Biography:
Wooden Heart: Davy emanates as a response to Ash taking damage in the battle with the Microbials. Tara finds him disconcerting – he alternates between sweetly childlike and chillingly strange. He especially likes to make puppets, and fills a room at Court Emmere with his creations. She is both attracted to him and a bit afraid of him.
Davy creates a compound called fleshiwood, similar in look and feel to wood, an organic memory compound which can be programmed to repeat complex movements. Then he progresses beyond toys, creating the Blue Angel Moth. Tara expresses her concern to Ailann that if Davy creates new species, it will throw the Dolparessan ecosystem out of kilter. Ailann reassures her – in a way that terrifies her – Davy doesn’t make mistakes. He makes other creations – firebirds, a flying sucksow (although the last is a one-time only prank which ends up on the dinner table.)
Davy becomes known for his partnership with Cüinn, engineering the javamelon. It wins the PanGal Prize as well as being the start of Wynne’s javajuice empire, No Beans About It. A later creation, the chocumber, becomes an eventual staple.
For the wedding of Tara and Ashtara, Davy makes Eternium tara, a crystal-clear glowing flower which blossoms annually on only the first night of the Nau’gsh Festival.
Davy attends a meeting of the High Council. He is soon bored, and creates the pocket puppy. The councilors are enchanted by it, and Davy ends up creating a number of them for distribution. Later, he informs Tara that he can see through the puppies’ eyes, and they are a tool for espionage. However, this underhanded maneuver eventually backfires as it turns out telepaths can also use the puppies, and Molly employs them in the attack against Eirelantra.
When Ailann covers the new rip with matter, Davy decides to make it into a planetoid with atmosphere and trees. Later, we learn that he has created an entire biosphere. This becomes the background for the novel Eden Blues.
Eden Blues: It turns out that some of Davy’s trees are sentient – a species called the K’ntasari. Davy has developed them as natural allies for the Cu’endhari, but with the ability to travel in their humanoid forms, meaning that they are useful as explorers – or warriors. The K’ntasari have both plant and animal phases – in humanoid form, they live in a system of caverns near an underground heat source, another feature of Davy’s design. When the Terrans at Dalgherdia station notice life on Eden, they begin to do experiments on the K’ntasari.
Ash creates the Goliath Tree on Eden, ostensibly with the idea that a mentor is needed for the K’ntasari, and the Domha’vei needs more energy than can be provided by Atlas alone. In truth, there is an additional plot crafted by Dermot and Davy: to get Ashtara to spend an extended period of time out-of-contact with Tara. They are concerned that Ash is imposing his vision of Tara’s Destiny upon her, and they want her to be away from his influence in order to decide of her own free will whether this is something she wants. (There is, however, a fourth reason for the creation of Goliath which is not revealed until The Persistence of Weeds.) Davy is responsible for the creation of the physical tree, which he does by making each branch out of a combination of the characteristics of the wood from two branches on Atlas. This results in branches that are “half-brothers” to the branches on Atlas, sharing some of their physical and personal traits, but with a few twists.
When Ari emanates, he tells the K’ntasari that Davy is God – although this is literally true for the K’ntasari, Davy is annoyed. The last thing he wants is the responsibility of being an object of worship. When Manasseh takes Tara to see Goliath, he is shocked that Clive Rivers seems to know “the secret name of God.” Tara complains that Eden is lacking in biodiversity – Davy did a rush job.
When Malachi, Davy’s brother, emanates, he explains that because Davy is the closest to Ash of all the emanations, he is also the most inarticulate. Davy’s creations are perfect because he is a creature of perfect intuition, but it is a struggle for him to put his intuitions into words – often, it doesn’t occur to him to say anything at all. Malachi, on the other hand, is very articulate, but capable of creating only what he can explain.
When Tara’s flagship gets out of the Eden Zone, Malachi reverts to Davy. Tara is furious with him over the trouble he’s caused, but realizes that arguing with him is pointless. Tara causally uses the phrase “gilding the lily” before she reads the message from Malachi. By the time she has discovered the nature of her own destiny, Davy has made a pot of gilded lilies for her.
Davy also reads the letter. He tries to discuss its contents with Tara, but because he is so ill-adept with words, he keeps saying exactly the wrong thing until Tara furiously storms out of the room. Davy tries to follow her, but he falls down – he’s sick. He is reacting to the presence of fungus on the roots of Goliath. He drags himself to the toilet to vomit, and feels much better after. Then he realizes that the mushrooms developed by Malachi are hallucinogenic, and the effect is intensified by receiving data about three universes from two different trees.
Davy feels an urge to extend his roots, causing a craving for RootRiot. He ends up mixing some bath salts for hydroponic use with some vodka Tara has in her stateroom. He starts to hear Malachi and realizes that Atlas and Goliath have connected. He sees a vision of Ari punching a hole in the wall behind Daniel’s bed, connecting his cave with Daniel’s flat. Tara returns to see Davy rolling on the floor with laughter, and demands the return of Ailann. Davy is happy to oblige.
Dermot emanates on the night celebrating the extension of Tara’s marriage to Goliath. He explains that Davy has always been able to see the vision of Tara’s Destiny, which is why his creations are always perfectly adapted to their environment. He explains that Davy’s original intent was to create a second tree to solve the energy crisis, but he consulted Dermot about the combination of branches – which made Dermot aware of the vision. Dermot was troubled that Tara’s free will would not be taken into account, and he persuaded Davy to help him lay a trap for Ashtara. Tara replies by saying that she doesn’t believe that any emanation can do something against the will of Ashtara – Dermot’s trap was preordained.
During the interrogation by the SongLuminant, Davy is mostly silent. In fact, he and Driscoll are creating another emanation, Lucius, based on Hurley’s extrapolation of SongLuminant existence.
The Poison Garden: At the beginning of the novel, Davy remarks that he’s still working on the ecosystem on Eden – he recently added the mooniberri, and will eventually add fish to the oceans.
In a conversation about Cuinn’s request for an umlaut, Davy casually lets slip that he has plans for another tree, Yggdrasil. He believes that Ash will ultimately need a forest of his own to achieve Tara’s Destiny. In “The Prophecy of Homecoming,” Ari tells Tara that Davy has planned for Yggdrasil to be a tree with only seven branches.
The Perpetual Rose: Lorcan tells Tara that Davy and Dermot did a complete revision of the plans for Yggdrasil, to make it suitable as a war-engine against the Denolin. Wynne reveals that Davy will make Ashvattha with ten branches – each one representing a spiritual virtue.
Davy devises a plan that will stop the coming war with the Denolin Turym, but it requires Lorcan’s death. Davy promises to pollinate him if he goes along with it. Lorcan faces the Denolin, and is near the point of absorption, when one of the Hreck destroys the creature. Nevertheless, Davy is able to get enough information to engineer the development of the Bhavashti – a variety of nau’gsh which is adapted to partner with the Denolin. He emanates immediately after, in the process saving the life of the Hreck, whom he names Roy. Davy explains his plan to Tara and Neliit, telling them it will require the cooperation of the SongLuminants.
After Suibhne makes the root cutting, Davy emanates and falls asleep almost immediately – which is remarkable considering that only Chase has ever slept before. He wakes up feverish. He realizes that Canopus is root-bound, and he is suffering the effects. Tara trims the roots and repots the tree – and then Davy hacks off the upper trunk and most of the branches. He is trying to miniaturize the tree – to create a penjing. Everyone is shocked and horrified, but Davy reassures them that because the tree hasn’t emanated, no memories were lost. The goal is to produce a tree that is portable, thus eliminating the need for a new tree every time Ash wants to travel significantly far from the Domha’vei.
The Portable Grove: Davy does not appear until the final experiment. He tells Tara that the experiment is a beta test using sexual positions; she ignores him. When Suibhne breaks a model airplane when trying to fly it, Davy fixes the problem by animating it, then creating a female – fokkerflies. Later Malachi explains that the beta test is necessary although what they are testing is never explained. When Suibhne suggests that the fokkerflies could be used for cross-pollination, Tarlach proposes an orgy.
Although the last experiment is supposedly Davy’s, it is Malachi who finally explains – Davy, Solomon and Axel are finishing the redesign of the mothman’s form, and the stress tests are meant to make the final adjustments according to Tara’s responses. Davy appears again in the fifth stress test, where his team has put together a strange play which seems to be half a parody of The Tempest, half a commentary on the relationship between the trees and the emanations. Davy plays a monkey puzzle tree who gets entangled with Ariel, a spirit of air, played by Manasseh. The performance dissolves into absurdity (predictable considering the endeavor featured Suibhne playing a penguin) and Davy fascinates Axel with his hand-puppet fetish. However, during the wine party, Davy hooks up with Manasseh.
Correspondence Chart Entries from The Portable Grove
| Denotation | David “Davy” Gannon (Hebrew: beloved; Gaelic: fair-skinned). |
| Numeration | 12th Emanation of Ashtara; 12th branch of Atlas; 62 in the correspondence chart. |
| Age | 28 |
| Hotness | 8/10 |
| Vital Statistics | 1.677 meters tall, cock size 15.66 cm when erect. |
| Description | Sweet-faced with a boyish smile. Hair is gold-brown, carelessly cut and swept to one side. Wears casual dress with playful accents. |
| Skills | Toymaker, biodesign consultant, creator god. In his own way, perhaps the most powerful emanation – he can create entire ecosystems without a flaw in the design. |
| Sexual Prowess and Kinks | Puppets. |
| Average Duration of Play | 14 minutes, 11 seconds. |
| Totem Tree | Araucaria araucana, the monkey puzzle tree. |
| Fixed Star | Procyon, before the dog (α CMi), also called Nangar, the carpenter, or Puana, blossom, or Magum, a human who was changed to a gum tree in the dreamtime, but could communicate by rustling his leaves. |
| Color |  |
| Esoteric Symbol | The minchiate trump Il Papino, the little pope, also known as the juggler or magician. |
| Function | Creative insight. |
| Official Title | Master of Puppets. |
| His Prophecy | The boy who builds with blocks grows into an architect. |
| Dessert | Gummi moths  |
Persistence of Weeds Addendum
| Branch Growth Characteristics | Natural branch growth resulting from trauma inflicted by Cüinn’s suicide in order to destroy the Microbial scout vessel. Used as a template for his half-brothers on Goliath, Malachi and Simon. |
| Nul-history | Joined with Daniel and Dermot before becoming a part of the Atlas entity. |
| Proto-conscious Root Concept | Creativity, designated Make |
| Prime Number of Energy Resonance | 293 |
| From Self-Portraits Not-of-Me II: Baby Pictures by Driscoll Garrett |  |