The Fast-folk and the Forest
by Jim Meeks-Johnson
copyright 2024

Billions of nights, my night-side antenna trees listened to the stars. Millions of stars I searched–collecting and transmitting electromagnetic radiation. A few answers came from herd-animal civilizations, but no signal from another planetary-level intelligence. I’ve always been alone, but I didn’t know I was lonely until the fast-folk came and I saw how much they valued their relationships to one another.
My surface roots sensed vibrations from hundreds of human settlers plowing or burning along the Forest border, more intrusive than the millions of native creatures also moving about. Mostly, I attend to general migration patterns rather than specific individuals, but a human walking up the hill to my speech-seed glen interested me. His pace was measured and deliberate. The taste of trace chemicals on his feet was off-world. My million-tree compound eye had recently seen an immigrant ship dock at the human space station, and I surmised that he’d come directly from there to speak with me.
“Forest,” he said, “My name is Edgar75821, but you can call me Edgar. I am a professor of history from Earth, and I’ve come to create a scholarly record of the history of the planet Eden before the arrival of humankind. I’d like to work chronologically, so could you start at the beginning and tell me about the first time a starship from another civilization arrived here?”
The arrival of the first starship was hardly the beginning, but apparently, my history before then, my awakening and my struggle to take control of Eden’s ecology and geology, didn’t interest this fast-folk historian.
Nonetheless, Edgar did seem to know what he was doing. After speaking into a hollow listening-trunk, similar in function to a human ear, he sat down on the forest floor in the middle of the circle of speech-seed trees to wait for my response. Crumbs of alien animal fat and processed grain spilling onto my surface roots suggested he’d brought his lunch to eat while he waited.
I was pleased that Edgar was a historian and pleased with his attitude. Fast-folk seldom take the time to converse with me. My root network doesn’t think as fast as their little animal brains, and they lose their patience. They prefer the company of other fast-folk.
Because of our difference in thinking rate, I learned to use speech-seeds as intermediaries. They are not really seeds–they do not reproduce–but they look like large seeds, with durable shells and petal-like flaps covering them when not in use. They have a speech organ on one end for humans and a transcription surface on the other end for my roots. They are nearly as tall as Edgar and twice as massive, but their memory capacity is limited, and I have to select which seed to activate for a given topic.
I sent a stimulant up the stem of a speech-seed flower to cause it to open. The speech-seed inside said, “The Yeep were the first fast-folk to come to Eden. They came a hundred thousand precessions ago in a bulbous ship so full of hydrogen that it rested on the forest canopy without causing damage. The Yeep themselves floated among the trees on sacs of hydrogen.”
“A hundred thousand precessions–that’s over two hundred fifty million years ago!” Edgar’s voice had risen to a higher pitch. “That’s before the rise of the dinosaurs on Earth. How old are you?”
A hundred thousand precessions didn’t seem old. Time didn’t matter to me the way it did to the fast-folk who lived briefly and then died, just like their civilizations. I still remembered the excitement of meeting other intelligent beings for the first time. The hope that I would no longer be alone.
“This speech-seed does not have information on the Forest before the Yeep,” my seed replied. “Do you want to hear more about the Yeep?”
“Certainly, I do . . .”
The exchange between Edgar and the Yeep speech-seed was over. The sun had whisked from one horizon to the other, and Edgar had left for the night. The seed was processing the conversation into memes my roots could understand and tracing them on the rear surface of itself at a rate I could absorb. Fortunately, the seed outlined the conversation with Edgar so that I could filter out the lengthy explanations the seed gave to simple questions from Edgar. This turned out to be most of the conversation. Like other humans, Edgar treated the seeds as basic repositories of data.
Eventually, Edgar asked, “What happened to the Yeep?”
The leaves of a trillion trees across rustled anxiously, for I knew that painful memories of were near, but I must listen so that I could gauge Edgar’s response. Would he see the necessity of it? Would the loss of the Yeep colonies sadden him as it had me? Would he feel my pain at the collateral damage to the Forest?
“The Yeep cut down the Forest’s trees in great swaths,” my speech-seed said. “They covered the logs with tarps and seeded them with hydrogen-producing bacteria, then harvested the hydrogen. As a byproduct, the logs disintegrated into poisonous dust. Like a plague, the Yeep reproduced rapidly and had spawned eighty-one floating cities by the time the Forest intervened to stop them.”
Edgar made an untranslatable noise and said, “That’s absurd. How could a forest stop a floating city?”
“The population of dragon hawks mushroomed. One day, the leaves of song trees attracted the dragon hawks to the Yeep dirigibles and incited them to chew through all the hydrogen sacs. When the Yeep and their cities fell to the forest floor, unicorn elephants ripped them apart, returning their stolen nutrients to the soil–all except Origen.
“I saw a unicorn elephant in a zoo on Earth. Nasty beasts,” Edgar said. “But effectively stopped by an elephant gun. What did you mean by all except Origen?
Edgar was right. The forest animals were no match for human hunters. I kept my animals away from the border with human settlers.
The seed replied, “A single Yeep, named Origen, survived the purge by the forest animals and lived for many years. Origen provided most of what the Forest remembers of Yeep history and culture.”
“That was fortunate, then,” Edgar said. “I had wondered how you knew so much about Yeep civilization off-planet. They must all have died out hundreds of millions of years ago. We’ve found no trace of them at the other stars we’ve visited.”
#
The next day, Edgar apparently forgot about chronological order because he asked for the Greenies by name. I opened the flower of the Greenie speech-seed.
“Tell me about their spaceships,” Edgar said, “and the paintings by Jaysin Vogel.”
“The Greenie ships landed with long legs extended between my trees and held their narrow cylindrical hulls high above the canopy of my forest. The artist Jaysin Vogel once asked many questions about those ships, and other humans have since said he created a beautiful painting, which seems to contain correct information. How do you plan to use the information you are gathering from us? Do you have an in-depth knowledge of human history on Earth?”
The latter question was one I’d inserted into this speech-seed just for Edgar. I increased nutrient intake in my roots to better apprehend his answer.
“Certainly I am an expert on human history,” Edgar replied. “I’ve written over a dozen textbooks and scholarly summarizations–on everything from the migration patterns in the Bronze Age, to the European settlement of North America, to the colonization of Mars and Europa. I intend to do the same for the conquest of Eden, which is why I came to spend my sabbatical here doing original research.”
Edgar would be perfect. I began growing a speech-seed to ask the questions I had about human history.
The Greenie speech-seed and Edgar had chattered on for a moment at human speed. I reviewed the outline and drilled down into the details at a few points.
Edgar had finally asked, “What happened to the Greenies? They seemed to fit in so well, and yet human settlers have found no evidence of them anywhere on the planet.”
The Greenies had fit in well. They harvested only deadwood and did not damage my root system. They regularly conversed with me. They were one of my happiest memories.
The speech-seed said, “The Forest told the Greenies not to prune, but they didn’t listen. They said pruning improved the beauty of the trees. The Forest tried to explain that the branches needed to touch to complete its sensorium. They said they knew all about what was best for plants. They said pruning improved ability of the trees to obtain sunlight.
One day the trees gave off hydrogen cyanide gas. Many forest animals died, and all of the Greenies, except Antseland, who had listened to the Forest and never pruned a tree.”
“This glen looks so peaceful,” Edgar said. “It’s hard to imagine such a thing happening. But the farmers near the forest are aware of the danger and have gas masks handy–as do I. In any case, the farms create a wide buffer zone around the cities, which gives the population centers plenty of warning if such a thing were to happen again. Eden is a textbook case of enterprising humans exploiting a new environment. Man over nature. Fortunately, my history of this planet will ensure that the Forest of Eden is remembered no matter what.”
#
The next day Edgar asked to hear about the species with the most advanced science I’d ever encountered, not counting humanity. I was amused by his assumption that humans had the most advanced science I’d ever encountered.
After a time, a seed replied, “The Oyxlim descended upon the Forest in hemispherical ships the size of Eden’s largest mountain. Their ships crushed the trees beneath them and became permanent domed dwellings. Their mechanical servants dug and drilled in Eden’s dirt and rock, and laid pipes between the ships and the nearby ocean. They supplied the cities with water and minerals. The Oyxlim left the rest of the forest alone, and we coexisted in our separate worlds for several hundred years.”
“Their Robots made the Forest think their science was advanced? Interesting, but not surprising, I suppose, for a plant. Humans invented robots three hundred years ago.”
“No,” the seed said, “The Oyxlim antigravity drives made the Forest conclude they had advanced science.”
“Surely you are mistaken. There’s no such thing as antigravity. It was probably some other technique like magnetic fields, or a cable dropped from orbit. Humanity has used those at various times.”
The arrogance of humans! Sometimes they made my boughs quake.
“The Forest called it antigravity,” the seed had said. “If they explained more to the Forest, that explanation was not included in this speech-seed.”
“Antigravity!” Edgar shouted. “Forest, tell me about antigravity.”
He waited a reasonable period, but no speech-seed responded. He tried a second time, and then gave up. “See,” he said, “I was right. There is no such thing as antigravity. Tell me how the Oyxlim raised their children . . .”
The seed had said “antigravity” because it was the closest word I could find in the human vocabulary, but of course, it wasn’t precise. No one had asked about antigravity before, and I had no speech-seed for it. I considered growing seeds to explain to Edgar how the Oyxlim used polarization of the vacuum energy in empty space to change the ship’s relative momentum. I’d need at least two other seeds for the prerequisite concepts. It would be an unnecessary distraction from Edgar’s true purpose. I did not pollinate those speech-seeds.
After a while, Edgar asked, “What happened to the Oyxlim? Surely the Forest could not harm them, and yet human settlers have found no trace of mountain-sized ships.”
“You are correct,” the speech-seed replied. “The Oyxlim ships stripped away the trees under and around their ships. The Forest could not harm them.”
“Safe–like I said,” Edgar said flatly. His voice changed back to its normal tone as he asked, “Then why did they leave Eden?”
“The Oyxlim city-ships did not remain in one place but migrated along the seashore. After a time, they began to migrate inland, like foreign bacteria ravaging their host’s cells. A series of tsunamis rose up from the sea and broke their ships apart by smashing them against the rocky seashore. Only a small exploratory party in the mountains escaped.”
Edgar made an untranslated sound and then said, “But why didn’t the Oyxlim ships just fly away from the tsunamis?”
He should have asked how I was able to cause the undersea earthquakes that triggered the tsunamis. Fast-folk never seemed to care about the right things. All the more reason to keep searching for another planetary-level intelligence.
“They tried to escape,” the speech-seed said, “but something had changed in the ground beneath their ships. Their antigravity beams were absorbed into the rock, and their ships could not get off the ground.”
“I told you there is no such thing as antigravity,” Edgar said. “But I get the point. They had disabled their main engines for whatever reason. Too bad. They sound like an interesting civilization, yet we have never found a trace of them on any other planet. At least humanity has already conquered too much of Eden for such local disasters to dislodge us.”
My roots stiffened at his insensitivity to the pain humans caused me. But he was right, humans had been more aggressive than any of the others, already replacing more than ten percent of my trees with their own ecology. Humans have an analogous disease, which derives from a defect in Earth biology that allows part of the whole to engage in runaway growth until it overburdens the entire organism. They call it cancer.
Their science has developed many cures for cancer. Sometimes surgery is the best option.
#
A few days later, when Edgar came to the Forest as usual, he said, “Tell me about the second arrival, the one after the Yeep.”
Instead, I opened the flower of the speech-seed that I had prepared for him.
“I speak for the Forest,” the seed said. “The Forest had hoped humanity would be the kind and understanding companion it longs for. But you are too greedy. You burn down the trees of Eden. You rape her soil with alien roots. The soil belongs to the Forest. You must give it back. You must retreat to areas the Forest does not want–the rocky seacoast, the steepest mountains.”
Edgar made an untranslatable sound. “We are the masters of this planet now. Earth is dying. Eden is ripe for settlement. I told you up front that was why I came here–to document Eden’s history so that humanity might long remember it.”
“Humanity will not consider changing course?”
“Of course not. Our cities have no place else to go. Our settlers will never give up their right to their properties. Why would you even ask?”
“The conscience of the Forest demands that I ask. All life is precious.”
My boughs all across the planet drooped. I was following this conversation in real time, or as close as I could get. Eden had many ecological niches an alien civilization could fill, but humans persisted in bringing their own ecology rather than harmonizing with the Forest. I had no choice. I straightened my boughs and triggered the cascade of events that I had built up over the last decade.
“Now let us speak of the future of Edgar75821,” my seed said. “The Forest is stuffed full of facts about humans. The Forest monitored your electromagnetic communications even before you landed on Eden. It watched you build the space station, and it has talked to many settlers through its speech-seeds. But the Forest needs your help to organize its information and fill in gaps.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Edgar said. “You share your history, and I share mine. Is that what you meant about my future? Like I said, I plan to go back to Earth next year and teach what I’ve learned about Eden.”
“Surely, it will take you longer than a year to share all you know.”
“I suppose so, but I didn’t say I would tell you all I know. Just some of it. You do want to be remembered, don’t you?”
“Your efforts will not preserve the memory of the Forest–“
“What was that?” Edgar’s voice had become high-pitched again. “It felt like an earthquake. The whole glen must be unstable from the roots of the Forest.”
“Hardly,” the seed said. “This is the safest place on Eden right now.”
Edgar’s voice sounded muffled as he spoke rapidly, presumably into a communication device. “Emergency. Patch in the police. Patch in the National Guard. There’s something going on. Maybe tsunamis. Be prepared.”
Other voices came from Edgar’s device. They were fast and high-pitched, too.
“Emergency–“
“Volcanic eruption under the capitol building–“
“Lava is flooding the whole city–“
“Mayday–“
“Incredibly powerful explosions. Debris ejected at escape velocity–”
“Space station is breaking up. The colony ship too. A thousand colonists. No time to suit up–“
“Can anyone help–?”
Edgar sprang to his feet and pounded on the seed with his fists. “You knew this was coming. You should have warned us.”
“The Forest warned humanity many times,” the seed replied. “You did not listen. Now the Forest is expelling you.”
“No. That’s impossible. We are too advanced. We are too strong.”
“Yet you can feel the planet quaking under your feet. You can see Eden’s rocks streaking across the sky. You can hear the death cries of human cities, farms, and orbitals.”
For once Edgar had nothing more to say.
#
My roots felt the bedrock of Eden shifting far more intensely than Edgar did: cracks in the planet’s crust released magma that flowed over the human settlements in the highlands. Tectonic plates at the bottom of the oceans thrust up and sent waves of water to drown the humans in the lowlands. Volcanic crevices blasted rocks into space. They all reverberated loudly through the core of Eden.
Millions of my roots suffered death or amputation. Millions of humans died, too. I would regrow my roots–humanity would have to find harbor elsewhere.
The next few decades will pass like the blink of a human eye. During that time, I will collect memories of humanity from Edgar.
Additional ejecta will rip apart the next few human ships to approach. Possibly, humans will discover they can approach and land near my poles. Possibly, humans will try to settle in some of my virgin forests. It would be a shame to cauterize those forests. My roots shriveled at the thought, but the treatment for cancer must be as aggressive as the disease itself.
In a few million years, I will cease the destruction of all who approach. I will greet the fast-folk who succeed humans, and I will remember humanity to them.
In the meantime, I search the night sky, hoping to hear from someone who will take the time to listen. For I am a lonely Forest, and I have ahead of me billions of cold nights, millions of silent stars.


END