'Can't see the wood for the trees' - part 2 of 2

CAN'T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES

Part 2 of 2

 

Nik Morton

 

Ilex - holly - Wikipedia commons

 

Ilex, looking to all the world like a holly tree, sent his dispatches from Chequers:

            Election in the offing. Parties equally divided: the upcoming SDP likely to cause consternation. Opinion polls predict that they will hold the controlling votes in Parliament. Plans afoot to carve up the country into a tripartite state.

            Thirty-five miles outside Brussels, at Casteau: The secrets of NATO here at SHAPE are no longer hidden. Russian agents also possess this information. Follows...

            Outside the white concrete and tinted glass buildings at the Manned Spacecraft Centre at Houston, a couple of saplings had great difficulty penetrating the sound-proofing, but eventually their ultrasonic capillary lifted details from the men of NASA.

            At the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome there were only a half-dozen brother Larix larches. Enough.

            Data seeped in continuously, night and day. Now the gigantic Sequoias were brimming full. They would shortly have to send out what they held so far, to make room for additional input. The picture was nowhere near whole; but it was emerging, clarifying...

            Privately, Sequoia G pondered on the human designs on Space. Was that why the Conquest had begun?

            Many trees, such as Acer in Oxford, moved at night, seeking out better sites. Movement was incredibly difficult and ponderous in Earth's gravity, though their hyper-sensitive antenna-like leaves afforded ideal early-warning of any approaching human creatures; the dogs they could contend with...

            It was a sluggish business, a night-long ordeal. First, the roots that had continuously sought water had to heave themselves out of the earth. This was not easy. The roots' delicate tips had penetrated the soil with a corkscrew motion, circumventing rocks or simply heaving them aside or cracking them wide open with secreted dissolving acids. So they were deep, in some cases like the icebergs of the sea, two-thirds of their bulk submerged.

            As their own scientists had long ago discovered, sonic-waves continued to exist long after their emissions, for it was impossible to destroy energy. Now, Salix was able to sweep the leaves of the newly harnessed vassal-trees of Earth and learn what they had 'heard'.

            The broad picture possessed many promising aspects. Yet there was a gloomy side also.

            Presently in existence were innumerable nuclear arms silos buried deep beneath the Earth's surface, poised, watchful, primed. True, most were targeted on ideologically opposed countries. Even Ailanthus, the 'tree of heaven' reporting back from China's Sinkiang Province, indicated that they were aiming at every Western country, including those in possession of merely token military forces.

            But should an invasion from Space occur, it seemed logical to assume that all this weaponry would be speedily deployed in the defence of the planet in a common cause.

            So Sequoia G was far from happy when he issued the 'send' message to his confederates. Within the breadth of a nanosecond, the entire mass of data collected hitherto was beamed out of the Earth's atmosphere, way beyond the planets of Neptune and Pluto, far off into Deep Space.

***

For two hours Roger seethed on the cottage doorstep. Where the hell was she? He stepped up and down the ash-covered driveway, trying to keep warm. It was forecast to be a grim, cold winter. Though only the first week in October, there was a nasty bite to the air. His thoughts repeatedly reverted to that day only two weeks ago, in Port Meadow. It seemed incredible that it had been so warm then.

            He must make Pauline see sense. She can't possibly be happy with Michael deVille. She must have realised, he told himself, he wouldn't just be content with her brush-off on the phone. After all they had meant to each other, to end it with an impersonal phone call? Had meant to each other? But he still loved her! There's irony for you. At first he had enjoyed the chase. She had simply been yet another conquest. But that had backfired shortly after their first illicit night...

            He pulled his glove back. She was due here with Michael well over an hour ago. Where the hell were they?

            Impatience getting the better of him, Roger took a swig of whisky from his glove-compartment's metal flask.

            If only he could end it amicably, like she had said. But he intended going through with the confrontation, baring their deception for Michael to see. It was a risk; he might alienate her completely. But he had to try it. He was desperate for her.

            This is ridiculous! He shrugged inside the wool-lined car-coat. They could have had a puncture. Michael was too frail and impractical to change a wheel. And Pauline probably wouldn't be able to unscrew the wheel-nuts...

            He slumped into the sports car. I'll give them five more minutes, he decided. Then I'll go looking for them.

            Another whisky wouldn't go amiss, either. The act of scouring the road for them might cool his rising impatience. And, if they are stranded with a flat, his 'timely' appearance might serve him in good stead with Michael.

            Five more minutes then.

***

It would take the Earth's astronomers some time to make out Arbor's shape, for there were few light surfaces on him to reflect Sol's rays, leaving his unlit mass to merge with the blackness of space. Only the gradual obscuring of distant stars would give any clue that he was there at all.

            Arbor stretched about three miles wide, seven miles from topmost branch to his nether roots, with a mighty girth of six miles. He was travelling at maximum velocity now, forty miles per second.

            Whilst sailing steadfastly through space, he was in the fall of his life span. He possessed no leaves, for they had provided the initial boost to send him on his way. Deep umber, pitted and scored, roots gangling and crawling to the fore, Arbor's gigantic naked boughs pointed abstractedly in the direction he had travelled. Silently, ominously, he moved through space, heading roots first for the blue-green orb of Earth.

            Not long now...

            At a distance of 933 million miles, Sequoia G's second transmission of massed data homed in on Arbor's central taproot. Hungrily digesting these facts in an instant, Arbor commenced evaluating, planning, deploying stratagems.

            It was strange how trees - so closely resembling his own people - should be quite common on Earth and be trusted and regarded as harmless, planted in places of honour, thought of with sentiment, even love. Most strange.

            The primary problem was to devise some method of effective defence against the Earthside nuclear weapons. Arbor decided to dispatch the information to the prodigious force to his rear. Fifty thousand warriors of his age and sagacity fanned out in a circular van and when eventually spotted would appear to any astronomer merely as a stray planet - until it was too late.

            As the forward scout Arbor hoped the scientists with the Conquest Force would come up with something before he arrived.

            In the meantime, his duty required him to issue authorised orders to Earth: As the building youth of our race, you were specially chosen for our preliminary thrust force. The time has now come for you to select your targets: Use utmost caution. On no account must any clues be left that would lead to suspicions being aroused.

            Arbor steeled himself to pursue with the final directive: Those whose sacrifices entail perishing for our noble cause, our supreme Conquest, they will be honoured beyond their dreams. Their names shall go down in our Esteemed Annals as the harbingers of doom to all Earth people!

            There, it was said.

***

'Christ!' Roger couldn't believe his eyes. He tried braking but he was too late, travelling too fast, reactions sluggish. He felt the reverberating dull thump and sensed the car jerk up onto its hind wheels and continue growling forward, up into the air.

            Tyres screamed and burned. The ear-rending crash jarred his entire body. The seat-harness dug into his chest and stomach, made him retch, short of air, head spinning.

            Shards of glass stung his face. Contorted metal creaked and groaned. His legs were numb. Drunkenly, he wiped his brow and his hand came away clammy, wet, red.

            Through the mists of semi-consciousness, he peered between the splintered, starred windscreen, over the crumpled bonnet; the headlights had ploughed through the Daimler's front seats, embedding the engine deep in the rear.

            He wasn't capable, but he wanted to be sick.

            Acer, mortally wounded, struggled off the roadside into the undergrowth and lay down, shaking in unremitting agony. Dimly he remembered his duty, and rose ponderously, each movement excruciating, tearing his nerve fibres to shreds. Slowly, he sank his roots under the soil once more, his mission accomplished. Scarred, branches splintered and missing, Acer stood unbowed and proud, and died.

            Roger was shaking violently behind the steering wheel when the police accident unit arrived. Pale with shock, he was mumbling incoherently to himself.

            'What a mess!' exclaimed a case hardened constable. 'He's driven right through the windscreen!'

            Paling, his companion replied, 'The other car. Looks like Mr deVille's Daimler - the Foreign Secretary and his missus...'

            The voices barely penetrated. Roger sensed the constable's gentle hand on his shoulder. Forcing his lips to cease their maddening tremble for at least a few seconds, he whispered, 'The tree - it - it jumped into the road!'

            Smelling the whisky-breath, the constable swore. 'Jesus, if I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times!'

* * *

Previously published in World of Horror, 1974 under the penname Platen Syder.

Copyright Nik Morton, 2015.

 

If you enjoyed this story, you might like my collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat (2013), which features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, ‘in his own words’.  He is also featured in the story ‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection of twenty tales, Crooked Cats’ Tales.

Spanish Eye, released by Crooked Cat Publishing is available as a paperback and as an e-book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton/dp/1909841315/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399383023&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton/dp/1909841315/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399382967&sr=1-5

 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00GXK5C6S/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399383023&sr=1-4&keywords=nik+morton
 
http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00GXK5C6S/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399382967&sr=1-5&keywords=nik+morton

Saturday Story - 'Can't see the wood for the trees' - part 1 of 2

Last week, a UK newspaper columnist wondered why local councils ‘love nothing better than murdering lovely old trees in case they fall down all of a sudden.’ The French government apparently plans to cut down thousands of roadside trees because cars often collide into them. He ended with the assumption that presumably trees got drunk and steered themselves into cars…

In 1974 my published short story ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees’ was inspired by a similar observation.

CAN'T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES

Part 1 of 2

 Nik Morton

 

Quercus - oak - Wikipedia commons

 

Port Meadow whispered in the strong September breeze. Halyards smacked discordantly against metal mastheads in the nearby boatyard. From the Meadow's far side, a single grey mare voiced a strident whinny but her companions continued chomping and she fell silent.

            Well-concealed in the sylvan protection of a coppice of sycamores, Roger laughed brazenly.

            His companion, Pauline deVille, tried silencing him, though not with much serious effort. 'Quiet, Roger, or someone'll hear us!' she berated, laughing drowned by the chugging of a close by motor-boat.

            Sunset was a good hour away but Roger had assured her they were secure even from the numerous fishing enthusiasts lining the banks with their buckets of writhing worms and maggots. 'Come here, wench!' he grinned, making a grab for her. The breeze whispered her long blonde hair as she struggled half-heartedly. Distractedly, Roger attempted brushing aside two bothersome crane flies. They scattered as he fell on top of her.

            'What's Michael doing?' he asked, playfully pecking her moist lips.

            Already her cheeks had flushed with the onset of passion. She was almost purring, caressing his lank black hair, long fingers stroking the broad muscular back. Between lengthy demanding kisses, she said, 'He's at the House - debating - the latest attack on - on our Gaza outpost...'

            Copy. Through millions of cellulose pipes running from the bottom-most roots out into its leafy veins, Acer the sycamore absorbed the information the two lovers unwittingly furnished.

            The human creatures are exceedingly mobile, a distinct advantage, Acer observed, conveying the information through his body's fine network of sapwood, deep into the trunk's central storage core, where the dark and ponderous heartwood was stained and clogged by the impure earthly resins and oils he had had to suffer.

            As Pauline sat up and lit a cigarette, Roger gently plucked the leaves from here bare back, where they left delicate indentations. His hand slid round, cupped a full breast, and felt the nipple harden in his palm. 'That was delicious!' he said, meaning every word. 'If Michael concentrated less on becoming history's greatest peacemaker and more on his wife, I'd - '

            But she silenced him. 'Don't remind me, Roger, please.'

            It was apparent to Acer that procreation could occur in a similar manner to their most recent cavorting: they had discussed the possibility of such an unwelcome eventuality earlier in the proceedings. As a system, the human reproductive method could plainly be improved. So clumsy! Photon data follows.

            Acer rustled his large plate-like leaves slightly in the act of drooping closer, listening intently.

            Murmuring, gentle, soothing. Some concern injected into the verbal exchange. The young people seemed distraught.

            'Can't you admit you made a mistake, Pauline?'

            She shook her head, struggling angrily into her fawn pullover. 'I know, I shouldn't have married him! But I can't just up and leave. It would shatter him. His career - he's doing so well... All the parties trust him, don't you see?'

            Acer concluded she was attached to the absent Michael by some esoteric rite. Judging by the absence of a golden band on any of Roger's fingers, it seemed possible that the ring on hers - which she agitatedly fingered - was some testimony of initiation in the rite.

            As the illicit lovers talked, Acer glimpsed clues regarding the man's work, the cuckolded Michael's work, of the subservient role she led. Much of their physiology remains a mystery. Alas, I am not ideally situated to obtain specimens for vivisection. Acer sighed through the cat's-eye pores on the underside of his leaves, air-conditioning his part of the world. A slower, solitary human would be more suitable. I proposed a nocturnal assignment. Sequoia G please advise.

***

Quercus, a sturdy English oak, received Acer's messages and passed them on, appending his own detailed observations.

            Corresponding in size with his trunk, the taproot forked down into huge primary branch-circuits, then more secondaries and slimmer tertiaries, which slanted into millions of hair-fine capillaries. Here, clustering near the tips of the capillaries, Quercus had stored a great quantity of useful information gleaned from the Conference Centre his boughs overshadowed.

            Absently, Quercus drank through his root hairs. He divested each soil particle of its moisture, each adjacent grain yielding its liquid content as though he was thirsty blotting paper.

            Where normal earthly trees would suck up the elements of nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus et al by transpiration stream to its living organism, Quercus collated the elements and analysed them and indexed his findings: '... iron, copper, zinc, magnesium...'

            Then, shuffling and cross-indexing all the stored information from his millions of ultra-fine root hairs, his memory-banks, he dispatched the entire data:

            There are regular scientific symposiums held here - and doubtless elsewhere too. Some scientists have an endearing habit of boasting of their most treasured projects when they have proved workable. At least at this Centre, jealously guarded professional secrets do not exist!

            Many of their theories are quite remarkable. In the realms of astrophysics, and particularly nuclear engineering, they have developed some revolutionary concepts. They are possibly two Earth-decades away from inter-planetary flight employing the Jones-drive and space-time equations similar to our own... I prefixed this transmission with a MOST URGENT for the following formulae...

***

The White House crouched remote and sepulchral from the tree-lined drive. A solitary weeping willow had somehow become enmeshed with the other trees. No one, not even the Secret Agents, appeared to notice.

            Salix reported continuously, apprehending top-level discussions round the clock. Here is where the power lies, he declared.

            High on the slope of the Sierra Nevada Range a host of Sequoia giants snatched Salix's messages, studying the secret Presidential decisions.

            Reaching well over 200 feet tall - his lowest bough as high as a 12-storey building - Sequoia G correlated the data, multiplexing through the other brother-trees, all of them 8,000 feet above sea-level, way above the lush green ferns and awe-struck travellers who thronged to gaze at the 2,000-year-old giants, unaware of the threat.

            A plane-tree in Harlem confirmed other reports in the Deep South: There is sufficient unrest among the black populace to meet our second-phase objective. The massive influx of Hispanics has exacerbated the situation. Fostering this disaffection might prove chronically damaging to the existing government and partially neutralise much of the country's immense power...

            Sequoia G administered a hasty admonishment: Platanus, you were selected for this task-force to observe, collate and transmit information. Not, I repeat, NOT to form suggestions or opinions on our Conquest!

***

Hunched over the leopard-skin wheel of his stationary MGB, Roger Alcock scowled at Pauline's reflection in the night-blackened windscreen. 'But we'd had it all planned,' he moaned, thumping the dashboard. 'You said he'd be away in Cairo.'

            She was in a mood too. The atmosphere seemed palpable, easy prey even for a blunt instrument. 'You don't think I enjoy this, do you?' she croaked. 'I was looking forward to the weekend just as much as you... But - can't you see, it'll always be like this?'

            Roger's chest felt constricted with suppressed anger. 'As long as you're married to him, we'll never be happy!' he declared, barely holding his fury in abeyance.

            She closed her eyes. 'You don't understand. That horrible murder in our UN outpost - the sergeant was from his old regiment... Michael knew him...' Her fingers twined and unwound her soaked handkerchief repeatedly, punctuating her words. 'He's terribly upset. Disillusioned.'

            'He's not the only one!' Jealousy slithered under his skin, pried open his smouldering anger at the disappointment. 'Oh, for God's sake! Michael's upset, Michael's not well, Michael's trying to save the world! Sometimes I think you still love the fat old goat!'

            Roger immediately regretted his outburst. He hadn't meant to be so brutal. But his pride wouldn't permit him to apologise: she would have to take him as he was, warts and all. But he had cut deep. She stiffened, shunned his compromise, a comforting arm.

            The silence that swamped them now gnawed at him like a cancer. Couldn't she see what she was doing to him? He didn't want to have a row. They should be happy, loving, during these few stolen hours, not arguing. God, how he wanted her!

            'Drive me home, Roger, please.'

            Almost with perverse relief he sighed, nodded, and switched the engine on. Jabbing the light rocker-switch viciously, he vented his spleen on the powerful machine.

***

Meanwhile, on the East African coast, a thick-boled rather unwieldy baobab was receiving the final touches to an adornment of beads and bangles, its bark garishly daubed in coloured pigments.

            In front of the grotesque tree chanted a group of Sebola natives. To Adamsonia, the mission's only female agent, it sounded like prayers of some sort. As her cells absorbed and translated, she was not completely surprised to learn the natives believed she and other baobabs had provided their ancestors with life-giving fruit since time immemorial.

            Possibly the baobab itself holds some religious meaning. Adamsonia could sympathise with the Bushmen of early Earth who had explained the baobab's freakish appearance. According to their legends, the force of evil, the hyena, had spitefully planted the baobab upside down - and its branches certainly resembled tree roots. I must admit to a certain feeling of discomfort. I feel positively haggard!

            Concentrate on your mission, Adamsonia, chided her link-tree, Taxus, a Yew at the foothills of the Himalayas.

            She immediately began compiling her sources' data.

            Other baobab agents had detected a plethora of blood-lusting young natives in secret societies all along the East Coast. Am repeatedly receiving indications that the northern nations are contemplating an overwhelming attack on South Africa.

            Blood-red sunset scored the horizon, glowed on the painted bark, on the native hides, glistening in oils and dyes.

            Gunfire disturbed her. The eldritch screams from the Sebola tribesman alarmed her. Adamsonia evinced anger: they had been doing no harm! She had even been a little flattered: their ornaments had considerably improved her appearance...

            The Transvaal border-patrol sprayed another salvo into the night air, disturbing the crowds.

            Evidently, the white people are already concerned at the incidence of murder, looting and rape occurring along their border, Adamsonia transmitted. Illegal incursions into Mozambique by the SADF to 'attack the head of the snake so the snake must draw in its tail' have created international alarm.

Concludes tomorrow…