Trophy Grove Page 18

  * * * * *

  My eyes wince as I walk through those double doors and enter a chamber that burns brightly in the grove’s orange glow.

  The grove’s light is more intense than anywhere we’ve so far tread upon Tybalt. I guess the room once served as a large equipment shed for the colossal bulldozers, crawlers, earthmovers, and cranes the obliterators employ when flattening worlds to make room for human settlement. I spy the corroding carcasses of many of those machines through the spaces provided between the grove’s twisting and knotting vines. Bundles of the grove’s branches and roots now grow from the spaces that once held engine blocks and machinery, and vines twist out of shattered windshields. The chamber’s space must once have felt cavernous, but the grove currently grows to occupy most of the structure, filling it with brilliant foliage.

  Tendrils of vines sway from branches overhead and sweep across my forehead as I push through the dense growth. I shudder at the sight of the black spiders, seemingly knit from the same swirling shadows as the monster that stole Marlena, that scurry to ascend the vines as we trudge deeper into the chamber. The periphery of my vision senses larger shadows skirting along our side, seemingly testing how close they might approach the room’s visitors before catching our attention, seemingly sniffing our scent to appraise the degree of our fear.

  “You see them as well, Zane?”

  I nod to my left. I lack the courage to square my sight to them, but I feel several shadow masses peering at me from an empty truck. “I wonder what keeps them from pouncing on us.”

  The grove no longer shifts to provide us with a clear path through its density. Teddy and I often stumble as we climb over thick roots, and we often gasp at the touch of a tendril against our ankle, fearing that the grove might clutch us at any moment before lifting us away into whatever cage or mouth awaits all of those taken by the grove. Yet the jungle doesn’t trap us, and we slowly push through curtains of moss and filaments teeming with scurrying, shadow spiders. We cannot determine our direction. We only push towards that patch of grove that appears to glow most brightly.

  “I can’t deny that there’s something lovely about it,” I whisper at the splendor surrounding me.

  Teddy sadly nods. “Aye, but I’d burn it all if it returned Marlena.”

  Brilliant flowers blossom all around us, encased in bulbs that sprout from the grove like the other orbs previously revealed to us within the jungle. I recognize none of the plant life the grove shows us, but many of the blooming pedals remind me of so many more pictures held in Earth’s libraries struggling to preserve a memory to the variety of flowers once abundant on our wasted planet of a home. Some of the flowers glow in a luminescence of their own, emitting hues of green and lavender that mix strangely with the grove’s orange cast. Many of the flowers would fit easily into my palm, encased in bulbs little larger than glass marbles. Still other flowers stretch so wide overhead to cover me in a soft degree of shade. Mouths of teeth leer from the stigma of a few exotic flowers, while some plants seem to be composed of little more than a shimmering kind of pixie dust. I stare at a small, furry animal that smiles at me from a home burrowed in the stalk of a particularly large plant, itself captured by the grove when the jungle decided the animal’s host to be worthy of its bouquet of flowers. My mind stammers at all the plant life encased in those bulbs. Such a collection of color must be any botanist’s dream.

  My nerves jump when Teddy sets a hand on my shoulder.

  “That has to be Dr. Amberson.”

  Teddy points to a massive trunk of roped vines that rises, like an immense tree, just ahead of us. Motes of intense, orange light pulse and rise within those vines, rising into the dense canopy where the strange leaves shimmer in the chamber’s grove. A crook of branches in roughly the center of the tree’s symmetry supports a shining bulb that encases what is undeniably a woman’s curved figure. The shapes of the woman’s hips remain distinct, but though my eye can still follow the line of her legs, the grove has seemingly fused with the woman’s lower half, rooting her to the bulb in bright, orange plant life that shares a synchronized pulse with the rest of the tree. Her upper torso is bare, but her skin has become slightly translucent, so that I can see the dark mass of her heart beating within her chest to the grove’s rhythmic light. The woman’s unnaturally long arms beckon us to approach the base of her tree, while her hair floats within the bulb’s fluids in yellow, orange and red streamers of color.

  Teddy rushes to the roots radiating outwards from that tree and grunts as he attempts to pull them out of the ground.

  “Are you in much pain?” Teddy shouts.

  The woman in the bulb laughs. “I’m in great pleasure.”

  The grove brightens, and its heartbeat quickens. Dr. Amberson waves her hand and several new bulbs begin to sprout and swell on the thickest vines close to her tree. The fluids swirl and coalesce into the shapes of new creatures, all of which appear terrible in fang and demeanor. The creatures that form in those bulbs possess snarls instead of mouths, and they’re equipped with the talon and teeth needed to perch them atop any planet’s food chain. New bulbs continue to swell about us, growing massive in order to hold the monsters the grove chooses for our consideration. It takes no hunter to recognize that the orbs that come to surround us hold the greatest killers evolved during the eons since the heavens birthed the stars.

  The subjects within those bulbs take a sudden, evolutionary leap forward. Though the next forming specimens appear no less wild, I recognize how the weapons now gripped in tails, hands and claws have been produced by species with intelligences not unlike our own. The creatures share no common symmetry – even a simple reporter recognizes that so many evolutionary variables existing amongst the stars force a diversity among species development. Some creatures stand on six legs instead of two, covered with robes knit together of armor scale. Metallic alloys cover the backs of other lizard-like bodies that hardly rise off of the ground. All of them, regardless of their physical differences, hold weapons designed for killing. Many hold primitive spears and knives. Many hold weapons that remind me of so many of the guns stored in the crates Teddy brought along upon his expedition. I wonder if a study of the sophistication of a species’ weapons might be the best barometer of any alien race’s intelligence.

  The creatures may all remain trapped within the grove, but their confines do nothing to blunt the intimidation I feel when gazing at them. All of the creatures possess unique faces. Some are not so unlike our own, holding sets of eyes, nostril cavities or even wisps of hair. Other are far too exotic to compare to my human visage, a times appearing nothing more than rough hide painted in symbolic stripes and tattoos. The bulbs continue to sprout throughout the room, and I doubt the grove would ever run out of trophies to show us if we stood for a century surrounded by the grove’s glow.

  A film of mist covers Dr. Amberson’s eyes like cataracts as she smiles. “There have been so many hunters to step into the grove over the millenniums, on far more planets than this one, for the grove is not confined to a single world. All of them failed to take anything from the grove. Do you think you might steal me away and succeed where all the others have failed?”

  The bulbs holding the alien specimens dim, and bright new bulbs emerge from the thick vines nearest to Dr. Amberson. I hold my breath as I watch those growths expand while their inner fluids swirl, for I sense what is about to take shape within those orbs before the liquids solidify into the legs and arms that show human symmetry. The grove summons the squad of missing rangers from its fluids. All of the soldiers remain dressed in their combat armor, posed like toys in aggressive postures, with their laser rifles levelled at an imaginary enemy beyond the confines of their bulbs. Each of the rangers remains unblemished, and their eyes still blaze with the fear and the fire they held when the grove claimed them.

  “Why hasn’t the grove taken Danno and Mitch as well?” I’ve never been so terrified, and I ask questions out of a reporter’s habit.

&nbs
p; Dr. Amberson’s pale lips give me a crooked smile. “The grove refrains from taking their faces to please me. I can use their help. Were they not helpful in coercing you to come to me? Did their companionship not help you advance deeper into the grove after the two of you became all that was left of your expedition? The grove understands how a familiar face can feel comforting. The grove understands how pets can make a human feel appreciated.”

  “Where is my Marlena?”

  Teddy is at his breaking point, and his words hiss as his entire body trembles. Tears stream into his beard. He drops his laser rifle, and I know he’s a defeated man. The grove crushes his spirit each second it keeps his daughter from him, and it taunts the once proud hunter by showing one specimen after another within its bulbs, all stuffed and preserved like the trophies mounted in Teddy Jackson’s luxury star yacht.

  “Patience, Mr. Jackson,” Dr. Amberson answers. “The grove has sensitive ears, and it knows the obliterators have invited you here to scrape this planet clean of this jungle. But the obliterators are wrong to believe that only my presence keeps those mighty guns in low orbit from burning away so much glowing growth to make room for a new paradise for fallen woman and man. If the choice was mine, I’d happily let you drag me from the grove if my return tricked the League into firing another volley from those guns. Did the obliterators not tell you that the League already tried removing the grove with all that firepower?”

  “The obliterators told us they detonated a warhead over the grove,” I respond.

  “Oh, they did more than that,” Dr. Amberson replies. “The League fired every cannon currently in low orbit at the grove, and it didn’t do the trick. It only brightened all the glow. It only fed the grove so that it could grow.”

  I sigh. “Another attack would only increase the rate of the grove’s expansion. Like always, the obliterators refuse to believe that firepower will not solve their problem, because firepower is the only tool the obliterators ever really have to prepare planets for human settlement. The obliterators are always distrustful of the League. They always think the League holds them back. They think the League refuses to keep firing those guns on account of a single woman, but the League would never let a single woman get in the way of paradise.”

  Dr. Amberson chuckles. “You’re an astute man, Zane Thomas. Your party reputation doesn’t do you mind enough credit. I wonder if you’ve shaped your reputation so that you’re often underestimated.”

  “A wise man would not have joined such a vain expedition.” I answer.

  “Oh, Zane, the grove’s taught me that there’s no pursuit grander than that of the hunt.”

  Teddy squeezes his hands into fists. “Why not take us now? Why banter and toy with us?”

  “Because the grove has a purpose for the two of you.”

  Teddy shakes his head. “I’ll do nothing until I know Marlena is fine. I’ll do nothing until the grove returns my daughter.”

  Dr. Amberson frowns. “You will do exactly what the grove asks because you desire your girl so badly. But take heart, Mr. Jackson, the grove promises the two of you will be reunited. All the grove asks you to do before that time is simply look upon its trophies and admire so many prizes.”

  “The grove only wants to boast?” I stammer.

  “I would never claim the grove wasn’t vain,” Dr. Amberson’s smile widens. “Why shouldn’t the grove be proud of what it holds? The grove is the galaxy’s greatest preservationist and archive. So much would be forgotten if it wasn’t for the grove. So much would be lost to wild hunger, merciless chance, cruel disease and violent war if not for the grove’s ability to collect. Most of the creatures you will see housed within these orbs have long been extinct; but thanks to the grove, they can still be summoned for study and consideration.

  “I consider myself fortunate to have been gathered by the grove, gentlemen. The grove houses more specimens of plant life from across the cosmos than I could ever imagine, and thanks to the preserving nature of the grove, my life will stretch long enough to give me a chance to examine a fraction of that collection. The grove enjoys an appreciative audience. The grove only wants to share a little of what it knows with a fellow hunter like Mr. Jackson.”

  Teddy lifts his chin and squares his face to Dr. Amberson’s filmy eyes. “Is Marlena still alive? Does the grove preserve her as it preserves you?”

  Dr. Amberson nods. “It preserves everything. There are no words to describe what waits once embraced by the grove. I promise you will once more share joy with your daughter.”

  “It sounds like the grove expects us to take a leap of faith,” I snort. “You suggest I should feel thankful for the grove. That’s asking much.”

  “In time you will see the wisdom,” Dr. Amberson replies. “Humanity has discovered the power to jump throughout the stars, but humanity will forever remain on the cusp of extinction. Humanity is far from the first intelligent creature with that terrible lean towards self-destruction. The grove has preserved so many such races. Let the grove show you only a small sampling of what has already fallen to ruin, what would have slipped into oblivion if it were not for the grove.”

  Another bulb sprouts from a cord of vine, filling with film as it expands into an orb twice as large as that which encases Dr. Amberson. Visions, like those described in the fairy tales of crystal balls, form within the sphere. The grove shows strange landscapes teeming with alien cities within that orb. Ziggurats rise into sparkling clouds, their steps trafficked by creatures dressed in holy robes of crimson and gold. Lanterns illuminate the hanging hives tiny creatures of wings build, like stalactites, upon a cavern’s ceiling. Music warbles from the orb as the image of giant seashell amphitheater floating upon a pink sea focusses into view, unfolding and magnifying to show alien musicians strumming strange instruments. Fortresses of dark metal soon follow in the orb, squat ugly buildings to withstand and deliver power as the dust of armies fighting upon a battlefield clouds the the orbs vista. A dozen city skylines appear within the orb - cities in a giant, gas-planet sky built upon massive, floating balloons and palaces of ice whose inhabitants move through walls like cold, spirit wraiths.

  The scope of the cosmos boggles my mind. Humankind has already discovered so many planets since we’ve unlocked the technology to unlock the stars, and yet we’ve found no indication of sophisticated intelligence. But that orb within the grove flashes one vision of alien civilization after another, and I wonder if any of the musicians, artists or warriors the grove displays would motivate the obliterators to pause in their planetary renovations.

  “Are they not lovely?” Dr. Amberson nearly sings. “And all of it is such a small portion of what the grove has already shown me.”

  The mists within the orb continue to churn. The ziggurats topple as earthquakes ignore the pleads of those holy men dressed in crimson and gold. All those lanterns go dark just before the hives of those buzzing occupants fall from their cavern’s ceiling. The pink sea rises and consumes the seashell amphitheaters and silences the song as the waters sweep away the musicians. Massive explosions erupt above the ugly, squat fortresses, and only rubble remains when my eyes recover from the blinding flash of the destruction. The wraiths of the ice palaces turn opaque as cracks splinter through their city’s crystal walls. All the cities floating in that giant gas-planet’s sky fall out of the orb’s picture.

  “All of them lovely, and all of them gone,” Dr. Amberson sighs. “All of them would’ve be forgotten if the grove did not collect a piece of their glory.”

  “So the grove wants a kindred spirit with Mr. Jackson, but what does the grove want with me?” I ask.

  Pity appears to cross Dr. Amberson’s face. “Oh, I wish I could invite you into the comfort I know, Mr. Thomas, for your face is as lovely as any that has ever looked upon the grove. But the grove has a different goal for you. The grove needs you to return and deliver a wonderful story to those masses languishing on our home planet. The grove needs your words to inspire them to race to Tyba
lt. The grove needs you to deliver as many faces to its curiosity as you can.”

  I smirk. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  Dr. Amberson rolls her filmy eyes. “We know that’s not the case, Zane. The grove knows better. You’ll return to Earth by telling yourself you’re going to warn humankind about this jungle. You’ll fool yourself into believing a noble cause makes you courageous. But in the end, you’ll write the wonderful story your editor Harold Higgins and his subscribers crave. You’ll rewrite what Mr. Jackson truly found on Tybalt for all the adoration your words can gather. You can’t resist it. You’ll describe so many wonders out here in the grove just waiting to be found, and all your readers will come to see it just as if the obliterators built their paradise. And the grove will know so many new faces.”

  “I’d sooner kill myself.”

  “You would sacrifice yourself in vain,” replies Dr. Amberson. “The grove has learned about woman and man, and one way or another, it will have the faces it hungers. The grove grows as we speak, and it pushes its vines higher and higher. Soon, those vines will stretch beyond Tybalt’s atmosphere. The grove’s vines will feel the cold vacuum of space, and they will release their spores to the solar winds. Perhaps a spore will latch onto one of those gunships in low orbit, and perhaps that gunship will plant the first grove spore on Earth when it returns to its original dock. Or perhaps the spores will eventually simply drift to Earth as they have come to a legion of planets stretched across the galaxy. Your death would do nothing to hold back the grove’s eventual exposure to humanity.”

  “I swear I won’t write that story.” I snarl.

  Dr. Amberson stretches her smile. “We will see, Zane Thomas.”

  Teddy takes a step closer to Dr. Amberson. “Please. Enough talk. Just show me my girl.”

  Dr. Amberson’s bulb shines as its fluids pulsate with light. The doctor’s skin is nearly translucent thanks to the intensity of such illumination.

  “Forgive me for keeping you separated so long from your daughter. Like the grove, I enjoy an audience. You’ve listened to me long enough, and the grove is so excited to show you so much more once it takes you into its embrace, Mr. Jackson.”

  The grove grants Teddy Jackson a single heartbeat to gather a breath before shadows leap from the grove and consume Earth’s great hunter in a cloud of darkness. I don’t hear Teddy scream or choke as ropes and vines rise from the grove’s surface to knit Teddy into a tight cocoon. The dark shadows that whirl around my companion prevent me from seeing if terror contorts Teddy’s face the moment when he is claimed as a trophy. I hardly have to time to think about turning and fleeing from that chamber. The grove takes its prize so quickly. The shadows buzz before fragmenting into a thousand coils that fall to the ground and scurry away like black snakes. The ropes and vines that clutched Teddy withdraw and return below the surface. The grove has taken everything. Nothing of Teddy Jackson remains. No pile of bones marks where Earth’s great hunter made his last stand. No boot nor vest is left to mark the spot where the grove consumed my hunting companion. The grove proves to be too much of a hoarder, collector and archivist to leave a single artifact behind that might describe the creature Teddy Jackson had been within his natural habitat.

  The grove has a last trophy to show me.

  “You see, Mr. Thomas. The grove keeps it promises, and the grove preserves.”

  All the other bulbs, with their specimens within, contract again into the grove. Even Dr. Amberson’s orb turns opaque before it too collapses into a small drop that the grove easily absorbs. Two new bulbs, one blossoming upon either side of the massive tree growing in the center of that chamber, sprout from a pair of thick roots knotted along the ground. I close my eyes as fluid fills those expanding orbs. I don’t want to see the shapes that form in those mists. I want to wake from this sleep and learn that the mudders, the obliterators, the grove, the doctor, and the hunter are only figments of nightmare. I want to wake and discover that only Marlena and her loving hold the only truth from this failed expedition. Only, my mind tells my fearful heart that I the grove will never let me leave its dominion until I open my eyes and consider what the jungle wants me to see.

  The faces of Teddy and Marlena stare at me from the center their grove orbs. Both bulbs throb in bright, golden light. Neither of my safari companions appear harmed in any way. There clothing isn’t so much as wrinkled, and I doubt there’s a hair out of place on either of their heads. Both are perfectly preserved. They are wonderfully pickled and jarred specimens that will never ruin.

  The grove dims its lighting and attracts my attention onto the new path behind me that the grove wishes me to take upon my retreat. I have no problem following the path all the way back to the mudder work camp where I book passage on the first obliterator, supply freighter scheduled to jump back into Earth’s native system. I don’t know if Teddy and Marlena are alive or dead, and I wonder if they’re trapped in some strange purgatory of glow and grove. My heart races with fear while simultaneously burning with hate.

  And it’s myself that I hate the most. For as I stood staring at Marlena’s perfectly preserved body held within an orb of alien fluids, I thought she looked more beautiful than ever.

  * * * * *