Alien Earth. Megan Lindholm

would happen if two giraffe plants sent seeds?”

      “That doesn’t happen, Sherry,” Daniel said gently but firmly. “The sweet smell lets all the plants know where the next one is, and how big the cooperative patch is. The closest giraffe plant reseeds the missing place. And the outside plants don’t send seeds outward because the patches are always five plants by five plants.”

      “Why?”

      It wasn’t even Sherry’s turn anymore. Connie held her mouth tight, waiting for Daniel to get angry. Instead, he just sighed.

      “Sherry, you should know why by now. The kifa moss patches are all part of Castor’s ecology. Too many kifa patches or too big of a patch would not be good for Castor. What do we say, always?”

      “One planet, one ecosystem, one life,” the children chorused.

      Sherry was going to open her mouth again, but Daniel said quickly, “Now, let’s all share with our kifa patches, and then we’ll go over to our weaving.” He immediately set an example, turning aside to urinate at the base of the pitcher plant that was at the northeast corner of an unoccupied kifa patch. All the children followed his example, sharing with their patches the fluids of their own lives. When all were finished, Daniel nodded, and they stepped out together, walking in their rows behind him as he led them off to the weaving shelter.

      Of stars and the voids I sing, and of a kinless race,

      Who suckled their Mother Earth dry, and wept not

      At her barrenness, but abandoned her to death.

      New worlds they found, and set aside their wolf’s teeth

      To don the fleeces of sheep. But even sheep will overgraze

      The grass. Their brown dung will spot the glorious green hillsides

      In piles too large for the soil to kindly absorb….

      John twitched in his sleep. No good, no good. Didn’t scan, and he wasn’t sure if sheep dung had been brown. Wouldn’t it be greenish, from their diet of grass?

      “Write what you know!” the poetry master bellowed, and snatched John’s poem from his desk. The words flew loose, to scatter on the floor. “I don’t want to read about sheep or grass! Anyone can write some pastoral trash modeled on the old poets! Your task is to the poets of your own generation and time. Your poetry must be who you are and when you are and what you are, or it’s worthless!”

      Dr. Crandall was panting with the strength of his emotions. John rose silently from his seat to gather the scattered words of his thoughts. What if I don’t want to be from this time, he wanted to shout. What if I want to know how my ancestors felt and thought and smelt? What if the only way we can really understand their poetry is to pretend to be them for a while? But he didn’t shout the words, not even in this dream.