This was where she belonged.Among the trees and plants, listening to their whispers as they shared everything that had happened in her absence.Admittedly, most of it was of no interest to anyone but them, but Gus listened with fascination.Enthralled with their easy, uncomplicated lives.
The flowers sang a melody that almost drowned out the chattering trees.
Underneath it all, the moss and lichen growing on the bark of those same trees hummed a lovely refrain.
Their peace became hers.The anxiety and fear that had risen after everything that happened fell away.Standing in the shadows cast by the trees’ canopies, it was easy to forget the burdens and troubles that lay outside.
Gus closed her eyes, tilting her face to the ceiling as if a sun waited up there.Her mind emptied.Her breathing slowed.Then stopped.
Air became unnecessary.Everything she needed was absorbed through her skin.
Oxygen.Nutrients.
If she allowed it, she could remain like this for weeks.Flowers and leaves would gradually sprout from her hair and body.The light brown of her complexion would take on a greenish-orange tinge.
Gus had never been brave enough to see what lay at the end of that metamorphosis.Whether she would join her trees, bushes and flowers as one of them or if she’d become something else entirely.
The first time she’d entered this state, a month had slipped by before she noticed.
When she finally returned to life, it was to find her employer had reported her missing and her inbox filled by increasingly terse messages from Ryan.The last of which had threatened a personal visit should she not report in immediately.
She’d learned to be careful after that.Ryan’s wrath wasn’t to be taken lightly.
As punishment, he’d sent her on several back-to-back missions that had kept her busy for months.It was nearly a year before she saw her sanctuary again.
There was also the fear lurking at the back of her mind that if she ever slipped too deep into this state that she might not come back.
Gus didn’t know if her ability to commune on an unheard of level with the organisms around her was a product of her lineage or if it was something the Tsavitee had added during her time at the camps.There was no one she could ask since she didn’t remember where she came from.
Careful observation of the Tuann hadn’t clarified matters either.
If there were others like her, she hadn’t been able to find them.
A discordant note disturbed the harmony.The trees and flowers picked it up, unease sliding through their previous happiness.
Gus hunted for the source of that concern, questing down well-traveled neural networks.Humans, and likely Tuann as well, didn’t understand how interconnected biomes were.In her experience, forests possessed both the singular consciousness of individual organisms and the shared one of the many.They shared information and experiences on a much more sophisticated level than most realized.
Titan wasn’t an actual forest, but its many gardens and green areas functioned much like one, passing information the same way.
The trees brought her news of strangers.
Like Gus but different.
Disturbed, Gus pulled herself out of their song.Her extremities tingled unpleasantly, like a limb that had fallen asleep, as sensation returned.
Gus barely noticed as a troubled frown took over her face.
The forest may not have known what those strangers were, but she did.
There were Tuann on Titan.More than just the two she had stashed in her greenhouse container.
“Why are they here?”Gus mumbled.
For that matter, who were they?House Roake?Had Kira already found her way here?
If that was the case, she could offload Caius and Anandra before she’d even finished her chai.
If it wasn’t Kira, she had bigger problems.
