Previous Chapters can be found here:
April 6,12,18,25
May 3,11,16,19,21 and continuously thereafter.
Chapter 10
Abe walked through the archway and into the great hall. People were bustling off with a purpose, getting on with their day. He followed a small group through the tunnel. They kept walking out toward the fields, he stayed near the massive trunk of the tree. There were benches that grew within the deep and arching root system that came up out of the ground, effectively creating areas that seemed like outdoor rooms. Being this close to the trunk, the shade was dense, but looking out along the wide path that led to the fields, the shade was dappled and extremely pleasant to behold. He sat down on a bench and almost immediately, a young woman walked up and spoke to him.
“May I sit and talk with you?” she asked in perfect English.
“Sure, have a seat.” He gestured to her.
“My name is Kirah. I am the daughter of Aeron.”
“Abraham Talbot, of the Denver Talbots.” Abe said with a smile.
“Denver?”
“My home town. The place I was born.” Abe explained.
“Ah, I see.” She said.
She was sitting only a few feet away from him, her violet dress spread out on either side of her. She was a rather petite girl. Couldn’t have been more than about 5’3”. Her hair was dark brown and was arranged in a long braid that reached to her waist. The bodice of her dress was stitched with intricate entwined flowers and leaves.
“I have just been to see my father and I sought you out to welcome you to our home. And to see if there was anything you needed that perhaps the men haven’t thought of. So often they don’t think about the small things that might make a difference to a stranger.”
“Your father and Barney… I mean Doven have been very kind to me.
And to tell you the truth, I haven’t felt much like doing anything up until the last few days. But I am sure after your father shows me around, something will occur to me.”
“I thought you might like to have some books to read, but all ours of course are in our language. I could perhaps read to you and translate.”
This suggestion brought all kinds of pleasant possibilities to Abe’s mind.
“Sure, that sounds like a good idea. What books do you have in mind?”
“I will ask my father what he things would be the best to begin with.
I must go now. I have a class to teach in a little while. I will see you soon.
Enjoy your tour. I think you will be amazed at our G’var Daath. It is a marvel.”
Before he could say anything she had swept off into the tunnel disappearing in the cool darkness.
He sighed. What a beauty. Then suddenly all the warnings about getting involved with the “locals” came rushing to his mind. It was funny, all the classes and speculation about what he might encounter never included anything remotely as congenial as this place seemed.
He stretched his legs out in front of him and gazed at the pleasant aspect before him. The glimpses of the amber sky between the branches of the tree put him in the mind of a Leighton painting. Classic, but surreal.
Aeron came bursting out of the archway rubbing his hands together.
“Well, are you ready Abraham? Shall we begin?”
“More than ready.” He said.
"I think it's best that we begin outside.”
They headed out along the path to the fields. The shade grew thinner as they made their way. Here under the tree, very short grasses grew, along with what looked like moss and various other ground covers, many of them in bloom. The path was made of the closely woven roots that he and the deer had walked on all those days ago.
When they emerged into the morning sun, Abe looked up at sky. What a glow it gave to everything it touched. The light was…. subdued compared to a clear sunny day on Earth. It elicited a feeling of intimacy that was more than a little unnerving to him. In all his experience of diminished light like this, a thunderstorm was about to break.
The elder began. "G’var Daath provides food in this way: Some of the plants are left to mature and go to seed. You will notice that these plants do not grow in a rigid order, but in groups. When the plant lets its seeds fall, they begin to sprout. The spent plant is then fairly quickly pulled underground by the roots of the tree where it is composed, fertilizing the soil. The plants grow and mature on their own. We are responsible for harvesting. A task we gladly perform. We have a few master gardeners who oversee this harvesting process and every day we take turns working in the morning gathering what will need for that day, with the exception of the grains. When they are ripe they are harvested with a cart that is wheeled through the field. We use long sticks and bend the plant and shake it over the cart and gather the grain this way. There is a mill just over there, he said, pointing to his left. It is run by water that flows from under the tree. We grind only as much as we need for several day’s time. After the grains have been gathered their plants are pulled down under the ground by the roots of the tree, and a new crop sprouts soon after from seeds that fell during harvesting. We have a new crop every few weeks or so.”
"How do the roots know when the plants are finished producing? And besides that, why did those same roots destroy my pack and shelter on the plateau?" Abraham wanted to know.
"A subject we will talk about later, said the elder. It is best that first you understand how the tree works."
Abe frowned. He would rather talk about it right now.
They stood looking at the vast tree in the distance. The elder gestured toward it, saying, “You have noticed of course that center of the tree is hollow. The mass of the outer trunk varies from place to place around the perimeter. But generally speaking, it is about 50 paces deep. The roots of Daath go deep into the core of our planet. And in doing so, it is able to do amazing things for us. But we will need to go inside for me to show you.”
They walked all the way back through the archway. The Elder chatted with people on their way back from gathering fruit. Here and there in the fields, short trees grew that seemed to be continually bearing. The fruits were of all shapes and sizes, some looking familiar and some completely bizarre. Especially the long purple ones that looked like eggplants, but when you cut into them were raspberry colored with tiny yellow seeds. They tasted like a cross between a kiwi and a peach. So far, of all the fruits he had eaten, these were his favorites. Doven had told him they were called Numas.
“We shall start with the kitchen since you are familiar with the dinning hall now.” Aeron said as they walked through the archway. Toward the back was a large opening about 20 feet long, and as wide. On either side, were shelves with all the plates and mugs and eating utensils. Beyond this they entered a bright room with a bustling group of people preparing food.
There was a huge wooden table in the middle of the floor. On it were bowls full of cut vegetables. On little benches next to the table were the baskets that contained freshly harvested vegetables and fruit.
To the left there was a deep sink that had three spouts that came out of the tree trunk “wall”.
“Here we have hot, warm and cold water…. The elder said, moving from one spout to another. The water drains back into the depths of the tree root system where the organic matter decomposes. This water comes from underground also and is circulated by the Tree. You of course have noticed this in your rooms. It is a self contained, perpetuating cycle that G’var Daath provides.”
“This is Misha, our Head Cook. You have met before over honey cakes I believe.” he smiled. His arm encompassed a cheerful woman with red hair and about a million freckles.
Misha smiled and said, “Come in come in. But if you stay too long, I will put you to work!”
“Yes, and you know how too, as I well know.” Aeron beamed back at her.
He continued, “Over here we have our ovens and stove although they are very different from the ones I saw on your world. These ovens run on steam from underground thermal vents and the stove likewise. The pots fit down in these depressions, he showed Abe a pot of simmering stew. He tipped the edge of the pot up with a tool nearby showing the half circle shape. It looked like a big wok. There were places for 8 pots on this stove. Although for something so large, it was not putting off a lot of heat into the room.
“Why isn’t it hot in here?”
“Ah, look.” said the elder. At the back of the stove there was an opening.
“Reach your hand back here. Careful now, between these two pots.”
Abe carefully reached back there and felt a cold draft pushing air up and around to a vent at the top of the stove area.
“It’s vented! Amazing!” he said shaking his head.
“Yes, Daath thinks of everything.”
Evidently, thought Abe. It was beginning to seem a bit too good to be true.
“We take turns in the kitchen. Even I come down and whip up some of my special dishes from time to time don’t I Misha?”
“Oh yes, Aeron makes the very best tansat salad. I think you’d like it.” She beamed at Abe. Could she ALWAYS be so happy?
“Well, let’s move on.” Said Aeron.
“Here take a … she hesitated, retrieving the word from her new language. . . a cookie with you.” said Misha.
She offered them a plate piled with what looked like oatmeal cookies.
Sure enough they were. They were also full of something that tasted and looked very much like dates. He munched away, “Mmmm.” Said Abe appreciatively and they left Misha glowing as if she knew all along he was a good boy.
Aeron was warming up to his tour guide status. He carried his half eaten cookie with them out the of the dinning hall and started waving with it across the way, “Let’s go see the supply room now.” He mumbled, his mouth full of cookie.
They went across the Great Hall and through another arch. Come to think of it there only seemed to be doors to the private apartments here.
This room was very large. About twice the size of the dinning hall and flooded with light from the outside. The windows went from almost floor level to the ceiling.
“What are the windows made of?” Abe wanted to know.
“They are composed of….what you could call um… crystal.”
“Amazing.” Abe said, He might as well have the word tattooed on his forehead. As it was the only response that seemed to fit.
The room was bustling with people coming and going carrying various things with them. There was another large table in the center of this room that looked like it was used for sorting.
“Here is where we gather the things we need for our projects, great and small.” Said Aeron, waving his arm to take in the whole vast room.
They walked over to the closest “station”. It was the first word that came to Abe’s mind. It was an alcove that contained three separate rows of copper bowls full of what looked like powders. They were brightly colored, in all shades of the rainbow plus some that Abe had never seen before. It was difficult to look at them as his poor brain tried to categorize them, to no avail.
“These are dyes. Daath makes them from minerals deep in the earth. We use them to dye our clothing, and thread for embroidery. We also use them to make paints for artwork. Our people decorate their living quarters, and many of us paint on canvas. We have an art gallery that you will visit later.”
They moved on to the next alcove. “And here, Daath is producing cloth. We have determined after careful study, that this cloth comes from a plant that grows on the outer perimeters of our gardens. I think it would be considered very much like the cloth you have on your planet that you call linen. Daath makes three kinds. This heavy one, two lighter weight ones that we use for undergarments and fine fancy dresses and shirts. The cloth, we dye ourselves in vats outside. And here is thread made in the same way, in several different sizes for all manner of uses.”
They made their way to another alcove.
“This is where we get….. um, there is no word for this substance in your language. We use it for our tools. Daath produces this substance which is extremely hard. Perhaps it is most like your diamond on earth come to think of it. But in its way, much stronger, more like a metal. It is formed in several shapes as you see.”
Here there were some kind of spouts that came out of the tree, that were slowly exuding things that looked like needles, or the tips of chisels. There were several that looked like wood carving tools and some blade like things that when he looked closer were the two halves of a pair of scissors. All you would need to do is make handles for them as they even came with a small hole to attach them together. There were probably two dozen different shapes in all.
“Here you see is a little bin under each tool part. When the bin is full, Daath stops producing them. When it is empty, it will fill it again.”
At the far end of the room, there was a paper station that was making several shades of parchment, and nearby some stuff that looked for all the world like honey, but the elder said was glue. There was another area that was producing what looked to Abe like a sheet of brass.
“What is this used for?” he asked.
“This we make musical instruments with, and this over here, we make cooking pots with.” Abe looked, and there was a slowly “growing” sheet of copper curling it’s way out of a long groove in the trunk of the tree.
He was dumbfounded. This was too good to be true. It couldn’t be true. I was all too convenient.
And true to his human kind, he kept thinking, Where is the fly in this ointment? There HAS to be one somewhere. And I’ll bet it’s a big, nasty, hairy, juicy one too….”