeply affected by Alan Clark's artwork, or maybe it was because it was written at three a.m. If you like hard SF, read her latest novels: Technogenesis andThe Changeling Plague . If you want more like this, try keeping her up late at a science-fiction convention.

Nancy Jane Moore'sfiction has appeared in a variety of anthologies, includingImaginings and Treachery and Treason , in magazines ranging from the "tiny but celebrated"Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet toAndromeda s.p.a.ceways Inflight Magazine , and on the WebzineFantastic Metropolis .

She attended the 2002 Milford workshop in England, and is a graduate of Clarion West. She lives in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Her website ishttp://home.earthlink.net/~nancyjane Patrick O'Learywas born in Saginaw, Michigan. He graduated with a B.A. in Journalism from Wayne State University. His poetry has appeared in Literary Magazines across North America. His first novel, Door Number Three (TOR), was chosen byPublisher's Weekly as one of the best novels of the year.

His second novel,The Gift (TOR), was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and The Mythopoeic Award. His collection of fiction, non-fiction, and poetryOther Voices, Other Doors (Fairwood Press) came out in January 2001. His third novel,The Impossible Bird (TOR Jan. 2002), has made the preliminary shortlist for the Nebula Award. His short stories have appeared inMars Probes andInfinity Plus One, Scifiction.com , andTalebones . His novels have been translated into German, j.a.panese, Polish, French, and Braille. Currently he is an a.s.sociate Creative Director at an advertising agency. His work has won numerous industry awards. He travels extensively, but he makes his home in the Detroit area with his wife and sons.

Jerry Oltionhas been a gardener, stone mason, carpenter, oilfield worker, forester, land surveyor, rock 'n' roll deejay, printer, proofreader, editor, publisher, computer consultant, movie extra, corporate secretary, and garbage truck driver. For the last twenty-two years, he has also been a writer. He is the author of over 100 published stories ina.n.a.log, F&SF , and various other magazines and anthologies. He has thirteen novels, the most recent of which isThe Getaway Special , published in December of 2001 by Tor Books. A sequel,Anywhere But Here , is scheduled for release in 2004. Jerry's work has won the Nebula award and has been nominated for the Hugo award. He has also won the a.n.a.log Readers'

Choice award. He lives in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife, Kathy, and the obligatory writer's cat, Ginger.

Robert Onopa, a master of wryly humorous near-future SF, currently teaches literature at the University of Hawaii, and lives on Oahu with his wife and two sons. A frequent contributor toThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , he's also been published inTomorrow, TriQuarterly, Harper's, andThe Singapore Straits-Times , among other venues. His story "Geropods," first published in2020 by Electric Story, was included inThe Year's Best SF #8 (2003). He has had one science fiction novel out,ThePleasure Tube (Berkley/Putnam's), and is currently at work on another, set in the Pacific.

Tom Piccirilliis the author of ten novels, includingThe Night Cla.s.s, A Choir of Ill Children, A Lower Deep, Hexes, The Deceased , andGrave Men . He's published over 120 stories in the mystery, horror, erotica, and science fiction fields. Tom's been a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award and he's the winner of the first Bram Stoker Award given in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Poetry. This year he won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel and Best Short Story. Learn more about him at his official websitewww.mikeoliveri.com/piccirilli .

Therese Pieczynskihas edited forTerra Incognita , written forNova Express , been published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and currently works in the Molecular Biology lab at the same biotech company as A. Alicia Doty.

Melissa Scottis from Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, where she earned her Ph.D. in the comparative history program with a dissertation t.i.tled "The Victory of the Ancients: Tactics, Technology, and the Use of Cla.s.sical Precedent." In 1986, she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2001 she and long-time collaborator Lisa A.

Barnett won the Lambda Literary Award in SF/Fantasy/Horror forPoint of Dreams . Scott has also won Lammies in 1996 forShadow Man and 1995 forTrouble and Her Friends , having previously been a three-time finalist (forMighty Good Road, Dreams.h.i.+ps , andBurning Bright ).Trouble and Her Friends was also shortlisted for the Tiptree. Her most recent solo novel,The Jazz , was named toLocus'

s Recommended Reading List for 2000. Her first work of non-fiction,Conceiving the Heavens: Creating the Science Fiction Novel , was published by Heinemann in 1997, and her monologue "At RaeDean's Funeral" has been included in an off-off-Broadway production,Elvis Dreams , as well as several other evenings of Elvis-mania. A second monologue, "Job Hunting," has been performed in compet.i.tion and as a part of an evening of Monologues from the Road. She lives in New Hamps.h.i.+re with her partner of twenty-four years.

James Van Peltlives in western Colorado with his wife and three sons. One of the finalists for the 1999 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, he teaches high school and college English. His fiction has appeared in, among others,Dark Terrors 5, Dark Terrors 6, Asimov's, a.n.a.log, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, The Third Alternative, Weird Tales, and Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k's Mystery Magazine. His first collection of stories,Strangers and Beggars , was published in 2002 and was named by the American Library a.s.sociation as a Best Book for Young Adults. He has upcoming work in Asimov's, Talebones , the SFWA anthologyNew Faces in Science Fiction, Gardner Dozois'sThe Year's Best Science Fiction , and David Hartwell'sThe Year's Best Fantasy.

Ray Vukcevich'slatest book isMeet Me in the Moon Room from Small Beer Press ( http://www.lcrw.net). The book was nominated for a Philip K. d.i.c.k Award. His first novel isThe Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces from St. Martin's. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines, includingTalebones, Fantasy & Science Fiction, SCIFICTION, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, The Infinite Matrix, Polyphony, Rosebud, Strange Horizons, andAsimov's , and in several anthologies. He lives in Oregon and works in a couple of university brain labs.Leslie Whatis a Nebula Award-winning freelance writer and Jell-O artist living in the Pacific Northwest.

Her work appears in many magazines, newspapers, journals, and anthologies and her comic novel, Olympic Games , will be published in 2004 by Tachyon Publications (http://www.

tachyonpublications.com).

Painting t.i.tles Rock, Paper, Scissors ("Threesome") Chattacon Collaboration with Kevin Ward ("Area Seven") Pine Spirit ("The Dream of Vibo") The Graceful Labelings of Triangular Snakes ("The Artist Makes a Splash") Violent Decompression ("Fired") Rac.o.o.n Skull s.h.i.+p ("Nohow Permanent") Off the Shoulder of Orion ("By Any Other Name") Caverns Measureless to Man ("Stately's Pleasure Dome") Nudibrains ("Between the Lines") Life as We Know It ("Dilated") Invasion of the Benevolent Vegetable Dictators ("Let My Right Hand Forget Her Cunning") Dropcloth Dragon #1 ("Cleave") Phoenix ("Out of the Fire")VV Cephei A from Helvoran ("Legacy") G.o.d Introduces Filmore to Time ("Lashawnda at the End")