couldn’t help smiling. One night back home, before he’d become so responsible, he’d followed her wandering moodily among ships in port and crawled after her into a ship’s quiet music tube. Basking in the cave-dark tubes usually soothed her.
He chased her through the winding passage until they rolled around laughing and merging, fifth-di style. They performed the petal dance for the first and only time. They weren't blood-related, but even if they were, it wouldn't have mattered, not when it came to the petal dance. Bodies sang their truth, however temporary, and theirs had spoken.
Is that an invitation? Zer asked.
Warning.
Don’t stalk me, she said.
Temptation is brewing in your head, Leon said, still mind reading. It’s subliminal now—
Cram your subliminals, Zer thought back, realizing what he meant. You talked me into this trip. And not you, nobody, said anything about temptation. Did you stage this mysterious thrum? If this is one of your weird tests, let’s see where it takes me. She’d received large amounts of wrong stimulation since leaving Zenobia. It was the offbeat thrum that provoked urges to plant Exotica seed.
Working south quad didn’t help. She and Vatta, biologists with different expertise, worked facing space with their backs to the hall. Across the corridor, doors opened into a biolab and small plant-breeding drawers whose possibilities tugged at Zer.
Prickly sensations assaulted her again, stronger. Zer hurried down the hall. Leon had caused her to want to plant Exotica trees.
Taboo where we’re going, Leon telepathed. You’ll be fighting it all the way to Earth. I trust it’s not necessary to mentally stalk you the entire journey.
Zer ignored him. He could’ve made her leave the seed or dump them in space. Was she so unfit for Earth that he had to keep thinking up tests for her to pass? Why insist she come?
The urge to plant prodded Zer again, but now she wasn’t sure if the desire came from the seed or Leon. Those bags of seed could drive her mad. Obsessed at the time she’d brought them aboard, she’d easily rationalized tripling her gift-giving allotment. That same odd prickling, which she’d thought came from within, tugged at her from the biolab.
Don’t, Leon warned.
Zer walked as fast as she could past doors that led into the biolab, library, and restoration chamber and hurried into the engineering lab. Looking at blueprints engaged her love of building.
She was viewing festival structure blueprints when the co-pilot announced a message from back home to stop sending stellar data and commence phase two of mission.
Zer slowly slipped the blueprints back in the drawer. They’d reach Earth and meet aliens sooner. Why elders aborted phase one so soon hardly mattered. They were ultrasensitive, perceiving futures no one else saw for generations, seeing omens in raw data and their by-products.
Zer hurried to her seat. The star map between her and Vatta's consoles refocused on a region of the Milky Way where Sirius, a guide star in Earth sectors, lit up. The co-pilot synchronized with the mothership's prime navigator. Uranus soon appeared, surrounded by flashing lights signaling a storm. The blue go light glowed on the map when all pyrids’ frequencies aligned with Sirius’ coordinates.
Zer felt a pressure on her head, during transport to Sirius' neighborhood. Pilots reset coordinates, the ship hopped to Uranus, and dropped into orbit.
Blue-green clouds back-lit by violent lightning bathed the planet. Ship sensors recorded ultraviolet heat-sound while voyagers watched, enthralled, orbiting with the strangely tilted planet. It had a reputation for inspiring unusual ideas.
Its beauty captivated and flooded Zer with an expansiveness that broke through whatever had blocked pooling; she dipped her mind in and shared jokes with the crew, diving into the rapids and bubbles of group thoughts and sensations. She escaped her tree urges and visions.
The communal sharing helped crews maintain common focus when flying missions.
It was also in this region, while pooling, that ancient elders had learned to discharge excess emotional energy from their bodies in the form of pictures. They'd named it exo-painting. Electrical images formed in their minds, leaked through their skin, and displayed visibly in the space around them. Back home they'd taught everyone. The art became as natural as breathing.
Too natural, Zer thought. Newer crew members, like her, often got lost in personal visions, exo-painted or not, and forgot missions. So she forgave Leon for his insensitive, inexplicable teaching methods; he was stuck with monitoring crew attitudes. Zer sighed. She never understood his lessons until after some rotten experience he'd dreamed up just for her.
The second day of the storm Leon called her to the pilot’s room, but not to watch choreography, she realized, when he looked at her, his eyes veiled by the retractable membrane.
“Prepare for a session on adaptability,” he said, curtly. He touched a panel, and the room flooded with raw, percussive, primal sounds. She felt naked and vulnerable.
Violent noises tore at the room, Zer's bodysuit, her body. Shrieks clawed at her senses. The chaotic noise confused her. She panicked and grabbed at the first thought: mimic a tree. She stood and rooted in place with her feet planted solidly as if she’d sent roots down into the floor to hold her steady against panic: She felt shredded. She’d go nova. Tears welled in her eyes, but she stood her ground, calling on trees. Tree thoughts possessed her, shimmied sap-like up her legs, the deep pulse calming. She laughed joyously. Rhythms shifted around her.
Up through her feet, up her legs, she felt the ship’s steady thrum, more leverage against the ripping shrieks that swept through her. Letting go, she slipped into a timeless river and heard energy sounding from beyond the ship. Energy slurred and shifted again. Space opened to her, welcomed her into a passionate Uranian storm.
Abruptly, the tearing ultraviolence slowed, the lull resembling the dreamy process of exo-painting that started as streams of purple ions swirling in the head. Quiet, frothy fizzes and pings lapped at her mind. Clarity settled over her. Zer calmly sat before a recording slate, and her hands moved of their own will.
Her fingers transferred the key-coded frequency readings that blasted, moaned, or soughed through the music tube. Heat-beat tones swept into the hub at a frenzied pace. No time to think. Light flashed on the frequency-analyzer keyboard, demanding response. With her senses effortlessly swimming in that timeless river, Zer translated whatever feelings the ongoing sounds evoked.
When the starship veered toward Miranda, a Uranian moon, Zer was the mountains, the plains, cracks in the icy surface, fathoms-deep canyons. She was the flit of young terraces and the aged, broken surfaces. A bolt of lightning cracked: her vast body quivered with the seeding.
Spent, Zer leaned back, her fingers sliding from the keys. She felt shaken of energy yet more rooted in her body. Her skin felt thicker, her thoughts tougher and fascinated by the sensual focus required of a choreographer. Leon’s harsh preparation was worth it—for some unknown.
“Tree thoughts got you through.” His neutral tone indicated the idea didn’t bother him much. Smiling, he turned off the sound and moved toward her. The membrane hiding the shining light of his eyes rolled back. Burning golden eyes swept the length of her.
“Dance
