Dolparessa. Some call it paradise, the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, although it’s not really a planet, but rather a moon of Sideria, the second planet of the system known as the Domha’vei. “Some” in this case refers mostly to the tourism bureau, which also once called it, “The best place in the universe to mend a broken heart.” That’s a pun – if you spoke ancient Skarsian you’d know that. Dolparessa literally means “heartbreak.” That clever marketing spin was successful only because everyone knew what the slogan was implying – on the surface, the exquisite climate, the roaring surf, the exotic forests, all ripe for romance.
And under the surface – the exotic forests, ripe for romance. Come to Dolparessa, and you’ll never be lonely again.
AHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHAHA.
Okay, where the fuck are you? Two years. You’ve been gone for two years. You didn’t even say goodbye, just left me a letter. It wasn’t on a datapad like this; it was an old-fashioned letter, written on linen fiber, of course. I’ve read it dozens of times looking for clues. I know it by heart, by heartbreak maybe. It says:
We need to go away for a while, perhaps a very long while. I can’t explain, but it is imperative. I write this because we did not want you to believe I and I fell prey to accident or malice. Everything we have ever done and will ever do is for you – Dermot.
Dermot. Of all your emanations, Dermot writes me? Not my first love, Daniel. Not my sweet prince, Patrick, or my best friend, Tommy, and certainly not my Lord and God, Ailann. No, Dermot leaves me a letter, husband #25, whom I barely know.
Well, I fucked him a few times. He is my husband, after all. And he’s very handsome. But still.
What moron would name a planet “heartbreak” anyway? I guess by the time the FNA arrived in the Domha’vei, all the best mythological names had been taken. How else to explain planets named Blister, Rimbaud and Rotifer? Blister is obvious – guess how close to the sun it is. Rimbaud was named by the old literary guild, Rotifer by the science guild – it’s a gas giant, and someone thought that one of the permastorms looked like a rotifer. We can all be thankful that the guilds died out over eight centuries ago.
At least the names of the inhabited worlds sound better. Skarsia, Volparnu, Dolparessa, Sideria. Sideria, named for Ernst Sider, the leader of the first system survey, and my direct ancestor. The other names are Skarsian terms. Take Skarsia itself, for example. Guess what it means? It means earth. How original. Volparnu means “ice field.” Compared to that, naming Dolparessa was an act of poetry.
But we both know that like everything on Dolparessa, the name isn’t what it seems. Dol is simple – heart. But maybe not. The word ab’hdas means heart also, as in take heart, true heart, happy heart. Dol really means blue. A blue heart. T’paress – the act of splitting or bifurcation. But paress implies the place where a split has happened, a crack, maybe. It’s a divide that exists in its own right, not something that’s been damaged. Let’s try a thesaurus. Boundary. Extremity. Fringe. Frontier. I like frontier, but it’s trite. Border. Liminal. Horizon. The blue horizon? True enough, but it makes humans think of sky; no matter how many planets we infest, we just can’t get over what life was like on Earth. Line of demarcation. Pale. Beyond the pale.
Dolparessa: a blue heart beyond the pale.
How about ambit? Ambit is archaic, and I like archaic. It’s the Skarsian blood in me, nostalgic for a past that never really existed.
I have lived my life straddling an ambit.
That’s not right. If Tommy were here, he would say it sounded pornographic. I’m starting to see why Ailann had such a hard time when he started to write. But I have to get this right. You aren’t here, and I don’t know how to contact you, so the best I can do is answer your letter. I need you to understand. It’s my heart, Ash. The blue ambit of the heart.
When I was a girl, the balcony of my bedroom at Court Emmere looked out over lush green vegetation which mimicked a Mediterranean shoreline. To the east, as far as the eye could see, all the flora had been brought in gene banks from Earth – Seville oranges and bougainvillea and, improbably, larches that had been genetically modified to withstand the warm climate. Well, at least there were larches, until, in an act of insanity, Suibhne chopped them all down.
But if I looked west, out the great picture window in the music room, I saw something entirely different. Blue. A particular shade of blue which tinges slightly on green. Kyanophyll. The prickly scrub on the beach. Blue forests spreading to the right, up the headlands. And far in the distance, the towering figure of the Atlas Tree jutting off the side of Starbright Mountain and hanging over the sea. A seed I had planted with my own hands when I was seven years old. You, Ash.
From the dining hall, I could see the line. It ran through a field of grasses that suddenly changed color, as if Monet became Mondrian. But it wasn’t just about scenery. The line was conceptual. The ambit of humanity. Cross that line and anything could happen. Prophecy, alchemy, disembodied spirits that danced through the trees. We didn’t know then that it wasn’t really magic. It’s just…I hesitate to say “technology” because we’ve associated that word too long with machinery. Skarsians hold machines in contempt and use them grudgingly. Not like Terrans, who are half-machines themselves. Cybrids. But techne really means art. Skill. A means of accomplishing your will. To the Nau’gsh, techne is a tree.
A blue-green line, the blue ambit of the heart, dividing human and not-human, Dolparessa, the only world in the known galaxy where that happens. Either the native habitat must be left alone, or terraforming must be absolute. Two ecosystems cannot co-exist. It won’t occur naturally, and we don’t know how to force it. Sooner or later, one will destroy the other, or both become mutually corrupted.
The human race has discovered 56 worlds with life: inadvertently or intentionally, we’ve destroyed the ecosystems of fourteen. There are seven known sentient species. One of them, the SongLuminants, won’t deign to talk to us. The Microbials are extinct, thanks to Cillian. Then there are the Bounders – I don’t think I ever told you about them. Well, technically, they’re Pegaseans, since they live on Pegasus IX, but no one calls them that. The problem is you’d think a Pegasean would be a flying horse, so it’s pretty disappointing to find out that they’re a bit like rabbits, but with six legs and prehensile ears. No one bothers much about them since CenGov, in an uncharacteristic moment of generosity, declared Pegasus IX off-limits to preserve their non-spacefaring civilization from cultural contamination. In other words, the Bounders didn’t have anything of use and weren’t seen as a threat. But the last I heard, the IndWorlds were petitioning CenGov to lift the ban. Someone wants to sell them as pets.
The truth is that humanity has real contact with only three other sentient species. One is a happy-go-lucky animal resembling nothing so much as a transparent fish filled with glowing gasses. They have a weird sense of humor, and expel those gasses when they laugh. That’s where we get the popular expression “fish-farting with laughter.” The Floatfish trade with us occasionally. That leaves the Arya Nau’gsh and Cu’endhari Nau’gsh, trees that coexist with humanity on Dolparessa. Maybe the term “contact” is an exaggeration when applied to the Arya. They’ve made it clear that they did their part by providing the first Archon, and now they would like to be left to themselves to contemplate their needles. For the most, we oblige – except to steal their apples.
Dolparessa’s bizarre ecology exists because of your people, the even more bizarre Cu’endhari, probably the most alien creatures humanity has ever encountered. For centuries the colonists of Dolparessa failed to notice Cu’endhari amongst us because you can use your alchemical techne to mimic human form. The only difference is the eyes, and then only to someone who knows what to look for. But the humans sensed that something was strange about the forests. We had legends of sprites, dryads, mothmen who lived among the trees. Sixteen years ago, I revealed the truth: the sprites, dryads and mothmen lived inside of the trees, were souls made of nul-energy, energy that isn’t even from this universe.
That’s what you are: a tree, animated by a giant glowing man-moth who usually chooses to present himself in one of twenty-five human forms. In your truest form, you appear as pure nul-energy, opalescent blue with great wings and antennae, a human torso and arms but no legs, a head with long streaming hair but no face. For a long time, I failed to understand why you didn’t have a face. I thought that maybe a plant had no use for eyes and a mouth. But now I know what it means. Humans are so protective of their faces because the face holds the identity. But you don’t have an identity. You’ll grow any face you need to get what you desire. Twenty-five of them, in fact.
A moth. It’s a perfect vessel because it’s so very beautiful and still a little creepy. Alien. Who the hell knows what that kind of being senses, let alone feels? Why do I imagine that I can understand your motivations?
And yet, I delude myself that I do. A woman might have some small reason for concern if her husband had been gone for two years, but I’m not worried that you abandoned me. The Cu’enashti subspecies are symbiotic. Your alchemical power is possible only because the tree’s perceptions are maintained in a human body, a human brain, capable of making use of them to transform reality. Trees sense things that humans can’t. For example, the chemical composition of everything in their surroundings – in your human form, you perceive it through scent. You sense energy patterns exactly the way humans do, through sight, but in a far greater range and level of detail. You can see for miles, see galaxies and microbes, tell what temperature something is by looking at it. There’s only one hitch – a human brain can’t cope with the sheer volume of data. Without a focal point, the Cu’enashti will go mad. That focal point – “the Chosen” – is an ordinary human being, one who happened to wander into the exotic forest, ripe for romance. No, you didn’t dump me. You didn’t because you couldn’t.
Well, that isn’t exactly what happened to me. What happened to me is my own fault. I planted you on the side of a cliff when I was seven years old. When I was sixteen, you came to me in the form of a young man. Since then, I’ve trusted you, no matter what – or who – you are. And yet, I trust you more than I trust any of my own kind. It’s not a blind trust – I’ve been betrayed too much in my life for that. It’s a trust based on experience, on statistical analysis, if you will. I trust you because you’re the only one who was always on my side, even when it caused you enormous pain. I trust you because even when it looks like what you’re doing is crazy, it turns out to be right.
You’re not here now, though, are you? And I’m starting to get angry. I know you’re not dead because I can look out the great picture window and see that the Atlas Tree is in leaf. Not in bloom though, not even if I go to talk to it, and that’s strange. You always respond to me when I talk to your tree, even when the Atlas Tree had been uprooted and fell off the face of Starbright Mountain, even when you were on the verge of dying. I asked for a sign; you grew Jamey. But now, it’s like you’re not in there.
I’m worried.
And we’ve got problems. There have been brownouts in the power grid – unprecedented expansion on Volparnu is causing a system strain, and I need the power of the Archon to recalibrate it. It’s a practical problem, but also a public relations one. People have noticed that Ailann is missing. Maybe if the Living God of the Domha’vei hadn’t been so enthused about performing “miracles,” Deus could’ve been absconditus in peace. So now I make excuses. “In retreat,” I say. “In deep contemplation, as you would expect from your God.”
But it’s wearing thin. Lord Sadricos has a son with Benn’nisi Syndrome. “The Archon promised,” he says.
“Driscoll promised,” I say, “and Driscoll is a bitch. But your son isn’t dying. You can take him for gene therapy, like normal people.”
If his son does die, there will be hell to pay amongst the aristos. Driscoll’s word was a sharp gambit: the promise of immortality has bought a lot of loyalty.
The people are tired of power outages. They want to know where their god is. They whisper that I’ve done something to offend him. “You look tired,” they say tactfully. Really, I look old. I no longer have a moth-angel to fix my telomeres and make me look twenty years younger than I am. Really, I look fat. I look fat because I’ve stopped the battle exercises I’ve done since I was six years old. That’s close to fifty years ago. Even when I was on shitty Volparnu with my ex-husband, Tenzin fucking-scumbag Merkht, I kept up my battle exercises. But I can’t stand to do them now, because I got used to practicing with Mickey, and Mickey is not there. I can’t stand to hear the echo of my voice in the empty gym.
You gave me twenty-five husbands, one for each branch of your enormous tree, and they’re all gone now, and it’s really lonely. I’m tired of you not being there. Hell, I was tired of it two days after you left. But I’m sure you have your reasons. Good reasons. You always do.
You even had your reasons when you let me watch my uncle’s men beat Daniel to death and throw his body off Starbright Mountain into the sea. Oh hey, it’s okay. Because you can resurrect your emanations as long as the corresponding branch is alive. You just didn’t tell me that. I figured it out myself about twenty years later.
Of course it isn’t okay. How could that ever be okay? No matter how many times I hold Daniel in my arms, I can’t forget what I felt the day I watched him die.
Maybe your absence is good for me. Maybe I’ve depended on you too much, and I’ve grown soft. Ugh, now I sound like a character in some stupid novel: “Don’t use your magic powers, dear. I need to prove that I can do it myself.” The fuck I do. Who the hell is that stupid? Your abilities give me an enormous tactical advantage – big enough to keep my little corner of the universe from being stomped on by Earth’s Central Government, with their galactic empire and their enormous armada and their army of Cybrids. Frankly, it’s nice having my own personal deity who is so crazy in love with me that he’ll do anything I say.
That’s a joke. Anyone who thinks that marrying a tree means a life of wish fulfillment had better think twice. You have priorities. Two of them – my safety and my happiness – I’m in total agreement with. But sandwiched in the middle is “Tara’s destiny.” What the hell does that mean? It means you provoked a revolution to get me installed as Matriarch, fashioned yourself into the deity of this star-system, killed for me, attempted to kill me, and almost let yourself be martyred by a terrorist attack. Did you ever think that maybe a better destiny would be lying in the balmy breezes on a Dolparessan beach?
I think I understand you. But I don’t.
Every night I slept with a beautiful man. These men were wholly human and wholeheartedly in love with me. They all have the same eyes, that same blue, that blue fire that runs across the edges of your wings when you’re about to take flight. Eyes that always seemed to me to be the kindest I’d ever seen. But underneath the human flesh, human minds, and human emotions was something else – a tree, an angel, an alien and incomprehensible being. One that feels something for me, something overwhelming and intense, but “love” probably isn’t the right word. There isn’t a right word, at least not in any human language.
I miss you. I miss you so much. For weeks after you left, I kept the servants from changing the sheets, because they smelled like pine and frankincense and nutmeg, the natural odor of your body. But one day Lady Lorma ordered it done behind my back. Now there’s nothing left of you in the room. Sometimes I go to your wardrobe and bury my face in one of Cillian’s dress uniforms.
I spoke with Wyrd Elma before I left Eirelantra. She’s looking good – lately, she’s been getting the Cantor to reset her telomeres. When I was six years old, she looked like a crone. Now, she looks ready to start university. Which, I think, is bordering on tacky, but maybe I’m just steamed that I look older than she does.
I asked her to use her gifts to help me find you. She said I should use my own, and nagged me to take Gyre again. The idea terrifies me. Of all the drugs I’ve made and I’ve taken, Gyre was my only addiction. Technically, it wasn’t an addiction. It’s not that physically dangerous although long abuse can turn your mind into a marshmallow – just look at Elma. However, its users tend to become enormously dependent. Of course, it’s illegal – geez, even the harmless Sparkle is illegal – but the reason I still allow the contraband trade – under the strict supervision of SSOps – is that Gyre’s facilitation of prophecy is too damn useful to suppress entirely.
Taking Gyre is like having a beautiful dream, one that doesn’t make any sense, but filled with unreasoning, irrational joy, the world cloaked in a warm blanket of wistful nostalgia. For those whose families intermarried with the Cu’enashti, some of the visions are true, something in the future or the past washing up like driftwood in a sea of euphoria. They start seeing through the eyes of the trees, entering a world where time becomes a sphere extending equally into the past and future.
I started using when I was on Volparnu, when I’d lost Daniel, when I’d lost all hope. Even without the despair, what else was there to do but keep myself totally buffered? My then-husband Merkht didn’t believe it was seemly for the delicate sex to engage in any sort of strenuous intellectual activity. Volparnians have a rather different view of gender roles from Skarsians. Volparnians think that women exist to have babies. Skarsians think that women exist to kick ass. As you might imagine, my relocation on Volparnu involved a little bit of culture shock. Well, there would have been if I hadn’t been buffered enough to cache an AI most of the time.
When I was using, I mostly dreamed of two things: my lost Daniel, and a man who I knew was the one in the prophecy, the one who supposedly would set me upon the throne of the Matriarch. I didn’t care about the political implications. What mattered was the vision of perfect love, an illusory dream that ended my loneliness. That man was strong, wise, regal, everything I had hoped for in a partner – and his eyes were so understanding, so kind – exactly like Daniel’s. Exactly. I lived for that dream.
And then Sloane saved me twice – from Merkht’s assassin, but also from myself. I had been too wrapped up in my Gyre dreams to realize Sloane was in love with me until it was too late, until his dying eyes met mine, and I finally saw what I could have had, what I had lost. I promised on Sloane’s grave – a ridiculously elaborate effigy I had made not only to spite my uncle and Merkht, but as a reminder to myself – to sacrifice the vain pleasures that had kept me from him. It wasn’t about wanting to take my life back. Honestly, I still didn’t have a shred of hope. It was about punishing myself. Or maybe it was because I couldn’t let his death be for nothing. But it was only when I left the dream behind that I could move on with my life, move towards the truth at the core of the vision.
So now do you understand why I play along with Sloane’s delusions? If he wants to live in a dream of love that never happened, I don’t have the right to deny him.
Years later, I learned that the man in my dream was Ailann. And also that Daniel, Sloane and Ailann were all you. And that you were hoping I would take Gyre again because it would help me to figure out your secret – and it did.
I’ve only taken Gyre twice since then, and both times, I was desperate. I’m desperate again. I can’t wait any longer. I have to try something. I think Elma is right – but I’m afraid more than anything that my dream of you will keep me from finding you. I think I can increase the likelihood of getting the vision I need if I don’t take the Gyre sold on the street. It’s a trick I’ve used once before. I’ll make my own poison from forbidden apples, apples toxic to anyone but me – your apples, Ash.