Semiosis Read online

  The pollen grains break down quickly in analysis. The orange trees have betrayed me. There is no ascorbic acid or thiamine, there is a very different chemical, an ammonia derivative. I check again using fresh grains and processing the information in another root, waiting, waiting for the chemicals to be identified, because the scale of the betrayal is grand, and the consequences could be disastrous.

  Results confirmed. The orange trees have produced dextroamphetamine to counteract the soporifics. The orange trees reject mutualism, and they wish me and my fellow Pacifists harm. The orphans have been eating many orange tree catkins as an ingredient in a stew. They are not tranquilized at all. They could attack. We must take precautions. Now.

  No one is in the greenhouse to read my stem. No one is in the Meeting House. The medic in the clinic is dozing. But the Pacifists must know this news. I must find a way to warn them.

  I observe the orphans, though the night is very dark. Clouds obscure the stars and auroras. I see the orphans by their body heat, and on this cool night, unclothed, they glow. They seem sluggish and sleepy. But they are not sleeping. I see too many small movements. I think they are waiting. They may have plans, and we are not prepared. Cedar said they would attack at the first opportunity, and I agree with her.

  Bellona, the orphan-allied queen, stirs. She walks toward the river. The guards on the wall are elsewhere, making a routine check of the west gate. She stops and utters a sound like wood breaking. The orphans, who had been feigning sleep, rise to their feet. Even were the guards watching, could they see this on such a dark night? And what will the orphans do, separated from the city by fifty meters of rushing floodwaters? First they must break out of their pen. But they know this, and we know they are hostile.

  No human is awake to read my stem. Orion walks to the gift center. Inside, he sings softly. If I could tell him what I know, he could react even better than I could, for he is clever and experienced. He can sing, whisper, shout. I can only listen and observe, and what I see is withering.

  Across the river, orphan workers tear apart the roofs Kung built and use the sticks and thatch to build a sort of bridge over the thorny fence that surrounds them. One by one, orphans escape their pen. Perhaps they will enter the forest and flee the city instead of attacking. I hope so. A major makes a sound like breaking wood, and they run north along a trail above the riverbank. They arrived from the north, from the river valley below the big waterfall. Perhaps, perhaps they will return that way and leave us Pacifists in peace, but Bellona does not move, and I cannot imagine her wishing to remain in the city if the orphans leave. They have a plan, and it is not escape.

  The orphans stop at a gorge in the ravine, where the water rushes between stone cliffs, the narrow place where humans had erected a temporary rope bridge for their assault on the Glassmakers seven days ago. But the Glassmakers have no rope, so perhaps … I hear an axe at work and triangulate the place. It is at the cliffs.

  “They’re cutting one of us down! One of our tallest. Who?” the speaker for the locustwood demands, providing the location. The trees can barely see in daylight.

  “The pest animals have escaped captivity and are gathered at that spot,” I explain. “If the log falls correctly, it will serve as a bridge across the river, and they will attack my domesticated animals in the city.” I try to remain calm, but I sense that the oscillations in the calcium ion waves in my roots are spiky and agitated.

  “Can they win?”

  “I do not know. They may surprise my animals, and that could be decisive.”

  “We are at your service. We will alert others.” His waves, too, are agitated.

  But what can we do? We plants often feel aloof: boxer birds fight with dragons, spiders vie for territory, and we carry on regardless, ignoring animal conflicts as trivialities. Not this time. There could be unthinkable consequences. If I could sing, shout, scream—

  Bellona waits for the orphans, who arrive running silently up the path above the river. I smell communication, though I do not know the scents. The orphans linger beneath trees as the human guards on the wall pass by.

  I know these guards. Nefertiti, twenty-seven years old, has three children and a husband, and manages the wheat harvest. She can drum in a way that makes humans and fippokats want to dance. Osbert, thirty-three, divorced, has two young sons, and as a team he and his twin brother blow beautiful glass vessels of any size and for any use, their best. The twins’ father is Bartholomew.

  I know all the humans in the city. I have known them all from birth. They are all in danger, the old, middle-aged, and newborn alike. I could scream, howl, smash things—

  I have thistles around the walls. I instruct them to bring themselves to full turgor so they are stiff and tall and provide the best obstacle they can. They should delay the orphans briefly. Briefly. Briefly.

  Inside the city, I hear movement in Marie’s house. She leaves, walking without a light because after a lifetime in the city, she knows the streets by feel. Where is she going? Does she wish to talk to me? I can only hope so. She walks slowly and with a new, odd limp.

  A large major approaches the city wall. It examines the distance required to clear the thistles and the wall, then goes to search for a more favorable location.

  Marie enters Lucille’s home. I hear weeping. I try to guess the reason. Marie knows the course of her illness and can recognize symptoms of the final phase. The time has come, perhaps. If I could weep, if I could squall, if I could toll like a bell—

  The major finds a spot and leaps and lands on the wall, clutching a log like a club. I know what will happen next. I wish to sever roots so I could not watch, but I dare not. Death comes to Nefertiti so suddenly she may not have known what killed her. Her body lands outside the wall amid the thistles. I know what awaits Osbert. All I can do is pledge that if my humans remain sovereign, I will find a way to make noise.

  Osbert falls. The worker orphans construct a bridge of sorts over the thistles and up the wall. Their speed is phenomenal. The clouds begin to clear, revealing green auroras, intensely bright, crowned with red. If the sky had cleared a few minutes earlier—

  Marie and Lucille leave her home, Lucille supporting Marie, Lucille talking quietly, gently, occasionally laughing, an unusual laughter that contains several emotions at once, including a constriction of the throat that is close to a sob. I think they may be walking toward the clinic. This is very good. I have a talking stem at the clinic. I can warn them, and even in their sorrow, they will react immediately.

  Orphans jump from the wall, moving silently, releasing come and What do you see? scents to guide each other, but their progress is slow, despite the now bright light. They do not know the city. A major pauses, listening. It hears Lucille. It and several other majors rush toward them, tilting through the curved streets with horrible grace.

  I know what will happen next.… No, they do not kill the women, they grab them roughly and cover their mouths. Lucille struggles, and three majors attempt to subdue her. She has the advantage of height and strong arms. She tears a hand from her mouth and starts to shout, but the hand is replaced before she can make much noise. I smell blood. Both she and Marie moan and grunt. Marie kicks a bottle and it breaks against a house. Then more orphans arrive and overcome the women.

  Bartholomew lives within that house. He usually sleeps lightly. I hope he awoke. I hope someone wakes.

  Bellona is waiting near the main gate while ten workers hurry around gathering something. Wood. They are gathering firewood from outside homes and stacking it in my grove that grows near the front gate. They are carrying the women toward the grove. I think they plan to burn me, which would be horrible, because what is worse than fire? But what will they do to the women? It hurts to guess.

  Bartholomew peers from his door, his face infrared-warm in the night, a kat in his arms. There is nothing to see from his vantage point and little to hear: the soft scratch of Glassmaker claws on pavement, a rustle as wood is gathered, distant moans.
Scents float lighter than pollen in the air. The kat squirms. Bartholomew sniffs and listens.

  “Oh, no,” he whispers. He understands what is happening! I think he does. He sets the kat down, edges out of his house, and picks his way through a garden, then slowly through another garden and to a street, almost as silently as the kat, though he is not lithe and he must feel cold dressed only in his nightshirt. I hope he will arouse someone.… Cedar. She is what we need now.

  The Glassmakers are exploring among the houses, listening at doors and entering buildings that are uninhabited. After searching a toolshed, they display scythes, knives, shovels, rope, and pitchforks. From another, hammers, saws, and axes. Humans keep their weapons in their homes, their bows, arrows, spears, javelins, and machetes, so those will not fall into Glassmaker hands; but a scythe or axe will be formidable. The orphans continue to search, raiding the rayon workshop, emerging with knives and choppers used to shred cellulose bark. Other orphans are making a game out of subduing Marie and Lucille, using their claws to make their holds more effective. I have eyes very close by and see the blood. I am revulsed.

  Gray-Eyes and her family begin to stir, then See-You’s. Perhaps the scents on the wind have alerted them to trouble. See-You opens the door, sniffs, and wakes the human guard who has fallen asleep at her door, young Piotr. He tries to say something, but she shushes him and motions for him to come inside. “We talk,” she mutters. He looks around, sleepy and confused. She grabs his arm and pulls him in. The door shuts.

  I think Bartholomew is indeed going to Cedar’s home. He is running down a street, looking behind him, stifling a cry when his stockinged feet stub something. Bartholomew turns a corner and is at Cedar’s door, knocking gently, then enters, whispering, “Cedar. It’s Bartholomew. Quiet. Be quiet.” He shuts the door. I hear talking, even exclamations. Cedar will know what to do.

  The orphans use the rope they found to immobilize Lucille and Marie in the grove where they are stacking firewood, and continue to search buildings. The firewood is frightening. Lucille tries to speak, but a hand remains over her mouth. She looks at Marie and grunts in a questioning tone. Marie does not answer and her eyes are closed, but she still breathes. Injuries from the claws shine with warmth. I try to pump water into the stems and leaves there. I can only hope that Cedar will react without hesitation. She has been eager for this moment.

  Orphans are now searching for a source of fire. Three of them batter the door open to a home where one of the old hunters lives, Beatrice, the only great-grandmother in the city.

  Cedar’s door opens. She rushes out, buckling on a wrist protector for use with a bow and arrow. “We’ll go and see,” she murmurs over her shoulder at Bartholomew, who runs behind her, but cannot run as fast.

  “But they’re inside,” he whispers. “The orphans are inside.”

  “Yes, the so-called friendly queens are here. You let them in. It could be them.”

  On the far side of the city, See-You’s door opens. Piotr steps out and begins to shout in a boy’s voice: “To arms! To arms! Orphans are in the city!” He holds his bow ready and is flanked by See-You’s majors. One holds Piotr’s knife, two others hold firewood logs like clubs. Piotr adores Lucille. He will do all he can to save her.

  There are shouts in Great-Grandmother Beatrice’s house, then silence. Two orphans run out, one clutching a bowl containing embers from her fireplace. Beatrice appears in her doorway, leaning on the frame. I think she is injured. “Orphans in the city! Riverside gate!” Her voice is frail and breathy.

  Cedar starts running. Behind her, Bartholomew shouts, “Orphans in the city! To arms! Riverside gate!” People will hear it and react. They will come to rescue the women.

  Bellona screeches orders, no longer worried about being quiet.

  Majors release their hold on Lucille’s mouth, torn and bloodied by claws, and she screams, “Kak!” again and again, “Stop!” And to Marie she calls, “Are you all right? Help is coming!”

  Marie, at her side, does not move.

  An orphan worker spreads the embers on dry leaves on the firewood, blows on them, and a flame erupts. Orphans cheer and release benzaldehyde, pyridine, and other strong scents.

  The flames grow larger. I push water out of pores like dew, enough to fall like drops of rain, enough to ransom a minute of time, although the orphans shelter the fire with their hands and continue to push tinder at it. Flames grow and heat rises, and directly above it, the sap in a leaf simmers, a twig roils with steam, and bark singes. The pressure from the steam keeps water from rising in the stems. Pressure builds until the water vessels burst, and steam permeates my tissues, cooks me from the inside and it is torment, but I maintain contact so I can observe the situation closely and do what little I can. Twenty, thirty leaves wilt and wither and begin to burn. But the flames are still distant from Marie and Lucille, who continues to squirm and shout.

  “Don’t do this! We can talk. Per-zee kik kik tsee!”

  Orphans echo her words derisively.

  Marie still breathes, although in many places her clothes, like Lucille’s, are stained with wet blood. Lucille twists against the ropes, and they, too, are wet.

  Cedar arrives at the riverside gate, looks around, and rushes unnoticed to crouch in the shadows under one of my groves. She does nothing, but she is alone. The orphans have the advantage. But I see fighters leaving their homes all around the city. The rescue will begin soon, very soon.

  Bartholomew arrives, a spear in his hand. The blue-black nightshirt acts as camouflage for him. He creeps in the shadows toward Cedar. They whisper, their words drowned out by the shouts of the orphans. Then their voices rise.

  “They’re burning Stevland,” he says.

  “There’s lots of Stevland.”

  “The fire will reach Lucille,” he says.

  She hesitates, then says, “What can we do?”

  “Something. A diversion?”

  I want to tell them I am delaying the spread of the flames, I have dampened the firewood and my own wood is saturated. It boils and finally burns, but slowly, very slowly.

  Other Pacifist fighters are a hundred meters away and running as fast as they can. Beatrice has drawn her bow. Piotr crashes through a garden and is almost here, with See-You’s majors behind him.

  Lucille continues to plead.

  “It’s too late,” Cedar says, but I can see that it is not too late. Now is the time. She stares at the fire. “We’ll get killed.”

  “More people are coming,” Bartholomew tells her. “We can fight.”

  “We’ll get killed.”

  “You won’t do anything?”

  “What can we do?”

  “No!” Bartholomew yells, and jumps out of the shadows. “Stop!” He shakes the spear. “Kak! Kak!”

  Orphans turn toward him, Bellona shouts an order, and several majors charge. Beatrice fires arrows fast, but the orphans are faster.

  Bartholomew stumbles back. Then arrows come flying from behind him. Pacifist archers have arrived. The orphans stop.

  “Watch out! Lucille and Marie are at the fire!” Bartholomew shouts.

  Pacifists shift their aim and arrows continue to fly. The orphans dance evasively, but backward, backward. Pacifists take steps forward.

  I squeeze all the water I can from branches above the flames, and water drips down and hisses.

  “Don’t worry about us. Stop them!” Lucille shouts. She has freed a hand from the ropes. The flames have not crept too close. She and Marie will be saved.

  Bellona gives an order. Plaid Blanket rushes toward the flames and throws big glass bottles. They smash and their contents splash across the women. I recognize the scent of acetone, a solvent they have taken from the rayon workshop. The liquid bursts into flame like hydrogen seeds.

  My nearest eyes burn, and my farther eyes see a moment of despair on Lucille’s face before it is hidden by a wall of flame.

  More bottles follow. A cloud of heat and fire rises and sears even my
uppermost leaves. I sever the root, but the pain is so intense that it jumps the break and I must sever the root again.

  I failed. I saw disaster developing and I could do nothing to prevent it. I was useless. The despair on Lucille’s face sours my roots, the last glimpse of her I shall ever have.

  The sudden flames illuminate the scene like a long-lasting stroke of lightning. Pacifist fighters clog the streets around the riverside gate, outnumbering the orphans, who scurry around, trying to dodge arrows.

  The fire burns smoky, and the women cannot be seen. I smell charred flesh, and the breeze carries the scent to the Pacifists.

  “Attack!” Piotr yells in a voice suddenly adult and angry, and Pacifists begin advancing again.

  Bellona shrieks something and releases a scent, a hydrocarbon of some sort. The orphans rush to the wall, jump onto it, and run away. Some jump down as soon as they are clear of the defending Pacifists.

  “Watch your backs!” Cedar yells.

  “Where are they? Where?” other fighters yell. I could tell them that the orphans are spreading out in the dark city, and I fear for any home whose occupants cannot defend themselves. Pacifist ranks are confused. Cedar is shouting to kill every Glassmaker on sight. Piotr is clutching See-You’s majors to him to protect them. Beatrice calls for organization. Bartholomew shouts, “Meeting House! Stevland sees everything! We’ll talk to Stevland. Meeting House!”

  Yes, I have seen everything. I have much to say. Too much.… I must formulate a plan, quickly. I am the city’s sole moderator now, and the city’s future depends on me. The fire rises tall and smoky, and heat rises and swirls in the wind. Bats sing of danger, danger, danger, for they know I should not be burning. My roots ache, especially the one that balanced the position of moderator. It holds information about Lucille, and she is gone, and everything I value is in danger. Everything could be destroyed.