Page 37 of Blightfall

The humans continued to prod at the tree creature, which was jabbing its leg-branches at the cage and reaching toward the humans. There were more of them now, all wearing sturdy boots, trousers, and loose, woven ponchos that fell to their knees and were tied around their waists with a belt. They dodged the limbs of the creature as they finished loading it into the cage, and their barge began to float downstream.

“If it passes us,” Arturo said, “just walk upstream like we’re supposed to be here.”

The barge didn’t pass us, though. A spray of water erupted, and another tree creature rose out of the water in front of the barge. It was shorter and stubbier, as if most of its branches had broken off.

No, I realized. They’d been trimmed. The tree was covered in flat circles as if its branches had been cut off with a saw. Instead of turning on us, the tree moved its lower, rootlike protrusions to march upstream. The boat, tied to the creature with ropes, traveled behind it.

They’d…domesticated it? I wondered if this was a different species, or if cutting the branches off made it more docile. It looked…painful. I hoped these creatures didn’t have nerves in their branches, but I couldn’t imagine how they could not.

The barge plodded slowly upriver with the tree creature pulling it, and we followed, keeping it in sight but staying far enough back to avoid drawing attention. Several ships passed, most with motors, but one drifted downriver at the speed of the current with a pruned tree creature in a cage on the back. I imagined they’d prod the creature out of the cage and use it to travel back upstream again when the time came.

Soon after, we reached the first of the farms, areas where the forest had been cleared away and spiky plants were cultivated in rows, with large metal apparatuses rigged to draw water from the river and spray it over the fields.

“Anyone know what they’re growing?” I asked.

“Pineapple,” Suki piped up. “A species of fruit native to Old Earth.”

“Another plant brought here by humans, then,” Gilaf said. “At least this one didn’t take over the planet.”

“It also doesn’t seem to want to kill us,” Nedd said, looking over the pineapple field.

Gilaf squinted over his shoulder into the low sunlight. “Shouldn’t it be hotter here, if the sun is always shining?”

Arturo led the way forward, wiping some sweat off his brow. “I think it is hotter here.”

“But hotter even than this,” Gilaf said.

“Maybe the debris field blocks some of the sunlight?” Nedd suggested.

“Or the atmosphere does,” Suki offered.

“That’s supposed to be a red dwarf star,” Arturo said. “Shouldn’t it give off red light?”

“That’s a misconception,” Suki said. Walking behind Arturo, I could look right at her through the pack’s mesh, though I couldn’t see her. “Red dwarfs give off mostly red light. But because the full spectrum of light is present, it appears white to our eyes. The light from Evershore’s sun appears white as well, though the color it emits most strongly is green, similar to your sun on Old Earth.”

Interesting. They’d made us memorize the planets and moons of the Sol system in school, which always seemed strange to me, because Earth wasn’t even there anymore. We’d once flown by the place it used to be, during the war—now it was just an empty void between Venus and Mars. The space was inhabited only by Luna, Earth’s former moon, now traveling in its own orbit.

We’d also had to learn all the continents and many of the countries of Old Earth geography, which wasn’t exactly useful knowledge either, considering the planet had vanished. Turns out a course in alien landscapes would have been a lot more practical.

“Did you learn much about alien planets in school?” I asked Gilaf.

“No,” he said. “The Superiority wanted to keep us isolated, so we learned very little about life outside of ReDawn.”

“That’s disappointing,” I said. “I was going to ask if I could borrow some books.”

“The kitsen have records you could borrow,” Suki said. “Though our knowledge is also limited from isolation, we have kept careful records of everything we did see.”

“We should probably keep better records ourselves,” Alanik said.

“I am working on it,” Suki said, and in fact, I could see the glimmer of light from a tiny datapad shining through the backpack mesh—she wasn’t blocking it as well now.

“Your mom is working on it,” Gilaf said.

Alanik gave him a withering look. The girl could really give a good wither when she put her mind to it.

“Working on it,” Naga agreed from behind Suki. I thought the kitsen might be sitting on her, though I liked to imagine they were snuggling.

“How was that joke?” Gilaf asked.