There’s a gravity here that our instruments can’t measure — a force that draws us to the trees.
We feel it from the moment we land, but as harried and discordant as we are from the squabbles of our journey and stresses of close-quarter living, it takes days for the four of us to share enough to realize we’re each experiencing, differently, the same thing.
For me, it is a presence. A nudge. A gentle hand slowly turning my chin towards the windows, where their white trunks reach skywards and their golden leaves glow in the three-sun dawn. I find myself pressing my fingers to the tempered glass when I’m supposed to be conducting experiments or tidying up the mess hall. My feet work their way into the airlock without conscious reason.
Flynn dreams of papery bark unrolling like scrolls of wisdom. He sleepwalks and wakes with a hunger our freeze-dried rations can’t satiate.
Avery hears music — a rustle of branches in the generator’s hum, in the static of the comms, in her head.
For Cooper, it manifests as phantom smells, carrying flashes of warm childhood memories. The richness of soil. The sharpness of leaves. “Like the woods by Grandpa’s old cabin.”
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We are sojourners in the unknown.
Avery insists on documenting our symptoms, but Flynn won’t let her file an official report. It’s curious, yes, but no risk to the mission. And who wouldn’t be a bit jumbled by arriving on a shining new world? By this massive forest of honey-coloured leaves and bright white branches rising skywards, their arms spread out in every direction?
We move up the date of our initial excursion. For the first time, consensus comes easily.
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