Dr. Linnaeus shifted his weight causing the large flower on which he floated to veer leftward, gliding through the entangled web of vines and leafs that grew around him. Tugging at the flower’s soft whiskers, he piloted the unusual craft along the ever shifting currents of micro-gravity. If the vessel moved too swiftly, he reached out with the hooked branch that his elven ‘guides’ had given him, and he rustled the vegetation with it to slow his momentum. The improvised staff was also useful for extricating himself out of tight spots. Maneuvering through a micro-g environment on top of an overgrown flower was tricky business. Unpredictable gusts threatened to throw him off course or worse. The moist and sticky surface of the flower made things even more precarious as he often found himself slipping towards the edge and holding on for dear life by its whiskers.
This the final chapter in the series. If you would like to read more, check out the previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11.5
Up ahead, he could see the elves zig-zagging through the vegetation, laughing and shouting hooray! as they nimbly navigated through the thick entanglement. They were patient with the professor’s clumsy piloting skills, letting him learn the ropes by himself but always quick to help when needed. If he got stuck in branches, the creatures would gather nearby and demonstrate several techniques to break free. Do this! Do this! Folding and unfolding the flower’s large petals while pulling on its whiskers until it came unstuck. Hooray! And on they flowed down the micro-g channels, making steady progress towards their destination in the heart of the biosphere.
“Isn’t it amazing!?” shouted Esmeralda as she whizzed by on her own flower raft. “Like being inside a drone!”
She was nimble and fluid- a natural on the flower. She spread her arms and legs across the petals, reaching within their folds to alter their shape and fit her symmetry. Her fingers poked through the tender petals and lightly rubbed the moist and fuzzy hairs. Esmeralda’s face was flush, radiant, her hair damp and matted on her forehead. She waved at the professor then twirled her body within the flower, spreading its petals like butterfly wings and spinning across the weightless atmosphere.
The motley group glided through the dark mysterious spaces where the forest gave way to gently rolling slopes covered with cylindrical forms that undulated languidly in the breeze. Blades of light filtered through the glass walls, beyond which the sea glowed blue and aquamarine, and reminded Dr. Linnaeus of Earth.
The elves grew quiet as they passed a field of tall skinny plants with rosy-colored buds and flowers that hung from their branches. The buds hung like pods from the narrow stalks and those that had bloomed, opened up widely and exposed their puffed petals. As they passed them by, the elves reached out and caressed them with their fingers, the tip of which grew moist with a clear substance that they then smeared upon their lips.
The professor saw Esmeralda rub the flower and touch her own lips. Although he thought it was folly to do so, he reached up himself and rubbed a few petals, back and forth, until a nice gob of the clear liquid had accumulated upon his fingertips. He smeared it upon his lips, which soon began to tingle and grow numb.
When he looked up, he noticed that he could see more clearly, as if someone had increase the brightness in his visual field. Every detail was sharp, every color was bright, and the vegetation seemed to glow with an inner light that accentuated its geometry.
He held on to the flower and threw himself upon the open spaces, where the forest did not impede his movements. The petals were soft upon his cheeks. Moving his body back and forth as he writhed and skillfully maneuvered the craft. Ha! How did he not see it before? The movement of the flowers and the leafs, a perfect indicator of gravitational flow. He moved his arms above and below him, then reached up to tug at the flower’s whiskers. The vessel reacted to his manipulations by twisting and turning in the most delightful ways as it glided onward.
The professor’s piloting struggles did not prevent his keen anthropologist eye from observing and studying his merry band of rescuers, or kidnappers, depending on how one sees it. They communicated with each other through a complex array of images that flashed on their skin. A dermal lattice of graphical thoughts that provided nearly instantaneous communication. When they spoke aloud for his and Esmeralda’s benefit, they stuttered and barely spoke in half-sentences, having lost the ability to speak fluently a long time ago. But when they communicated with each other- wordlessly sending and receiving feedback at the speed of light- it was a sight to behold.
Who were they exactly? It was obvious that they had embraced technology and incorporated it into their own humanoid physiology. But the change had been so dramatic that the vestiges of their humanity clung to their electronic forms like pieces of broken cocoons. And although it wasn’t yet complete, their metamorphosis away from their homo sapiens roots was unmistakable. They were a new living breathing species that had branched off humanity in the space of a thousand years. Unthinkable! A speedy wave of biological novelty that suggested the existence of something deeper and far stranger than the slow process of Darwinian evolution. An evolutionary dark energy in a manner of speaking. A transcendental object at the end of human history.
Many questions raced through his mind about their social organization, settlement patterns, and other aspects of their life. Rosalind would be thrilled, he thought as an image of her came to mind with her serious yet elegant demeanor. The way she smiled when mentally stimulated and roused to intellectual action made him think of her fondly. What would she make of all this?
And ahead of him, he saw Esmeralda flying through a field of orchids. She knelt and stretched her body forward, the wind flowing whimsically through her hair.
As they neared the central axis, the light grew even dimmer. Fireflies glowed in the dark blue atmosphere. Torches flickered in the canopy, where a small treetop village soon came into view. The professor could see a network of bridges and walkways crisscrossing the vegetation, which grew thick around the spinning axis. Water dripped from fissures in the glass holding up the sea above. The cascades formed weightless streams that merged in the air and swirled into the darkness.
“Hullo!” called out a voice.
The professor peered in the dim light. He saw a man standing on the walkway beneath a large tree, holding a torch above his head.
“Dr. Levine?” shouted the professor. “Is that you?”
The figure waved his torch and laughed. “You presume rightly, dear boy. Rightly indeed. Haw haw haw!”