Chapter 22
In the morning at breakfast, Aeron introduced Abe to Qinn, the head of the biology department. Abe arranged to spend his afternoons with his group. With this last contact, he now settled into a routine. First thing in the morning, he spent and hour or so in the fields, the remainder of the morning with Kirah learning the language and after lunch he would study with the biology group. In the late afternoons or evenings he would spend some time in his tree house writing a bit in his historical account.
On his first afternoon with the biology study group Qinn introduced him to the three other members. They soon left them alone though, going off to their own work. Qinn sat him down at a table and explained briefly what their methods were.
“From what Aeron tells me, compared to what you are used to, our observation styles will seem very strange Abraham. But I hope to demonstrate to you just how efficient they are. I’m told you have been a student of Naphor and know the rudiments of Moheen, is that right?”
“Yes. Just the basics.” Said Abe.
“Good. I think that will be sufficient. I want you to close your eyes and sit quietly for a moment, then I am going to put something in your hands and I want you to observe it with your mind.”
Abe did as he was told. After a few seconds, he felt Qinn place something light in his hand. He opened his eyes to see what it was. A leaf.
“No, close your eyes Abraham, your eyes will tell your mind, ‘Oh this is a leaf’ and then once it has identified it will think that it knows enough. We don’t just want to identify, we want to understand. In our language we call it “Makhon”. We want to see the essence of the thing we study. So close your eyes and use what you have been taught by Naphor.”
Abraham sat as still as he could. It was difficult for him to calm his very busy and curious mind. He was a habitual over-thinker. Analyzing things to death using the kind of thought processes he was taught in school. Logic, deductive reasoning, and probabilities. This Moheen stuff seemed so passive to him. It was a miracle that Naphor had been able to teach him anything.
After he ran through his litany of thoughts about the process and the place and the expectations of the man across the table and a dozen other useless bits of brain flotsam, he began to settle down and do what he had been asked to do. Keeping his eyes closed he began to feel the leaf, running his fingers along its length. It had a rigid central stem, it seemed leathery. He could smell a not unpleasant pungent smell that it was exuding as he turned it over and over. And after this outer identification his conscious mind became a bit bored and stopped being the dominant sense. His breathing slowed, and he felt something else from the leaf.
His fingers tingled slightly and the odor of it became stronger. Soon he felt that the smell was exuding from his own skin. He tasted a bitter film on his tongue. A very slight sweat formed on his forehead and little by little he felt himself growing nauseated. It intensified until he was afraid he was going to vomit. He dropped the leaf on the table and opened his eyes.
“I’m sorry, I seem to be coming down with something. I’m feeling sick to my stomach.”
“Congratulations. You have just successfully identified Waluk, a plant we make a tea out of that is a very effective emetic.”
Abe who was already feeling better, looked at the innocent looking leaf that reminded him of a bay leaf at home. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, that is exactly what this leaf does. It is a particularly potent plant and a good place for beginners to start their studies. It lacks the subtleties of many other plants and gives a clear message.”
“You know this is really blowing my mind don’t you?” Abe said shaking his head.
“Yes, I am sure it is. But multiply what you have just done in complexity and subtlety and you have the gist of our methods. We have identified thousands of plants and their uses this way. The doctor who treated your arm began his studies just as you have today. G’var Daath produces leaves, roots, berries, bark, and seeds that have healing properties. And those that study the workings of the Tree itself, have done so in this same way, only they are very adept at Moheen. On the level of Naphor, many of the secrets of the Tree have been understood.”
“I am speechless.” Abe said. “It seems incredible. Science by meditation, who would have thought it possible?”
Qinn smiled. “Our ancestors wouldn’t have believed it either.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon studying an overview of the plants already identified and the fact that in some instances they were going back and doing more in-depth mergings to see if there were other properties that had been overlooked. They were doing this because a handful of his colleagues had begun to find certain new qualities heretofore missed. There was a theory that the Tree had a potential for even more amazing abilities that were still latent, and the clues were in the very organic matter of the Tree itself. For all the plants that now grew on their planet were actually interconnected. The whole of the plant life was one with the Tree, just different expressions of it.
Abe left Qinn in the late afternoon thanking him profusely for a fascinating first day and promised to be there promptly the next. He then went to his rooms and gathered up his papers and pen and headed up to his Tree House.
He started a new sheet as a journal of current events. He would have to work on two things now, the past and the present. He wrote about what his day had been like and his impressions of his new work. As he finished the entry with a flourish, he realized that only weeks before he had been bored out of his mind and now he felt like there weren’t going to be enough hours in the day to learn all he wanted to know about this place.
He turned his chair around and propped his feet up on the railing and gazed out upon his leafy surroundings. The golden sky had begun to glow orange in the evening light. He let out a sigh of contentment after a good day’s work.
Chapter 23
Many days later Abe was in his room sitting on the balcony trying to read a children’s book and making a bad job of it. He heard a knock at the door. He opened it and there was Kirah dressed in a pale green dress.
“Why hello, come in!”
“Mmm, no thank you. I was just wondering if you had seen the art gallery yet, and if not, I could show it to you.”
“We have an art gallery?”
“Actually, the art gallery is underground.”
“There is an underground?”
They both laughed.
“This place is like a never ending maze!” Abe said.
“Well, I suppose it could seem that way to you. I am so used to it, I never think about that.”
“Lead on then Maze Mistress!” He put his book on the shelf and off they went.
She led him around the great hall to the far end from the dinning hall and around a corner, which led to a stairwell he had never noticed before. They went down a fair number of steps and to Abe’s surprise it became slightly warmer. There were only a few phosphorescents along the stairway, but when they arrived in the gallery, he was amazed to see a very large room with hundreds of paintings. Each was illuminated by its own lights, placed to best advantage. The whole place was alight.
They strolled over to a large painting that dominated the wall opposite the stairs. It was an almost photographic representation of their Tree at sunset with enormous white clouds in the golden sky. It was so real as to seem living. As if at any moment you were going to see a branch move in the breeze or smell the blossoming vines that grew around the front archway.
“This was painted by Drewe Aurek. He is dead now. He was elder before my father, and greatly loved.”
“It is beautiful, and a true likeness of the Tree.” Abe said.
They moved on. If Abe expected to see strictly realistic art, he was quickly disabused of this idea as they walked to the next painting. Here was a similar sky and there were the gardens and the familiar peaks of the surrounding mountains, but the Tree itself was represented by a huge open hand, looking like it was holding something amorphous. When you moved closer, you could see on each section of the fingers, portions of the interior of the tree. The great hall, the supply room, the concert hall, even the art gallery were there. People worked, played, read, and wrote, and there was a portion that showed them standing singing in the dinning hall with beings that looked like winged creatures ascending from their heads. And cleverly in a sort of shadowed technique, the roots of the tree were depicted seeking out water, and gathering materials to produce the things needed by the people. There were streams that looked like molten lava that were being channeled by the roots of the tree, and different colors of earth that were being gathered. One could look at this painting for days and still not see all the intricate details depicted. Then when you stood back far enough, it became the open hand again.
“This is amazing work. Who painted this one?”
“Naphor, when he was younger and lived here in Tzemat. There are people who have studied this painting and tried to list all the processes represented and the concepts portrayed.”
“I can see that would be an almost full time job!”
They wandered here and there until another painting captured his eye. It had irregular, vaguely box- like shapes in various shades of green and blue. As they moved closer he saw smaller roundish objects with odd protuberances and other more indistinct objects of yellow and red. It was shot throughout with what looked like narrow crystals. The overall effect was pleasing, but unidentifiable.
“What is this all about?” Abe wanted to know.
“This is a painting by a famous biologist as you would call her. This is her impression of the berry of the Nebia plant that she studied. It was found to be a cure for the uncontrolled growths that people used to get. I think you call it cancer. This is actually a very old painting. She lived and did her work almost nine hundred years ago. She was among the pioneers of Moheen.”
Abe was transfixed by the painting and the concept. Would there be no end of miracles in this place???
He moved on to another painting. This one had the surreal quality of a Salvador Dali. Here was the Tree suspended in mid-air, it’s upper branches blanched of color, soaring in space. Comets and galaxies swirled around its branches covered with gray and silver leaves. Then lower down were the skies of Dhriana. Here the branches were filled with fruit and blossoms. Then the sturdy trunk where you could see people living and working. Below, the roots hung suspended in view in another level drifting over a sea of moving waters, blue and green.
He moved closer to see the details in the branches and there in the center of the painting surrounded by a certain type of flower of a color Abe didn’t have a name for was what looked like a seed. He felt a jolt of recognition. Smooth and reflective, with a swirling pattern on its surface was the seed that Naphor had shown him.
He noticed a pale white misty tendril that led away from the seed going upward. It was very subtle and you didn’t notice it unless you were very close to the painting. He followed the trail up and up into the area where the tree lost its color in the vacuum of space. And there was a tiny figure of a man, holding the same seed. Streams of purple haze streamed out behind him like he was traveling through the heavens.
What he saw there caused a jolt of recognition. He stood speechless, his pulse throbbing in his temples and his mouth going dry.
Kirah finally spoke. “This is the oldest painting in our gallery. We aren’t really sure who painted this. It has been here as long as anyone can remember.”
Abe didn’t speak. He couldn’t speak.
“I think I have seen enough for today.” He finally said quietly. Could we come back another time?”
“Yes of course,” Kirah said a little puzzled. She looked again at the painting and wondered what he had seen that changed his mood so suddenly.