Chapter XXXV – The Jungle Itself

  The rain came down steadily.

  It was a strange sound, mused Mu. Oddly nostalgic. In the big buildings of Shangxia’s cities, you could see the rain if you looked outside, but you couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t smell it. Didn’t experience it.

  On Yarkan, it didn’t rain at all.

  But this was different.

  It wasn’t just raining – a great deluge descended from the grey heavens above. It was so thick that visibility was reduced to maybe a dozen metres. Petrichor hung thick on the air – air which itself felt damp. Everything felt damp on Luanyuan.

  Glancing around the bar she sat in, she could see the mould blooming without restraint across the ceiling. In one corner of the room a bucket had been placed beneath a spot where the ceiling was sagging and a steady drip of water precipitated downwards.

  It was dark inside the bar. The generator was out, according to the gruff, one-armed publican. He didn’t know when they’d have it back up and running. In the meantime, he’d furnished them with rapidly warming beers and vanished into some backroom.

  The climate control inside had failed along with everything else, so all the windows and doors were wide open, giving the heavy rain an immediacy it might otherwise lack. It did little to moderate the suffocating humidity. Mu glanced at her tablet. It told her the current temperature in the bar was thirty-four degrees with humidity of ninety-seven percent. It was unpleasant, to say the least – an entirely more oppressive heat than anything she had encountered under the midday sun of Yarkan’s deserts.

  The dark of the bar’s interior gave the verdant foliage outside a particular intensity, even in sunlight mediated by the low, thick clouds overhead. She had noticed Nova – who more typically had her eyes fixed on a screen – had her elbow on the bar, her chin resting in her hand. Her eyes were fixedly gazing out the window where the rain drops bounced off the broad frond of some rainforest plant. After noticing Nova staring at it, Mu herself had become fixated for a time, her entire Cosmos shrinking to the repetitive strikes of water against the smooth, verdant surface of the frond. At length, she stirred herself from her reverie.

  Though Tavian, Kal, and Nova were lined up alongside her at the bar, none of them were talking. Ostara and Harry had left to carry out some early reconnaissance of Heye, the only city (barely) on Luanyuan, and get some ideas about how they might proceed from here. The rest of them had little appetite for such things, having endured a profoundly uncomfortable journey, squeezed into freight containers.

  Mu, for her part, was reading up on Luanyuan. She’d done some of this before they reached the planet, but now that they were here, among the rain and heat, her appreciation of what she was reading was far greater.

  Luanyuan was a large terrestrial world. This was immediately noticeable. If the heat and humidity were not enough to make one feel sluggish, its unusually high gravity did the rest. The result was almost claustrophobic, even in the open air, like one was constantly being held down. Most worlds Mu had been to – and indeed most settled worlds in the Cosmos – tended to sit in a fairly narrow range of surface gravities, such that differences were usually not especially noticeable. Humans favoured settlement on worlds with conditions they were evolutionarily suited for, and with trillions of worlds in this galaxy alone, there was plenty of scope for picking and choosing. Mu had been shocked to learn once that the usual figure given for the size of the Aixingo Empire – “over forty million worlds” – was in many ways an extreme understatement. This was forty million highly developed worlds, but few of the star systems of the Empire had any less than a half dozen planets. Adding in non-terraformed planets, moons, major space stations, asteroid colonies, dwarf planets and other locales besides, the figure could easily exceed a billion. Yuntu-9, for example, with over a million inhabitants, was not typically counted as a “world”. Many others, though, the Empire simply did not bother to develop – often for the simple fact that they were too big or too small – their gravity too aberrant. A small locale like Yuntu-9 could get by on artificial gravity manipulation, but that was a hassle to roll out on a planetary scale.

  Mu was disturbed from her reverie, when Tavian spoke up.

  “Wotcha readin’, Princess?” he asked.

  She regarded him coolly. “Just about Luanyuan.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Apparently it’s wet,” she said.

  Tavian glanced outside, then back to her. “How reliable’s your source on that?”

  “Funny.”

  “I like to think I am. What else?”

  “The whole planet has a population of three hundred thousand. There are city blocks on Aixingo with more people than that.”

  “That include the convicts?” asked Tavian.

  “Supposedly, although there’s not much info on the penal colonies. Actually, it’s kinda weird – there isn’t much info on the entire planet until about six years ago.”

  Tavian seemed unsurprised. “Wouldn’t expect the Aixingo Empire to advertise the finer points of its penal system.”

  Mu shook her head. “I think I’ve undersold it. There is literally nothing on Luanyuan before six years ago other than that it existed before then. No details. Just the occasional off-hand reference to the name in star charts and the odd official document.”

  Nova was stirred from her mesmerised state. “Hey, I noticed that too when I was looking for exploits in the security systems. It’s crazy. Someone clearly went to immense effort to scrub all records.”

  “So, what was here before then?” asked Tavian.

  Mu and Nova both shrugged.

  “Maybe the locals can tell us,” said Tavian. “The proprietor seemed like a friendly bloke.”

  “Really lit up the place with his charm,” remarked Mu.

  “I dunno, he gave it a kinda frontier vibe,” said Nova.

  Kal turned their way, having hitherto remained silent. “If you’re talking to the publican, fetch me another beer.”

  Nova picked up hers – barely touched – and looked at it with distaste. “You can have mine if you want. Dunno what all the fuss is about.”

  She passed it Kal’s way. He took it wordlessly, taking a big swig.

  Mu took a sip from her own. It was much warmer than she would have liked, but somehow it was still enjoyable. She guessed contorting one’s self into a shipping container for hours on end had the flow on effect of enhancing one’s appreciation for the simpler pleasures.

  “Anyway,” said Kal, wiping away foam from his upper lip, “What else do we know? Ostara and I certainly didn’t find much. We know there’s no info till six years ago. Hot as Enyallios’ arsehole. Prison world. Warm beer. Missed anything?”

  “Do stars have arseholes?” murmured Nova.

  “That about covers it,” said Tavian. “Although I might add wet as--- well Kal seems to have a talent here? What is it wet as, Kal?”

  “No,” said Mu, firmly, dreading what might otherwise be said.

  “Guess they would be pretty hot if they did…” Nova muttered in the background, a distracted expression on her face.

  “It’s been terraformed, correct?” said Kal.

  “Yes, that’s what the LPDC was first contracted for,” said Mu.

  “Luanyuan Planetary Development Corporation, for those not down with the cool kids’ lingo,” added Tavian.

  Mu ignored him. “The process completed six years ago. The first convicts arrived five years ago. Before that…?” She raised her eyebrows and two upturned palms.

  Then something else from her reading came back to her.

  “And it almost seems like terraforming never halted.”

  Tavian gave her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean an almanac from 392 stated that atmospheric O2 content was twenty-four percent,” said Mu.

  “Okay,” said Tavian.

  “And the 397 edition places it at twenty-eight percent. And my own tablet is reading twenty-nine point two.”

  “The air does feel very… airy here,” said Nova.

  “Do you know what the stabilisation level is for a terraformed planet?” asked Mu.

  The others indicated they didn’t.

  “Twenty-one. And usually it takes decades – with modern techniques – or centuries to millennia with older techniques – to bring a planet up to that level. Aside from what the Clanships do, but no one really understands that tech these days. Anyway, Luanyuan’s atmosphere is getting more oxygenated by more than a percentage point a year – since terraforming officially ended.”

  “Isn’t more oxygen good?” asked Tavian. “I always assumed most of the atmosphere was oxygen.”

  “It’s good to a point,” said Mu, then registered the second part of what he’d said. “And no, most habitable worlds have atmospheres that are mostly nitrogen.”

  “I see,” said Tavian. “So, what happens when there’s too much oxygen?”

  “Oxygen toxicity is a risk with prolonged exposure, once levels exceed thirty percent,” said Mu. “It becomes basically certain if the atmosphere becomes majority oxygen. And after only a few hours. The lungs will be severely damaged.”

  “Damn,” said Tavian, shaking his head, “And I always thought oxygen was one of the good guys.”

  “The other thing, is carbon dioxide is plummeting. The same 392 almanac gives CO2 at 185 parts per million. Now it’s down to 170.”

  “Don’t plants need CO2?” asked Nova.

  “They do,” said Mu.

  “Next time we see Ostara, you can tell her I was listening to her.”

  “I do see Nova’s point, though,” said Tavian. “If plants need CO2, and CO2 is plummeting…. Why are there so many plants on Luanyuan? Like… it’s mostly plants.”

  Mu took a deep breath, then a sip of her beer. “Keep in mind here, I’m no scientist,” she prefaced. “But… I do have a theory. Luanyuan was probably borderline habitable to begin with. Most terraforming candidates have a decently thick atmosphere to start with. With planets that have high CO2 atmospheres, plants and algae are genetically modified to lower respiration and increase photosynthesis.”

  “Respiration?” asked Nova.

  “All living things breathe… in a way. That means taking in O2 and putting out CO2,” said Mu. “But plants also use the energy in sunlight to photosynthesise, which converts CO2 into O2. Provided this primary production exceeds respirated CO2 – as it usually will do with most plants and algae… or cyanobacteria… then there will be a net increase in O2.”

  “Makes sense,” said Nova.

  “I think I’m following,” said Tavian.

  “Anyway, my read on what’s happened here on Luanyuan is that whatever genetically modified plant species were used in the terraforming process have overshot. The result is increasing O2 and declining CO2.”

  “So, the plants will kill themselves?” asked Tavian.

  Mu took another sip of her beer. It was now at room temperature. And room temperature here was over thirty degrees. Grimacing she continued. “That would normally be the outcome,” she said. “Except… according to what I’ve been able to find, the plants on Luanyuan, have been designed for extremely rapid adaptive mutation. This is pretty standard in terraforming – the plants are after all intended to continually alter the planet’s environment and you don’t want them killing themselves off when they’re successful. Thing is, on Luanyuan, they seem to have adapted to the diminishing CO2 content by becoming increasingly heterotrophic.”

  “In normal language, please?” said Tavian.

  “They’ve started eating other lifeforms to get their carbon, instead of just using atmospheric CO2.”

  Nova cleared her throat. “Would, um… would these other lifeforms include… just for example… people?”

  Mu would never admit it, but she was rather enjoying having the rapt attention of her crewmates. She took a theatrical swig of warm beer. “Yes… from what I’ve read… the plants eat people.”

  Nova whirled to look at the frond she’d previously been staring at. “You’ve betrayed me!” she declared.

  “Not all the plants,” said Mu. “But it seems like a large number have made this little adaptive evolutionary leap.”

  “Well, I guess that explains why Captain Kang and others seem to think this place was so dangerous,” said Nova.

  “I don’t think anyone should be going for strolls through the jungle,” remarked Tavian.

  “I should think not,” agreed Mu.

  At that point further discussion on the matter was cut short, Ostara and Harry reappearing at the entrance to the bar.

  “Done with sightseeing?” asked Tavian.

  Mu noticed both of them were sopping wet. Ostara looked quite unlike her ordinary self. Gone was her customary flowing white dress. In its place she wore a sleeveless top and some long pants and boots that appeared not unlike Nova’s standard ensemble. Her typically wavy hair lacked its usual volume, sopping wet as it was.

  For his part, Harry had opted for a loose-fitting, short-sleeved cotton shirt and pants. The loafers he was wearing were now flecked with mud, and the air of easy-going refinement he typically affected was somewhat marred by this and the fact he was quite drenched, his carefully styled fringe now simply plastered to his forehead.

  Kang had advised Mu and Ostara specifically to adopt more practical attire. Thus, Mu was now herself dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of ankle-high boots. The outfit was finished with a cap. It was a long way from what she was used to.

  By contrast, Nova, Kal, and Tavian had stuck to their usual clothing choices, which tended to be more practical for the environment of Luanyuan and the abundant rain and mud it produced.

  “We’ve got some useful info,” said Harry.

  Upon hearing new entrants to the bar, the publican had re-emerged. He regarded Harry and Ostara with all the warmth he had directed at the others.

  “Waddaya want?” he asked.

  Harry was now standing beside Mu and had, without a word, borrowed the sleeve of her t-shirt to wipe the lenses of his glasses. He looked contemplative, then said, “I’m feeling something sweet and fruity… maybe some coconut, but also a dash of citrus to balance—”

  “I think it’s warm beer or warm beer,” said Nova.

  “Hrm…” said Harry, “Then I guess I will have a warm beer.”

  Ostara beamed at the publican as he turned her way, “I’m sure whatever you have to offer will be delightful.”

  Their host grunted and soon poured out two excessively foamy beers, handing them over the counter. Mu pre-empted the next part of the exchange, sliding some crumpled notes across the bar.

  “This is right, yes?” she asked. The publican looked their way, grunted once more, took the money, and disappeared from view once more.

  Ostara looked Mu’s way, raising an eyebrow.

  “Captain Kang said we’d need physical currency on Luanyuan,” said Mu, answering the unspoken question. “Fortunately, she had some to offer, so I traded her.”

  “Physical currency, huh?” said Harry, grimacing as he took a sip of his beer, before wiping away foam from his upper lip.

  “What’d you two find out?” asked Nova.

  “There aren’t many convict settlements,” said Ostara. “And the majority sit along the banks of the Cang Teng River.”

  “That’s the river Heye’s on, too, right?” asked Mu.

  “The very same,” confirmed Ostara. “Most of the planet is deserted. Almost all inhabitants live close to the Cang Teng. There are no roads and few viable landing sites outside Heye, so the river is the only way to get between settlements.”

  “Sounds like we’re gonna take a trip on the river then,” said Tavian.

  “Any luck on securing transportation?” asked Kal.

  “Apparently the official line is that only boats authorised by the LPDC can visit the penal settlements, but in practice plenty of merchants visit and trade with the convicts and the guards,” said Harry.

  “And?” pressed Kal.

  “And yes, we’ve found someone who will take us up river,” said Harry.

  “Any idea where Toghrul might be?” asked Tavian.

  Ostara shook her head, “Not at this stage, so we will have to make a number of stops along the way.”

  “What stops prisoners escaping with the merchants?” asked Nova.

  Harry shrugged, “I wondered the same thing, but I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

  “That’s a pretty key question Nova asks,” said Kal, “If we intend to get Toghrul out, we’re gonna have to work out what stops others from doing that and get around it.”

  “We can find out more once we’re underway,” said Ostara. “At any rate, the plan – such as it is – is for us to masquerade as merchants travelling up river. At each stop, we’ll try and establish if Toghrul is there. By the time we find him, we should have a better idea about what the obstacles will be to getting him out.”

  “The usual amount of winging it, then?” said Tavian.

  “Seems like it,” agreed Harry.

  “I don’t like going in so blind,” said Kal.

  “I am pretty curious about why they’ve gone to such lengths to hide info about this place,” said Nova.

  “I’m sure we’ll find out,” said Mu.

  “Do you sense anything about this plan, Mu?” asked Ostara.

  Mu probed the future course that ran through this plan. As she probed along it, she felt something. It was the concept of success… but something else came after that. Something dark.

  “We’ll find Toghrul,” she declared, then considered the rest. “But the danger I sensed about Luanyuan… we’ll encounter that too.”

  “Something to look forward to then,” said Tavian.

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure we can deal with it,” said Nova.

  “Nova’s got the spirit,” said Harry.

  As they spoke, Mu probed that future again. She reached that darkness again. The others were fairly jovial now, all things considered, but she dreaded what was to come. Whatever it was she was sensing, the very notion of it gave her profound anxiety.

  I won’t press the point, she thought, They don’t need to share this feeling.

  The rain had eased somewhat – though not ceased – by the time the crew of the Amrita boarded Weimin’s boat. The vessel had a long and narrow design and a shallow draught. It had a decidedly hodgepodge appearance, bearing all the hallmarks of having been continuously altered and added to by Weimin over the course of its presumably lengthy life. Most of it was covered by a simple canvas top with clear blinds that could be pulled down as necessary to shield the occupants of its deck from the rain. Only in the rear quarter of its length were there any built-in areas – these including Weimin’s own quarters – which he shared with his two crewmates – and the vessel’s storage area, where the various goods Weimin traded were stowed. The Amrita crew themselves were left with the long, more exposed areas. These they shared with two other passengers headed upriver for undisclosed reasons. Ostara had precured some roll-up mattresses and basic bedding for them, but they were not travelling in the lap of luxury.

  That was fine by Tavian, who had developed the capacity to sleep just about anywhere in his years of itinerant wandering. He noticed Mu and Harry seemed rather more perturbed by the set-up, a situation from which he derived a mildly amused sense of superiority. There was some question over whether they would even have to spend the night on the boat, given that the first of the convict settlements they would visit was less than a day’s journey upriver from Heye. However, based on Weimin’s comments, it seemed unlikely it would be that simple: Heishui Zhen, the first settlement they would reach was a mixed community where free settlers lived alongside those convicts with milder sentences or who were nearing the end of their sentence. From what little they’d gleaned of how things operated on Luanyuan, it seemed likely that a high level political prisoner like Toghrul would be banished to one of the smaller, more remote colonies.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  For the time being, Tavian was content to sit and play his mandolin, gazing out across the wide expanse of the Cang Teng, its waters a great brown expanse, stretching away to a distant, jungle-clad shore. The clouds hung low overhead, whisps of them kissing the jungle canopy. Looking back the way they had come, Tavian could see the ramshackle cluster of buildings comprising the planetary capital recede as they slipped away from Heye’s docks. The rain beat a steady rhythm on the canopy above and the air was laden with humidity.

  It didn’t take them long to leave Heye itself behind, and soon the passing near shore was entangled in thick jungle, the trees each striving to reach for the sunlight, their leaves fusing into a thick canopy. Below everything was tangled in dense masses of vines and undergrowth spilling over the roots and buttresses of the mighty jungle giants. Beyond the tree line – where smaller trees hung to the water, the swift river currents parting around these low branches or loops of vine – everything rapidly became obscured in darkness.

  Tavian had been to rainforests before, and he was struck by an unusual feature of Luanyuan: while there was the occasional birdcall and some insect sounds to be heard, Luanyuan’s jungles seemed far quieter than others he had visited. For the most part the only real sounds came from his mandolin and the raindrops striking the boat’s roof. It gave the place an almost eerie quality, though Tavian found it atmospheric, channelling it all into the music he played. Certainly, whether it was the potent gravity, the thick humidity, or the low clouds, there was an all-encompassing feeling about Luanyuan. Though they had just reached the planet from the expanses of space, it had a certain vibe about it – like all the Cosmos was just an expanse of cloud and rain and tangled vines. He was also struck by how indolent everyone had been since they reached the planet – no wonder Luanyuan was a prison world, everything about it seemed to conspire to keep a person from seizing initiative and agency. Both physically and psychologically, this world seemed confining.

  And what of these carnivorous plants that Mu had spoken of?

  The jungle itself – that had been Kang’s description of the dangers of Luanyuan. This certainly made sense, put in the context of Mu’s theorising. It further added to the innate oppression exuded by the world – not only did it force indolence on its victims, but the lush greenery that covered everything was itself hungering for flesh.

  Although how innate? From the rest of what Mu had said, it seemed likely Luanyuan had not long been this way. These flesh-hungry forests were perhaps the unintended consequence of some company’s hubris, seeking to bend the nature and environment of an entire world to the service of humanity and its drive for order.

  Yet as cruel and perverse as all this seemed, it also imbued Tavian with a sense of inspiration. There was a vividness to life on such a world, a realness to it – something wildly and radically at odds with the experience of places like Yuntu-9 or even Shangxia. Value judgements aside, this was a place that to him demanded artistic interpretation, that yearned to have songs and poems written about it. He wondered whether the convicts themselves had already embarked on this particular project. It was likely, he thought. Adversity was oft the mother of human creativity. Sorrow, pain, anger – these feelings were as likely to inspire music as joy or love.

  He strummed his mandolin, slowly building the rudimentary foundations of his musical notions of this world. His was an iterative process, the melodies, the music emerging gradually from the formless mass of inspiration. His song of Luanyuan would as much reveal itself to him, as it would be written by him.

  He continued to play, the rain continued to fall, and the boat slid through the wide river, taking them into the deep wilds of Luanyuan. The hours passed by, but the view beyond changed little, each stretch of forested shore and river utterly undifferentiated from that which proceeded it. The crew talked little amongst themselves. Ostara had gone to converse with Weimin, presumably learning more about what they might expect within the convict settlements. The others just sat about, staring at a device, or simply gazing at the passing scenery, immersed deep in thought.

  At length, Ostara and Weimin emerged. Weimin informed them that they would reach Heishui Zhen in about half an hour. He intended to remain there the night, before setting off tomorrow to visit the smaller, more remote settlements farther upriver.

  For Tavian, at least, the last half hour seemed to pass by quickly. Heishui Zhen didn’t appear like much from the vantage point of its docks. The settlement was slightly raised up from the level of the river, and a muddy path zig-zagged up the embankment to reach it. A few other boats sat moored near the collection of ageing wooden jetties that jutted out into the river. Weimin and his crewmates guided them in and threw a loop of rope to fasten them. Tavian was struck by how tenuous human existence on Luanyuan was – the fabulous technology that proliferated across the Cosmos was little to be seen here. Things here oft appeared to be done in much the same way they had surely been done by humans for tens of thousands of years. Of course, given the failures of technology they’d already seen in Heye, perhaps the people of Luanyuan had adopted a preference for those simple tools that could be relied upon.

  Once they were securely moored, Weimin led the way off the boat. The others followed him. Once they were all on the jetty, they headed toward the town, such as it was. Weimin stayed around with his two crewmembers to begin unloading their goods. The other two passengers, who hadn’t said a word so far on the journey, remained behind on the boat.

  Once they were standing on the muddy shore, Tavian spoke up: “So, what’s the plan now? I thought we were pretending to be with Weimin’s crew.”

  “It doesn’t much matter here,” said Ostara. “Heishui Zhen is not a closed settlement. Even though there are convicts here, visitors are permitted to come and go as they please. We’ll have to exercise more caution tomorrow, but today we shouldn’t have any problems.”

  “I see,” said Tavian. “In that case, should we head for the nearest pub and ask the locals what the go is? How big’s this place? Will people know all the convicts here?”

  “There’s a few thousand people living here, I believe,” said Ostara. “Perhaps our best bet is to split up and ask around. Try to keep your questions indirect – I doubt there is a great deal of surveillance taking place here, but we would still do best not to arouse undue suspicion. If we ask about new convicts, we can portray it as an interest in those who might still be in need of various basic items that we could trade for.”

  “What exactly do the convicts have to trade with?” asked Nova.

  “Those here at Heishui Zhen aren’t actually prevented from earning an income,” said Ostara, “They just can’t leave Luanyuan. As I understand it, at some of the more remote settlements, some of the guards are actually themselves convicts with lighter sentences or whose behaviour has been good.”

  “I kinda imagined them all just working in chain gangs,” said Nova.

  “I think it’s a little more complex than that,” remarked Mu.

  “Guess so,” said Nova.

  After a little further discussion, they split up. Tavian ended up with Nova. After trudging up the muddy path, they got their first view of the town. Much like Heye it consisted of a jumble of low buildings separated by muddy streets. Some of these were prefab shelters, while others had clearly been cobbled together from locally available materials. The jungle looked like it was besieging the place, tendrils of greenery snaking into the town, the branches of the trees at its edge reaching out like clawed hands towards the buildings. The settlement stretched away from where they stood for quite some distance, its full extent not wholly clear from this limited vantage point.

  They continued on, the ground squelching beneath their feet. Various passers-by regarded them warily as they went, often staring openly. Never once were they greeted.

  The rain had further eased at this point, now more akin to a light mist than identifiable droplets. The clouds, however, had drawn closer to the surface, so much so, that at points whisps of cloud wafted along the streets. At times everything was whited out, then would reappear as the tendril of cloud continued along its course. The humidity was unrelenting, and now that he was moving again, Tavian could feel a steady rivulet of sweat pouring down his back and soaking his clothes.

  “Looks like an even more rundown version of the last place,” observed Nova, looking about them as they walked.

  “It has a certain vibe,” said Tavian.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” said Nova. “It definitely feels like we’re on the frontier.”

  A woman walking past glared at them as they spoke.

  “Friendly people, too,” said Nova, brightly.

  “I’ve seldom felt as welcome on a new world,” replied Tavian.

  “I can’t imagine actually living here,” said Nova. “Like, I totally get what you’re saying about it being vibey, but imagine this being your whole existence.”

  “Wouldn’t be my first choice for a permanent residence,” said Tavian.

  “Has anywhere ever been your choice for a permanent residence?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Guess not. Left Cáerthand when I was a teenager and I don’t think I’ve spent a full year anywhere since.”

  “I mean, it obviously hasn’t been as long for me, but basically same.”

  “I don’t think I actually know where you come from,” said Tavian.

  “Ferris is the name of the place,” said Nova. “To be honest, I didn’t hate it… but life wasn’t exactly going anywhere, not if I’d stayed.”

  “You don’t need to justify wanting to move about to me,” said Tavian.

  “Yeah, guess I don’t. Do you ever get homesick?”

  “Not really… no.”

  “I kinda do occasionally… not often, but sometimes,” said Nova. “If nothing else, Ferris was a good place for someone like me to grow up. It once housed the first Cosmos’ Fair. Apparently, back in the day, Lysander wanted to make it the model society or whatever. That didn’t really happen, but there is heaps of fancy old tech lying around everywhere which could be scavenged and salvaged. It wasn’t a boring place.”

  “Sounds pretty perfect for someone like you,” said Tavian.

  “Yeah… but I still couldn’t help wondering what else was out there. I never could have imagined anywhere like this,” said Nova. “I dunno if there were jungles anywhere on Ferris, but if there were, I never saw them. And as much as people always said Ferris had gone backwards since the Lysander days, it sure wasn’t anything like this. We had all the normal tech, it’s just a lot of it was repaired and cobbled together by locals. But in a way, that gave the machines on Ferris a more… I dunno… it gave them more character.”

  “I can see that,” said Tavian.

  “So, what was… Cartand… or whatever… like?”

  “It rained a lot,” said Tavian.

  “Guess you feel right at home here, then.”

  “It wasn’t hot like this place. In winter the rain sometimes even turned to snow, though more often we’d get sleet. One way or another, it was cloudy most of the time. Not many people. A few bigger cities, but where I lived was a small island off the coast of a slightly bigger island, way up in the north. No one ever visited, and for the most part, no one ever left. People didn’t have much to do there. Most of the time they just got drunk, played music, fought each other, made up in the morning, started the cycle anew.”

  “Sounds like an uplifting place,” said Nova.

  “It had its positives. There were old abbeys and monasteries scattered around the island. As a kid I would go explore those by myself. I wrote little poems and songs about the places I’d find. The cliffs by the sea were full of caves – I’d explore those too.”

  “Well, they weren’t monasteries or abbeys or whatever on Ferris, but the old exhibition halls and whatever they were, left over from the Cosmos’ Fair, kinda had the vibe of ancient ruins. I guess they were ancient – the Fair was about six hundred years ago or something. Anyway, I’d go exploring those as a kid. I’d find all sorts of old machines and machine parts. Sometimes me and my friends would find something particularly good. If another gang stumbled across the same thing, sometimes we’d all have to fight for our find. It was rough at times, but it was all I knew, and it wasn’t the worst. I learnt a lot from all that old junk.”

  Tavian smiled. “I guess we’ve had surprisingly similar lives.”

  Nova seemed pleased by this, “Guess we have.”

  She paused a moment, then continued speaking. “So, if you don’t stay anywhere long term, what about the Amrita? You gonna stay with us, or go off to keep doing your own thing at some point?”

  Tavian simply shrugged. “I’ve no plans to leave for now. I still get to go from world to world like I used to, but it’s nice to have some sort of place to come back to. I’m growing quite fond of my room now.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” said Nova. “How ‘bout the crew?”

  “They’re alright. The mechanic’s a bit of a pain in the arse, though,” he said with a laugh.

  “Nah, I know you think she’s adorable,” rebutted Nova, with a slightly nervous laugh.

  Tavian was about to say more on this matter, when something caught his eye. “I reckon that’s gotta be a pub,” he said, pointing to a building up ahead.”

  Nova seemed distracted and took a moment to refocus, finally turning the direction he was pointing. “Oh, er, yeah, probably,” she said. “I better not have to drink warm beer again. Or any beer, for that matter.”

  “I ain’t gonna force you,” said Tavian. “Let’s go find out what the locals have to say.”

  As it turned out the establishment was slightly larger and livelier than that which they had visited in Heye. Still, as they entered, a number of eyes tracked their movements. Tavian didn’t pay them much heed, making directly for the bar.

  After they’d ordered their drinks – a beer for Tavian, a soft drink for Nova – they took a seat and took in their surrounds.

  “What now?” asked Nova. “We just walk up and start chatting to someone?”

  Tavian glanced about. Despite their entrance having attracted some attention, no one was now paying them the slightest heed, having long since returned to their individual conversations. There didn’t seem to be much mixing going on, either; each group simply stuck to their own. Approaching anyone out of the blue would definitely draw attention.

  “I think the bartender might be our best bet,” said Tavian. “We’ll sit up there when we get the next round.”

  “Alright,” said Nova. “You reckon any of these guys are convicts?”

  “Dunno. Not sure if the convicts get to sit around in pubs drinking.”

  “Well, I didn’t think so before, but now I don’t know what to expect,” said Nova.

  “What I’m gathering is that not all convicts are equal,” said Tavian. “Sadly, for our guy Toghrul, I suspect he’s in a lower tier. I don’t reckon we’ll find him here.”

  “Maybe since they had a truce on Yarkan his sentence might be made lighter,” said Nova.

  “Maybe,” said Tavian, “But I think his fate and events on Yarkan parted ways the moment he took flight.”

  “Guess so,” said Nova, then changed the subject, “What do you reckon’s got Mu so worried?”

  “Who knows,” said Tavian. “But I’ve known her long enough now to trust her foresight. Something bad awaits us here.”

  “I’ll be really pissed off if anyone gets eaten by a plant.”

  “I think it’s probably not that.”

  “Better not be. It’d be a sucky way to go.”

  “No doubt,” said Tavian. As he was speaking, he continued to look out across the patrons of the bar. No obvious opportunities were presenting themselves to approach anyone. He turned back to Nova, downing the last of his drink.

  “Need another drink?”

  She looked at her glass. “No, I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said. He picked up her glass and poured its contents out the window adjacent the table they were sitting at.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed.

  “C’mon,” he said, “Let’s go back up to the bar.”

  She frowned at him, hands on hips. “Wasn’t your drink being finished enough of a reason to go up?”

  He shrugged and headed towards the bar. She scurried after him. Upon reaching the bar they had to wait a few moments before being served. Eventually they were served and placed their orders. The woman behind the bar returned a moment later with their drinks. After Tavian paid, she went to walk away, but Tavian spoke up.

  “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “Sure, but make it quick, I have other customers.”

  Both Tavian and Nova looked up and down the bar. No one else was waiting to be served.

  “Know anything about recent arrivals? Convicts, specifically.”

  “Sure, I’ll get my ledger out,” she said.

  “Really? You have one of those?” exclaimed Nova.

  “I think she’s being sarcastic,” said Tavian.

  “Oh. That makes sense. I see that now.”

  “Who you lookin’ for?”

  “Man named Toghrul from a planet called Yarkan.”

  “Never heard of either,” said the woman. “What he get done for?”

  “Murder,” said Tavian.

  “He was innocent,” added Nova.

  “That’s what they all say,” said the woman.

  “Do they though?” asked Tavian.

  “A lot of ‘em, yeah.”

  “Right then. Well, I guess we’ll let you get back to your other customers then,” said Tavian.

  “I can tell you one thing,” said the woman.

  “Oh?”

  “If you really think he’s innocent, I take it you reckon he got framed?”

  “That’s right,” said Nova.

  “I’m guessing that means someone powerful wanted him gone,” said the woman.

  “You’re good at this,” said Tavian.

  “Well, in that case you won’t find him round here. The one’s that someone’s got a grudge against get sent to the fringes. Upriver.”

  Tavian looked Nova’s way. “What’d I say?”

  “Thing is,” said the bartender, “Upriver? The settlements are smaller. Fifty, sixty… hundred tops. Not many new arrivals. You might need to make a few stops. But you find the one where your guy’s at, they’ll know him. Won’t need no ledger.”

  “Good to know,” said Tavian. “Thank you.”

  “Pleasure,” said the woman, and moved away.

  Tavian pivoted on his barstool to scan the room once more. Nothing new of interest.

  “Does any of that help us?” asked Nova.

  “I guess it confirms what we suspected,” said Tavian.

  “Yeah, that’s how I figured it.”

  Further conversation was cut short when a clang and a scream cut through the air. Tavian and Nova’s heads shot around, as did those of just about everyone else in the bar. A balding man with a long beard was standing up, a stool lying on its side behind him. There was a wild look in his eyes, which turned one way, then another.

  “They’re closing in,” he said. “They got Meng. We’re next. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  Others were now surrounding him, trying to talk to him, but he wasn’t hearing anything they were saying. Indeed, he was actively fighting against them, thrashing about. One of those around him copped a hard elbow to the jaw.

  Tavian had seen this before. He remembered seeing it on Ilion, a planet of the Eleftherian League. There the one yelling and thrashing about, wild-eyed, and fearful, had been a soldier, recently returned from the frontlines of the war against Xerxes.

  Tavian unslung his instrument case and pulled out his mandolin. On Ilion a priestess had been present. As the man had thrashed about, she had taken a lyre and plucked at its strings, gently singing a hymn to Letheion. Tavian did his best to recall that hymn as he began to pluck at the strings of his mandolin. He sung gently, reaching as he did so for the strands of the Starflow. Should he reach to Letheion? This man was unlikely to even know that Star’s name. Yet it was to Letheion the hymn had been directed, so it was to Letheion Tavian now reached. Each small strand of the Starflow joined to a star, combining with many others, like the many channels of a river’s delta. Tracing them back he eventually reached the great river, the Filaments that connected the Awakened Stars, spanning the Cosmos. He implored Great Letheion for a little of Its mystic rest, the divine calm.

  The answer came, wafting through his mind and his soul like a gathering mist in shades of pink and purple and the gentlest of blues. As he played, he wandered through the towering pillars of nebulae and the gleaming spirals of galaxies, while Letheion’s eye gazed upon him, from beyond the realm of sleep, of dreams, even death.

  He strummed his final note.

  The man sat once more, his chest rising and falling with his rapid breaths, his eyes still wild. Yet he no longer thrashed madly about. Others around him released their grip upon him, cautiously, staying close by, watching him intently. Yet he remained seated, and mostly still.

  Tavian rose from the barstool, still carrying his mandolin. Many sets of eyes followed his movements as he crossed the bar, approaching the man. Uncertainly, Nova followed him.

  “Who are you?” asked the man, gazing up at Tavian as he came close.

  “Just a passing bard. What troubles you, my friend?”

  The man looked down a moment, then once again met Tavian’s gaze. “I felt something. Something brushed against me. I was back there, back upriver. Among the vines.”

  Another nearby man spoke up. “Duan served his sentence at one of the outer colonies. They were overrun. He… was the only survivor.”

  “I was there… back there…”

  “You’re here now. You’re safe,” said Tavian, in a gentle tone.

  “For now. They’ll come here too. Always growing.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Nothing’s certain till it happens. You want a drink, mate?”

  The man didn’t respond for a moment.

  When at last he spoke up, it was with a question: “That strange instrument of yours… d’you think you could play it some more?”

  “Sure,” said Tavian, with a smile, “You got any requests?”

  Mei Xuelan was worried.

  She should have been happy. Despite everything that had happened, they were alive. And they’d made it to Luanyuan! The ship wasn’t in great shape, it was true. But miraculously they had survived. The Wens would probably be sad about the ship being all broken up. But in truth, they didn’t need the ship anymore. They had reached the world where they could be one with the Orchestra. Besides, working together, Xuelan was sure they would be able to fix the ship.

  She cast her eyes around.

  It is broken up pretty bad, though… she thought, a note of scepticism about the prospects of repair entering her thoughts.

  But Father says anything is possible when Players work in Harmony.

  Still, sunlight was streaming in through holes in the ship that didn’t used to be there. Bugs were coming in too. And if bugs and sunlight could come in through those holes, then space could too. And if you were flying between worlds, you really couldn’t be letting space get inside. It had to stay outside.

  That was a little worrying.

  But it wasn’t what really worried Xuelan – the ship, after all, just wasn’t that important anymore.

  No, there were other worrying things.

  For starters, the hive had gotten all broken up as well, and now the bees were nowhere to be seen. Where they had gone, she couldn’t say, but sadly she had to accept to herself, that they probably wouldn’t see them again. She hoped they were alright; that they’d found themselves a new hive. All going well, though, they would be able to live happily on this world of Harmony.

  Presently, she did one more lap of the ship. Mother, Father, and the Wens were sleeping. That was alright. Everyone had gotten pretty badly hurt in the crash, and Mother had told Xuelan that sleep was the best medicine of all.

  But though Xuelan was still aching in various places, she didn’t feel like sleeping anymore. She didn’t know how long after the crash it had been when she woke up, but she knew it had been about a day since then, and in that time she had noticed that the vines surrounding the spot they had crashed had already started to reach inside the ship.

  That was a little worrying, but it wasn’t the main thing that worried Xuelan.

  Mother had told her not to wander off on her own, but she decided she had to at least have a little look around. To calm her worries if nothing else.

  She completed her lap of the ship and once again concluded that her medication was nowhere to be seen.

  That was also worrying.

  But it wasn’t the thing.

  Her stomach rumbled. There must be fruit in the jungle, surely. But which ones were nice? Which ones were safe? She knew some fruits could be poisonous, but she didn’t know how to tell. One of the adults surely knew. Hungry, though she was, she’d be fine for now.

  So, she stepped off the ship and onto the ground of Luanyuan. It had been raining. It was raining. Her foot immediately sank into the churned mud around the crash site, mud spilling into her shoe. Wrinkling her nose with disgust, she pulled her foot out with a loud squelch. She looked around.

  Mud, mud, mud – all the way to the tree line, and probably beyond.

  Nothing for it.

  She put her second foot down with the same result. Slowly she began making her way from the ship towards the trees. Many trees and plants had been destroyed when the ship crashed. The result was that an unnatural clearing had been formed. Pieces of the ship were scattered quite widely, though it mostly remained intact. Some patches were blackened, but the rain had put out any fires that might have burned.

  That at least was good.

  It would not have been good if they had all been sleeping while fires burned around them.

  Rain pattered down on her head as she walked. There was little noise otherwise. A few insects. No birds. It was hotter here than Moyang. And… stickier. She could feel her clothes clinging to her. And heavier. Moving wasn’t as easy here as back home.

  It wasn’t what she’d imagined.

  But she guessed it was alright.

  As long as she could solve her big problem.

  Which was that she couldn’t find Xixi.

  Not since the crash.

  Not since she’d woken up.

  But she had to find Xixi. She’d never been without them. Through every hardship, through every moment she’d felt Discordance rise, she’d always had Xixi with her to comfort her, to guide her. And now in this moment, the most confusing and unfamiliar of all, they were missing.

  Xixi had told her she wouldn’t be lonely on Luanyuan. But without them, it felt lonelier than ever before.

  Yet she had faith that Xixi wasn’t gone forever. They were around somewhere, somewhere nearby. She just had to find them.

  Reaching the tree-line, at the edge of the crash site, she came to appreciate how thick the jungle was. It was dark beneath its canopy. Tall mossy trees rose up towards the sky, their long branches spreading out over great distances, their foliage interweaving to create a ceiling. Water drizzle down from above, dripping from the leaves towards the forest floor below. Some of the trees had other plants growing out the sides of them. All surfaces were covered in moss. Everything was draped in vines. Ferns and other smaller plants proliferated across the floor, creating a thick tangle that was difficult to navigate.

  Something, however, compelled Xuelan to cross the threshold, to enter the tangle. Every step was difficult. While not thorny as such, the vines all had tiny claws that reached out to snag her skin, her hair, her clothing. Every move was thus a struggle to extricate herself from one vine, only to be snagged by the next, all the while pushing aside the ferns and navigating amongst the vast buttressing tree roots, her footfalls plunging into a slurry of decaying leaves, moss, and mud.

  How strange; how unlike Moyang.

  Soon she was soaked to the bone. Her dress was filthy and increasingly ripped. Every bit of exposed skin was covered in scratches. Her shoes were caked in mud. Mother and Father would not be happy.

  But for once, she didn’t care.

  She needed to find Xixi.

  She pushed on, fighting all the way against the ubiquitous vines. If Luanyuan was truly a paradise, it was not one that immediately and easily gave up its rich rewards. Perhaps they were a thing to be earned. Earned through the harsh tribulation of every single step.

  How long she had been going and how far she had come were unclear, but at some point, she saw something very distinct. Amidst the million hues and shades and tones of green, a glint of something different caught her eye: a trail of golden dust, suspended, twinkling in the air.

  This seemed important.

  It must be.

  She followed it. Slowly. Arduously. She followed.

  The ground began to slope gradually downhill. At length she came to a little stream. Just a trickle of water, barely distinguishable from the general, pervasive damp of the rainforest. The golden dust beckoned she follow that little rivulet and so she did. She followed it until it joined others and became almost a small creek. The going was easier here. Though the ferns clustered closely around the water, the creek still made for a clearer route that she had previously had.

  Other creeks joined this one, all tumbling down the slope, the sound of water trickling over rocks was everywhere, soft, but inescapable. It was no longer even particularly clear which parts of the ground were creek and which were “dry” land. She stepped across rocks rounded by the constant flow of the water, doing her best not to slip on their mossy surfaces.

  The sound of trickling became far louder. Somewhere up ahead, she was sure, was a waterfall, all this water tumbling some substantial distance. She could see the water that moved about her feet was moving faster now, was deeper too, rising up over her ankles, up her shins, drowning the hem of her dress.

  She reached a spot where she could see the point that the water went cascading over the edge. To her surprise, it tumbled into some sort of vast pit – maybe thirty metres across. How deep, she could not tell, though the sound alone suggested the water fell a considerable distance.

  The golden trail did not lead her to the edge of the pit. It led across the series of rocky pools the flowing water traversed before making the plunge. Keeping the pit to her right she stepped or leapt from rock to rock, avoiding a plunge into the deep pools, that would no doubt see her immersed up to her waist, at least.

  As she went, she noticed something in the water. Colours. Not merely the reflection of the golden dust, which had its own subtle light. No, now she saw many colours. Something else had entered the stream, some viscous substance of myriad shifting colours, seeping along the innumerable rivulets, and gradually making its way toward the great pit.

  The golden dust, still hanging in the air led her on, farther, farther. As she went, the rainbow ooze became thicker in the water, until there was more of it than there was water itself. And up ahead, among the thick foliage on the far side of the many pools, something began to reveal itself. The source of that many-coloured flow.

  Her heart leapt as she drew closer.

  In a clearing by the pools, propped between the roots of an immense rainforest tree, sat Xixi. They were different now. Much larger. Now they had wings. Xixi had never been able to fly before. Yet it was unmistakably them. However, even as this recognition dawned upon Xuelan, her heart, having leapt a moment earlier, now sunk back down once again. Worry returned.

  For Xixi was hurt.

  And from their many wounds flowed blood of many colours.