We have to have a point-of-view. Without one, there’s no way to make sense of anything. Point-of-view is something we get to choose. For a Cu’enashti, it’s arguable that point-of-view is the only thing we get to choose.
For a number of reasons, I’m advocating the third person omniscient:
- It has been described as “the reader looking over the author’s shoulder with a privileged view of the action, but unable to participate.” Branches spend the majority of their existence in this position.
- We also have experience of omniscience, since I and I is omniscient.
Evan, who is far more literate than I, corrects me. He says the literal meaning of “omniscient” is “all-seeing.” Technically, I and I is not omniscient. Lacking eyes, He is incapable of sight. He senses: the chemical composition of His surroundings down to the molecular level, the play of energy in the environment and its various manifestations including radiant heat and weather, the interrelatedness of all the pieces of the ecosystem, the spherical volume of time – allowing Him to make limited predictions, any anomalies. An example of an anomaly would be the rip in spacetime at the center of Dolparessa where the nul-universe bleeds into ours.
The amount of data available to I and I is staggering, enough to drive anyone mad. Which is why we need Tara (note how I cleverly introduce Tara into the narrative!) It wasn’t so bad when we were only a tree. I and I didn’t really have to think about it then. I and I didn’t really have to think about anything. It was analogous, perhaps, to living in a dream. Not that I would really know, since none of us ever sleep.
No, it’s being a man that’s the problem. Being human means having a perspective on the narrative. Or, at least, being a sane human. Suibhne can tell you. Suibhne is insane.
Mickey protests that the point of telling a story is to convey information to an audience, and that so far, my narrative is wholly incomprehensible to anyone but us. But is the audience truly the point? On the other hand, if there is no audience, why even bother telling the story?
Patrick says: Because our life has value.
Tarlach says: Because reflection makes self-knowledge possible.
Driscoll says: For the same reason I did the self-portraits.
Cillian says: So that you don’t fuck up by making the same mistakes.
Lorcan says: Because we’re bored.
Davy says: Why not?
Callum says: Because it’s a kind of masochism.
Whirljack says: Because it has Tara in it.
Jack’s answer is clearly the best. This is why he was the foremost of us before the attack by the Tasean terrorists bisected him, creating an evil twin. Now Whirljack has issues.
Cuinn has a suggestion: Why don’t you try inserting that paper Tara wrote on the nau’gsh? That might provide the necessary, um…
Exposition, says Evan.
I and I likes that idea. The paper Tara wrote is numinous. It glows. Like everything Tara touches. It is an axis, a reference point in the swirling chaos of infinite data.
It barfs fucking rainbows, says Cillian.
Here it is: “The Nau’gsh of Dolparessa: an evolutionary conundrum” by Tara del D’myn, Ph.D. I notice that she did not include her titles of aristocracy. I remember – she wrote this when she was pretending not to care about politics.
Since its discovery in CE 2477 (CenCal 205), Dolparessa, moon of Sideria, second planet in the Domha’vei system, has been the subject of intense speculation and debate. Its consistently ideal Mediterranean climate defies rational explanation as all simulations of its rotational velocity, axis and position relative to the sun predict a world subject to extremes of climatic variation. The Domha’vei itself is a mystery, as two of the four inhabited worlds (Dolparessa, Skarsia) are ideal for humanoid occupation, and yet produced no sentient species prior to colonization by the Five Nations. Speculation abounds concerning the supposed existence of an ur-race that later abandoned their homeworld, but no evidence of any kind has ever been found to support this theory. It is as though the Domha’vei was prepared in advance for humanity to assume the ecological niche of dominant species.
Whoa, says Tommy. That paper was written before the Great Reveal. Before Tara became Matriarch and you became Archon. Before all the wars. Before anything.
It was written when Tara was on Dalgherdia, at the science station. I was there, says Mickey.
I and I is uneasy. It isn’t about the science station – after all, Mickey was there. No, it’s before that. It’s the Ph.D., reminding us of when Tara went away to university.
For a moment, we’re drowning in a wave of dread, thick and tarry. Then, from the depths of His dreaming unease, I and I produces a list of subjects to avoid ranked according to the amount of trauma they have caused:
- When Tara went to university.
- When Tara was taken away to Volparnu to marry Tenzain Merkht, the day her uncle weighted Daniel down with stones and threw him off the face of Starbright Mountain and into the sea.
- When Tara faked her death and Ailann became an alcoholic and Suibhne planned suicide by burning the Atlas Tree.
- When Ross was raped; also, the episode of the Tarlach Tadgh show that discusses when Ross was raped.
- When Tara came back from Volparnu, and Sloane found out she had taken a lover.
- When Tara walked out on Patrick.
- When Tara walked out on Whirljack and Blackjack.
- When Patrick killed.
- When Starbright Mountain fell on the Atlas Tree.
- When Owen was propagated from a cutting.
- When Jamey was crucified.
How am I supposed to tell the story without mentioning any of this? I ask.
Center it on Tara, Whirljack says. Use the, ah…
Third person limited omniscient, says Evan.
It is a masterful idea. I just need to string Tara’s experiences like beads, let her words and actions tell the story. Tara could talk about peeling babies and rolling them in salt, and it would sound like an orchestral accompaniment to a chorus of bloobirds.
Peanuts, says Hurley. Peeling babies and rolling them in salt.
There is a general groan of disgust.
There’s a complication, I say, returning to the subject. In our story, there is only Tara. But in Tara’s story…I’ll have to put other people in it, I say. Other characters. I start making a list: Cetin Urhu. Lady Madonna. Johannon. The 5th Matriarch. Wyrd Elma. Tenzain Merkht. Edom St. John/Clive Rivers. Traeger. General Panic. Sir Kaman Rafmin. Guinnebar the Pretender. Sweet Blonde Susanna. The Cantor. Cara the Arrow.
That’s a lot, says Mickey.
I’m only just starting. Tara knows a lot of people.
There is a moment of silence as we consider. A rare moment – among 25 emanations, someone is usually talking.
Why put them in at all? asks Driscoll. They’ll just make the story ugly. We have too many characters as it is. We could use a good pruning.
Everyone winces. No one likes a smart-ass, says Owen.
You have to have other characters, Dermot replies. They provide context.
But you can’t just list them, adds Evan. That gets even more confusing. They need background and development. Motivation. Descriptive detail.
When I’m emanated, I don’t pay much attention to other people, says Chase. I don’t pay any attention to them at all.
Opium will do that to you, says Ross.
It doesn’t matter if you were paying attention, I say to Chase. Our memory is perfect. At least it is now that you have connected up properly with the main trunk, and Owen has been grafted back.
Let’s decide about this later, Whirljack suggests. Let’s see what grows organically. Let’s go back to quoting Tara’s paper.
Whirljack has a way of keeping us on point. He had even more clarity and focus when he was only one person.
Dolparessa evidences considerable ecological diversity, yet there are only three primary species of nau’gsh. (Note: the term “nau’gsh tree” is a redundancy. Nau’gsh is a term in the old Skarsian language meaning “tree.” A nau’gsh meets the broadest definition of the term “tree;” a plant featuring an elongated woody trunk supporting a system of branches. The term “nau’gsh” has come to distinguish the native treoid species from the authentic tree species transplanted from Earth’s genetic banks.) This is all the more surprising considering the readiness with which tree species take root upon Dolparessa. The climate, atmosphere and soil composition are ideal, improbably so.
Oh, how funny. We can’t stop laughing.
That’s rich, says Cuinn. He removes his thick-rimmed glasses in order to wipe the moisture from the corners of his eyes. That’s like saying the climate and atmosphere on Eirelantra are improbably suitable for humans.
More laughter. I hope no one overhears and walks into my study. They’ll see the Sublime and Holy Archon doubled over his desk, choking on his own giggles. It won’t build much confidence in the government. Half the population thinks I’m insane as it is. That’s Suibhne’s fault.
I’m not the one with substance abuse issues, says Suibhne.
And if they don’t like it, they can eat my compost, says Cillian. Gods don’t grow on fucking trees.
Jesus Juniper on a destabilized hovercraft, now we can’t stop laughing at all.
They’re not going to get the joke, Mickey points out. You might want to write that Eirelantra is a space station. The joke is that the environment on Eirelantra is artificially designed. By humans.
The environment on Dolparessa is artificially designed, I write. By trees. I think it’s time to get back to Tara’s paper.
To the average person, the most familiar of the nau’gsh is Nau’gshtium commonalis, the common nau’gsh, the source of nau’gshtamine amide, the entheogen/aphrodisiac present in the notorious nau’gsh wine. The other species are Pseudonau’gshtium hina, the little nau’gsh, and Nau’gshtium arya, the noble nau’gsh.
They don’t use that nomenclature anymore, Patrick sniffs. It’s derogatory.
It’s Nau’gshtium sapiens and Pseudonau’gshtium somniare, says Cuinn. Thinking tree and dreaming tree.
Yeah, but it’s still insulting, says Lorcan. Why are the Arya the real nau’gsh?
Think of it in terms of taxonomy, says Cuinn. If you look at an Arya, it’s clear that it’s a tree, sentient or not. And the common nau’gsh are just, um, garden-variety trees. But how, exactly, do you classify us? Are we trees, humanoids, or some weird energy thingy that isn’t either plant or animal?
Wow, says Tommy. Maybe Tara should write a paper about that.
Thingy, says Cillian. Is that a technical term?
I clear my throat and continue.
Of the three, the little nau’gsh is perhaps the most peculiar. It is a deciduous species, shedding its leaves at regular intervals peculiar to each individual nau’gsh, and also when it is stressed. That a deciduous species would evolve on a world with no seasonal variation is yet another mystery. But there is a larger mystery still: for reasons yet unknown, at a seemingly random time, the seedlings for the little nau’gsh mutate, becoming one of two subspecies marked by significant genetic differences.
It’s a mystery to us, too. No one can explain why we choose what we do. But do humans know why one becomes a scientist and another a ballplayer?
No reliable way to predict the course and timing of this mutation has been developed, and it is also an open question whether all of the trees mutate eventually. It seems that a large proportion of the trees remain in juvenile form, failing to fruit, for long periods, if not perpetually. These trees are readily identifiable by their small size and pale pink flowers. The other two mutated subspecies are distinguished by green flowers/fruit and blue flowers/fruit. The blue variety is the rarest; it is also the largest, and tends to grow compound trunks.
Lugh is puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he says. “Tara has to know about the grand jeté.”
“I told you this was an old paper,” says Tommy. “This is during the Great Silence, before the humans knew that the Cu’endhari weren’t just a new spin on fairy tales they brought with them from Earth. They didn’t know that the things they called sprites, dryads and mothmen were energy forms of the nau’gsh.”
This isn’t working, says Blackjack. It’s another one of Whirljack’s cocked-up ideas. This so-called narrative is a mess. It isn’t a story. I can’t find a plot. I can’t find a beginning or an end.
Unfortunately, I’m inclined to agree. We have to find a better place to start.
Silence again.
The movids I’ve watched usually go in time sequence, Davy says. Usually they start at the beginning.
The beginning, says Dermot. The beginning is a seed, the warmth of a hand thrusting I and I into hard, unforgiving soil. Eternity extended into a sphere around which the days dance, a circlet of sun and water. Or flattened into the lineal space of destiny, reaching from tendrils pushing through the dirt to the last days of galactic conquest, the establishment of the Empire.
That’s lovely, says Evan.
Yeah, but we aren’t there yet, says Mickey. That’s prophecy, not narrative.
The beginning would be when humans first came to the Domha’vei, says Evan, but then we end up with a history text and not a novel.
Isn’t this a history? I ask. Or maybe more like a Bible?
I had envisioned it as a roman a clef, says Evan. More embellished than a simple memoir. But it’s fast becoming Doctor Johnson’s dictionary. Or maybe Strunk’s Elements of Style.
We need to think conceptually, says Driscoll. It could be a holographic triptych. A realist abstraction.
A romance in the grand tradition, counters Patrick. A love story.
How about a manual of practical xenobotany, says Cuinn. A guide to the identification of trees. Besides, the real beginning is the formation of the Rip, when the energy from the nul-universe caused the nau’gsh to develop consciousness.
That’s millions of years ago, says Cillian. This is gonna be a long story. Who do you think we are, fucking Proust?
I can see it now, says Evan. Remembrance of Leaves Fallen.
Suck my mulch, says Cillian.
The Arya developed consciousness from the Rip, not the Cu’endhari, I point out.
And who fucking cares when the Arya developed consciousness? says Cillian triumphantly. Fucking prats with their fucking needles stuck in the air. Fucking Christmas trees.
Evan blanches. Why do you have to be so crude? he whines at Cillian.
They’re not going to get it, says Mickey. You should write that “Christmas tree” is the worst insult you can call a nau’gsh. Worse than “shrubbery.”
“Shrubbery” implies that one’s genitals are too small, I write. “Christmas tree” is the equivalent of telling a human to fuck his mother’s corpse.
We keep getting distracted, says Whirljack. The story begins with Tara. Tara is the story. Tara makes sense out of everything.
Just start someplace random, says Wynne. As long as Tara is in it, it will all work out.
We are bathed in light, the warm sweep of unarguable approval. I and I has decided. It’s always this way. All the chatter, as though there could be some sort of decision made by committee, but decisions are never made at this level. It’s not in the whispering leaves that decisions are made. It’s in the silent extension of the roots.
And so I write: Once upon a time, the sun pulled a seed into a tree that was a man. Once upon a time, a girl pulled a tree into a moth that was an angel. After that, the story branches.