The Serene Invasion (33 page)

“And these spores are alien?”

She nodded. “But tailored to our metabolisms.”

The monotrain eased itself into a station unlike any other Allen had experienced. It was as if the train had come to an unscheduled halt in the country. He looked through the window at a greensward rolling away from the train, planted with regimented flower-beds and crossed by raised timber walkways. Only a sign, ‘Welcome to Fujiyama Arboreal City,’ told him that this was where the journey terminated.

They left the train and Allen found that many of the passengers were, like Nina and himself, accredited journalists and photographers. They were divided into small groups of four or five individuals and allotted a smiling, punctilious Japanese guide.

The plan was to tour the fields between the towers first, have a light meal in an
al fresco
cafeteria, and then visit one of the towers itself.

Allen was already shooting, then pausing between shots to marvel at the city. It was as if he’d been transported to the surface of some planet light years away. The trees towered overhead, taller than any structure he’d experienced, diminishing to vanishing points in the blue, cloudless sky.

The base of each dwelling tree was surrounded by a margin of garden, beyond which the farms proper began. The guide conducted them on a tour of the farms, transporting them on the raised timber walkway in small electric buggies. She gave a running commentary, detailing crop yields and growing patterns, which Allen recorded on his softscreen.

They motored above the level of the fields, passing human workers and automated pickers, silver spider-like robots with busy, multiple appendages.

“Each worker is required to put in a shift of four hours a day,” their guide said. “The rest of their time is free to do with as they wish. Each city tower is equipped with recreational facilities, schools, art colleges, etcetera, as you will see later.”

There was only so much he could photograph from the buggy. What he was cataloguing here was no more than what every other photo-journalist was getting; he decided that at some point during lunch he would slip off and snap some unofficial shots.

“There are more than two hundred city trees in the Fujiyama basin,” their guide explained. “Each tree is inhabited by approximately ten thousand citizens, though such are the dimensions of each tree that living accommodation is more than spacious.”

In a whispered aside to Nina, Allen said, “I thought studies done in the last century concluded that high-rise living was far from beneficial?”

She whispered in return, “I think that was due more to socio-economic factors than to the actual type of habitation, Geoff. If you put poor people in a confined space anywhere on Earth, with inadequate amenities and low employment... well, what would you expect the conditions to be like?”

He nodded. A cursory examination of the workers in the fields – along with what the guide had said about the living regimes here – suggested that conditions in the arboreal city were far preferable to the lives these people had led before they were relocated here.

The buggy arrived at a covered circular area between four rearing tress. Allen made out people eating at low tables and realised that he was hungry.

He, Nina, the guide and the three others in their group left the buggy and strolled across to the cafeteria. They sat cross-legged at a low table and scanned the menu.

They ate a surprisingly good seaweed salad with
yadha
– the local name for the spicy processed spores – accompanied by another local speciality, a sweet beer again derived from the alien spores.

Allen finished his beer and was about to tell Nina that he intended to slip off to get some ‘local colour’ shots, when she restrained him with a hand on his arm and said, “I have seen a friend over there–” she indicated a nearby table “–I would like you to meet. She too is a representative of the Serene.”

Allen nodded, a little impatient at the delay. Nina rose from the low table, crossed the cafeteria and spoke to an Indian woman in her mid-twenties. The Indian rose with the sinuous grace of an uncoiling cobra and followed Nina back to Allen’s table.

She sat down and smiled at him as Nina made the introductions. “Geoff Allen, this is Ana Devi, from India.”

Ana Devi gave him a dazzlingly white smile and they shook hands. “Delighted to meet you, Mr Allen,” she said.

The woman had a curiously handsome face that might, in other circumstances, be seen as beautiful. He saw strength in her eyes and line of jaw, a certain rawness that spoke to him of lowly origins and a hard childhood.

Nina murmured, “Geoff, too, is a representative.”

Ana laughed and said to him, “Why am I not in the least bit surprised, Mr Allen? Nina makes it her duty to collect us, for some reason – is that not so, Nina?”

“Well, in the interest of possible future stories...”

“You will one day write about us, no?” Ana asked. “My story would fill a book, and maybe even two. Oh, some of the tales I could tell you!”

Allen looked at Nina. “How many others have you traced?”

She pursed her lips. “Perhaps a dozen. It’s not that difficult.”

Ana rocked her head in amazement. “Do you hear her? ‘Not that difficult’! But Nina has probably told you that she has a photographic memory, and can recall the face of everyone she saw ten years ago when we came together in the Serene’s starships.”

“So all I have to do now is keep a close eye out for those faces when we come to our senses after our ‘missions’,” Nina explained.

Ana looked at Allen. “You are a photographer, no?”

Allen told her something about his life and work, and Ana stared at him with massive brown eyes and said, “Ah, Shropshire. I would one day love to visit that county. Wasn’t there a poet...?” Her wide brow corrugated in concentration.

“Housman,” Allen supplied, wondering why the recollection of the old poet should bring him a fleeting sense of melancholy.

“Ah, yes, Housman.
A Shropshire Lad
.” She beamed. “I have visited London, of course, but never even left the capital. Is that a disgrace, Mr Allen?”

He murmured, “Of course not,” and asked her what she was doing here.

“I am on an official visit to the arboreal city as I work in one of the wilderness cities. Mine is in India, and I supervise the city’s food production. I am here to see how things are done on a much larger scale, and maybe pick up some useful tips. Also, I am looking into the feasibility of growing the alien spores at our commune, too.”

“A remarkable foodstuff,” he said.

She laughed. “I think it would go very well in curries, Mr Allen!”

They chatted for a further five minutes and, when Ana was talking to Nina about her life back in India, Allen excused himself and slipped away.

He left the cafeteria and strolled between a long row of fruit canes. In the distance, reduced by the perspective, a Japanese worker plucked raspberries from the canes with incredible speed and dexterity. He took a dozen shots, one of her blurred hands, high up in the cane, against a backdrop of a distant arboreal tower.

He thanked her, finding himself mirroring her repeated bows, and moved on.

He left the quadrant of soft fruit and came to an area where melons grew on abundant vines. Here, silver robots danced at speed, plucking full, ripe melons from the bushes and loading them into buggies affixed to their torsos.

They skipped around him while he took dozens of photographs. Later, in the peace and quiet of his study, he would take his time and crop the images, selecting the best to send to London.

He came to the end of a row and turned, brought up short by what he saw there.

A tall golden figure, intimidating in its immobility, stood upright with its arms at its sides, staring straight ahead. Allen stopped in his tracks, took an involuntary breath, and stared at the figure.

It was the first one he’d seen, at close quarters, for many years, and he was struck anew by the sense of peace that emanated from its swirling, lambent depths. He wanted to ask it what it was doing here, but the question for some reason seemed ridiculous, and he held his silence and just stared in fascination.

It remained unmoving, pulsing with an inner illumination that held Allen’s attention as if he were hypnotised. At last, smiling at the figure, he backed off and returned to the cafeteria. He felt oddly refreshed, even renewed, by the unexpected encounter.

A
FTER LUNCH
A
LLEN,
Nina and the others took the buggy back to the arboreal city and commenced a tour of the soaring alien tree.

“The city trees,” said the guide, “are living entities with a cellulose basal structure. They achieve great material density through having evolved on a high gravity planet, Antares II, and such height because Antares II is covered by low level cloud, necessitating the growth of the trees above the cloud level. This tree is of average size, being a third of a kilometre in diameter at its base, and a little short of five kilometres high.”

They were on the ground floor of the city tree, in a vast cavity like a concert hall. The guide explained that the length of the tree was filled with air pockets – like cinder toffee, Allen thought – which provided living space for families. Elevators, using thermal energy, carried citizens to the higher levels.

“We will ascend to the mid-point of the city tree,” their guide said, “and examine a spore garden.”

They crossed the echoing atrium and entered an elevator. Ana Devi had joined their group on Nina’s invitation, and she marvelled at the cell structure of the walls as they rose smoothly on the elevator platform. The material of the trees, on closer inspection, reminded Allen of the cross section of a sponge.

They emerged in another, though slightly smaller, chamber, this one given over to various sports. Allen saw people playing tennis and baseball on purpose-built courts and diamonds, and reckoned that this cavity was perhaps two or three hundred metres in diameter.

Their guide led them across the cavity towards a great arched window, into which was set a series of doors. She stood aside and invited them to pass through.

From the ground it had been hard to assess the size of the spore gardens, and Allen’s fear had been that when he stepped out onto the platform he would be overcome by crippling vertigo. They were, after all, now almost three kilometres above the surface of the world, level with an armada of cirro-cumulus clouds.

As he followed Nina Ricci through the archway, he realised that he had no reason to fear the elevation. The platform was vast – not the narrow, flimsy structure he had thought it might be from the ground – and gave the impression of solidity. He could easily believe that he was on
terra firma
, strolling across a patio given over to the cultivation of some exotic alien fungus.

The platform was the size of two football fields laid side by side, but red rather than green, and comprised of hundreds of metre-square trays bearing the alien spores. On closer examination the crimson growth resembled bloody lichen and gave off a pungent, peppery aroma.

Their guide knelt, plucked a small wad of the stuff, and popped it into her mouth.

“Please help yourself,” she said. “I think you will find it rather delicious.”

Allen watched Ana Devi sample a mouthful, and nod in agreement. “It reminds me in texture of paneer, Mr Allen, perhaps flavoured by turmeric. I think it would go down well in India.”

He tried some, agreeing that the spongy, spicy food was not at all unpleasant.

“One of the marvellous things about the spores,” their guide went on, “is that, quite apart from their protein content and adaptability to human cuisine, they grow from mycelia to maturity in a matter of days.”

The group broke up and strolled across the platform.

A guard rail ran around the circumference of the perimeter. Determined not to let his fear of heights spoil his appreciation of the view, Allen strode down the aisle between the spore cells and came, hesitantly, to the rail. He reached out, gripped its upper spar and, only when he was satisfied that his hold was secure, leaned forward and peered down.

He stepped back, dizzied by the view.

He gripped the rail with greater force and laughed at his cowardice. Not, he told himself, that he had any conscious control over it. A wave of nausea swept through him at the sight of the vertiginous drop... but even so he stepped forward again and stared down at the ground almost three kilometres below.

There were even, he saw, strings and scraps of cloud floating by
below
where he stood. He made out the much reduced radial gardens, the toy-like cafeteria and, off to the right, the thin thread of the monorail line.

It was almost like looking at the world in a satellite photograph, he thought, then remembered himself and took a series of shots he hoped would convey the sense of immense, god-like elevation.

“You look like a seasick cruise passenger, Geoff,” Nina Ricci said as she joined him, Ana Devi at her side.

He smiled queasily. “I feel like one. Have you looked over?” He stepped back from the rail and gestured.

Nina smiled and leaned over daringly, peering down and laughing out loud. “Why, it’s wonderful! Look at the view! I’ve never seen anything like it! Come and see, Ana.”