(This is one of my favorite short stories. Comments welcome - more fiction at
Warriors of the Sun God - A Fantasy Novel - and yes, they're ALL mine. I write a lot)
As the world fades, do you hear them? With life slipping from your grasp, do you hear the giant mushrooms as they flirt and philosophize? Do you see the golden spores of their conversation and mating dance? Did it ever even occur to you to try and listen? You saw them, certainly, towering above you on slender stalks, stretching towards the sun with giant rounded cap. You saw the colors dotting their skin, with blues and purples and greens. You saw the golden spores falling out from their underside to be caught by the wind and fly about. But even with all the power you had, all the instruments to detect the tiniest particles and what they might mean, it never occurred to any of you to monitor the differences from one spore to another. Never occurred to see if they were just giant plants. Listen, then. I will tell you the story from their point of view. As we stand between the worlds, I give you one last choice. One last chance to avert what you created.
When you humans landed on the planet, the People (for so they called themselves) watched and marveled at these new creatures that ran around their stems. And I looked on from afar, and feared what humanity might do to the People I watched.
"They are animal, but unlike anything I have ever seen before. I watched them come out of a giant silver rock that fell from the sky. Could they be space-creatures?" mused one purple-topped Person, leaning over from the top of a hill to see the space-rock below.
There was a long silence after this comment, as the People pondered the question. Where could these new creatures have come from? It was bad manners to ask a question, soliciting an answer and a spore, but sometimes there was no other way to frame a thought. It made the likelihood of seeds from the comment lower, though, as the People would rarely seed with a question. Seeds are engendered when the comment is intelligent, encouraging growth in the minds of the People. Given the effort it took to make spores, the People never wanted to waste them.
"They seem intelligent. Look how they move their faces at each other. One will do that, and another will move in response. They are not like the other animals. Wherever they come from, they are not like the other creatures of this place," answered its blue-lidded neighbor.
More of the People examined that idea and found it good. Thoughts about humanity danced about on wind-tossed spores. A greater number of seeds were tossed out in one day than had ever happened before, in all the history of the People. Humanity gave them quite a lot to talk about. I have watched them since before time began, and I have never seen them speak so fervently.
"If they came here, they must have come for a reason. Perhaps they come for us."
That proclamation from the Red Philosopher Circle was met only with silence, spores falling unheeded to the ground. The Red Circle had always been a bit strange and self-centered, generation after generation breeding only with each other's weighty pronouncements. See them. They're a separate species now, not by genetics but by universal disgust: because no one else will talk to them.
Why are they called red when there's no red on them? That's the name they call themselves. Are all the groups from your world named logically? Besides, they're not important in themselves. They matter because you landed near them. You need to see the full scope of what the People are, good and bad. Are you beginning to understand them? Have they become real to you yet?
There's you among the other humans, in the second stage of colonization. You've decided that the planet is suitable and you're coming, with your houses and your farms and your terraformers. Watch the People shrink away from you. They do move, you know, though slowly. You never noticed that. But there you are, with your lovely wife and your little boy. Remember?
You want me to stop? You didn't. Neither can I.
Listen. Another of the People speaks. This one watches you and yours. "They bring their little ones with them, and make those strange caves to put them in. And every time they make a cluster of their caves, they push us farther away. How are they changing the soil? It makes us ill to live among them. This is strange and uncomfortable."
"I am here," floated a soft, wispy spore. "I survive, though they changed the ground. I watch. And I do not understand what they are doing or why. But I will watch, and I will report as I can."
Ah, you see where this one speaks from. You recognize it, don't you? Good. Watch it and remember. It too is a child. It too knows no better. It can barely even speak, and it is the only one of its kind close enough to learn about you. It is the only one that can live in your terraformed world.
And there is your child, sitting underneath it, talking to it in your language. He sits there and tells it of your people, your histories, his daydreams, whatever comes into his head. As children do, he sees the child of the People as a friend, and creates stories about it. And the spores of the child seeped into your son's mind. To a point, they could communicate. It created no children, but it was still life.
Why are you crying? Do you remember what you've done, then? It's not enough. Never enough. Not for what you've done.
The child of the People told the others of this one child, the one that could communicate with them. Many seeds were propagated from what the child of the People related. The People discussed what their child said of you until the air was golden with spores. Words were created to try to understand what you were and what it meant to them that you were there.
And you came upon those children talking to each other. Your son whispered words and motes of golden dust swirled around him. It was then that you started to suspect, then that you feared it was true. And instead of asking, instead of trying to find out if your son was communicating and with who, you hated it. Here there was life, here there was what you had given your life to understanding until you'd given up and agreed to be a colonist, and it spoke only to your son. How dare he? How dare that creature? Everything you'd worked for, everything you'd trained for, and your son stole it right out from under you. You feared that you'd broken your laws with the colony by settling on an inhabited planet. But far more than that, you were angry that they'd chosen your son to talk to and not you.
Your son told you gleefully about how he'd met a new friend in the mushroom in your yard. Your response was to confine him to his room and order that he never talk about it. You slapped your wife when she asked you what was wrong. You, who'd sworn to never hit anyone. Who had come to this planet to escape the violence you'd grown up with. You slapped your wife and told her to be silent. From the way you're shaking, you can see her face in your memory, can't you? That horrible look of shock and pain, and then the dullness as she nodded and turned away. You broke her in that one instant. Out of jealousy and fear, you destroyed everything that mattered to you.
You went out into your yard and chopped at that poor mushroom, that child of the People, with a kitchen knife because it was the sharpest thing you had. Golden spores swirled around you, but you batted them away. Your son screamed from his room. You yelled at him, over and over, "Shut up! Just shut up!" And you hacked that poor mushroom child down with a kitchen knife, because you thought if you could just get rid of this one mushroom, you could get rid of any proof that non-human life had chosen your son over you.
The People rose up against you for that. They had no word for murder or even violence before you came. An entire planet of philosopher-plants, and you taught them violence. Does this please you?
All they had were their spores, but they had entire generations of practice in learning how to control them. They sent them at you, as many as they could, with only one message. "Die."
Their aim was good. But now the People turn to the rest of the humans, and the colonists are oblivious. There is one who knows, one who could stop the incoming madness. And he sits in his room, tears streaming down his face in complete silence, obeying the last command his father ever gave him.
Now it's up to you. Your son won't talk. The last command from his father before he died, before you died, was to shut up. You're begging for mercy, but that's not something you can have. But I don't want the People to die. I have watched over them for a long time, and I wish to watch over them still. But I cannot do it. You can. So I give you have one chance. One, to end the war you started.
I give you one last thing you can say to your son. Choose wisely.
That is your choice, then? Whisper it to him. And hope it is enough.
Forums
Show Posts
I'm a long time RPer, but with a small child and no games local, it's been a while since I've been in a game. When Alatriel told me about this place, it sounded perfect!