Amy Thomson: The Color of Distance

Hesitantly, Juna reached out and brushed her knuckles across the back of the alien’s hand. Its skin felt cool and moist.

The alien visibly relaxed. Rapid explosions of turquoise and azure flickered across its skin. Juna sighed in relief. She felt as though she had crossed a barrier, gaining the alien’s trust. It was a good beginning.

When Juna finished the second fruit, the alien got up and ambled to the end of the branch, beckoning her to follow. It bounded across a two-meter gap to the next tree. Then it turned and looked at her, flushing purple, its ears lifted.

Juna climbed as far out on the branch as she dared. It bowed under her weight. A wave of sick dizziness overwhelmed her. She looked across the gap at the alien, then down at the distant ground.

“No,” she said. “I can’t do it.” She shook her head and backed away from the end of the branch, her skin blazing orange with fear. What would she do if the alien abandoned her?

The alien beckoned to her with the same limp-handed gesture, dark green ripples passing over its body. Juna shook her head and backed farther up the branch.

The alien turned bright yellow and leaped lightly across the gap. The impact of its landing shook the branch. Juna cried out and dug into the tree limb with her claws, fighting for balance. The alien reached out to her. She reached up and grasped its hand. Despite the cold wetness of its touch, the strength of the alien’s grip reassured her. The sick dizziness began to ease.

“Thank you,” she said, knowing it didn’t understand her.

Before Juna realized what it was doing, the alien levered her onto its back. She started to struggle, then froze, afraid she would knock them both off the narrow branch. The alien leaped across the gap between the trees with Juna on its back. It released her as soon as they were across. Beckoning her to follow, it set off again.

Juna followed the alien. She wanted to get down onto safe, firm ground where she could cry and shake for an hour or so, but that wasn’t an option. This is no harder than the obstacle course at the Survey Academy, she told herself. She focused on the details of the climb, finding footholds, pulling herself up, proving both to the alien and herself that she was capable of surviving.

The alien waited for her by the main trunk. As she drew closer, it leaped nimbly up the trunk to another branch about six meters higher and about a quarter of the way around the tree. It paused again, watching, as Juna clambered up the massive trunk. As soon as she reached the limb where the alien waited, it bounded to the end of the branch, pausing at the gap between the trees.

Several thick vines bridged the space between the branch they were on and the next tree. The alien purpled and raised its ears in what was becoming a familiar, inquisitive gesture. It swung hand over hand across the gap, as though the sixty-meter drop didn’t exist, then sat waiting for her on the other side. Juna looked at the vines, and then up at the alien, then back at the bridge of lianas.

“All right,” she muttered, “but if I fall and kill myself, it’s your fault.”

She grabbed hold of the vine and let herself swing down. It sagged, but didn’t break. Her stomach tightened and her heart beat wildly as she crossed hand over hand between the trees, but she made it over in one piece. The alien reached down and helped pull her onto the branch. As soon as Juna was settled, it turned and bounded off again.

Juna lost all track of time on that terrifying trip through the treetops. Twice, she nearly fell to her death. Each time the alien was there to steady her, or pull her back onto the branch. Then it continued on as though nothing had happened. Finally, the alien paused and beckoned her close. It smeared a sticky liquid on Juna’s back. When it was finished, it leaped across the gap, beckoning Juna to follow.

A cloud of brightly colored, loudly buzzing bees swarmed around Juna as soon as she landed on the next tree. Juna ducked and hid her head between her arms. These same bees had attacked her when she was out collecting specimens for the Survey. They had clustered so thickly on the face plate of her helmet that she couldn’t see to climb. This time, the insects merely hovered briefly and then buzzed off again.

The alien turned the bright red spurs on its wrists upward. The bees clustered on its arms. Looking closer, Juna saw a sticky, golden fluid oozing from its wrist spurs. The insects appeared to be feeding on the secretions. After a minute or two the alien gently shook its arms and the bees flew away.

Several other aliens sat on another branch, staring at Juna. Brilliant patterns rippled over their bodies. She looked back at them for a long moment. Then her guide brushed her shoulder with its knuckles and beckoned her on. She turned to follow, and stopped short in amazement, her exhaustion forgotten.

She was in one of the most remarkable trees she had ever seen. The limb she stood on was half a meter thick, and fifty meters from the ground. The bark was worn smooth from the passage of many feet, and its sides were bearded with ferns and moss. The trunk was at least a dozen meters in diameter, rising from thick, buttressed roots. The trunk split into a many-branched crotch about forty-five meters from the ground, forming a great bowl a dozen meters across. In the center of the crotch was a round hole big enough to drop a piano through. The edges of the hole were worn smooth with use. As she watched, an alien emerged from the trunk of the tree, joining several other aliens seated beside the hole, busy weaving baskets. They stopped and stared at Juna as she approached. She felt naked under their unreadable gaze.

Excitement broke through the wall of her fatigue. No wonder the Survey team hadn’t seen these people. Their villages were indistinguishable from the surrounding forest.

Ignoring the stares of the other aliens, her guide beckoned her toward a series of steep steps leading down into the gaping hole. Clouds of bees filled the air. The tree vibrated with their humming. At last her guide helped her onto a platform about two meters wide.

She turned and looked down into the heart of the hollow tree. It reminded her of a gigantic seashell. Four steep ramps spiraled down the inside of the tree. Arched doorways branched off it at regular intervals. Aliens climbed up and down the ramps on mysterious errands; others clustered in doorways eating and socializing. The walls glowed with a soft blue radiance that illuminated the tree’s interior. The glow came from a fungus growing on the walls. She touched its soft, velvety surface, wondering what form of bioluminescence caused the glow. Her fingers came away powdered with faintly glowing blue.

Juna looked down into the depths of the tree for a dizzying moment. A distant pool of water reflected the blue glow of the walls and the far-off gleam of the sky. The tree smelled of damp wood and leaves, tinged with the faint sweetness of honey. There was a sense of order and tranquillity about this beautiful, strange place.

The tree teemed with life. Iridescent bees swirled in shafts of watery sunlight. Small lizards scuttled out of her way, and thousands of insects filed up and down the trunk of the tree, carrying bits of leaves and litter. She startled a tiny, slender serpent, no bigger around than her little finger, and perhaps twenty centimeters long. The snake hurled itself into the air, gliding away on brilliant ribbed wings.

About a fifth of the way down, they stepped onto a narrow balcony and entered one of the many low doorways that opened onto the central cavity. The door passed through a half-meter-thick wall opening onto a room shaped like a wide slice of pie with the tip cut off. It was a good-sized room, bigger than the common room in her group marriage’s house. She felt a small twinge of regret, as she always did, at anything that reminded her of her failed marriage.