The transport capsule lifted off from the house, and its windows fuzzed to transparent. Now nine-year-old Jaila and her parents could see outside. Their house sat in a row of like houses, in a block of like houses, in a neighborhood of like houses. The houses, despite their similarity, were very beautiful, made of a soft organic material with pastel hues to it and rounded, living corners and edges. But that was all that hinted at life, for there were no trees, no birds, no animals or even microbe life of any kind, just the pretty pastel houses and the ground made of a burnished, perfect metal. If Jaila looked up, she could see the shimmering above her that indicated the environmental force-field dome that protected the whole city, filtering the air and the sunlight to exact, scientifically determined proportions.
In fact, the city’s environment was as refined and perfect as that of her house, and yet Jaila knew that no resident of the city would ever step outside a building without being safely ensconced in a transport capsule. It had been that way as long as anyone in her city could remember, and the old stories told of people who had gone mad after being removed from the protective environment of a building.
As the transport moved on, the houses gave way and were replaced by larger buildings of a more functional nature. She saw the medical center, where people were born and then returned when their time was up. Her father pointed out the commissary, the building where food materials were distributed to the city’s kitchens and pantries. Her mother pointed out the huge, spherical building where her father worked, rising above the rest of the city. And finally, they saw the spaceport, at the very edge of the city, pressed against the force dome, for the spaceport was the only building in the entire city that broke through the dome’s protective field and connected to the universe beyond.
The family boarded a small liner at the spaceport, which lifted off exactly on time. The captain informed the passengers that the trip to T’rais Four would take exactly 1.456 days of travel, most of which would be spent in hyperspace. Jaila watched as her planet grew smaller and then disappeared.
A month ago when her father had come home and announced that he had a week of vacation. She didn’t know what her father did, but she knew it was important, and that he was very busy, and family vacations were rare. Immediately, her mother had suggested the resort planet Ferianopolis, where at any given time the galaxy’s thousand best theatrical groups were performing comedies, tragedies and histories of such lyrical beauty that one could easily spend a hundred vacations there.
Her father, though, had had a different idea.
"I want to go to T’rais Four" he said, in a way that Jaila knew the decision would be final.
"What’s that?" her mother responded, with some noticeable dismay.
"It’s a jungle planet."
"A jungle planet! Why in the universe would you want to go to a jungle planet? It sounds like such a horrible place! A jungle planet isn’t worth anything until the terraformers have made it habitable. Everyone knows that. Anyways, Jaila can see jungles in her books anytime she wants."
"It’s not the same. And it’s not all jungle, of course. There are plains and mountains and snow and animals living in the wild. We don’t get to go away very often and I think Jaila should see something a little different."
"But a jungle planet? It will give her nightmares!"
Jaila’s mother argued for another twenty minutes, but her father had been firm, and Jaila had appreciated that. She didn’t know what a jungle planet was, or what it would be like, but she knew that when her father put his foot down, he was usually right.
Exactly 1.456 days later their ship entered orbit around T’rais Four. The captain fuzzed the walls to transparent so the passengers could see the jungle planet below them. Jaila was fascinated. Unlike her home planet’s soft pastels and metallic sheen, T’rais Four was a riot of colors: blue oceans, white clouds, lands of green and brown and bright red. ("Those are the vast fields of licacin flowers," the captain explained).
"It’s almost vulgar," her mother stated immediately. "Like bad art".
Jaila was delighted. She stared out the window for the 10 minutes it took the ship to land at the T’rais Four visitors’ center, which was located near the equator of the planet. The visitors’ center was like Jaila’s house, totally enclosed. Once there, they met their tour guide, who explained that each day, for the next three days, they would take a tour craft to the different areas of the planet, and see all its wonders safely from the air, of course. The fourth and last day of the trip would be a bit different. It would be, the guide explained, a "nature walk", which meant that they would each ride in an individual transport capsule and would float through the deepest part of the jungle at ground level.
"Just like primitive man must have done thousands of years ago!" the guide explained. Her mother did not seem at all pleased.
The first three days were a wonder to Jaila. They saw canyons and oceans and beaches and forest, once even plunging under the water to see the ocean’s strange inhabitants. Some of the flora and fauna they witnessed Jaila had seen in her books or in the zoo at home, but most of it was new, and she marveled that such fantastic creatures might exist. They saw the vast fields of licacin flowers, as large as any ocean, rippling in the soft tropical breezes. They saw active volcanoes spewing clouds of dust and smoke into the air, and once they saw a rainstorm pounding the land with great violence.
The morning of the nature walk, the guide, Jaila, her mother and father all boarded tiny, individual transport capsules, not much more than a seat that generated its own force field. Jaila sat inside hers and activated the field. A panel of green lights informed her that the environment inside the capsule was working perfectly. When all the capsules had checked out, they floated gently out of the visitors’ center airlock. The center was perched on the side of a mountain, high above the jungle. The capsules picked up speed, swooping down the face of the mountain above granite that sparkled in the tropical sun.
Jaila laughed with delight as they fell towards the jungle canopy. She heard her mother over the intercom, making noises of a less joyful nature, and this only made her happier. Soon the capsules were skimming over the tops of the trees. They slowed down and the guide pointed out monkeys and birds and other animals that lived in the canopy, a thick living carpet a hundred feet above the ground. Above them, great eagles rode the warm currents of wind that rose against the mountain, whose snow capped peak now loomed above them.
Soon they came to a river cutting through the jungle. The capsules swooped low and zoomed above the rapids. A waterfall fell away below them, and Jaila clapped her hands with joy. The spray caused rainbows in the air. Now, the capsules veered off from the river and into the jungle itself, passing between the great ancient trees. It was dark here, below the thick canopy, and Jaila found it thrilling. After a few minutes, the capsules slowed to a halt and the guide informed them that they were in front of Delphen trees, which could grow to 300 feet tall and live more than a thousand years. Jaila looked at the great trunks and at the lush ferns and undergrowth that surrounded them. She listened to the staccato chorus of sounds around her, chirps and grunts and hoots and buzzing.
Just to her right, right outside the capsule’s force field, was a large fern, its leaves spreading all around in defiance of the dim light that existed under the great Delphen trees. There was something about it that seemed inexorably ancient to Jaila. On the tip of one of its leaves, right in front of her, was a large shining drop of water. And at that moment she wanted nothing more than to touch it with her own hand.
Before she knew what she was doing, she had caressed the controls that would drop her capsule’s force field. With a faint puff the environmentally perfect air of the capsule dispersed. The warm jungle air enclosed her, striking her with a moist, wet breath teeming with life and smells and feelings. She inhaled deeply and the loamy air touched chords deep in her lizard brain, racial memories that her people had buried for thousands of years behind filtered air and sterility. Memories of living and killing and dying, of changing and fighting and breathing and sweating. Memories of the jungle.
She reached out and touched the leaf. It was warm and cool at the same time. The drop of water broke its surface tension and spilled over her hand. She held the leaf for a short moment and then brought her hand to her mouth and tasted the water. It tasted like water and also unlike anything she had ever tasted before. For a brief moment there were no others, no transport capsules, no planets, stars, galaxies and no time. Just Jaila and the green, living warmth of the tropical forest, plugged into her mind through all five senses.
She was brought back to reality by the sound of her mother screaming. The others had realized she had dropped her force field and were now reacting. Her father yelled "Jaila! What are you doing?" and before she could react, the guide had punched in an override signal that caused her capsule to raise its shields again.
Jaila spent three days in quarantine back at the visitors’ center while the doctors made sure she hadn’t been infected with anything. Her mother required sedative therapy and her father was furious. Her confinement made him late getting back home. Jaila noticed none of it. The pain of being separated from the jungle was unbearable at first. Gradually, the memories grew more distant but a part of her mind had awoken, and never let go of the scents and feelings of that moment when she had joined her life with that of the plants and the animals.
* * *
She grew older, went to school and lived a normal life, but at night she would dream of the great trees and the cascading water and the towering mountains and would awake with a deep sadness and longing that she never spoke of.
Finally, she reached the age when it was time for her to leave home and complete her education. She was slated to attend the great University of Melovia, where one hundred thousand of the galaxy’s best students studied. She had watched videos of the place with her family, saw the great spires that rose high into the Melovian sky. Her mother was thrilled and her father even seemed satisfied, which was unusual. But true enthusiasm would not come to her. She pretended for her family’s sake.
The trip to Melovia was to take 2.534 days in hyperspace on a sleek liner not unlike the one that had carried her to T’rais Four all those years ago. She was in her cabin on the second day when the steady hum of the ship’s engines was interrupted by a muffled booming sound. The alarmed passengers gathered on the bridge of the ship. The captain informed them that there had been a grave malfunction and the ship was crippled.
"We will have to crash-land," he informed them. "Fortunately, we came out of hyperspace in a system."
The ten passengers were hysterical. An accident of this nature was unheard of, and they demanded to know how it had happened. Several had to be sedated. Jaila was very scared but she managed to keep a clear head. She did not want to have to be artificially calmed.
"There’s one planet in this system that’s inhabitable. We’re bringing it on the viewscreen now."
The viewscreen fogged into life. Jaila saw a sphere of green and blue and brown. It was jungle planet. Not T’rais four, she could tell, but a jungle planet nonetheless. Suddenly she was very calm.
"Oh my god!" one of the passengers shrieked. "It’s not inhabited! It’s not even terraformed! What is this place?"
"We must go somewhere else!" another yelled.
"We can’t," said the captain. "We must land here. We’ve sent a distress signal and rescue will come soon." In truth, he doubted whether he could even land the ship safely, but he didn’t say so.
The captain and the other two crew members worked the controls furiously. The planet grew larger on the viewscreen as the ship spiraled lower. Jaila could see they were heading for the planet’s equator. The damaged gravitics failed when they were very near the ground, and the ship hit with a terrifying thud. Emergency stasis fields protected the occupants but the side of the ship was ripped open.
The stasis fields shut off and dropped the passengers and crew to the ceiling of the ship, now the floor. They landed in a tangled mass. Sunlight streamed through the gash . Jaila blinked to clear her eyes. Outside, she saw the ground covered with sand, which rose up into high dunes. Behind the dunes was the dense, tangled green of a forest. In the other direction, the sand sloped down to meet crashing waves of water, which rolled in off a vast ocean of blue and white. They had landed on a beach.
Several of the passengers began screaming uncontrollably, and the three brave crew members crawled over to them and delivered more sedatives. The captain announced that he was going to leave the ship and have a look around. He moved tentatively to the wide open side of the ship, and then jumped down onto the sand. Birds swooped into view and let out shrill cries. The captain circled around the ship, was out of view for a few moments, and then returned. He seemed immensely relieved to be back on the ship, as if its torn metal provided some comfort.
"I don’t think we’re in any danger. We can wait here until help arrives. There’s food and water on the ship. I can’t do anything about being exposed like this, but if we stay calm we’ll be alright."
Jaila was too absorbed to notice the fear and strain of her fellow passengers. She was too busy watching the crashing waves and listening to the birds, feeling the warm salty air. She wanted to leave the ship, to feel the sun on her skin and the sand under her feet. Most of all, she wanted to go to that tangle of trees just beyond the dunes. But she knew the others would not let her leave the ship. Some of the others noticed her reverie and strange calmness, but they assumed it was her way of dealing with the trauma they all were feeling.
Outside, a crab scuttled by the ship. Some of the passengers saw it and began yelling hoarsely. Several hours passed, and the sun began to set. The captain informed the passengers that it would be dark soon and that they would be best off getting some sleep. Eventually, exhausted by the day, they all fell asleep, huddled together in the torn belly of the ship, in the moonless black of the night of the nameless jungle planet.
But Jaila did not sleep. She did not feel tired, or afraid. Instead, she felt a strange, calm joy that one might feel if something very fundamental to their existence had suddenly been returned to them. She lay awake for several hours, and then rose very gently and quietly so as not to wake the others. She scuttled to the torn edge of the ship’s deck, and let herself gently down onto the sand. She kicked off her shoes. The sand was supple and moist, like a living thing under her feet. It was very dark but she could see the faint outlines of the dunes. Curious as to the source of this dim illumination, she looked up and her eyes were seared by the frozen blizzard of stars above her. She stared at the sky for a very long time, and then began to walk, uncertainly in the darkness, toward the dunes.
When she had topped the dunes, she looked back for a last time and saw the dim shape of the ship behind her. All around was the white noise of the waves. She kept walking, and the trees grew closer. She could smell their greenness, and those moments on T’Rais four came back to her even more strongly. Soon she reached the tree line, curtained with heavy brush. She stood there for a moment, and then pushed her way into the jungle.
The undergrowth closed behind her. The noises of the jungle enveloped her. She walked forward, wet leaves caressing her body. With each step a billion years fell away until she was nothing but a primordial core of sense and sound and instinct. She ceased to be Jaila, a sentient creature, and became a denizen of the forest, neither above nor below it, but rather part of it.
Two days later a rescue ship arrived and picked up the occupants of the doomed liner. The rescue ship searched for Jaila for three days from the skies, using the most sophisticated sensors and equipment. She was never found.
Bio:Hailey Gold is a programmer at a big software company where they beat him regularly. To escape he writes good short stories and bad poetry. He then never shows them to anyone, until now.
E-mail: haileygold@aol.com
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