Impressive is Relative
“Gravity generators sure are a great invention,” I said as I looked out at the tiny ocean. I didn’t even have to turn my head quickly to see the curve of the horizon. This place shouldn’t have been big enough to hold an atmosphere, much less the beginnings of a city.
“No joke,” Mur said, idly picking up a rock with one blue-black tentacle and letting it fall. “This one’s quality, too. No hiccups that I’ve noticed yet. In the old days, this asteroid wouldn’t be good for more than mining or a dug-out storage space.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked. “Is artificial gravity a new thing? All I know is it’s older than Earth’s introduction to all this.”
Mur rippled his tentacles in a shrug. “Beats me swimming. It wasn’t invented on my planet, so no one bothered to teach it in school.”
“Really? That seems like an oversight.”
Mur tipped his squid head back to look at me. “Is everyone on Earth taught the origins of every technological advancement ever?”
“Okay, fair point,” I said. “But we do know about the big ones. I could tell you all about the brothers who made the first flying vehicle, or the race between countries to reach the moon first.”
“Right. So who developed the air circulation systems for reaching the moon? The food storage, the propulsion?”
“Uh, somebody along the way,” I said with exaggerated confidence. “Those aren’t nearly as important, though. Artificial gravity seems like a big deal.”
Another ripple. “You just say that because your species never figured it out on your own. A culture that can’t throw things would be astonished if you didn’t know who first invented your ball-throwing sports.”
I tipped my head in agreement. “Yeah, I definitely don’t know the history of modern sports. And the first person to throw a ball for fun was definitely before recorded history.”
“See? It’s all relative.”
“Somehow I doubt gravity generators were cobbled together with rocks in some species’ caveman days. Whether or not they lived in caves like we did.”
Mur spread his tentacles. “Who’s to say? Could be gravity-resistant rocks somewhere.”
“Really?” I asked, eyebrows raised. “That would be really cool.”
He dropped his tentacles with a bored smack. “I have no idea. I’m just making things up at this point. Wonder if it’s worth calling back to the ship for an update.” He tapped one tentacle against the hoversled and the large crate it held.
I looked away from the shore, in the direction of the dinky spaceport. “They probably won’t want to pester the client until they’re really late. This is definitely where we’re supposed to meet them.” The classy benches and railings of this cliffside lookout were unmistakable.
“Unless there was a second lookout, hidden from view,” Mur said. “Which they didn’t tell us about. For some reason.”
“Hm. Unlikely.”
“Yeahhhh, they’re probably just late. Disappointing in terms of punctuality and tree size.”
“Hey, yeah!” I said, looking around at the plantlife, which was low and bushy at best. “There’s was a whole thing in the briefing about how proud they are of the big trees they’re growing! What gives? Maybe those are all on the other side of the asteroid.”
“Or they talk a good game, and this fertilizer is meant to help the trees live up to the hype.” Mur reached up to tap the crate again.
“They sure sounded confident — Hey, is that them?” In the time it took me to point out the single-person speeder zipping up the path to us, it had come to a halt with a screech of the overtaxed hover engine, and an apology that started early.
“—rry I wasn’t here on time!” said the client, tumbling over her tentacles as she spilled out of the tiny car. She was a Strongarm like Mur, just the octopus variant without the pointy head. This one had the shortest and stubbiest tentacles I’d seen yet, colored in neon green. She sounded very earnest as she apologized. “I hate to keep you waiting like that, but my regular vehicle malfunctioned partway here, and I had to go back. Is there any chance you have time to bring the delivery just over the hill? This speeder doesn’t have storage space.”
It really didn’t. There was barely room for her, and she could squish to get into the seat. I glanced at Mur, telling the client, “Let us check with the captain real quick.”
“Of course! Thank you either way.”
I took out my phone while Mur retrieved the payment tablet, and while they got that squared away, I got permission for a detour. We weren’t on a tight schedule, and the view when we’d come in for a landing had shown the main settlement to be close by.
Captain Sunlight said to go ahead; Wio chimed in to keep an eye out for ruffians; the captain reminded her sternly that this asteroid colony had the highest of safety ratings, which Wio knew full well. Sounded like the pilot was bored too. But she had video games in the cockpit for times like these.
I went back to Mur and the client with the good news. “We can certainly take this a little farther for you.”
“Excellent; thank you!” She twirled three tentacles in joy. “Shall I tow it with you riding? We wouldn’t be able to go very fast, but faster than walking.” She pointed at a towing hitch that I hadn’t noticed on the back of the speeder.
“I’m fine with that,” I said, once again looking at Mur.
“Of course you’re fine with that,” he said with a roll of his eyes, but he was already walking forward. “You would have been happy to go at top speed.”
“Nonsense, that would put the delivery at risk!” I said with a grin. “But otherwise sure, sounds like a great time.”
The client laughed at that, and Mur complained dramatically about the incomprehensible love of danger that all humans seemed to have, and this one in particular. “You should have seen her ride a sled down a ramp to catch an explosive before it went off.”
“What!”
“I keep telling you, I didn’t know it was a bomb!” I exclaimed. “I thought everybody was freaking out because it was expensive and breakable!”
“Oh, it was both those things,” Mur said. “And also a bomb.”
“Goodness,” the client said. “Well at least I don’t need to worry about the hills being too steep for you.”
“Not in the slightest,” I assured her.
We got set up with the hoversled attached to the jaunty little speeder (which really looked like something a toddler would ride at a playground), and I took a seat next to Mur, holding onto the cargo straps. The client promised to drive at a safe speed.
And she actually did, which was honestly a little surprising, given the racecourse nonsense she’d done on the way here.
“Once we crest the hill, you’ll have a good view of some of our best trees so far,” she called back to us.
“Oh cool!” I said. “We were wondering about those.”
“They’re growing really well! Impressive in both directions, with some lovely colors. They were a good choice for this environment. I think the morning fog is what does it.”
She chattered away happily about the import process and the goals for terraforming this particular asteroid. Apparently they’d planted several types of tall flora, and were aiming to break some records eventually. The place was going to be a resort officially, but also a study of compatible ecosystems from different worlds. The rich folks coming on vacation were here to fund the science, whether or not they fully realized it.
“Here we are; behold the tallest trees that Eora has to offer!”
The sight from the top of the hill was pretty, sure, but my first thought was, Gimme a good ladder, and I could see over Eora’s forest canopy.
The trees were pear-shaped and a single story tall. Pinkish-orangey-tan bark, colored in vertical stripes. Each had a spherical poof of foliage that looked like palm trees trying to be dandelions. Visually striking, but yeah: not big. At least by my standards.
“They’re lovely,” I said.
“Nice stripes,” added Mur, sounding convincingly sincere.
“Aren’t they impressive?” the client gushed. “The biggest trees I’ve ever seen in person! And some of the other types we have from other worlds promise to be even bigger!”
“You should see a redwood,” I said casually.
She perked up, slowing so she could twist around to look at me without crashing. “Is that like a rustbark? We have some of those! They’re only a few years old, and they’re doing surprisingly well!”
“Where are they from?” I asked. The name sounded similar, but that could have been coincidence.
“We got the sprouts from a colony world,” she said. “It’s not my specialty — I work over here, not there — but they’re not far if you want a quick look!”
Before I could ask, Mur said, “As long as it’s quick.”
I grinned at him. “Thanks!”
“We’re not in a hurry. And I’ve heard you talk about redwoods before. I want to see too.”
I said, “If they’re only a few years old, they won’t be very big yet. But they have the potential to be.”
So we drove right past the building that we’d planned to load the fertilizer into (a low building, in classic Strongarm style, which I could have climbed on top of without using my hands). We crested another sharp hill that looked like it had been built intentionally, just for the view. The rocks that peeped out from between plants and dirt were all shiny black and obsidianlike.
The trees we coasted down to park in front of made me grin. They were still young and bushy, but that was a very familiar green.
The client parked and hopped out. “The bark is hard to see from here, and it’s honestly not very rust-colored, but if you get a closer look…”
“It looks right to me,” I said as I slid off the hoversled. “Lemme get a look at those needles.”
Mur asked, “Needles?”
“The leaves,” I clarified. “They’re narrow and pointy, so people call this kind of leaf needles.”
“Ah. I was going to say, that sounds dangerous enough to be from your planet.”
“Not everything from Earth is dangerous! Not even most of it!” I laughed. “Anyways, that’s the cactus you’re thinking of. Totally different plant with actual stabby needles.”
“Death wish from a death planet.”
“It’s really not.”
The client cut in. “But is this rustbark the same as your redwoods?”
I ran my fingers through the needles and ducked briefly in for a sniff. “Sure looks like. If your resort is still going in a few centuries, these could be hundreds of times my height.”
The client spun to look up at me. “I’m sorry, how tall?”
At the same time, Mur asked, “How long?”
Answering both of them, I said, “Hundreds. This is the biggest kind of tree on my planet, and some of them are truly ancient. I’ve seen a cross-section from a stump that’s over a thousand years old, and that was about my height in diameter. There have been much bigger.”
The stubby-limbed Strongarm looked absolutely flabbergasted. “What.”
I tilted my head at her. “Didn’t that colony world say they get super tall?”
She waved half her tentacles. “Yes! These are extremely tall already!”
“Ah. Not by my planet’s standards.”
“Clearly!” She turned her wide-eyed gaze back toward the bushy sapling in front. “I’d heard that some planets have flora that gets freakishly tall, but really?”
“To be fair, the big ones like this are freakish by our standards too,” I said. Then I pointed at the sapling. “But this is a small tree.”
Mur backed me up. “I have seen this height on multiple worlds.”
She was still staring at the tree, looking a bit shell-shocked. “I can’t believe my cousin was right about researching farther afield. If he finds out our winning specimens aren’t actually impressive to anyone well-traveled, he’ll never shut up about it.”
I winced. “Do you expect to get a lot of well-traveled visitors?”
“No, mostly bored wealthy sorts from the nearest two moons,” she said. “It could actually be a while before anyone expects something taller.”
Mur said, “Then you can always take credit now for the exceptional fertilizer making the new trees reach ever more shocking heights. Sounds like it’ll be a while before they get really extreme.”
I nodded absently and looked at the hill that blocked the view of the sea. “You said there’s a lot of fog here? That’s really good for redwoods; it helps the tallest ones get enough water without fighting gravity to pump it all the way to the top.”
With a devious smile in his voice, Mur suggested, “You could let people place bets on how tall a certain tree will be after each year. They’re bound to bet wrong.”
“Hm. Knowing our clientele, that might actually be popular.”
I said, “And you have good fertilizer that might also make a difference! I’m assuming it’s the best out there; I have no idea what makes a fertilizer good.”
Mur gave me an amused look. “Something you don’t know about your planet’s living things? I am shocked.”
I spread my arms. “I wasn’t trained on tree care. I just think redwoods are cool. Which reminds me!” I turned back to the client. “You might see if you can find other types of trees that grow in the same forests as these. They’ve been known to work together and help each other out, because they need different things from the soil. A fungus network would be the most symbiotic, but that’s bound to be risky when you’re combining interplanetary biomes like this.”
The client’s tentacles tapped at the ground like she was taking notes. “That is a great idea to consider; thank you. I may have to seek out a more official source than that colony world.”
“If you can get reliable information and identification from Earth, then you might be able to find the actual trees in a colony,” I said.
Mur said, “Just make sure you don’t end up with bonus danger. Like real needles or other violent nonsense.”
“Cactus live in dry climate,” I told him. “No especially stabby plants in redwood forests.”
“Oh, so they’re all safe?” Mur challenged. “No exploding seed pods or falling shells or hallucinogenic spores?”
“Nothing like that,” I said, then paused. “Although.”
“What? Do tell.”
I had to admit, “There is a vine called poison oak. You should probably avoid that one.”
Mur laughed aloud. “Of course there’s a poison vine!”
The client said, “I will be sure not to ask for anything poisonous. Thank you.”
“How bad is it?” Mur wanted to know. “Does it smell tasty, and tempt people into eating it?”
“No, it causes a rash if you touch it. The oil on the leaves can stay on skin and clothes for a long time if you don’t wash it. Some people are super allergic.”
“Why do you even have something like that?”
“It’s an important part of the ecosystem!” I said.
“I’m sure; poisoning everything that touches it must be crucial.”
“It doesn’t poison everything. Birds eat the berries and spread the seeds, so they’re not bothered.”
“Oho, a runner-up to ‘creature that eats Earth poison’! Tell me, have humans invented a range of ways to recreationally poison themselves with this vine?”
I shook my head. “No, poison oak is just an annoyance as far as we’re concerned. Definitely too toxic to eat.”
“That’s got to be a first.”
“Stinging nettle, though; that makes excellent tea.”
“There we go.”
The client looked from me to Mur. “I get the feeling I should write down some of this for what to look for and what to avoid.”
Mur said, “Yeah, probably.”
I glanced back at the building that was still waiting for fertilizer. “Got any writing implements in there?”
“Oh, right! The delivery! Goodness, you’ll be needing to get on your way. Quick quick, back onboard and I’ll just take a few notes while the junior crew unloads the fertilizer.”
“Just a few notes,” Mur repeated as he clambered back onto the hoversled. “Sure. So how do these nettles sting you, and how do you turn that into a drink? I fully expect it to be the intoxicating kind.”
I explained while we drove over to do the original job we’d set out to do. Mur was disappointed to hear that nettle tea didn’t even have caffeine in it. The client took lots of notes.
When we finally got back to the ship, Mur told Captain Sunlight that we’d gotten caught up instructing the client on how to grow Earth plants and avoid Earth poisons, and the captain said that was basically what she’d expected.
~~~
Good news! Volume One of the collected series is now available in paperback and ebook form! (Check your local store, or this handy link hub.)
~~~
These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.
Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.
The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).
