It wasn’t long, a matter of minutes, before she caught a glimpse of the mammoth tree she’d come to visit.
The Lord of Titan.The station’s crowning gem.
Seeing one of these in person was an honor few ever encountered.And even fewer appreciated as deeply as they should.
To find one here, a place considered by many to be the armpit of the Consortium, was something of a mystery.The trees were notoriously finicky.Only growing on their home world.A little known planet on the edge of Tuann space that had proven too challenging for even their kind to settle.
Gus would very much have liked to meet the individual who got one of these beauties to root.
On a space station no less.
The things they must know.She could learn so much.
A pity that there wasn’t so much as a whisper as to their identity.Gus had checked.Even her special ability had been unable to shed light on who that person was.
It was actually a little surprising given the magnitude of their accomplishment.Humans had always struck her as attention whores, seeking glory and fame when quiet and obscurity were so much safer.
And significantly less work.
The tree’s scientific name wasDominus orbis terrarum.Lord of the world.So named for its large size and the fact that seeing one of these in person was said to be a near transcendent experience.
It was the largest species of tree on record and similar to a Banyan tree in its use of aerial roots that could grow into new trunks.Its canopy was complex with wide branching limbs that someone had seen fit to turn into a beehive of aerial walkways.Every so often visitors got lost while exploring those walkways and security had to be dispatched to retrieve them.When that happened, the tree closed down for a few days until memories faded and people became foolhardy again.
In addition to the Lord of Titan, a grove of trees had been planted in its immediate vicinity.A dozen species filled the area.Including an astonishing number of Tuann trees that Gus had slipped in from her own collection.
She’d worried they would fail to thrive so far from the cargo container and the rest of their kind, but so far, they appeared to be doing well.
The trees tugged at Gus’s senses, whispering greetings while imparting snippets of gossip as she passed under their canopies.Gus smiled, relaxing into the warmth of their attention.There was a desire to linger but she suppressed it, heading unerringly for the spine and her destination.
Laughter and loud voices trickled from above, drawing Gus’s attention briefly before she moved on.The sight of tourists visiting Titan’s lord too regular a sight to elicit immediate concern.
Soon after, Gus left the path, stepping carefully so as to avoid crushing any flowers.Minutes later, she stood at the spine’s edge, the massive interwoven trunk of the Lord of Titan stretching before her.Branches curled above her head.Each one thick enough that she could lay perpendicular on them and not have any part of her hanging over their edge.
From a distance, the tree had already been amazing, but this close, with hundreds of interwoven trunks to make up its core, it was a marvel.Standing before its imposing presence, Gus could see why humans of several ancient religions worshiped nature deities.
Ryan may have been the reason she was sent to Titan.But its Lord was why she stayed.
Ignoring the signs that warned against straying from marked paths, Gus mounted a low hanging branch and followed it up into the tree.Thankfully, she was an old hand at navigating the Lord of Titan or she’d be like those tourists.
Hopelessly lost.
The tree’s interior was a maze.The interwoven trunks that allowed it to expand indefinitely outward, or at least until it bumped into the spine’s edge, enabled pockets to form, creating a complex network of paths and chambers should someone choose to follow them.
And choose Gus did.
She wound through its trunk, ducking low in places where its growth obstructed her way, and climbing up slightly slippery inclines as she worked her way to the room waiting at the tree’s heart.
Her office.
Normally, Gus wouldn’t have chosen to work out of a tree.More because of a lack of imagination than any real objection.The office had been left to her by her predecessor.A person she’d never met.
Strictly speaking, she’d fallen into this position by accident.If she hadn’t found the room, she’d probably still be pretending to be a dock administrator.
The room changed things.
Sliding down the last root, Gus landed on a spongy surface where dirt and other matter had collected over the years to form a moss shrouded floor in a hollowed out cavern deep in the tree’s interior.
From exploration, she’d determined the cavern was located somewhere between decks ten and twelve.If she were to continue her descent, working her way through the tree, the roots would eventually turn back into towering branches.The Lord of Titan was probably one of the only trees in the universe to grow limbs from each end.
