When they returned to the mess, the precipitation of cosmic phenomena would make it difficult to honor the rule. The subrule, bend-but-don’t-break the rule, muddled the issue. It was a beloved, ancient axiom handed down by forebears who’d learned to bend reality. And exo-paint; they all could. Exo-pictures started as purplish clouds in the mind, whirling fluorine ions in the brain, that occurred as natural as breathing.
So they indulged, venting feelings or ideas for useful products. Soon, Leon requested they break the habit, announcing it, gutlessly, behind the sound system. But the C-ring thrum was stimulating creativity, making it extra difficult to quit.
Quitting became impossible within hours after a small asteroid exploded in the atmosphere and shattered into dust, turning the sky bright, near Antarctica, CE 2033, Earth time, followed by underwater explosions and shock waves. Multiple events affected magnetic flux on the ocean floor and subtler orgasmic reactions of Earth: tremors after slabs of undersea mounts dove toward the hot iron core of Earth's body and after molten magma shimmied along old seabed trenches. Tons of ice sheet slippage heightened seas. Atmospheric currents dispersed asteroid particles around the globe. Hazy volcanic and other ejecta later hid the sun, chilling the globe.
Helplessly, the crew watched from afar as some Earth people died. But other Earthlings donned bodysuits with built-in nose and mouth filters, and many went underground. Indoors, people tapped blank computer screens as power grids crashed. Underwater explosions set off fault line slippage, earthquakes, and minor reactions at retired nuclear-waste sites. People looted stores for survival gear. Feet ran across rooftop gardens. On a map, a finger traced networks of green belts, trails, and zoos between cities and high-rises. Animals pacing in cages on edges of trails paced faster. Some broke loose. A boy leading a camel vanished in whirling dust. Disoriented geese flew in circles, a cue to retreat from Earth's magnetic field. High wind and fires enveloped regions of the planet.
Zer and her crewmates created a gallery of the images, forging bonds of sorts with Earthlings. Leon didn’t bother to try stopping them. He encouraged the crew to exo-paint. As excess emotion built up in their brains, the swirling purplish ions needed release. The ions, discharging outwardly through the skin, formed pictures unique to each person. The art, ingrained from childhood, enabled them to stabilize their bodies in their high UV home environment and to cope with compassion.
Longtime voyagers had greater detachment and control over their feelings and bodies; Zer had little, especially with no mature, soothing trees aboard. She painted numerous Exotica.
After Leon resumed mindstalking, Zer stemmed the urge to exo-paint or plant seed via frequent visits to the blueprint chamber. There, the crew produced samples of utilitarian objects they’d exo-painted. Co-pilot Raya had helped Zer design a windtop, combined with energy-storing fabric, for generating a little energy in homes. Today, she’d come to see the sample.
No one was around, but on the work table by the fabricator, she found the sample lying on top of a sketch of Exotica transmuting poisons in air and water. She crumpled the sketch and shoved it in the recycler chute.
Days later in the room, Brea ambushed her, emerging from behind the fabricator. “Plant now, they’ll clean the environment sooner. Bet it’ll speed evolution, we’ll go home sooner.”
“If trees restore the planet too fast, Earthlings won’t have to develop new ways to cope. They’ll revert to old habits.” Zer fingers curled into fists as she spouted one of Leon’s stock views. She disagreed. Exotica might enhance personality traits for good or ill, but interaction with them wouldn’t stop Earthlings from evolving. Nor cause symbiosis with the trees any more than Zenobians had; only Lilios, who grew up with trees, fully embraced them.
“Don’t think much of Earthlings?” Brea flashed a daring grin.
“Heard they’re full of fears. Exotica can’t detox that so fast.” But they could, she thought. And make it easier for everyone to evolve.
“I’ll wager—”
“Leave me be.” She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she sided with him. She didn’t need anyone urging her to plant trees before they landed.
Today, Brea waylaid her in the gallery, following her among exo-pictures.
“You can’t resist a natural urge,” he said. “The thought makes you zing.”
Zer, who’d come to look at pictures to overpower such instincts, stomped off.
Zer fought another surge of fluorine ions in her brain. All morning, she’d kept the taboo exo-painting from escaping her body. Now she couldn’t stop the process; ions leaked from her skin, and she turned a degree more transparent. At least she was more visible than a ghostly spirit. Earthlings had seen spirits.
A ghostly electrical figment of trees emerged full blown from her semitranslucent skin and floated toward the viewscan screen. It hovered there as Pyrid Six locked into Earth orbit, again. Zer's exo-painted shroud of trees obscured her view of the roiling, yellowish clouds that still engulfed the planet. Tree images had plagued Zer for days because the real Exotica could’ve speeded cleaning the environment. Earth may as well have flipped upside down; the addled atmosphere mocked compass directions and hid landmarks.
Zer wondered if they’d land for good this time. Her brain-painted trees dissipated across the viewscan screen, exposing more billowy residue from fires below. She imagined the stench of charred and rotting life forms, and the song of seed spilling through the odors, a woo-ooing.
No. The woo-ooing was real!
The sound grew louder. Real seed. Real voices that burned with vigor. Zer became confused by another haze of purple ions swarming in her brain, but she knew the seed called her. A biolinguist, she spoke the language of trees—a deeper, gnarly oo-ooing broke into her thoughts. Mother tongue of Earth? The sound made the smoking globe look like the inside of her head felt. If she was talking with Earth, the foreign planet evoked a powerful sense of kinship. Earth was beckoning her; built-up ions threatened to erupt into the familiar tree scene, and she’d barely finished exo-painting the last one.
This time, before the picture fully formed in her thoughts, she remembered to leak, releasing a blurred pattern from her body; it did not relieve her. The strange kin bond she’d formed with Earth pulled on her will. She got to her feet and started toward the biolab.
Vatta shook her head in warning, but Zer couldn’t stop. She’d started expanding. Anyone could tell because she was naked, all her crewmates were, and on the verge of nova, their pearly bodies glowed. Vatta grabbed a sprayer and shot cold water at her. Zer stumbled onto her friend’s lap.
“Can’t you keep your mind and body to yourself?”
Zer groaned and stood, shaking her head, no. She looked down the circular deck, glad to see electrical figments of clouds and fire billowing from coworkers’ ear-slits, noses, and skin.
“No one stops for long, not since the undersea explosions. If we’re not exo-painting, we’re changing dimensions. We’re a threat to Earthlings’ sensibilities.”
“Quit saying that.” Zer thought of all the gimmicks they’d practiced to remain solid at will.
Vatta had decent control, yet she was sitting on the edge of her chair, about to jump out of her skin. Her eyes shined too brightly. Over dead, wild animals, Zer thought, as the women started pooling, sharing
