Love of Botany
(continued)
Edenal, the month of June
It had to come to this, didn't it? Nothing is ever easy. You cannot isolate
love into some little compartment separate from the rest of the universe.
"I want you with me more," said Phylba one morning when I returned
to the forest after a lonely night in my pod. "Why you cannot live
in this forest with me? You will not mind if occasionally I attract other
animals? Must do to spread seed but my inside self is only for you. You
can live next to me right here." He patted the ground.
This speech delivered by a human male would have sent any woman screeching
into the night, but in this case, he was right. I didn't mind the other
animals. I had grown used to his ways, attached to his dear idiosyncrasies.
Nothing pleased me more than to see his eager "face" in the
morning.
Yet I balked at his invitation. Fears of neglecting my work even worse
than I had been doing flashed into my mind. "Why can't things just
continue as they are?" I asked. "We have our afternoons."
For a plant, he was very good at sulking. "I miss you when you leave.
I am alone here with no one to talk with. Now that I am experiencing you,
I cannot return to being without you. You make my world more large."
His words were simple but profound. They moved me more than anything
any man had ever said to me.
What appeared to be a real tear trickled slowly down his cheek. He forgot
himself and whisked a vine-like appendage across it to wipe the liquid
away.
My heart lurched as I realized how much he also had become to me and
I found it hard to speak.
"You will then?" he asked.
"Will what?"
"Come live with me?"
I sighed. "I'll see what I can do."
Bonaski was the first to drop in as I began to dismantle my pod. She stood in the doorway like a hoodlum leaning against a lamp post.
"Drumm," she said as she watched me pack up, "what's up
with you? Why are you moving into the forest? You've been acting hugely
weird lately. You never hang around anymore, and... and why do you look
so.... so rosy?"
That was a lot of questions for Bonaski.
"Rosy?" I said.
She slumped into what was left of the pod. "You look, well... happy.
Why?"
I smirked at her. "Now that is a really dumb question."
The friendliness left her face. "Listen, Drumm, you're up to something.
First that talk about a man in the woods and now this. You're cracking
up, that's what it is. For your own good, we're reporting the situation
to headquarters."
So that's how it was going to be. I sharpened up and put my hands on
my hips. "You forget one thing, Bonaski. Your headquarters aren't
my headquarters! You work for SpaceSCI and I work for private investors.
Whether I crack up or not isn't any of SpaceSCI's concern! As long as
I stay out of your way, which I intend to do, there's not a thing they
can do. As long as I keep reporting on samples to my sponsors, they don't
give a crap if I'm sane or nuts. I figured this out after you scared me
last time."
"If you crack up, Drumm, you affect all of us." Bonaski's tone
was cold.
"Not if I don't see you. My working and living in the forest will
hardly affect you."
She turned and left without comment.
Fredericks was the next to call. By now only half the pod was up. I was
reducing it to neat piles of sticks which I would drag into the forest
on slides.
"See here, Drumm, we know you're hallucinating. Don't give in to
it. Expedition A lost a man because of the same thing."
"By 'lost,' what do you mean?" I asked him.
"Sent him home. Man by the name of Rigal. Kept raving about the
'woman in the woods.' Something in there must give off a gas or electromagnetic
energy that causes hallucinations. You can read about Rigal in the logs.
I understand he's out of the program completely."
"Uh huh," I said.
"I can have you out of here on the next sledge."
"No," I said.
They sent Gosset. He tried the chummy approach. "We all care about
you, Valerie. Especially me. You and I have a rapport! If you're lonely,
you only need say the word; I find you very attractive. There's no need
for you to turn to whatever you imagine you're seeing in there."
I looked at him as if he were a large, hairy tarantula. To respond to
him would dignify his offer, so I remained silent. The last of the pod
was in sticks. I had folded them into tight bundles and secured them to
slides.
"I'll be in touch," I said. "Don't lose any sleep worrying
about me." And without a backward glance, I began my laden down trek
into the woods.
Edenal, the primeval
He was so happy to see me that he jumped up and down, causing
his whole tree to bounce and sway. "Oh, Valerie, my love, you have
done as I asked! We can be together day and night! Under the suns, under
the moons, we are with each other! I am full joy!"
I looked at him, as uninhibited as a puppy, and it hit me hard that indeed
he was not human and never would be. And I had been around long enough
to know that if we stayed together, a time would come when, like the human
mate who relaxes enough to belch and pass wind in front of his wife, Phylba
would loosen up and forget to hold his shape. I would look over to see
a vine holding me close, a leaf caressing my face. How long I would stay
with him, I could not predict. But perhaps no more than any woman beginning
with a new mate.
What was life worth anyway without taking risks, without accepting love
where it was offered?
I set down the straps I had held to pull in my load and went to him.
He folded me into his strong, quite human appearing arms.
The fragrance of the Prirose was everywhere.
