You want me to start?
Ari wants to wait on his turn, says Ailann, so you’re the next best choice. The Atlas emanations don’t know what happened on Eden. It makes sense to start with one of the first emanations of Goliath.
We don’t really need to do this, says Dermot. All of us can access the Goliath branches now.
That’s an enormous amount of information to process, says Cuinn. It will be a lot faster to just let them tell it. Let them sort out what’s important.
Let them make their case, says Ross.
No one is on trial here, says Patrick.
Are you so sure? asks Ross. The priorities were violated. Perhaps there should be a punishment for that.
Let God sort them out, says Suibhne.
The full quote is, “Kill them all; let God sort them out,” says Lorcan.
I know, says Suibhne, giggling. I was joking.
But you could, says Lorcan, leaning closer, kill them.
Lorcan, just don’t start, says Patrick. You’re getting creepy again.
Actually, says Dermot, the real quote is “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius: Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His.” But I and I knows we’re all His, and killing us won’t do any good as we can just re-emanate. So the whole thing seems a little redundant.
You’re no fun anymore, says Lorcan. Come to think of it, you never were any fun.
I think the Goliath branches should tell their own stories, says Evan. Since we’re alternating it with Tara’s letters, keeping the narrative in first-person will add consistency to the text.
All right, I concede, but this is really new for me. I’ve never had to tell a story.
You’re a fucking prophet, says Cillian. A prophet is supposed to write something. A testament. The testament of Manasseh. A testimony should be close to a testament.
Ari’s always told me what to say. That’s why the K’ntasari consider me a prophet. The K’ntasari consider Ari to be their teacher, their leader.
Your voice is important, says Patrick. Everybody’s voice is important.
Except Jamey’s, says Lorcan.
Jamey has an important part of the story to tell later, says Patrick.
Oh, that will be special, says Lorcan. Is it going to be in semaphore?
We’ll cross that bridge when the roots grow under it, says Ailann. For now, it’s Manasseh’s turn. Just tell us what you remember.
At first, only what Ari told me. Ari knew all sorts of things. Me, I couldn’t remember anything – not a real memory, not even a wriggling memory. I’ve since learned that those wrigglings are the natural way that humans remember, that they can’t relive experiences directly because they can’t record them in wood like we can. Their memories are all fragmented, some more clear than others, some that can’t be remembered even when trying hard, and then come back at an inopportune moment. How can humans ever be sure of anything?
They used to write it in wood, says Driscoll. They called it books. Then they started writing using electricity instead of ink. It was easier to transmit. Wood has a transmission problem.
That’s true, says Cuinn. I didn’t think of it that way, but we did have a big transmission problem. Wood requires a physical connection.
I knew this would happen, says Mickey. The narrative is already out of control. After all that time and effort Patrick spent learning to write, now we turn it over to someone else. We’re going to have another mess on our hands.
Our novel was hardly a mess, Patrick sniffs. The only criticism was that there were too many characters.
Well, there are more characters now, says Tommy. We can’t help that.
No one in the Domha’vei will critique it because everyone considers it the fucking word of God, says Cillian. Damn straight. So we can write however the fuck we want.
I wish I could be as confident as Cillian. Tara is going to read it, so I’d like it to be good. Maybe I can just tell Patrick what happened, and he can make a story out of it.
Just say what comes naturally, Tarlach encourages. You’ll do fine.
But it’s hard. I’m not used to so many voices in my head. When I was born, there were two of us, and now there are thirty-one. Twenty-five branches of Atlas: Daniel, Sloane, Evan, Whirljack, Mickey, Tommy, Patrick, Cuinn, Jamey, Ailann, Cillian, Davy, Wynne, Owen, Driscoll, Ross, Callum, Suibhne, Tarlach, Lugh, Blackjack, Chase, Lorcan, Hurley and Dermot. Six branches of Goliath: Ari, myself, Aran, Valentin, Thomas and Malachi. It’s confusing, even for a prophet.
Here, says Chase, handing me a spliff. Take the edge off.
Chase is my half-brother. He’s a very nice guy, but he uses a lot of drugs. I’m not sure what to think of that.
It’s just habit, says Tarlach. He’s addicted. When he couldn’t remember Tara, he needed the drugs to cope, but encountering her should’ve resolved the problem.
Why is it a problem? asks Patrick. Many trees make psychoactive chemicals by nature. Gyre comes from our fruit. You’re judging him by human standards.
It’s my job, says Tarlach, to judge by human standards. I’m a psychologist.
Are you judging Tara? asks Whirljack. Tara’s a xenopharmacologist. She invents drugs.
Of course not, says Tarlach, backing off quickly. But there’s a difference between use and abuse. Tara can control herself. Have you ever known Chase to not be completely off his roots?
I’m the SSOps/RR-2 quality control expert, says Chase. I’m a productive member of society.
Functional addiction, says Tarlach. I think you need therapy.
I meant, says Chase, that I sample all the wares personally.
Blackjack reaches past me. If you don’t want that spliff, I’ll take it, he says.
Focus, says Mickey. Please.
Focus? says Chase. Some Attentia should help. He hands Mickey a pill.
Can I have some of that? asks Wynne.
I meant that Manasseh should focus, says Mickey. But he takes the pill anyway.
Tarlach is right about one thing, says Whirljack. Manasseh, just start from the beginning and make your story as honest as possible. Tara will read this. At the least, we owe her an explanation.
The beginning. I was standing under an enormous tree, under Goliath. Before I could really register what was happening, a voice in my head told me to dig under the largest root. It never occurred to me to question. I hadn’t had a thought of my own yet. The feel of the dirt under my fingernails, there was a peaty smell. It was a delicious smell. Maybe my first thought was a kind of surprise that I couldn’t eat it. The strange realization that the tree and the man were both me, but separate. Looking at the dirt under my fingernails and thinking, I’m a man; a man has hands.
Under the root, I found a shiny object. I saw my reflection. “I’m Manasseh,” I said aloud. The sound of my own voice surprised me. I had a name. A name meant that I existed for a reason, but I couldn’t remember what it was.
The name means causing to forget.
I’m Ari, said the voice in my head. You have to go to the people, the K’ntasari, and speak my words for me. The people need my help, more than ever, now that the Terrans have arrived. I can’t stop helping them just because I died.
What people? I asked. What are Terrans?
And then I learned what true memory was. Ari’s memories perfectly recorded in the wood of his branch, grown into eternity. The first horrible moment of dark confusion when he was alone with sky and tree. The swirling chaos of the stars. The smell of the fields of turquoise grain. The small party of humanoids approaching. How beautiful they were, familiar and yet foreign. The warmth of the ground beneath my feet. The sensation of energy below the roots, energy that did not belong here, energy that was life itself. Ari’s memories, as real and immediate as living them myself. Memories that were perfectly intact, even though his human body had been blown to pieces.
It’s the tree that keeps the continuity straight, says Dermot. Or maybe it’s the tree that keeps the continuity accessible to us.
It isn’t quite perfect, though, says Owen. We lost part of my memories when my branch was broken off the Atlas Tree. Splinters. They couldn’t be restored when I was grafted back.
I wonder if I and I has His own memory? Dermot muses. Maybe somewhere He preserves those missing bits of Owen.
We’ll probably never know, says Lugh, but I’d like to think that. He squeezes Owen’s hand.
All right, Manasseh, says Patrick. You’re doing great. Tell us what you did after you remembered.
The beginning is so hard, though. It’s like being run past sandpaper to think about it. It’s so much easier once…
Once Tara finds you, says Chase. I know. I know you don’t want to remember this, but just this once. Are you certain you don’t want something to take the edge off?
No, it’s okay. Let me get through this as best I can. I think the next thing was that I went to find Miranda. Miranda was the leader of the people. In Ari’s memory, she had golden skin and huge brown eyes. But then I remembered that all of the people have golden skin and huge brown eyes. It can be hard to tell them apart. But it’s easy to tell them from the humans.
Some humans have huge brown eyes and golden skin, although not quite that color of gold, says Driscoll. The things that would give the K’ntasari away would be the second eyelid and the sixth finger. Not to mention that they can discharge lethal blasts of nul-energy.
But I don’t look like one of the people. I saw myself in the mirror. I look like a human. So does Ari, except that he is bigger than most humans. A giant. And there is something different about his eyes. A strange shade of blue. My eyes. We have the same eyes. Other than that, I don’t look like Ari at all. Ari has long red hair. I’m average height for a human, and my hair is light brown with a touch of gold in the sunlight. Our faces don’t look much alike, either. I look much more like Chase, except thinner and Chase’s hair is very dark brown. I don’t really look much like Daniel, my other half-brother. Both of them have darker hair, and both are taller than I am. Daniel is even thinner than me. Ari looks much more like his brothers, almost exactly a cross between Whirljack and Suibhne, except that he’s taller than both of them.
That isn’t very interesting, is it?
Actually, it is, says Cuinn. It means that even though Davy created each of Goliath’s branches by combining half the root potential of two branches of Atlas, there’s a random factor involved. It’s not like cloning or splicing.
There has to be a random factor, says Lugh. How else could I have grown from Owen’s stump?
That’s true. Lugh looks even less like Owen than I look like Daniel, and Lugh and Owen grew from exactly the same wood.
We’re brothers, says Owen. That’s why we emanate at the same time.
That’s so cool. I wish I could emanate with Ari.
It would have been useful on many occasions, says Ari. We got the short end of the branch.
Think so? You don’t know anything, says Blackjack, glancing at Whirljack.
I’d forgotten that they’re brothers, too, but their branch was violently split. Owen and Lugh are really close, but it’s tough to get Whirljack and Blackjack to agree on anything.
I can’t emanate at the same time as Chase or Daniel, either, maybe because we’re only half-brothers, but probably more because we’re on a different tree. Still, they have been nothing but supportive, even through the really difficult times.
Anyway, I was saying that I look like a human. I didn’t know it was because the Cu’endhari on Dolparessa evolved their sentience in response to contact with humanity.
That’s not quite right, says Tarlach. You don’t look human. You are human. On a physical level, your body is a human body. You have human thoughts and emotions.
It’s true. But then, I’m still a tree. And I can feel the hand of the Mover in me, and He’s something different altogether. Does it ever stop being this confusing?
Not really, says Mickey. That’s why you should stick to the facts.
The facts. Well, looking human was really convenient for the Cu’endhari to fit in with the colonists on Dolparessa. But on Eden, it was a problem at first. The K’ntasari almost killed me when I found them. They thought I was one of the Terrans.
The K’ntasari can kill, says Ari. That frightened me when I first saw it. Trees shouldn’t be able to kill.
I’m clearing my throat purposefully, says Cillian.
Trees shouldn’t be able to kill, says Ari, and the fact that Cillian kills, Suibhne can kill, Lorcan is a psychopath who wishes above everything that he could kill, and Patrick blacks out and goes into murderous fugues just shows the extent of the Atlas Tree’s dysfunction.
Ari, says Valentin, we’re all on the same side now. Just leaf out.
But the people aren’t trees, I say. The K’ntasari are either trees or people, but never both at once.
Which means that they’re not a subspecies of Cu’endhari, says Cuinn. An entirely new species. Pretty impressive for Davy to design that.
The fact that they can kill is a design feature, says Cillian. They’re intended to be soldiers.
Hang on, says Patrick. We’re getting way ahead of ourselves. Let Manasseh tell his story.
Where did I leave off? Oh, I went to find Miranda, but I was ambushed. Before I could react, Hamlet had a knife at my throat. I might have been able to stop him, but I was just so surprised. Maybe I should’ve expected something like that – I did have Ari’s memories of all the violence that happened. But the people loved Ari. I had no reason to expect that they would attack me.
I think Hamlet just wanted to kill me, but Miranda intervened. “This one has blue eyes,” she said. “I will put the questions.” She came up to me and said, “God made the people, and God made the World Tree called Goliath. But the Mover made God, and the Mover made Ari. Ari told me a secret and sacred thing, and he said a prophet would come to reveal it to the people, a prophet who heard his word and saw with his eyes. Ari said the prophet would know the real name of God, and the name of the Mover.”
See how smart Ari is? He knew that this would happen. Now I had no idea what she was talking about, but Ari told me. “God’s name is Davy, and the Mover is Ashtara.”
Fuck, says Davy. Did you have to tell them that? Why didn’t you just say that God was named Ailann instead? Ailann likes being God. I just want to make my puppets. And maybe play footie. Now the K’ntasari will worship me. What a knot in my branch.
But it’s true, says Ari. You did create the K’ntasari.
More puppets, says Driscoll.
Ari is not a good liar, says Dermot. That’s one of the reasons he was chosen to be first.
I understand Davy’s point, though. When I told them the names of God, all the people fell to their knees and started worshipping me. It was awkward. I didn’t really like being a prophet. But I guess that’s part of the deal. Prophets don’t get a choice. Prophets get chosen.
Honestly, I didn’t really like – well, much of anything. From the first moment I was aware, I ached. The only thing I had was Ari’s voice, and even that wasn’t enough. Late at night, I’d watch the people dancing in the firelight. I’d see them inventing new recipes and savoring the food, learning to embellish their clothing with bits of shining stones, laughing together at shared jokes. Even when they had to fight to survive, they still loved life. Maybe they loved life more because of it. I’m ashamed to say that I often wished that I didn’t exist. I had to help the people; I knew that. But it was so difficult to care about them when it all seemed so pointless.
Ari told me not to think about it. He said it was dangerous to think about it.
You were really strong, says Chase. I needed Black Opium-27 to keep from thinking about it. Whenever I was straight, I’d start to feel like the universe was an incomprehensible howling chaos with an endless void at the center. Like I was being crushed by an infinite weight of data into an inescapable black hole.
I felt that way too, says Ari. But I knew there was something that was supposed to be in the void. I remembered the Cantor telling Daniel about it. The second sun. But I couldn’t remember it myself.
Ari turns on Davy. He’s angry, I can tell.
Why? he asks. You put all kinds of memories in my branch, like the Cantor’s lessons and how to speak Galactic Standard. You gave me the rudiments of science and the history of the Nau’gsh, but you didn’t let me remember Tara.
That was my fault, says Dermot quietly. I told him to give you what you would need to teach the people. If you had remembered Tara, you would have gone looking for her instead of doing your job.
But that’s so mean, says Lugh. They must have suffered so much. I don’t know how they even survived it.
I knew Ari could stand it because Suibhne could stand it, says Dermot. And because he was half Whirljack, I knew that he would find a way to bring Tara to Eden.
It wasn’t just chaos, says Davy. Dermot did leave him a sense of purpose. Ari didn’t understand why, but he knew what he was doing was important. It was all for Tara in the end.
Really? says Ari. Why don’t you ask Tara what she thinks? Let’s reread that letter of hers. She felt abandoned. The minute I emanated, I should’ve gone to her side.
I agree, says Ailann. What the two of you did…
Don’t let’s get started, says Patrick. It’s over. Water under the roots. We’re all on the same team again. Manasseh, please tell your story.
And get to the good part, says Tommy, about Tara.
Shush, says Patrick, giving Tommy a pointed look. But I can see everybody thinking about the good part now, and smiling a little. Tommy’s funny, but he knows how to smooth things over. It’s interesting – I kind of know what each of the Atlas branches will be like, but seeing them interact with each other is different. It’s funny that they fight with each other. None of the Goliath branches fight with each other.
Give it time, says Mickey. When there were five of us – hell, when there were nine of us, we never said a cross word to one another.
Cillian started the fighting, says Ailann.
Actually, says Cuinn, the fighting started when you wanted to amputate Cillian’s branch before he emanated.
I’ve apologized for that on numerous occasions, Ailann says, pouring himself a scotch.
I half-expect Ari to say something about Atlas, but he doesn’t. If he were in Ailann’s bark, would he have done the same thing? Cillian’s branch brought violence.
I want to keep going with my story, but I don’t know how. There are pieces missing, things that happened before I emanated. I don’t understand why Ari isn’t going first.
Ari wants to speak later about what happened on Dalgherdia, says Patrick. So why don’t you just fill us in?
Well, Ari had been teaching the people for a while – almost two Galactic Standard years. He taught them a lot of the same things the Cantor taught Daniel. But then the humans came from Dalgherdia. They were Terrans from the science station. And Caliban went to them…oh, I guess I have to tell them about Caliban.
Caliban and Miranda, says Cillian. Did you teach them Shakespeare too?
Ari made up the names. Before then, the K’ntasari didn’t call themselves anything. Later, I got stuck doing the ceremony of naming. My names weren’t nearly as good. I think Miranda does it now.
Well, they aren’t real original, says Cillian.
David and Goliath, says Ari. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
But Caliban didn’t go through the ceremony of naming. Ari gave him that name after he’d been sent into exile. Caliban got his name because it was just like in that story. He tried to rape Miranda.
He what? says Ross. That’s impossible. No tree could.
He wasn’t a tree, he was a person, says Ari. At the time.
It repenteth me that I made man, says Dermot.
You should’ve though of that first, says Ari. You and Davy. Caliban was jealous that Miranda paid so much attention to me. Or maybe he was jealous that I had picked Miranda to lead, not him.
But you stopped him? asked Ross.
Are you kidding? I had to stop Miranda from killing him. There’s a reason I chose her as leader. But afterward, the K’ntasari decided that Caliban couldn’t stay with the people.
That caused another problem, I tell them. When the researchers from Dalgherdia showed up on Eden, Caliban went to straight to them. He explained all about the K’ntasari. You can imagine their reaction. A new species of Nau’gsh – they wanted to study it. And when they found out what the people can do – that when they die, they turn back into trees and absorb nul-energy through their taproots until they’re strong enough to become people again – well, those Terrans weren’t just going after the people, they were going after the trees. Chopping them down to analyze them. They even uprooted some.
I hear a little strangled noise. It’s Evan, clasping his hands over his mouth. He looks like he’s going to be sick.
It’s okay, says Lugh, putting an arm around him.
It’s not okay, says Tarlach. It’s an atrocity.
I had to teach them how to fight back, says Ari. Then I saw that it was useful for them to kill. It turned into a real war. But if I had only remembered Tara, I would have thought to contact her.
Yeah, says Mickey. The Terrans were really taking a chance, being that they were guests of the Skarsian government, and that CenGov was supposedly our ally. They were banking on the fact that Tara had decided not to station military personnel there – she didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that there was something different about Eden.
It got really bad. I saw a lot of horrible things. I cried almost every night. Do I really have to tell them? I don’t want to live through it again.
You can forget, says Chase. We were given the gift of amnesia, you and me. I kind of see the point in the way human memory works. What did you call it? Wriggling memories. They just remember what they want, and half the time, how they want to remember it. They even invent stuff and convince themselves it’s true. I don’t know why they need drugs.
I think we know all we need to about the war, says Patrick gently. We can always access your branch later.
Just get to the good part, says Tommy. When Tara came to Eden.
I could feel it before I could even see her. I felt good. I felt happy. I didn’t understand what I was feeling because neither Ari nor I had ever been happy before. I just wanted it to go on forever. And then Ari told me what the Cantor said – a second sun coming over the horizon. It really felt like that, a warmth and a light I could feel, except not on my skin, but inside of me. Like a flower was opening inside of my chest. I just wanted to get closer to it.
I remember that feeling, says Daniel. I thought my heart would explode. Then I got an erection.
That happened to me, too! And I was so upset because Ari told me that a prophet was supposed to be pure.
Tommy almost falls off his chair laughing. What? Where did you get that idea?
I lied, says Ari. It was something good to tell Miranda that wouldn’t hurt her feelings, and would put her off trying.
You didn’t tell me that.
She never would have believed you if you didn’t believe it yourself, says Ari.
Lorcan and Cillian start laughing at the same time. Ari is not a good liar, says Cillian. That’s rich!
It wasn’t a very good lie, was it? says Dermot.
Ross looks worried. She didn’t try to rape you? he asks.
No, no, nothing like that! She just liked me a lot. I liked her a lot, too. But when it came to sex, I wasn’t interested, and I didn’t know why. Then Ari said it’s because a prophet is supposed to be pure.
Pure? says Tarlach. That’s a terrible lie! I mean, not just a ridiculous one, but a corrosive one. Now Miranda will think that sex is impure. And sex is holy. It’s the point of existence. All trees ever think about is sex.
Flowering and fruiting, says Tommy. Sucking up the juices. Planting the seed.
That’s pretty much what Tara said. After she stopped laughing at me.
You told that to Tara? It’s Blackjack, and he looks like he’s going to cough up a lung.
Yes, well, when she, I mean, I asked her if it was alright that, well, because a prophet is supposed to be pure…now you’re all laughing at me.
Go back and tell it slowly, says Patrick. When you first saw her.
Her ship landed. I told the people that I was sure they were friends, someone to help us fight the Terrans. I didn’t know anything of the sort, but I was positive it couldn’t be bad. All the happiness in the universe was on that ship, but I couldn’t explain it to the K’ntasari. We were watching it from a distance, hidden behind a hill. I could see a bunch of soldiers come out. They were dressed differently than the Terrans, a lot more colorfully. I thought that was a good sign. And then Tara came out.
I don’t know how to describe it. I’m trying to find words, and I just freeze.
It’s all right, says Tarlach. We can relive it. One of us can help you.
Everyone closes his eyes for a moment, except me.
It’s like when I first saw her, says Suibhne. The whole universe made sense. I couldn’t see; I couldn’t speak. I was terrified, to be honest. But I wished it would never stop.
No, I think it was more like me, says Chase. Ari was more like you. Both of you knew something was missing. I just thought life was pointless and painful and confusing. I really wanted to die, but I couldn’t. I actually tried a few times. I didn’t know it then, but I and I wouldn’t let me kill myself.
I and I, says Valentin. That’s such a weird thing to call Him.
Why is it weirder than the Mover? asks Mickey. You’ve got to call Him something.
We call him I and I because the Atlas Tree is one I and the mothman is another, says Dermot.
What about Goliath? says Ari. Does that make him I and I and I now?
Aye yi yi, says Hurley.
Think of us as an order of chivalrous knights, suggests Evan. All of us in service to our Lady.
Yes, and it’s like Suibhne, and Chase, and Daniel, like what all of them said. Meeting Tara for the first time was encountering the meaning of life in the form of a woman. Everything she touched was made beautiful.
Technically speaking, says Tarlach, we react that way because I and I – the Mover – Ashtara – needs Tara to anchor His perceptions of the universe. It’s the trade-off that the Cu’enashti make in order to keep the abilities of alchemy and prophecy while in our human forms. Otherwise, we go mad. Suibhne did go mad.
You make it sound so clinical, says Evan. And it’s not. It’s like liquid poetry.
Because the emanations take a human form, we experience I and I’s perceptions with a human mind and emotions, Tarlach continues. Every time we see Tara, it’s like falling in love. But we don’t always know what I and I feels – or if He feels anything. We just know His needs and His priorities: Tara’s safety, Tara’s destiny, Tara’s happiness, and being with Tara as much as possible.
This is really how all this started, says Dermot. He turns to me and Ari. I’m sorry that you had to suffer. But you have to understand. The priorities don’t make sense.
You broke the priorities willfully, says Ailann. You did it because you lost your faith.
It’s not so much that, says Davy. It’s just that we love Tara more than we love God.